From the birth of my fourth child until today. This gives a glimpse into my life that is filled with joy, sadness, pure happiness, and devastating grief... in other words... it is real.
Well - Saturday has started with lots of work. I mowed and edged the yard. That was over 5K steps. We have a full week this next week so there is a lot to do. Ammon got back from high adventure with sunburns on his feet from where he was wearing sandals. He has gotten so tall it is odd for me to look at him being so tall. We are eye to eye.
I'm hosting a trivia game at work and had to come up with various trivia questions. I always find enjoyment in coming up with these questions. They are both silly, informative, and tricky.
Claire seems to go from happy to very irritable in a short amount of time. I don't know if this is age or just because we have tolerated it. Needless to say we don't tolerate it now. This has made for some tough days.
I realized I haven't shared any pictures of my granddaughter. This is Monroe.
She is the cutest little girl. She loves to talk with Samantha. Not so much with me. It is probably that I don't talk with her as often. When we visit I do get a moment to hold her and interact with her. She is so sweet. I just love her so much.
We have more of the thistle growing in our yard. I seriously hate this weed. I fully understand why farmers burn their fields with this in there. It grows so tall and so fast that you can't get in to get it removed before it is towering over 6 feet in height. I'm going to pick up some weed killer and go to town. Hopefully I can get it under control. We probably have 50 plants that are now 4 feet in height. They are not all on our property but because we don't have fences and our backyard is a mountainside the plants are just going nuts.
Well - now that I am not in school I find time is available for living life. It is amazing how you appreciate things more when something you take for granted is taken away from you. Time. Time is something I both love and hate. Needless to say, having available time has been helpful and a welcomed addition to my life.
My supervisor and I hired a couple of interns at work. It is good to have a fresh set of eyes on something as it may uncover some things we need to do differently. I am hopeful for the findings.
Ammon is at a camp and will return tomorrow night. I hope he is enjoying it. He doesn't like being outside his comfort zone and this is definitely outside his comfort zone. While he has been gone I changed out the tubes and tires on my old bike for him to use. I measured him before he left for camp and he was a little over 6'. He is not even 15 yet so I expect he will be my height or maybe a bit taller. Who knows.
Emma Jean and I went on a daddy-daughter date tonight. It was good catching up with everything she has going on at work.
I watched "who's line is it anyway?" when I got home with Madilyn and she and I were laughing up a storm. I enjoy hearing my children laugh.
Claire has been fussy lately. I don't know what to do about that. She seems like everything is something to irritate her. I worry about when she is 16!
Well - I don't have a ton to report on. I am going to update my last post with my talk I gave at graduation.... once I find it.
So, I have been absent for about 18 months. I was working on finishing my degree and I did. I graduated and have turned the page on that time in my life. I have to say that anyone who is getting a graduate degree as an adult should be commended. What a sacrifice! It was a sacrifice by me, Samantha, my kids, my coworkers, my family, everyone.
I traveled to West Lafayette, IN and was able to visit with some classmates. I was able to walk across the stage and it was a tremendous feeling to complete the degree. I averaged between 70 and 90 hours a week and that was every week except the weeks between modules. I have just been exhausted. After the graduation I was awoken to the fact that I had been living under a rock for a while. Samantha came into the room one day and asked what I was doing that evening. I said "Nothing. Absolutely nothing." It was a good feeling. I feel the sacrifice my family made has been huge.
So - I officially have my Masters of Science from Purdue University in Business Analytics. I have learned a ton. I spoke at the virtual commencement and had an interview for some media engagements I am going to be involved in. Overall it is a crazy time.
I realized the last time I posted was in December. This is how detached from reality I have been.
Samantha and I picked up some bicycles and are trying to start a new habit of riding on a regular basis. I rode a ton as a kid and getting back into that has been good.
I have so much to say but I am at a loss since I haven't written in so long.
