HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRACIE!!!!

Hooray! My wife is 25!~ I love you, Tracie. Hope your birthday is AWESOME, and I'll do everything I can to help it along!

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Tis the end

Yet I have so far to still go.

The semester is OVER!!! Haaaaaallelujah! Haaaaaallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Ha-lehey, lu-jah! I really enjoyed all my classes, very much so, but I'm so glad they're over. No more taking pictures, staying at school til 10 with my hands smelling like developer. No more stressing over group members getting their 10% of our assignment done, (until next time). No more writing about topics I don't find interesting or care about. (My last required writing class, but I plan to take 1 or 2 creative writing electives eventually). So I repeat,
HAAAAAAAAAALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm looking forward to this summer, only ONE class, and it's a P.E. 2 credit get out of jail free class. One day a week, for like 2 months. However, come fall I'll be taking 4 classes, so I'll possibly be LESS sane and MORE busy than you're accustomed to. Not only that, I'll be a DADDY! Morgan is coming in less than 2 months!!!! Aieeeee! I'm so excited to see him and hold him.

But, with less class, I'll probably be blogging more, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, you decide. Nebraska post forthcoming soon, I promise. Proomise.

Hope all is well in your little corner of the world, whether you're done with school, you're kids are done, or both, have a great summer!

ABC Mee

Tracie facebook tagged me, and I don't know enough of facebook to respond there, plus I've been rather lax at blogging lately.

It's me in ABC's. You can do it too.

A - Age: 27 and 8 days

B - Bed size: queen with a wonderful mattress topper

C - Chore you hate: All of them

D - Dog's name: Never had one. If I did, I'd name him Alouicious. Or Gizmo.

E - Essential start your day item: Shower

F - Favorite color(s): Red

G - Gold or Silver: Gold!!!!

H - Height: 6'1 1/2" (depending on what leg I'm standing on)

I - Instruments you play: Once upon a time, piano, trumpet and french horn. Now, my voice if I'm lucky. Or nothing, if you're lucky.

J - Job title: Technical Support Representative

K - Kid(s): one on the way (6 weeks left!)

L - Living arrangements: fourplex apt (for now)

M - Mom's name: Alice

N - Nicknames: Aust, Ozzie, Austintatious, Awesome Austin

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: the longest was about a month during chemo

P - Pet Peeve: the word "peeve," and people who don't flush after themselves in public toilets.

Q - Quote from a movie: "You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles."

R - Right or left handed: leftopotamus

S - Siblings: 4

T - Time you wake up: 7:31

U- Underwear: clean. magical.

V - Vegetable you dislike: chard.

W - Workout style: walking and yoga

X - X-rays you've had: chest, teeth, leg.

Y - Yesterday's best moment: being DONE with the semester!!!

Z - Zoo favorite: monkeys and snakes

Happy Birthday to me!!

I'm back from Nebraska and as spry as ever! 27 years old, and lookin' good!

I found this picture, the 27th on google when I searched for "April 20." I'll have a Nebraska post up soon!

BRB

I'll be in Nebraska for the weekend. My best friend Justin is getting married and I'm going to help him celebrate, wish him well, etc.

It will be the second time in our marriage that I'll be away from Tracie. :'(

I shall return triumphantly/abundantly on Sunday, hopefully with a post that will knock your socks off. Or at least roll them down the ankles a bit.

Happy Easter!

The Worst is over, the most work is yet to come

I finally had my human sexuality presentation. The thing I've been procrastinating all semester. The best thing I can say about it is it's over.

So my group decided to do Sexual Humor as our topic, which you'd think would be really funny, right? Sorry, no. I'm so sick of it I don't think I'm going to write much on it, suffice to say I did 80-90% of the work, so I guess I have myself to blame.

I've never done powerpoint before, but the guy who said he would do it bailed out so I figured no better time to learn than the present. I got 50/50 on that, and was rather pleased with myself.

What bugged me was my group either a) copied some jokes and facts off the internet for their part of the presentation, b) bailed on us, c) didn't listen to anything I said and so waited until TEN MINUTES BEFORE CLASS to give me their slides they wanted to talk about, and then proceed to talk for 15 minutes on their topic, that had next to NOTHING to do with sex or humor, and the whole presentation was supposed to be around 15 minutes long. '

Sigh.

Like I said, it's over, and good riddance. Now I just have to focus on writing my English research paper, 10 page rough draft due on Wednesday. Wish me luck, and at least I'll get practice at not sleeping before the baby arrives.

Nice guys finish Eighth

With the timely removal of my least favorite Idol, I feel ready to post an update on my Idol thoughts and feelings.

