Saturday, March 22, 2008

Our Dog is Crazy

Phoebe loves stuffed animals!! And they're even more fun if they make noise. In fact, the more annoying the noise, the more fun the toy is. Grannie (Mom Boyer) sent this toy frog to Phoebe for Valentine's Day. Hopefully you can hear the clip and experience the "ribbit" for yourself... Also, my sister Martha is obsessed with pointing out and mocking nerdy laughs. Mo - check out my laugh after Sammie's joke. WORST EVER!!!!!
In this next clip, which is shorter, you can hear Sammie in the background, telling me about Luke losing his appendix. (Welcome to the A- team, Luke!)
Finally, last December I had a huge stack of papers to grade, so naturally, I was looking for unimportant things to do to avoid grading. I ended up taking pictures of Phoebe and thought it was funny how well she posed for the camera.

Sammie's Christmas Present

Sammie and I have had a deal since we got married that I would keep my hair long as long as he kept his face shaved (when we started dating, he had a goatee). Every once in a while, I would tease him about wanting to cut my hair. Finally, on Christmas he granted me permission to cut my hair, promising not to grow out his facial hair. Well, once I had the permission, I lost my nerve. It wasn't until he was in Istanbul and I was contemplating a hot and humid Texas summer that I finally did it. And I'm glad I did! It hasn't been this short since about 1999...

Friday, March 21, 2008

My R-Square is bigger than your R-Square

Just remember, when you're forecasting demand from historical data that includes trend, level and seasonality -- you darn well better be sure that your independent variables cut the mustard or someone like me is going to have a different forecast result and as we all know, he who has the bigger R-Square wins. And, FYI, if you have multiple sets of demand and need to find out which of them, if any, contain trend, level and/or seasonality, I would recommend using a bivariate correlation to measure significance on all variables in one shot rather than doing things the long way and running multiple linear regressions until one of these pops up. (Yes Mike, that means you.)

That pretty much sums up my life for the day. No kidding. That's what I did. And my R-Square was bigger than Kyle's so we ended up using my forecast results for the assignment instead of his.

Perhaps my father is the only who understands what this all means which makes the picture below all the more amusing.




My mom took this picture while my parents were here last week. It begs for a humorous caption -- specifically one that reflects what Phoebe is thinking. Please post whatever caption you think fits. The ones we have so far are:

"Who ARE these people? And when will Melba come home and take me on a walk?" -- Vernon P.

"8 Billion people in the world -- and I get stuck with these two?" -- Melba

"How do I get online?" -- Grandma Dewey

"Hey, a quarter!" -- My brother Jeff

"Well, it could be worse. At least these guys aren't lawyers." -- Vernon P. (that one is for you, Jeremy.)

"Phoebe's the only one in the picture I can relate to. It's the story of my life." Larry (Mom Boyer)

And this is my favorite -- from my sister:

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Back from Istanbul.

Istanbul is a cool city. I spent the first week of March there as part of the MBA Program -- it was a graded course. Here's a picture for you.

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School has started up again. Time to hit the books.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Enough About You... Let's Talk About Me!

I had a tedious project to do at work today. I thought it would be more palatable if I opened up some blogs to glance at while I worked. 45 minutes later, I was caught up on my blog reading and the project still sat in front of me, untouched. oops. I especially liked the "all about me" posts so I'm inviting myself to the party!

6 quirks. My sisters Carrie, Martha, and Anna all posted their quirks and tagged me. I had a hard time coming up with some, even though I could list a lot of quirks about people around me.

1. When I grade papers, I have to grade with a mechanical pencil and a pink eraser. I can't grade in pen.

2. I love to walk Phoebe and listen to my ipod. But I usually don't listen to music. I listen to lectures from The Teaching Company. Right now I'm switching back and forth between The History of Africa and History of World Literature.

3. I'm scared of being alone in the dark. The first summer I lived in DC, all the power went out one night and I was home alone. I literally had an anxiety attack, convinced that there was someone in the house waiting to attack me. I was on the phone with my summer fling and he was trying to calm me down. He reassured me by saying, "Baby, when the power goes out those kinds of people aren't going after you, they're robbing electronics stores."

4. I love playing spider solitaire and other time-wasting computer games. I also love crosswords, sudoku, and any kind of word game. Sammie makes fun of me, but at least I'm warding off alzheimer's.

5. I crochet while I watch the Superbowl.

6. I'm really particular about my temperature at night and will sometimes get up in the middle of the night to change clothes if I'm too hot or too cold.

I'm definitely tagging Sammie for this one. He's my favorite quirk!!

I also liked this fill-in-the-blank...

Places I've Lived:
- Torrance, CA
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Jerusalem, Israel
- Campinas, Brazil
- Harrisburg, PA
- Falls Church, VA
- State College, PA

Job's I've Had:
- Drycleaner
- Candy Jar
- MTC Teacher
- Software Trainer/Project Leader
- College Instructor
- Reading Enhancement Instructor

Most-loved Vacations:
(what's not to love about a vacation?)
- 2 tours through Brazil with my parents
- Some wonderful trips to Europe
- 2 weeks spent in Maine when I was 11
- Some great Moab trips with College friends
- A crazy trip to China
- Puerto Vallarta
- Israel in June 2007 with some of my family
- Roadtrips across the country! Once with my Mom, once with Sammie and Phoebe
- Numerous trips to Charlottesville to visit the Kaelberers
- Outer Banks
- Condo in St. George
- Lake Powell
- And, of course, our numerous trips to Balboa Island, CA

Lifetime Aspirations:
- Have kids!
- Learn, read, teach always
- At the end of my life, I want to say, "But as for me and my house, we [served] the Lord."

Tag - All of my favorite people. (You know who you are!) :)