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| 2008-06-17 16:36 |
| Two Minute Post |
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 accomplished |
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I have two minutes. Stuff that's been going on:
Bought Rita's grandparents' car. Sold Gerald. Took LSAT again yesterday. Nearly got lost going there and arrived three minutes before test was scheduled to begin. I think I did OK. Work is "not fun," moreso than normal, but that's life. Rita's beautiful. Jubilee has a real naughty streak, but I love her dearly.
And that, my friends, is that. Must go now.
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| 2008-06-05 10:17 |
| Money |
| Public |
| Work |
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| money |
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Insurance is going up 60 bucks per paycheck. We'll now be paying almost 550 per month for health and dental... Yikes, yikes, yikes.
That's a heck of a lot of money.
Stupid smokers and fat (obese, really) people run it up for our group policy. Bah.
Oh well.
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I know it's been a while when my saved draft is something about our income tax return....
I figured I'd better say something. Seems like no one's been posting today.
Stuff that's been going on:
Studying for the LSAT. Been somewhat consistent with that for a while.
Becoming edumacated on real estate. Seriously considering investment properties (I think that's the buzzword). I know a few of you have done that. Any suggestions? hehe, as if there isn't a world to learn from books... Any book suggestions?
I've been temporarily reassigned to communications at work. Documentation, specifically. Apparently, I can write. Bwaha! So, I'm a technical writer for now. It's OK, but not something I would want to do forever. It gets kind of boring. But, it's a change, and I can listen to music while explaining our complex navigation structure, so it works. And I've learned tons about MediaWiki (the guts behind Wikipedia). Cool program. Right now, they're not planning to open the "Wiki" up to the public (calling it a "manual" instead). I think that will tick off enough people that they'll eventually have to open it. I hope so. I certainly don't think our tech writers (even me) are the absolute most authoritative ever on our software.
Our rental house (one we're renting from someone else, not an investment), is working out fairly well. Cheap and a good location. That sums it up.
Yup.
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| 2008-01-26 10:02 |
| About Jubilee and Our House, and Wrapped Challenges |
| Public |
| Home |
| accomplished--I posted! |
| boggle, house, jubilee, rita |
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A couple of Jubilee notes to remember:
First, she took her first real steps this week. I stood her up in front of Rita and she took one step, caught her balance, and put her other foot forward and planted it before lunging to Rita.
Second, she's definitely trying to talk. And succeeding, to an extent. She says "mamamama" and "dadadada," for sure, though we were wondering if they were just lucky babbles. Rita says that she's heard me coming home from work and will start saying "dadada," so she's pretty sure that she knows what that means. Then today, I was trying to amuse her with the doll, Seisei (Rita named her. It's pronounced "say-say") that she got from Shelley for Christmas while she grumpily got her diaper changed. After she was done, Rita went to wash her hands and I continued to play with Jubilee and the doll. I said to her, "Say 'Seisei.' It's 'Seisei.'" She put her tongue near the front of her mouth, obviously thinking about it, and said "see-see-see." I went and showed Rita to make sure I wasn't dreaming things. She was definitely doing it on purpose. My kid's a genius.
Our house is pretty much together now. Rita's decorating skills rock. The setup of the pictures and everything is great. I think she has a gift.
The house is nice. I like it. I think it definitely will serve the main purpose we were hoping: saving money. But it's not a dump, it's in a good place, and Rita and Jubilee seem to have adjusted well.
Oh, unrelated to any of that... I have a new love in my life. Well, it's a spin on an old love. I've been a Boggle nerd for probably 7-9 years now. Recently, the site I used to play at all the time (http://joggle.pixelsharp.com --I knew that from memory) became unstable, so one of the players there created a new site: http://www.joggleland.com . It was basically the same at first, except that it doesn't crash for extended periods. But then, one of the players had an idea. I thought it would be impossible, but the guy who made the site implemented it within a day or two. Instead of "normal" Boggle where you find words adjacent to each other only, in this version, when you get to an edge of the board, you can jump to the opposite side (wrap around) and continue there. It adds an entirely new complexity and dimension to the game. More long words can be found (longer words are worth more points). I just love it. It's definitely a mind-stretcher for me. It seems more like an LSAT logic game in the way it makes me think. The old way seems too simplistic now. Of course, my high the old way on an amazing board was 430something. My high on this new way is only 215. So it is harder. But then, I've played far fewer games. Anyway, if you like Boggle, check it out. It's great.
Lots to do today. Farewell.
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I'm not studying today. Or tomorrow. The test is Saturday and I'm giving my brain a much needed (apparently) rest. My studying has not been as thorough as I would have liked, nor as successful (thus far in practice, anyway), but given the circumstances, I think I'm about as ready as I could be. We'll see!
