I know we have been to Omaha and Lincoln a number of times and even out to Denver once as a family, but our trip last week to The Outer Banks of North Carolina is what I am calling our first family vacation and not only a vacation but an adventure, an adventure in parenting.
About a month ago Olive, our cat, drug a dead bird into the house through her cat door. After chasing her around and eventually under the bed, I got the bird away form her and gave it a proper burial…in the garbage. I had assumed that she found the bird dead in the yard because she isn’t much of a hunter. Well, I guess I was wrong , because this afternoon Gillian, Elena and I where hanging out in the living room and we heard this strange squeaking sound as Olive proudly marched into the room with a live, full size, bird in her mouth. Of course the bird got loose and started fluttering around the house with Olive in pursuit, jumping, pawing, and biting at the poor bird. I tried to direct the bird outside but failed because I was in tears with laughter. Olive finally manager to knock the bird down onto her cat perch and it stopped moving. I wrapped it up in a towel and took it outside to through it into the field next to our house. As I unwrapped it, the bird woke up and flew away. Though based on the amount of feathers and “bird bits” in our living room and kitchen I don’t think it is long for this world. Oh and the bird emptied it’s bowels on our coffee table, but I still find this all hilarious!
UPDATE: Olive caught another bird and brought it into the house yesterday over lunch and again this evening while we were having dinner! That is three birds in three days, these must be the stupidest birds in the world! We also really need to start shutting the garage door.
Last Friday was Gillian and I’s five-year wedding anniversary. A lot has happened in the last five, but it has definitely been more good than bad and I am looking forward to the next five years. By the way, this picture was very difficult to take and I still cut off both Gillian and I’s head.
I got a letter in the mail today, then I proceeded to hyperventilate, seriously ask Gillian. This letter informed me that I had passed the Mechanical Principles and Practices of Engineering examination. I passed the PE, I passed the PE, I…passed…the…PE!!! Thank you to everyone for the support and special thanks to my wife, Gillian, who had to put up with me being all kinds of crazy over the last 6 months. So, I would just like to say Booyah! and thank God I don’t have to take it again!
I have had a number of people tell me that they can’t download my pictures off Flickr, because they are “protected”. You can download the pictures, but I have had so many people confused about this I figured I would explain it in detail. Flickr automatically sets all photos to copyright all rights reserved, I make a habit of leaving all pictures with people in them on that setting, so pictures of my friends and family can not be used by other websites. I also make a habit of changing most other pictures to creative commons, so those pictures can be used by other websites. This is how I have gotten my pictures on sites like wired.com and mainstreet.com. Either way, all rights reserved or creative commons you can download pictures and here is how.
Yesterday I packed up all my books and drove to Lincoln for the Professional Engineering Exam. The four hour morning session over general mechanical engineering started at 7:15am so I had to leave the house at 5:30am. The morning session consisting of 40 questions over a wide range of mechanical engineering topics, went fairly well. There was a lot of HVAC questions…I don’t like HVAC. We were give a one hour lunch break then, the four hour afternoon session covering a more specific area of engineering started, for me it was Mechanical Systems and Materials. The afternoon test was more difficult than I thought it would be and on hour seven I was starting to run out of time and just ended up guess on a couple that I really didn’t know how to do anyway. All in all I think I think is could go either way, I feel much better then I did after taking the FE exam and I passed that one, but I think this one may be graded harder.
Thanks for everyones well wishes and support, now I have 8-10 weeks to wait until I get the results.
I hate you and I want you out of my life!
Love,
Ryan
Pronounced ”Ka-nobs” because it annoys Gillian, I finally got around to putting knobs on the kitchen cabinets. Actually, I would like to thank Howland, Gillian’s uncle, who happens to own the Cabinet Factory Outlet and mailed us a package of 50 knobs after we mentioned it a few weeks ago. It is good to know people, Thanks again Howland.
This is where you read about Gillian and me trying not to fail at life. I will probably be doing most of the failing, it's inevitable.
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