A Month Later - Lots of Things Happening

Wow...this has turned out to be one crazy but fun semester. I will attempt to touch on some highlights of the last multitude of weeks, without boring you too much.

In five weeks, I have made 4 trips to Kentucky, 1 to Indy/Cleveland/Chicago/Indy, and 2 to Indianapolis. This is the first weekend in the last five weeks that I will not be leaving town, though on Wednesday I will depart for Western Kentucky for Thanksgiving.

Kentucky
* UK vs LSU Football game and Georgetown's Homecoming - Both of which turned out to be wonderful opportunities and experiences. I will post a picture or two of the game in another post.
* A couple from YAACK and two friends of mine got married on Oct 20 at Christ the King. It turned out to be a beautiful weekend for a fall wedding, and I was honored to be apart of the wedding as a reader. I am just thankful that I still had a voice on Saturday and was not too sick with a cold at that point in time. God was watching over everything.
* Halloween night provided a quick trip to KY for the Georgetown College vs University of Louisville basketball game. Thanks to a friend of mine who invited me to join her and her husband for the game. I was proudly wearing my orange and black in support of the Tigers. The game did not prove to be as exciting as the previous years but it was still nice to watch the Alma Mater and attend my first game in Freedom Hall.
* Last trip was to celebrate my friend Chris's 30th Birthday party. I had to make sure he rang his 30th birthday in right :-)

Cleveland (Indianapolis/Chicago)
* Between the wedding weekend and the birthday weekend, I attended a conference in Cleveland, Ohio. Travels took me to Indy with a return flight through Chicago. The conference was very small and different from other conferences that I have attended in the past. It was the History of Education Society and programs are base more on paper submissions with panel discussions.

The purpose of attending the conference was to present a paper on faculty governance. My previous supervisor, our spring practicum student, and I put together a paper on faculty governance at IU, which we then presented on a panel with two other papers on the history of faculty governance. The panel presentation went very well, except for unlike the wedding, the cold was a bit worse and affecting my voice. We received some good feedback from the panel discussant and others in the audience. I will update you more in the future on how things progress towards potential publishing of some of our work in the future. There are no guarantees at this time, but we are looking to publish a journal article somewhere.

Indianapolis
* Both trips were for the same reason, but instead of staying in Indy, I went with others back and forth last weekend for another conference. This conference was specifically for graduate students in higher education student affairs programs in the midwest. IU and our student personnel association was the host of the conference this year. A friend of mine was the chair of the conference and did a fantastic job of putting together a nice conference. On Sunday of the conference, I presented a program on leadership, which went fairly well though could have been better. It was definitely a learning opportunity and the start of what will hopefully be further program presentations on leadership.

This Weekend
* IU vs Purdue Football Game - Tomorrow, I will attend my first Big Ten and IU football game and tailgate. I did attend one other tailgate at the beginning of the semester but this will be my first full blown experience of Big Ten football. I am looking forward to it, as long as I get a few hours of sleep tonight.

Well there are some of the highlights from the past 5 weeks. I will try to post a few more stories soon.

What a day?

Not sure where to begin with today, so I will just start from the beginning. The morning started out and is ending with a tornado warning. The morning did see a strong storm pass through, luckily the evening has not been too bad thus far.

After a few hours of work this morning/afternoon, it was off to an experience of a lifetime. Indiana University inaugurated its 18th President this afternoon with a formal event in the auditorium. It was a wonderful experience and I am definitely glad that I stayed around to witness the historical event.

After the event, it was back to the apartment to finish packing in preparation to head to Kentucky, and completion of a paper that was due Friday night at midnight. The paper is complete and turned in. Woohoo. Hopefully, I got everything packed into the car because if not it is too late now.

The real fun started on departure. I got into the car turned on the lights and began to drive away when I realized that I had no headlights. I got out of the car to assess the situation. Sure enough both front lights were out. I talked to my father and he figures they must have both gone out. It is very possible that I did not realize one had been out for awhile, because well I don't know the last time that I turned them on. The high beams worked and my father said that I could continue on my journey using the high beams. He warned me that people would not be happy, and I understood that. But what I did not realize is in their unhappiness they would be idiots.

Car after car flashed their lights at me and I really could do nothing about it. When I hit the interstate, I found unhappy people who were seemingly willing to risk having an accident to shout at me. Semi drivers must have definitely been talking and there was tons of them out on the road tonight. What bothered me is that after I passed, they would whip in behind me and flash their lights. One guy whipped in behind me and then almost ran me off the freakin road trying to make his point. There clearly was not space for someone to walk between his bumper and my bumper. On top of that I was about on the bumper of the car in front of me.

Since there were more vehicles around on the interstate and more lighting, I would turn off my brights momentarily to show them that I had no low beam lights. To some, I think they understood but too others, they continued to be jerks. I am just thankful that I finally made it safely to Kentucky and don't have to deal with the crazy semi-drivers anymore. No wander there are so many semi wrecks. They like to run people off the road if they are not abiding by their rules.

I actually had very little trouble, when I got into Kentucky, though I was on the road a lot less and with fewer cars to harass me.

Tomorrow, I will get new headlamps, new tires and wheels, an alignment, and who knows what else at this rate. My car seems to be slowly falling apart. Not really falling apart, they are all just normal wear and tear items.

Time to read a book for class or maybe just fall asleep until my friends get home.

UK Fans Stop Rushing the Field ???

UK has 3 hits against them according to SEC regulations that disallow fans from the football field. Is there a way to stop the rush? What happens this week with Florida in town? Apparently, each hit costs more and more money to the institution.

See the article on Yahoo.

UK Wildcats - Football and Basketball

Basketball season hopefully will be as exciting as football season has been this year with both Kentucky and Indiana accomplishing grand things. The question is will I actually get to see the UK/IU game in person in my own backyard. The hype around Indiana basketball sent the students running for tickets this year, with over 9600 tickets being sold and only 8000 spots to seat them. Therefore, two games are going to be pulled from everyone's package. What two games will be pulled from my package? I just have to sit and patiently wait for another 2.5 weeks for the tickets to arrive in my mailbox. With my luck, I am preparing to not see a UK/IU game ticket in my package, therefore I can be highly surprised when it appears or less disappointed when it doesn't. This was truly my fear if the game was actually held here in Bloomington.

Brighter things, I do have two tickets to Saturday's UK football game against LSU, though in the LSU fan section :-) A grad friend and LSU alum had two tickets, the person previously going with her backed out and so I took his spot. Then she unfortunately found out that she has to have reconstructive surgery on her knee tomorrow and will not be able to attend the game. So she gave them to me to enjoy, and I am looking forward to having fun with a friend and enjoying watching the Wildcats defeat the Tigers.

This means that I might actually get to attend part of Georgetown's Homecoming, therefore not missing my first homecoming ever. Though, I will definitely miss my first Songfest at least since my sophomore year. Though I am pretty sure that I attended freshman year as well. I vaguely remember standing in line outside two years in a row before actually participating the last 2 years.

UK Wildcats --- Kentucky Football????

Yes, it is true the state of Blue is coming alive around football and basketball has a lot of hype around it this year as well.

Check out the article at WKYT of the historical marks the Football Cats are making already this year and those are only a few of the marks going down and statistical changes being made. Plus the marks are in the positive direction, which is great for the struggling Blue of the SEC football powerhouse. Yes, it is still early in the season but they are definitely attempting to prove they have what it takes.

Now for the Louisville Cardinals, it looks like their hype is going downhill quickly. They have been the top story two weekends in a row, but neither of them good for them. I am perfectly okay with the hype last weekend with the loss to UK, but I would like to see the Commonwealth of Kentucky have overall strong athletic programs and good hype.

It was good to have at least one of three teams win this weekend. IU lost to Illinois as well this weekend, which I think is putting a question on 13 games this year. They have some tough games ahead, especially if Ball State's loss to Nebraska by 1 was no fluke.

Football may actually be exciting to watch in the area this year. And basketball is definitely on par for an outstanding year in the area. Not sure if it is up to some of the hype, but we will see.

Mentioning of basketball, I have put in for my season IU basketball tickets and doing a lot of praying that either only 7000 or less students want tickets or that I get the UK/IU game in my slimmed down set of season tickets. The word on the street is people are interested because there is talk of IU going to the Final Four. I expect a good team this year but not sure Final Four caliber just yet. We will have to see how the new team meshes. There was definitely a lot of change up in the off-season.

Water Shortage - Kentucky

Kentucky has been plagued with the lack of water for the entire latter part of the summer. I was just reading about the recent restrictions of water in Georgetown in particular. I found the following interesting though sensible:
"Serving water in restaurants, clubs, or eating places, except by customer request."

Very often the water that is brought out for everyone is not used, so it makes sense to only serve when requested. So if you are use to a restaurant automatically serving you water and they don't, it may not be the server but the lack of water.

Reason for Having a Landline

To my knowledge, I have been without phone service for the last 1.5 hrs. Who knows when I actually lost service, this is just when I went to look at my phone and realized there was no service. I rebooted the phone (oh how sad that I just wrote about rebooting my phone) and still no service. I have walked all over the apartment with no change and even outside on the balcony. If you tried to get a hold of me tonight, that is the problem.

Since I cannot make any phone calls, I went to the AT&T site to try to see how else I might get support. They have live chat rooms for technical support but by the time I got logged in with an allowable login, it was closed. Though my clock said I still had several minutes before closing at 11 pm. Oh well. I must go read and get some zzzzz's. Maybe I will have service tomorrow.

