I was going to say in this evening's update that good things do come in threes, but I would then have to limit it to just three bullet items. I've got a few extra things here that I didn't feel should be left out....

• I had the pleasure of spending my five-day holiday break with the lovely ashryn and arphalia. It was nice to see the both of them again. This year I had the privilege of being able to hand-deliver their gifts, something that made me happy since I sprung it as a surprise. That really tickled me -- along with being there when they opened their presents. I'm still quite honored that I was invited to share in their Christmas.
  
• During my stay in Madison I was treated to a very tasty Christmas dinner and subzero temperatures. What I used to call "hobo-killin' weather" has now been renamed to "eggnog-killin', glass-shatterin' weather." Yes, there's a story there.
  
• My doorbell rang unexpectedly Wednesday afternoon, mere moments before I left for Madison -- my truck was idling in the driveway and I was just grabbing the last bag for loading up before I departed. I wasn't expecting anyone, so I was understandably put out by what I imagined was going to be another distracting sales attempt to put new siding or a roof on my house. But when I opened the door who should I find but my mail lady with a bundle of paper for me. The reason she rang the bell? There was an envelope from DeVry University that said "Do not bend," so she wanted to hand it to me -- she figured it was important. She figured right! I took one look at the envelope and knew right away that it was my diploma, arriving at long last. I figured that it would have been here now (since I graduated in late October), but all that matters is that it arrived. Since returning home I've framed it and hung it up on my wall. It looks very nice, and I like seeing the words "Magna Cum Laude" under my name and program. I find myself considering the pursuit of a graduate degree, though I'm not sure just yet what I'd choose to get one in.
  
• On Tuesday of last week I was awarded a payment of over $1,350 from my employer's annual profit sharing program. To call this "unexpected money" is something of an understatement, especially when you take into account how our financial and enrollment statements looked this quarter.
  
• My mother sent me one of her delicious pound cakes for Christmas, so I had a tasty dessert waiting for me when I got home Sunday evening.
  
• I also received the first ornament for the Christmas tree I haven't bought yet -- my parents sent a glass ornament that features a reclining black panther. I have no idea where she found such a thing, but I love it.
  
• While in Madison, I listened to the Christmas CD that onceagainplease made. I wasn't surprised to hear him singing -- that was sort of the entire point behind the album -- but I was surprised to hear him sing a cappella. With himself. It was creepy, but cool.
  
• I came home to a veritable flood of Christmas cards... and a CD of some sort from captain18 and spoothbrush. I am curious. Cautious, but curious. I'll be loading it up once I finish writing this. If I should perish amidst questionable circumstances while viewing the contents of this mystery disc -- well, somebody had better avenge my death.
  
• I got a message on my Sidekick from harlee_one and it made me smile. Thank you!
  

There's other stuff, but I'll write about it later. I'm back on-call and there's a few hundred things at work that are currently demanding my attention.

Aurora borealis comes in view

As of today (at something like 12:22 PM Central Daylight Time), DeVry University conferred upon me a Bachelor of Science degree in Network and Communication Management. I graduated with honors, Magna Cum Laude to be specific. I'm finally done with school, having achieved my goal through ten months of very hard work that I embarked upon after a four year hiatus.

I think I deserve a beer now.

I got 3 hours of very broken sleep last night. I arrived ar school this morning with 30 seconds to spare before the attendance monitoring system would have cut off and marked me absent (one absence and I'm essentially expelled). I'm doped to the metaphorical gills on caffeine and sudaphedrine and I didn't study at all (read: haven't even opened the book) for the exam we're having that covers six chapters in the text. My professor noticed I "look and sound like hell."

As soon as I turned in my answer sheet the instructor graded it and called me back up to the front of the classroom so I could see the results. Despite all the forces working against me this morning I somehow managed to score 88 out of 90 points on the exam for a good, solid 97% - an "A".

I think I should go buy a lottery ticket now.

You take my hand, I'll take your hand

... and while I already knew what I'd gotten in my Career Development course (stupid two-credit course completed and posted grades two weeks before my other class), I still hadn't gotten word from my professor about my Humanities class. Since this past Saturday (8/28) was the last day class met and was chalk full of final presentations I wasn't sure if that meant good news or bad for me. The professor had promised to have things graded by Sunday evening and posted, but they weren't up on the system yesterday. So after lunch today I was overwhelmed by curiousity and went over to check my academic history for the semester, "just in case" it had posted last night after I checked.

