Congraultations Jenn!!!

I'm now officially the third most educated person in my family. First Holly, and now Jenn have received their Masters degrees!

We had a great time today, with the family in town (Grandma and Grandpa too!). We also got to meet Matt's (aka Jenn's Matt, aka Buttons) family. They were very nice and fit in well with the Chalk clan.

We started the day at Jenn's place, then went to graduation, followed by the parking lot (which was tons of fun), and then we shot on over to Cap City Diner for a great supper. We ended the day at my home with some cake (because every celebration needs a cake!!!).

Below are some pictures, and also you can see the rest of the pictures by clicking here!!!

Happy 30th Anniversary Mom and Dad!

It seems like they've been married FOREVER (and I guess, in my case, they have...), but my Mom and Dad celebrated their 30th anniversary together with our family last Saturday. Jenn and Matt (aka Buttons) helped to put together a GREAT meal here in Columbus. After that, we took Mom and Dad to the Franklin Park Conservatory, and then finished the afternoon with dessert at The Melting Pot. Below is a great picture of Mom and Dad at the Conservatory!

Congratulations Mom and Dad!!!

Holly's new office!

Holly has an AWESOME new office at Miami University. All of you cubicle-dwellers can eat your hearts out, because Holly has four walls and a door of her very own. There's no window, but it's pretty cozy. Check out more pics here.

White Water Rafting

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful trip.
That started from this West Virginian port,
aboard this tiny ship.


The mate was a mighty sailin' man,
the skipper brave and sure.
Fourteen passengers set sail that day,
for a five hour tour, a five hour tour...

The rapids started getting rough,
the tiny ship was tossed.
If not for the courage of the fearless crew,
the Edward (Miller) would be lost; the Edward (Miller) would be lost.
------------
We all survived the waters of the Gaulley river.

To see more proof, view all the pictures by clicking on this link.

Bunny Short Films

No, not our Sunny Bunny, but still funny none-the-less:

Click Here to be taken to "Angry Alien Productions"

They do 30 second parodies of famous movies, using animated bunnies. Be careful where you play these, some of them use foul language (if the movie uses it, the parody usually does too).

I thought it was funny, so pass it along or pass it around! Don't worry, it's free (as in no sign-ups or anything, just click and play).

Welcome to Miami... (of Ohio)

Holly moved succesfully into her apartment on 7/30, with the help of her wonderful husband and his even more wonderful family! (Thanks Mom, Dad, and Jenn for helping us move!!!)

Holly and company arrived at around 1:30 on Sunday to Miami of Ohio and found that Holly's roommate Sara had the apartment mostly settled, with the exception of Holly's room (of course) and Holly's half of the office.

The apartment isn't too bad... although it's a bit of a stretch from the comforts of our home.

The good:

• A great roommate with most of the apartment already furnished.
• The carpet is in good condition.
• Holly has enough space (barely). Of course, Sunny has prime real estate in Holly's room!
• Location--about 3 minutes to her work, and close access to food, groceries, and Wal-Mart.

The "ok":

• It could stand to be a little further than 50 feet from the railroad tracks.
• Whoever wired the cable tv outlets (by stringing cable around the floor of the apartment, in one wall and out another) clearly should have watched a little more Bob Vila while growing up.

The worst:

• 2 hours away from "home"!!!

After we got everything moved in and thanked the family with lunch at Qdoba and desert at Coldstone Creamery, we got to work unpacking (and multiple trips to Walmart and Kroger for supplies and groceries). By Monday morning, we got almost everything unpacked. We went to lunch with some people from Holly's internship, saw Holly's office (pictures will be coming soon), and then went to dinner with Holly's roommate Sara.

After that, Jason took off to come home and dutifully update the blog, so that everyone can see Holly's new "Vacation Home" in beautiful Oxford, Ohio!

So, without further ado... the pictures:

A look at Holly's room from her door.

Holly in her room in "Chair Giant"... she'll be using it to study, relax, or...

With a quick change of cage configuration, Holly can let Sunny come over for a visit. Sunny's a big fan of this feature!!!