NEED ADVICE ABOUT CRUTCHES

Yesterday afternoon, I received a call from the Dr. Of course with all the new HIPAA guidelines, she couldn't leave anything on my voicemail. The office was closed upon receipt of the voicemail so this morning I called back. Late morning, the Dr returned my call to tell me that there was a spot that she was unsure about. It was lucent. Digitalization of the xray showed more question of concern and the xray tech in Ft Wayne suggested getting an MRI. Therefore tomorrow morning, I am headed to the Indiana MRI office to have an MRI on my right foot. Apparently, the concern is that there is a stress fracture in my foot and the location is apparently very troublesome to the doctor that she suggested even without insurance that I probably should go ahead and get the MRI. If something happens worse, it would not be good.

There is some continuous pain in the area though nothing as bad as last Friday. I will admit that I have taken the hard approach and not used the crutches until this afternoon when I got home. This still has been extremely difficult to get use to and I have not managed up the stairs yet on crutches. If anyone has good advice about navigating stairs with crutches, please let me know. I really cannot remember how I did it 10 years ago. The only rememberance I have about stairs and crutches is the day one of the crutches slid all the way back down once I reached the second floor of Pawling Hall. Thankfully some young man walked in shortly thereafter and brought the crutch up to me. Otherwise, I remember nothing. Plus any advice on how not to get blisters on your palms would be appreciated as well, since they seem to already be forming :-(

Yes, I realize that I am getting old and falling apart. You do not have to remind me of this KP, CV, or anyone else who wants to chime in :-P

MRI results will take a couple days to return so more to come later this week or first of next week.

How to push through an injury?

The cool air on Thursday intrigued me to venture outside for some fresh air and a bit of exercise. It was a perfect afternoon for a nice walk/jog. I took off to the walking path and into a quite neighborhood. I thought all was going well. I jogged/walked for a little over 40 minutes. A consistent run of about 8 minutes occurred twice, along with a brief 3 minute run. I stretched and felt pretty good about things, until Friday.

Friday, I headed into campus to take care of some things and meet my HESA buddy for lunch. This required quite a bit of walking but nothing out of the ordinary. The pain in my right foot was excruciating. A couple times, I decided that I flat could walk no longer and waited for the bus to pick me up.

Today, I gave in and went to the health center to have my foot looked at. I feel like a wimp, but after thinking about it further, I realized that my right foot had been bothering me off and on all last semester at least. The pain was not a muscle strain or pull, but felt more like a possible bone fracture. Thankfully, it is not a bone fracture, though I wander if it would be easier to take care of if it was.

Diagnosis: There is a tendon from the leg/ankle that attaches to the bone on the outside of your foot. Apparently, I have damaged the tendon, but it has not pulled apart and damaged bone, at least not yet.

Treatment: Stay off of it as much as possible, ibuprofen for inflammation, and some ice.

How do you stay off the foot when you are on a college campus and everything requires walking? I was offered crutches, though not necessarily enforced to use them. I went ahead and took them, because if the pain is as bad as it was on Friday. There is no way that I will continuously make it from location to location on campus via foot. Definitely not a new experience being on crutches on a college campus, but I really hate crutches because a) its hard to get around with them b) everyone tries to sympathize and feel sorry for you. I hate drawing attention to myself, but at the same time, I really would like my foot to get better.

Apparently, this is not an injury that will heal quickly anyway. And if this is the same pain and issue, I was having last semester. It definitely is not going to be healing quickly.

What would you do? Be macho and ignore the crutches or suck it up for the betterment of the foot. Is it really for the betterment? I am usually hardcore, but as I get older, I have found myself a lot more cautious about injuries. I prefer to still be walking when I hit 40, which 10 years ago I said probably wouldn't be the case.

The beginning and the end of a phase in life

This past week was the beginning of a new school year, which marks the concluding year of the 2-year Higher Education Student Affairs master's program at IU.

This semester load wise is fairly relaxed. I have two classes: a required course on environments and cultures and an elective course on Gender, Education, and Development based out of the history of education department. The first course, which will be referenced as GAP or Environments in posts to come, has a large research project that concludes with a presentation on my birthday. The positive about it being on my birthday is that when it is done, I should be done with classes for the semester and can enjoy the rest of the day :-) The class is currently in the process of defining groups and then defining topics within the group. Though I currently am part of a group and really hope that it will remain this way, there is the potential next week that groups will be asked to mix-up a little in order to even out group sizes.

As far as Gender, Education, and Development, aka gender or history, the understanding of this course is still out there to be analyzed. Definitely need to get into some readings and get a fill for the class to see how it is going to progress. There is several assignments throughout the course of the semester with a group project due at the end.

That is the update on the new school year.

Other quick notes: I finally got setup with internet and cable access, after a long ordeal and three different installation appointments. So far the service is good and channel options and equipment at this price is better than Insight last year. Interested to see, how much I am actually going to have to pay the first two months. The first month of cable was suppose to already be free with the package deal and supposedly, I am getting the second month free as well after all the trouble I had to go through. $130 savings potential :-)

More to come soon.

****Movie Suggestions Needed****

Last weekend, I signed up for NetFlix, 2 free weeks of movie rentals. I know many of you have suggested movies in the past that I need to watch, but my brain has not retained that information. So please comment with any past or new movie suggestions that you have. I have about a week left. We will see how many movies I can watch btwn now and then.

Update: Still no internet but hopefully by this time tomorrow the tech will be back at my apartment and able to hook it up. More to come this weekend.

In Bloomington...No Internet

Just thought I would make a quick update. I am safely in Bloomington. I arrived on Wednesday evening, sometime after 8 pm. The only catastrophe that I have found thus far is two cans of sprite exploded in the boxes and leaked all over the floor. Still working on getting the box imprints off of the floor and need to mop the entire kitchen again.

Thursday was spent putting everything up and plugging everything back in. Nothing to stressful. Yesterday, I spent at HESA orientation and then at IU Freshman/Transfer Orientation Training, which I will be working Sunday and Monday.

Today has turned out to be a very disappointing day. I woke early awaiting the arrival of the AT&T installer. He arrived at 8:45 am not bad, but proceeded to have issues with installing my internet and cable. Apparently the setup the install incorrectly in the computer and when he called to get that fixed, they could not resolved that I could even get service. He has installed service with others in the complex so its not that but the system is a mess. So who knows when I will actually be getting internet and cable service in the apartment. :-( I was not excited especially after getting up early on my Saturday. I tried Insight but they couldnt setup service til next Saturday as well so hopefully this will get squared away and by sometme late next week I will have service.

That is the quick update. Once I get service at home, I will post again. Stay cool!

Summer is Over and School is Here

Well, the weather does not show signs of the end of summer, but the beginning of school and work does show evidence that summer is winding down and fall is approaching. Most of my things are packed up except the computer. By this time tomorrow, I hope to be at my friends L&J's with a fully packed car ready to head to Bloomington on Wednesday evening. It has been wonderful to be back in Kentucky this summer. I apologize to anyone that I was not able to see and for those I did not see enough. Summer went by a lot faster than planned, and I was not able to accomplish all that was planned. I still had a ton of fun with everyone that I was able to hangout with.

From Wednesday until sometime Saturday, there will be no internet at my place of residence so that is why you will not hear from me.

Enjoy the rest of your week and I will catch you all from the land of Hoosiers shortly.

Accident w/ No Injuries - "Move It"

Found the above link on WKYT. Apparently as of July 1 if you have an accident on the interstate and no one is injured, it is law now to move your car off to the side of the road and call police. This is to keep traffic moving and reduce the risk of secondary accidents due to traffic congestion. Look for the new signs in your area soon.

I'm Drained

Wow, this has been one crazy and insane day. It began by being awakened at 7:45 am with the cleaning crew in the dorm. I am so glad that the cleaning crew did not start before eight while I was in college. Even though I was usually up by 8, it would have been nightmarish. Today was worse because they were cleaning all the rooms to prepare for the beginning of the school year, including the other room attached to my bathroom and the bathroom. So I gave up trying to sleep anymore and got up.

Then the rest of the day included accomplishing a dozed things, none of which were really related to the other.

:-( Paid a credit card bill from savings, except I couldn't do it online and I didn't have 75% of the info I needed to take care of it. Thankfully the credit card company was very helpful and actually contacted the back to get the necessary info, plus he waived the fee for paying via phone. It was a nice jester especially since I couldn't pay via savings online.

:-) Scheduled for internet and TV hookup for Aug 18 back in Bloomington. :-( I will be in town a couple days prior to getting internet access, so that is what happened if I forget to mention it again next week.

Hoping that the internet and TV service is of good quality. I don't know how many of you have heard about the new AT&T U-Verse, but its basically a TV and internet package through AT&T. It actually is a pretty nice deal compared to Insight. I get a DVR receiver and a regular receiver for my 2 TVs, plus internet hookup. 190 channels, I believe, which includes the new Big Ten Network (I am pretty sure). Insight is not carrying that channel yet. All for $74 plus taxes and such I am sure.

I was paying right around that last year for Insight with one receiver, no DVR, and fewer channels. Not that I necessarily need that many channels but still. I will report later on the service and setup. Supposedly a 5 to 8 hr setup, but thats probably quote for a house. I just have a 2-bedroom apt.

Straightened up the room and tried to get things organized for the very soon approaching departure back to Indiana.

