The 4-chord song is finally on YouTube

Enjoy . . .

Forget global warming . . .

For all of the talk about global warming these days, I think that there is another issue that the government, media, and scientists are overlooking - global staticization. I swear that in the last year or so, I have had so many static electricity shocks. I shock myself (and sometimes others) ALL THE TIME! It's gotten so bad that I have noticed that I start timidly touching things or using my forarms to open doors, just to try to avoid or minimize the shockage. Today I shocked myself when I touched my computer keyboard, and I can still feel the effects. Am I the only one who's experiencing this phenomenon?

The Hartwell Curse

My father's alma mater is Weber State University, my mother's is Brigham Young University, and mine is George Washington University. All three teams fell in the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament last week. Could this possibly be related to my fantasy football curse? The jury is still deliberating.

The GWopoly Queen!

To celebrate George Washington University's berth in the NCAA tournament, I convinced Deidra that we needed to play GWopoly (the GWU version of Monopoly) tonight for family home evening - even though she hates Monopoly. She was very gracious and agreed. We played the short version (where you deal out the properties insteading of having to land on them to buy them) made even shorter by wheeling and dealing so that we could have matches. But it soon became apparent that I was in trouble when Deidra side-stepped all of my properties, though I went down fighting and tried to last as long as I could. But, basically, I got massacred. All hail Deidra - the GWopoly Queen!

I want my baby back, baby back, baby back

So, Deidra made these awesome ribs for dinner tonight. We got boneless country-style pork ribs yesterday at the store (they were a steal on sale) and we decided last night that we would make some ribs for dinner when we got home from church today. Unfortunately, we didn't have any barbeque sauce, and I neither of us wanted to go back to the store last night. But Deidra pulled out her trusty cooking bible (aka "The Joy of Cooking") and we found a recipe we thought would be good for making barbeque sauce, which included garlic, freash ginger, and worcestershire sauce. We had the fresh garlic and ginger, but no worcestershire sauce - so we decided on using A1 sauce instead (to which I was more than agreeable). As Deidra said, I don't know if it was the four hours after church that we had to wait while they cooked, or if they really were that good, but I just wanted to eat the whole panful (and probably would have, if Deidra hadn't stopped me).

Not only that, but Deidra made homemade cole slaw and I whipped together some pink lemonade (it was hard work stirring the crystal light into the water). All-in-all, it was a great meal that made me anxious for summer.

And I'm definitely looking forward to lunch tomorrow!

March Madness? How about March MAYHEM?!

Ok, so I know I invited you to join my March Madness league on Yahoo! Sports (and that's still on, by the way), but I remembered how much more I like the brackets at CBS Sportsline. With Yahoo!, you get a set number of points per correct pick (1 pt in the first round, 2 pts in the second, etc.), but with CBS Sportsline, you get those set number of points multiplied by the ranking (seed) of your correct pick. That way you score more points for correctly prediciting upsets. Not only that, but each person can have two brackets. So, if you want to join the MAYHEM, clik on the link below and enter the password "roxor":

OOH! OOH! Click me! Click me!

(password: roxor)

P.S. If you think I get a little too excited about March Madness - you might be on to something.

P.P.S. The link above has now been fixed.

Blessing in disguise

I was scheduled to take my second statistics exam yesterday at 3:30pm, until I found out on Tuesday that I had to attend a training in Salt Lake for work. It was scheduled to finish at 2pm. I figured I would get a little bit of extra study time in by changing my test-taking time to 5:30pm (the good part about online classes - you can reschedule your tests) - so I did. When I got back from my training in SLC at 3:00, I immediately set about studying for my test. But I just never felt comfortable with the concepts and didn't really feel like I was going to do well. As the time approached to take the test, I reluctantly left home and drove up to campus.

Upon entering the test-taking center, the proctor could not locate my exam. I waited for about ten minutes while he left the room in search of it. He came back with a test he located and I sat down to begin to take it. It didn't take me long to figure out it wasn't the right test, because a) it looks completely different from the practice tests we had been given, b) the formulas didn't all look familiar, and c) I was allotted two hours to take the test, when I know that the test I was supposed to take was only supposed to be 75 minutes.

I told the proctor my dilemma and he said there wasn't much else he could do, because the main office was closed. He suggested that I reschedule to take my test another day. Since Thursday and Friday were the only days that the test was offered, I reluctantly agreed to reschedule for Friday - knowing I would have to get out of work early in order to make it to the testing center before it closed.

I printed off copies of the practice tests and sent an email both to my professor and to the testing center to let them know what had happened, and to ensure that the correct test would be available for me when I came back in to take it. I was feeling very frustrated and stressed out about the whole ordeal. I returned home and told Deidra. She soon left for enrichment, and I started making myself dinner. While I was making dinner, I decided that I better keep studying. I began doing the first practice test and continued doing it while I was eating dinner. I still wasn't quite grasping on to the concepts and wasn't doing too well. Then, all of a sudden, after examining the answers I had gotten wrong, it all clicked and I understood exactly how to do the problems and the concepts behind them.

No sooner had I had this personal statistical epiphany than the phone rang. I answered it, and it was the proctor I had spoken to earlier. He explained that he had finally been able to locate my test and that I could go up to campus and take the exam right then if I wanted to. I told him I would be there in fifteen minutes and hung up the phone. Right after I hung up the phone, I realized that Deidra had our car at the church and I had no way of getting to campus (she, of course, had left her cell phone home). After making a few calls to our neighbors, I finally found one that was home and had a car available to drive me to campus. So I finally got in and was able to take my test.

Afterward, I came out of the test feeling a lot better about how I did than I had anticipated. I realized that had I taken the test when I was scheduled to, I would not have done very well at all. I am grateful that I had a roadblock in taking the test that allowed me the time to really figure out the concepts I was supposed to be learning. I definitely learned that sometimes what we see as obstacles or trials can really be blessings in disguise - but we may not realize it until later.

March Madness quickly approaches!

It's time to sign up for my Yahoo! March Madness league for the upcoming NCAA tournament. Click on the link below to access the site:

JOIN THE MADNESS!

league ID: 25423

password: roxor

Good luck!

Amazing

Dwight Howard had some amazing dunks in the first round of the Slam Dunk competition. Too bad we didn't get to see what he would have done in the second round.

He hits his head on the RIM! That's craziness!