This Just In....

I've been listening to President Obama's Address to Congress. Here's what he said:

In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child. I speak to you not just as a President, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our children's education must begin at home.

Amen! That right there is the answer to many of our country's problems. Thank you, Mr. President! I truly hope that many people listen to and heed this wise council.

Blog Stalking and Other News

Hi. My name is Megan, and I am a class A blog stalker. I've decided to try to come out of hiding and start commenting on people's blogs that I have found and go to once in awhile. Matthias is really good about just commenting and not feeling awkward about posting to a blog that he found via someone else, but I feel awkward. However, with all of the change that will be coming this year, I want to keep in touch with all of my friends that I've met here, there, and everywhere. So, I'm a blog stalker trying to come out of hiding. We'll see how long it takes before I've got this stalking thing fixed. If you stalk here, let me know, and I'll stalk you too! (err....NOT stalk you too...)

Another thing I'm working on is commenting. I should really people know I read their blogs and care about them. I do care, so I'm going to start showing it. Just remember, bad habits are hard to break sometimes.

So yeah...we've got lots of news in the Whitney family these days! Lots of changes are happening! We are so excited! It's new to us, we may to have to say goodbye to a lot of people, but we are looking forward to the future and love talking like we are out of school already.

As some people may have guessed, we are expecting. We know absolutely NOTHING yet because my first OB/GYN appointment isn't until Monday. According to our calculations I just hit 16 weeks. (Yes...it takes that long for me to get into a doctor. It took 5 weeks from when I called to get into my regular doctor, who had to refer me to an OB/GYN. Then it took 5 weeks from when I called to get into the OB/GYN because the doctors were out of town for 2 weeks). Our little one should be coming mid-late August. However, we know nothing for sure, and for all we know I could just be having crazy symptoms of some rare Ethiopian disease that just happens to mimic pregnancy. Hopefully on Monday all of our worries will be dispelled and we will FINALLY get to see and hear our little one. I haven't gained any significant weight yet, even though I eat ALL the time. However, I can no longer hold my belly in flat, and I'm pretty sure my intestines have moved. So something is happening inside, and I may actually be showing soon.

Also, since I've been LOVING baking powder biscuits lately, and I wanted to do the dishes on Sunday night (gasp!), Matthias made them for me! This was his first time ever making them, and I think they turned out wonderfully! I ate them all in about 24 hours...


In other news, Matthias is full-on with the job search. He is flying out to New Hampshire in a week and a half for an interview, and so far all signs are a positive on him getting the job. He's also interviewed with another company in New Hampshire, one in Virginia, and even one in Tucson. So far he would love working at each of them, so we are excited! Many of the College of Optics Industrial Affiliates that we were counting on for him getting a job aren't even really hiring this year, so we are blessed that he's getting so many chances! I guess this economic slump is really hitting everyone hard.

I've already sort of got my heart set on New Hampshire because that's where we've already done our research. I'm in love with it so far! However, as long as we can be together, and out of school, I'm sure I'll love anywhere that we end up. It sure is fun talking about things like future budgets, buying a house, a little more space. We really aren't huge fans of Tucson as a city, but we love the people we have met and associated with here. That's the only thing that makes it hard to think about leaving because I know how bad I am at keeping in touch, and I would hate to not know how all my friends are! (Again...I am trying to come out of stalkage and let people know I care!)

I get exciting thinking of the future life that we will have together. I'm excited that I may actually live in another state for the first time ever (and possibly even make it further east than New Mexico!). I get excited about how our first years out of college are going to be trying to pull together a real home, no longer in school-zone. I get excited about how many new problems we will have to deal with together. And I really get excited just picturing our cute little fro-head with beautiful New Hampshire {or elsewhere} in the background! I guess I better get practicing with my Rebel so that I can show you all!

The future is going to be great! I know this because the present is already amazing!

Children's Books

I love Children's Books! Seriously...it's going to be hard for me to not buy a million of them! Right when we knew we were expecting, we were at Bookman's and couldn't resist buying a 6-pack of Little Golden Books (including the Poky Little Puppy, The Tawny Scrawny Lion, and Tootle, among others). Now I got an email from deepdiscount.com about a Buy 2 Get 1 Sale on Dr. Seuss Books! Do you know how hard it is for me to resist buying these? I was just telling Matthias the other day about Robert the Rose Horse,
and how Kathleen and I would ALWAYS choose that book! I guess it's a good one for a family with allergies!

Both Kathleen and I learned to read early on because our family is full of readers, and we could never get enough story books! In fact, I remember asking to learn to read when I was 4, and when I was in Kindergarten and 1st Grade, my teacher would bring me chapter books to read because I was so advanced. I would read ALL the time as a kid...we read so many books, went to the library a LOT, and we still love to read! Granted, school does get in the way of reading sometimes, but this semester since I have time I am finally reading "To Kill a Mockingbird". We've also discovered librivox.org from a good friend, so even road trips and long days of drafting at work can be enlightening, while we listen to the stories we've always known, but never read. I've discovered that the books really ARE way better than the movies.

