One more down.

Today was the last day of the semester and it feels nice. I just got home and I'm a little unsure of what to do with myself. Part of me feels like I should go mow the lawn....the other wants to sit on my rear for a little bit. I think I'll do a little of both before dinnner.

Unfortunately I already have homework for the new semester which starts in two weeks. Boo. It is for my ethics course though which I am excited for. One more down and three to go. Whew.

Bellingham

So last weekend we ventured out for our annual Bellingham pilgrimage. Britt lived in Bellingham for five years and I spent 7 summers and about 2 full years living up there. We enjoyed living there but didn't like the fact that it was so far away from most of our friends and family down south. It's still fun to go visit our friends and get the B-ham experience.

So our weekend began with a drive up Friday night......about 3.25-3.5 hours. We made good time because I decided to go with the flow of traffic in Seattle.....you get passed like you're standing still even at 70! Saturday morning we got up and headed to Lake Samish-home of Ryan Stiles (he has a nice house w/ a big fence) and the home lake of the WWU rowing team. Brittany rowed for four years and loved her experience. Every now and then she'll have a chance to get back in the boat and have some fun. Saturday was one of those days and also about 70 degrees outside. Fun for Britt and it made the girls (all alumni) think about putting a Master's boat together sometime in the future.

Then our trip got really interesting.....we headed to the roller derby, which we didn't even know existed. Overall it was really fun but it reminded us of how weird Bellingham really is. It was fun to see and kind of a cool sport but by no means an event that I would regularly take me child to. Lots of innuendo happening and an unhealthy endorsement of beer with that many kids around.

Post derby we went out to Thai food with our friends Shaun and Tara which was a double bonus. One we like hanging out with them and second, there's not any good Thai food in Longview. Before we headed out of town we ate at Boomer's and had an excellent burger and waffle fries. Mmm. We then headed to the Tulip Festival in Mt. Vernon with our friends Robin and Alan. Most of the tulips were still closed up because of the crazy weather but the daffodils were out and just as beautiful.





Oh yeah-I saw this guy on the way home....I think I could have taken him.

Class time

So I'm sitting in class right now-bored. It's my research class which has been good and I've been enjoying it but the format of the class has afforded a lot of down time. We're working in groups on different research projects and the majority of our class is spent working on our own while we wait for the professor to make the rounds with each and every group. I'm the only school counseling student and therefore am the only one in my group. So I'm a little bored right now.

In regards to the weather, most of you reading this probably already know about the upcoming weekend. If you don't go here for the latest weather warning. Ay Carumba!

Joel Thomas

joelbthomas@gmail.com

Fun photo

I set this as my desktop a few days ago. I just like it. It was taken at Cannon Beach-Silver Point (2nd big rock on the right behind the smaller one) and Jockey Cap (looks like a horse riders helmet) are on the right.

Fun in class

So tonight, some other classmates were giving a presentation on Contextual Family Therapy. This is image was on one of their slides. It made me laugh.

American Idol part 2

So, I'm back home tonight and we put American Idol back on and what do we see again? They sing "Shout to the Lord" again! It's just so weird to me-I don't get it but I guess it's kind of cool.....or something. This time they decided to say "My Jesus" instead of "My Shepherd" which was an interesting switch.

But it gets even better. After that there was this weird celebrity video where all of the these famous people dancing around lip-synching to "I'm a Believer". Another random deal but I started to freak out in the middle of it because.....there was Kobe Bryant was in the video dancing around. As a faithful Blazer fan the sight of any Laker, especially certain ones throws me in convulsions. Yuck. Amazing player but I just can't stand the guy's attitude.

Shout to the Lord....

On American Idol? I'm staying at my brothers house right now because I've got class down here tomorrow. As the show is closing Ryan Seacrest mentions that the remaining contestants are going to close out with the song "Shout to the Lord". I"m thinking "Shout to the Lord from Hillsongs? Like Darlene Zsetch? (or whatever her last name is...) Sure enough it's Hillsongs except.....it's starts off as. "My Shepherd My Savior" instead of "My Jesus My Savior".

I was surprised that they were doing the song in the first place even though they chose to make a little lyrical editing. Interesting to see a worship song appear in the midst of prime time tv mania.

Weird wild stuff

Saw this video on CNN this morning. I don't know a ton about Hinduism but if you're interested in learning about who "Durga" is you can go here.

Friday night

So, all this school year we've had Mexican food for dinner. It started off innocently in the fall and at some point Britt and I realized we had eaten Mexican food for dinner about four Friday's in a row. So Britt had the idea of making Friday nights, "Mexican Fridays" for dinner. It's been fun and I like Mexican food but I'm looking forward to next school year when the theme is "Variety Friday" :)

Anyways tonight we went out to dinner with Britt's dad and took him along to a movie beforehand for helping us on our taxes. We watched 10,000 BC which was decent. Certainly not the best movie that I've seen in the theaters but not the worst either. That title might have to go to Blue Streak....sorry Fogey.

Another highlight from watching the movie was seeing the trailer for The Dark Knight-mmmm.

Hutch read with caution.....

I'm on a blogging tear tonight. Although I'm back in Portland taking classes, I've been off all week because Washington's spring break is the week after Oregon's. We've been trying to use our time wisely and get some good stuff done.

So, last July I was helping out at Camp Firwood for a few weeks. We took kids camping, rock climbing, & white water rafting up in Leavenworth Wa. It was a pretty awesome two weeks of hanging out with kids and being outdoors. Nice. However it did have it's price as during the first week I got some pretty vicious wasp stings. I think I got hit 3-4 times through my shirt sleeves and reacted no differently that I ever have.

Yet still in December the spots where the bees had stung me were still big, nasty, and looking somewhat infected. I probably shouldn't have waited so long to go to the doctor but I was stubborn. Finally I gave in to Britt's suggestions that I go in to get things checked out. I make an appointment and go in to my Dr. who says: "Try this cream and if it doesn't work we'll have to cut it out." Huh? Cut it out? Woah. Never had that type of bee sting before. So sure enough we try some cream to see if it will help the swelling go down which it does but once I finish the medicine it goes back up.

WARNING-If you've got a week stomach (read Hutch) then read with caution. Okay it might not be that bad but on Tuesday I got a new scar. After the first try my doctor decided that the bee stinger must still be left in my arm and is causing the localized swelling. He put me on a different cream to take down the swelling and then had me come back in for my appointment. So I went in a Tuesday and he did a little minor surgery on my arm. Nothing too bad but it was just kind of weird to voluntarily go in and let myself get cut up and get some stitches. Usually stitches happens because of an accident......but now I've got about ten of them in nice neat 1.5 inch line. The arm is a little sore and I'll get the stitches taken out in a little over a week. There's a first for everything.

Bueller...Bueller...

So, at some point during college I found out that Ben Stein was just some guy who was a boring teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off but also a pretty smart cookie. I came across his new movie yesterday that's coming out and was a bit surprised to see what it was about. I've no idea if he's Christian or Jewish in faith but presumably a theist.

Go here to watch the trailer. It certainly has my interest peeked.

It's the end of March....

And it's snowing outside. Bizarre.

I don't think I've ever seen it snow this late in the year but it was fun. We took Britt's mom (for her b-day) and sister snowshoeing just outside of Cougar, Wa. Apparently this is where D.B. Cooper may have ended up if he survived his jump. Regardless we had fun getting out in to the snow and playing for a few hours.