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  • As you can see above, I'm not making much progress gaining weight. My food intake is not consistent, and I rely on too much of my energy in the form of sugars and carbohydrates. What do I have, a month left to gain 10 lbs? It's seriously bad news. Actually, sad things and bad news like this are good causes for writing. Some of the best poetry in history came during difficult times in people's lives. David, for example, wrote beautifully in the book of Psalms when things weren't going well, writing about how beautiful God is and how God is always there even in dark hours.


    Honestly, I'm not a poet. My poetry is consistent, though. Lame. Lacks creativity. Predictably mechanical rhymes. Short. Um, I even count the syllables using my fingers and thumbs. (yes, I know, please....stop....I know you're laughing....just....just keep it to yourself)


    So, dear Xanga, I'm turning to you. Run with it as you please. Keep it clean as always, and only one line per comment, no more than 630,884 comments per person. Please finish this poem starting with this line:


    To gain ten pounds in eight weeks,

  • Just winding down from a solid three days of working! I keep switching work partners, sometimes working by myself, but I like having someone around to shovel snow so I don't have to! Being with someone else helps me stay awake while I'm plowing through snowstorms, though. At any rate, I had about 9 hours of sleep for the week going into this morning when Joel and I were working and opening up driveways. In either Spanish or English, I suggested that we take a break for a minute and set my alarm on my cell phone for 10 minutes. Nearly 60 minutes later, I look up at the clock and realize how much slacking I had committed!

    This reminds me - my friends drove through the night to a Grateful Dead concert and parked in a farmer's field with their car running like I had this morning (it was 10 degrees!) but it was a really hot summer and they had the A/C cranking at full blast. Both of them nodded off in the front seat and one in the back. From my understanding, one of them woke up and freaked out, thinking that he had fallen asleep at the wheel and was about to crash! His scream woke up the other two who also began screaming and yelling until they realized the wind was the A/C and that the car was merely idling with the parking brake on. :)

    At any rate, I should get going - sleep is not scheduled yet for tonight. Unfortunately, my dad had a surgical procedure scheduled for the day before the storm and was recuperating the two days following. Chris tried to help, but it's fallen on me to manage a lot of things, mostly handling my regular plow customers plus all of his plus helping my friend who had a salt truck breakdown. I've spent more time praying! My attitude is improving, too. Normally, I get irritated by the interruptions when I'm trying to plow snow - handling the wheel, the plow remote, the salter control box, the gear selector, the pedals, the window, and directing my co-worker. Then people call up expecting to chat or it's my dad who wants to fill me in on some mundane details of a job scheduled next month... This time, though, I'm doing a lot better and handling over 150 calls a day on my celly which is a lot more than I'm used to!


    Many sincere apologies for not keeping up with my site. I bet if you researched it, cataloging all the inactive blogs of the world, that would be the most common introductory statement! But really, I am keeping busy with 70+ hour workdays and 100+ hour workweeks. Plus being the genius that I am, I signed up for all the projects and presentations this semester in my 4 classes to be due this month so I would have more time for work when the season kicks in. At any rate, as far as I can tell, I owe the world
    1. a summary/wrap-up on New Zealand with pictures and video,
    2. the whole story on how my skis were stolen in Oregon,
    3. a glimpse at what I got for Valentines Day, and
    4. my most overt attempt for comments ever.

    Not a surprise to anyone, but Esther did get accepted to the University of Durham, so I will be in the UK this year in the fall at least once or twice or ten times. Feel free to congratulate her - I think she's excited about it. Okay back to work!


    On May 21st, I will graduate with a Masters in Business Administration. I certainly don't feel a whole lot different, but looking back, I'm quite different than the 17 year-old high school graduate registering for classes in the summer of 2000!






    The little WeatherPixie on the left is off - it's actually -6F and -31F with the Wind Chill factored in! Brrrr! Now to see why we have 11 new messages here at the office...

    Wooohooo! Just made my last tuition payment! *aims guns at credit card*
  • Good link from Tracy. Great pictures.



    "Good news, ladies and gentlemen, we have finally located weapons of mass destruction: It's Dick Cheney." --David Letterman

    "But here is the sad part -- before the trip Donald Rumsfeld had denied the guy's request for body armor." --David Letterman

    "We can't get bin Laden, but we nailed a 78-year-old attorney." --David Letterman

    "The guy who got gunned down, he is a Republican lawyer and a big Republican donor and fortunately the buck shot was deflected by wads of laundered cash. So he's fine. He took a little in the wallet." --David Letterman

    "Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt ... making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting veep since Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, of course, (was) shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering. Whittington? Mistaken for a bird." --Jon Stewart

    "Now, this story certainly has its humorous aspects. ... But it also raises a serious issue, one which I feel very strongly about. ... moms, dads, if you're watching right now, I can't emphasize this enough: Do not let your kids go on hunting trips with the vice president. I don't care what kind of lucrative contracts they're trying to land, or energy regulations they're trying to get lifted -- it's just not worth it." --Jon Stewart

    "The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face." --"Daily Show" correspondent Rob Corddry

    "Dick Cheney accidentally shot a fellow hunter, a 78-year-old lawyer. In fact, when people found out he shot a lawyer, his popularity is now at 92 percent." --Jay Leno

    "Cheney's defense is that he was aiming at a quail when he shot the guy. Which means that Cheney now has the worst aim of anyone in the White House since Bill Clinton." --Jay Leno

    "I think Cheney is starting to lose it. After he shot the guy he screamed, 'Anyone else want to call domestic wire tapping illegal?'" --Jay Leno

    "When the ambulance got there, out of force of habit they put Cheney on the stretcher. No, the other guy!" --Jay Leno

  • I'm a pyro.

