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. :)

Closing the Halls

Hal writes:

This week is finals week at PLU. During this time my focus is primarily on transitioning students out of the residence halls. It gets to be an odd time with people leaving a random times during the week when they are done with finals (or in some cases, staying well past their appointed time and causing problems). But amidst the dust and garbage, the finals and exams, and the goodbyes and good lucks, somehow come Monday afternoon my halls will be void of students and their possessions.

This is also most likely the last hall closing I will participate in as I have a new job starting in June. After 12 years of living in residence halls (4 as an undegrad, 2 as a graduate student, 6 as a resident director) I will finally be moving off campus. Jim and I are the last from our WIU class to be living on campus and we will both be done soon. (Jim, does this mean we win, or that we lose?)

My new role will be in the Academic Advising Office. Perhaps the best way to explain my new role will be to copy the Mission Statement of the Office:

Academic Advisors at PLU are committed to assisting students as they discover and define their educational, personal, and emergent life goals. The advising relationship is a collaborative partnership through which students may gain an understanding of academic disciplines and university resources, and be supported and challenged to become contributing members of the community. Academic Advisors work to support and strengthen students' development as they progress through their academic journey.

Does that sound like something I could do?

Here is a photo of the building I will be working in, Ramstad Hall. My office will be on the lower level; you can see the tops of the windows for our office.



Although not yet in the role, I can already anticipate some changes taking place by no longer working in Residential Life:

* Not living on campus. This is the first time I will have to pay rent and not live within a few feet of my office. Anna and I have been looking at Craigslist and rental web sites for a place to live. Oh yeah, I also have to buy furniture, pay utilities, and actually pay someone to fix broken items.

* There is no (more) such thing as a free lunch. I will no longer have a meal plan as part of my compensation. I thought when I was in high school I would eat peanut butter sandwiches for lunch my whole life, and I think that is still a good idea. I'll start that up in June.

* Working 9 til 5. The RD position is the ultimate in weisure life. For the first time in my life, I won't have evening responsibilities. I can actually leave work in the afternoon and not have to think about work until the next day. No more late night staff meetings, hall council meetings, RA activities, etc. Hm, perhaps it's time to join the Sons of Norway, the Elks, the Rotary, or some other fraternal organization...

* No more on call responsibilities. I won't have to carry a cell phone (or think about how far I am away from campus or whether or not I can drink adult beverages) any more. Over the last six years I have dealt with suicidal ideation, physical and emotional abuse, damaged property, fires, more than my fair share of intoxicated (or soon to be intoxicated had they not been discovered) students, and late night phone calls to parents due to medical emergencies. "Mr. Johnson, I want to let you know that your son is ok, but..."

* Holidays and Vacations. I can actually take Labor Day (move-in time) and Memorial Day (move-out time) off from work. Also, my vacation/time off doesn't necessarily revolve around the academic calendar (but it still will to a certain ex tenet).

* Hall Council. I never had any luck with this over six years. I made it through ok, but I never had the hall council that was self-sufficient. Needless to say, I won't miss this element or the last night meetings that come with it.

I am sure there are others, but those are the ones that I immediately am thinking of this morning.

more Pictures!

More fun with the camera! I felt pretty good about the shots I got last weekend at the tulip festival, but flowers stay relatively still while you shoot. So, this weekend I decided to tackle a bigger challenge, and shoot a moving target: Riley. It was tougher than I thought it would be. Friday night I took a bunch of photos, but they ended up being mostly blurry (due to the low light, I think). So Saturday I pulled out the manual and read about ISO, shutter speed and apterture. I think I have a basic understanding...But even with my new found knowledge it's still tough to catch my dog sitting still, and forget about action shots! Here are a few of the better shots I caught:


Hal was holding a treat over my head and Riley is imploring Hal with his eyes to give it to him:
Profile shot (actually just bored with this already):
Hal is also bored with the picture taking:
Relaxing on the couch (Hal didn't feel well):

Just hanging out:
Here are some of the "bloopers"... first, the blurry tongue:
Next the blurry face: A little blurry all over as he gets ready for the tongue out shot:
At least the tounge is in focus on this one, right?
Blurry all over again, but the expression on his face cracks me up:
So, my "action" shot of my dog are all still mostly just sitting...not quite action. But oh well. And Riley officially became the most photographed dog in Washington this weekend.

Spring here is BEAUTIFUL with millions of flowers so I took some more flower shots....
I also tried my hand at making and decorating with fondant this weekend....It didn't go well. I made 9 3-inch cakes with the intent of layering them to decorate with the fondant that I also made from scratch. I realized half way in that I have never actually made a layer cake before, so that should have been my first clue that things might not go as I had hoped. I trimmed my cakes...but am very poor at judging if things are straight, so I figured I'd just even it out with frosting. Well, my poorly trimmed mini-cakes were also very crumbly, so the frosting was difficult and didn't help to even things out at all. The fondant portion went surpisingly well for my first attempt, but by the time I got it on the mini-cake it didn't really do much to redeem my mess. So I decided to wrap up the rest of the fondant and try it again later. I finished one of the three I planned on doing...I decorated it with an "H" for Hal, since I had already decided this mess would not be leaving the house. It looks better in this photo than it did in real life:


I made a rhubarb "country cake" too...and it turned out beautifully, but I haven't taken pictures of it yet....maybe I'll post pictures of this weekend's baking success later!