James and Kristin Whitt’s Corner

Daisy Pictures

I was able to get a couple pictures of Daisy up on our blog.  I need to get some pictures of Moby and her next to each other, because in these pictures she looks just like Moby.

Update 1/27/08

Wow…so much has happened since I posted last time. I now have a new job. I am a 6th grade math teacher at Middletown. I’m finally in a real public school district!!! I love it so far. My kids are great (although a few are a little challenging) and my coworkers are very helpful. There is a lot of support there, though, and that really makes all the difference in the world.

James and I just welcomed a new addition to the family last Thursday. We’ve been thinking about getting Moby a little sister or brother and we adopted a little minpin girl named Daisy Mae. She’s 6 months old and looks almost exactly like Moby. We took him with us to get her and they hit it off right away…except for Moby peeing on the people’s vase…oops. He likes to pee on vases…oh well. They play almost nonstop, even when it’s time for bed. Daisy has decided James is her favorite. We were hoping she would like him a little more since Moby has decided he wants to be mostly mine. Max and Molly are doing ok so far. They smacked Daisy a few times when she gets too close and Molly is at least getting used to her faster than she did Moby I think.

Basement family room is finally finished

This is a bit late, but the basement family room area is finally finished. There is even a new couch and new tv down there. We sold the old TV. Now all that we have left down there is to finish the bathroom.

Also of interested, this January marks the second year that we’ve been using this blog to keep friends and family up to date with our lives.

Changing out a basement drain

We’re getting to the point where we are ready to lay down some sort of floor. The main room in the basement has a pvc pipe coming from the utility room that goes to the drain. There is no drain in the utility room. I haven’t looked at that drain before, so I did not know the condition of the drain. I noticed it was really rusty, so I started to clean it off with a wire brush. It ended up actually being rusted through in a few spots.

I’m in the process of digging out the drain and replacing it with a new one. Since I was already digging one hole to fix the drain, I decided to just go ahead and dig a second hole in the utility room and connect the two up. So I’m at the point where both holes are dug and I’m almost ready to put everything back together. Just waiting until I go can to Lowes tomorrow to pick up some 2″ pvc pipe.

Peter’s Dog and Basement Update

We found a new dog for the Peters. Actually my Mom was the one who found it. Her friends nephew needed to find a home for his red minpin, so my Mom let us know. We asked the Peters if they wanted it, so I picked it up and let it play with Moby for a while until they stopped by to pick it up. I took some pictures of the dog also. The Peters are trying to rename the dog’s name to Taffy, but we’ll see how that goes.

I also have been working a lot on the basement and have gotten almost all the walls finished being painted, only a little touchups left to do. I also have the drop down ceiling done also. We had an electrician stop out last weekend and he was able to connect all the lights and electric outlets up. I have taken some more pictures and put them in our photo gallery.

James and Kristin as Simpsons

Kristin found a site called Simpsonizeme where you upload a picture of yourself and it generates what you would look like in the Simpson’s world.  We went ahead and did it and came out with some funny pictures, which can be seen below.

GMAT Preparation

I was thinking about how Kristin is going to be finishing up her masters next summer and all of the sudden I realized, it will be my turn to go back to school.  I’m planning on continuing my education and getting an MBA.  So, with that realization, I have signed up for a GMAT preparation class at the University of Cincinnati.  Starting 9/22/2007, I will take 6 classes total that occur on Saturday to prepare me for the GMAT.

I also noticed a class I was really interested in called Starting and managing a successful small business.  It wasn’t too expensive, so I also signed up for that.  That one starts up in October.

‘99 GS Jet Ski Repair

Looks like the repair on our ‘99 Sea-Doo GS is going to  happen now instead of this fall.  Last Sunday when we went out, the cable from the negative on the battery to the starter broke off at the starter.  To get that back on, it required taking off the entire exhaust.  Taking the exhaust off was only a 2 hour process, but I had to order new gaskets which took 5 days to get in.  It wasn’t a hard fix and once the gaskets came in it only took another 2 hours.  I also had to get a rock out of the jet which somehow got sucked up into it.

We took it to the river yesterday and realized that I could not turn right at all.  The jet ski was also taking on a water really fast.  Turns out that where the steering cable goes into the jet ski, the twist on clamp broke.  I had to order a new pump support plate (the entire back plate on the jet ski) and a new clamp.  This will probably take a week or more to get in.  I also had to pull the jet pump out to work on it.  Decided since I’m going to be waiting for the parts to come in, I might as well rebuild the jet pump, put a new wear ring on, get a refurbished prop from SBT (rebuilt so it’s a good price), and if I have time rebuild the carb.

Of course Kristin’s ‘94 SPX is running great still.  If we go out until mine is repairs, we’ll just be taking  hers to the beach.  We won’t go to the river unless both are working.

Praxis and East Fork Race

Just a quick update…
I am working on certification so that I can teach language arts and science as well as math and social studies. One of the things I have to do is pass a test for each subject. In the past few months, I took the language arts and science Praxis tests and I passed both!! So now all I have to do is finish a few classes I’m already signed up for and apply for my license.

I have also started running again (I used to run a lot in high school). Today I ran in the East Fork Backpack Race with a friend. It was a 4.8 mile trail race through the woods at East Fork. James and Gavin went with Christie and I. The race started off well, but almost half way in Christie and I (and another runner) took a wrong turn. There was no race official there to tell us where to go. We all ended up running another mile to mile and a half on the wrong trail until a biker on the trail saw us and told us! Long story short, we ended up running around 8 miles during this 4.8 mile race and we ended up last! It was tough but it was a major accomplishment for me.

Waterproof Digital Camera

We picked up a digital camera off of eBay last week.  We wanted to have a camera that we could take jet skiing with us.  Always seemed to be a time when we wanted to stop and take a picture, but didn’t want to risk dropping our digital camera in the water.  It’s a 5.0 megapixel off brand camera.  We took it out to the Ohio River with us this past Sunday and we took some pictures.  The gallery is located here.