The test itself doesn't worry me too much... The worst I've done in recent memory was yesterday (159, 81st percentile). But while that certainly wasn't pleasant for me when I was expecting something like one of my higher scores of 167, it's not the end of the world. If I bomb the test and do even worse than that, it's STILL not the end of the world. I'll just retake it next year and go to law school the year after. But I doubt that will happen. I'll probably get a score in the 160's. Maybe even the upper 160's. If I'm really sharp, maybe I'll actually hit my 172 goal (possible still, but unprecedented for me). My brain was very fried yesterday, so that lower score is to be expected. I was so out of it that I actually forgot to check my work email even ONCE before leaving. I've never done that before. Anyway, I'm not worried about it. It would have been nice to end on a high note (like a 175), but hey, that didn't happen. The mistakes I made that dragged my score down were, well, stupid mistakes. Adding the word "not" in for one logic game was the main problem (made me get but one question wrong therein, and take forever because the game questions didn't make sense [odd what a misplaced negation will do to a logic game]), but I'm glad it happened yesterday and not Saturday. I don't think I'd make that same mistake when not fatigued. Regardless, one way or the other, I must go on from here.
Given the exhausted brain, today we went hiking instead of me studying. It's unlikely that any study now will help, so it's better to be mentally fresh rather than worn out. Hiking felt gooood. Miss Jubilee was very tired and fell asleep in the backpack. She enjoyed the hiking anyway, I think. She seemed to be having a good time when she was awake. Though she usually looks rather serious when we're walking somewhere. Much to look at and take in.
After we had finished hiking and came back to the car, I decided to get some vitamin D. So despite the 40 degree weather, I took everything off but my shorts and laid down in the parking lot and sunbathed for the first time in my life. For about 15 minutes. No tan, just some vitamin D. I was cold somewhat, but not horribly so. Though I did have goosebumps all over my body. hehe. The five or six cars that drove by probably thought I was insane. That's OK, because Rita did too (but she didn't mind--she said).
Then we went to Wal-Mart. I'm notoriously bad at picking people out in a crowd, apparently. Rita says that when I was looking for her, I looked RIGHT at her, then turned and went down another aisle trying to find her. Ah well. I did get a sweatshirt for $5. Btw, Rita is the best self-checker-outer I've ever seen. She was wary of doing it when we first got married, but now she's much quicker than me. I look like a fumbling idiot next to her, and I'm not bad! She's just an expert from experience, methinks. We like Wal-Mart.
We're leaving for Kansas City, MO tomorrow. Our good friend Elizabeth Swetnam is marrying some guy she must think is decent enough for her. I hope he's good enough. His name is Cable Doll. Or Caleb Dahl. Something like that. Lucky dude. Not as lucky as me, of course, but still, remarkably lucky. It's always amazing how goofballs like us can convince not just a girl's father and mother that we're "good enough," but an actual GIRL that we're not morons, or morons decent enough to marry. Fun times.
Of course, that being said, I must confess that the LSAT is my main focus on this trip (:-D). Sorry to the happy couple. They're secondary this trip. But the nice thing is that I'll take my test Saturday morning, then be DONE with it and be able to enjoy their wedding and all the rest of the day.
I'm not really worried about the fact that I'm taking the test in another state. Heck, I'm not really worried about the test pretty much at all. The drive doesn't scare me in large part because I'm not going to be driving most of it. Rita is going to drive for me. It'll be weird not to be in the driver's seat most of a trip, as I usually drive nearly the whole time, but it'd be bad for me to be utterly exhausted from driving 8 hours straight. So I'll probably relax to some music most of the drive and let my wife slave over the wheel. I'm so horrible. But I'll drive back.
I must say, it feels lazy to not be studying. Ah well.
OK, I'm going to go continue not studying now. I'm going to find some Bach fugues to listen to. Good for the brain.
Farewell.
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I really didn't make one, but I'm breaking it anyway. It's been over two months since I posted anything. Long time.
So yeah. Stuff that's happening:
Law: If you haven't heard, and it's entirely likely that you haven't, I'm going to be a lawyer. Yes, this is the second time I've said that on here (at least). But this time it's for real. I've made up my mind strongly and have taken substantial steps to make sure that I don't change my mind again. It's a good decision and I'm going to stick to it. Among those steps are telling my wife that I'm not going to change my mind. To me, that's the strongest reason not to change my mind. But, there are other things as well.
LSAT: related to the last item, naturally, the LSAT is consuming most of my "free" time right now. It's a bear of a test. I've taken about 7 practices so far. High (so far) is 164 (~92nd percentile), low was 156 (~70th, :-P, but it was taken very late in the evening...). I've got a long way to go, the test is December 1, but I am seeing some improvement. My aim (honestly) is 170+ (98th). I really think I can get there.