Emma (Jean) returned home from serving as a missionary in Bakersfield, CA in March. My oldest stepdaughter (Emma (Jane)) gave birth to her second child. I LOVE being a grandpa. It is the absolute best. It is better than any degree, any recognition, anything. I love this little girl cooing at me in FaceTime.
I feel closer to my kids and that is an awesome feeling. I love all of them. I don't see Emma (Jane) that often unless she drives in or Alex unless he joins for dinner on Sundays but I sure love them all and am so grateful for them in my life.
Today was more juggling work while I was on vacation. I know this is sometimes inevitable; however, I feel like my vacation comes when everyone is on vacation. We were able to finish all the wrapping of presents. We also braved the stores and finished picking up a few more things for Christmas activities. I am trying to get into the holiday spirits. It is a struggle.
I always have had a bitter-sweet moment of the year during Christmas. Everything is fresh in my mind. The nightmare unfolds over and over and over again. I was having a very frank talk with Samantha today about the whole memory and one of the things she mentioned was while it ruined Christmas for me it shouldn't ruin Christmas for others in the house. I agree. It shouldn't. It is my own baggage. I took a moment yesterday and wept. Suffice it to say that I don't do that much but I was able to just let go of my feelings for a moment and feel sad. It was good and sad at the same time. I don't dream much or perhaps I just don't recall my dreams. I have had maybe 3 dreams with Jan in them that I recall and none of them provided any closure for me. I suppose sudden and unexpected death is like that... things are left unresolved. It reminds me of the mental image I have of her purse sitting on a bar stool where she last left it and me realizing that purse would never be moved by her again. Well - the 20th has come and gone.
On a positive note, Claire celebrated her 8th Birthday. She is such a sweet little girl and I am so thankful to have her in my life. She had a birthday party with a few of her friends on Monday then a happy birthday moment yesterday with some cake and ice cream.
I finished up my semester and have a break. A month-long break. It is so needed. I was at the point of breaking mentally. I ended the semester getting a B in the class that was so difficult for me. It was an awesome class but so difficult. I only have three more classes. I am looking forward to being done. I have explored DBA, Ph.D., Ed.D, and D.Tech degrees to further my education. I really do enjoy learning new concepts as long as they have a practical side to them. I don't know if I could do another 5-7 years of schooling. I think that would be a challenge. I would be interested in just getting the curriculum for the classes and doing them on my own. I think that would be fun.
We cleaned the house today. It was good to get some things checked off the list. Getting the house cleaned, presents wrapped, and some important errands completed was good to get done. Speaking of lists, Samantha was talking about "brain types" and that got me thinking about the Myers-Briggs 16 personalities and brain differences between the personalities. That type of stuff fascinates me. I honestly think if I wasn't grossed out by blood and guts I would have studied neurology. Anyway - I came across a site that studied the various personalities in Myers-Briggs against brain activity. The fascinating thing was understanding what parts of the brain are active when certain things happen vs. when other things happen. This explains why some people are good at remembering names, faces, shape associations, etc, why some people can be extremely blunt in both giving and receiving criticism, and why some have a natural ability to sniff out when someone is withholding information. Each of these is tied to your personality and the corresponding brain activity. So, this "personality test" is more than how someone is when interacting with others. It tells a lot about how a person's brain works. Fun stuff. At least, I find it very fascinating. For my personality fixing issues or completing things on a list bring a feeling of accomplishment... a bit of "happy" to my day, so to speak. So, circling back, getting things checked off the list today was good (for me).. :-)
I have neglected writing and I probably have a valid excuse although it isn't really valid since I write on this blog for my own. I get that others read this and catch up on what the Weaver's are up to but suffice it to say I have been busy. A few months ago I inquired on the ability to be a teaching assistant at school after getting this approved at work. This was mainly because in many of my IT related classes I end up teaching/tutoring others. One of the school administrators reached out to me a few months later and asked if I would have interest. I said yes. Then I got another professor that requested me to be a TA. I said ok. So, last module and this module I am a TA. I was also asked to be a TA for the Spring 2023 semester, but I turned them down. I'll speak to that in a bit. So, I am taking two classes this module. Data Mining and IT Strategy classes. Both have different ways of stressing you out. For my data mining, I was immediately thrust into doing math that I hadn't looked at in a long while. The class immediately picked up on linear regression from my business analytics class and I honestly forgot so many of the formulas. Example problems are like the one below
James, G., Witten, D., Hastie, T., & Tibshirani, R. (2021). Chapter 3. In An Introduction to Statistical Learning: with Applications in R (Springer Texts in Statistics) (2nd ed., pp. 131–132). essay, Springer.
