Settling Well in Knoxville

So it's been about 3 weeks now since Timmy and I have moved down to Knoxville, and it's been a splendid time already! We've attended an Irish festival and a country music concert. Yes, I said country music, but it was a very good concert. Sugarland was a great opening act, but Keith Urban was the one that shook Thompson-Boling Arena (UT's basketball arena, which is an excellent venue). He was so good that I bought my first country album today, which was the album that he released this year (Defying Gravity)!

As for school, classes haven't been taxing thus far. We're into our third week of classes already. I have my research topic, which is a neat one. It's called highway cost allocation, which involves coming up with a fair and rational way of splitting up the cost of rehabilitating, repairing, and/or building a highway among the vehicle classes (passenger cars, two axle trucks, etc.), which are the people who use the highway.

This weekend's going to be an excellent one! Annette's coming in on Thursday morning. Timmy, Annette, and I have tickets to see Sara Evans on Friday. And Saturday's going to be a glorious day. The three of us have tickets to see the season opener for the Volunteers football team, where we'll be in a stadium that holds over 100,000 people!!! Not only do we have some football action at noon in Knoxville, the Hokies will be on national TV against Alabama. I'm hoping for a big win here since it'll be against a top 10 team.

Until later, keep out of trouble folks!

Welcome Back My Friends...

Yes, it's been nearly a year and a half since I last posted to this blog. Many people have abandoned this blog probably, and it's ok. I felt that I had some time on this holiday to bring some people up to speed with what's been going on, especially those I haven't seen in a while!

• I'm heading down this week to the Volunteer State, Tennessee, to look for a place to live. I'm moving down there because I was offered admission into the PhD program in Industrial and Information Engineering at the University of Tennessee, which is located in Knoxville. I'll be funded under a graduate research assistantship, although I may have some grading the first semester I'm there.
• Currently, I'm home preparing for my last teaching assignment at Virginia Tech. It's an online course, which I am looking forward to because online learning is a recent development that has my interest. I shall be learning the pros and cons of this teaching medium over the next few weeks, and I'll be glad to share my experiences with other fellow educators.
• If you weren't aware of it at this point, I got engaged last May to Annette Fidecaro, my college sweetheart. However, the wedding is in the mildly distant future because we do not currently live in the same state (she's working in DC) and I'd like to finish my studies at Tennessee before we start planning. Another bonus in waiting is that a close friend of mine will be receiving his Holy Orders shortly after I earn my PhD, and it would be awesome to have him preside over that special day.
• My AFI journey is still coming along. Last fall, I purchased an Xbox 360 and discovered the power of Netflix. That service has greatly assisted me in the AFI process. I will give an update sometime in the near future with my progress.

Alright, I'm getting somewhat tired with writing at the current moment because I want to get on my bike and enjoy this wonderful weather. Contact me when you have a chance; I'd love to hear what's new with you!

AFI Update

So I talked about my movie binge last post. Here's a more complete update of the films I've seen on the 2007 AFI 100 Years...100 Movies List

Movies I've seen with AFI rankings next to them:
#1 Citizen Kane
#2 The Godfather
#3 Casablanca
#4 Raging Bull
#8 Schindler's List
#9 Vertigo
#10 The Wizard of Oz
#11 City Lights
#12 The Searchers
#13 Star Wars
#14 Psycho
#17 The Graduate
#19 On The Waterfront
#21 Chinatown
#24 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
#25 To Kill A Mockingbird
#26 Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
#32 The Godfather Part II
#33 One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
#34 Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
#39 Dr. Strangelove
#50 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
#51 West Side Story
#57 Rocky
#66 Raiders of the Lost Ark
#71 Saving Private Ryan
#72 The Shawshank Redemption
#76 Forrest Gump
#83 Titanic
#89 The Sixth Sense
#92 Goodfellas
#99 Toy Story

And I'll keep things posted as we go along. Take care fans.

P.S. You can find the list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI's_100_Years..._100_Movies_(10th_Anniversary_Edition)

Thank The Flu For The Movie Binge

Hello fans,

First, I want to apologize for not posting in quite some time. When I was ready for another post last week, I got smacked with the flu. It began on Monday afternoon and ended sometime between last Thursday afternoon and last Friday. Because I couldn't do much, I figured that it's a good time to catch up on my movies. You can deduce how much time I spent in bed from the list of movies I watched since I was sick.

• The Godfather
• The Godfather Part II
• The Godfather Part III
  
• West Side Story
• Rain Man

After those movies, I was inspired to print out the list of AFI's top 100 movies that was published in 2007, which was the 10th anniversary of the original list. I'm looking to watching most, if not all, of the movies on the list. As of right now, I have watched 22 movies on the list. And I'm only counting those movies where I can recollect at least 2/3 of the movie. So there are some movies that I've seen when I was little and don't remember much, and I have therefore not counted them. Right now, I'm watching Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Most of the ones I watched on the list I really enjoyed, but there are some that I didn't enjoy much. I didn't expect to fall in love with all the movies on this list, but I have grown to appreciate them and understand why they're on the list.

