Utah Trip

Its late and I should be in bed, but I thought "Why not blog about our recent trip to Utah?" Warning, this is going to be one of those boring "travel logs" (like the "quotes"?)
Originally, our plan was to leave on Friday morning after I got off of work, but then we heard a storm was going to be coming thru so we decided to postpone it til Saturday. Really glad we did. We were going to leave by 6am Saturday morning, but we didn't finish packing and cleaning til 2 am and when we woke up, there was chain restrictions over the pass so we decided to sleep a little longer. We slept a couple more hours and, although there were still chain restrictions when we left, the storm had passed and the sun was up so we hoped they would be lifted by the time we got there. We were checking the road conditions the whole way on our phone and they were slowly getting lifted, section by section. At one point we saw the sign that said chains required in 16miles, but then traffic slowed to a crawl and by the time we traveled the 16miles, the chain restrictions were lifted. We finally arrived in Provo at my brother and sister-in-law's house at about 11pm. Sunday we went to Church with them, and afterwards, my sister, whose in BYU's nursing program, came over for dinner. Sunday afternoon, we let the kids play in the snow in the back yard and Will and I made a snow man for the kids. Monday, we went to our friends, Jason and Amanda's house, where we stayed the rest of the week. Our kids became fast friends with their friends and some tears were shed when we had to leave. Monday afternoon, my sister introduced me to one of her professors who has a very important title at the pharmacy school I was interviewing at. Probably the biggest piece of advice he gave me was to make a good impression on the faculty interviewer, don't do anything to make them not like me.
Tuesday, we looked at apartments and picked up some applications. Wednesday, we drove up to Ogden to visit our friends Aaron and Ashley. Had a good visit with them and had a laugh over the brain pizza their daughter was eating. :-)
Thursday, I had my interview at the pharmacy school. The questions were of a different style than I got last year but I still felt good about it. During the orientation, the Dean explained that they received 800 applications, offered 600 interviews and have spots for 245 new students.
Our original plan was to stay Friday and drive home Saturday but Thursday night we decided that it would be better to drive home Friday instead. The kids were getting tired of being away from home and we realized it would be nice to have Saturday to recover from the trip. The drive home Friday was uneventful and their was no concerns about chains and road conditions. The kids did great on the drives and we were all grateful to be home. Now we just gotta get back into the swing of things with work and school and housekeeping, etc. And now we just play the waiitng game to see if I get in. Hopefully good things are in store for us.

PharmD

Ok, so I know it's been fooorrreeeevvveerrr since I've posted. I just wanted to give a little update for those who are not on Facebook. We are excited that Dave has been invited to interview at USN's Utah campus at the beginning of March (for pharmacy school)! We're planning a little vacation, so if you'd like us to visit let me know.

Frenemies

If, as the saying goes, you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer, where should you keep "frenemies"?

If you look at just the term "frenemy", it would make sense to keep them closer than your friends but not quite as close as your enemy, since it is kind of and in-between term.

However, if you examine the concept of a frenemy, it might be more appropriate to keep them even closer than your enemies because their thinly-veiled malice towards you could become a liability. So you would want to watch them even closer because, with an out-right enemy, you know they are going to try to harm your personage or character when ever they have a chance. But with a frenemy, they could maintain a facade of kindness and friendliness for many years until you least expect it, and then they release their full fury when your guard is down.

Chico City Council

So the Chico City Council is currently in the process of appointing a person to the council to fill a vacancy left by one member getting elected to a county position. In the November elections, the people of Chico voted to fill 3 open seats on the council while also knowing that 2 months after the elections, a 4th seat would open up. Instead of just appointing the 4th place vote getter the vacancy, the flagrantly liberal city council decided to waste tax-payer time and money and take applications from people for the seat.

I heard today that they have successfully narrowed it down to just two contenders and have until their next council meeting (next Tuesday) to decide. Brace yourselves for the descriptions of the two finalists:

Finalist #1: A minority with a sob story, but who has never voted in a single election, local, state, or national.

Finalist #2: A middle-class white business owner who knows how to create jobs and was the 4th place vote getter, mentioned above.