So, when I got into this class I immediately felt I was behind. To add to the stress, Purdue only offers this class once a year so if I didn't do well I would have to wait a year to retake it. I was reflecting on the movie "Real Genius" with Val Kilmer and this once scene really really hit home for me this last week.
I had to reach out and get some assistance and tutoring. Once I got a refresh, the problem above was very straight forward and I was back in business. The concept of this course is to understand the math behind how calculations are done in tooling used for machine learning and then applying it in a SAS Enterprise Miner tool to leverage building models to best predict the future based on machine learning models that you tune. Once I had some tutoring in this I am really enjoying the class. The only positive in the class prior to me feeling completely overwhelmed was we had to select our own groups for a final group project and I had 6 people reach out and ask if I could be in a group with them. I ended up getting in a group of 4 so we will see how it works out. I was flattered that so many people wanted me in their group. I suppose I am doing something right.
My other class of IT Strategy is very interesting. I have dealt with IT strategy for over a decade being in management. This class is forcing me to look at problems outside my area of expertise and evaluate and defend a direction. It has spurred a lot of good online discussions with my classmates.
I submitted my intent to graduate in May 2023. I have been extremely busy and have decided that my last semester that I will not be doing any TA work. I told the professor that wanted me that I am happy to do work for him after I graduate if that is allowed. I enjoy helping others learn new concepts.
I finished and submitted all of my homework yesterday and did not do any school at all today. It was a very nice and much needed break.
<----- news update ----->
So - a shout out to my work family at the Houston Astros. They are once again in the World Series. My sister had the opportunity of going to the 1st game at Minute Maid Park. I was so happy for her. I told her it took about 8-10 years after I left the Astros for me to be able to go to a game there and not feel like I was at work. Anyway - I am so excited for the team. I am excited for Houston. What an awesome event to have in a town that has experienced such a negative impact from the Oil and Gas industry downturn. I am excited to see Houston electrified with the excitement that the World Series can bring. It genuinely makes me smile.
The kids are getting ready for Halloween. Ammon just finished a play at school that he performed in. He is naturally good at acting and I hope he continues.
Well - I'm sure there is more that I am forgetting. This brain dump has been therapeutic for me. So - I'm sure I will do more of this in the near future. Until then -
Have you ever been overwhelmed? Of course you have. That feeling of the world's weight on your shoulders seems to be more normal since I have gone back to school. I have two classes that couldn't be more different. One is highly organized with deliverables scheduled where grading is very clear. The other isn't so clear as it forces the student to determine what the deliverables should be. They both create a significant amount of stress as I work to either complete the assigned deliverables or work to identify what they should be. I am glad I am taking both of these classes. Both are pushing me to be my best.
My grass is dying. I am a bit frustrated. New grass... dead grass. The neighbor's lawns are green and growing and mine... isn't. Samantha put some fertilizer down and we have been watering but it just hasn't taken off yet. Maybe I should plant some rocks.
Inflation is a kick in the pants. I was looking at the value of the US Dollar over time and it is just lunacy.
I was looking at this site https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm which allows you to put in a value and see the corresponding inflated/deflated rate of a different year. It is just sickening. I think with so many working from home that the price of fuel isn't hitting everyone like it did pre-COVID. Still, the price here is $4.44. I have work associates in the UK and in Singapore that are currently paying much more so I am grateful that the cost hasn't reached those values.
