Comments:
Hi Everyone. First I just wanted to thank everyone who worked on the reunion and this website. It has been great to see everyone from our class, their pictures and profiles, over the last few weeks, and this could not have happened without this forum. Im really looking forward to getting back to the reunion this fall and actually seeing and talking to as many of you as possible. Thanks also to all of you early submitters with photos and stories, like Karry Auten, Mary Catherine McCarville, Dan Ervin, John Murphy and Chad Crouse - you are inspirational.
So I basically havent left the University of Iowa Hospital since high school graduation, starting at the information desk, working as a nurses assistant to help pay for college and grad school, coordinated a telemedicine research study in grad school and have been an epidemiologist and statistician for the last 8 years in infection control and risk management. Not as bad as it sounds, but Ive given up on the idea that my daughter will ever say Cool! when she comes to see my office.
Oh yeah Ive got a daughter, and a wife too. Yes, I did meet them both in the hospital. My wife Melissa is a recreation therapist working with patients with eating disorders, chemical dependency and mood disorders. I like to imagine that it is nice to come home to me and the kid, but I dont actually ask the question. Olivia, the daughter, is 18 months old (do I stop doing the months at age 2?), is very ticklish, and is the most humbling experience of my life. Classmates, I hear they get less ticklish, more humiliating? And Stacy Ramus (Rock) can vouch for the offspring and spouse because she helped deliver Olivia thanks Stacy, you do great work!
Since high school, Ive tried to keep participating in some of the things that were important to me then. Im still playing trumpet and singing, but mostly in church. I wish I could say I was still running cross country, but have only myself to blame for that. We just had a cat back in 88, so I went a little overboard with animals: three hundred pounds of dog, two cats. Im fortunate enough to have a family member that did well for himself (Eric was a year younger than us), teaching high school European History up in Minneapolis, so Ive gotten to see a lot of Europe chaperoning kids on trips with him over the last few years. Lumpy was right about the Hohenzollerns having pretty nice houses. I had to get rid of the old cassette tapes a few years ago and have been slowly replacing the meaningful music of our youth on CD and mp3, but I cannot replace the fantastic 94 KKEZ commercials that used to get recorded along with those. Can anyone direct me to a CarpetWorld jingle on iTunes? How about a Shimkat ad? Yes, slowly replacing those Def Leppard and Whitesnake tapes. Very slowly. Can someone tell me how the phrase Are you gettinit? Armageddon It! was ever appropriate? Maybe I just sort of glossed over that in zero-hour bowling AND in concert at Hilton. By the way, I read this opinion the other day that Van Halens And The Cradle Will Rock is the most average song in rock history, meaning that any song better than it is Good and any song worse than And the Cradle Will Rock is Bad (or Sucks, as we would have said it then and probably now as well). I expect some discussion on this in October. And lastly, while Ive really enjoyed cooking over the last few years, I cannot seem to duplicate the taste of, nor satisfy my craving for a Tico Dinner and Mountain Dew. Every Friday night. About 9:30 PM. Can I get a witness?
