Category: life events

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The Happen(ings)

These last two weeks have been crazy busy… Two weeks ago, I had Josh and Sharon’s wedding, and everything that goes with it (bachelor party, rehearsal dinner, wedding day), and then this past weekend, I had Jerry and Missy’s wedding (bachelor party, rehearsal dinner, wedding day). I was a groomsman in the first, an usher in the second…the first was in St. Louis, the second was in Rock Island, IL… So yeah, I just don’t feel like I’ve had much time to sit around and do absolutely nothing for the last two weeks. Thankfully, we don’t have any more weddings until mid-August…which Brooke gets to be involved with, this time!

Anyway, I took pictures of all of this, and they’re linked above for those that are interested…

On another note, Brooke’s camera died a few weeks ago, so we replaced it with a Nikon Coolpix S210. Thus far, we’ve been pretty happy with it, and had a great deal of fun playing with the “fireworks setting” that keeps the shutter open for, like, 3-4 sec. for fireworks pictures. They turned out pretty nicely, so check those out, too!

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"C" is for Fruit…

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Cookie Monster
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

You know you’ve “made it” when Cookie Monster comes on your show… 😉

This is pretty funny, and fun to watch characters from my childhood interacting with characters from my adulthood…which is kinda surreal, really… Anyway, enjoy!

(…speaking of childhood…I was born 26 years ago…I’m old…)

Edit: See, I didn’t know this…but besides my birth, June 20th also marks when the patent for Morse Code was issued…fascinating…

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“C” is for Fruit…

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Cookie Monster
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

You know you’ve “made it” when Cookie Monster comes on your show… 😉

This is pretty funny, and fun to watch characters from my childhood interacting with characters from my adulthood…which is kinda surreal, really… Anyway, enjoy!

(…speaking of childhood…I was born 26 years ago…I’m old…)

Edit: See, I didn’t know this…but besides my birth, June 20th also marks when the patent for Morse Code was issued…fascinating…

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Organized Chaos

Mom was tired... :-P

So, I spent the week in Columbia helping Mom and Dad move across town. Thankfully, they were kind enough to a). have everything boxed up before my arrival, and b). paid a set of movers to do all the heavy labor (w00t!). So, we moved the stuff out of the old house on Wednesday (took ~5 hrs) and spent the evening there, as they were closing on both houses the following morning. We started moving into the new house on Thursday after lunch time (had to wait until the rain stopped…), and Mom, Dad and I were doing our best to facilitate where all the furniture and boxes were going to go. Most things were going in their corresponding rooms (i.e. furniture from “my” room at the old house would go in a specific room in the new house), but some things like exercise equipment were getting placed separately, and the living room furniture that was upstairs was now going downstairs (as Mom will want to get a new set for the new place).

Overall, I like the new place quite a bit. It’s got three floors, 3.5 baths, 4 bedrooms (one used for exercise equipment), a combination of wood/wood laminate and carpet flooring, a very wooded area, and plenty of storage space. The yard will probably end up being a pain, as the multitude of trees will translate into fallen branches (making mowing difficult) and leaves (which will suck in the fall). The carpeting inside probably ought to be replaced, as well, but that’ll be a project for a year or two down the road.

Anyway, it was good times. I’ve got pictures posted on Picasa for interested parties to check out (including pictures of the old house and new house).

I’m sure Mom and Dad will be hosting dinners sometime next week…you should invite yourselves over 😉

(oh, and they won’t have internet until sometime next week…as CenturyTel screwed up…don’t bother e-mailing Mom to get details…)

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Two Unrelated Subjects

So, church has been going pretty well, recently. There was a time during the fall/spring where we were losing members of the band to go do other things, making it exceedingly difficult for Brooke and I to leave for the weekend and not be there (not that it’s required that we go, of course, but I feel guilty being gone when it will leave 2 people on stage to do the playing!). Anyway, this past weekend was pretty awesome on that front in that we christened a new drummer for the band! Chris will be back for the summer (he’s been off at college), which was going to relieve me to do some guitar playing, sound running, or **gasp** simply sit out in the congregation and do nothing else. But besides Chris, Steven also is joining up to play bi-weekly (or all the time?), which will help out come fall in that he’s in 8th grade and will be hanging out for conceivably 4+ more years at the church. That means that pressure will be off me having to play in the fall, too! Anyway, Steven did an excellent job on Sunday, especially considering that he’s in 8th grade now and plays as well as I was doing in 10th grade (I started playing drum set in 8th grade…). We also may be getting a youth guitar player sometime over summer, too, which will further aid the ability of musicians to rotate in and out of the band on any given week.

Regardless, I’m pretty happy about these prospects because I really don’t want to leave in 2 years with everything falling apart there. Yanela is running the show, of course, but Brooke and I both do quite a bit of stuff and it’s nice to think that someone will be there to pick up the slack after we head off to the next step in our lives…

Anyway, speaking of “next steps,” I’m heading to Columbia this week to help Mom and Dad move across town. We have lived in the Georgetown subdivision off Scott Blvd. in Columbia for just about 20 years now, and Mom and Dad felt it was about time to move some place a bit different. They’ll be moving out near Columbia Regional Hospital to a much bigger house (…how they’ll fill it up, I have no clue…my vote is to have a “ball pit” room in one of the bedrooms…that’d be pretty awesome…), so it’ll take a little adjustment getting used to a new address, a different exit off I-70, etc.

