Lorena and I drove up from Texas to Lincoln Nebraska today for my graduation. It was a really nice drive that we took pretty slow, stopping to eat whenever we wanted. I’m getting a little nostalgic about all of the schooling at this point. This really is the last time I’m going to do something like this. I’m glad I did it, it gave me great joy.
It is starting to pile higher and deeper now. I am now in the registry of earned doctorates kept by the NSF, NIH, and others. This is certainly not the diploma, but it says that I am officially complete. The actual point at which I “earned” the PhD as far as I can understand was June 8, 2023 when I was still on 67 years old.
Lorena got out my gown to make sure everything was as it should be. We are heading up toward Nebraska tomorrow, first to pick up the Kelly and Christian in Omaha on Thursday afternoon, then over to Lincoln for the night to be ready for the graduation on Friday. We were planning to make the whole drive from Texas to Omaha on Thursday, but decided we wanted to do this at a more reasonable pace so are leaving after the Fort Worth morning rush hour traffic to head out. I have to admit the cape and gown do look very cool. I am really looking forward to not only the graduation, but the festivities, too.
One little downside that showed up last week is that University of Nebraska–Lincoln is no longer going to provide lifetime email addresses for their graduates. That would not be such a big deal, but two of the professors on my committee and I are planning a fairly large research project to continue my work and it would have been nice to be able to do that without changing emails. I know that is a very small pinch point, but I would have enjoyed keeping my old email address. God willing, I will talk more about this new project that just extends my doctoral research. I will be pursuing this as a volunteer as long as I am able and there is fruitful work to do.
Lorena pulled out Christian’s PhD cap gown so we can take it along with us to Lincoln for my Graduation. We want to get a picture of he and I when I graduate. He only beat me to a PhD by 44 years based on age and 11 years by absolute date. AND, no question, his PhD is much more impressive than mine and he actually contributed greatly to my research and was a contributing author on both papers we published. He is a great son to me.
Our buddy Ralph S. brought a watercolor he had painted with with him when he came to visit at Thanksgiving time. He put it into a nice frame, and presented it to us as a visiting gift. We loved it. It is the top painting in the image at the left. He painted another watercolor while we was here and left that with us, too. We liked it as much as the first one so Lorena found a nice frame and mounted it. We are now trying to decide where to put them in the house. It has dawned on us that we need to get him to do a piece for our Mexico house.
I am now below my pre-Thanksgiving weight. I even ran out of notches on my belt so Lorena picked me up a new one yesterday. One thing I have been doing that I think has helped a lot is walking every day instead of walking just four or five days per week. Previously, I had gotten to the point where I would only lose weight on my fast day, but now it seems like I am losing a little weight every day–maybe 1.5 to 2 pounds per week. It might be that I am just taking back off the stuff I put on over Thanksgiving. Only time will tell. My next big hurdle is the back-to-back celebrations for my Graduation then a week with Christian and Kelly for Christmas. There will be way too man good opportunities to make bad eating choices between now and the end of the year.
This photo is of the same prickly pear cactus as the one from this post yesterday. It was a good thing Lorena stole her two tunas when she did because the next time she went by, all the rest on them were gone!
I bought a bluetooth keyboard that pairs with my cellphone to make it easier to write posts. Works great!
Yesterday turned into a Mexican heritage day for Lorena. When she was shopping, she found a prickly pear cactus outside one stores with bright purple tunas. She harvested a couple of them on the spot and plans to prepare and eat them later this evening. Not sure whether that thievery or not.
Then, on the way home from Granbury, she saw that the matachines were out dancing in the parking lot of the Catholic Church across the street from the home where we have our Sunday morning meeting. She stopped to watch for a bit and talked to some of the people who were performing the traditional dance to/for the Virgin of Guadalupe. In one sense, this is very sad to us for many reasons, but the people were sweet, sincere people who really did not know any better. They very kindly and sincerely invited Lorena into the mass that occurs after the dancing, but thanked them and was grateful they let her use the church restroom, then wondered what the people thought when she entered the church without crossing herself. This all coincided with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception Day, something Lorena’s family calls Concha’s Day–Grandma Conchita’s given name is Concepción Aurora, so this is always a day that they tease her about. We were pretty surprised when we saw this all happening up here in Texas, but when we thought about it, we really should not have been.