Holly's bed is all made... had to take a picture, because odds are it won't stay made!!! (We're both bad at that... but Holly particularly so!!!)

And Holly in her office with her big XM Radio playing tunes.

For *ALL* the pictures, (including pictures from other rooms in the apartment) click HERE for the full gallery.

Holly starts work at her internship bright and early at 7:30AM tomorrow. Wish Holly well with her new endeavor!!!

I love you, dear, and miss you (and Sunny) very much!!!

The Super Chalktendo has a home on the web...

I finally finished the last step of the Super Chalktendo project... a home for it on the web. Most people who create these projects put together a website documenting their progress. This allows people "in the community" to learn what works and what doesn't as they attempt their own projects.

I think it is a pretty interesting read, as it goes throw the process of turning one of my dreams into a reality :-). I also wrote it... and built the Super Chalktendo... so I am incredibly partial.

Without further ado, the project webpage:
http://superchalktendo.googlepages.com/

And finally, an interesting aside. I made this website with Googlepages... basically if you have a Gmail address, you can log into Googlepages.com and create a website with pictures and links for *FREE*. It hosts up to 100 Megabytes of pictures and was EXCEPTIONALLY easy to use.

See http://www.googlepages.com for more information. My only word of advice is that if you use post the page somewhere (like I did), create a separate GMail account for the webpage. This is because your GMail account becomes a part of the page name. I created SuperChalktendo@gmail.com so that I could have "superchalktendo.googlepages.com".

If you want a GMail account, just let me know and I'll send you an invite with instructions to get started. It's without a doubt the best EMail interface on the web... better than hotmail, yahoo, or anything else! It's free, but it's by invitation only, so I can give you an invite.

Deck Stained!

While artfully dodging raindrops (it drizzled for about 3 or 4 minutes with no warning today!!!) We completed staining the deck today. Below are several pictures of the completed project as it dries in the hot afternoon sun. We'll touch up a few boards tomorrow, and then move everything back onto the deck probably on Thursday.

We decided that if sweat equity adds value to a house, that by staining the deck on the 2 hottest days of the year so far meant that we added a lot of sweat... and value... to the house!

Holly did a tremendous job helping out, and we managed to keep the stain from going anywhere but on the deck :-). All-in-all, a successful project. Click the various pictures below for a closer view of the deck.

Viva Mexico!

Just got back from Mexico! We had a wonderful time at Aventura Spa Palace... located just South of Cancun in the Mayan Riviera. Like any vacation that we go on, we tried to keep busy! A list of things of note that we did:

1. Chichen Itza--Wow... imagine Rome in North America and this is what you have. I wish I could have spent more time here! It was amazing!
2. Swam with Dolphins at XCaret--A great experience... the Dolphins were very well trained and very tolerant of us dumb humans (So long and thanks for all the fish!)
3. Snorkeling in the Caribbean--never gets old!
   
4. 4-Wheeling through the Mexican "jungle" (more like huge brush fields). Much of Mexico is very remote and desolate, and it was neat to see so much of it up close.
5. Speed-boating in the Caribbean. A 2 person fiberglass hull and a speedboat motor made for a LOT of fun!!!
6. Enjoying time with family... priceless! (Or Price-ful... depending on how you look at it).

So that was our vacation in a nutshell. What!? You want more pictures? Look here for more pictures...

Paging Dr. Chalk...

Ok... ok.... not yet, but almost...

Holly completed the second-to-last major requirement to graduation today... Officially completing her dissertation by passing her oral defense.

Holly picked a wonderful day to defend her dissertation... our anniversary. Now we will always have 2 reasons to celebrate June 26th!

Why is this day a big deal? Well, even though she has her internship (1-year) starting in August (yes, she still walks in June '07), Holly says that "People fail their defense... No one fails internships". So... I think we can call this one officially "in the bag".

Send Holly your congratulations. She no doubt deserves it after all of the hard work over the past 5 years. Today is truly a crowning achievement in her career and one that I am very proud of. It takes a special person to become a PhD, and Holly is no doubt deserving in every single way. I love you dear!!!