Done: This is me

A week after I graduated from CSUSB I am finally able to post some pictures of the event. I have been so busy since graduation that I have not been able to post anything. What have I been busy doing? NOTHING just enjoying my family, it has been so nice. Usually I would have started summer school by now but not this year, instead I will be relaxing in my new back yard playing pool and watching the Angels win the AL West.

Did I mention that my wife graduatated with me, only she was a double major

My mom had to get a cake even though Porsha and I do not like cake. Bannana Cream pie next time please

Porsha painted this to make sure everyone knew what event they were at and who it was for

The tram after graduation actually took us further from our car.

No More: This is me

I am no longer a college student... I finished my college experience rather unceremoniously this afternoon. After arriving at school at around 8am I studied for 6 hours straight. Studying for six hours straight was not something I pictured myself doing on the last day of college, but that is exactly what I did. Then I walked into the lecture hall, sat down, and took the test. This next part did not go how I have imagined so many times before. When I was finished with the test I walked up to the front, turned in the test and walked out the door and to my car. I always that that I would do something crazy or high five someone...anyone. Instead I left the last class of my college carreer without a sound. Throughtout the day however I did have my little moments to savor the last day. I was in the chemistry study room I overheard several people talk about their school schedules next year. BioChem, P Chem, Linear Algebra ect. usually I would be involved in these conversations but today I just smiled to myself and thought of enjoying my summer and starting Pharm School in September.

Broken: This is Ava

I went to school yesterday early in the morning so that I could study all day for my A&P lab final. I did pretty good on it, at least I think... When I got home the plan was to study for the three finals that I had today. Of course that didn't happen, my wife wanted to go check out some stuff at Home Depot so we headed over there. 3 hours later we were on our way home with a truck full of stuff for our new place. While we were unloading the truck Ava screamed super loud, normally she is just being dramatic but this time she was screaming for a reason. My little girl broke her arm. We rushed her to the E.R. as fast we could.

They were great to Ava and even though she was in pain they did a great job. I know she is my daughter but personally I think Ava took the pain and shock better then anybody I have ever seen.

She is a little grumpy today but perfectly understandable. We were up all night so my three finals were a little rough to get through. The good news is that I only have one more final to go and then graduation!!

Hell Week

I just got done with work and now I am trying to study for an A & P lab final that I have later today and then 3 finals on Tuesday. The family is coming for our graduation so we are trying to have our new place unpacked and clean. I just keep on saying to myself that at this time next week I'll be chillin with nothing to do for 80+ days until I start pharmacy school. Another picture of our amazing place

The kitchen

The front of the house

Ava's bedroom

The huge back patio

A lime tree, Corona any one?

Ava helping with the move

Settling In

We are done! This morning I picked up the frig from the aprtment and that was it. Nothing remains of our old life we have started a new adventure in a new house. We love it, it feels so comfortable and relaxing just to sit back and enjoy our new place. This week has been crazy we packed everything into the U-Haul on Friday. Then on Saturday we unloaded the truck and since then we have been slowly getting the rest of the stuff. With finals starting this week and term papers due through out this past week it has been difficult to keep up. We also have graduation next weekend so our families will be here by the end of the week. So even though it feels good to be moved in there is a lot left to do. I have to be at work in 5 min so I leave you with the first look at our new house

Spontaneous Reaction

Things have been busy as my wife and I try to finish off our last days as undergrads. Our family is flying in from around the country for our graduation and we have parties to plan and finals to prepare for. So what do me and my wife decide to do...Move! Yes several events have transpired the last few days that pushed us over the edge; so today we made the sudden decision to move. Saturday we were just looking around town at houses for rent and we found this nice little house downtown. We said we were interested but there were several other families looking as well. Then the next day the owner called us and asked us if we still wanted the place. This was a surprise because we really did not expect this. He gave us 24 hours to decide, it was looking like we were going to pass on the house but then the current landlord (AKA Step Father) called and yelled at us for this and that. It was pretty bad. It was that call that changed our minds and we are moving. It's crazy how when you wake up in the morning you never know what will happen through out the course of a day.

Boxes, boxes and more boxes this is what we packed within an hour of making our decision to move

My daugter sleepin after a hard night of packing

Empty Cupboards

Thats a wrap. Pictures of the move and the new house will arrive early next weel

It Felt Like Razor Blades!

For Mother's Day I got my wife a tattoo. It was her first so she was very nervous before she got it. She said it hurt a lot more than she was expecting but she got through it. Our daughter wants a tattoo now so we had to get her the fake ones that last for a few days. The tattoo is a chinese painting with our daughters name in the middle.

