Image hosting by Photobucket

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Happy Birthday Becky!!!! (This last week)



Another week or so has flown by. This last week was Becky's Birthday but sadly we were not able to celebrate very wildly. We both worked till 6 or so and then I had to go to scouts at 7. That did not leave much time to do anything else. By the time I got home from scouts we were too tired to go do anything. Hopefully I'll be able to make up for it by celebrating every day. :-)

We had another training class for Riley this last week. It was another session where Riley did everything we asked him too so there was not much training to be done. The trainer brought his dog along but Riley did not have any problems with it. We believe it was because this dog was a German Shepherd and was usually used to help train aggressive dogs. Riley was a little intimidated by it. Our trainer was so impressed by how well Riley obeyed that he asked us for permission to video him so he could put him on his training website. I'll post a link once the video is uploaded.

Other then that I started training this week for my new position. So far so good but I haven't been able to do too much since I'm still working my other job too. It will be a nice change. I'm going to finish this now so I can post this and not just have it as a draft for several weeks.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Alaska Glaciers


Alaska Glaciers
Originally uploaded by anyoungkevin
Yeahh! I sold my first photo on a site called Red Bubble. I'm racking in the money now. I made 45 cents. :-)

http://www.redbubble.com/people/photokevin/art/168248-1-glaciers-in-alaska

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

It's always "Kevin, Kevin, Kevin"

Congratulations to Kevin!! He got a new job! He'll still be working at Crowe Chizek but is moving out of the computer support center and will be heading up Crowe's new SharePoint Server. He'll be in charge of designing and maintaining the system for the entire company! It's a pay raise, better career track, and he doesn't have to work on weekends anymore! We can actually plan day trips now. He officially starts November 1, but begins training October 1. I'm so proud of him! Because of the new job, he's holding off on applying to MBA programs for a year or two. He's still planning on taking the GMAT though. We're both really excited for his new job. Kevin has also been contacted by someone wanting to use one of his pictures on Flickr for a book he's writing on PhotoShop. In exchange, he'll give Kevin a free copy of the book. Go Kevin!

Happy birthday to my mom! She celebrated her 35th birthday this week. :) Here's to many more!

As for Riley, he's still doing great. We had our second obedience class last week, which was a bit of a waste of time. Riley does great around humans. He listens to us and obeys, even with distractions. Jeff, the trainer, tried to distract Riley from his sit and stay command by bouncing a ball by him or calling to him, but Riley stayed put. He even stayed when Kevin would leave the building. Jeff skipped ahead to training weeks three and four, and Riley passed them all within half an hour. After that, Jeff was out of ideas. We spent the rest of the time talking and playing with Riley. Kevin showed Jeff all of Riley's tricks. Jeff wants to video tape Riley at our next class as a demo for his website. Riley's a very smart dog; his major failing is with other dogs. He loves to socialize with other dogs, and he'll completely ignore you when he's with another dog. That's where we need the most help. For our next class, Jeff is bringing a "distraction" dog so we can work on Riley's problem.

I attended another agility class last week. I think our neighbor wanted company more than anything, so I went. I took Kevin's camera with me and took some fun pictures of the dogs. The trainer was impressed with the pictures and would like us to take more for her website and brochure. In exchange, she's willing to reduce the price of classes. Once Riley passes obedience school, we'll sign him up for the agility classes. Riley and I have been walking in the mornings with our neighbor and his dog Gretchen. He's been teaching Riley some of the agility tricks (actually, Riley tends to follow Gretchen around and does whatever she does). Riley does really well with the jumps- I can't wait to get him to the real obstacle courses.

As for me, not much is new. I'm still working a lot, and classes are keeping me busy. I have been getting my exercise- Riley's walks last up to an hour and a half now that we're walking with our neighbor and his dog. The park near our house is beautiful and very big. We mostly let the dogs wander around off leash as we walk around the park. I had a check up with my allergist. He's baffled that I don't have any allergy symptoms even though I'm allergic to everything. He told me to count my blessings.

That's it for now.

Friday, September 14, 2007

My Dad Rocks!


Congratulations to my dad for being chosen as Brigham Young University's most outstanding graduate adviser! He won the Wesley P. Lloyd Award for Distinction in Graduate Education (here's a link to the news release
http://news.byu.edu/archive07-aug-univawards.aspx). I've included a picture of why he's such a top-notch adviser. This is an actual picture of my father taking a piggyback ride on his graduate student David Janetski's back. We were in Alaska, and my dad didn't want to take his waders with him even though he went fly fishing. So, he had his graduate student give him a ride across the river to the good fishing holes. The things advisers make their graduate students do! Congrats, dad!

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Notre Dame Shame

Well, the new school year has begun! I have three classes. Two of them are block classes though. So far I'm really liking them. It's a lot harder balancing class work and full time lab work than I initially thought; mostly because many of my experiments rely on the parasites' timing, not my own. I've been working late and on weekends, but I'm hoping things will calm down soon (I think I keep saying this every time I write an entry). I went to the Chicago Area Mycology and Parasitology (CAMP) meetings in Chicago on Friday and spent the whole day with my lab members. It was a very small and casual conference, and they provided free food. The conference itself wasn't too stimulating, but I did have a great time hanging out with my lab mates. Kevin's doing well. He's been working long hours and even has to go in on his days off. We don't get to see each other much. Plus, football season has started back up, so I'll be fighting for his attention until February. He got a new calling- he's now the cub master in our stake! I laughed so hard when I found that out, and laughed even harder when I heard he'd have to wear the boyscout uniform. I'm sure he'll do great as the cub master and may even enjoy it at times.

As for other events--Kevin and I did buy season football tickets to the Notre Dame games. Ouch. We went to the Georgia Tech game and left early. We didn't even bother watching the Penn State game. Right now we're trying to figure out how to recoup the cost of our tickets. Unfortunately, the University has revoked ticket exchanges for student tickets. I guess we'll just have to eat it.

Riley is still doing great. He started obedience training last Tuesday and did very well. The training uses collar corrections, which I don't really care for, so Kevin is the main trainer. I also sat in on an agility training class that a neighbor takes his dog to. He said he wanted me to see how it works, but I think he just wanted to show off how great his dog is. It was actually more fun to watch the different owners with their dogs; you can tell a lot about a person by watching them interact with their pets. I think Riley would really enjoy the classes; he'd like all the obstacles and socializing with the other dogs. I don't think we'll start it right away. It'd be too much for us to go to obedience school and agility school at the same time. I'm running on empty as it is. He's still growing, and I don't think he'll ever stop. Meanwhile, he acts like a lap dog. I'm still amazed at how smart he is (spoken like a true mother). Not much else is going on. Just work and Riley. But we're enjoying it!