Newest to my collection

Hey all,

Been awhile since I've posted, but I like to check in here every once in awhile. I recently received a Mitchell MD100S free from a friend. I'm picky about my guitars, so I immediately went into the process of improving aspects of it. The saddle/nut will be converted to bone, the plastic pins will be swapped out for ebony wood ones, surface nicks have been filled, and the pickguard has been removed.

This friend of mine has had the guitar about three years...so it was no surprise that a pickguard tan would be present. I started to think about how I could deal with this issue. Well...easiest technique would be to buy another pickguard that I liked. Too easy if you ask me. Any that have read my posts in the past know I like to do things the fun way. I decided I'd try my hand at retanning. I read a few ideas people had for this...most said it was more work than it's worth. With that I decided I'd have to find out first hand. With some low adhesive tape, a scalpel, and wax paper, I decided to go for it. The process is shown below...I will repost pictures after I let the guitar see some sunlight and show how successful the treatment was. Enjoy!





Here you can see where I filled the surface nicks. I will level those with a razor blade and then polish them out flat.



I realized after the fact that I forgot to take a picture of the guitar without tape on it. It's hard to tell...but the tan line was pretty significant. The lighting in my kitchen doesn't do it justice when you compare it to areas that didn't have tape on them yet.

Last term at UP

It's finally here. My last year at the University of Portland. I'll be working at Providence St. Vincent's Emergency Department for my capstone placement and then the second half of the term will be spent at the Fragile Children's Center at Providence Portland.

Once school is over I'll probably take a month to study for the NCLEX exam...hopefully pass it, and then start working at the ED if it suits my style well.

Well, I'm back.

As I near graduation I realize I should probably start posting here again to keep up with people. Lots of new things going on recently. I just finished the 4th of 5 semesters in my program. Next term I will be taking Peds/OB, a clinical capstone course, and some kind of nursing licensure course.

A lot has happened since my last post. My brother got married. My mom, sister, and I went down to see Jason and Megan's place in Utah. My mom and I continued the road trip to see my Great Aunt in Colorado. On the way back we stopped off in Utah again. And, at last, on the way back to Portland we stopped off at the Painted Hills taking the long, scenic way back.

Regarding school, out of all that interviewed for an Emergency Department capstone placement, I was one of two that were accepted. I'll be placed at the one I feel will offer me the most opportunity, it just so happens to be the largest Providence hospital in Portland -- St. Vincent's. If you aren't familiar with it, perhaps this will jog your memory as you may have seen them on National TV recently:




If I prove myself in Capstone there is a good chance I will get to start in the ED right out of school. On a side note, I'm thinking of growing my hair out again.

Summer classes are officially over!

That's right...I'm all done until August 31st. The term went well and I met some new, interesting people. My clinical site was at the Housing Authority of Portland - Hollywood East housing complex. Every week me and two other students ran a walk-in health session for the residents and an exercise class. We also did outreach home visits in the complex.

I had a bunch of people bugging me about not updating my blog, so I thought I would spend the day doing that. I'll post pictures from my last few trips and put the dates that are accurate for them.

First week of summer classes

So Summer classes started this week; had my first 8 hours of classes today. I'm taking Nursing for Families. Applied Population Health Nursing, and Evidence-Based Nursing. The next three weeks will be class, class, class. By the third week class will taper down to just Monday and clinicals will start. I'm working for the Portland Housing Authority and will be running an exercise class on Thursdays in the Hollywood district--woo hoo! Fridays will be spent doing informal house call health assessments, also in the Hollywood district. The clientele are low-income, younger adults running the gamut of chronic mental illness and substance abuse--double woo hoo!

So little time...

I was informed that I've been neglecting my blog. This is true. I've had a lot happening lately. My brother is back in town from Ohio for the next week or so. He's going to be graduating from Ohio State University and then moving down to Utah for residency...guess I'll have to plan a Utah road trip soon.

As far as my life goes...I'm back in Oregon City working as a temp for Public Works. It's an OK job and they do a good job of working around my breaks in school. Summer school at UP will be starting in a few days. I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. I had a two week break, but have been working for most of it.

I did do one "relaxing" thing during my break, though. Last weekend I headed up to Goldendale with my roommate and we spent the weekend up there lounging. We went on a wilderness hike and took some time taking pictures of the area. Most notable sights were both a dead and live porcupine (first time I've seen that) and a German Sheppard eating a rotting deer on the side of the road.

Tomorrow I'll be working on a song for Kelsey's wedding. She wanted me to play guitar and she chose the song, "When you say nothing at all." by Allison Krauss. So far things appear to be going well with that.

Oh, and I'll post pictures of the Goldendale trip when my roommate gets back from Canada.

The above shot was taken at 3am. The orb in the background is the moon.

Perusing some private property...



Made it to the top of Black Butte, WA


The can said the PAM spray tasted like butter...we wanted to see for sure. It doesn't.

Pier Park - Disc Golf Preview

The weather was nice so I decided to check out Pier Park in North Portland (about 3 miles from where I am staying). The course was pretty decent, but felt like a lot of the same thing. I didn't play much of it, but I played enough to know I need to bring a course map if I'm to have any fun the next time around. Here are a few additional shots I took of the course: