What's Hannah Been Up To

A quick advertisement for Hannah's Blog! She must have bleeding fingers - because she made about 7 posts to it recently.  If you haven't checked it out lately you are missing out.  She's been to some interesting and beautiful places - and befriended some awesome people. And she makes every adventure unique through her writing.

Time to catch up?  You can find her link over there on the left anytime... of for now click this link.

Hannah's Germany Website

Happy reading!

Laugh Out Loud

This website is not for Granda Marian.  Grandma,  ignore the rest of this post.  Linda, maybe you too ;)

But, if you want to laugh. out. loud.  you have to check out this website:  Damn You Auto Correct!
Perhaps it's just because I have an iPhone and it makes these types of 'helpful corrections' all the time for me.. but it just makes me laugh.

Sliders

This is a story that demonstrates why having a creative wife works out for the man.

Julie, Joel, Carissa, Ryan and I went to a restaurant in Palo Alto when they were here at Christmastime called Sliders.  We loved the variety and portion size.

Well, last night after hopping on the treadmill and then showering off I walk out to the kitchen and what has Julie prepared for me?  Cheeseburger Sliders!  She had found the little buns at Trader Joe's, seasoned the meat patties to perfection and served them in style.

They looked fantastic and smelled wonderful.  I was so impressed with her presentation that I rushed to grab my camera and snap a picture.

So this is what I had for dinner last night! Jealous?  :)

Quick and Dirty Education Expense Analysis

For some reason this morning I was thinking alot about Hannah and her upcoming graduation from Berkeley.  I am so proud of the woman she has become.

One memory that came to mind was one of Hannah's high school Economics class assignments. The assignment was to interview her parents about their attitudes about education.  One question she had to ask was 'do you (the parent) value education?'.  My immediate response was to ask her 'what do you think our actions have said about our value of education?'.  Julie and I have definitely put our time and money where our mouth is when it comes to education.  We value it and we've tried to pass that value on to our kids. It has been a sacrifice and investment that has already paid huge dividends.

As Hannah nears graduation I can honestly say that I was happy to help pay UC Berkeley to teach and train her.

Of course, once my brain got started on it.. it began to wonder just what the total cost of her education was.  You see, we pay student fees and housing - but that is only a portion of the revenues that Berkeley receives.

Here's what I learned in my 15 minutes of analysis:

The UC system educates approximately 234,000 undergraduate and graduate students.  Berkeley has just over 36,000 or about 15.4% of the total students in the UC system (there are a total of 10 campuses).

The entire UC system receives $6.3 Billion from CA budget ($26,923 per student) which includes student fees + $3B taken from our general fund.  General fund money comes from property taxes, our sales tithe, income taxes and the various and asundry other sources of state revenues (e.g., tickets).

California also pays out approximately $1.2B in student aid for higher education.  Approximately 1/3rd goes to UC students; or about $400M.  $400M/234,000 students works out to about $1,709/student.

Berkeley, itself, has an endowment of $2.6B.  Those are funds donated to the university for specific and general funding uses.  The endowment pays out roughly 4.75% of its funds each year.  That means funding of around $124M in the most recent year.  That works out to another $3,444 per student.

In summary, just from those sources (there are many others) - Berkeley receives at least $32,076 per student, per year ($26,923 + $1,709 + $3,444).  It seems like all of California is putting their money where their mouth is. Wouldn't you say?

For Berkeley, with 36,000 students, that works out to $1.15B in annual revenue/funding.

You might wonder how many teaching staff Berkeley has.  The answer is around 1,928.  If you assume there is one staff (support) person for every professor (seems high.. but a good starting point) - that means that there are around 3,850 total employees at Berkeley.  Let's say you paid each of those employees a salary of $125,000.  Then add in additional compensation (vacation, sick time, pension, medical benefits) of another 40% of their base pay.  That would make the average employee compensation $175K.  That would produce a total payroll of $674M.  There would still be about $481M for maintaining facilities, paying for utilities and all remaining non-employee expenses.

It makes you wonder what all the protesting is about.

Tim and Barbara

Wow... this post is really, really late!  So, I won't keep you waiting... here's the best picture Julie took ;)  Does that look like a happy family or what?

It was an honor to be a groomsman in Tim's wedding.  What a great opportunity to watch the ceremony up close and personal and to stand next to one of my best friends in the world as he started a new phase in his life.  And it looks like Tim and Barbara were happy to get it started. 

One of my favorite moments - amongst all the wonderful moments - was walking Grandma G in and out of the ceremony to her seat of honor.  Here we are at the reception having a moment.  During the rehearsal I was cracking up as I threatened to twirl her as we walked down the aisle and out of the sanctuary following the service.  She was game during the rehearsal - and fast on her feet. But I was a perfect gentleman during the ceremony ;)

Congratulations to Tim and Barbara.  I hope she knows that when she marries Tim she gets us in the package deal.  Now how much would you pay??

Our Weird Weekend

On the off chance you read only 1 sentence and then move on to your next internet adventure, I just have to start with this picture.  I call it The Leaning Referee.  It cracks me up. 

The last thing Julie and I were thinking as we left Redding, Ca. on our way to Salem to visit Joel, Carissa and Ryan - was that we would get stuck in a blizzard.  Well, as the intensity of the rain increased and the temperature dove - that's exactly what we were faced with midday Friday.

The snow was driving down and it was freezing so fast we ended up with big chunks of ice on our hood.

We think we got on the road just before they implemented a chain requirement.  We had no chains.  No warm clothes to deal with the cold in case we ended up stalled or in a ditch.  And, we had gone only 10 miles in over an hour.  With 110 miles more of mountains - we eventually had to rethink whether we could make it to Salem and back to California before Sunday night.

We decided against it after fishtailing a few times.  It was time to turn around and head home.  We called Joel and profusely apologized.. then sadly headed back towards sea level and out of the snow.

Michigan's club hockey team was playing the ACHA 2001 Division II Nationals in San Jose last week.  So, as we were driving home we realized we could possibly make it to the semi-final game between Michigan and Michigan State.  Out of the blizzard and into the freezer.  I mean rink.  Eric and his brother Kyle play for Michigan - so Julie was a true trooper and rooted for the Maize and Blue!  This is Kyle.

Here's a moment of quiet contemplation for the Michigan goalie.  I hope he enjoyed it because Michigan State played an excellent game and put constant pressure on our goal.

But Michigan put pressure on Michigan State's goalie as well.

However, in the end MSU prevailed.  Sigh.  This weekend just wasn't working out for us ;)

One of the saddest moments was meeting up with Eric after the game and seeing the pain and disappointment in his eyes from the outcome.  In some ways it's great to have those emotions.  Many people will never achieve the great results Michigan did and ever get in a position to lose such an important game.  But it was hard to see and there really wasn't much to be said that could erase the feelings.  We could just express our joy in being able to see him and his brother play in person.  It was a real treat and we won't soon forget their play.  They really did do great.

Then, it was time to go back home.  Here's what our Saturday looked like.  We lit a fire and watched March Madness as we moped about missing Joel and all of TH2.  A weird weekend.