    I also listen to 340 watts of dance music while taking a shower.

  • Look what I can do! It occurred to me that a lot of people probably don't have a clue what I mean when I say that I'm at work. So, to rectify that, I'm providing you with some samples of what a day in the life of Nick Crawford includes. =)

    This is what I made today (click on them for PDF files).

    This took the longest - about 5 hours start to finish. Almost all the images I used in these are pics I took in New Zealand this past month. Oh, this first one is a brochure that folds in on itself twice so that the center columns on the first image are the front and back of the brochure. It's so that the curve meets in the middle...

    And on the inside...mmmm...

    On this next one, I was in a hurry for class and put it together in about 3 hours. The image is from Oregon. =) And the illustration was my first attempt at making a tree in Illustrator. It was fun!

    This one is originally from this fall, but I reworked it today for a little while since we hired someone and expanded our set of services...hmmm...

    That's it! All the while answering phone calls all day - nothing like the Accountant and the Office Manager to take days off for me to appreciate how much work it is just to answer so many calls!

  • Just when you've thought you've seen it all...




    UPS trumps Sesame Street!

  • All this spending in New Zealand over the last month is a great boost for my credit card rewards points! Who cares about the dollars I have to repay now that I've earned enough points in a month to redeem a free Hamilton Beach 12-Speed Blender! I could do this all over again just for that!


    So in between packing for this weekend's ski trip I'm uploading pictures from New Zealand and skiing out west.
    Caving (I did this the first week I was there, but after ski diving)
    Skiing (with Esther and her Oregonian friends)

    I'm sooo thankful for all these opportunities! It's really incredible. Sad news for today is that I can no longer be in this Xanga Metro. If I'm going to give the address in our family newsletter, I cannot remain in this metro, no matter how important it is to Yusen and I. Any recommendations on a new, (PG-rated) metro?

  • *gasp*

    2005 Tuition Statement
    Amounts billed for qualified tuition and related expenses: $9,719.30

    *gasp*

    Spring 2006 Business Masters Tuition
    $4,956.80

    *chokes*

    Mumbles last words about state budget priorities going to K-12....


    Here's an idea of what the 747 I was cruising around in can do when you've got spare time...and spare cars.

  • Home again! It's great to be back and be bowled over by little kids clutching my leg and firing off questions!

    The month isn't over, and I've had 11 flights already. Unfortunately,
    the two today weren't particularly restful, and I'm quite exhausted.
    There's so much to share! My first experience skiing on a mountain,
    getting my skis stolen, and lots more. Tomorrow, my work day will be
    pretty relaxed, and I can get caught up on returning comments and start
    organizing pictures.

    There's a bit of a recap that I would like to offer on everything, but
    I want to ask if I left anyone wondering anything about the trip or New
    Zealand, the people, the culture, the costs, the ease/difficulty of
    going and getting around, the weather, my sunburn, whatever! So what
    would you rather hear about?

  • Flying Back



    You will
    need Quicktime
    to view this. Direct
    link
    to the video clip.

    Possibly
    the most fascinating clip of all time, I know. Actually, it sort of
    captures the essence of a 12 hour flight in a full Boeing 747-400, one
    of the double-deckers (no, I did not go upstairs, I belong to the lower
    classes). You've got the yelling kid in front of me that you can hear
    at the beginning, the sleeping Nick (for about 11 of those 12 hours, I
    slept through dinner and woke up for breakfast flying in both
    directions), and the rummaging person behind me. Really, nothing to
    complain about on my end, a number of the people would continue on without leaving the plane to
    go to London's Heathrow airport. So, you've got entire British families
    sprawled out there with toys and games and portable dvd players, with a
    full accompaniment of stressed out parents! The movie system didn't
    work, so we all were given $60 vouchers, but you could pull out the
    video game controller and play on the screen in the seat back. For my
    part, I just watched the GPS visual to satisfy my geekiness.

    After that, it was just 2 more flights for a grand total of 5 in 3 days
    and only 2 more to go in a couple days. That puts me here in Oregon! Pronounced Oragain.
    Yesterday, I went to some of Esther's classes and some more
    today.  Got to see my first Chi Alpha outside of Wisconsin,
    meeting the many now-familiar faces! =) Next up is going to her cabin
    with a bunch of friends, driving through tons of snow hopefully, and
    going skiing! Really, I should be shopping for textbooks... For now,
    though, I'm going to sleep lots today in the name of jet lag, hopefully
    get caught up on commenting on your blogs, and begin in earnest to sift
    through the stacks of CDs of pictures we've accumulated!

    Have a wonderful day, everyone! This week, I'll be writing reviews for
    the 2 books I read on the trip and the third that I'm almost done
    reading. Considering I haven't finished a book since grade school, this
    is serious progress! What should I read next? No fiction, no coloring
    books (okay, maybe), no Sudoku challenges, no romance novels, usually
    my preference is for books off the business shelf. So...with that
    consideration taken briefly into account and promptly ignored, what
    should I read next?