Had the key lock on my room door changed so I had to figure out about getting a new key to my room. Thankfully, I was hear when the guy changed it and so I new that it happened. It would have been quite fun to come in this evening to a door that I couldn't get into.

Trying to get details about helping with IU orientation and registration upon returning next week. I was asked to go fill out papers on campus asap :-|. We will see what happens with that.

The rest of the day was working on my internship project. The final project is putting together a resource guide for Bellarmine and all of the universities in Kentucky. It is coming quite along but still needs some work. We will see the status of the summer hopefully tomorrow.

Also been trying to figure out how to attend additional autocross events this fall, not having a ton of luck at that one.

Well that is the random happenings of my life today.

Completed Harry Potter

Thanks to a dear friend, I got my hands on a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was an enjoyable leisure read before schools starts in a few weeks. Now I must get back to the tasks at hand.

Departing Kentucky in about 1.5 weeks. It is hard to believe that the summer is coming quickly to an end. Hopefully, I can get a few last things completed and see a few more people before I depart Kentucky. Don't worry though, I will be hopefully returning at least thrice between now and mid-October.

Basketball Season Around the Corner

UK has published their 2007-08 Men's Basketball Schedule.

IU vs UK is scheduled for Assembly Hall in Bloomington, according to the UK schedule. I can't find that the IU schedule is posted anywhere and am still interested to see since the game is in Assembly Hall if it is part of the season ticket package. I am rather hoping so. As for those who thought I might be able to score an extra ticket, it is looking a bit slim, though I will see what I can do.

Why I Haven't Started Reading Harry Potter Book 7

This weekend, I was hanging with my friends and way too tired to start Harry. The plan was to read Monday afternoon upon returning to Louisville, but several things have happened since then. First was a new urgency to decide if I wanted to take my father up on a deal of wheels and tires. I am in the need of new tires and if they were going to come from my father, I needed to make the trip to Paducah this week to get them. This urgency has since subsided because the wheels he has wont fit my car and I can probably get tires for just as good of a deal here in Lexington. I have now decided that making a decision on tires in the next 12 hrs is not going to happen so I am done with this for another month.

The potential of going home Wed afternoon also made everything else I needed to get done a higher priority than Harry. Now that I am not going to be going home anytime soon, I can finally get to reading Harry.

So if you do not hear from me tomorrow, it is most likely because I have found myself a nice shady spot at a Louisville park to read Harry.

Fun Filled Week

The past week plus has been very busy with a lot of travel, but 100% worth it.

Saturday prior was the first of two trips to Lexington. This trip was short but sweet as I got to wish a good friend Happy 30th Birthday as well as wish him luck on his journey to Boston to pursue additional education. The party was full of old Georgetown folks that I had not seen in ages. It was wonderful to reconnect and touch base with everyone. I returned on Saturday night because Sunday was off to the races.

Sunday was autocross at Papa Johns Cardinal Stadium. It was actually my third trip to PJCS that weekend. Friday night, I helped the KYR folks setup the course for Saturday's head-to-head competition and enjoyed numerous runs with one of the guys testing the course out. Saturday, I stopped by briefly to check out the event before heading to Lex. It looked like a ton of fun. Then Sunday was the actual autocross event. It was the first event that I had participated in at KYR this year, and my first ever event at PJCS. The car refused to turn and though I had two good runs, I had three horrible runs, 5 cones, double DNF with a couple cones, and double tire lockup. Minus those runs, I did prove to be slightly more competitive than I have been this year.

Monday was a normal day in the office and so was Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon, it was off to eat ribs at Montgomery Inn in Northern Kentucky for one last time before my friend left for Boston.

Friday was back to Lexington for an extended weekend stay. I caught up with some old co-workers for lunch. Then met up with a good friend for a second trip to Cinci in a week, this time to watch the Reds vs Cubs. It was a great trip minus the fact the game started almost 1.5 hours later than scheduled. But thanks to the rain plenty of tickets were available and we got sweet seats right behind the Reds dugout to watch the Reds defeat the Cubs.

By the end of the night, I had the seventh book of Harry Potter in my possession as well. Having the first 5 in paperback, I wanted to get the last two books in paperback as well. That means having to wait for an extended period of time for the paperback version to come out. The person whom I borrowed book six from had not yet started book seven so I was anticipating a long wait before getting to read book seven. But my friend had just finished his book Friday morning and was kind enough to loan it out. Now I just need to find time to read it.

Saturday was a day of rest. I was exhausted from being out late Friday night and then staying up to talk to my friend whose place I was staying at. Saturday morning, we both got up about the same time and went for about an hour walk. It was nice to get out and walk and talk. Another one of our friends stop by to chat for a little while before the friend I was staying with headed off to a baby shower. I took a brief nap and headed to church. After church, I had a wonderful dinner at another friends house with her and her husband. We had a lovely chat and got to see our friend who was headed to Boston on Sunday one last time.

Sunday was another autocross event. Thankfully the rain stayed away during the event and we had a very successful day. I performed a lot better than previous and almost one a trophy. I was a little over .4 secs behind the second place competitor. I finally figure the course out on my last run. It just wasn't good enough to take over second place, maybe next time. One of the guys told me that someone else asked him if I had gotten race tires. He informed him that I was still running on the same old street tires, though they are almost bald. Sunday evening, I met up with a church friend for dinner and then crashed on the couch at my friends. She and her fiancee were in Cinci at an Opera.

Monday I returned back to Louisville.

Where are you on the web? Do you really know?

Yes, I have Google myself on numerous occasions to see what might be found on me. Shockingly, I have a fairly uncommon name and the majority of the first items are truly me.

But today I had a new experience, which I was not quite expecting. Minding my own business preforming research on leadership associations and organizations, I ran across an article on the International Leadership Associations website about Omicron Delta Kappa's Campus Leaders Today Community Leaders Tomorrow (CLT2) program. Interested to see what the article had to say, having been apart of the Alpha CLT2 class, I checked out the link. Low and behold it was not just an article but an article with pictures. There I was.

Now do you really know where you are on the web? Answer is probably not because some things are hidden (i.e. unlabeled), but still present. Who knows where you might run across a picture of yourself?

Opinion/Advice on Visual Programming Application

Help please! My dorkness, nerdness, or just stubbornness has hit its limit. I am in need of a programming tool to create a visual application for the Contact Database. The database has been created and data inserted. A few modifications have occurred from the original design and more tweaking is needed I am sure. There is definitely a lot more to contact data management than meets the eye, but we are getting somewhere. The problem now is that I have no clean way of inserting, updating, and deleting the data from the database. Since no one has come forward willing to do some visual coding, I must attempt to learn or re-learn how to program in some language in order to create a frontend application for the database.

Therefore the question is what should I try to tackle. Is anyone familiar with the Visual Studio Express items? Are these actually language apps to create true applications? Do they interact with the SQL Server Express? Any other suggestions or advice?

Electronics and Lightning: Are you prepared?

For those who wear their iPod or other musical device while running, you may want to read this article. Granted it can also happen with cell phones, jewelry, pagers, and other items with metal. The musical device and the wiring into your ears is much more dangerous than wearing a ring or having a pager on your side.

In addition to the dangers of lightning, there is the dangers of not being able to hear what is going on around you or paying appropriate attention to that around. For example, a kid was talking on his phone on Sunday in Lexington. Had I not been paying attention to the fact that he was going to walk right out in the middle of the road as I sailed 55 down it. He and the car would have probably came into contact. A car on the other side also honked at him. I don't think he had any clue that what he was doing was unsafe. He was too busy chatting away on his cell phone.

Facebook???

Is it time to join Facebook? Those who have, what has been your experience? I keep learning about more and more ways to communicate and find others and am strongly complicating taking the plunge and joining.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Smaller Cities Lose Their Identity

Has Lexington really grown large enough to have suburbs? Especially suburbs that are really not attached to the city in any true fashion.

The following is quoted from an AP article on WKYT.
"The bus was traveling to the Lexington suburb of Georgetown for
a weeklong church camp at Georgetown College, Hale said."

When did Georgetown become a suburb of Lexington? The answer it hasn't, yet. I do understand that one day it may become more of a suburb of Lexington, but currently, there is nothing that ties the two towns together in close enough proximity to consider it a suburb. There is still a lot of rural land between Lexington and Georgetown, which unfortunately is quickly depleting, but not enough for Georgetown to be a suburb of Lexington.

What are your thoughts on the suburbanization of Lexington or other towns?

Suprise Success

Where have I been since I moved, putting the finishing touches and implementation into a surprise 60th birthday party for my mother. Thanks to my aunt K and mom's HS friend CT, the party went very successfully. Thanks to all of my friends who have listened to me stress about this for weeks now and try to finish summer school. All the stress and work paid off on Saturday night. Here are a few stories from the past few weeks (if you started reading early, you might need to go back there are now 5 posts to read top to bottom about this):

Mom Plans Own Party

Party plans were going smoothly except for making sure both my brother and father where going to be off from work, without telling them about the surprise. No, I did not trust my brother or father in keeping a secret, and the party would be the best success if it was a surprise. It is very difficult to surprise my mother and she actually likes to be surprised. Though I was not sure if she would like this big of a surprise.

