hoooray school

So I'm blogging as I watch the 3rd lecture in my return the time/money hole known as grad school. I can already tell I am going to have to work harder at getting into the mode of self motivation. Its mostly changing my mindset to realize that I am back in school and must budget time to devote to it. I forget that I need to find an additional couple hours every few days to watch lectures and that when I do.. I'm not done! There is still homework to work on, and now the I am essentially learning alone the only feedback I have that I understand what is being presented is myself. This may sound like an odd statement, but it is very useful to have someone you can sanity check with. The result is that I am spending more time than usual reviewing material trying to make sure I did not miss understand the theory and methods involved.

On unrealated topics, I was in Seattle ealier this month and have some pictures I want to post.. a lot of them. They are not very interesting.. landscapes and close ups of plants and stuff (I figured out why Seattle is called "The Emerald City"). I need to cull the herd so to speak and pick 3 or 4 of my favorites to share. They will come eventually. If you are curious what Seattle is like in early January the answer is very simple.. cold and wet. Coming from Phoenix the dreary weather was actually a refreshing change. Unfortunately, just as I was ready to go back home I did.. to find the exact same weather followed me and has decided to stick around for 2 weeks. Oh well.. such is life.
The storms where interesting.. lost half a tree in the backyard and about 30 shingles, but there have been no leaks up in the crawl space so I think everything will be alright.

Its that time of year

Its winter. The weather is nice, the holidays are plentiful, and the blue hairs are out in force. Sure, I live in one of the nations retirement capitals so I should expect to see them on the road but now we have been invaded by the most insidious of blue hairs: SNOWBIRDS!
I hate driving snow birds. You may be asking yourself how you could spot one for yourself.
Here are the basics:
Identify the slowest vehicle on the road around you. Notice how they are driving like they have absolutely no where to go, and even if they did they don't know how to get there, and to top it all off, they don't care when they get there. Yah.. its a blue hair. How do you easily tell a snowbird from a normal blue hair? Look for out of state plates. Not all plates apply here, Texas, Florida, and New Mexico usually just mean they are visiting. Their state is already nice and warm, they have no need to move to Arizona for the winter. The ones you have to look out for are Oregon, Idaho, Montanan, the Dakotas, and all plates Canadian. Be especially wary of Canadian snow birds. Not only do they have the same oblivious driving habits as other snow birds, but they also have an innate distrust of our measurement system and will often drive based on kilometers instead of miles. Sign says 35 mph speed limit gets magically turned into a hideously small number because they can't do the conversion in thier head and don't want to deal with "foreign" driving offenses.