Current Happenings 2001
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Fall/Summer 2001

I turned 30 during Easter Vacation this year (see pictures). Vacation was nice.  Dad, Mom, and I went on a day trip up to the Rincon Shortcut. Also, Adam Wolven, Andrew Moss, and I spent a day visiting downtown L.A. There were only three weeks then finals after vacation.

I was pretty busy with school until May 26th, which was Biola's graduation. This year, I got to read the names of the seven Computer Science graduates.

The first three weeks of summer I spent mostly at Biola: finishing grading, then attending a Faculty Spiritual Formation Integration Seminar.  A couple weeks later, I spent some time writing a paper for that.

Roommates

At the beginning of June, my roommates Gary Sikes, Erick Roebuck, and Keith Huckaby moved out. I spent about a week cleaning the whole house and getting the carpets cleaned. Then Dan Yim moved in around the middle of June. During the summer, it has been just the two of us living here.

Projects

I haven't been working all summer. Biola still pays me, since my paychecks are spread out all 12 months. I had thought about getting a job, and I looked some on guru.com, but nothing much came of that. Instead, I spent time getting some projects done around the house. As I said before, I spent some time cleaning the whole house: scouring the bathrooms, mopping everything, cleaning out the fridge and pantry. I threw away all the food in the house that wasn't in a can or some sort of sealed container.

Next I started working on getting all my files organized.  I took about 18 months of bills, bank statement, and junk mail, and filed some away, and threw away the rest. Then I worked on getting my checkbook balanced with Quicken.  It's a great program if you keep up with it. I have all my accounts up-to-date since Jan 1, 2001.

The other big project I worked on for a week or two was to finish filing my taxes. I hadn't done my 1999 state or federal return or my 2000 state or federal.  So I ended up mailing in all four returns, and paying $1250.  Biola paid me some money for the Integration Seminar, so that was covered.

The other big accomplishment was to pay off my credit cards.  I had some credit card debt left over from some stupid stock market decisions I made about 3 years ago, so my parents helped me pay that off. (Thanks, Dad & Mom!)

Trips

The weekend after Easter (April 27-29) I went on a trip to Grand Rapids with my family. We went to visit David and Lisa.  Dad, Mom, and I flew through Chicago, and spent a little time sight-seeing there. Joel flew through Grand Rapids. (Update: See pictures: Visiting Grand Rapids) I went to Las Vegas for a weekend for a bachelor party for Brent.   That was July 21-22. I also went on a couple of day trips downtown L.A. one in June and another one in July.

(See http://www.arrivelasvegas.com/ for pictures)

Plans

I have about a month left before school starts, and there are several more projects I need to finish. First of all, I'd like to get a lot of the paperwork and web pages done for my Biola classes that I'm teaching. If I can write all the tests, study guides, and web pages for those classes, that will let me spend time on the classes that I'll be taking at USC.

Next semester, I plan to take two classes at USC and work part-time as a research assistant.  I'll be pretty busy, since I'm teaching at Biola at the same time.  I'm planning on teaching: Intro to Computer Science and two sections of Nature of Computing. I'll also do two smaller things: teaching First Year Seminar for the first half of the semester, and teach part of the Marketing Technologies class for the middle third of the semester.

For Christmas this year, I'll probably go visit my parents in Mexico.  My brother Andy and his wife Kristen will be back in the country for a while, so I'll probably see them at some point. (Update March 2002: We did go to Mexico, See Jan 2002 Trip to Mexico)

Next summer, I don't have any plans, although it would be nice to travel somewhere out of the country.  I'm working on getting my passport so I'll be ready to go if I decide to do that. (Update March 2002: I still don't have my passport, and I got stuck in the airport on the way to Mexico because of it.)

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Created and maintained by Matthew Weathers. Last updated Apr 20, 2006.