Date

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It was a special Thanksgiving thanks to our friends being with us. Soichi and Aiko came over for our Thanksgiving dinner. We were able to try some Japanese treats and drinks. We also introduced Soichi and Aiko to Hubble and Piper, and had a great time talking.

Aiko and Soichi (forground) with us for Thanksgiving dinner.
	Hubble (green) and Piper (blue) very quickly felt at home with Aiko and burrowed in her hair as they do with Laura.

...and I got a good grade in Corporate Finance, so I'm one happy guy right now. I'm now in Entrepreneurial Finance which seems like it will be an excellent class, and will compliment my HiTEC class (Entrepreneurial Commercialization) very well.

My notebook crashed (the motherboard went bad) on Tuesday morning. I had to borrow a loaner for about three days. I felt like my arm had been amputated... it made email difficult (I store email locally and my backup didn't work for some reason). Luckily, the hard drive was fine and my machine is back the way it was. I'm finally finished with the enourmous backlog of email (over 200 messages were received in those two days)

I'm going to have a daughter! That's too cool! :-) Laura is beginning to feel better during the day. She's just about 5 months along now, so the sickness lasted longer than we had hoped, but we're glad it's a bit better now.

I'm feeling good because I did well on my Corporate Finance final exam, and it's fall break. But I signed up for too much: I'm in a competition that is taking a lot of time, and The Duke Start-Up Challenge is soaking much time also, so I'm not yet having much of a break. It is hoped that the weekend will be the last of the super busy time.

The Duke For LIFE team was able to go to center court at Cameron Indoor Stadium during half time of a Blue/White Scrimmage game to present a check for the Emily Krzyzewski Family Life Center. It was a nice touch to meet Coach K at center court.

Mom and Dad Lynn came to visit and it was great! Dad brought is giraffe Unicycle so I was able to ride it.

Getting started from Mom and Dad Lynn's van.
Feeling good! What fun. Now I want one!

We had a good lunch with Jeff, Amy and their son Brady at Top of the Hill Restaurant. It's been too long since we were with them and we'll try to do that again sometime soon.

School starts tomorrow (a pre-class week). Classes start the week after. I'm going to miss Laura. :-) I hear that the second year is somewhat lighter than the first, so maybe I'll be able to see Laura once in a while.

Robbie and Ranae visited! We had a great time.

We visited the Chappells in D.C. and had a great time. We didn't take very many shots though.

Marrisa at the church window
	The Chappells waving. It's a bad picture, of good people.

We had a good relaxing time at the Lipp's house for the 4th.

Laura is holding Danielle. Sharon is on the right.	Danielle's first 4th of July!

Laura and I are on a vacation with our friends Troy and Laura. We're having a great time in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

June 26 - Sunday
	The Lauras being bad
June 24 - Friday - A day working in the sand then playing in water
	The finished car. We had a great time and it attracted several admirers
Then we had lunch and went to the water park area
	A Mexican lunch really hit the spot.
	We all enjoyed alternating between the Lazy River and the hot tubs.
	The girls having a blast in the water area
June 23 - Thursday - Our first beach day - wooo hoo!
	All of us were lazy the first day. It was great.	The Lauras bought flashing lollypop rings. They flash for two hours, but they have not made them flash yet. We're waiting...
	Laura and Troy relaxing
June 22 - Wednesday - Our first evening in Myrtle Beach (Thanks Troy and Laura)
	Troy and Laura had the beach umbrella set up in the living room. :-) It was a cozy corner until the umbrella was knocked over

See pictures of when we visited Piper and met Hubble too. Here are some pictures.

	Forrest (who looks a lot like Hubble) and Piper struck up a great friendship. Forrest is in his new home now. But we later decided to take Hubble home with Piper. See pictures.
Piper loves the window at Kim's house.

We went to The Washington Duke Golf Course and did a bit of driving. It was fun. Thanks to Charlie and Ruibin for letting me use their clubs.

Piper, our new little one: Laura and I are going to get another bird. Laura's Cockatiel of 10 years (8 of which I was a part) died several months ago and we have wanted to find one that Laura would love just as much. We chose a Male Blue Pacific Parrotlet. The males have vivid blue on their wings which is striking. They have personalities like those of large parrots and yet they are very small so they are an ideal pet for us right now. Unfortunately, he's too young to have yet (he needs constant care). We should be able to pick him up on a few weeks.

Boring Car News: A couple weeks ago, Mike helped me rework much of Laura's braking system (98 Buick Skylark with a V-6). We replaced the master cylinder, the two rear cylinders, rear drums and shoes, front pads and rotors, and one brake line. Then I flushed the cooling system and put new coolant in, replaced the transmission fluid and filter, changed the engine oil and filter, and replaced the serpentine belt. The car feels MUCH better (mostly because of the brakes).

Yesterday, Linh and I got him started in Dreamweaver and Fireworks, and then for my Dodge, we checked the brakes, rotated the tires, and replaced engine belts, stopping a squealing that's been bugging me for a long time. About a week ago, I recharged my A/C, so that car is doing fairly well now. It just might last through school. :-) The only issue now is front bearings, but I decided to live with it because they are about $100 per side. I only use it to go to school anyway, so we'll keep that money for now.

Danielle was born yesterday and is the baby of the very proud Eric and Sharon. Here are some shots of Danielle and the tired parents.

	The proud parents
Now Laura gets to hold Danielle

Wow, what a year. Stress, Friends, [... upbeat music starts...] Work, WAY too much to do, Great parties, Huge loans (not for the parties.. for school), Conversations with companies... thousands of companies, GATE trips (to India!), Fuqua Friday's, FuquaVisions, Classes, Lunches with Friends... and now: The first year is over. [... silence except for background crickets chirping...]

I'm especially thankful to my ILE team members (Chinmay, Cort, Go and KC) who taught me much, tolerated my weaknesses and helped me grow. I'm a much better person than when the school year began.

At the same time, I missed Laura so much and am thankful to her for tolerating all my stress over the school year. Yes, we live in the same apartment. But extreme situations cause strange results; I feel that we've been apart since Orientation 2004 began in August. Last night, we went to a local Indian restaurant and it was fantastic just to talk over dinner and not worry about studying even later into the night as a result. Thanks for your understanding over the past year, Laura. It's great to be with you again.

I went on the India GATE and had a great time. See my account of the trip. More will be posted as I have time. Term 4 is better, but I'm still VERY busy.

Time is scarce for writing a diary. I'm managing my time better than before for sure, but I still have much improving to do. I've dropped some of the extra things I was doing to make more time, and I decided not to take an extra class this term (4). Term 3 (mid January to March 7) was still very difficult and did not give me the stress reprive for which I was hoping :-) But term 4 is a great improvement so far. I'm learning more with less stress. No doubt, partially because of my continual improvements in time management.