All Done.

"No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks."

Two weekends ago I was granted the privilege to finally graduate from Walla Walla University with a degree in Graphic Design. I can now say that I have survived the many sleepless nights, the countless hours of preparing for exams and the 4 years of working with The Mask. Truthfully, I am sad that this student lifestyle that began back in September of 1990 has come to an end. No more occasional encounters through out the day with classmates, and the likelihood to meet someone new each week has drastically changed. It sounds cliché to say "This is a new chapter in my life", but it truly is. I now have to work, pay bills and make sure my financial numbers are matching up at the end of the month... Wait a second, I've been doing that since I started college 6 years ago. Well, never mind then, all is well.

Being the big Jeep nerd that I am, I was able to replace a Jeep key change with the year on my tassel... yes, I was pretty proud of it. By far the neatest gift I received for graduation was a jerry can from Jimmy with the initials E.P., it stands for Ed Pflugrad who was his great grandpa. Isn't that awesome? It's so amazing. (One day I will place that jerry can on my Willys MB Jeep when I get it). Anyhow moving on, it just so happened that the 57 Chevy and 48 Plymouth happened to be at the same place that weekend so Traci and I made sure to take a picture with Chevy, Plymouth and Cherokee Chief: our 3 classic cars.

The next day after graduation we headed down to my grandma's place in Fresno, CA. The plan was to get rid of the junk that has accumulated in her garage but really didn't even make a dent. I did happened to come across a Apple 2c Plus computer; a fine quality item for a any Graphic Designer.

Traci and I were also able to meet up with Janelle in Bakersfield for a day. We ended up driving along the edge of the Mojave Dessert where we ran across several abandoned buildings, many Joshua Trees and some red rock canyon. Pretty neat stuff. On our way back to Walla Walla, Traci, my sister and I caught Amtrak all the way to Pasco, of course it's not as fast as airplanes but the scenery is quite spectacular from the train.

Life is good.

This past weekend Jimmy, Traci and I made a short trip to Portland to spend time with our friends, Dorane and Robin. As it is the custom, Traci did not hesitate in spending quality time with "Cheese", a yellow Labrador who was more than happy to display his athletics abilities.

While we were there, Jimmy realized that his life was not complete if he didn't own a Jeep. I believe he had a dream or revelation on Saturday night and on Sunday morning he found himself a 1985 CJ-7 Laredo and purchased it... hmm, reminds me of some other people I know.

On our way back we stopped by the Pacific Crest Trail and took a few pictures of the Jeep as it mentally prepared itself to take on its first trail. Ah, what an amazing site. The Jeep is in great shape for it's year, it has the original AMC 258 4.2L inline six engine with the original 5 speed manual. A great purchase on my humble opinion especially on a Laredo model.