I don't understand how people don't like to read, but I like to think that teaching kids the joy of reading at a young age can work wonders in whether or not they will like to read in the future. This means that in our house, our little ones are going to get lots of story time! Boy am I excited! You know...it's just not quite right to fill your backpack with story books and pull them out on campus. I can just imagine pulling out "Robert the Rose Horse", "Are You My Mother?", or my big pink book of Fairy Tales in the AME building! Haha! I'm not sure that building could handle so much color (its colors are black, gray, cement, and steel...and I guess red bricks on the outside)!

p.s. As much as I love reading, and as good as I once was at grammar, I blame my time at the U of A on my deteriorating spelling and grammar skills. Hopefully upon graduation these things will again prevail instead of being smooshed down by teachers and TA's of whom English wasn't their first language.

Valentine's Eve

First off, I've always hated Valentine's Day. With a passion. I hate the commercialism, and I hate how much it can make people feel left out, and I hate how easy it is to eat a whole plate of cherry chip cake cookies on Valentine's Day.

I happened to marry a romantic man (am I allowed to say that?) who makes Valentine's Day so special with little things. Since we haven't been good at writing them down, let me tell you how Valentine's Day has been through the 3 Valentine's Days we've been together:

When we were dating, it was our favorite Greek food by the poolside at Mountain Plaza, and his roommates even serenaded us! Then Matthias had learned to play our current song on the ukulele, and surprised me with a wonderful gift: an atomic clock! Which we still use every day! He was definitely investing in the future. ;) I had just written him a silly little card (on zebra origami paper!) with some sappy Josh Groban lyrics (Spanish of course).

Last year Valentine's Day was on a Thursday, which meant we would not get home until at least 9pm. I tried to be romantic by learning a Juanes song on the guitar and singing it for Matthias, but I wasn't expecting anything since I was going to be gone all day. However, Matthias filled my day with little post-it love notes, and I've kept some around to this day. They always make me smile really big. That night he put together a wonderful chocolate fondue (in our heart-shaped fondue set that we got for our wedding) with fresh strawberries and chocolate and other yummy things to dip like bananas, marshmallows and pretzels. It was wonderful! He also turned on some romantic classical music and we had a blast!

This year, Valentine's was on Saturday. We'd already set up plans to play in the mountains with Becca and fam, so Matthias wanted to celebrate early on Friday night. I got home from school pretty late because we were doing homework, and Matthias asked me if I wanted to take a nice relaxing bath. I suspected something was up, and told him "there's something in the bathtub, isn't there?" His response: "Why would there be something in the bathtub?" So I went over, pulled away the bath curtain, and there WAS something. A CANON REBEL XS!!! We've been wanting one forever, especially now that there's a little one on the way, and he was able to get the display camera at Circuit City for WAY below what we had discussed was a price that we'd buy a Rebel for! I am super excited, and just need to learn how to use it!

In one of the pockets of the camera bag was a bag full of white conversation hearts. You have no idea how happy this made me!

I..........................
!!!!!!!!

Matthias wasn't originally planning on getting the Rebel for Valentine's; he was just going to get me the white conversation hearts. He bought three bags of candy, and spent all morning separating out the white ones so that he could give me my favorites. When I went to dollar lunch, and found him ditching class, I did notice a bag of candy hearts on the table, and when I was offered one I said no because someone had already eaten all of the white ones! Boy does my man know me well!


Then we went and got sandwiches at Subway, made lemonade, and watched an episode of Psych.

Also, did you know that white conversation hearts spark when you chew them just like Wint-o-Green Lifesavers?! Matthias had never sparked before, so we turned out the lights and sparks flew! --From the candy hearts in our mouths of course! ;)

It was a wonderful Valentine's Eve!

(it says smile! ;))

January Newsletter Article

With the Christmas season wrapping up came and went three and a half weeks of much needed vacation for me and Megan. During this time, we worked only part time, hung out a lot, played with family, clean and organized our apartment, played Hand and Foot, and didn't do a whole lot else! It was a very relaxing break from school and it really helped to clear the fuzz around our heads (although I suppose I still am in need of a shave and a haircut). Over the Christmas break, we did acquire about fifty lemons and a big popcorn tin full of pecans. Megan took care of squeezing the fifty lemons in a morning, and I've been working on shelling the pecans when we sit down for movies or other idle time. That was the amount of our business during Christmas break.

Classes are now in full swing and we're actually enjoying a light schedule load, as Megan previously mentioned in her blog. We're enjoying our guitar class and and our medical seminar class (the first one was a really interesting lecture on how to avoid cardiovascular disease and the second was way over our heads about a genetic skin disease). I really only have one core class besides the second half to my senior design class, then lab and two tech electives that are fun and interesting. It just feels like this is how school is supposed to be! I also have free time in the mornings, so I took on a load of work from my internship and I've been trying to give them 10 hours of work each week. While I really like this company and all of the people I work with there, it wouldn't be my first choice for an after graduation position as it work isn't really optics, though it is on my list of options.

