Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

We almost got towed today. Not just almost, but we turned the corner to walk to our car and saw the tow truck pulling up to our car and had to run to stop them. Thank goodness my class got out when it did. Thankfully Rebecca was ready to walk to the car when she was. Thankfully everything worked out just right so we didn't miss our car being hauled off to the impound.  read more »

We believe it is a good sign about this semester that we have been able to play games most every night this week as well as sleeping in a little bit on some mornings. That is a good start. However, this semester is going to be one of our last here at BYU (as far as we can tell at this point), which means finishing off MFA applications as well as applying for graduation here. We took very close care of my CMU application and now we have to wait until April or May to hear back from any of the schools on the list that I applied for. So, now it's the waiting game.  read more »

Sorry we've been a bit inconsistent for family emails the last month or so. We've been all over the country and having fun, but internet/computer access was a questionable at best. So to recap, we spent Christmas and New Year's in Virginia with my family, stopping briefly in Michigan to visit Wayne's family and in Pennsylvania to visit a school Wayne's applying to.

Visiting family is always fun, but never long enough. Oh well, at least we will always look forward to the next time since we don't get our fill. :)  read more »

Take a flashlight to Hawaii. That's what we learned. More than once we wanted to go exploring but failed because of a lack of lighting. We explored the lava tubes (interesting cave-like formations made from lava cooling in stages), but after a certain point in the tube, they stopped putting up lights and you couldn't go farther without a flashlight of your own. [I'd like to point out that more than 3/4 of the first cave we visited was unlit. -Wayne] We tried exploring some caves near a waterfall, but failed because there were no lights at all in the cave. Next time we go to Hawaii, we'll know to BYOF -- bring your own flashlight.  read more »

Delta didn't call my Grandfather or anything, they just cancelled our flight. None of us in our party were let in on this trick until the day of the flight. Apparently Delta used to make daily flights from SLC International to Kona International, but they cut back to two flights a week...without telling anyone. I guess this is how a company going into bankruptcy treats its customers. Or maybe this is how they got to bankruptcy? So after a nice lunch with Grandpa and Uncle Max, we came back to Provo and played games with Jayson and Felicia (upstairs neighbors) until much too late. But we were on vacation, right? That's what you're supposed to do on vacation.  read more »

Merry Christmas to everyone and we hope that everyone is having a great holiday season. We decided to take a quick break from everything today to tell you about our travels and what we've been doing this holiday season.  read more »

They were right about Virginia's commuter system. It is the worst I've ever experienced, much worse than Seattle, San Jose, San Francisco, Pittsburg or any other place I've been with "bad traffic."  read more »

Ugh. long road trips. I think we're half way through this one. We're spending the night at my parents' place. The trip through Wyoming and Utah was the worst part, although it got a little scary in Nebraska as well. It's just so long. Three days of driving long 13+ hour drives isn't enjoyable to most people. I am one of those. Although we did listen to To Kill A Mockingbird on audio tape. Good book. How much have we learned from our mistakes as humans?

They approved my thesis proposal!! Yay. This means I can actually stay on track for graduation next spring term. So I'll be working on creating a paraphrase generation system with more variability in the sentences it can generate. Fun eh? I thought you might agree with me. Anyway, thought I would share the joy. Yay! I'm done! Just one more final and I will be done with the semester...then it's all about Christmas fun.

Just one more week. Just one.

Although this semester is coming to a close and Rebecca has two of her three finals first thing Monday morning, the next worst thing is MFA applications for me, for which I feel completely unprepared and overwhelmed by the competition I'm up against. I'm applying to seven schools; honestly, I don't expect to get into any.  read more »