A Good Week

This week has been a very good one for me. A few of the things I wrote about in the previous post but I will expound on them some more.

On Tuesday I had an interview with the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida. I felt that the interview went really quite well. They told me that they would get back to me by next Monday. Well they got back sooner. On Wednesday afternoon they called to offer me a position as their summer marketing intern. I got off the phone with them with the biggest grin on my face. It felt so good to have an offer and know that I did not have to stress about that anymore. I called them this morning and officially accepted the offer, so we will be summering on the beautiful Gulf Coast of Florida. I start June 12 and finish up the first of August. But we may stay a bit longer and play around.

As I mentioned in the previous post I am on a team that has entered a business plan into two different business plan competitions (our company name is Pyrolitix Biofuels). The first is the Ignite Clean Energy Competition, which we found out we made it through to the semi-finals on Tuesday. The second is the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition, which we found out tonight that we are among the 50 of 232 that made it through to the semi-finals. I am very excited about this opportunity. I have already learned a lot and I am sure will learn a lot more in the next two months. The semi-final presentations for both competitions are in April, and the finals, should we make it, are in May.

Today, so Heavenly Father makes sure we don't get too happy in the blessings he is giving us, our car broke on Suzy as she drove to work. One of the idler pulleys for the belt disintegrated and so the power-steering went out and the cooling system as well. A similar thing had happened to me a few year ago. Fortunately Suzy was able to guide the car into a parking lot just off the freeway and walk the last mile or so to work. It just so happened that the parking lot she pulled into was right next to a Chevy car dealership (we drive a Chevy). I rode the bus over after class and took the car in. They were great and we were able to get the car back this evening. So even in the trial Heavenly Father showed His hand and made sure that we were taken care of.

The most ironic thing was that this morning before Suzy called with the bad news, I was thinking to myself, "things are going so good...too good, what kind of wrench is going to be thrown into life to test our faith." I am glad that in the end this wrench wasn't that bad.

I also feel guilty and have to admit that I wrote the last post during a class.

It's March!

We were excited that it was already March, with hopes that soon the crazy New England winter would soon be over. The sun even teased us on Saturday with sunshine and warmth. But we were sad to learn at Church on Sunday that March is perhaps the snowiest/wettest month of the year, and with that information our hopes came back down to earth. 

This week has been good. Yesterday I had an interview for a summer internship with the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, in Sarasota, Florida. The interview went really well, and the internship is near the top of our list. First of which because the internship is paid, but mostly because it is in Sarasota! And that sounds perfectly wonderful right now. 

In other good news...I have been working with a team in a business plan competition, well two actually, one at MIT and the other based in Boston. My Bishop is a chemical engineering professor here at UMass, and has come up with some new clean energy technology. So one of the 2nd year students, one of my Bishop's PhD students and I have put together a business plan based on the technology and entered it into these two clean energy business competitions. We found out yesterday that we made the semi-finals in one, and we will find out tomorrow about the other one. I am pretty excited about the competition, it has been really interesting as I have worked on it, and we like our chances to win the whole thing.

Suzy is doing well. She is pretty busy working, and in her callings in the Relief Society and finding time for Seminary, too. Unfortunately, we have no pictures because we have been stuck inside all the time because of the bad weather. So someday we will venture outside and do something and take pictures so that our posts will be more interesting.

Stupid Snow/Rain/Freezing Rain

I can't wait for winter to end! Last night it snowed all night and turned to freezing rain, and then rain this morning. I woke up and saw that it was yucky, so I thought I would wait for a few hours to go to work. I left about 10 assuming that everything would be plowed and that they rain wouldn't add too many new problems. Wrong. The freeway was okay, but when I got to Northampton where I work, there were HUGE puddles of standing water on the road. I went through 6 or 7 about a foot or more deep. When I finally got to the parking lot, there was a slushy mix with ice on it a few inches deep. I got into the office and checked to see that my boss was working at home and there wasn't really anything pressing, and then I headed back home. We are predicted to have rain through out the day and into the night and I didn't want to risk the street flooding getting worse if I stayed there all day. After a little stress trying to get out of the parking lot, I made it home. I was bummed that I drove all the way there just to drive back home, but I now I get to enjoy the rest of this yucky day at home. :) I just saw on the news that they think today will set a record for the most precipitation recieved in the month of February and that the power is out in a lot of places (luckily not here). I hope the weather is better where you live!

Check this out...

Maybe a lot of you have already seen this, but if not you should check it out. Its Glenn Becks closing thoughts from his show where he talks about President Hinckley. Its good to see people who are not afraid to talk about what they believe.

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/200/5127/

Busy Schedules

As I lay in bed last night, I began doing a few calculations in my head regarding my time, or lack thereof. Now life in general almost always seems busy, but since school has started things seem to have gotten worse, I feel like there is no time left for anything.

So as I lay in bed I did these quick calculations:

# of hours Monday thru Friday = 120

# of hours consumed by my classes = 20 hours a week (19 credit hours!)

# of hours supposed to be consumed by homework = 20 hours a week

# of hours for sleep (I really like 8 hours) = 40 hours a week

# of hours for my assistantship = 10 hours a week

# of hours spent on the bus or driving to work = 5-6 hours

# of hours for my internship at Historic Deerfield = 8 hours a week

When you add all those together I am left with about 15 or so hours a week for eating, exercising, scripture study, getting ready for work and for bed, and spending time with my wife. After doing these calculations I realized that the reason I felt like I had no time was because I really have no time. While I did not take the weekend into consideration, I did not count any Church activities, callings or home-teaching either.

So as for this week, surprise... we have been busy. On Monday we had the missionaries over for dinner. It is such a nice treat to have them over and the Spirit they bring, I missed that while living in Utah. On Tuesday we got to go vote in the Massachusetts primary, and it was fun because we know that our votes counted and made a difference. I went to the statewide breakdown for the primary and because we live in such a small town we could actually see that our votes where important.

We were both excited about the new addition to the First Presidency, President Uchtdorf will do wonderful things for the Church, as will President Monson.