ace's blog » Masters Program

Lots of stuff!

petewood — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:30:33 +0000

I started on this post a few days ago so here goes my attempt to finish it…

We finally closed on our house in Memphis and 3 days (yes…3 days) later, the buyers mortgage company finally cut the check and we got paid so yay for that.

We also closed on our house here in Casselberry (Orlando area). It’s my most favoritest of all the houses we’ve owned (which is three if you’re counting). The kitchen is huge and open (but not as huge as kitchen in the Memphis house) and looks out into the living room. We have two covered porches, one in back and one up front, both of which are pre-wired for fans. Our garage is in the back of the house. We have 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs and 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom down. There is a formal dining room and a second living room. The dining room will soon have the carpet ripped up and replaced with some sort of wood flooring and then we’re going to put french doors in the entrance (of that room) and turn it into my new office/computer area. The second living room is currently Aaron’s playroom and will stay that way until he doesn’t need a playroom anymore. The bedroom downstairs will become a guestroom that all of our guests that we never have over can stay in and be happy(ier)!

Our homeowners association does all of the lawn maintenance! I don’t have to mow or water (or pay for the water) for as long as we live in this house.

We are going to start trying to have another baby sometime in May! We’re both really hoping to have a little girl but if we have another little even one-billionth as wonderful, smart and happy as Aaron, then we will be very grateful.

I’m kicking around the idea of going back to school for a masters degree again. I’ve been told that my boss would possibly pay for it since she would just love to tell potential clients that the Gradebook developer has all of this wonderiforous education and this and that. I’m going to work that angle sometime soon.

…

I think that’s about as much updating regarding the going-ons of my life that there needs to be updating on.

this blog is over a year old now!

petewood — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 03:22:25 +0000

I just scanned through my entire blog and checked the date of my first post and saw that it’s been over a year since I started this thing! I’ve had my websites, in their many forms, for over 3 years now. I think that’s pretty cool! Some of the posts I scanned included my plethora of posts about me starting a Masters degree. I don’t think that is going to happen but this time, it is for a different reason (as opposed to the first time I thought it was over). I feel like I’m happier now doing what I do. I have time to write web apps when I want to and that’s important to me as it is one of my new passions. I have been doing a ton of posting in this month, including 5 posts today! I don’t really know what’s gotten into me, lately I’ve been on this kick where I want to link my old posts like crazy. This post has like 7 internal links in it already!

Meri is out tonight with the women of her playgroup (well, Aaron’s playgroup technically). One of the women is moving out of town because her husband got a new job. So since I’ve had this opportunity to be home alone, I’ve been uber-geeky and have been working on my blog and the websites that I use every day (digg.com, bloglines.com, and now feedburner.com:my blog feed). I’ve also taken this opportunity to post to some technical (web-dev) blogs to post some comments and make sure to post my blog address in the hopes that some people will be intrigued and pay my sites a visit and maybe click on some ads. Well the getting people to click on an add part worked and I can tell because I have one click on a Google Adsense ad! Woohoo baby, my websites have generated $0.15 of revenue! One of the blogs that I read over tonight had some good information regarding ads placement on blogs. It was a pretty interesting read. I have added that blog to my reading list on bloglines.com.

Well enough posting for tonight. I think I’m just going to enjoy the rest of my alone time till Meri gets home.

about the master’s journey…

petewood — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 14:52:33 +0000

It’s not over, just had to think about it more. I got a letter from the UoM saying all they need now are my recommendation letters and my GRE test score before they let me know if I’m accepted to the program.

masters journey over already?

petewood — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 16:56:54 +0000

Meri has been talking to me this morning, being pissy like I suspected she would be after she unintentionally decided to put me down last night while we were watching TV. I figured it was going to turn into one of those horrible weekends like we’ve been pretty infamous for as of late.

