looks like i'm running behind on my 3 months per post benchmark. i just listened to the 911 audio in my last post again. i've heard it probably 25-30 times and it still makes me laugh. pure gold. so here's a quick summary of events/things that might have been el blog worthy, but just didn't happen:
erin and i ran in the north texas race for the cure back in june. it went much better than the last (and only other) time i had run a 5k. gale force winds were not felt, and the temp was well above 35 degrees. i decided prior to the race that i wanted to shoot for a 30 minute time. i hate running, and last time my shins staged a revolt after a quarter mile, thus slowing me down quite a bit. erin and i wanted to try to run together since there were more people there than mcdonalds has ever served. she wasn't feeling too great that morning, and stopped running after a mile. i stopped too, but when i did, my shins blew up. they were killing me if i walked, but didn't feel too bad whilst running, so we quickly made plans to meet up at or near the finish line and i took off running. i wound up pulling a 31:49, which i was pretty happy about. it's not a great time, but i was pleased. we wound up having to meet at the truck because we somehow missed each other at the finish. there were crap tons of people out there. it felt pretty good to support such a great cause.
i took a 4 week summer statistics class. i still don't like statistics that much, but i had a great professor, and it went fairly well. i actually think that the 4 week format is preferable to a standard semester when it comes to a class like stats. probability still makes my head swim, but i can say that the probability that i made an A is 1.
the first week or so of may, my sister and i took a bit of a kamikaze trip out to NM to see grandma nora. we left at 11pm on a wednesday, and drove thru the night. she had been in the hospital for a bunch of problems, and had nearly fought them all back. it came to the point that they put her in hospice care where she actually stabilized and even improved a bit. chris and i got to spend some great time with her. the day we left, there were a bunch of hot air balloons out. it was pretty cool. even better was that when we stopped by to see her on our way out, we could see them out her 10th floor window. we wheeled her bed over towards the window so she could see out, and we all enjoyed the view. it was a great visit and i'm very glad we went. she passed away a week or so later. along with chris & brant and rob & rashahn, erin and i drove up to albacranky for the funeral, and then drove up to taos where she and grandpa are buried. it was great to see almost all the family, but of course it was sad to see grandma go. the great thing is that we have the opportunity to see her again. we've got a great family and i look forward to spending an eternity with them.
erin had never been to taos before, so while we were there, we did the whole taos tourist thing. i love that place, and it was fun to walk the plaza and see the gorge and drive by some of the houses grandpa had built. we ate at michael's kitchen for dinner, which was awesome. on our way out of town, we stopped to grab one of their famous cinnamon rolls. it was HUGE!
for the 4th of july, erin and i and a couple of our friends, brandon and jj, went to the addison fireworks show. we went to what i call ground zero, otherwise known as addison circle. the fireworks are super close and there were a bunch of food and drink stands set up, as well as a few carnival rides. i'm not a fan of paying to be spun in circles to the point of vomiting, so we stayed away from those. there was an air show before the fireworks which was pretty cool. the news said there were about 400,000 people crammed into tiny little 4.4 square mile addison. and we were in the middle of it. we arrived early and stayed late so we didn't have to deal with the huge crowd that much, but still, that's a crapton of people. it was still fun though.
nearly 12 years after taking my first community college class, i finally finished up my core stuff. just last weekend i registered for classes at UNT. i'll be studying speech/language pathology. i'm excited to start in on some real classes geared towards what i actually want to do. it's amazing how much time i've wasted in terms of getting school done. at least now the end is in sight. it looks like i might be able to finish my bachelors in a year and a half than another year and a half or so for a masters, then it's done. giddyup.
and now for some pics:
loads of people and some airplanes
brandon & jj
that styrofoam thing is one of the big ones you would get if you wanted to take your dinner home with you
taos gorge (rio grande)
cousins sleeping. i think remmy moves around a bit when he sleeps
cell phone pic from grandma's window
