Hal turns 30

Hal writes:

For the past two months of I have been working on a blog post/short story entitled "30 by 30" in which I recount 30 life lessons that I have attained by the age of 30. April had a good start to the project, but May became rather busy, so I have not finished it yet. I don't know when it may make an appearance, but with the school year completed I may have time for it this summer.

Anna and I have yet to blog about our adventures over Mother's Day weekend. We had separate adventures with Anna in Colorado visiting Kirk and Chirsty and her sister Kat and I went to Minnesota to see Jeremy and Heather, Kevin, Dale and Sandy, and family including my parents, my brother, my sister, my grandma, my aunt, and others . Anna has photos on the camera that she has yet to put on the computer and the few pictures I took on my cell phone ended up on Facebook.

So, it finally happened, 30 caught up with me. Most of the learned elders I have spoken to indicated that turning 30 was not that big of a deal, but turning 40 tended to bring out some concerns. There indications have proven truth thus far as I have not thought about my age much since the novelty of the day wore off. And much like similar years, my birthday typically falls during finals week/move out so I have not had the luxury of free time around my birthday. (My 21st birthday went largely unnoticed as I finished typing my 70+ page Political Science thesis at GAC until Mookie reminded me later in the day. And if you were curious, the paper centered on presidential debates throughout U.S. history with an emphasis on media's influence beginning with Kennedy v. Nixon up through Clinton v. Dole.)

Thank you for the cards in the mail and the singing voice mail (Lauren)!

For the birthday celebrations I was able to join with some friends to have dinner at a local restaurant located on the Puget Sound waterfront. It included some cheesecake for a birthday cake. Included among the WA friends I have made were Kevin visiting from Minnesota and Amber visiting from her year long internship in California. Here is a picture of the four of us enjoying Memorial Day with a walk along the Puget Sound in Point Defiance Park. This is the same place Anna and I came a year ago on Memorial Day when we were first preparing to move to Washington.

We might "cheat" and use this for our fifth anniversary photo, even though it's about six weeks early.

One of the Tacoma landmarks we had yet to visit, until this last weekend, is the Frisko Freeze. Since we had Thai earlier in the evening, we skipped the burgers and fries and opted for some ice cream cones and malts instead.


On Monday I said goodbye to the last of my RAs and closed the hall for one last time. Yesterday I did my facilities check out and today I have my yearly evaluation (gold star for me). These next couple of days will be packing the office and preparing to transition to the Academic Advising Office. Starting on Monday, I will be preparing to register first-year students for the upcoming Fall semester. Although I know it will be a transition from a live-in position in student affairs to an academic affairs position (see previous post), I don't think it will truly hit me until I actually move off campus and start the position.

Anna starts a new schedule next week that she has been wanting for a while. She will be shifting to four 10-hour days on Tuesday - Friday. Now every weekend this summer is a three day weekend for her.

And finally, a sappy photo to brighten your day. :)