Jubilee: For those who read my wife's LJ, you know that she's cuter than all the other babies in the world. Don't argue; I don't care how cute you think your kid is. Mine is cuter. She's also smart. Kazoo playing, learning to crawl before 6 months, stand at 6.5 months, and learning how to bite dad for sticking his finger in her mouth on Sunday... yup. She's a smart kid.
Volleyball: I've played this more lately because our pastor purchased a volleyball net (a fairly good one, too) and has been setting up games. It's been a lot of fun.
Ankles: My ankles are doing better. I was worried I might have to have reconstructive surgery, but the doctor telling me that motivated me to do ankle exercises recommended by my physical therapist father-in-law. They seem to be a ton stronger and better in general. I still can't jog due to a stupid tendon that gets inflamed in my right foot, but I no longer have stabbing pain from minor things like stepping to the right, and my ankles don't give way so easy.
Rita: As wonderful as ever. I'd say that I don't deserve her, and I don't, but she really is amazingly suited to be my wife. How I got her still amazes me. God is good.
That's about it!
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You can stop crying, it isn't your fault; Rita isn't online right now because our internet connection is currently down. We only had it a land line for our internet connection. But they no longer require one for that. But because of the change, they have to take down our internet temporarily to make us sorry for bothering them.
The upside is that when it's back up we'll have free internet (I get it through my work). And we'll also have two new cell phones, to replace our current old one. These phones take pictures. Cool, eh? And it may actually be cheaper than having the old cell phone and land line, though I won't know that until they bill us and show how much rent we're paying the government per phone. The downside is that Rita is pretty much cut off from the internet right now and can't comment on the Dove's cute baby pictures. Alas. I miss her comments already. But she'll probably catch up today at her parents'.
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I think everyone at work today is half-dead. I am too, and I didn't do any drinking last night.
We did eat too much puppy-chow, since we didn't go to the mostly-rained-out picnic a friend was having.
We also went to see Live Free or Die Hard. It was about what I expected, maybe even a little better, so I was happy about that. Certainly not a movie that will strain your brain, but it's entertaining.
Then it rained. And rained. And rained. The fireworks display was rescheduled for tonight. I hope we can see it, though we might not get to since we may be driving to St. Louis tonight.
Hm. This isn't going anywhere. I should probably delete it, but I think I'll just post. So there.
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Check out this video. It's a really cool optical illusion.
Note: you do not need to turn up the volume on your speakers.
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| 2007-06-11 11:49 |
| Chemistry |
| Public |
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I started Chemistry 151 today (General Chemistry). Looks to be an exciting, yet busy, summer. I'm looking forward to it.
I think I'll like my chemistry teacher over all. He seems to have common sense, isn't overly restrictive, and yet isn't too permissive either. (i.e., he DID give a guy a tardy for showing up 20 minutes into the class).
He did do one thing to annoy me already, though. He said that he wishes the government would speed up their environmental initiatives (lower emissions, etc), but then later asked who drove a gas-guzzling big truck--like him. So he wants the government to enforce these regulations on everyone, but he doesn't want to follow them himself. Bah.
It should be an interesting summer.
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| What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works.
It's okay. I understand. | | Science/Math Nerd | | | Drama Nerd | | | Musician | | | Social Nerd | | | Artistic Nerd | | | Gamer/Computer Nerd | | | Anime Nerd | | What Be Your Nerd Type?
Quizzes for MySpace |
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| 2007-03-03 08:42 |
| My mom always said that I'd be something great... |
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| Home |
 amused |
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President of the US, doctor, or anti-christ... same dif, right?
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My book list this month is very poor. A tenth of the amount I finished last month. Sad. But I've been busy. :-P Here are my paltry three:
1. How Should We Then Live?, Francis Schaeffer
This book was phenomenal. I really enjoyed it. Rita's dad highly recommended it and it certainly deserved the accolades. I'm sure I'll read it again at some point.
2. Once upon a More Enlightened Time: More Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, James Finn Garner
This almost shouldn't count. Very short. It was amusing, but, uh, I don't remember almost anything from it other than enjoying some more than others. Just amusing short stories.
3. The Ball and the Cross, G.K. Chesterton
Like The Man Who Was Thursday, the ending was Confusing. But it was interesting, anyway. Strange, but interesting. Manalive, last month, was my favorite Chesterton book thus far. Then The Man Who Knew Too Much.
I also read portions of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Flying Inn, but I haven't yet finished either.
And I'm currently reading, for the first time, Till We Have Faces. It was very sad when I left it at Rita's parents' two nights ago after flying through the first 50+ pages. But I have it back now, and I'm happily devouring it again. Everyone told me that I'll love it. So, I'm reading it.
