This One's for Bob

So, at Bob's urging, I'm finally posting something new around here. I know that some things (such as image thumbnails) may still be broken, but I'm going to ignore that for now and just start posting new content. Why dwell in the past, you know? It's not that I haven't wanted to post sooner. It's just been a really busy few months. Busy and hard. Hard but good. So, for my first post-hiatus entry, I'll refrain from punditizing about Bush's latest nominee, commenting on U2's support acts, or ranting about the frustrations of grad school, and instead offer an update on the good news from the past few months.

• Work -- Almost four months into my new job as Director of Campus Life at CUAA, I'm really enjoying my job. The students I work with are a lot of fun. Orientation seemed to accomplish its goals (validated by my follow-up survey data) of facilitating friendship formation, orienting students to the campus and to Ann Arbor, and providing a solid social, spiritual, and academic foundation for a good year ahead!
• Music -- I've brought in two great concerts lately, the first featuring Steve Swartz of For Wishes and Denison Witmer in a phenomenal acoustic show. A couple weeks later, The Myriad played a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims that rocked the house. I really enjoyed hanging out with the guys from all the bands, and it was cool to hear some great live music in a small venue.
• Technophilia -- My "Macvangelism" resulted in both Anna and Mandy buying iBooks this summer. However, the important upgrade was my replacing my 20GB U2 Edition iPod with a 60GB iPod with color screen. It's a bittersweet upgrade to be sure. I love U2. I love the black and red iPod. I love being able to store all my 6,000+ songs on my 60GB iPod even more.
• Mandy -- We've been having a lot of fun lately. This weekend we spent Saturday canoeing down the Huron River. Along the way, we went ashore at a cider mill for cider, donuts, and caramel apples. Nothing like donuts as incentive for exercise! Mandy continues to help me realize how unimportant any of the above three bullets really are to me.
• James Rajan -- At 11:54AM on September 28th, Luke and Chitra welcomed James Rajan Swygard into the world! Though he arrived a month early, at 6 lb 9 oz and 20" long, he was quite healthy. Now that's good news.