Update - More Waiting

I got an e-mail from the O School, and they told me they wouldn't have a decision until May 26th, but I'm still a viable candidate. I guess I'll just have to wait until then.

Mr. Irrelevant

On Sunday, I had the distinct experience of watching the final pick of the NFL Draft. As the 256th overall pick, Ryan Succop (Kicker, South Carolina) became this year's Mr. Irrelevant.



He will be awarded the "Lowsman Trophy" for this honor:

Back in Town

We got back from another wild weekend in West Virginia. The wedding went well, and I will post pictures and whatnot later. For now, my sinuses are very heavy, and I need to go to bed.

Wedding Season

"Rule #76 - No Excuses. Play like a Champion."

We have been invited to six weddings over the next six months, and this weekend kicks off our tour when we travel to West Virginia for the nuptials of our friends, Michele and David.

It all ends in October when we fly out to Minnesota for my brother's wedding. I'm looking forward to going to all of them. Hopefully, we'll see you at one ;)

Possible Move to West Virginia

Depending on how things shake out, my wife and I could be facing a big move in the next few months. Just so everyone's on the same page, here's a quick recap of the whole experience:

September 2007 - I was living in Lynchburg, and I didn't really like my job very much. On a whim, I checked the website of the WV School of Osteopathic Medicine. They had an opening for a statistician/academic researcher. The job posting called for someone with a doctorate in Education, Public Health or Biostatistics. In parentheses, it said you could also have a Master's "with experience." Figuring I didn't have a real chance, I decided not to apply.

March 2008 - I transferred to a new job within my company and absolutely loved it. Things were going well, but my soon-to-be bride and I are a little bumbed, because our goal of one day living near her family is basically dashed if we stay in Virginia. Still, we make a pact that if a stable job in my field ever opened up in WV, I would pursue it.

June 2008 - Got Hitched

October 2008 - Driving back from Homecoming at Concord University, we pine the fact that we might not get to live in WV, and it gets me thinking about the job at the Osteopathic school.

November 2008 - Just for kicks, I checked the WVSOM website, and the posting for the statistician's job is still there. It had remained open and unchanged for over a year. I sent an e-mail to the HR lady asking if they would accept someone with a Master's. No reply. I didn't think much of it, just figured it was worth the shot.

December 2008 - While Christmas shopping, I checked my voicemail, and it was the HR lady. She said they would definitely be open to having someone with a Master's apply. I sent in my CV and cover letter. No reply for a long time. When Mrs. R asked me who the voicemail was from, I just said it was my dad. (I never let her know until way later. It's the longest secret I've ever kept in my life.)

End of January 2009 - I get another voicemail. It's the HR lady asking for a phone interview. The reason it took so long to get back to me was they were in the middle of hiring a new college president, so that was taking up a lot of their time.

February 20, 2009 - I have my phone interview. It goes really well, and they invite me to come for a real face-to-face interview.

March 6, 2009 - I find out that the other statistician at where I currently work has accepted a job in New Mexico. That makes me the only statistician trained to do our work. If I leave, then we would be (technically) in violation of our Federal license, and the whole plant would shut down. I decided to continue preparing for my interview, but in the back of my mind, I feel like I can't leave. I didn't want to put my boss and my co-workers in a bind.

March 12, 2009 - I find out a girl who used to be a statistician in our unit has moved back to Virginia and taken a job in our facility. After carefully prodding my boss w/o revealing that I was looking for a job elsewhere, I find out that she really wants to take the opening in our unit (the opening that was vacated by the statistician who moved to New Mexico). So, if she came back, there would be a trained statistician, and we wouldn't lose our license.

March 20, 2009 - I went to West Virginia and had an all-day interview.

Upside: By and large, everything went awesome!! They really liked what I had to offer and were very eager to have me aboard. (They currently have no one who is trained to use the computer program SAS). I scored bonus points when I told them my wife grew up in the area and that we would love to move back there -- and thus, we wouldn't be likely to move away once we got there.

Downside: Back when the job called for someone with a doctorate, no one applied for an entire year and a half. When I came along, they decided to "dumb down" the requirements and open things up to people who had their Master's. According to them, they had "a tremendous response" since doing so. I was the first one to come along, but they had several more people who they would interview.

Present Day (April 21) - I still haven't heard anything!! Not one word. In some ways, I expected this, but it's still frustrating. I can only assume that they're interviewing other candidates right now. I guess I just have to wait and see.