The best part, of course, is that the new place includes a wet bar…w00t!

So yeah, if you’re in the C-town area this week, lemme know…I may be able to make a little time…assuming Mom doesn’t have all my time monopolized… 😛

Edit: I looked at the date and realized I should say “happy anniversary” to Mom and Dad (#29 this year…) and “happy birthday” to my Grandma (who won’t be seeing this, I’m sure…as she’s now 93 and doesn’t know the first thing about computers). Either way, I hope both parties have a good day! Mom, that means you need to chill out and have a beer amongst the boxes in your living room… 😛

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Long Live the Wesley House

So, Wesley House was pretty important to Brooke and me, and took up a great deal of time for the five years I was at Truman. Mike sent me a few YouTube videos of the band playing in Troy, IL (Troy United Methodist Church) and I must say, it brought back memories. The crazy thing is that Mike, himself, was the only person I recognized in the video. I know it’s been 3 years since we left, but still…it’s great to see all those new people as part of the band! And also good to see that the band is thriving, and so is the Wesley House as a whole (despite the state-wide organization deciding it isn’t a “vital ministry” anymore and not funding it anymore…grrrrrrr…).

Anyway, good times, yo… Good job, Wesley House Praise Band. Great to see you all in action again!

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Vacation Suggestions?

***EDIT***

Mom, what do you think about the Grand Canyon this summer?  We could go down on mules and leave Dad and Andy up above…Andy says he’s afraid of heights, but I think he’s really just a wuss….

Just in case anyone still reads this, I’m trying to decide where we should go for vacation this year. I’d really like to go southwest at some point, but I’d like to rent a jeep and go down into Canyonlands for a few days and I’m not sure we can afford that this summer. So, Andy’s never been to Mesa Verde so we could just go down and do that kind of stuff (plus I’ve been reading a lot of Tony Hillerman lately, so Chaco Canyon could be a fun adventure) and maybe head up north for a day or so, too. Or, we could go to the Dakotas, because I haven’t been there in awhile and Wall is always fun. Or, we could head the other direction to the east coast. Maybe to Niagra Falls, since neither of us has been there. Any other suggestions or votes? Keep in mind we’ll camp at least part of the time, and try to be as cheap as possible the rest.

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So now what?

My Prelim oral defense was on Wednesday…and was pretty friggin’ hard…but I got through it mostly unscathed. The exam consisted of a 20 min PowerPoint presentation generally reviewing all the stuff I put in my 25-page proposal, hitting the fine points and rationale, but not going through any specific experiments. This was followed by another 1 hr and 40 min worth of questioning on subjects peripherally related to what I’d written. A few questions were about why I’d chosen certain drugs, or why use this model for your experiments, or why this cell type, etc. Other questions were kinda related to what I was proposing, but mostly not.

In the end, I got 5 “yes” votes (out of 5) and was given a form letter from the dean saying that I need to be done by 2012. I certainly hope I don’t take that long, but hey…whatever…

Anyway, now I’m going to chill until after Christmas and then get started in earnest on the following:

1). I need to fill out the paperwork for “Advancement to Doctoral Candidacy,” get my signatures and get it sent off to the Dean’s office. Essentially, I’ve been a “graduate student” and now I’ll be an official “doctoral student,” which allows me to have fewer credit hours per semester (I only have 12 left that I need to complete…between now and 2012…heh…) and still remain a “full-time student.” It’s really just a formality, but still…can be annoying to get it all done…

2). Related to #1, I need to form a Doctoral Thesis Committee. This committee is separate from the one that I took the oral defense with, but can consist of the same members if so desired. These people are going to be in charge of pushing me along to make sure I’m not actually here until 2012. I’ll have to present my data for them every once and awhile (a few times a year?) and they’ll be the ones that decide when I’m done. They’re also there to “protect” me from my boss (which won’t be a problem…) so that she doesn’t keep me around too long doing lots of work when I could be out on my own… That’s their job, at least, but they won’t have to police Dr. Macarthur much, I expect…

3). Write up a paper for publication on the data I’ve obtained thus far. I want to get it started so I know what other experiments I need to start to fill out the paper. As Dr. Macarthur says (and I agree with), any paper should “tell a story”…so have a beginning, middle and end. I’ve got the beginning, certainly, and bits and pieces of “middle” and “end”…most of it being done, but I think I could use a bit more data to make the whole paper more complete.

4). I’ve got to present a paper on February 12th for “Journal Club.” This is done once a year (all students do it) and we have to pick a paper that we want to present in front of the department during lunch. It’s supposed to be pretty informal…but sometimes isn’t… 😛 Regardless, I’ve got to pick a paper first, then write up a PowerPoint presentation on it and generally know what I’m talking about with regards to the document. I’m not terribly worried about it, but it’s something else to complete…

That’s about it! Relatively downhill from here… I’m shooting to be done in early 2010, but if all my data comes in beautifully (as I know it will… :-P), then I could be out in late-2009. We’ll see…

Brooke just wants to go to Europe…so, the sooner the better for her… 😛