Then my mom got a bright idea that she would put together who own birthday party. Apparently it is her friend CW fault for asking what they were going to do for her birthday. Mom didn't like the breakfast after church idea, so once she found out what time my brother was getting off work, she decided to invite family and friends to dinner with us. I received a call from my father saying, "just wanted to let you know that mom is planning to invite about 20 people to dinner with us Saturday night. Is there anything I should know or do?" I was in shock and not sure what to say or do. I eventually said "okay, sounds good, I'll talk to you later." Then I began frantically calling K and CT to see what they knew and what the plan was going to be. Luckily, mom after thinking decided not to call everyone herself and CT and K called friends and family, respectively. This reduced people being caught off guard when mom called. Most of the family had excuses for not joining us for dinner and most of the friends just came on out knowing the rest of the story.

The thing is it was not just for people to come out for dinner but afterwards everyone was going to go to our house for homemade ice cream and cake. Thankfully, we hadn't ordered the cake yet so we halved our cake and with some investigative work at SAMs Club, my aunt made sure that one cake was vanilla and one chocolate and changed our icing color to match the one my parents ordered.

The party was still ago with a little extra partying before. The next question would dinner last long enough but not too long. More to come on that later.

Hiding Out in Paducah for 40+ Hours

To pull off this party, I had to arrive at my aunts early to prepare all of the food. So Thursday around 5 pm, I departed Louisville, grabbing a few last decorations, and driving to Paducah. I arrived at my aunts around 7:30 pm CST and proceeded to go hide my car in my aunts friends garage until Saturday. While we were out, we headed over to another aunts to pick up votive candles and a big bowl for fruit. The rest of the night was spent playing cards with my mom's two sisters and a cousin. We stayed up until 1 or 2 in the morning. I am too old for this thats for sure.

Friday morning we arose by 9 to start preparing food. While I was in the shower, one of only 2 aunts that I had not seen yet came over with the youngest granddaughter. She was out delivering tables to the family from a yard sale. She had just left my mothers, probably a good thing she made that stop before seeing me.

After she left, it was time to start preparing food. I cut several big blocks of cheese until my right pointer finger was numb. I just didn't realize how much damage that I was doing to my finger. I then proceed to cut carrots, which my cousin was afraid I was going to cut my fingers off how I was doing it. I think it was actually safer than the other way because laying the carrots flat meant they could roll, but oh well. I did not cut my fingers or hand during the process so all is good. My aunt was making all the different vegetable and fruit dips. I then took over and worked on a dip or two myself while she did some chopping.

The next secret mission was to get a hair cut. Thanks to my friend RP, I actually had a good cover story for getting my hair cut. I was in a hair salon on Wednesday with RP to get her hair cut. But really I went home to my beautician and got a haircut. I will not spoil the surprise of how short it is just yet :-P We survived the trip to the beautician, who knew that it was all a surprise.

::::Side Story:::: So when I got home on Saturday, I asked my father if he noticed anything different. After mumbling and having no clue what I was talking about, he decided that my hair was LONGER. He just saw me in May. I informed him that it was not longer but shorter.

It was then back to the house to finish preparing food about all we had left was cutting veggies, making ham sandwiches, and preparing the croissants to be made up on Saturday morning. Saturday night, we enjoyed my favorite Chinese in town and played cards again until 1 or 2 in the morning.

Saturday, my aunt woke me at 7:30 am to get moving. We went and packed the beverages into the car and headed over to the KC Hall. Snag number two....we originally had the KC Hall from 8 am until 1 am, but they needed it for a funeral meal Saturday morning. This meant we were not able to get in until about 2 pm to start decorating and preparing the food trays and such. I therefore could not be at the KC Hall to decorate because I had to get home sometime on Saturday before my mother killed me for not coming in and staying too long. She already was not the most excited about the fact that I wasn't coming in until Saturday anyway.

We checked out the KC Hall and I gave my aunt ideas of what I think it should look like, though I was not overly worried with the people that were coming to help out. I knew they had good tastes and it would look just fine when it was all done.

Then it was back to my aunts to finish fixing up the sandwiches and making sure everything was together and ready to head to the KC Hall. Next secret mission was making sure mom thought I was leaving from Louisville. So about 10:30 am EST, I called to tell her that I was headed out and got a lot of grief for sleeping in and not moving too early. Though since it is normal for me not to move fast especially on a Saturday it was not a total shock, thankfully she was busy preparing for her ice cream and cake party to really worry about me the rest of the trip. I was prepared to tell her where I was on my journey if she did call though, but I didn't have to this time.

"Arrival" in Paducah

It was officially time to arrive home so after a shower. I packed up my belongings again and headed to get my car out of hiding. I took the back way over to the interstate, back to usual way that I go home, and on to the house. I arrived perfectly on time 3 hours after my "departure" from Louisville.

I walked in the door and upstairs to my room to drop stuff off. I knew at that moment mom had new clue about another party. The house was freshly vacuumed. There was candy dishes throughout the downstairs filled with nuts, M & M's, and other goodies. The cake had not arrived yet though, so I had to make a quick phone call to let the surprise cake getter that they couldn't go yet to pick up our cake. Dad left shortly thereafter and thankfully talked mom out of buying more fruit for her party. While dad was gone, my already warn out hands and arms were back to work stirring up the fixins for homemade ice cream while mom cut up the peaches.

The first batch of homemade ice cream went into the maker, and the all clear sign was sent to the party decorators to get the other cake. Two batches of ice cream were made, peach and banana.

Then it was time to get ready and head over to the Olive Garden to save tables for 22 people. I had the privilege of reserving the tables shortly after 4. Wow, now that was an experience in itself. The lady was not very cordial with me. I was unsure if we would or wouldn't have tables by 5 for 22 people. But after sitting there for awhile I decided that they were trying to clear out the back room for us. It was about 5:15 or so before we were seated, which ended up a good thing.

Birthday Dinner - Mom's Plan

Olive Garden was infiltrated with 20 people to celebrate a 60th Birthday. Three people in the room had no clue what was happening next, while the rest of the party new that there was another party to follow at the KC Hall.

The accommodations were not very good. They didn't slide any of the tables together so there was pockets of people sitting around all in the same room but still. Mom and dad were sitting at a table with several of the other women. A group of men set at one table and then there was a couple other tables of people. I set so that I could get take pictures.

The service on the other hand was a bit too speedy. We were eating shortly after 6 and the party wasn't suppose to start at the KC Hall until 7 pm. So after dinner, we had the waiters send Happy Birthday to her, and a couple of the ladies went out to their cars to get their birthday gifts to slow down the departure process.

The best gift was a hula hoop, which my mother graciously got out in the middle of the floor and showed us her ability to hula hoop, around her waist, arm, and neck. She didn't do too bad for being almost 60 (her birthday technically wasn't until Sunday). We proceed to open gifts and tell stories in order to keep the party going as close to seven as possible.

Another secret mission, half the cake was at the house and needed to get to the KC Hall. So my cousin and brother headed out to go "see my cousin's dog", not sure how that story went over but it did. They went and got the cake at which time my brother found out that he was headed to a party at the KC Hall and not staying at the house for ice cream and cake.

SURPRISE

As we departed the Olive Garden, I took my mother and told her she was going with me for a minute. I had something to show her and that dad new we would be to the house in a bit. At the same time, dad back in the restaurant was getting told that he was not going back to the house but instead he was to go to the KC Hall for a surprise.

Once in the car, I pulled out a blindfold and made sure mom was nicely blindfolded in the passenger seat. This was CT's idea and it work out wonderfully. Except for the fact that my mother has a great sense of direction.

We departed the Olive Garden parking lot and headed back to the house. She continued to tell me exactly where I was and I got a bit flustered unsure of how to get her lost. We first were going to my brother's new place which was interesting because I had no clue where he lived. Then after a few more turns, we were off to Kay's. Another turn, we were in front of the mall and headed to Earline's. I gave and decided to get on the interstate so that I could get to an area that I wouldn't get lost and hopefully could get her lost. On the interstate, we were then headed to Matt and Renee's new house. I got off the interstate and we had bought funeral plots, then it was a new house, then she decided I was buying time and we would eventually head back to the house.

Finally, I hit Lone Oak Rd at the hospital and got her lost. There was a couple spots we could have turned and she wasn't sure which one. I thought I was caught though as I went under the railroad tracks on Jackson a train was just getting ready to go over the tracks. I think I escaped that find though barely. When I finally turned again, she was lost enough and so was I that she didn't know for sure where she was.

After a few twists and turns, trying to remember myself where the KC Hall was. I made it to the Hall and parked on the street because everything else looked full and I wanted no more chances of her figuring out where I was. I got her out of the car still blindfolded and had her walk towards the door.

Well the train that I narrowly escaped earlier was now outside the KC Hall. She was still confused enough that she didn't pick up on where we were. She was greatly terrified after a decent walk that I was going to leave her at the train tracks or take her over them. I didn't quite understand that since there was a train going by.

We got about 5 feet from the door. I pulled her glasses off her head and tried to get the blindfold off, but she backed away from the door and so everyone inside could hear her said "I'm not going in there" and backed away from the door. Everyone inside started singing Happy Birthday and I got the blindfold off so that she could see the party waiting her inside.

She was 100% shocked and the place was full of people from her brothers and sisters to my dad's sisters, HS friends, friends from the telephone company, church friends, nieces and nephews, and even a few grand-nieces. My dad's sister from St Louis was in as well. (Which was another item that luckily did not register for my mom, as they saw her car when they went to dinner. Apparently they wondered why she was in town again after just being in town last weekend for father's day, but luckily nothing was put together in terms of a celebration for mom, so we escaped that one.)

Ready to Roller Skate

Roller skating is coming back to Lexington in a couple weeks. If you haven't roller skated lately, it is actually a blast once you get a hang of it and good exercise. Check out previous post about my last roller skating experience.