It started out as her just telling me that I’m not able to multi-task as well as her. It annoyed me since I took that personally but whatever, I’m not going to start an argument over something that I truly don’t care about. This morning, she calls me and tells me that she thinks I should just leave work at 2 or something early b/c it’s supposed to snow here today (3-5 inches). I told her that I didn’t drive and she got upset b/c I was supposed to go to Wild Oats after work to get milk-free chocolate for her to cook with Aaron this weekend. I completely forgot about going to Wild Oats and even driving to work b/c it wasn’t my turn to drive (I carpool with someone). I forgot b/c I was up with Aaron twice last night, once at 10:40pm and again at 11:40pm. The first time I just put him back to sleep but then he woke up again an hour later so I figured he wasn’t feeling well so I stayed up with him until he fell asleep. That took about 30 minutes so after that was done, I was wide awake but still tired. I went to bed but couldn’t fall asleep for a while and once I did fall asleep, it felt like I only got about 10 minutes of sleep once my alarm started going off. So I was tired and woke up with enough time to get ready for work and find something to eat for lunch so I didn’t waste any money buying anything from across the hall. So this morning, Meri’s on the phone with me trying to express her frustrations but I’m at work and can’t fucking talk about it! She tells me that I don’t help around the house and all I do is play video games. She decides she wants to hire a maid service and we’ll find the money “somewhere”. Well, right now, I feel it is best for me to not go to school b/c if I’m not helping with housework now then I’m certainly not going to be very helpful if I’m upstairs doing homework. I’m in a bad fucking mood and don’t feel like doing anything. I’ve got my headphones on listening to heavy metal type music. In college, I referred to it as anger music b/c it only serves to keep me in a bad mood and fuel my pissed off attitude. Meri thinks it’s stupid for me to not go to school but I think that’s the only way I’m going to be able to help around the house. So I’m not going to get my masters in computer science because housework needs to be done and we all know that is more fucking important than making yourself feel good right! Fuck this. I’m really pissed off and wanna stay that way for a LONG ASS FUCKING TIME.

journey for my Masters Degree update

petewood — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 19:13:43 +0000

2 item down, three to go!

[X] (1) Apply to UoM.

[X] (2) Request official transcript from UNF.

[ ] (3) Take GRE (should happen in April 2006).

[ ] (4) Two Recommendation Letters. My current choices are my immediate manager, Jeff Michael, and his boss, Gaby Sgolombis.

[ ] (5) Wait.

Application to University of Memphis

petewood — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:11:16 +0000

I just sent my application to the University of Memphis! YAY!!!

1 item down, several to go!

[X] (1) Apply to UoM.

[ ] (2) Request official transcript from UNF.

[ ] (3) Take GRE (should happen in April 2006).

[ ] (4) Two Recommendation Letters. My current choices are my immediate manager, Jeff Michael, and his boss, Gaby Sgolombis.

[ ] (5) Wait.

Masters information

petewood — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 20:40:03 +0000

Well after doing a lot of research, I have to take the GRE exam to get into UoM Masters program. The requirements aren’t too high so I don’t think it will be a problem. I’m just going to have issues with the writing section. Computer Science grad students shouldn’t be required to write any papers, maybe programs but not papers…

I’m going through the undergrad course requirements, comparing them to what I’ve taken and creating documents that I will use to try and wriggle my way out of taking classes at UoM that I already too at UNF and barely sqeaked through the first time. Hopefully I can get through this process, I don’t want to have to pay Master’s prices to take undergrad classes. I’m thinking that if I have to take some undergrad classes, I may apply to the school as a non-degree seeking student and when I’ve taken the classes, I will apply to the CS Master’s program. We’ll see though, I sent an email to some on at the UoM CS department. Hopefully they will respond quickly.

career change?

petewood — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 14:01:53 +0000

I’ve been pretty unhappy since moving to Memphis. I think ultimately, I’m unhappy with my career. I don’t think I like doing the same thing everday. I’m not really helping anybody or anything like that. I just sit here and type. The unhappiness has really effected the quality of my marriage and my life as of late. Meri and I are arguing a lot and I’m saying some very mean things towards the woman I chose to be my wife. Since I know I don’t want to lose my wife and son, I think I should consider trying to make myself happy and all other things should fall into place. Meri and I were brainstorming last night and she thought that maybe I would be happy if I started to teach. At first, I didn’t think I liked that idea but the more I thought about it, the more I could see myself being a math or computer teacher. Since I’m fairly competant with both subjects, I think I owe it to myself and my family to try to make a change. This won’t be a quick thing move either, I have some research to do. I am planning on going back to school to pursue a masters in computer science with an emphasis on mathematics. The local university (University of Memphis) has a masters program in CS so I will begin to check that out. I also need to find out if there is any demand, or will be any in 3 years or so, for math teachers in HS or if they even offer computer classes. If they don’t have demand, then I may try to be an adjunct at a college or something. Who knows? Lots of questions now. I’m excited about maybe teaching but definitely going back to school. I just hope this is what I’m looking for out of life. It would be nice to feel like I’m helping people with other things than making them richer (Terminix made over a billion dollars for the first time in 2005)!