I Love You Babe

My wife in DC during the 2005 holiday season

My Grade has been Stolen: Reward if Found

Four Weeks until I graduate from CSUSB with a BS in Chemistry. I have not been very excited until the last week about graduating, but after this round of midterms I realized that I only have a few short papers to write and Finals. After Four years of school I am almost there. My undergrad was hard at times but hopefully it prepared me for pharmacy school.

Currently I am in class and not very happy. I just found out that I lost 10% on my A&P midterm because I forgot to put a 1 in the box that said grade level. This is standard practice for all tests that uses this scan-tron and I have been doing it for the last four years. For some reason I did not fill in the 1 before I turned it in, I have never forgot this little procedure before. So 10% is gone with no chance of return because of a mental lapse that I had. I do not think that 10% is fair at all I can see taking 1 or 2 questions worth of points which would be about 1-2% on this test but 10% is crazy. This test was 125 questions, so that means 12 of the questions I got right have been voided. I estimated about 25 hours of studying for this test or 12 minutes per question so that means 2.3 hours of my study time was wasted. That might not seem like a lot but I work 35-40 hours a week and I have a 2 year old along with 15 units this quarter. So 2.3 hours is at times hard to find and for it to be wasted is not fun. I thought test were supposed to reflect your knowledge of the subject however my grade does not reflect my knowledge at all. There should be an asterisk or something to say that I actually scored better then my score shows.

Kissing the Ground

Every time my gas light in my car turns on I think about one of the most heart pounding events of my flying career. It was 2001 and I had been flying for almost two years so I felt pretty comfortable in an airplane. For the past few weeks I had been flying this guy back and forth to Green bay WI. He had season tickets to the Packers but he lost his medical certificate so he was not able to fly himself. I was flying his Cessna 421 twin engine, it was pretty fast so the trip to Green Bay from Palm Spring was only about 7 hours and usually took 2 fuel stops. That is unless you want to stretch the fuel then it might be possible with only 1 fuel stop. So we left on Saturday and arrived late that night. We got up early to get to the game and spent the whole day at the stadium. Usually we would then spend Sunday night in Green Bay before flying home however he had to get back that night for a meeting he had the next day. So after a long two days I tiredly refueled the plane and added extra fuel in the tip tanks, climbed in and took off. As far as night fights goes this one ranks up there with one of the smoothest flights I had up to that date, at least at first. We made it safely to the first fuel stop at some small airport in Colorado. Then we took off, the next scheduled stop was Goodyear in AZ. Goodyear is only about an hour away from Palm Springs and is a decently busy airport. Then the wind came, it came from east to west at around 50 Knots. This means that we were know traveling about 50 knots faster then we had flight planned for. With nothing else to to I recalculated the numbers, and to my surprise I calculated that at the current speed we could make it to palm springs without a fuel stop and still have the legal amount of reserve fuel. I was rather excited about this because it would get us home an hour and a half sooner (landing refueling and taking off is a time consuming endeavor). I told my boss about our situation and he was also very happy about this. So as you can see getting a tailwind is great and pilots usually try to take advantage to the speed that it provides. All good things come to an end and this is was made my seemingly perfect flight become one that I will want to forget but never will. The wind died as I was flying over Goodyear so I had a decision to make, stop and get fuel or push ahead and get home. At this point I was extremely tired having been up for almost 24 hours. I crunched the numbers and figured out that if the wind stayed calm I had enough fuel to get to Palm Springs but I would be just under the legal limit. I asked my boss what he wanted to do and he said "Lets get home". So I kept going... Then the wind came and it came hard and fast, 65 knots direct headwind. My heart started beating because we were a little over half way from Goodyear to Palm Springs. We would have to either turn around immediately or try and make it with the little fuel we had remaining. Turning around would mean that it would be another 3.5-4 hours before we made it home, if we kept going we would be home in about 30 minutes. The only problem was that with the headwind our flight time had significantly increased. Out arrival time and time of fuel exhausting were now virtually the same. We kept going. I was so tired but my heart was beating like crazy. My eyes straining to see the tell tell signs of our home airport. Finally after what felt like hours I saw the lights. I called over the radio and announced our arrival. Then about 3 minutes out the right engine sputters and dies. I immediately feathered the propellers jammed the rudder pedal and prayed that the other engine would last just a few more minutes. It did, and I yes I did kiss the ground once we landed, and yes I promised myself never to do that again (at least not while flying). So that feeling always returns when I see that little gas can flicker on my dashboard while driving my truck. Back to Top