Last Couple of Weeks

Since most of you are probably tired of reading about sports and taking random quizzes, I thought I would actually share what has been going on lately.

As posted below, I just finished summer class and moved to Louisville. Prior to that, I have been taking class, autocrossing, going to weddings, and just preparing for the 2nd half of the summer.

Weekend prior to this, I went to South Bend, Indiana for a wedding of a graduate friend. It amazes me how the majority of travel in Indiana seems to be on 2-lane or 4-lane split roads, but not major interstates or parkways. The drive to South Bend actually was not all that bad. There were a couple slow parts as you traversed through towns and then the random stoplight on the 4-lane divided highway. While in South Bend, another grad friend and I took a ride around the Notre Dame campus, as it was right by the hotel. It was a very pretty campus with lots of green space and trees. It was very hard to traverse around campus because it seemed to have lots of gated access. The buildings all looked very nice and not too old either. I am sure that is not the case.

The weekend before that I came to Louisville for a wedding of previous co-workers from SHPS. It was a beautiful outdoors ceremony at Locust Grove with a very romantic and wonderful reception to follow. It was great to meet up with some old co-workers and enjoy a wonderful evening.

Since early May, I have completed now in 3 autocross events. After the second one, I was ready to hang my head in shame and go running off. I don't know that I have ever performed so poorly as I did at UK that day. Thankfully yesterday, I was able to redeem myself a little bit. I definitely was more aggressive and tried some new techniques. The biggest change was working on left foot breaking so that I could accelerate as I let off the break instead of only being able to do one or the either. It is amazing the amount of control you have over your car in that situation. At the same time, it can be easy to get confused especially as you are initially learning and hit the gas with your right and lets hope breaking with your left, when you really want to be breaking and not hitting the gas. That happened once yesterday and sent me into a wall of cones, or well lets just say did not assist in preventing me from going into the wall of cones. The wall of cones were history long before I hit the gas with the right foot instead of breaking more. It was a lot of fun and thankfully, the last run was a clean and fast run. I was actually rather afraid that I had taken out the last cone of the last slalom, but when I looked back in my rearview mirror it was still standing. After the event, I was talking with one of the guys and he said there was not one run that I did not hit that last cone in the slalom, usually on the top with the side of the car, but thankfully, I only knocked it over once on my second best run of the day :-(. Nonetheless, I still took out 6 cones yesterday to make the total for the year to be 11. I am fairly certain that is more cones than I have taken out in the previous three years of racing.

Those are the quick highlights from the past month and half. A tons of other things have happened but I will not bore you with all of that.

Where am I? What am I doing?

These may be questions you are asking or maybe not. Some of these questions, I am still asking myself truthfully, but here is what I do know.

Currently, I am in Louisville and will be stationed here for the next couple of months. Yes, I have escaped Hoosier land for the time being and will be enjoying some wonderful time with family and friends in the great Commonwealth.

I return to Louisville to complete an internship at Bellarmine University. I will be working on a couple leadership initiatives, which shall conclude with a leadership conference proposal for next spring. Besides the internship, which provides housing in the dorm on campus, I am still trying to outline what the rest of the summer is going to consist of. Hopefully, by the first of next week, I will be settled in at Bellarmine and have an update on a couple other possible summer items. So look for more to come next week or the end of this week.

Summer school went well and I actually did not procrastinate up to the last minute on trying to complete the paper. It was for the most part complete by the Friday prior to it being doing on Thursday. It just needed some slight tweaking and review.

With the completion of that class, I now have 14 hrs of class to complete in order to receive a masters degree. It is hard to believe this time last year, I was turning in my resignation at work and preparing to move to Indiana. Now a year later, I am over half-way through the coursework and well on my way to a masters in Higher Education Student Affairs. Who knows what will come next. You will just have to stay posted to find out.

Earnhardt Jr joins Hendrick Motorsports

Gordon and Earnhardt fans alike today are dealing with how to react to the announcement that Earnhardt Jr is joining the Hendrick family. Fans for these two drivers are probably the most against one another and now they join the same larger family.

I wish Earnhardt Jr the best and hope that this move will be beneficial to his career.

Check out SI article.

Stop the real time blogging

Louisville Courier Journal reporter was removed from the NCAA Baseball tournament for blogging the game real time. What do you think?

Louisville's New Archbishop Named

Scanning through the feeds, I found the above article about the naming of a new Archbishop for the Diocese of Louisville. The Archdiocese of Louisville also includes the Diocese of Owensboro, Covington, and Lexington.

Church Teachings: Marriage

Thanks to kasclar for doing some legwork about the Catholic Church and teachings on marriage. In reading over the information, I felt that some of you may be interested as well. It also relates to a conversation back in mid-April on Chris's site about Baptism.

kasclar maybe next week's topic could be on Baptism and the Catholic Church's teaching on who can perform a Baptism.

Computer Woes Again :-(

Any suggestions on what might be the problem:
The keyboard has been continuously deciding it does not want to work anymore. Then all of a sudden it starts working to just five minutes later stop again. Then I finally got it working but it was in a permanent state of Shift key down. Numbers were symbols and the number pad wouldn't work at all. I rebooted the machine and the keyboard refused to work. I have since opened up the computer and tried to remove as much of the dust that I possibly can. Currently, it is working but that does not mean a whole lot. Seems similar to problems from almost 2 years ago though currently it is only the keyboard acting up.

Any assistance is appreciated.

Price is Right

Another sign of the times and change in history, Bob Barker has taped his last Price is Right. I don't know about you, but I definitely watched a many Price is Right shows as a child and some thereafter. He will definitely be a missed icon in the game show world.

Speaking of game shows: What were some of your favorite TV game shows over the years? Don't be afraid to admit you watched a many of them. I remember racing to turn on the TV at my grandparents as a young child to catch some of our favorite shows after school. Well, the actual racing to the television set was to see who got control of the TV for that afternoon, but it often landed on USA Today (I believe is what aired most of the shows back then.)

Press Your Luck (No Whammies!!)
Price Is Right
Let's Make a Deal
Family Feud
Wheel of Fortune

I might come up with some more later, but there is the start of my list.

Pac-Man Receives Face Lift

After 26 years, Pac-Man has a new set of mazes. What are your reactions?

Did you know that Pac-Man was created in 1981? Pac-Man seems like such an ancient game and one that I thought was around prior to me though maybe not by much. I guess I was wrong it I was actually around before it though not by much.

Reactions to $5/Gallon

Are you ready to pay $5 for a gallon of milk? You just thought gas was expensive, but if you are a big dairy eater, the cost of gas may cause even more pain in your pocket book than the gas itself.

How much milk do you drink in a week? I have friends who can drink a couple gallons a week. I probably drink a gallon a week but overtime that becomes a gallon a month because I go shopping so infrequently. Cheese on the other hand is a large staple in my refrigerator and is enjoyed on a quite frequent basis.

Donovan's may not be leaving Florida

This story gets more interesting by the day. The morning news reports that Donovan is looking to back out of the Magic deal and return to Florida. Florida's meeting with ex-assistant coach, Anthony Grant, did not happen as originally planned for this weekend. He has not been offered a job.

Chris you might get to see UK beat Florida under Donovan's reign this year after all. Definitely an interesting change of events, we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Which Website Are You?

Which Website are You?

Hot off the Press: Billy D Leaving Florida

Wow, what a new mix in SEC basketball. Billy Donovan is apparently accepting a 27.5 million dollar gig to coach Orlando Magic. Good thing, Kentucky wasn't successful in landing him.

What are your thoughts? I am just in shock at the moment. I didn't expect this, but I guess it is not a total surprise. I was shocked to find out that Florida and Donovan hadn't finalized an extension deal yet either. I thought that was completed a long time ago.

Getting in Shape Take 2

As mentioned in the spring, I signed up to have a student personal trainer to assist with a class in the HPER last semester. Now I am officially on the contact list and have signed up for the summer experience. There are 4 sessions in the next week and a half.

Technically this should have been the second session but the young lady got her time messed up and failed to show on Tuesday. I did go ahead and hit the track and the weight room by myself since I was already at the SRSC. It really was not too bad though I did not have a lot of time nor a routine to follow. I need to get the routine from the last trainer or maybe the new one will have a good or better one. We shall see. I am a bit pessimistic about this young lady compared the young gentleman last semester.

I was a little sore yesterday from my own workout plus an extra hr plus walking to campus and back for the rest of my afternoon activities on Tuesday. Yesterday, I was tired and sore so I walked to campus but caught the bus home. My left knee/leg seems to be giving me some problem so we will see how that goes today.

I have found a new motivator to get in shape, which I forgot along the way at some point. I really want to go canoeing again this summer, if we can figure out a good date for everyone. It would be great to have a little more strength in my arms so my canoe partner is not having to do extra work because I am a weakling. In addition, losing a few pounds would assist us in not having as much weight to push around. We will see if this happens.

I better get ready to go workout again. Hopefully I will be able to continue the process this time instead of getting sick, sunburned, and out of commission for a couple weeks.

First Six Weeks of Summer

Currently, I am enjoying my last planned full weekend in Bloomington until mid-August. It is really hard to imagine that I will not be stationary in this location again for nearly 3 months and a brief 9 months after that I will be graduating with a master's degree.