I was starting to despair because I have been enjoying the audio books I got from the Hood County Library Bookstore and it looked like the influx of books on CD that are of interest to me, was not going to keep up with the pace of my listening (no pun intended). I was quite happy when I found there are a good variety of places on the internet to buy used CD audio books cheaply. The first two arrived today–just in time for Lorena’s and my long drive to Nebraska and back for the graduation. I am debating on whether we should listen to something non-fiction or one of the spy/mystery novels I like so much.
The red arrow shows my 5.5 pound backslide during the Thanksgiving holiday. Just today, I made it below my previous low, but it took me two weeks to take off what I put on in about four days. My goal for the upcoming graduation and Christmas celebrations, is to enjoy myself with family and friends while not having such a big hiccup. I am not sure I can do it, but since this semester is almost certainly the last time I am going to be in college as a student, I will give it the old college try!
I thought the following table was pretty interesting. I created it in November 2020 after I had been in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Ph.D. program for about a year. I did not have my courses approved by my committee yet, but I was trying to make a guess at how long it would take me to get through, how to get the credits all in and finish in a reasonable time. I was really not trying to go fast, but not slow either. There was a trade-off between the money Troy would have to come up with (shorter is better) and sticking around in the program as long as possible to move Troy’s research program forward. It is kind of amazing how good was my guess. The part that I did not really get so right was the amount of work it would be to write the required articles and the dissertation. Pretty much everything extra got put on hold for four years, including health stuff like eating right and exercise. There was no excuse for that, but I got through the program fine, Gracias a Dios.
Month 3 WEIGHT: 200.3 lbs. BMI: 31.4
| Course | Credits | Accum | Course name |
| MS courses | 18 | 18 | Previous classes at UTEP and TAMU |
| 18 | |||
| Spring 2020 | 18 | ||
| NRES 999 | 3 | 21 | Dissertation research |
| 21 | |||
| Fall 2020 | 21 | ||
| NRES 999 | 3 | 24 | Dissertation research |
| NRES 898 | 1 | 25 | Ground water modeling |
| 25 | |||
| Spring 2021 | 25 | ||
| NRES 999 | 7 | 32 | Dissertation research |
| NRES 898 | 2 | 34 | Intro to Google Earth Engine |
| 34 | |||
| Fall 2021 | 34 | ||
| NRES 999 | 6 | 40 | Dissertation research |
| NRES 898 | 3 | 43 | Applied hydrological modeling and water quality |
| NRES 855 | 1 | 44 | Seminar |
| Spring 2022 | 44 | ||
| NRES 999 | 8 | 52 | Dissertation research |
| NRES 800 | 3 | 55 | GIS |
| NRES 855 | 1 | 56 | Seminar |
| Summer 2022 | 56 | ||
| NRES 812 | 3 | 59 | ??? Class |
| NRES 999 | 9 | 68 | |
| 68 | |||
| Fall 2022 | 68 | ||
| NRES 999 | 8 | 76 | Dissertation research |
| NRES 818 | 3 | 79 | ??? class |
| NRES 855 | 1 | 80 | Seminar |
| Spring 2023 | 80 | ||
| NRES 999 | 10 | 90 | Dissertation research |
A response to the question Is it Wrong to Retire by William Lane Craig on his website Reasonable Faith really resonated with me. It is something I have been thinking about for quite awhile now. I started a Ph.D. program at University of Nebraska–Lincoln four years ago when I was 63 years old with the idea that I would finish it as a retirement project. That did not happen. I am now 68 years old, still working and will be walking the commencement at UNL next Friday. In addition to that, I have a commitment, God willing, to work until I am at least 70 at my current day job. In my current mindset, the only thing that would prevent me from continuing in that position after 70 is if I am not able. When I do quit that job, I hope I am able to continue helping my professor, Troy as a volunteer as long as I am able.
