Just an Update

Hi everyone and Happy Thanksgiving.

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update. I'm still busy chipping away at the enormous task of finishing this %$*&@ thesis. I had hoped to get things done yesterday in order to meet a deadline of November 27th to have everything approved and turned into the College of Graduate Studies. It is looking less likely that I will make that deadline with every minute that passes by with me not being finished, but I will probably take a 1 credit extension that will give me until January 14th to have things wrapped up. I would have preffered that this didn't happen because I have been off payroll for a couple months now, and would really like to move on with my life.

That brings me to my next update. I've accepted a temporary (~4 months) job with my old advisor at USU, Wayne Wurtsbaugh. He needs someone to finish some work up on a project he had funded last spring on the Great Salt Lake. It is a great project and I had a good experience working with him as an undergrad, and I think a positive work experience would be good for me right now. This means that I'll be moving to Logan on Monday (yeah, that's soon). I'm excited to earn money again, I will have to keep pushing myself to work on my thesis but I think I'm close enough that I should be able to stay motivated by the idea of wrapping it up. I'm not excited to leave Erin in Bozeman for these coming months, but she has a good job and some promising opportunities with school. I/we will be sure to make frequent trips between Utah and Montana, and I have a calm and reasuring feeling that this minor blip of separation will be challanging but no big deal in the grand scheme of things. I am quite committed to holding on to a very, very, good thing in my life. I'll be excited to be closer to Glen and Kendi and to see what this new adventure brings.

Love you all, Joel

Joel Reappears

Not really. This is Erin on behalf of Joel. When the thesis calls, the blog is quiet. Sad. Here's my attempt at channeling Joel...enjoy.

Hey everybody! Sorry it's been so long since I've written on this thing. I've been really busy with this stupid thesis, some days I just want to quit. Wait, I'm on a new "let's be positive about bad things" kick. Starting over.

Hey everybody! Sorry it's been so long since I've written on this thing. My thesis is so much fun, and I'm learning so much every minute of the 18-hour days I'm putting in, that I don't even think about blogging! Or anything else...like food, sleep, fun, or sports. In fact, I'm kind of sad that the Broncos game is on in 52 minutes and some of my focus will get diverted to less exciting events, like Sunday football.

Back to the topic of the blog. It's a sunny day and I was just sitting here, happily editing page 831 of my thesis that is really long enough to be a dissertation but my advisor doesn't care...oops, slipped up there...as I was saying, I was just thinking about the sun. Isn't it an amazing thing? It's always there, trying to brighten our day, and sometimes those clouds get in the way, but does the sun give up? No way, dudes, no way. It sticks it out, waiting for those pesky clouds to dissipate, ready to make us happy once again. I love that golden sun. Ah, life is good.

Well, better get back to my other computer...the big one with charts and graphs and tables and pages and pages (and pages!) of long scientific words that no one understands except me. I dread the day I don't get to be intellectually challenged by this thing. I guess I'll just try to make it last as long as I can.

Miss you all! Love, Joel

P.S. Erin is the coolest girl ever. She takes really good care of me and has already started buying Christmas presents for me and all my family. Gosh golly, she's swell. I'm a lucky guy!

October 16th

Yes, this picture is from today. I feel like an idiot taking timer pictures of myself, but that hasn't stopped me before. I thought it was cool that the first snow of the year (that stuck on the ground) was on my birthday. Mom made the long trip up to Bozeman, just staying overnight on Saturday. I don't know how good I am at doing the tour guide thing but I had a good time with her, as always, and that's not just because she spent money on me. Thanks for everything Mom! The jacket I'm wearing was her "main" b-day present, we picked it out at this outdoor store that I would choose as my 5-minute shopping spree location. I already know that Paul would choose Wal-Mart for his. HA! (One time I asked Paul what would be the very first thing he would do if he won $100 million. I was thinking "Drop everything and go straight to the airport for a vacation", Paul said "I'd go across the street to Wal-Mart." When I laughed he said "What? You can get pretty much anything there".) Wow, that was a long parenthetic statement. Where would you guys take a 5-minute shopping spree? I feel like a kindergarten teacher; "Now kids, tell me about your happy place".
I like this picture for many reasons. I like the colors and think Erin looks cute (as always, of course). But I really like it because these flowers were for me! It wasn't even for my birthday. I think I was just having a rough day in general with editing and getting a thesis draft to John. Erin brought over these flowers, two pints of Hagen-Daas ice creeeaam (no wonder I'm getting chubby again), and an english grammer book (to borrow, not keep). Erin treats me pretty good sometimes, I've never had flowers before.

