Awarded.

Jessica and I went up to Beatrice last night to attend the awards ceremony from… something with the tourism board or something in Beatrice. I can’t remember who it was exactly. Anyway, Jessica’s Webranger project that she worked on last year won the award for best website and we got to go in to accept it on behalf of the park which I am glad about. It would have sucked to have someone else accept it instead with the amount of time she put into it both paid and unpaid, and the near nervous breakdowns from the learning curve needed to get everything to work. The whole ceremony lasted a little over an hour or so and there was food served. Afterward Jessica played some example clips from the site and people really seemed to like it. A state senator was in attendance (the state legislature, not federal). I could never do Jessica’s job that’s for sure. All day long acting like whatever random thing the random person in front of me is saying is the most interesting thing I’ve ever heard would drive me crazy. I just got a little taste of it and it’s not for me, but she does great. I recorded most of her accepting the award. I missed the beginning because the presenter called her out of order and I wasn’t ready.

Other than that there isn’t all that much that’s new. I’ve been picking up as much overtime as I can handle to get the winter finances in order and to pay for the birthing, Jessica’s last day of full time is on Saturday and then we wait… I wish the baby would come already, it seems like she has been pregnant forever and I want my old unpregnant Jessica back. I start school again in a week. I should graduate in May if all goes according to plan. I have a 5k race this Saturday and I’m signed up for the Omaha half marathon. For the most part I have been keeping up with my training and felt pretty good yesterday. I’ve been doing fartleks to try and improve my speed a little. That’s a running term where you alternate your pace in between fast and slow every so many seconds in order to eventually build more endurance at the faster pace. I want to improve enough to finish short races in the middle of the pack. Top 50%, that isn’t out of the question right?

Anyone else in the market? I went 3 days straight there where at the end of each day I said, “I have never lost that much in one day in my life.” Each subsequent day was worse. It would be best if I was completely unaware of it all but since I track everything down to the penny it has been quite painful indeed. Jessica keeps asking me if I am going to sell and the answer is… no. Emotionally it seems like the right thing to do but I would be doing the exact opposite of what I should be doing and would be buying high and selling low. Now is the time to buy and I would do more of it if I had more free cash. Down the road you will look at the charts and say “If I had only bought then it would have doubled in a year.” I’ll get what I can with what we’ve got and put it in perspective that these are long term investments, over the short term there are ups and downs. I’ve just got to make sure we have enough liquidity to get through the winter and squirrel the rest away for the next goal which is our own house which is still a ways away. For all you other investors who took a hit like we did keep your chin up.