My defense went pretty smoothly, except for the member of my committee who was incredibly late and the fact that I still need to get signatures on some forms that he should have brought to the defense. Other than that, though, the defense went really well. In fact, I was told that it was almost good enough to be a Doctoral dissertation, which is ( Read more... )

Well, I passed. More later.

 Well, I am defending my thesis tomorrow morning at 11:00 am. I'm a little nervous, but maybe not as nervous as I could (or should) be. We'll see how it goes, but it sounds pretty straight forward. This is the last thing I need to get my Master's degree; the class I am taking this term is not part of my program, and I am only taking it because it ( Read more... )

Well, I got back from Vermont late last night. My plane landed in Portland at 8:30, and I got home around 10:30 or 11. So, here’s the rundown ( Read more... )

I have a cold, just in time for Spring Break... Oh well, all I had planned for the break is working on my thesis, which I have to defend soon, getting ready for the Conference, and going through my crap in the garage... Yeah, it's a pretty exciting way to spend Break, but, at my age, I am lucky to have it at all. The only thing the cold might ( Read more... )

So, my advisor, Dr. Williams, told me about a Tolkien conference that is going to be held in April at the University of Vermont and, since my thesis is pretty much right in line with what their theme is, I decided to submit an abstract. Well, apparently they liked what I had to say, and they accepted it! Now I just need to come up with the funds ( Read more... )

Well, I finally updated my homepage so it looks a bit nicer, and replaced links with buttons.  Nothing is too fancy, but it does look better.  Let me know what you think! I have also added some new stuff to my shops, so be sure to check that out.

I have been collecting the Star Wars stuff at Burger King lately.  I'm such a geek...  I currently have ( Read more... )

Hello ( Read more... )

Last night, Jessee and I went to the Lord of the Rings Symphony in Portland.  It was amazing!  I can’t believe how moved we were by music we’ve heard hundreds of times, but hearing it live gives it that much more power.

Anyway, we got all dressed up in our finest (I wore a suit and my Darth Vader tie, since I wanted to be a bit of a geek and I ( Read more... )

I just watched the space shuttle Discovery launch.

I didn’t know that there was a shuttle launch today, but I was lucky enough to be awake and flipping through the channels on the TV and I found it.  It was amazing, every bit as enthralling as when I was a kid.  Fortunately, there were no problems with this launch, and hopefully there will be no ( Read more... )