Things in the classroom have been good so far. A challenge I've been facing with is how to deal with the material that I was supposed to cover when I was sick. I think that the class has been able to recover nicely since I was sick, and I've been trying to backfill the material when I can. As time goes on, I consider more and more the possibility of getting a PhD in Statistics Education or something of the like. It's something that I love and want to make a serious career out of it, and there's plenty of time to decide what to do.

As for this weekend, I'm going to watch some more excellent movies. Here's some of the movies that I'm looking to watch over the weekend.

• On The Waterfront
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Scarface
• Silence of the Lambs
• City Lights
• The Graduate

I know it'll be a stretch to watch all of those movies, but I can try. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Awake....somehow

Unfortunately, it's Monday. Back to waking up at 8 in the morning, going to morning class, and doing all sorts of work throughout the day. At least the weekend was not as bad as it looked on Friday.

As I was driving to WV to spend the weekend and a B&B with my lady, my car's "check engine" light was periodically going on and off. When I was roughly 60 miles away from Blacksburg, I realized that it was not worth the risk. So I turned around and put my car in the shop. There's a part that needs to be replaced, so I won't have it back until mid-week. Because of this, Annette came down and spent the weekend in Blacksburg as well. We went to Walmart a billion times, and I don't really know why. We ate some awesome food, especially at Mac & Bob's in Salem and the Meditarranean Restaurant on Main St. nest to Moe's. Be warned though that the food in that place can give you some terrible gas. I'll leave it at that

We saw Dan in Real Life on campus, and it was a great movie and better than my above average expectations. It reminded me of his serious role in Little Miss Sunshine, and part of Michael on "The Office". Also, I was supposed to keep it as a surprise for WV, but we watched season 7 of "The King of Queens". I think there's about 3 more episodes we didn't see, so I'll have to get season 8 before I head up to WV in March, which is when we rescheduled the trip for.

Ok, I need to stop typing, make lunch, and get to my 9:05 class. Hopefully, my frequency of posting is making some people happier ;-D Peace out.

Because The People Want It

It was brought to my attention that I should post on a more frequent basis. And if people want more posting, then they shall receive more posting. So here goes...

The first week of the semester is coming to a close, and it's been a pleasant one. Classes don't seem to be much harder than the ones from last semester. And teaching is the best thing ever...at least for me it is. It seems like the students enjoy my mildly crazy teaching style, or they're wide awake from eating lunch before class. In any case, I had them do a mini assignment where they basically introduce themselves to me in the form of a very short bio. There's a lot of interesting people in my class, but I rather not share because of confidentiality issues. So trust me that I have an interesting group of students. I've been telling some people that I have the best job in the world, and I mean that because this is what I'm looking to do with my life.

Besides that, I'm about ready to call it a night. After my 9:05 class, I begin to head up to DC to enjoy a three day weekend with my lady. I was worried that I couldn't make the trip between the snow we got today and my car temporarily acting up. I'll probably be helping her spruce up her new apartment, and I'll relax some while I have the chance to. Maybe I'll knock out a chunk of Eldest, which is shaping up to be yet another great book. Yes, I'm sticking to my word that the Inheritance Series is better than Harry Potter. Eragon doesn't even need his dragon to take care of that whiny brat. To Harry Potter fans, I'm sorry if I offended you.

Even better than this three day weekend is going to be my Bed and Breakfast endeavor with my lady in West Virginia next weekend. I would like to do some hiking in one of the national forests that are adjacent to the B&B, and I would like to spot some bears in the forests. I'll make sure to take some pictures.

Good night and good luck.

Twas the Night Before a New Semester...

So 9:05 tomorrow morning marks the beginning of a new semester. Last semester was a pleasant one. I was introduced to graduate work and the duties of a TA. I'm pleased that I was able to handle the work well, and as a result, the bar gets placed a little bit higher. The courses are going to be slightly more challenging, and this will be the first semester that I'm teaching a full course.
Nonetheless, I am very excited to embark on this journey. At the end of the journey, I'll be presented with one of the hardest tests I will ever take...the qualifying exam. 12 hours over 3 days of testing what I learned during this academic year. I think that I can come out victorious, but it will come with some hard work and dedication. Also, I hope that I'll be a great success in leading 120 engineers to appreciate statistics.
Before I hit the sack, I'm going to write up another homework assignment and enjoy some bedtime tea. Until then, auf wiedersehen.