Meandering thoughts

Looking back over the past few years I would expect to have regrets with seeing how things have panned out and being able to visualize how things could have panned out differently. At this moment I can't see or feel out any regrets. Perhaps one would to have dropped out of college a term earlier than I did, then instead of calling it dropping out I could just say "I graduated with my associates and realized I was getting the jerk around from the school and should continue on with another place of education or employment" rather than saying "I graduated and a term afterwards realized I was being jerked around and unofficially withdrew from college because they had an underdeveloped program and wouldn't work with the students in the ways they needed to and didn't have the faculty to properly support the program they were trying to run".

I don't think it's entirely their fault, from the Dean level there are issues in the Art department at UVU, the school dean at the time was an Interim, most interims as I've found have a tendency to not "push" issues, faulty, or students, in any particular direction as they don't have the full "title" or responsibility (and possibly permission) to do so, to top that our department had an Interim dean as well, so the University dean and the College of fine arts Deans were both interims. Not good. Now, after 4 or 5 years without, they've picked up a full-time dean for the College of fine arts. With any luck they'll have two full time faculty members in the photography department in the next ten years and within twenty they'll have a properly developed program. Assuming it grows, and assuming they put the time, money and effort in to it that it requires to have such a program properly develop. Is it challenging? Yes. Would it be worth it? They could blow BYU out of the water, if they only tweaked a few things here and there. If only.

Joining the Navy. It brought no small controversy, not to mention no small amount of dramatic irony, in that someone from Utah (two states inland, as such completely land-locked) would join the Navy. It's been good to me. I've had (aside from "A" school) good LCPO's and LPO's. It's been an enjoyable venture. We've had the opportunity to move to California, I've been treated to Amphib warfare and Amphib life, and I work at a command I really enjoy being at, one that allows me to develop myself and provides an environment where people can excel. I'll soon have the opportunity to deploy, and in under a year and a half I've been to 2 "C" schools and been promoted once. Half of the people in my bootcamp division came in as E1, it's 9 months for them to make E2, then another 9 months to make E3. I came in as an E3, getting paid as an E3, getting proper BAH, and seperation pay. I missed my opportunity the first time around to take the E4 exam by 2 days because of a hiccup in being able to graduate "A" school in time. I made the E4 exam in the fall afterwards though, I did fairly well on the exam and as such advanced (I was hopeful to advance but unsure if I really would have the knowledge base required to do so). Albeit I'm not being paid for the advancement yet, I will be in a couple short months, it's very relieving. I'm ranked enough to start having responsibility, with people looking to me for advice and direction while at the same time being expected to work hard and learn, it's a dynamic environment to be in and to be part of.

Now we're looking at buying a home. We got pre-approved, went searching, fell in love, fell out of love, fell back in love (with a home, or set of homes, using the term "home" loosely as it includes also "condos"), gave up on searching, went back to searching, knelt down and realized the one we'd fallen in love with in the first place was the right one to begin with. Now we've not only put an offer on the table but had it accepted on the first try, no counter-offer or counter-counter-offer, and we're on to the part of securing the official loan and all of the joys it entails. Soon, yes, very soon we'll have our own little private location that will with any luck become an investment into our future, and a place we can begin our family. There are still kinks being worked out in the process, but with any luck it will be shortly secured, and all bumps ironed out.

Will there be speed bumps and detours in our road in the future both near and far? Of course, why wouldn't there be? Are some of them going to blind-side us? Hopefully not terribly, but it wouldn't be the first time we've been blind-sided by something in the 3 years we've been married. On our way to the wedding a deer got onto the road running along side us and bumped it's chest into the car I was driving, a year after we'd been married Erin was diagnosed with a prolactinoma which has been a rollercoaster all of its own with it's own special twists and turns. Is this all part of life and the beauty of living and making decisions and living with consequences? Yes.