Addition to the Family

Vacation is over for 2011 – our traditional excursion to Myrtle Beach and all the things we do down there every year. I leased a Verizon air card for the second week because the beach house has no reliable Internet service. Last year, the air card was great. This year, performance totally sucked. S-L-O-W. Too slow. I will blame slow Internet for why I got no work done on my dissertation – it was all I could do to finish class work on time.



I did do some fun things on vacation, but mostly it was work for me. Last year we went on a little tour of plantations and islands south of Myrtle, leaving out of Georgetown. That was so nice, so we did it again this year. We got to see lots dolphins this time which was kind of neat. It rained a lot the last week we were there, but the last two days, the ocean waves were much less crashing (not so much knock-you-around type waves). There were sand bars so we went way out away from the shore before the water got very deep – it was nice to just swim around and float. Jerry and I were out there and we think a dolphin or a large black fish sort of jumped up out of the water no more than 15 feet from us. We both saw it and looked at each other like, “WOW!! DID YOU SEE THAT?” We didn’t tell the girls about it – they certainly would have assumed it was a shark.


A little beach friend



So while I was down there, I did call speak to Dr. Barbuto to request permission to use his (and Dr. Wheeler’s) survey for servant leadership. He graciously gave me permission and sent me a release to use it. These gentlemen are currently at the U of Nebraska. I called Mindgarden and purchased the “starter kit” for using their MLQ – a survey for transformational leadership developed by Bernard Bass. The starter kit has a manual and a non-reproducible sample of the instrument. When I know how big my sample size has to be, then I’ll know how much $$$ it’s going to cost me to use it. Researchers get a break on the price, fortunately.

My class ended last night and there’s a week off now until the next one starts. THE LAST ONE!! When I complete that class, I’ll be Dr. Me, ABD. Not impressive, all but dissertation. I don’t want to be ABD, but it will be nice not having all that busy work interfering with the important work, and the busy work has made me much more capable of doing a decent job of the important work…let’s hope it was NOT all for nothing.

We were supposed to get a puppy yesterday but the owners decided to keep it. Today, I was determined to find a puppy, so Erin and I went out to the Boyd County Animal Shelter. So many beautiful puppies needing homes, it was hard to choose. We chose this one, and Erin named her Gracie.  The worker at the pound told us she was one of a large litter.  She was different from all the others - they all looked like schnauzers, whereas she looks a bit more like a German Shepherd.  All her siblings had been adopted out over a month ago.  She has spent most of her life in a cage so she was a bit nervous to see the outside world and ride in a car.  She seems smart and the kitties are getting to know her. 

Gracie, about 3.5 months old