Some news.

It's been a while since I had much news. Some things to mention lately though. Sam, the second dog we found after the hurricane, has a new home. Kristen has a friend Matt, whose wife's parents were looking to get a new lab. But, they didn't want to go through the whole puppy-training business. They live somewhere near Jackson on 40+ acres of land with a pond. It sounds perfect for him and we hear he's loving it there. We were a bit worried Zephyr might miss him, but she's loving having all the attention again and being cute as ever. So that's all good.
I have officially graduated from UMaine now. It took a while to get the paperwork and credits all sorted out since I applied to graduate in August and I took the summer field course thingy. But aparently they sent a diploma to Kristen's mom's house back in Maine. So now, I'm Willapa James Waterstrat, B.S. (Earth Sciences). Go me.
Just had our fall break down here. I was hoping to go camping or hiking or riding somewhere, but we didn't really have time to plan out anything, so we just bummed around here. It was great. We got to sleep in and just sort of lounge around all day. Well, not all day. One day we cleaned all day, another I was at the shop, Monday was full of errands. But we got to relax a bit which was very nice. The weather has gotten very agreeable too. It's barely getting above 80 during the day now and down in the 60's at night. Quite nice.
We had midterms last week. I only had one big thing to worry about, which was a big paper for my hardest class (Regional Geology of Eastern North America). I wound up getting a 39/40 (97.5%) on that, which I was was suprised to get. Ususally, he's a pretty hard grader, but this time he praised us (all 6 that are in the class) about how well we did. It's nice to get compliments every now and then. Kristen (who's taking 23 credits) has all A's on her midterm grades. That might make you think that school down here is easier, but in fact she's way above the rest of her class. On a recent chemistry test, she got a 90-something when the class average was 68. It's not easy, she's just smart. She's also thinking she wants to get into biological engineering. She really likes biology, but is worried about a lack of jobs in that field. Any thoughts on that old man?
I've been riding trials a bit more lately and actually learning (re-learning really) some moves. But, somehow the other night I bent the steerer tube on my fork, so I can't ride until I get that replaced. I've been lusting after a new trials bike for a while now, but I sure can't afford it. I'd really like to replace the whole bike instead of just replacing the fork. But, since I'm l0w on money, I'm just going to have to wait a while before I do anything anyway. Bummer. I can't ride the BMX right now either, because all the spokes came loose (stupid machine built wheels). Now that's we're back in school, I don't have much time anyway.
Well, I ought to get ready for class. I took some pictures recently, but they didn't turn out too well, so I'll try to get some good ones up soon. Hope Ford's not causing too much trouble out there in Washington.