My New Ride

We finally took the plunge and bought a "new" car.  It is a 2010 Ford Focus. It has more bells and whistles than we were looking for, but they are pretty fun to have.  I have to admit, I don't really know what makes a moon-roof a moon-roof, but it sure is fun to have and drive with it open on these very unseasonably 60 degree days. Even better than getting a good car for a good deal was the deal they gave us on our trade in.  Honestly, I would have handed them the keys to the Cavalier and said "here, it's yours."  Instead they gave us a decent amount of money for it. WOO HOO!

I've never had such a "normal" color of vehicle before. (I don't count the Cav since that wasn't really by choice.) It is still a little bit weird in parking lots trying to remember what I am looking for and having it be a black car, but I like it.

I was trying to find a picture of my previously acquired vehicles, but realized that those were in the pre-digital picture days (yikes! I am THAT old) so I found a random pis from the internet. This are NOT my actual vehicle. We still have the 2001 gold Focus. Nick gets the privilege of driving it. The 1998 Ranger was on lease and traded in to get the Focus. My dad had it for several years and now it is no longer around - I will see about finding a pic for that.

Guilty Pleasure

Who would have thought that battling MediaCom for 2 months would result in a new guilty pleasure.  Let me tell you the long and boring story: At the end of September our internet pretty much went kaputz. We spent a lot of time on the phone to get a service call, then another. It was that second "cable guy" that informed me it was a problem with the outside lines and it was something they were aware of, so he couldn't really do much for us. He did some monkeying around and we had a snail slow connection for about 2 days. That was when the outside crew came and I got to talk to that guy. He informed me that it was a problem with the main "feeder" line that got damaged a month or two ago. MediaCom knew about it, but it was a third party repair and had no idea when it would be fixed, but "hopefully soon" was the answer he gave. Their tinkering around gave us a slighter faster, slightly more consistent connection for an additional 2 days. So, Imagine my frustration when during week two of my online classes, our internet completely quits. We get nothing. Not even a slow, intermittent connection. Zilch. Yup, I was so excited.  I got my homework finished and submitted between school and at my parents house.  My dependency on Netflix for entertainment has now been interrupted. I was forced to watch DVDs or network TV.  We use the antenna, so sometimes network isn't a great reception, and it really is just network TV. The same weekend as our internet went out completely, the DVD player also decided it was done. Granted it was probably 5+ years old, but c'mon, the same weekend as everything else went out??  Nick did some tinkering with the extra DVD player I have in the craft room. It kind of worked. Sadly, it was not the fix I was hoping for. Since I abhor having to change around wires to watch things on TV, I was not happy with the set up.  Network TV it was! Monday evening Nick came home from work and I made supper. As per usual, we ate while watching TV. Typically we would watch Family Guy on Netflix, but.....what to watch on TV? I didn't know what was on anymore. We turned to our old standby channel 29.  Huh, Big Bang Theory. My dad loves it. We settled on it. It was good. I laughed out loud at a TV show. And how can you not really? After BBT was over I was tidying up and then flipped channels. Nothing on TV Monday nights...of course. Until I flipped to channel 11. At first I was discouraged that it was another singing/reality/competition show.  But then I realized it was acapella.  I decided to give it a try. The Sing Off is totally my guilty pleasure. I am totally a Pentatonix fan. Ive watched week after week Pentatonix is awesome and another group goes home.  Yup, totally a guilty pleasure.  I have also become quite a fan of BBT. I watch it as often as I remember. That may be my next TV on DVD purchase.

To wrap up the internet saga as well, our Internet connection was icky starting the middle of Sept. We finally had it fixed the middle of November. It was early October when it just totally went out. I have had several conversations with MediaCom. Nick has a working computer again (another totally long story for another time) and we got our MediaCom bill. As promised they credited our account for Sept when it was acting up, credited all of October and the part of Nov until it was fixed. They owe us $30, which of course we will just apply to next months bill.  At least they made good on their claims of not charging us for service we weren't getting. And now, I watch TV that isn't on Netflix.At least for two more weeks.

It's that time again....

...time to poke fun at an online classmate. This week we were to post about what advance that happened during the 1600 & 1700s. I have a few classmates that ALWAYS say medicine. We are also required to "respond" to two classmates. Most people do this with things like "I agree, that is a very important thing for the reason you said." Yup, deep. Here is one of my classmates response:

i always have thought Med. was top inovation as well healing is pretty straight forward and a need not a want then and now so thank god for medical breakthroughs and science!!!