The most agonizing part about this is we can't really plan anything over the next several months, because we don't know where we'll be living. So, that's where we're at, and now you now the rest of the story...

I'll definitely keep everyone posted if and when anything happens. Keep checking in.

Four Corners in the Wrong Spot

I had a great moment of personal redemption today. I should give you the full back story:

In 2004, it was my first year of grad school at Kansas State. I talked my roommate into going to Las Vegas for Spring Break. So it's me, my friend Pete and his girlfriend. We drove to Vegas thru Colorado, but decided to drive back via Arizona/New Mexico. That way, we got to see the Grand Canyon.



But I had ulterior motives, too. Because I'm a huge geography nut, I made our route take us to the Four Corners Monument -- the only place where four US states meet. So, when we left Vegas, we drove over the Hoover Dam, drove up to the Grand Canyon, and then headed to the northeast corner of Arizona for our final destination -- The Four Corners Monument.

One downside, I did a bad job of research/planning. We didn't get to the Four Corners until 11:30 PM Mountain Time. It closed at 5:00!!

So, we roll up to the gate. It's pitch dark and drizzling. The monument is part of Indian territory, and they had all these signs saying that it was closed. But, I don't care. I came all this way. I'm literally in the middle of nowhere, and I may never get to come back. The nearest town of more than 10 people is more than 40 miles away. It's the middle of the desert.

The road leading to the monument is blocked by a cattle gate but can easily be walked around. So, not knowing how far down the road it was, I grabbed my flash light and start walking. I can't see anything, just what's within 10 feet of me. I walked past a toll booth, nobody there. And then, I get near what looks like some small boothes. My flashlight was very dim, and I could tell that some flagpoles were to my right about 20 feet away, but I couldn't tell if I was anywhere near the monument. For all I knew, I was two miles away from the thing.

So, I was very disoriented, very tired, a little freaked out that the Navajo's would arrest me for trespassing, and a little worried that Pete was freaking out, too (he and his girlfriend were still in the car and probably thought I'd been eaten by a wolf). I decided to head back. No getting to stand on the monument. No getting to do the Truffle Shuffle in four different states. Nothing...

We got back to Manhattan a couple days later. The first thing I did was go to my computer and lookup a map of the Four Corners. Turns out, I was just a few feet away from my goal. The flagpoles I saw were the state flags of the four states that meet up (Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah). I was seriously that close, and I didn't know it. I've lived with a certain amount of regret ever since.

Until today!! Turns out, they re-serveyed the land, and the real place where the four states meet should be about 2.5 northeast of where it is now:

Four Corners marker 21/2 miles off? Too late -- Salt Lake City Deseret News

The "real" four corners is in Colorado. The "assumed" four corners should be entirely in Arizona.

That means even if I would have stood on the monument, I wouldn't have been on the real four corners. In reality, the four corners will still stay where they are, but in my mind, I didn't miss anything. And now I feel a certain measure of redemption.

It's Just a Scrimmage, but still...

By the time the weather improved, all 83,000 seats at Memorial Stadium were filled for the annual Red/White Spring Game.


This just goes to show you how crazy Nebraska fans are!!

The Ultimate Warrior and his Interviews

If you have about five spare minutes and enjoy laughing uncontrollably, then watch this:



I love old school wrestling (i.e. pretty much everything up until 1998 or so when WWF got really "non-family-oriented"), and one of the best wrestlers of all time was the Ultimate Warrior. Thanks to the greatnest of YouTube, we can relive the insanity that was this wrestler.

Small School Drops Football

Colorado College in Colorado Springs has decided to call it quits for their FB program. But not without protest from their current and former players:

A website has gone up to rally support for the program

Save CC Football

By most accounts, the school's very elitist administrators have wanted to cut football for quite a while, and the current economic downturn provided the perfect excuse. CC is the only Division III school in the Mountain Time Zone, so expensive road trips along with the pricetag of paying coaches' salaries force the school to pay $450,000/year to field a team.

However, I think the school severely overestimates the benefits of cutting the team. First off, as a D-III school, none of the players receive scholarships. So, you have 50-plus athletes who wouldn't probably otherwise be going to school there (and, more imporantly, paying tuition). So, automatically you're looking at a significant drop in tuition revenue. Plus, many alumni and other donors are more likely to give money a school that fields a football team. Again, you're losing money there, too.

It's a dumb plan all the way around. From what the players have said, no one -- no players, no alumni, no parents, nobody -- was brought in on the discussion. The administrators just sat behind a closed door and made the decision. It's really too bad.

