She Said Yes

I’ve held off posting anything (though I’ve actually written multiple entries) because I couldn’t put anything up in between the big event and when I share it with the world (though I’m pretty sure everyone that reads my blog already knows). If you haven’t guessed already from the title, this past weekend I proposed to Dem and she said yes. We both are pretty happy and filled with a little bit of nervousness, but actually feel more comfortable moving forward then during the period when we were trying to decide if we should move forward.

First (one of) photo taken post engagement.

The first question everyone asks when I tell them I’m engaged is “how did you propose?” Well this is kind of anti-climatic, but I think its kind of fitting to both Dem and I because neither of us are much for formality. Basically last Friday night we were watching some television and she asked if we could just talk. I figured well I’ve only seen the second episode of Band of Brothers like 30 times but I guess it can wait until later so that we can talk instead. We then had a little talk about our relationship and marriage (we’ve been talking about it for a couple months now), and at one point Dem basically said she wanted to marry me. I then asked if she just purposed to me, which she said “no…ummm…I guess…sort of.” I then had a few side questions for her before having to sit and think about the situation for a second. During that period I settled in my mind that if I wanted to marry her and she wanted to marry me there was no reason to wait any longer and I looked at her and asked if she would marry me. After a series of “are you serious” I finally said, “Dem F. will you marry me?” and she said “yes.” I then had to explain I didn’t have a ring or anything, but she said it was ok. We then called and woke up our parents to tell them we were engaged and also called our siblings right away. Since then we’ve managed to pick out a ring (which she should have within the week) and decided that we want to get married this year, but beyond that we have no idea.

Past Weekend

This past weekend I did a couple things that I'll just quickly share...

1) Went to Pigeon
I was suppose to usher at St. Johns this past Sunday so Demoree and I went up there for the weekend. Besides relaxing we also managed to play some basketball at St. Johns gym and have a nice meal with the parents at Fireside (plus some air hockey). All and all it was just a nice weekend. I would have pictures since Demoree wanted to take some around Pigeon, but it was freaking cold. The temperature was low and the wind was blowing...that means it is super cold.

2) Aunt Debbie's 50th Birthday Party
We then went to my Aunt Debbie's birthday party, which had most of my family there. It was a lot of fun see the family and celebrating with them. Plus my cousin Paula shares the same birthday so extra fun.

Aunt Debbie's Front Yard on her Birthday...thanks to her nieces and nephew.

My dad and uncle Gerald having some fun.

3) Sunday was also Demoree and my 1 year Anniversary!!!

Happy Anniversary Demoree!

4) BBs and a Magnet

At Dgroup on Monday Kevin, Austin, Mike, and I discovered the fun of taking BBs and playing with them on a big magnet.

Tower of BBs formed on top of big magnet...Mike is totally amazed.

Video of us playing with the BBs.

Back in the Lab

I'm in the lab trying to get this last data set (hopefully) necessary for me to graduate. While things have been rather a pain for quite awhile now as I try to get thing setup, as of today I think I at least know how I'm going to get the data I need. Now with any luck the acquiring of the data set will go smoothly...though I've run enough experiments to know that nothing ever goes as smoothly as you picture in your head, but at least there is progress.

My Laser sheet

Thirst

Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of playing in not one but two basketball games. These were for a co-ed and a graduate/faculty/staff intramural team that I play on every year. They are the Underdogs, which is a pretty sweet setup for me since the originator of the Underdogs every year organizes everything for us and we just have to play. Unfortunately I am unable to play the rest of the regular season due to schedule conflicts, but I’ll be able to play with them for playoffs.
After finishing both games I decided to stop and get groceries since I haven’t really done that in like…ummm…ok I don’t remember but will assume its happened in the last year. I went in, got a cart, and started filling it up with stuff. The only problem is that since I had just finished playing two hours of basketball I was really thirsty and basically bought everything that was liquid and not much else. Pictured below are some of the items I purchase (while talking with Demoree I started aligning the bottles along the edge of the counter and before I knew it I had a pretty decent line up) plus I bought a half gallon of milk, half gallon of orange juice, and a box of Capri Suns. Even worse off was that after buying the most groceries I’ve bought in many months I still only got salsa, bananas, oranges, a block of cheese, yogurt, and Hot & Spicy Cheez-Its (FYI: they are really good). I didn’t even have anything that I could put together out of that for dinner…I had half a bag of chips that I used to eat chips and salsa, which is apparently the only thing I’m now capable of purchasing for myself to eat.

Some of the drink options purchased for myself in my attempt to go grocery shopping.

Prelim and Photoshop

Today I gave my preliminary examination presentation. Basically this is suppose to be where I present the planned experiments that I’m going to perform to acquire my PhD. However, my experiments are already 99% completed, which means this would have been a horrible time to find out that the committee strongly disagrees with my experimental plan. Fortunately I gave the talk, everyone seemed to be happy with it, and after some paperwork I will now be an official PhD candidate. Thus today I have jumped through yet another hoop only really leaving the largest hoop…the writing and defense of my dissertation. One big bonus from this preliminary examination was that I think I’ve settled on the title for my dissertation: “Surface roughness effects on polymer degradation and diffusion within a high-Reynolds-number turbulent boundary layer.”

In addition thanks for guidance from Demoree on some of the basics of photoshop I have become…um…lets say not completely ignorant of the capabilities of photoshop. Before last night I’ve only used this knowledge to do some touching up of personal pictures for this blog, but last night I got thinking about how I have hundreds of images taken during testing that don’t look good because lighting is very poor. I played with it a bit and sure enough I was able to turn pictures that provided information but looked crappy into nice and informative pictures…so credit the blog with producing a useful skill for work. Below is an example of one such image that I’ve always been disappointed in the way it looked, but after some filtering of the image it looks much more like the real flow.

Original image of dye being injected into the tunnel.

Corrected image of dye being injected into the tunnel.

Red Wings vs. Avalanche

Thanks dad for hooking Demoree and I up with the Wings tickets and mom for getting us the jerseys. Plus besides having awesome seats given to Demoree and I, but two seats were open right next to us (actually Joe and Diane but they swapped with us) allowing Teresa and Chad to come and watch the game with us. It was a good game since the Wings won and Hasek got a shut out.

So here are a few pictures from the game...I think I need Demoree's help to get this looking a little better, but I'm learning photoshop.

Banners

Puck drop at the start of the third period...Hasek better start paying attention soon.

Demoree and I in our jersey's

Teresa and Chad...Teresa sporting her new Zetterberg jersey (this means I no longer get Zetterberg or Datsyuk because of my dad...I'm taking Lidstrom and Holmstrom from now on)

Teresa and I looking cool...Teresa's closed eyes and me doing all that I can to be cool.

Bonus quote time
Juno MacGuff: I think I'm, like, in love with you.
Paulie Bleeker: You mean as friends?
Juno MacGuff: No, I mean, like, for real. 'Cause you're, like, the coolest person I've ever met, and you don't even have to try, you know...
Paulie Bleeker: I try really hard, actually.

Happy Birthday Dem

Happy Bithday to you!
Happy Bithday to you!
Happy Bithday dear Dem!!!
Happy Bithday to you!

Happy Birthday Dem...Love Brian