This frightens me. This response is worse than last weeks response about "society's discovering cannons" I don't even know what to say. I don't even know what it means! As a teacher, this really scares me!

On-line class lamentation

This quarter I am taking Introduction to Humanities as an online class. I don't like online classes, especially 100 level classes. I get frustrated with my classmates and their apparent disinterest which I typically intrepret as stupidity.

This week our online "discussion" assignment was this:
The Romans made great strides in technology. In fact, much of their inventions and innovations were not improved upon for centuries after. What technological advances do you think were the most important and lasting of the pre-Christian Romans? In order to get full credit, you must explain why you think this. Give examples. Explain how you think this innovation changed or influenced their society and culture!

Here is one my classmates responses:
I say concrete. It is amazing some of the buildings and sculptures. They were detailed and well put together. It was a huge advance and it is used for many things.

Well, that was enlightening, insightful and....well punctuated? Though, I guess I do need to give this student props. At least she picked an invention actually credited to the Romans. A few of my other classmates argued that the Hebrews writing the Bible was the best thing the Romans did. Last I checked, they are a different group of people. I could be wrong though.

Overall, I don't dislike this class about the humanities. I actually am enjoying learning about history and art at the same time. I might actually understand some of the things my brother talks about. I have learned that I just don't like online classes all that much. I feel like I take them way more seriously than my classmates and am discouraged when no one else seems to put the time and effort into assignments like I do.

I wonder what kind of responses we will have next week when we talk about changes in perspective and how that changes societies?

Spring Quarter, you have been 86ed!

For those of you that are sheltered, to "86" something means "To remove, end usage, or take something out or away." according to Urban Dictionary.

Spring quarter wasn't all that bad. I mean, I even manged to post on here once or twice. Spring quarter was a little bit hectic. I managed to finish up the quarter with an A in both classes I took. Not too shabby. I got A's on both individual papers I wrote, as well as on the group assignments. Yay! This means I still maintain my 4.0! I am very proud and very excited about this. I did kind of come to terms with the fact that I may get a B, and was willing to be ok with that. But who am I kidding, I really wanted to maintain the 4.0.

The classes I taught were finished up on Wednesday. I had all the projects graded, then only had to enter final grades. Everything was in before 6pm on Wed. We had graduation on Thursday. It is tough to see some great students leave us, but I am excited for them to do great things in the field. They will certainly be missed. The picture is of this quarter's grads and the rock star Vet Tech department instructors. Tomorrow is my first official day off in a really long time. I don't have anything that needs to be done for teaching or for taking classes, I don't work at Lola's, I am completely uncommitted to anything. My plans: nothing! and Im going to enjoy it. After tomorrow I will start working on prepping my class for next quarter. I will be teaching one class: Parasitology and taking two classes: Global Citizenship and Intro to Humanities.

Sumer time, sumer time, sum sum sumer time.....

You can sing the rest if you would like to.

Tomorrow is the start of week 11 of our 12 week spring quarter. That means I am almost finished with this quarter. In anticipation of the three week break and having a much lighter course load next quarter, I decided to pick up a part time job. Yeah, teaching is technically a part time gig, which means now I have two part time jobs. I started this past week as a line cook. It has been pretty fun so far. My brother has been training me in. After a 10 hours of "training" I was pretty much on my own yesterday. I think I did ok. I only messed up a few salads. My station is salads and deep fried things. I do not deep fry the salads. I make a pretty mean fish 'n chips though. I like cooking, and the prep work doesn't bother me. I am a little rusty with restaurant cooking as my experience in a restaurant is 15 years ago, but I think I am picking it up pretty quickly.

As I mentioned, next quarter I have a much lighter course load, teach just two classes. Hematology and Parasitology. Both of these are classes that I really like. Bugs and blood. Fun stuff! For comparison, this quarter I teach 3 classes plus I am the surgery assistant technician, so technically 4 classes, plus I am taking 2 classes. Next quarter, teaching two & taking two.

The two classes I am taking this quarter are 300 and 400 level businesses classes. Next quarter I am taking "Intro to humanities" and a class called "Global Citizenship." It isn't at all what it sounds. It used to be called student success. It is a class that first quarter students take to become acclimated to college life and do a service learning project (community service that we "reflect on" in order to learn) It is a two credit 100 level class. The humanities class is also a 100 level class.