It had.

I was quite pleased by what I saw, so I thought I'd share it here (and hopefully this time the HTML won't munge up anybody's Friends list)....

Unit	Section	Title	Final Grade
HUMN303	ACC_Z	Introduction to the Humanities	A
CARD410	ACC_Z	Career Development	A

Solid gold, baby.

Someday you'll find everything you're looking for, yeah

I have something I'd like to share that I feel is particularly important, especially in light of recent events:

</td> Unit Section Title Final Grade CARD410 ACC_Z Career Development A

Thank you for your attention.

Rock concert movement number one

I took my MGMT408 midterm exam tonight.

50 out of 50. If I am not mistaken I believe they call that a perfect score.

I WIN AGAIN.

As an added bonus a wonderful storm blew into town just as I arrived home with my victory dinner so I'm currently being treated to cool, fresh air accompanied by lots of thunder and lightning. A big thank-you goes to arphalia for being my continued good-luck charm on matters like these.

Unit	Section	Title	Final Grade
TCM471	ACC_Z	Current Topics in Telecommunications	A
SCI204	ACC_Z	Environmental Science with Lab	A

Session GPA: 4.0

Two classes, each normally 16 weeks in length, completed in eight weeks with a perfect grade point average while keeping my full-time job.

I

WIN.

As we sat through SCI-204 (Environmental Science) today we naturally came back to the whole birthrate/deathrate thing, and how they related to closed systems. To illustrate his point about attempting to control our envionment and how such actions impact the global population level the professor asked the class for suggestions to write on the board for causes of death. The usual culprits were shouted out such as "Disease," "War," "Suicide," "Famine" and everyone's favorite "Old Age." There was a long pause, then a sour voice said from the middle of the classroom, "Reality TV." The instructor didn't miss a beat, it went up on the board right after "war."

The tree-lined avenue

I just finished up my homework for my SCI-204 course, and it was pretty interesting. We're currently discussing the impact of the human population's growth rate, and to answer a number of questions for the "lab" portion of the homework I had to run a number of equations. I never expected that I would have to dust off my old TI-85 scientific calculator for something as simple as an "environmental science" course, but there you have it. Higher learning is full of surprises like that! I'm just glad I was able to locate it after a few minutes of searching around Z'ha'dum. I had taken great pains to tuck it somewhere safe and accessable when I moved in, but I couldn't remember where that was for a while. Eventually I found it in the closet of the Blue Room of Death, sitting in the original box, along with the original manual. Equally surprising is the fact the batteries still worked! This calculator is almost a decade old (I think I got it in 1992) and the last time I used it was... lord, back in 1999 or so before I threw it into the box and withdrew from school.

All hail the power of the equation solver on the TI-85, and the ability to actually have a calculator that knows the value of e right out of the box! My poor little SideKick's built-in calculator is nice, but by no means of the imagination is it ready to deal with something like t=(1/k)*ln (N_O/O).

In other news I placed an order with Amazon. On the shipping list is the widescreen edition of Schindler's List (Thank you for finally releasing that, Steve!), the Jurassic Park soundtrack to replace the one I had on casette years and years ago, FLA's Epitath, Neil Young's latest release Greendale, Spectators by Wolfsheim and various other albums. I'm looking forward to expanding my music and movie collection!

Speaking of looking forward to things, my dillemma with getting another cat has been solved for me: Eli was adopted today. I found out that he'd gotten a new home when I stopped by PetSmart on the way ouf of Borders, where I had gone to pick up a couple of sketchbooks. Don't ask what I'm going to do with the sketchbooks, I honestly don't know. I certainly won't be drawing in them (unless you count stick figures as "drawings," but as a caveman I should be out scratching on walls of rock, not in nice bound sketchbooks). Maybe I can pay a few artists to draw some silliness in there for me.

Tomorrow I go back to work, configure a few routers and try to make sense of where I stand on a number of high-profile but painfully elaborate projects. I never knew that as a Network Engineer I would be doing Project Management-type work for free.

Tell me why