Who do you think should get the council seat? Unfortunately, who do you think will get it?

And that's what's wrong with America.

Thoughts from the Shower

While I was taking a shower this afternoon, I had a thought (Hey! this is my thought. Don't be thinking about me in the shower, thou shalt not lust)

It is well known that I help more around the house than many (most?) other husbands and people have been known to get jealous about it.

My thought was, why is it, when people see this, they automatically think that Corrina is a control freak and forces me to do these things. Has anyone considered that maybe I'm the control freak and won't let Corrina do it so I can make sure it is done they way I want it done?

Many will say, "that's ridiculous, we know you're not like that" and my response is: the other scenario is equally ridiculous. It's a little something called communication and division of labor. We have talked about it and have decided on how to divide the tasks how they work best for us as a couple. 

And the only reason I can see why anyone would care is because A) the wife wishes her husband could be as helpful as me, and B) the husband wishes I didn't make them look bad.

To this I say: maybe you need to talk with your spouse and make some changes. But above all, get over it and quit judging us for what works for us.

Vampires then and Now

I know this is a little late, since Halloween s over and all. but I wanted to mention something. Back in the 15th Century lived the real life Dracula, AKA Vlad Dracul, the Impaler. This was one bad mama-jama. The below image is of him feasting whilst all around him hang the bodies of his enemies he has impaled. He was a person to fer and loathe.

Nowadays, however, we are stuck with this:

A cry-baby, emo teenager that sparkles. Vlad must be turning over in his (undead) grave.

Happy Halloween!

Politics

Haven't posted in a while, especially about politics, so I felt I should make some comments that have been floating around in my brain:


First off, earlier this week, a friend of mine, who's a political consultant, informed me that the campaign he's working on still has a chunk of money and wanted to know if I wanted to work for them until the elections. I would have loved to do it, it would have been a blast, but the campaign is in Modesto and there's no way for me to get work off. Oh well.


Second off, has anyone heard about the Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell, running for US Senate in Delaware? Her big controversy is that a few years ago in an interview she admitted to trying out witchcraft. I don't know how far into it she got but apparently it was in High School. The liberal left is criticizing her for this, insinuating she's still a witch and probably she'll steel your babies for sacrifices. First off, as she said, it was in high school and a lot of kids do a lot of stupid things in high school. Are we supposed to hold that against them forever? Because, last I checked, Obama has admitted to doing drugs, starting in high school and ending in college, including trying cocaine. Does anyone seem to care about that? And Secondly, what ever happened to freedom of religion in this country? Don't elect her because she's Wiccan, don't elect him because he's Mormon?! I thought we, as a nation, were supposed to be beyond this immaturity.


Thirdly, anyone who knows me knows that I'm pretty conservative and don't have a lot of good things to say about Obama. If I mention his name, its usually to criticize something he's doing that I think he shouldn't or not doing something I think he should. So it pangs me to admit that he has recently done a couple things for which I have to give him mad props. The United States used to be leader in the fields of math, science, technology, and engineering. Recently, however, we have been starting to drop away, and its partially due to the decreasing numbers of students who are choosing to pursue these fields in higher education. To fight this downward trend an to try to encourage students to pursue these fields, Obama announced last November that he was going to launch what he called the STEM initiative (Science, Technology, Engineering, Match education). It is also known as his :Educate to Innovate" campaign. As part of this campaign, President Obama hosted on Monday the first annual White House Science Fair. I really love what he said about the event: "If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you’re a young person and you produce the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too.” This isn't about politics, its about education, (which I know can be a politically charged entity) but science fairs are great because these kids weren't spoon-fed information, they had to develop an experiment on their own and carry it out, teaching themselves what they needed to know to pull it off. So there you have it. I actually agree and am impressed by something Pres. Obama has done. No, the sky is not falling, nor is it the end of the world. And I can assure you this in no way is sending me down the path to liberalism. This is purely one geek putting aside political differences to admire an accomplishment to help inspire other could-be geeks to follow their dreams. Way to go Mr. President.