For those of you uninterested in my opinions on America's #1 spectacle, feel free to skip it, as those who read this will take a quiz at the end. And if you fail the quiz-- well, you do not want to fail.

Scott is gone, after wowing us with his versatility week after week, has finally gone the way of all the earth, led by Ryan Seacrest, and a special kick in the butt by Simon.

He is a nice guy, I'm not saying he isn't. I'm saying nice guys finish 8th, and when all you can do is sing boring song after boring song, it's time to go home and sing boringly.

And what was with his stupid comment? After Paula (or Paula Jr. I mean Kara) said "who knew you could play the guitar?" Scott responded "I was being Punk rock." That's equivalent of David Archuleta singing one of his heartfelt ballads with a message and then professing that was his take on Death Metal. That may have lost Scotty boy the votes right there. I though Paula was the one who said the stupid lines, so well done, Scotty. Now off you go. No, that way. No. Not there. Someone help him outta here. Theeeeeeeeeerrrrre it is.


My big surprise so far this year has been my transforming feelings towards Adam Lambert. At first, I hated him. HATED. The sound, the face, the demeanor. But he's grown on me week after week (not counting the abysmal Egyptian-stripper rendering of "Ring of Fire") and just keeps getting better.

Danny Gokey peaked too early, he's good, but not improving. He's almost stagnating in my opinion.

Lil Rounds just needs to go. Haul that booty out of there.

Still love Allison Iraheta, hope she gets the judges saving vote if she needs it.

Kris Allen is probably my second or third favorite. He's a complete package artist. And talented too. Plus, the whole neglect by the producers thing seems to be working in his favor.

Matt is good, but not as good as the judges say (no one really is, ok, Lil, Danny and Matt aren't. Adam and Allison are) or as good as he thinks.

Anoop is probably next to go, I'll be sad, but glad Allison has survived another week.

My big gripe this year is there STILL hasn't been a stellar, knock your socks off, icon making moment for anyone yet. No Archuleta "Imagine," no Cook "Billie Jean," not even a McPhee "Over the Rainbow." But, we still got 7 weeks or so left. Let's hope they get their acts together and wow us the way we want to be wowed.

How are YOU liking Idol this year, those of you who watch?

Das Boot

At our reading group this month, we, as usual, were the last to leave. We stayed over visiting with our friends until almost midnight.

And we got booted.

They live in one of those wonderful apartment building patrolled by those less fortunate than us college students, and booted our vehicle. I knew I should have parked in handicapped.

I was understandably grouchy at first, but then I thought this poor sucker who has to go around booting and unbooting cars probably has it a bit rougher than me, so I decided to be nice to him. (It was a rare moment for me) We visited a little, he told me there are some people who just don't learn, one person he's booted four times this month already.

I'll be parking in handicapped from now on, even if it's further (farther?) away from where I'm going, at least I can't get in trouble. The sole perk of being handicapped: parking.

Still, I've lived in Provo/Orem closing on 6 years now, and it's the first time I've been booted. I'll take that as an accomplishment. Now to make sure it's the last time...

Sleeping Beauty

I thought this one deserved its own post.

Photography 101

Here are some of the pictures I took for Photography.

Remember the comment I made about what my peers said about my photos? I don't expect you to sing my praises or patronize my pics, but some kind of comment would be appreciated. Try to keep it between "You're the most amazing photographer ever!" and "Wow, you sure held that camera still, kinda! Good for you little buddy!"

Still life photo I took. Inspired by Sermon on the mount. Yes, I'm weird.

Portrait of Tracie. I wanted to convey that she is the light of my life, I think I more conveyed that I'm not the best at developing photos. Beautiful subject though, yes?

We had to take a picture of the way we feel about our lives right now. I was having a bad week at the time, so I walked through some snow for awhile and took a picture of it, trying to show confusion and a feeling of being lost.

Conceptual self portrait. Tracie took the pictures, I developed them. We're studying developing techniques now, as you can see. I'm looking forward to tonight, more than I'm looking forward to finishing my human sexuality powerpoint presentation or my 10 page English paper. Go fig.

Sneak Preview

We're really excited to be parents and see little Morgan, even if we still can't decide on a middle name. (Semi-finalists are Sean, Justin, James, and Danger).

We couldn't wait any longer, so Tracie and I decided to get one of those fancy schmancy 3-D ultrasounds to see our little guy from the inside. Kind of a sneak preview before the official release.


Final verdict: worth the money, super cute, and a little creepy (the process, not the baby)


What do YOU think? (honesty re: baby pictures is perfectly acceptable, until he's born.)