2010 Midterms

Some people like football or baseball or even tennis. I like politics. I remember back in 1996 waking up after election day and mom told me that Bill Clinton won the election and was still the president, and it made me kind of sad. I remember that when I would play with my matchbox cars had a limo and I would sometimes pretend that Bob Dole was the president who drove the limo and I had this red convertible that Bill Clinton would drive around in. Its kind of funny that at 9 years old I had Bill Clinton pegged as a party boy even before that whole Lewinsky scandal broke out. But I digress. The point is I like politics and the past couple years have been really interesting to say the lease.

Living in California's capitol city gives me some pretty cool opportunities that I just didn't have in Fremont. Last Sunday I got to meet Carly Fiorina who is running for the US Senate. It was really cool. We were all there making phone calls in the campaign office and she came in followed by a bunch of news cameras and reporters and shook everyone's hands. Then she gave a quick motivational speech and then stood right in front of me to talk to the reporters. Apparently the footage was on the news but I didn't get to see it. Then on her way out she patted me on the shoulder as she told us all to keep up the good work. It was so cool! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture with her but I got a picture of her, which is almost as good haha.

Hopefully she wins! It would be nice to have someone from CA in office that I actually voted for.

Interesting...

So it seems half of my professors this year are LDS. One of them graduated from BYU so that was a fairly easy one to guess. But my other professor was a bit more of a mystery. I always felt there was something familiar about him. But slowly the evidense began to pour in. First he mentioned that he had 5 kids. Then in another class he mentioned that he met his wife at a church dance. Later he mentioned incidentally that he was out of the country from 1986-1988. I was pretty convinced at this point and then I happened to notice on his blog he has a quote at the very bottom that reads "It is better to be trusted than loved - David O'McKay"

He's a pretty big-wig in the design department and he is part of the panel that reviews portfolios for entry into the program. Its kind of cool to see LDS people in high places : )

Butters Visits Sacramento!

So I have a bit of blogging to do that I've been putting off. First of all, Butters came to visit right after my birthday! Mom had to go to Utah for a week so we decided to send Butters back to Sacramento with me and mom would  pick her up a week later. Well towards the end of the week, mom called and said she was going to stay in Utah for two weeks so she could take care of some business there. Then we noticed that her and dad would be going to Minnesota to see Stacy and Jason the weekend after she got back from Utah so we decided to let Butters stay another week rather than taking her back and forth so soon. Finally mom was home on monday but we decided that our schedules would work out best if she came to get Butters on that Friday. If you're confused by now, I'll just say that Butters came to stay with me on the 19th of September. She was only supposed to stay a week but ended up staying until October 15th!

It was really nice having my dog back and I was sad to see her go. I had to get used to being alone all over again, although sometimes when Im on the computer I forget and in the back of my mind I feel like Butters is still there and when I go to scoot my chair back I turn around to make sure she isn't in the way and remember she's not there. :(

But anyway we had some fun, here are a few shots I took of her favorite behaviors:

Container Deconstruction

 

Afternoon window patrol

Bath time 

Pre-Exam studying 

And of course, she got into the holiday spirit 

My New Place!

With my first week at Sacramento State University under my belt, I finally have time to blog after a lengthy summer hiatus.

Here is the front living room

The kitchen

And most importantly....my room!

So far my classes are pretty good. Boring, but nothing difficult. There is an air conditioning access thing in my bathroom ceiling and its turned into a waterfall. So right now I have the air conditioner off and its 100 degrees outside. Hopefully it will get fixed soon. 

I miss my old room and my old life back at home, but its getting easier each day. I've never been real good at making new friends all by myself, but hopefully I can meet some people so I don't go crazy.

Summer Update

Time sure flies when you're having fun. I haven't blogged much this summer despite having a great deal of free time. I've been going to Six Flags with friends quite a bit. I have a season pass and I'm certainly making good use of it. Its great because we go on tuesdays usually and there are like no lines.

Charlie

So the other day mom was going through some memories and she came upon Charlie's adoption form. We adopted him on June 26th, 1991. He was born somewhere between November of 1990 and February of 1991. He lived until July 12, 2008 when he was about 17 years old. I know we have a lot of pictures of the younger Charlie around somewhere. The ones I can find on my computer are all in his later years.

This was when he was more spry, doing what he loved to do; dig under things and try to catch wild animals.

Whenever you went in the backyard, Charlie would always want follow you and hang out. One time I was trying to take a photo of a tree at night. So the camera was on the ground pointed up and I clicked the timer and set it down so it would be stable. Just then, Charlie came over and put his face in the frame andtook the Camera's focus off of the tree! Silly dog.

Sleeping was another favorite past time of his, espcially later in life.

We got Butters before Charlie died, so they had an opportunity to meet and it seemed as though Charlie mentored Butters a bit. They wandered the yard together sometimes.

Another thing Charlie used to always do was eat Grass. I remember when I was little, Charlie would eat a whole lot of it and then barf it up on the patio. Mom was never pleased. haha. But he kept on eating his veggies as a senior dog

He even taught Butters the importance of having a diet balanced with greens

Here are a couple more I found from his youthful years:

It was very sad to see him go, but he lived a long life and made us kids very happy. Not sure what the plan is for animals after death, but I hope we get to see him again. He was a very good dog.

Sac State Orientation

So on Friday the 18th I got up at 4AM to drive off to Sacramento for Orientation t hat started at 8AM. I don't think I've ever driven that far all by myself, but thank goodness for GPS. They allow you to take a guest and I figured I didn't really want to bring my mommy along so I got a friend to go with me. But it turns out that all the other guests were parents and they separate you much of the day so it sort of defeated the purpose. I guess it was worth it though so I wasn't completely alone. It was pretty annoying though. I thought I was going to have to take a couple of more GE classes when I got there, but they sprung some more requirements on me and I am going to be spending a lot of time on GE. Whats worse is that my major is impacted, so they only accept 40 students a year by portfolio review. But the good news is that if I don't get accepted next spring, I can spend that year finishing up my GE classes and then reapply and I won't really have lost any time. They have you register for classes there and they were pretty much all full. I was able to get into my graphic design classes, but all the GE classes I wanted to take were full. So who knows. I may be there a while.

Its a beautiful campus. So many trees and its pretty much all flat. Unlike Ohlone which used to have trees but they cut them all down and its built on a cliff. You pretty much have to go rock climbing to get from place to place. But I digress.

After orientation I went to the apartment to refresh my memory so I can plan what to bring when I move. My friend mike that I  brought was pretty impressed with the place. He's going to nursing school somewhere near Sacramento so he said he's going to look into getting a place at the element too. That will be cool if I can have a friend already in the complex! It will make meeting new friends much easier for me.

It will be very exciting to be out on my own. I hesitate to say "I can't wait" because I know that with it comes school, and I really enjoy being on summer vacation.