The past 3 weeks and next 3 weeks has mostly been consumed with the summer class on Sociology of Education. I have rather enjoyed this class in particular the small size of the class and easier ability to communicate and learn from one another. I also rather enjoy the subject matter as well. It is interesting to learn about the education system in particular in America. Currently, I am taking an extended break from writing the one paper for this class. The focus of my paper is going to be on gender in higher education and students pursuance of particular degrees. The research materials have been gathered. It is just the matter of putting it all together into a paper very soon.

Besides taking class, I have made two trips to Kentucky in the past few weeks. Derby weekend was a lot of fun minus the horrific sunburn that I received on Sunday. Let's just say, my legs have never been burnt so bad in my life. If you think you don't need sunscreen on a cool day, please put it on anyway because the pain afterwards is not fun.

I returned to Kentucky last weekend as well. Yes, the main purpose was to go racing. I am really not sure why because I performed quite terribly. I am definitely rusty or something these days. The first two events this year have not been very promising though tons of fun. The next event is June 17. I don't know that I will be much more prepared for that one but hopefully, I will be getting back into the groove. I must improve or will get left out to dry by all of my fellow competitors. Besides racing, I caught up with some church friends which was a lot of fun. We played "God Golf" (what my g-town friends coined it back in college). Saturday, I caught up with an old college friend, which was a lot of fun, and actually got a bit of my book for class read.

This past week was another busy and crazy week as my parents came to visit for the first time. Mom was here when I moved but dad had never been up. They got in late Monday. We enjoyed a nice dinner at the local Greek establishment. Tuesday was spent doing some local shopping and eating at Bucceto's Smiling Teeth. It was quite delicious and rather inexpensive.

Wednesday broke me but at least I have some new clothes, which my mother approves of. We headed to Edinburgh to the outlet malls. We left Bloomington around 10:45 am and returned around 8:30 pm. It was one long day of shopping and I rather hate to shop. But hey I have some new clothes for the summer and a couple for the fall, so I suppose all is good until the bills come in and I am not getting paycheck.

The next three weeks wrap up my summer in Bloomington. A college friend is coming up to visit tomorrow, which is rather exciting. My friends never come visit me, especially when they don't happen to be around the area. Good thing my parents were in this week because the apartment is still fairly clean, minus all the research materials floating around the living room.

The rest of the week will be working at work, finishing my paper, preparing to lead class on Thursday night, and planning a trip to Louisville.

This coming weekend will be partially spent in Louisville. How much sort of depends on a couple other things: the status of the paper, the status of other things getting complete before I leave Bloomington in mid-June, and news about potential updates in end of summer plans. I will definitely be in town Saturday night to attend a wedding of past co-workers. I am looking forward to the evening and seeing a lot of people from my previous job. Plus staying with some college friends.

The weekend following, I will be headed to South Bend, IN for my first HESA wedding. The wedding should be wonderful, and I have never been to South Bend so that too should be fun. I just wish I could find a ride to South Bend so that I could reduce cost and ride back with another friend. We have plans to run over to Notre Dame to see the campus, which is exciting. I will let you know if I make it there and post a few pictures if I do.

Then the summer session ends with the last class on June 12. The paper will hopefully be complete by then as well and it will be time to finish packing and move to Louisville for a two months. More to come on the second half of the summer, once I actually know what is happening myself. I do know that I will be working and living at Bellarmine, but there are a few other things up in the air.

This is definitely long enough for now and I really should see about eating some dinner and attempting to write a paper.

Have a marvelous Memorial Day Weekend!

What Color Car Should You Drive?

So here is what I got the first time that I took the quiz today:

You Should Drive a Red Car

You're the type of driver who isn't afraid to be the fastest on the road. You have a lot of energy built up, and you tend to get your adrenaline fix from driving. Moving at hyper speed, you tend to be annoyed with slow drivers and slow people. Life's too short to be slowed down by someone else!

Now, I did this quiz several weeks ago and got the following:

You Should Drive a Pink Car

You're the type of driver who really loves your car. You can make a car last for ages - or take good care of a vintage ride. You're independent, creative, and very expressive. You consider your car a part of you ... and you want to make it as funky as possible.

I changed from a sports car to 4-door sedan and got this:

You Should Drive a Black Car

You're the type of driver who's totally dominant and even a bit aggressive. You see the road as a "dog eat dog" world... and you're not about to get eaten! You like to drive a vehicle that conveys power. Big engine. Big price tag. You rule the road - and you like everyone to know it.

What Color Car Should You Drive?

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?

You Are a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

You are a traditional person with very simple tastes. In your opinion, the best things in life are free, easy, and fun. You totally go with the flow. And you enjoy every minute of it! Your best friend: The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Ham Sandwich

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?

Poll: Your Opinion Appreciated

Over the past month or so, I have been contemplating cutting my hair short again for varying reasons, including that it just seems to be in bad shape. Granted that is my opinion and probably not the opinion of others. I guess maybe after 2.5 years of letting it grow long, I feel the need for a change. It seems to refuse to get any longer therefore cutting it shorter seems the only other option. Plus the other day a friend of the family's thought that I would look nice with short hair, which has gotten me to really think about this more in depth.

Since the majority of you have seen me in the last few weeks, I am interested in your opinions about should I leave my hair long, cut it shorter, and if so how much shorter.

Leave Long
Cut Shorter
- Shoulder length
- Between shoulder and ear
- Ear length
Other thoughts and opinions

And yes, I will wait until winter to cut it short because shorter hair in the winter is what everyone does, or is it longer hair in the winter for warmth. Oh well.

Quick Update

Before I head out of town again, I thought I would say hi real quick. Hope everyone is doing well. What are your big plans for the Derby? Tomorrow (Derby Day), I am headed back to the grand state of Kentucky. Hopefully, I will not get stuck in any Derby related traffic. I have to make a quick pit-stop at Ken Towery's to check out my slow leaking rear tire. Then it is off to see my friends Ash and Nick and their new house before going to a Derby party with some church folks. Not sure whats happening after Derby except for not a long night.

Sunday is another full day. It all starts with a trip to Old Frankfort Pike for my first autocross since July :-( Oh my that was a long time ago. I really hope I am not rusty from not competing nor driving much in the last 9 months. We will see how things go. Afterwards, it may be to my cousin's hooding ceremony. If I don't make it in time for that, it will just be to the graduation party after the ceremony. Then its off to Louisville for a full Monday.

Monday I will work out more details about my summer, enjoy lunch with some previous coworkers. Hopefully catch up with some G-town folks before heading back either Monday night or Tuesday morning.

Tuesday starts summer session I, which I am taking Sociology of Education course. Yes Spring semester is over. Okay, I must get some rest now. I promise to write again soon, though it may not be until next weekend.

For Basketball Fans

Apparently, I have found a new sports columnist (that is according to my father). But I will have to say here is another great article by Gregg Doyel, CBS Sportsline.

Ten for Tuesday: Best of the Best --- and Worst

Enjoy! I promise to catch everyone up on life soon especially tonight, but after a slight incident, I am home a lot later than expected and have a paper to write, one to revise, and one to peer review for tomorrow :-(

Golf and Basketball - The Final Four

"One day, Rick and Tubby decided to get together and play a round of 18 holes. Later in the round, the two finally reach the 14th hole. Tubby taps in his putt and suddenly, without hesitation, grabs his ball, bag, and begins to walk back to the clubhouse.

Pitino stands at the 15th hole, puzzled and wondering why Tubby just quit playing and left.

Curiously, Pitino yells to Tubby, “Where are you going? We aren’t finished playing yet?!?”

To which Tubby replies, “Rick, you know I don’t do the final four.”

Borrowed from Chris's Site.

Who is the top NCAA Men's Basketball Coach?

Before you click!!!!
Who do you think made the top 10 best coaches as of April 2007, according to Stewart Mandel?

When posed with the question earlier today? I was afraid to answer but some of the names that came to mind: Kelvin Sampson, Billy Gillespie, Billy Donovan, Mike Krzyzewski, John Calipari. Otherwise, I really had no clue or thoughts.

How did you rank up to the expert?

What do you think of who made the list or was considered?
How about those names not appearing on the list? Should anyone be added?

Quick Note on UK Basketball

I have not been neglecting the UK Basketball scene but unfortunately swamped with numerous other high priority items. I've commented on others blogs about what I think and since most of my readers are not huge basketball fans, I will forgo the diatribe at this time. (Plus yes I have to get back to more school work.)

My father ran across this nice post on Kentucky.com that I thought I would share though Article by a Real Journalist. Enjoy!

One day, I will comment more on the Men's Basketball and future Women's Basketball hirings at UK.

If you have not heard, UK Women's basketball coach Mickie Demoss resigned today. Demoss did an outstanding job at UK brining the Women's team back into the rankings while the men's team fell out of the rankings. It will definitely be interesting to see who they bring in to replace her.

Happy Easter!

Rejoice in the Lord! I hope everyone is enjoying time with friends and family on this Easter Sunday.

After a nice Easter service at St. Charles, I spent my afternoon at my apartment with fellow grad school friends. We enjoyed a wonderful potluck lunch and talking about life. Then it was off to finish papers and readings for the upcoming week.

How did you celebrate Easter this year?

Desktop Computer, Fish Tank: What do they have in common?

I just found this alarming news story about a fire being started by a desktop computer and as I reported over Christmas a fire was started though thankfully extinguished by a fish tank.

How much attention do you pay to your electronics, especially when you are headed out of town?