Beast Feast

On Saturday, I went with my friendto Beast Feast. Liberty University puts it on. It's kind of a ministry outreach geared towards hunters and outdoorsmen. There were booths and stuff setup by hunting vendors, and there were also workshops you could go to about hunting and whatnot.



But, the highlight of the evening was a wild animal meal. If you look at my plate, you'll see wild boar pulled pork, elk salisbury steak, and fried alligator. The boar tastes like pig, the alligator tastes like really tough chicken, and the elk, well I don't know what elk tastes like. I guess you'll just have to try some for yourself.

He is Risen...He is Risen, Indeed!!

Happy Easter, everyone!! We hope you are full of rest and relaxation on this Resurrection Sunday.

This also marks a new beginning for us. In some ways, our blog is entering the Witness Relocation Program, but in other ways, this is a great new chance to keep everyone up to speed on what's happening in our lives. So, stay tuned, and we'll have lots of cool stuff. We promise.

Until then, take care and God Bless,
--L & H

Our nephew nominated to West Point

My Wife's nephew has officially been nominated to attend the US Military Academy in West Point, NY.


This is a huge honor, as only 1,000 or so high school seniors are invited to enroll at West Point. We're nervous about him being a long way from home and also about where he might end up in four years given the current military climate worldwide. Still, we are extremely proud of Dylan, and we know that he'll do very well up there.

Valley of Fire

One of the best kept secrets in Las Vegas (maybe even one of the best kept travel secrets in the entire country) is a little-known Nevada park called "The Valley of Fire."



It's about 40 miles northeast of Las Vegas and has some of the coolest rock formations I've ever seen.



The cool thing about it was I came across Valley of Fire totally on accident. In the Summer of 2006, I wanted to visit my old roommate from college. He lives in Phoenix, but I found out that it was cheaper to fly to Las Vegas, rent a car and drive to Arizona than to just fly straight into Phoenix.

On my way out of town, I decided to take the "scenic route" towards Lake Mead. I had no idea this place even existed. I was just driving along and a sign said, "Now entering The Valley of Fire State Park." And I just thought, "OK, cool. A state park." No big deal, just something to look at while I was driving. To say the least, I was just stunned at how cool this place was. I hopped out of the car a bunch of times and climbed all over the rocks. It was spectacular.

Fast forward to this weekend. My parents are in Las Vegas. My mom has a work conference at the Mandalay Bay. My folks said they were renting a car and that they wanted to do some site-seeing. "What's a good place to go?" they asked. I told them to go to the Valley of Fire.

When I left work today, I checked my phone. There was a message. It was from my dad. "The Valley of Fire was well worth the drive." It makes me want to go back.

Honduras Blog

My cousin recently went to Honduras on a missions trip. Her church, Second Baptist of Houston, has a blog:

NRG and the Bridge in Honduras

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They'll be went to a very poverty-stricken area to spread the Gospel.

Soda vs Pop vs Coke

So what do they call it where you're from? This map shows what people call the product otherwise known as "soft drinks."



Interactive Map -- PopVsSoda.com

Interesting observations:
--I've always been puzzled at why the greater-St. Louis area has a bunch of "Soda" drinkers. Why do they call it "soda" when they are completely surrounded by "Pop" and/or "Coke" people.
--Greenbrier County, WV (where My Wife's from) seems to be the last big contingent of "pop" drinkers before you get to the "soda"-dominated east coast.
--It's interesting that North Carolina seems to be a place where the Pop/Soda/Coke groups collide. It's very fitting given that NC was a key battleground state in the Civil War -- America collides there, no matter what the times.

Huckabee at Church

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee came to our church to give a sermon last Sunday.



Huckabee, a former pastor himself, was very natural up there and gave a wonderful message to an overflow congregation. His message was 99.9% non-political, which was a welcome relief, even for a political junkie like me. Ten minutes into his message, he said, "I can tell some of you are disappointed that I'm not giving a big political speech...but what I'm saying here today is more important than what's going on in Washington." Well put.

I can write forever about the pros/cons of a Huckabee presidency (more cons than you might think), but for that day, it was a great experience to be around one of the most important people in America. Afterwards, my wife and I got to meet him. He autographed his book for us, and shook our hands. I mentioned that I was a former resident of Arkansas. He asked if I grew up in Arkansas, and I said no, "I am from Iowa." That made his eyes light up -- perhaps already thinking about the 2012 primaries? We'll see.