My schedule is in ......

I received my actual schedule today, complete with time, location and course directors. My 20 credit hours of courses meet an actual 30.9 hours a week. Mon, Wed & Thur are heavy on the lectures and quality time with our cadaver friend. Tues is comprehensive care all day long and Fri is lectures in the morning with nothing formally scheduled in the afternoon. As nice as it would be to start "happy hour" at noon on Friday, my happy hours for the next few years will be when my head hits the pillow for sleep. Anyone know if they make straight jackets in "scrubs blue"?

Latest with John and George.

John has his first loose tooth! It's his right mandibular central incisor (or tooth "P" for all you dental types out there). He's very excited about it. He has also found his athletic niche ..... swimming. We've starting calling him "Otter Boy" because he took to floating on his back so quickly. He can float forever and in the midst of all sorts of chaos at the pool. And his freestyle and backstroke are really good for just learning them. He passed level 2 swimming with flying colors and will definitely zoom through level 3. In fact, he learned so much so quickly, he only has two new things to learn to pass level 3 and that's treading water and the basics of the butterfly. He's quite amazing. He's as adept and coordinated in the water as Roslyn is on land. Ros still has four things to master before she passes level 2, but she's doing just fine.

As far as George, my lovable dufus dog, he got into the garbage about a week ago and we thought he ate the BBQ rib bones. Which he probably did, but it turned out that what made him very sick (from both ends, but I'll spare you the details) was the corn cobs that he ate from the trash. Fortunately, he appears to have puked them all up and is about 90% back to normal. I had to take him to the vet and make sure that he didn't have any internal "blockages" that required surgical removal. What a knucklehead!!

Fall Classes

I forgot to mention last week that I registered for my fall semester. I have 20 credit hours total, but the contact hours will be far higher. I don't know exactly how much higher because the actual weekly schedule has not been determined. Our entire D1 class takes all the same courses at the exact same time. All 66 of us will get to know each other very well! But as an example, I do know that the 4 credit hours of Anatomy & lab actually meets for 8 hours each week, therefore, 8 contact hours to earn 4 credits.

Anatomy 315 & Lab - 4 credits
Comprehensive Care 314 - 6 credits
Oral Histology 451 - 4 credits
Microbiology for Dental Students 322 & Lab - 4 credits
Human Physiology for Dental Students 321 - 2 credits

Orientation is the week of Aug 18th and classes begin full speed on the 25th. We start dissecting our cadavers on day 1, very cool. The undergrad anatomy course that I took had a prosected cadaver. This time we get to do the cutting.

Hinsdale Memorial Hall.

Yesterday, Hinsdale had a party for the 80th b-day of the village hall building. There were free hot dogs, moon bounces, inflatable slides and face painting. Not to mention all the public service vehicles on display, bands & freebies being given out. Ros & John had their faces painted. (Peter & Mitchell are too cool for that now). Roslyn's is a bit hard to see but it's a faery princess adornment. You can also see that they both got new summer 'doos. Roslyn's was long enough to donate her hair to Pantene's hair for wigs program. They only require 8 inches of hair instead of the 10 inches that the Locks of Love program requires. Today we watched the village parade. It was actually a good parade and I usually find parades boring. I may take the kids to see the fire works tonight if they don't drive me to drink before I have to drive them there. Obviously, Jim is flying this weekend.

Bozo the Clown died Thursday.

And I never got to go on his show like I wanted to. I was still holding out hope all these years that I could win a tall insulated yellow cup with his picture on it. I rock at Bozo buckets. I guess this is truly the end of a childhood dream. And I don't think he ever had any little clowns. How sad.

Happy Independence Day!

Finally, W signed the new GI bill into law, yeah! Unfortunately, I don't qualify for it, but I'm still really glad it's available for those who do qualify.

***********Happy Birthday America!***********

~Patrick's Open House~

Patrick is my nephew and Godson. He has earned a 4 year academic scholarship to Michigan State's engineering program. Yeah Patrick!! Plus, he's just a great guy. Love 'ya Peejmonster.

Here's the graduate, relaxing in between greeting visitors.

Patrick & my Mom.

