Cool windmills

During our drive, we came across a lot of cool windmills. I'm curious to know how much power these generate. I'm told that these big ones generate about 1MW at peak capacity, but haven't been able to find anything to confirm that (any links would be appreciated, just to satisfy my curiosity).

While it's really cool that we are seeing more of this type of power, it still represents a rather insignificant portion of our countries power consumption. I recently ran across this on a friends blog, and I'm glad he posted it. I had heard about it on npr, then promptly forgot to look it up after getting out of the car.

These pictures were taken in Iowa. I've heard people complain about driving through Iowa, and I have to disagree. Yes, it can be boring, and repetitive, but it's not nearly as bad as Nebraska or Wyoming.
Big windmills

We saw a few of these trucks hauling windmill blades. They travel in packs of 3, and they hang off the back of the trailer by a few feet.
They don't stand out too well, but on the horizon you can see multiple windmills. This picture only shows about 1/3 of the windmills that were visible at that spot.

Ut-oh

My camera won't turn on.
{yes, I've tried charging the battery, hopefully I'm not that brain dead}
This is terrible timing as we are vacationing next week {3 and 1/2 more work days *:)*} and vacationing requires mucho pictures to be taken.

We do have a back up...but we got a new camera for a reason.
The old camera doesn't take as clear of pictures.

Darn it.
I'm going to go mess with it some more.

3rd Anniversary

Wow, so I missed my own anniversary.
{just kidding, just missed it on the blog}

We were married May 12th, 2006.
The past three years have been so short and yet forever at the same time.

• We've moved 4 times
• We've closed on two homes
• We've built one home
• We've read a lot of books
• We've spent some good time together
  

Since we didn't have a blog at the time, I'm going to do a {very} brief recap of the trip we took to Zion's National Park for our 1st anniversary.

It was beyond beautiful.

I had just chopped my hair.
This is the shortest I've ever had it since I had control over it.
Fun to try, but now it's back down to mid-back and I like it there.

One of the very few pictures of Curt from this trip.
As pretty as the million and one pictures of the different things we saw in the park are, I wish we took more with us in them. Duly noted for future trips.

This anniversary was pretty low key. And I liked it.
And now I'm counting down the days until we get to head out to Utah. Nine. Six and a half working days.
Sweet.

May Flowers

You know that saying "April showers bring May flowers"?

Well, I never thought that it made much sense, seeing as how all the spring flowers growing up (in Utah) were on their way out the door in May, and by the end of May we were firmly entrenched in summer.

Well, now that I live in Michigan the rhyme makes sense.

Pretty Nina

Green Stuff

We still do not have a proper concrete driveway.
It is in our contract with the builder that it has to be done (along with the final engineered lot grade) by June 30th.
Until they get completely done with the prep work we can't really do anything with the yard, which would be OK by me except for we have some awesome friends that gave us a bunch of bulbs/plants (Daisies, lilies, and some other cool stuff) from their yard to get a head start on ours and I don't want them to die.

So, we improvised and now have some $3 storage bins used as planters until we can actually do things.
I underestimated how happy these things would make me, I now grin every time I go out my front door.

In other news, Spring is beautiful here.

This is a tree outside the Dental School.

Daffodils outside the Business School.

Neat storm clouds above our across the street neighbor's houses.

More neat clouds to the side of our house.

Pretty sunset taken from our master bedroom window.

What I've been up to...

So, I've recently been reminded that I don't really post anything on here. Not that I want to give any excuses, but I have been busy with school. I'll be taking the Spring and Summer off for some long overdue vacation, and then I start back in the fall with 2 more classes. At my current pace, I'm only 20% done with my program after this first year (for those who are counting, that means four years to go). Sometimes, 5 years sounds way too long. I'll admit, we've toyed with the idea of speeding it up, but then it would be even more difficult to pay for (each class here costs about as much as 2 full-time semesters at BYU, and we're not getting loans for the portion my work doesn't reimburse). Plus...the way the economy is, do I really want to be entering the job market sooner?

I don't mean to brag, but I've done well in school so far. University of Michigan Business School is funny about their grading system though, they don't give letter grades. I'm not how it got started, probably someone not wanting to make people feel bad for not being the best at everything (bunch of crap...). Anyways, instead of A,B,C,D, and F for their grading scale, it goes Excellent, Good, Pass, Low Pass, and Fail. It's really the same requirements, but somewhere, someone probably decided that 'Low Pass' didn't sound as bad as a D, and 'Pass' didn't sound as bad as a C (hmm...I haven't taken and 'Pass/Fail' classes here yet, but I'm seeing how that could potentially get confusing on a transcript...)

So far, I have received all Excellent grades in all of my classes! I'm feeling pretty good about that, because I've never had a 4.0 GPA. The closest I ever got in high school was when I had 6 A's and a B. The B? Yeah, it was in P.E. Turns out, attendance is a big part of your grade. Doh. I think in college, I had a couple other semesters that I was just as close, but never quite got a 4.0. So there it is! If I actually received a physical report card, and if we actually put things on the fridge, that's where it would be! 4.0 for 2 straight semesters, baby! Wooooooo!