Millards In The Mountains

Yesterday was a perfect example of how well Matt and I get each other. Tuesday, I promised pictures and yesterday, Matt just decided to post some! Granted, he probably read that blog post, but the timing was still perfect for him to do a picture post. Now I’m off the hook for a while! Tonight, I will hunker down and get every possible piece of school work done that I can because tomorrow, I am taking a day off! Of course, I still have to work but I will be able to leave early because I already have plenty of hours. Matt and I are going to try night skiing at Keystone. Basically, they have a couple runs lit by lights and they keep them open at night. I still feel like this is a crazy thing to do though. It will be MUCH colder, for one thing. And limiting visibility while I’m still learning doesn’t sound very smart. (Mainly because I don’t want to run into any trees.) However, the run that we will be taking is the only run we have skied. We know it very well, and perhaps this will help m...

I don't have a lot to say, other than I have been working a lot and keeping up with sports which I love. I did, however, find some time to take some pics of the puppies and thought I would post them for everyone to see. I hope everyone is well and we do like the comments! This one is of Perdita just laying in the sun. ---> Here is Pongo being all stoic in his usual perch by one of our windows. Puppies at the dog park with the sunset behind them. Our mischievous little one with all of her toys! ---> And finally, presenting the most vicious dog in the world: Pongo

There are two things that completely capture Pongo’s attention: unattended human food and horse pens. This is quite a random pair of items, I realize. The food part is obvious, and he will jump on counters to get it! We have discovered his attraction to horse pens during our recent adventures at the dog park. (Don’t ask me why there is a horse pen in the middle of a state park). Last week, Pongo ran into the horse pen TWICE to cover himself head to toe in horse droppings! I believe that this is a hunting instinct, but what a smelly one! And of course, Perdi follows him in there because she is a puppy and that’s what puppies do. She does not roll in droppings…she just eats them! As the second horse pen incident was happening, I was at first absolutely incensed at Pongo. He would not come to me until he was satisfactorily covered, no matter how many treats I offered. (Treats get Perdi out in a split second.) In the meantime, I am dragging Perdi out and worrying myself to death about Pong...

This week has been one for catching up on many things in many different ways. I'll admit, most of it involves school. I got embarrassingly far behind the first week, while trying to figure out and navigate the distance learning program. I will also admit that I almost dropped out! I am getting no help from my professor at all! First of all, it took me a really long time to figure out how to connect my personal hard drive to Purdue's server so that I could access the files I needed to turn in the very first home work assingment. My professor didn't know anything about how to do that, nor did he offer anything constructive when I emailed him for help on my programming homework. For example, after a few vague and condescending suggestions, his email ended with: "I'm afraid this code needs major revision. Good luck." I also emailed him to ask if we could exchange emails between the distance learners, since we have no support group like the students on campus. The ...

One of the things I really hate is when I am super tired and just can’t sleep. Last night was one of those nights. I tossed and turned until 12:30 or so, which probably doesn’t seem bad to some of you, but I get up at 5:30am and 5 hours of sleep just doesn’t cut it these days. I guess I just have a lot on my mind lately. Plus Matt got home late and I really don’t sleep well until he’s home. For one thing, Pongo howls when the garage opens, which also disturbs Perdi in her kennel. It’s hard to get everybody settled down again. I am somewhat bothered by the remote software package I am allowed to access at Purdue. It is great in the sense that I don’t have to buy any expensive software packages. I can just type in my password and use whatever program I need! The problem is that I spent hours and hours writing code for a class project and I can’t get the files I need off the Purdue server to email it to my professor for guidance. I tried everything, but it doesn’t recognize my computer as...

I sincerely apologize for the lack of blogs lately! I am working on my time management skills now that school has started. Sometimes I wonder how I’m even supposed to get any work done during the day unless I force all of my school questions out of my head. I am not thrilled that our first assignment involves programming. Any of you that went to school with me at KU, or even knew me at that time, know how bad I am at programming. I think I have made some decent progress on the assignment, but it just won’t work! I hope I am not in over my head. I am going to send my code to my professor and see what guidance he can give me. This weekend was so nice, in many ways. First of all, I got to spend two whole days with Matt! (Besides the time I spent on school). We took the opportunity to drive to Boulder on Saturday afternoon to watch KU play CU in basketball. We sat in the 6th row! That would never happen in Allen Fieldhouse, but CU definitely doesn’t have the same magical atmosphere as Alle...

I just finished my first lecture as a grad student! I have to admit, I'm feeling a little intimidated by the whole process of distance learning. I do really like my teacher though! He has been nominated for numerous teaching awards by his students and i can see why. I am a little dissapointed that I only finished one lecture tonight. I still have my stats class to view and take notes on. I focused on GPS Positioning tonight because it pertains most to my career, and it has the corresponding textbook that is FILLED with long and scary equations. I realized tonight how rusty I am. I haven't used some of the required software (Matlab, for all of you engineer/meteorology/geography people who want specifics) in way too long! Well, I figured it would take me a little bit of time to download the lectures and figure out how to view them. That actually turned out to be the easy part. The difficult part will be getting a copy of Matlab or remote logging in to Purdue's computer labs (...

This week will be a big one for the Mountain Millard women. Perdi and I will both start school! I am taking Perdi to puppy school tomorrow for some much needed training. She will have 4 classes this month and learn obedience through "clicker" training. The clicker is supposed to attract the dog's attention so that they respond better to commands. I am interested to see how she responds. Pongo will probably get to learn clicker training as well so that we are consistent. Perdi is definitely giving Matt and I an adventure in life these days. Her latest vice is her consistent chewing. I don't know how much money I have spent on chew toys for her, but she would still rather chew on ANYTHING that she is not supposed to. For example, last night she chewed right through the cord that connects my new iPod to my computer. I was NOT happy about that. She also enjoys shoes, sticks and Pongo, when he is caught off guard. I don't remember Pongo being this bad. On a good note, ...

So here it is...my first post of the new year. I suppose that not blogging on January 1st is a bad omen for how well I will keep this updated. (Hasn't it been said that what you do on the first day of the year is what you will be doing the rest of the year?) Well, I wasn't blogging...in fact, we were celebrating a combination of Christmas and New Year's in Kansas City. Our Kansas trip was a whirlwind of seeing friends and family, attending a basketball game, eating A LOT and fabulous weather. I was treated to a warm overcast morning on Saturday, which is my favorite. We took Pongo and Perdi along again, and they were great travellers. I think they are getting used to the road, even though we still had to use a mild sedative with Pongo. It was nice to have extra room with our new car to spread out. We even stopped in Manhattan on the way back on Sunday to have brunch with my family. The whole trip was wonderful. It sounds like we will have a new slate of visitors this year, ...