Finally Done!
Wow, what a busy week. Again, sorry it has been so long since any posts. Last week was amazingly busy with the end of school. On Tuesday night I learned that my thesis was selected as the top thesis in the physics department, and one of 7 finalists for the Commandant's Award, given to the best thesis in the school. That meant that I would have to finalize my thesis and turn in 7 bound copies, in addition to the 6 other copies I had to produce by the end of the week. On top of that, one of my committee members, who has been on the Commandant's Award committee in the past, had lots of minor revisions for my final copy that I needed to make before noon on Thurday. He finally got me the revisions at 8pm on Wednesday night, and unfortunately he had ink on about all but 10 pages of my 101 page thesis. Needless to say, I was up late that night. I finally turned everything in with about 45 minutes to spare, then started working on 2 monster projects that were due the next day for my last class. Those projects again took me to around 3am, but got done, along with printing the final copies of my thesis for the school to bind.
All during this time, I was supposed to be practicing for a show I was going to play with the band, but I never got time to really practice, and on Friday night I played with the band at a local club...the show went well, but I was working on about 9 hours of sleep over the previous 3 days, fueled by coffee and Red Bull. By the time the show ended and I got home and unloaded, it was again 3am, so three nights in a row of staying up until 3am took its toll on me. On top of that, Maria came down with a pretty stiff cold Friday, and didn't have the energy to make it out to the show. We tried to rest and relax over the weekend, but that never happens.
Also, during the flurry of class and thesis stuff, on Thursday I found out that I was selected for another internship, this time with DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) which will take place between graduation and the Air Force Intern Program. Its crazy, for years my Air Force career was defined by me seemingly always being the runner-up for any award/honor or special duty. Now after getting the Power Award, I fall backwards into these things.
So Maria and I are pretty happy, just letting the Air Force take us wherever we need to go. The DARPA internship really sounds cool, they are the ones responsible for developing those revolutionary military applications....remember when there was no such thing as stealth, night-vision goggles, heads-up displays, UAVs, etc.....DARPA is the agency that made all of that happen. They take the science fiction type ideas and turn them into real possibilities, then turn the programs over to the military to bring to the warfighter. DARPA is in DC, so I will get to work for 3 months in DC before Maria and I actually move to DC, so that should allow us enough time to get an idea of where is a good place to live and do some house hunting in advance. Then in August we will move to DC as planned.
The beginning of the week has been filled with as much administrative work as I could get done to get ready for DARPA and AFIP. Maria has made it her mission to organize her growing Stampin' Up collection, so she has been buying and building all types of storage items, from drawers to cabinets. Today we spent the entire day looking at couches.....again. We have been searching for the perfect couch for the past month or so, and we are both nearly burnt out on the process. Today we fell in love with a couch-system, which is the best way to describe it since it is truely modular, only to be knocked down by the price of $6700! Wow, thats a lot of money for couches. Granted they are leather reclining couches with all of the bells and whistles, but wow! So we took one last look at a furniture place down in Cinci and found two other possibilities that we really like as well, and they are less than 1/3 of the price, with a leather rocking chair as well. That means we could buy these couches, have them last 5-7 years, then again, then again (15-20+ years worth of use) for the same price as the others.
Anyhow, the next week is looking pretty slow, Maria goes back to work tomorrow and Friday, I have a race on Sunday, and graduation and the award ceremony is a week from Thursday (23rd). Then we get ready for my TDY to DC which begins on 11 April.
I'm sure in the next few days/weeks, we will have more opportunities to do more couch shopping....yeah! (just make it stop!)
Rusty
All during this time, I was supposed to be practicing for a show I was going to play with the band, but I never got time to really practice, and on Friday night I played with the band at a local club...the show went well, but I was working on about 9 hours of sleep over the previous 3 days, fueled by coffee and Red Bull. By the time the show ended and I got home and unloaded, it was again 3am, so three nights in a row of staying up until 3am took its toll on me. On top of that, Maria came down with a pretty stiff cold Friday, and didn't have the energy to make it out to the show. We tried to rest and relax over the weekend, but that never happens.
Also, during the flurry of class and thesis stuff, on Thursday I found out that I was selected for another internship, this time with DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) which will take place between graduation and the Air Force Intern Program. Its crazy, for years my Air Force career was defined by me seemingly always being the runner-up for any award/honor or special duty. Now after getting the Power Award, I fall backwards into these things.
So Maria and I are pretty happy, just letting the Air Force take us wherever we need to go. The DARPA internship really sounds cool, they are the ones responsible for developing those revolutionary military applications....remember when there was no such thing as stealth, night-vision goggles, heads-up displays, UAVs, etc.....DARPA is the agency that made all of that happen. They take the science fiction type ideas and turn them into real possibilities, then turn the programs over to the military to bring to the warfighter. DARPA is in DC, so I will get to work for 3 months in DC before Maria and I actually move to DC, so that should allow us enough time to get an idea of where is a good place to live and do some house hunting in advance. Then in August we will move to DC as planned.
The beginning of the week has been filled with as much administrative work as I could get done to get ready for DARPA and AFIP. Maria has made it her mission to organize her growing Stampin' Up collection, so she has been buying and building all types of storage items, from drawers to cabinets. Today we spent the entire day looking at couches.....again. We have been searching for the perfect couch for the past month or so, and we are both nearly burnt out on the process. Today we fell in love with a couch-system, which is the best way to describe it since it is truely modular, only to be knocked down by the price of $6700! Wow, thats a lot of money for couches. Granted they are leather reclining couches with all of the bells and whistles, but wow! So we took one last look at a furniture place down in Cinci and found two other possibilities that we really like as well, and they are less than 1/3 of the price, with a leather rocking chair as well. That means we could buy these couches, have them last 5-7 years, then again, then again (15-20+ years worth of use) for the same price as the others.
Anyhow, the next week is looking pretty slow, Maria goes back to work tomorrow and Friday, I have a race on Sunday, and graduation and the award ceremony is a week from Thursday (23rd). Then we get ready for my TDY to DC which begins on 11 April.
I'm sure in the next few days/weeks, we will have more opportunities to do more couch shopping....yeah! (just make it stop!)
Rusty
posted by Rusty & Maria at 10:09 PM
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