*sigh* So many books, so little time.
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I've been working on a project at work for the past month. I finally finished today! Woohoo! Now I'll finally have a bit of "free time" between calls and all. I'm so happy.
In other news, we have named out daughter. Jubilee Mary Joiner is doing very well as far as we can tell. Rita's measuring right at 30 weeks, her heartbeat is good and strong, and she kicks around in there a lot now. Fun stuff. It's really nice to have a name for her now and know that that's HER name. Now that I know that she's a "she" and has a name, I'm having visions of my daughter getting married and stuff. It's weird to think that far in the future and realize that it'll probably be upon me before I know it.
In other news... I failed to mention this here, because I've failed to mention just about anything here, but we went to Chicago last weekend. It was a lot of fun to go up in the John Hancock building, to see the city, and to meet more of Rita's family. I also played a bunch of pool with Chris and Matt, watched a basketball game, drove around in Chicago traffic one day, and ate doughnuts at breakfast one morning.
Then there was a weird experience that I want to relate: Rita had set up a meeting with one of her friends who recently got married and moved up there. I dropped Rita off at her house and was to meet up with her again in two hours or so. So, I went what was supposed to be "five miles" to a road that has tons of businesses and shops. It ended up being about thirty minutes from their house and more like ten miles of Chicago traffic. The last I heard when I left, Rita and Erica were going to some coffee shop just down the road from where they were. So I thought I was thirty minutes from her (and was mentally planning that as to when I'd have to leave to pick her up). I leisurely drove around and at last decided to stop at a Borders. I spent a while in there, buying a Chesterton book I had never heard of (Wells and Shallow), and decided to find somewhere for lunch. I really like Panera, so when I saw a Panera, my decision was made. I ordered like normal, got my food, and was going to sit down to read by the fireplace. There were two easy chairs by it, so I was trying to decide which would be better. They were right next to each other, but one was closer to a couple of girls at a table. So, I decided on the other so as not to be distracted by them enthusiastically gesticulating and chattering away. I sat down in said other chair and realized that though the other was closer, it would probably be preferable because this chair was facing them while the other was not. I stood up and was going to go to the other chair when I actually focused on one of the girls at the other table. I think that I thought she was pretty. I realized that she looked exactly like Rita. I was stunned, thinking at first, "That girl has an amazing resemblance..." because I knew that Rita couldn't be there. Then I looked at the other girl and realized it was Erica. Then Rita looked at me and I knew it was her. We ended up having a good laugh over it. I really think that it was one of the oddest moments in my life. It probably sounds less funny in writing, but at the moment, all I could think was, "Wow, God has a sense of humor!" I really enjoyed it.
On the way home, Rita's Dad and I alternated driving as we both listened to the Bears game on the radio, banged our fist at the same times, and remarked about how bad of a job the announcer was doing. We were both a bit bummed that we couldn't watch it, but it sure made the drive back go by faster! And the Bears won, so it's all good.
And now we're all home again and life is back in its regular schedule for now. In about two months, our "regular schedule" will be altered mightily, but for now, things have slowed down again.
Life is Good.
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Rita and I are going to have a baby girl. We weren't planning to find out, but did by accident during a "just for fun" ultrasound on Sunday. It was rather obvious to both of us, so we asked the doctor to confirm it for us. Now we know, so baby Psmith is baby Psmith no longer. Right now she's just daddy's (or mommy's) little girl, until we give her a name.
I'm excited. :-D
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| 2007-01-13 10:02 |
| A Meme... |
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| Home |
 lazy |
| memes |
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1.What is in the back seat of your car right now?
Two pair of socks, and probably some other stuff. I haven't taken inventory. I just noticed the socks yesterday.
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| 2007-01-11 11:11 |
| Heartbeat |
| Public |
| Work |
 jubilant |
| baby |
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This file is my child's hearbeat. A truly amazing sound. I love hearing it. :-)
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| 2006-12-29 19:14 |
| Erin is a Dork |
| Public |
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Just so you know. The "Erinator" lives.
007Jake
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| 2006-12-12 19:55 |
| Learning Experiences |
| Public |
 contemplative |
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The post Rita made earlier and the resulting prayers were greatly appreciated. I would still appreciate your prayers, but I don't think it's as grave now as it was then. I no longer think that it's likely that I will lose my job. If I do, I'll be surprised. I don't want to get into it all here, but I think that basically it was my fault and I had a lesson to learn. I hope that I have learned and that I'm a better Christian and employee for it.
I should mention that I have an excellent wife and a very wise mother-in-law. I'm very thankful for them both.
Thanks for the prayers.
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busy