Eric is getting much bigger now, it shows in his face and his long legs. So this week far he is doing pretty well, as best as we can tell. He is eating and sleeping like a champ. We still are only getting 1 to 2 hours of rest in between feedings.
Comp exams for school are rapidly approaching. I am going to break out the books today and begin to refresh my memory on what I learned last year. Also, I should be signing up for the rest of my classes this week and pay my fees.
05/14/03 It has been a while since I have made an update. By the time that I got better, the end of the semester was upon me and then exams. I was inundated with tons of work and studying that I did not have a chance to update this site, at all! I am so glad that this semester is over. It was a very intense and it seemed like it took forever. I ended up getting a B+ (Theory pt2), A (Regression) and a B (Design of Experiments). SO even though I did not get straight As, I am still very pleased about my grades. Again, I still have a higher overall GPA then I did at Longwood or UVa. I have now started one of my two summer internships/jobs. This one is the Statistic Consulting Center which is located on UT and supports all the University Campuses on questions about statistics. Some as basic as loading software, but some more in depth regarding dissertation research.
The other position is with TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) where I will be working in the same workgroup as Jen P. I have to wait until June to start because TVA still has to process my paperwork, you know, know that I am a safe individual. The baby is getting big, I can easily feel him when he is using Jen as a punching bag. I can’t distinguish body parts yet, but I think I will be able to closer to the end of the pregnancy. We got a 3d ultrasound of him almost two weeks ago. The picture is up on the baby’s side, check it out. We start Lamaze tonight. You all that breathing exercises and such. I have seen Bill Cosby Himself many times, maybe I don’t need to actually go! PUSH HIM OUT SHOVE HIM OUT, WAYYYYYY OUT!!!
Another fine day here in the East Tennessee Area. The weather will be slightly cloudy with a slight breeze as the temperature is a delightful 75 degrees. Ah, Spring is in the air.
That was NOT the case this Sunday in Abington, Virginia! Ha! There was 4 inches of snow, the wet sticky kind, where you can build giant snowmen! Mother Nature was having a little fun for the Virginia Creeper Marathon this past Sunday. I hope to have some good pictures of the conditions of the race in my marathon review, when I get it put up on the website.
Jen P’s birthday was on Saturday and for her birthday we went to the ARCOTS conference in Johnson City, TN. This conference was for the teaching of statistics at the college level and included different ways to explain concepts and ideas using tradition and innovative techniques. Although the speakers were very good they were not given enough time for their presentations and so there was a lot of information left out. Hopefully that will be changed in the future.
School is going well. This past week has been fairly calm. But I have to gear up because this Friday, my 251 class is having a test and then next Thursday my 201 class is having their test. So mega-grading. I will still have my own homework to do up until exam time. This definitely was the hardest semester. YIKES!
Anyway, I have to run to get some more school work done. I am feeling the baby kick much more often and I can even see him kick every once and a while.
It has been a little while since I last updated this page, and I apologize for that. We received our crib, a gift from the Velases, on the 23rd which was a very generous gift. It looks great in the room too. Jen and I are very pleased.
Jen P was selected for jury duty during the week of the 24th. She had a case that lasted 4 days. Although she couldn’t eat or drink Or potty as often as she wanted to, I think that she had a decent time.
Running wise, I am still on track for the Virginia Creeper Marathon on March 30th. On March 1st I ran a 30k (18.7 mile) run in Roane county here in Tennessee. The course was a rollercoaster, there was no flat parts to it at all that were more than 0.1 mile. It wore me out. By mile 11, my time was starting to slip and at mile 13, I had to walk some. I still ended up with a decent time under 3 hours, but it was a painful process. The nice thing was that the food after the race was wonderful! I was very pleased.
School is going well. I am extremely busy this semester and right now I have 2 take home exams that I need to be working on. Classes are fairly interesting and am learning alot. Speaking of class, I better go to do some homework.
