As usual, this Christmas was a time of getting together and celebrating. There were several parties with family and friends, and hundreds of pictures. I've tried to select the best of them to share here.
For my 25th birthday, my family and a few friends had a midnight chilli dog party and jam session. I also got a sweet present. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.
During the past semester, my office has created a series of community art drawings. The process is as follows:
Some of them are weird some of them are cool. I think it was a fun and interesting project.
Each day we get up, go out into the world, and have a myriad of experiences. Some experiences are planned and foreseen, maybe even rehearsed. Others are surprises, and come without warning, maybe even change or disrupt those that were planned. I've always been one to like those surprise unplanned events that crop up and force us to re-evaluate our plans and think on our feet. Each experience has a unique effect on us. Some are small and forgotten almost immediately.
In keeping with last year's and 2009's tradition, I invited a guest for Thanksgiving. And this time it wasn't a guy! Over the summer I met a girl named Maggie while I was teaching at CTY, and kept in contact with her after summer ended. She came to visit first for Labor Day, and we recently started officially dating. I don't get to see her often because she lives in Massachusetts, but this Thanksgiving worked out perfectly for a visit. Enjoy the pictures.
It all started last November. I sat in my second floor office at the University of Toledo chatting with my classmates and refreshing the weather forecast on my computer. As Late afternoon gave way to evening, I glanced at my motorcycle helmet, and stood to look out the office window yet again. The skies were still gray as they had been for the past several hours and a steady drizzle continued to fall over the campus.
One of my hobbies is riding and restoring, and maintaining motorcycles. I've not been trained to do it, but I learn as I go, and I enjoy learning things as I need them, so I've decided to share what I know. Today, I'm changing the brake fluid on my Yamaha Maxim XJ700.
After my Asheville trip and the warrior dash, I started the longest leg of my summer travel by taking a mega bus to Chicago where I met up with George and Kristin Visser and Anne Fennema (again!). We drove to St Louis and picked up Sarah Dugan and then headed on to Gallup, New Mexico for David Dornbos III and Jesi Hale's wedding. The pictures will tell the story.
After the wedding, I headed on to LA for about ten days, but I couldn't find my camera while I was there so I didn't manage to get any pictures of that part.
After last year's wrong turn at the SoCal warrior dash, I figured I'd have another go at it. So several of my classmates and I went down to Logan, Ohio to compete. I wasn't in as good of shape as last year, so I didn't really have much of a shot of winning it this time. Everyone had a good time despite getting caught in traffic on the course. The best part was probably barreling down a mudslide hill falling all over the place and taking out the slower crew from the previous heat.