Land Lines vs Cell Phones in Emergency

Have we become to dependent on cell phones? How many people actually still have a land line? Since I moved to Bloomington, I know longer have a land line because of the additional cost that I would occur. Now if I had a full paying job, I might reconsider this option because I do feel a lot safer with a land line versus a cell phone. Granted if all you have are cordless phones in your house attached to land lines, you are in about as bad shape as if you just had a cell phone when the power goes out.

The issue discussed in the article on WKYT talks about the use of cell phones and how you really do not know where your 911 call is being received. Though this is outlining an issue on the river, the same could be true between towns.

Two things to remember:
- When using a cell phone to call in an emergency, remember to give state, town, and then the address.
- If you have a land line, make sure that at least one phone is not cordless or power dependent.

Orlando, Here I come

By this time Thursday, I will have hopefully landed in Orlando, FL. Thursday through Sunday morning will be spent outside of the city in DeLand, FL (home of Stetson University). A Georgetown friend, his girlfriend, and their dog live there, where he works as a Chemistry professor. It has been a couple years since I have seen my friend and since I failed to go see him while he was at UNC, I figure I should take this opportunity to visit him. I am looking forward to a few days of fun in Florida.

Then Sunday through Wed April 4, I will be at the Gaylord and Marriott hotels for the ACPA/NASPA Joint Conference. ACPA and NASPA are the two largest student personnel associations in the country. They hold a joint conference very rarely and are expecting close to 10,000 participants. A ton of things are going on and I hope to learn a lot and meet some outstanding individuals.

Now you know why you most likely will not be hearing much from me the next couple of weeks. I will update you all on my return and look forward to catching up on whats happening with all of you then as well.

Spring Break 2007

It was another return to the grand state of Kentucky for Spring Break, March 10-25. The semester thus far had been very busy therefore the trip was not well planned out, but nonetheless I had lots of fun. It was wonderful catching up with so many friends and hearing about their lives.

Friday - I had dinner in Louisville with a Georgetown friend. We ate at Mimi's Cafe on Hurstbourne. I enjoyed it though ate way too much over the course of the day. Then I drove to Lexington to stay with a church friend.

Two random things happened, one as we left our meeting spot at Sam's Club-Blankenbaker. A car was stopped at the stoplight crossing Blankenbaker on Bluegrass Pkwy. On Tuesday, I found out that the individual who owned that car was past co-worker from SHPS. An hour later the car was towed and fortunately was fixed by Tuesday. The other misfortune was that I left my jacket in my friends car. Luckily, it was not too cold the remaining part of the weekend.

Saturday was a rather relaxing day and after Kentucky, Indiana, and Louisville had all lost in their respective tournaments. I was not as determined to watch basketball the rest of the weekend. Instead, we rented two movies: Annapolis and ?????.

Saturday evening, I joined YAACK for dinner and bowling. I enjoyed meeting some new people and bowling a couple rounds. My team at least improved the second game with Chris getting 150 or something close to that.

Sunday was another relaxing day. Jeanine and I went to church and then lunch at Ramsey's. That evening I went to Georgetown to hang out with a friend and we watched Something New. If you have not watched this movie, I strongly suggest doing so. It is a very good movie about a young black woman who works too much and then falls in love with a white man. After that, I headed to Louisville to stay with another Georgetown friend.

Monday included lunch with my SHPS lunch partners at our usual Mexican Restaurant, El Caperol. Then I had a meeting at Bellarmine University with the Director of Student Activities to talk about a potential internship there for the summer. The conversation went very well and I liked the possibilities.

After my meeting, I had several hours before my dinner date. So I headed to the public library in J-town, where the librarian was kind enough to let me on the computer for an hour. I checked my email quickly but the main goal was to fill out as many brackets as I possibly could. I was unsure if I would be at a computer again prior to the tournament starting. I succeeded in completing: 5 ESPN, 1 Yahoo, 1 WPSD, 1 WKYT, 1 CBS plus 1 Round by Round at CBS. I believe those are all of them. Needless to say, I could not tell you who I picked, but at least brackets were completed.

Then the most random event occurred, I still had 3 hrs before dinner and could find no friends in town that were free. So remember the jacket that was left in the car, it was in Shelbyville and luckily my friend works from home and was there. So I took off for a nice drive to Shelbyville to get my jacket. Thankfully, it was a beautiful spring day and wonderful weather for a drive.

Monday evening, I had dinner at my cousin's sister-in-laws house and finally met her husband. We actually went out for dinner at Bristol, which too was very good. I even got to talk a little database and technology, which was fun. And smidgen of me missed it, but the rest remembers what else is involved.

Tuesday was another meeting at Bellarmine University. This time with the VP of Student Affairs talking about internship possibilities with him. Again, I left very excited about the possibilities and unsure of what I wanted to do. Plans are being finalized now for me to work part-time this summer at Bellarmine.

After the meeting, it was off to my favorite Japanese restaurant Ichiban to meet a couple other individuals from SHPS for lunch. We had a wonderful conversation catching up. Then I was again free with nothing to do until about 6 pm. First, I headed over to Sam's Club to fill up the tank again. Amazing how many miles I had put on the car in such few days. I also went in and did a bit of shopping before heading to a park in J-town to read.

Yes, I actually read for several hours and caught up on some schoolwork in the process. It was a beautiful day and it was fun reading and watching the children play.

Tuesday evening, my friend and I enjoyed a relaxing evening at her place. Where she fixed a nice taco soup full of ingredients that I do not like, but truthfully it was quite good and filling. So filling that I think I proceeded to take a nap on the couch after dinner.

Wednesday, we hung out all day at her place, worked on the crossword puzzle, watched a movie, chatted, and thought about going for a walk until we realized it was about to pour.

Wednesday evening, I headed back to Lexington for YAACK's reorganization meeting which went quite well. It was great to see so many new faces there. I left there and headed to Sawyer's for CKRSCCA member mtg. There were few there and they didnt stay long. Afterwards, I went and stayed with another church friend. We stayed up way too late talking and catching up. She was telling me all about wedding plans. We updated the YAACK blog and so much more. It was also nice to pray the Rosary with her and her fiancee.

Thursday - I stopped by the ODK office briefly to say hello and pass on some information. Then I went into Georgetown, where I headed to the Library to check my email and work some more on my brackets before the tournament started. Again, you had to sign in to use the computers and my library card was outdated and since I dont live in town anymore I couldnt get a new card without paying. Thankfully the man at the desk signed me in as a visitor and let me enjoy about 2 hrs on the computer. I checked all my brackets, found out I could complete 5 brackets at Yahoo so proceeded to do so. I also received word about a SHPS pool on Yahoo and had to make sure I liked my bracket for the one and only pool that I would be apart of this year. It was ok but I had no clue what I didn't like about it.

After that I headed to campus to meet up with an administrator for lunch. After lunch, I decided it was time to head back to Bloomington to get ready for the upcoming months. I arrived in Bloomington just in time to watch some more basketball.

The rest of the weekend was rather personally productive though not necessarily school productive. Taxes are almost complete and the refund is very exciting since I earned about 2/3 of what I was being taxed at. I also did laundry, cleaned, and went to the grocery. Who knows what else I did over the rest of the break except listen to a lot of basketball and watch the end of several games.

That is the very, very long version of Spring Break.

Bill Gates on Technology in 1989

Click on the title to learn more about what Bill Gates thought about the past, present, and future of computing in 1989.

Tubby headed to the Twin Cities

Shortly before 5 pm ET, I received a phone call from a former co-worker in Kentucky. He said, "Tubby is headed to Minnesota." I think it took me a good five minutes to a) understand what the heck he was talking about, b) to actually believe the statement was true. I was in shock and disbelief until I saw it with my own eyes on ESPN.com, Smith leaving Kentucky to coach Minnesota.

I proceeded to call my father afterwards to see if he had heard the story. He had not heard anything about it and did not believe me. After hanging up with my mother, he called me back to ask where it was published. He was certain it wasn't on ESPN yet. When I proceeded to tell him that yes it was on ESPN and the senior ESPN writer Andy Katz wrote the article, he finally decided that it must be true. According to that article, we will all know for sure at 1 pm tomorrow afternoon from the Twin Cities, where Tubby will be announced the new coach.

Speculations have already started about who will fulfill Tubby's shoes. I think it will be very interesting to see what is said by commentators and such during tonight's NCAA regional tournaments and throughout the weekend. Even more reason to watch basketball the next few days.

I might just tune into WVLK 590 AM Sports call in show tonight starting at 6 pm. At least, I believe they still have nightly sports radio at 6 pm. The bad thing about moving out of state is you can't stay as abreast on all of the happenings.

What do you think?

Tomorrow will be agony

To my surprise, I awoke this morning a bit sore in the quads and lower back but nothing too terrible. Then just under three hours ago, I improved my chances of not wanting to move after day two. I played basketball for an 1.5, 3 on 3 guys versus ladies and then a mix. My lower back is definitely feeling the pain now and I am sure my legs are going to be 100% stiff by the time I finish writing my case study analysis tonight. There are definitely 2 purple toes and 4 on the verge of purpleness. I hope my left hand is okay after jamming the entire pinky finger at one point. Otherwise, I believe I came out unscathed in the first episode of basketball in a long, long, long time.

I'm afraid I might have overdone it in the first couple days of trying to get into shape. Lucky thing is I have a personal trainer to keep me motivated through the rest of the semester. Another update to come, but for now I must sign off and go write a paper.