Freddy Mikisms

Classics and not-so-classics

1) Nit Wit
2) Fleegel Flaggel Wally Romp Nincompoops (?)
3) For Cripes' Sake
4) Boys, look at the beautiful view
5) Doh! (said in the voice of Homer Simpson)
6) Follow me, it's ridiculous that we should have to wait in this line
7) Watch it, Sister!
8) I'm a good driver
9) -snore-
10) Oh, my back
11) What the scrud . . . .?
12) I though this was a movie about a boy and his dog.
13) It was only rated "R" for violence

You asked for it dad, it's all because I love you.

Like I needed this

In the process of backing up my daily work I erased everything that I had done yesterday. Yeah, big mistake. I'm not really writing this for sympathy or anything like that, I'm just getting kind of bored doing the same crap over again and wanted to distract myself for a minute. I'm not feeling particularly sharing of my feelings either. Just venting a little bit. Lesson for the day: don't erase anything until you check out what you actually copied.

My Armpits

Wierd, I don't think my armpits normally stink (go ahead and laugh, I know what you're thinking). I ran out of deoderant a couple of weeks ago but wasn't too worried about it because I don't wear deoderant very often. Of course my armpits have been mildly odorous pretty much every day since I ran out. I think we are not communicating very well, me and my armpits. I remember being in "Trial of the Big Bad Wolf", a made for Jr. High School musical, in 9th grade. I showered after PE and didn't have any deoderant to put on afterwards. It was one of those days when I was wearing a too-big-for-me t-shirt and my armpits soon took control. I was rank and getting worse by the minute through the whole rehearsal. It was pretty embarassing, I had a pretty serious crush on a certain Jr. High School cheerleader who was in the play; I think my complete internal terror around girls was the culprit in my pit-funk. I've never quite gotten over that fear of girls that I like. I can not recall going on a date in highschool when I didn't have at least a mild (sometimes not mild) urge to yak, "I'm fine it's just that I ate not long ago". I still NEVER make the "first move" without some seriously strong indications that there is mutual interest. Isn't it funny that someone who is so utterly manly in so many ways (I could have a completely separate blog detailing a new aspect of my manliness every day until I turn 30, er. . .) could be such a complete puffball with girls that he likes? I find it quite mysterious.

Day Off

I'm coming out of the equivalent of an all-night study session that lasted more than six weeks. I just overcame two major obstacles to my freedom from grad school, well, from school in general (I've only been a college student for 10 years). I have a lot of work to do before I finish at the end of next month but I took a much needed break today and went biking with a friend of mine, and Erin's dog, Kaya.

Not a dog door

I lost 20 pounds during the spring and summer and in my basement banishment have just about ten back on. I was riding so strong early in the summer that I actually enjoyed going up the hills as much as going down. Well. . . not quite. So this ride that I somehow convienced myself was a quick up and down ending up being 13-14 miles up a mountain and 3 miles down. I'm not in shape. I ended up having one of those legendary migranes (that's what I call them anyway) that I can't remember having for quite a while during the ride and thought I was going to throw up during the last 45 minutes of it. The ride that I imagined taking a couple of hours ended up being 31/2. Instead of writing a cover letter and preparing a resume with the rest of my day I slept, the only consolation was that Kaya was as pooped as I was.

This was another day, we had just got back from jogging in 90+ temps (dumb, I know)

I felt better in time to go to one of Erin's freshman sexual violence presentations. I know she doesn't like to hear it but I'm so impressed with her ability to tackle challanging tasks and go home and live a (relatively) normal life. There were 400 freshman in this room for a mandatory presentation and Erin had organized a program that approached a number of touchy subjects in a way that got all of their attention, and set a mood that made them respectful!

Anyway, sorry if I'm going on. I feel like someone hit the pressure relief valve and I gassing off. You all know how much I enjoy that (I'm thinking of a cabin in the sawtooth mountains).