I'd like to thank the academy...

So...my friend Katie nominated me for this award:

Thanks Katie! I'm pretty sure it's not an actual award, but I'm flattered nonetheless. So with this award I am supposed to say 7 interesting things about me. Hmm...

1. I don't have a middle name.
2. My favorite color is black. People tell me black isn't a color. They are wrong. If there is a black crayon, then it is a color. It's simple logic, people.
3. I collect books and I don't always read them. I think I just like how they look on my bookshelf.
4. I'm allergic to codeine. It's in a lot of cold medicines so I have to suffer whenever I get sick.
5. My mom has a gender confused Yorkshire terrier named Fifi.
6. I'm REALLY bad at math.
7. I played the violin in 4th and 5th grade.


Interesting enough for you? I hope so. That wasn't easy for me.

Now im supposed to nominate some people.

I nominate Heather & Tony and Chris & Audra, because they are the only other blogs I read.

Happy Valentimes!

Josh and I had a pretty good Valentines Day. Which is refreshing, because despite having Josh as a permanent Valentine, it has never been my favorite holiday. Usually something traumatic happens in my family or I fail a test or something. But not this year! It was a Sunday so Josh and I spent most of the day at home. I cooked dinner and made Josh this giant cookie:
It was quite delicious if I do say so myself. Josh surprised me with some gorgeous flowers.
I don't usually get flowers because the cats like to eat them, but they are surprisingly still in tact! That's all I really have to say about Valentines Day. My main purpose for this post was just to update everyone on life for us here in Salem, but I wanted to add some visual interest. Here is a quick list of everything else that has been happening:

1. I'm back in school. It was a little hard to transition from doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, but I'm getting back into the swing of things.

2. Josh has managed to lower his cholesterol by 2o points! I'm so proud of him!

3. Our cats are still idiots. But we've been training them to do tricks:
That's about it. We really need something exciting to happen around here.

Annual Compensation Review

I was reading a survey a couple weeks ago about pay raises. Out of the many HR managers surveyed, only about 60% of all companies will be giving out raises this year. Of those giving out raises, only about 30% were giving out more than 3% raises, and even less giving out more than 6% raises. Many companies are still uncertain about the near future of the economy even though it has seen a recent spike.

For the last couple months my company has been reviewing our compensation plan. I haven't been terribly involved in the process. I was mostly involved at the front end with updating job descriptions and deciding which jobs had more responsibilities.

We determined that some people were being under paid for the position they held and for the length of service they had with the company. Some people received large raises, and some small raises. Almost everyone in the company received a raise.

I was told today that I would be getting a raise that would be effective on this next paycheck. It's a conservative one of only 3%, but it's better than no raise. However, the cost of living here in Oregon actually went down this year (no minimum wage increases for 2010), so it's really like getting a bigger raise of about 5%.

Even with the announcement of raises, some people were still upset when they were told how much they were getting. They felt like they were entitled to more. I think at least 6 people complained today about how "little" they were getting. I was a bit disappointed in them. A "little" is better than nothing. Sure it would have been nice to get a bigger raise, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Brianne and I are grateful.


~Josh

The Lasting Musical Influence of My Father.

We were driving back to Salem from Albany. This is what I played on my ipod:

House of the Rising Sun - Animals
Ain't no Sunshine - Bill Withers
Grandma's Hands - Bill Withers
Lean on Me - Bill Withers
Lola - The Kinks
Summer in the City - The Lovin' Spoonful
One - Three Dog Night

And it turns out that I don't have Cover of the Rolling Stones by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. I thought I did.

I not sure whether I should thank dad or not.


~Joshua

This is a metaphor

I think I'm losing my touch.
I honestly don't know what went wrong. It looks like a Salvador Dali painting.