So far UT has been closed one and half times this semester because of snow. On Wednesday night we got about 6 inches or so of the white stuff here in the Knoxville area. In addition to the snow, there has been a jet stream that has been pushing artic air way down south, even as far as Florida. This means that it has been bone-chillin’ cold. Of course, this is nothing for the northerners who are used to the cold over the winter, but Knoxville gets pretty mild winters with only one week that it is very cold (~20F). Skip doesn’t like the snow very much but we captured some of his play time on the video camera.
This is the second week of classes and the work is being piled on from both the classes that I am attending and the ones that I am a teaching assistant . I have two classes that I am a teaching assistant for this semester. One is the class that I TAed for last semester, the Introduction to Statistics for engineers and the other class is the Introduction to Statistics for Business Majors. The classes that I am a student for are listed below. The theory class is an extension of last semesters theory class, while the regression class is a full semester about regression. My Design of Experiment class is a full load by itself, I have a mid week assignment that is given on Tuesday and is Due on Thursday, plus a Homework assignment that is given on Thursday and due the next Tuesday, so it is a ton of work, but I hope to get a lot out of the class.
I have to call Devaney because he should of had his qualifying flying exam to get his personal pilot’s license. I’ll keep you posted. Hmmm… I think I will go have lunch now…
01/05/2003
We got back from our whirlwind tour. It was a long drive back, but it was safe nonetheless. The only problem was the sun being so shining that it made it a little difficult to drive.
I have done a ton of stuff to the website. I have changed the menu bar (if you haven’t been here in a while, then a menu bar is completely new!). I am trying to make the website easier for me to edit, as I found out doing the editing for this version, that I was a bit unorganized. So hopefully, no global changes to my website for a while.
School starts on the 13th, so I need to get a bunch of errands done before I have to jump with both feet into school. I don’t know how this whole daddy thing is going to work with school, but I will figure it out.
I think that I will start training for the Virginia Creeper Marathon at the end of March. It is close enough that I could make a day trip out of it, if I have to. The nice thing about it is that it is CLOSE and CHEAP, of course entries are limited to only 100 runners, so timing is of the utmost importance.
12/19/02
Christmas Time is here! We have had our tree up for a couple weeks now and everyday we have a random selection of Christmas songs playing on the CD player. Ah Festive! Christmas Vacation, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Karloff Style), A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life are just a few of my favorite holiday movies.
We are looking forward to seeing all of our friends and family this holiday season!
I got my grades back for the semester and for the FIRST time in my life I managed to get straight “A”s! I am so excited. I did put a lot of work into, so I was really glad that it paid off, especially since I thought that I BOMBED ( I Did) one of my exams.
I find that even though I am spending more time in front of the computer, I am getting less fun stuff and more work done, but that should be the case. Unfortunately, I have not been able to keep this site updated like I wanted to.
Classes for me are going well. This week is the week where the second test of the semester are given, so I am in the middle of them. So far my grades aren’t too bad, but this is when it is supposed to be easy right? My Teaching Assistantship is going well, I am doing a bunch of grading, but I am pretty pleased that it has not been interfering too much with my studies.
Marathon training is slacking a little. I have not put in the miles that I wanted, but I am getting the pace that I was hoping for. Maybe I won’t be so burnt out by the time the marathon comes around, which is only a few weeks away. It looks like I am going to break the 500 mile mark for the year at the pace that I am going!
I had to get into this whole school thing before I had a chance to update my website. Luckily enough, the computers here at UT have Front Page and FTP, so it may not be so long between updates! YAY!
Well, let me update on school, since it is the biggest, newest thing right now. I am taking 10 hours (or 3 3credit courses and 1 1credit course) and working as a teaching assistant for a undergraduate Probability and Statistics for Engineers class. So far, the classes have been really good and the homework, not too bad, but still challenging. I am definitely the oldest person in my office (in Glocker) but what did you expect.
The ferrets are all doing well. Skip is great, active as always. He doesn’t care for being home by himself for so long, but we are playing with him in the morning and evening. If we could just harness his energy!
Soccer, my outdoor team won the tournament for the summer session, and I have the Tshirt to prove it!
Marathon training is going okay. I really have not had a set routine on getting miles in, so we will see how that is going. I was injured at the end of August and did not run for about a week. I had gotten hit in the ankle and it was pretty tender for a while.
Well, wrapping up for now…