Speaking of post-graduation positions, I guess now that it's February, I need to be back into the full-swing of job hunting again. I got alot of job leads back in October, but several places told me to get back to them in February. We'll keep you posted on any new leads we get, as it will greatly determine alot about where we settle...

The past few weeks, Megan and I haven't been sick, but just sometimes we get to feeling a little off color. We'll take turns getting kinda stomach issues and gas and just kinda feeling, I dunno, "bleaueah" seems to describe it best. So we've been resolving to eat better with a better balanced diet of good fresh veggies and plenty of fruit. I've even been trying to get Megan to start taking a daily multivitamin. AND I've been cooking lots of beans lately. Those should help, right? I don't they're the source of our woes.... As we strive to eat plenty of good fruits, Megan discovered that she suddenly doesn't really like oranges or orange juice much anymore, which is extremely odd as this used to be one of her favorite fruity treats. Also sometimes her bleaueahness will act up in the mornings making her feel sick and late to work. We finally broke down and went to ask the doctor's opinion, but all he did was refer us to a specialist, who can hopefully give us an image of what's going on.

Other than these fun things, not a whole lot else is going on. We're excited to hear news and see cute pictures of family and read their stories and going ons. We'll keep you posted on developments in my job search or anything else!

Con Amor,
Megan and Matthias

Blue tooth technology + Wiimote + Free time this semster =...

So for Christmas, among many other thoughtful and creative gifts, Megan got me a USB mini bluetooth dongle! When plugged in, it enables me to use bluetooth devices on my laptop, which opens me up to a myriad of possibilities! Well, for now at least, the possibility to use my wiimote on my computer!

Since the release of the Nintendo Wii, I've been highly intrigued with all of the technology packed into the Wii controller, affectionately called the "wiimote". The wiimote has an infrared camera which, in combination with the infrared LED sensor bar, can triangulate a position and give an on screen pointer. The wiimote has accelerometers which can sense the remote's pitch and roll away from the normal gravity vector, as well as sudden changes in position (like when you tip the controller up, or when you swing it like a bat). All of this information is communicated wirelessly to the Wii via bluetooth. Enter USB mini bluetooth dongle.

Now bluetooth enabled, I can connect the wiimote to my laptop! However, you can imagine that windows has no drivers to unleash the power of the wiimote. Howver, clever fellows on the internet have developed software called Glovepie which can perform all kinds of commands on the wiimote to do pretty much whatever you can write into a little scripting language. So with this, I can now control the mouse remotely, control hot keys for itunes, windows media player, Firefox, whatever! This is very handy for when Megan and I watch TV shows and movies on the computer while lying in bed. No more getting up to control the volume! We don't even have to get up to turn off the computer when we're done, I can program the wiimote to do that!

There are even commands you can write into the script to control midi sounds on your computer, generating an orchestra of sound simply by flicking your wrist. With this in mind, I created the following video:





Check out more wiimote awesomeness

Dancin our way to 100000 mi

In preparation for Valentine's Day, Megan and I have been taking dance lessons offered weekly by members in our church ward. The instructors are a really fun couple with professional dance skills and the wife is from Brazil. That just shows how much skills they have, right? Last week on our way to lessons, Megan excitedly told me she noticed the odometer in the car was ticking closer and closer to 100000 miles and that it would probably pass it on the way to dance lessons! (I hadn't noticed because I just keep the odometer set to the trip odometer to judge how many miles I've driven on that particular tank of gas) Sure enough, as we neared the church, we hit the 100000 mile marker, so I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the odometer. After fighting with my camera for a week and a half, I decided there is no way to extract photos off of my phone without paying Sprint $15 a month for some kind of access subscription fee. So I just snapped a shot of the cameras LCD screen with Megan's digital camera to immortalize the moment, as seen below.


Yay! Don't think of it as a crummy picture of a crummy picture. Think of it as some kind of a fancy digital-to-analog-to-digital converter that I configured my self because I'm an engineer and I understand these sort of things.

Anyway, back to dance lessons. Things were really heating up on the dance floor that night as Megan and I were learning new moves for Rumba and Swing. We also looked like quite a sharp couple I imagine, especially with my fancy Dominican pointy shoes which are totally brand name:


However, I guess we got a little bit too into the dance because while I was stomping particularly hard to show off my skilz, it felt like I'd stepped into a low spot on the gym floor. However, I looked down to see a piece of my shoe had separated from the rest...


I lost a heel! I thought that only happened to girls who wore ridiculously huge pumps, not guys in super awesome Dominican pointy shoes. Upon closer inspection of the heel, I could see that the only thing securing heel had been a couple of staples. Go Dominican workmanship! I guess the shoes were a bargain. I've since glued the heel, but I wonder how hot of dance moves I should try with this pair of shoes now...