One of the nicest parts of our Thanksgiving celebration this year was putting up the Christmas tree. Then, several times during the weekend, all the “kids” sat around in the living room and made ornaments to hang on it. It all brought back great memories of my childhood and decorating the tree with Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah, and all the siblings. I hope we get to do this again next year with the same crew and maybe some additions.
With Thanksgiving and our first Sunday morning of even numbered months worship meeting that we host at our home behind us, we are in a week of calm before we start traveling, entertaining, and celebrating here in Texas for part of Christmas and New Year’s, in Washington, D.C. for part of Christmas, and at University of Nebraska–Lincoln for my graduation. That really good part of all this is that we get to spend most of it with Kelly and Christian. They are flying out to Lincoln for the graduation–Lorena and I will drive up before the graduation to pick them up at the Omaha airport. We have Honest Abe’s and one of the Omaha’s spectacular steak houses on the agenda along with the graduation celebrations. Then we head back to Texas before flying to Washington, D.C. for a few days for Christmas. When we return home, Lorena and I plan to go to Istanbul sometime before the New Year to try out a restaurant Ralph, Lorena, and I stopped at for a drink during Ralph’s visit for Thanksgiving.
I found an amazing new source for audio CD books. Ebay. I cannot believe I did not think of this before. I am going to start loading up on these things so I have books for my walks. I was going to save the audio books for just my walks, but there are so many available and they are so cheap, Lorena and I are planning to listen to one on our 10+ hour drive to Nebraska and back. These books make my daily walks much more enjoyable.
These are my two new friends who sing to me on my daily walks whenever they are outside and they feel like it. Sometimes they do not feel like it. Beautiful dogs! There must be one of those wires around the yard that sends a signal to their collars to give them a little shock if they get to close. They just look like happy dogs.
My walks have been going great. I have many hours of audio books I got from the Hood County Library Bookstore. It makes the whole process more enjoyable. I am trying to up my game to walk seven days per week and when I actually accomplish that it really pays off.
Well, I did not do as well as I wanted over the Thanksgiving holiday in terms of weight gain, but I suppose I could have done a lot worse. I was up around five pounds. I absolutely think it was worth it. The time with family was just amazing, but the food, drink, and camaraderie facilitated by cooking, eating, and cleaning up together were priceless. I am planning to do the same thing for Christmas, but maybe on a smaller scale. We are going to be with the kids for Christmas, but the kids are going to go off and do their own thing for New Year. Lorena and I have a ton of big travel coming up this winter so we decide to just stay home and cook a small turkey–principally so Lorena can make turkey enchiladas with the left overs.
This might have been the best Thanksgiving ever. At the very least it compares favorably to when we invited all my siblings and their families, my folks, our cousins, Tim and David Mecum, and Uncle Warren Bone to our place for several years when we lived in Albany. There were not as many people here, but we did have a dozen–way up from the last two or three years. Ralph and Olivia were a stellar addition to our crew which included Kelly, Christian, and Grandma Conchita, and Rigo and his family. After Thanksgiving we had a couple of days just with the kids. That was absolutely stellar. We are hoping everyone returns next year an more. We grew last years event which was nine people so we are going in the right direction. It was sad to see Kelly and Christian head to the airport just now, but we are scheduled to see them again in Omaha on December 14 and then again at Christmas time. We are working at reducing the time between when we see each other as much as possible.
Grandma Conchita has now displayed my dissertation in the highest place of honor in the dining room. I am very gratified. She is not shy about her pride in her children and I count myself a very fortunate man to be on her list of approved people. She was here for a few weeks and we are very happy she was here, but she very much likes to be in her own home. Hopefully we will be able to get down there again very soon.
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