Time Flies

EEEEK! Has it been this many months since I last blogged? There is too much going on in my life right now. I have let me dissertation progress slip but today, I read in the paper about a fire in a refinery during a start-up. Tesoro's refinery in Washington - 4 killed and 3 reported hurt. My dissertation will hopefully deal with a safety management system. Seems like we should be better able to protect workers from these kinds of accidents.

I have to put up some pictures. Emily performed in a couple of competitions this winter. Dance Masters and LADF - the girls did real well. Emily did real well too. She is awesome to watch!! This photo (taken by Heather, I think) shows Emily is mid jump in her tap number. All these girls are beautiful young ladies.

Now one from Roslyn (I think this is a lyrical dance - the girls look so pretty! Personally, I don't really like lyrical dancing that much - but this dance was entertaining to watch. Roslyn is the kind of dance that makes you think....."why?" Emily is the girl in white, on the right.

Let's see, Erin has been busy. She has been doing Academic Team all winter, and just now HEAVY into karate and tennis. She is playing on the tennis team at school recently. ALSO, she just passed her 3rd degree black belt pre-test. We will take her back to Beckley, WV in two weekends so she can take the real test. She is ready.

This photo is Erin at an academic meet - she won first place in composition! Isn't this a pretty picture of a pretty girl!

Here is another picture of her - with her trophy. We are so proud of her!!!

Let's see. Sarah is doing very well for herself...other than her obsession with animal acquisition. She now has more horses than I can remember and two more on the way. She has two dogs, two cats, and now, two ducks (unless Peanut got hungry again). Oh no! I just realized I have no recent pictures of Sarah. Shame on me! I just got a new camera phone and the camera is BETTER than my camera (which barely works at all, lately). I need a new camera. Anyway, I will take photos next time I see her (with my new phone).



Everything is beautifully in bloom right now. The redbuds are even starting to show their orchid buds..or is that color magenta? I think they are closer to Crayola's orchid. I love the magnolias this year. They are glorious. I have to hire somebody to grind out two tree stumps. I very much miss our beautiful wild cherry tree. I was struck by lightening late last summer and died in two weeks. We also had a maple taken out in our back yard. It was damaged by water. It was hollow all the way through, rotted out from the inside. It wasn't totally dead but very near (perhaps 10 percent was still alive). Our backyard is a swamp again. We had drain lines installed several years ago...they are no longer working.


The hour is late. I still have school work to do. I start the 8th week of this class (Knowledge Woker Collaborative Information Systems) the day after tomorrow. I have a huge project due a week from tomorrow. The longest paper I have had to write in the program. It will be on a topic I am very familiar with already - enterprise knowledge sharing systems. Life is good. I will be a little more than 50% complete with this program when my class is done. I can't believe I have survived this long and done as well as I have. It's been very hard work. But it has been so worthwhile. I don't regret a penny of it.