If you have a hard time waking up early in the morning,
maybe this alarm clock is for you.

Da doctor is in da house.

I distinctly remember not being able to sleep the night before I got married. The night before my high school graduation, I remember laying in bed wondering what horrific world event was going to happen to cause our graduation to be delayed indefinitely. Because I couldn’t imagine what it would be like on the other side, it just didn’t seem possible.

There have been a few of these types of nights in my life, like the eve before Tina was going to be induced. Tonight will be one of those nights.

Tomorrow (Monday) at 10:00, I will be defending my dissertation. Friday I sent copies to my committee members and in the morning they get to aim their fiery darts at it. I present for a while, they ask questions, I leave the room so they can deliberate, then they call me in for the results. If they are comfortable with your defense, when you walk back in the room they say, “Congratulations, Dr. __________.” If not, well…, let’s not discuss that right now.

I have known for about two years that I would start weeping if I heard their congratulations. This degree has cost me so much more than I ever imagined.

If you think about it, around 10:00 tomorrow, a prayer that my dissertation would find favor with my committee would be greatly appreciated. I’ll try to post the outcome sometime tomorrow.

With much thanks,

Wes

Sometimes a photo captures a moment of comedy so much better than words.

Apparently, a truck carrying cattle overturned on I-20/59 today, so onlookers helped set the cattle free. The cattle happily grazed on median.

Here is the photo (I love the guy pondering, the cows, and the line of spectators): photo.

Exciting news about the Atlantic coast line: Pop-up Hurricanes

All my life my parents told me that Dad gained a bunch of weight when mother was pregnant with me. I just always assumed that near the end of the pregnancy that Dad got on the scales and said, “Wow, I’ve gained as much as you have.”

Well, while packing today, we found something interesting in my baby book. You can click the image to the right for a close-up. It’s where my mother started keeping up with her weight and Dad’s throughout the pregnancy.

Ha, ha, ha. I just love the thought of both of them getting on the scales so she could keep up with it.

In case you can’t read it, Mom went from 98 to 120, Dad went from 148 to 176 and a half. It’s funny to me that she tracked Dad down to the half pound.

Here’s a piece of irony. After four kids, I now weigh what Dad started at. Ha, ha, ha.

Tina and I want to put together a list of songs to listen to at different stages of our trips between AL and SC. For example, Sweet Home Alabama, Georgia on my Mind, Carolina in the Morning, and the Bama fight song for Tuscaloosa.

Any suggestions for songs to include?

Thanks to everyone that prayed. The defense went well and all the committee members signed-off on it. Yeah!!

The next few steps should happen fairly quickly. Today I submit my project to UA so that can approve it for research liability purposes. Then, hopefully, I will be running my experiment in a couple weeks.

Thanks again to everyone that prayed.

I would appreciate your prayers this Wednesday at 2:00. Today, I turned in my dissertation proposal to my committee and Wednesday is when I will defend it. Basically, you sit it in the middle of the room, put on boxing gloves, and try to keep other professors from grabbing your dissertation. The whole process is like academic Capture the Flag.

For those of you keeping score at home, the proposal is actually the first three chapters of the dissertation. If they approve it, all I will have left is to run my experiment, analyze the results, and write the last two chapters. There is a lot involved in these stages, but they pick up speed pretty quickly.

Getting the first three chapters written sure makes the finish line feel more inevitable. :-)

I love Woot-offs. Part of what I love isn’t just the feeding frenzy of merchandise, but also the increased volume of humor in their comments section. Often people post bizarre pictures, but sometimes a really funny one makes it in. The one below I really liked because it takes just a second for it to click. Nice.