Patrick & his Godparents, Uncle Andrew & Me.

Supporting the home team, Go Spartys!

Patrick's not only going green for the team, he's going green for the environment. This is his new on campus ride.

The post open house, pre-postparty chill out. L to R: Brandis, Jenny, Camela, Helen & Sammy. And lets not forget the pups in the background, King, Gizmo & George.

Cousins

Laura came to visit briefly with her girls one Saturday before we moved. Here's the pix of the kids sitting still momentarily.
Back row L to R: Mitchell & Peter
Front row L to R: John, Roslyn, Elise & Laura with Julia on her lap















And of course this pix includes George as Julia was petting him.

Jim's B-day.

Here's a month belated pix of Jim and his big birthday present ....
a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar.

Hey, hey they're the Monkees!

Here's a pix of Peter & John making monkey bread, a recipe that Pete learned in his "life skills" class (a.k.a. home ec). It turned out so well that they are banned from making any more of it because it's irresistibly fat butt. Butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, bread dough ..... mmmmm. Not to mention it made Roslyn look like a monkey.

RIP George Carlin

George Carlin died Sunday of natural causes. He was a master at verbalizing the obvious logical things that most people missed because they were too obvious. Here's one of his ideas:

George Carlin's Solution to Save Gasoline~
Bush wants us to cut the amount of gas we use. The best way to stop using so much gas is to deport 11 million illegal immigrants. That would be 11 million less people using our gas. The price of gas would come down.

Then bring our troops home from Iraq to guard the Border. When they catch an illegal immigrant crossing the border, hand him a canteen, rifle and some ammo and ship him to Iraq .
Tell him if he wants to come to America then he must serve a tour in the military. Give him a soldier's pay while he's there and tax him on it. After his tour, he will be allowed to become a citizen since he defended this country. He will also be registered to be taxed and be a legal patriot.

This option will probably deter illegal immigration and provide a solution for the troops in Iraq and the aliens trying to make a better life for themselves. If they refuse to serve, ship them to Iraq anyway, without the canteen, rifle or ammo.

Problem solved.

GI Bill 2008

You can help petition W to pass the new GI Bill, instead of vetoing it like the numb-nuts that he is. Just click here and add your name to the petition.

The new bill will cover 4 years of tuition at the most expensive state school, $1K a year for books and a monthly living stipend for all vets that have served at least 1 day of active duty since 9/11. There's all sorts of other perks for the vets in the bill. Please truly support our troops by helping get the new bill passed and pass along a link to everyone you know.

Red Wings win the 2008 Stanley Cup in 6!!

Tradition has it that the players of the winning team take turns bringing the Cup home with them for a while and showing it off. Some have eaten their morning cereal out of it, others have placed their babies in it, Stevie Yzerman is said to have taken the Cup jet skiing. If you won the cup, what would you do with it?

History lesson.

Today Ros & John were watching a t.v. program. There was music playing in the background when the camera panned back and showed a turntable playing a record. (See below for you young pups.) Roslyn's reaction was, "What IS that thing??"

Just put me in the museum.

LaGrange, Hinsdale, whatever.

Pete's hockey coach, Anders, is close family friends with Mike Nylander (both from Sweden) who used to play for the Blackhawks, but last season signed a 4 year contract with the Capitals. Mike rented out his house in Hinsdale, but the renters were leaving this month. It was going to be empty so he wanted Anders to move into it at no cost, which meant that Anders' house was going to be available to rent. We were going to move into Anders' place in LaGrange next month, but Mike found a new renter for his BIG place in Hinsdale. Sooooo, Anders and his family are staying put and we had to do a last minute scramble to find a place to move into. Craig's List to the rescue. I found a 4 bedroom place in Hinsdale with a huge yard at a reasonable price and a great landlord who is letting us sign a 2 year lease that we can renew for another 2 years after that. We're supposed to sign the lease on Wednesday. Once that's done we can register the kids for school and I can send out the new address to everyone.

Oh yeah, the other news is that the tenants for our Crystal lake house signed the lease yesterday and we're supposed to get it back from them today.

So, once again it all appears to be working out just as it's meant to be. Anyone want to help us move in mid-June??!!