Nick has graduated from school and taking (and I am sure passed) the board. He should find out in a week or two. He starts his residency on June 27. In the meantime I am keeping him quite busy with to do lists.

And since I wouldn't be a true Minnesotan if I didn't comment on the weather: Really, it went from cool to 100+ then dropped 40 degrees in 2 days. Wow!! I dont really like 103, but I kinda like it in the upper 70s, maybe even 80s. BTW, the last time it hit triple digits in MN: July 15, 2006. Yup, just so happened I got married that day.

Spring time!

So, it's spring time, at least according to the calendar. I figured that was as good a reason as any to update my blog. So, new look, new short post.

Nick graduates from Pharmacy school 8 days. I am SOOOOOO excited. It will certainly be nice to move past being students.

A new tradition

Last night Guster played the State Theater in Mpls. I, being the great Guster fan I am, had no idea they were even going to be in town. I found out on Wed. that Nick had a friend with tickets to sell. Of course I wanted to go!

This was my first Guster show sans "Asia Minor" (the two gals that I did my Gustering with back in the day). This was also the first concert that Nick and I went to together, and Nicks first time seeing Guster. I was a little sad about not seeing them with Courtney, but super excited about introducing Nick to the Guster experience.

The opening bad was Good Old War. They were decent. I have no idea what their lyrics were, but the music was catchy. They did have pretty awesome 3-part harmonies.

Guster did not disappoint. They played a fair amount of their older stuff, including their "updated" Airport song. Its updated because it has more of a disco feel. It was different, but still good.

I was a little concerned before it started. Joe, who had be come a favorite of mine, had left Guster in October. Who is gonna play banjo now? Well, they had found Luke. I was very cautious about Luke. I wasn't sure if I could/should like Luke. I really liked Joe. I miss Joe. Luke was pretty awesome. He rocked the harmonica as Joe had. He has some pretty serious instrument skillzzzz.

For the second time of the 16 I have seen them, they did a true encore. Of course Ryan talked about the "last song of the regular set, before the encore." He decided to an anti-encore. Adam wanted it to be silence rather than booing, so that's what was decided. They left the stage, the crowd grew quiet and Guster returned to the stage. They proceeded to do 4 more songs. They left the stage. The lights came up and the roadies were starting to take things down. The fans wanted more. Guster obliged. We got the awesome unplugged version of Jesus on the Radio. Luke totally owned the banjo. I have much love for Luke. I still miss Joe, but I will accept Luke.

So, the show was awesome and Nick and I loved it. We did realize there was an abundance of Chadbags there. (Let me know if you need a definition of the term) The group of 40-somethings in front of us was rather obnoxious. There were 4 couples. They were chadbags. They were disruptive and annoying. One of them kept doing air guitar moves. Now, I love Guster, but Guster is not really an air guitar type band. The other kept yelling "It's THAT song!" and proceeded to "rock out" head banging-esque to most of their songs. The gal he was with apparently knows one way to dance. That is how she danced to every song. She did the 40 year old white chick at a club, crossed with jazzercise moves. She danced like this to EVERY song. Um, i don't recall Guster being played at the clubs, and there are a few more laid back, slower numbers. This dancing just isn't ok with me.

Aside from the Chadbags, the crowed was about what I expected. The "North Face" jacket demographic and the belt-less demographic. Most of the fans were a tad older than the last few times I saw them. Makes sense though, Guster has aged a few years, so has the fan base.

When seeing Guster with Asia Minor, going to Perkins was always the traditional way to end the evening. Nick and I did not. Apparently as Guster has aged (according to Ryan, a bunch of old guys making music) so have I.

Looking forward to their next MN show.

It's a boy!

Meet our new kitty. He doesn't have a name yet. He was one of those infamous "free cats." We got him from one of the rescue organizations MSB Shakopee works with. They, like many shelters, have more cats than they know what to do with. Many of you know I've been waiting for the right orange kitty to need my home. Well, he is it! He is such a laid back cat! His personality is a stark contrast to Emmitt. A significant difference is new kitty loves to be cuddled and petted and have his belly rubbed, any time! If you try to touch Emmitt when he doesn't want attention, he will bite. Anyway, feel free to throw out some name suggestions. We are trying to find a name that suits him. He is a big kitty, but very laid back, likes attention and is even a little needy sometimes. He is tolerant of most things. He doesn't pay much attention to Emmitt and his attitude. He is a good kitty.