Activities!

Matt and I have actually been getting out and seeing a bit of Colorado. A couple of weeks ago we went and toured the Denver mint. It was pretty neat to see how they mass produce the coins that we use every day. They gave us uncirculated pennies as well as a blank penny. We also got to see the new quarters that haven't been produced yet as well as the designs for a couple new lines of coins like the presidential dollar coins.

Today we are taking Zach and Garrett (Matt's nephew) to the Denver Zoo. It should be interesting.

Picture updates!

I worked all day to get a bunch of my pictures uploaded. I've rearranged a few things, added a bunch of new sections and stuff. Enjoy!

I might keep working on it tomorrow, or I might not. I have two papers that I have to get done by tomorrow night, so odds are that I'll work on the pictures instead of doing them :P

Another one down

As I mentioned yesterday, I was pretty nervous about my exam. Somehow I passed! I am now a Microsoft Certified Professional. It was a rough one, but I guess I know more than I give myself credit for. Now I'm taking a break from studying for a few days, and on Monday I'll start up with my next certification, Security+. My resume is starting to look pretty good :)

Cramming...

I have another computer certification exam (Windows XP Pro) at 1:30 today. That's in under two hours. I thought that I might be adequately prepared, but after going over another set of review questions, I'm starting to think that I'm not at all prepared. So it's cramming time for the next 1.5 hours for me. I wish I had a photographic memory!

We had a pretty fun weekend. Matt's dad, brother and grandma all have timeshares throughout the country. We stayed at one of them from Friday to Monday in a place in Colorado called Pagosa Springs. They had natural hot springs. I wasn't too impressed by them because I'd rather sit in a clean hottub that doesn't smell like sulfur. We also drove around up in the mountains quite a bit, which was probably the coolest part of the trip for me. I got some great pictures that I'll post here eventually. We also went to Mesa Verde, which is a national park full of old cliff-dwelling Anasazi indian homes and stuff. That was pretty cool as well.

I think the weekend was good for all of us. I think his family (it was just me, Matt, his dad, little brother and grandma) got to know me a little bit better and vice versa. :)

Movie Review - United 93

It's been a while since Matt and I have been to the movies. I think the last one we saw was in January when we took his brother to see Narnia. There are several coming up that we want to see, so you'll probably start seeing a few more reviews here and there.

Anyway, to the review. It's good. It's really good. I didn't have much for expectations going into this movie. I've seen so much stuff on 9-11 and figured that this would be Hollywood's big-budget version of what happened. I was wrong. From the start of the movie, you get the haunting suspicion that it easily could have been you on any one of those planes. They shot it in a real airport and a real plane. It just adds to the experience.

I was also expecting hokey character development, aka, we see mom kissing her kids goodbye at daycare and going to the airport. Again, wrong. They don't even tell us the passenger names. Again, it just adds to it. I was also pleasantly surprised that they didn't slant the movie one way or another. I didn't leave the theater with a hatred for muslims or even for the men that hijacked the planes. There's no blame placed on any government or anyone else, really.

There's no special effects to get in the way, either. It was refreshing. And it's intense. It's not like I didn't know what was going to happen in the end, but I left the theater crying like a baby. There was a lot of room for the directors to screw this one up, but they really did a good job. This isn't necessarily a movie that you have to see in the theater, but I would definitely pick it up when it comes to video.

Planning the move

Well, we are starting to get things into place for our move to Florida. It's not until the end of July, but I like to plan things as far ahead as possible. So far, we have a hold on an apartment in Daytona Beach, only about two miles from Matt's school. I also put a deposit on a moving company to move all of our stuff down there. It turns out that it's actually cheaper to do it that way than to rent a U-Haul, go figure. That's less work for us, anyway. There's not a whole lot left that we have to do before then. I'm hoping to at least have a job interview lined up when we move, but it's not completely necessary. Matt has just about everything taken care of for school that he can. In other words, things are going smoothly!

Next!

I passed another exam, iNet+, last week. This one was really easy. It was on Internet technologies, which I know backwards and forwards. I scheduled my next exam today, which I will be taking in two weeks. This one is a little more tough and will require a lot more studying on my part. I seem to have gotten a good method down, though - I first read through the exam book and highlight everything I feel is important to know. Then I write everything I highlighted down in a notebook and study from that. Every day I take practice exams online to make sure that I'm actually learning stuff. The next exam that I'm taking is Microsoft Windows XP Professional. It's the operating system that I use, but I'm learning tons about it that I didn't know existed! I'm almost done reading/highlighting the book. We'll see how it goes!