Before I Wake in Pain

As mentioned in a previous post, today started my 6 personal training sessions with an underclassman student who is learning to be a personal trainer. My personal trainer is great and I am going to feel it tomorrow. I am still moving fairly well tonight though very exhausted. I definitely can tell that I will be feeling pain tomorrow morning, which is okay. If I don't feel pain tomorrow then, the workout was definitely not enough because I am way out of shape not to feel it.

Overall, the session went great. My trainer is very encouraging and was impressed with my success on day one. I actually met or exceeded his expectations across the board which was great.

Quick run down of the hr:
- Brisk lap around the track, followed by an even brisker second lap, and a third lap of jogging.
- Then it was a slight cool down with some stretching.
- Next it was off for some lower-body weight lifting, not too bad.
- Ab and back workout...that is what I am feeling the most at this point in time.
- Elliptical machine was next for a 10 minute workout. I was sure that I was going to die on this machine within the first minute. He covered up the time and made me focus just on the speed, which helped tremendously. At one point when I thought I was about done for, he suggested rotating the legs in the other direction. That helped though was a lot more taxing on my legs. Next thing, I knew the 10 mins were coming to a conclusion and it was time for cooling down.
- Next was some upper-body workout. Alright, definitely not great though.
- Lastly, he had me run my best for 1.5 mins to see where I was. He had a goal for how far we should get around the track. I exceeded his goal of making one lap by another quarter of a lap. I couldn't breath when we got done and my legs felt luck mush but it was a lot more impressive than I ever thought.
- Then we did a cool down lap, followed by some stretching.

I survived my first of 6 training sessions. I have another one next Monday and then I have a week and half between sessions because of the upcoming trip to Orlando.

PS I promise to post soon about spring break, NCAA basketball tournament, and how sore I really am when I wake in the morning.

Who are you watching today and tomorrow?

Wow what a start to tournament time. There have been some really good, close games in the past couple of days. Some due to good play and others because of mediocre play, but all the same close games.

The question for me today is who shall I root for the rest of the weekend. The teams that I was cheering for are all out now. On top of that, two of the three went into overtime yesterday and the other played double overtime the night before.

Kentucky had a miserable loss to Mississippi St, which I saw the replay of what happened and question the call there a bit. I dont know that it would have made a difference and after loosing such a nice lead that they deserved it, but still. It will be interesting to see where they land in the tournament.

Indiana losses in overtime to Illinois. We all knew this was going to be a close game. The last two matchups this season were down to the wire and probably the biggest competition that we had, even though Illinois hasnt been doing great this year.

Then their is Louisville who just threw that game away. They came back after half-time and did nothing but try to rush the ball around as if they were losing, while the whole time they were up by several. Pitino tried to calm the boys down but nothing really seemed to be working.

(If you cant tell, I actually watched this game. SEC wasnt televised in Indiana and Big Ten wasnt televised in Kentucky. Granted, I am a bit miffed with ESPN because as I was watching the Louisville game they said that ESPN2 was going to go to the IU/Illinois game, which would have made sense with the other game being a blowout. But they never switched over.)

So who are you watching for the rest of the weekend?
Georgetown University - Big East
North Carolina - ACC
Big Ten and SEC - I really dont know who I want to win.

When was the last time you roller skated?

Until Thursday night, I would have answered many, many years ago probably approaching 20. I really don't remember the last time that I went roller skating but considering I dont remember it being very popular through middle and high school. I would say it was sometime during elementary school.

Then on Thursday night, the masters students and some professors hit the roller skating rink for two hours of fun. If you havent put on skates recently, let me tell you those first few moments are very interesting as you try to get your wits about you. But after time, you finally figure out the motions and skate right along. It was nice to have others out there struggling along side you.

I suggest going out and having fun on roller skates. It was a wonderful evening of entertainment and very inexpensive at that, plus its a nice workout. Though be ware, if you havent been working out a lot you might be a bit sore the days following. I am really not as sore as I thought I was going to be, but I can definitely feel it in my left leg and my upper arms. In a little over a week, I am afraid how sore I am going to be after my first personal training session. Update will come shortly thereafter.

Go Roller Skating!!!

Off to Kentucky on Business

Tomorrow morning, I am off to Kentucky to attend a College Personnel Association of Kentucky Conference at the Holiday Inn. A colleague of mine invited me to go down with him, which I am greatly appreciative because it will be a great learning and networking experience, as well as a great opportunity to catch up with some old friends and colleagues from Kentucky.

In other news, another hour of my masters is complete assuming that I passed the final in Law (1 hr, 8 week course). It also means that I have one less class to attend for the rest of the semester, which normal equates to additional free time but not for me. Instead, I will be at work and actually getting to partake in the other half of my job, which is attend University and Bloomington faculty council meetings. I am looking forward to the opportunity to actually experience an entire meeting for the first time since I began in August and actually go to a University Council Meeting.

Next week, I am also getting a student personal trainer. Every semester there is a personal training course and students are paired up with individuals interested in having a personal trainer for the last 8 weeks of the course. I missed out last semester and signed up too late, but was able to get on the list this semester. I am hesitate but at the same time excited about the opportunity to develop a routine for working out. I will update you on my progress as the semester goes.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday was a very interesting day for me this year. I attended a very nice Ecumenical Service in the Auditorium at IU. I had no clue what to expect exactly and was unsure about the delivery of ashes. It was a fairly traditional Catholic Ash Wednesday Service, not Mass. It did make me think what do other churches do for Ash Wednesday, so maybe I will explore that in more detail in the future.

The more interesting part of the day was when my boots began to fall apart. When I got to work, the sole and shoe were separating but it was just a minor separation. Prior to leaving for the Ash Wednesday Service a piece of metal fell out of the bottom of my shoe as I walked to the bathroom. When I returned, 75% of the sole was detached from the shoe. I had about 5 minutes to determine the plan of action. The rest of my day including going to the service and then to SAO mtg, luckily at least in the same bldg. Then I had a 10 minute walk across campus for class and then to a basketball game. Luckily, I drove to school and was parked in the Ed parking lot.

It was very wet outside and how the heck do you tape boots together that look somewhat okay and will survive the weather. My supervisor had an extra pair of slip on shoes at her desk, but they were size 8. I wear a size 10 to 10.5. With 5 minutes to decide and really not wanting to try to tape my shoes, I tried on her shoes. My feet fit into them and they didnt seem to bad so I said sure why not. Well the first hour was okay, but then blisters started to form on my heel especially the left foot and my toes were very cramped. I set through both the mtg and class with the shoes off (No socks either because the thick socks and my feet would not have fit into the shoes). Needless to say after class, my left heel was killing me and I walked carefully to the car and went home to get some new shoes. There was no way that I was walking to the basketball game in those shoes. Though a painful experience, it reminded me of the suffering that Jesus went through to forgive us of our sins. I thought it was fitting for the start of Lent.

New Look-What do you think?

The other day I was forced to upgrade my blog to the new blogger format. At least, I was too tired to figure out how to get around it so I did it. Then this evening, I was playing around and decided it was time for a change. My blog was getting out of control. The archive list was insanely long and some order needed to be added to the site. Therefore, I have upgraded the template and a few other items. I added labels to the latest 25 posts and decided that I had no clue what I was doing so I decided to stop labeling. Once I figure out a method to the labeling madness, maybe I will label the 239 posts, excluding this one.

What do you think of the new look? Any suggestions of things to add or remove? Remember I dont have a lot of time to play.

Daylight Savings Time Change - Another Y2K

If you have not yet heard, Daylight Savings Time occurs the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November starting this year. Check out the US Naval Observatory Website for some history of DST.

The big question is what happens to all the electronics. Are they prepared to change for the new daylight savings time periods?

Here are a couple links that I found. I am sure those of you still working in IT might can provide some better and more useful insight into all of this than I.
ZDNet Article
Microsoft Article

If anyone has any true insight of what we all need to do in order to survive the change in DST from April to March, please let us know.

On top of this, I just realized that I will not be in town during the change so will get to enjoy coming back to start the last half of the semester and hope my computer hasn't blown up.

How Well Traveled Are You?

Your Travel Profile:

You Are Well Traveled in the Midwestern United States (50%) You Are Somewhat Well Traveled in the Southern United States (31%) You Are Somewhat Well Traveled in the Northeastern United States (29%) You Are Mostly Untraveled in Australia (13%) You Are Mostly Untraveled in Latin America (7%) You Are Mostly Untraveled in the Western United States (5%) You Are Untraveled in Africa (0%) You Are Untraveled in Asia (0%) You Are Untraveled in Canada (0%) You Are Untraveled in Eastern Europe (0%) You Are Untraveled in New Zealand (0%) You Are Untraveled in Scandinavia (0%) You Are Untraveled in Southern Europe (0%) You Are Untraveled in Western Europe (0%) You Are Untraveled in the Middle East (0%) You Are Untraveled in the United Kingdom (0%)

How Well Traveled Are You?

Thanks to Chris for finding the quiz!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Snowy, Icey Valentines Day to many! Please travel safely in whatever your plans are for the day. Personally, my plans are to stay right here and get a lot of paper writing complete. Campus is closed this morning due to the inclement weather which we had Tuesday night into this morning. It reopens at noon but by then, I am off work and my late afternoon class was canceled by the professor. Therefore, I have decided it best to just stay put enjoy the sunshine and daylight.



My car is the blue one with antennas on the windshield and tons of snow and ice :-) and it will most likely stay snow covered til this weekend. My car is in total shock these days. Luckily it had a nice trip to Kentucky this past weekend. Otherwise it pretty much sits right there never going anywhere. The goal is to not get gas until I hit Kentucky again in early March.