I just completed another Accounting course and my final math course scoring an A in both courses. WooHoo! Only three more semesters to go before I finish my AA in Accounting and can begin going for my BS. Unfortunately, these last three semesters will take a while to complete as I plan to take a couple of months off. After the semester I just started (Accounting and IT courses) I will take December and half of January off to enjoy the holidays. I will then begin one more semester and follow that up with another month off to enjoy a lifelong dream vacation in Alaska during the month of June. Finally, after returning from Alaska I will take my last semester. Expect many new pics and videos after that trip!

Currently, I and my daughter are working on a whole new set of videos and photos to add to the site because of a visit from my grandma and uncle that includes a trip to the Denver Zoo, Cherry Creek State Park, the top of Pike's Peak, Estes Park, and la Paudre River via scenic byway 14.

Stay Tuned! This site is finally getting some long overdue updates :))

It has become terribly difficult to find time for the things I enjoy, especially time for updating this web site (that I sometimes wonder if anyone ever looks at lol). I have finally completed my first year of college. Three communication classes, one critical thinking course, one environmental science course, one accounting course, one algebra course, one finance course, one student success course (gen ed), and one ethics course, for a total of 30 credits. I earned an A in every course except Finance which ended up with an A-. That class was a KILLER. So my 4.0 GPA has now dropped to a 3.97 GPA :(

With 30 more credits I will finally have my AS degree in accounting and then it is time to go for two more years to obtain my BS in accounting. And then, another year to get my CPA. Whew....

Family News Clips

• My oldest son moved out on his own
• My oldest daughter is now attending college. She is going for a food science degree in hopes of becoming a nutritionist/dietician. Watch out CSU, here she comes!
• My boyfriend is attending college for an architecteral/interior design degree
• Tagen, our St. Bernard puppy turned 2 years old and has topped out at 215lbs
• Polo, our rottweiler, has reached age 12!! Still holding onto a ton of attitude and still happy. Amazing!
• Chelsea, the shepherd mix, is 8 years old now and spunky as ever.
• There is a wild bear stealing our garbage on the regular! But, I still have not gotten a picture of him due to darkness :(
• Both Nikki and Nikko, the African Greys, are still going strong and talking more than ever! Nikko finally says "Make some coffee!" a home full of college students will cause that!

Whew! 3 quarters complete (18 of the 60 credits required for the AA) and still holding the 4.0 GPA by the hair on my chinny chin chin. I was excited to end my first accounting course with a score of 99.5%! I'm guessing it's good to remain strong in ones own major LOL.

I have now started the fourth quarter with two classes unrelated to the major; Environmental Science and Cultural Diversity. Both classes should be quite enjoyable for me since I strongly believe in the power of diversity and obviously love the environmental sciences!

I am also in my last month working part-time as a tax preparer. It's like the home stretch before summer arrives and we can pull out the jeep and cameras once again! I can't wait to post something with pictures! I am getting seriously antsy. I am beyond ready to go on a road trip!

I have completed 12 of the first 60 credits required for an AA in accounting. I have a whole bunch more to go but at least I am still going! Two communication courses, one general education course, and a critical thinking course with a 4.0 GPA. Now I begin a third communications course and, can you believe it, an accounting course! Sometimes it feels like it will take forever to complete the bachalors but I keep reminding myself how fast the last several years have gone by. I do not want to look back four years from now saying shoulda, woulda, coulda, and that is what I depend on to ensure I do not quit.

The holidays went quite well. The big gift of the year for the family was a 70 inch television! Watching movies has never been so much fun. It is like bringing the theater home!

I also purchased my daughter a car for her 18th birthday. A 2003 Volvo that she seems to adore. Thank goodness it has not shown any "used car" problems.

Between work, school, teenagers, and pets, life has been hectic but rather boring for a blog. The only good blog-thing that has happened is that we finally got our digital imaging computer fixed and new movies of several of our adventures will be forthcoming. The movies will include my trip to New York City, a family reunion in Houghton Lake Michigan, the hike to Hanging Lake, and several other Colorado travels.

Well, my life just got busier than it already had been. I have decided to continue my adult education by going back to school! This time, my goal is to receive a bachelors in accounting so that I will qualify to take the state's CPA exam.

The state of Colorado currently requires a baccalaureate degree in accounting. The education requirements also state that one must have completed at least 27 semester hours in accounting subjects of which 21 semester hours must be in specialized accounting courses such as cost accounting, tax, intermediate accounting, accounting theory and advanced accounting. At least 3 of the 27 semester hours must be in auditing. Additionally, one must have at least 21 semester hours in related courses in other areas of business administration such as business law, management, marketing, statistics, business communications, economics and finance with no more than 6 semester hours being in any one area. I have a long way to go considering the fact that I just began my courses last week!

I chose accounting since it's something that offers me a wide variety of options that I can work with well into old age. I also love the feeling of being able to help others out of extremely stressful situations, without becoming too personally involved. Most accountants are blessings in disguise for people that have gotten in over their heads, and I am anxious to be the same.

Currently I am taking two communication classes. My poor cameras are starting to collect dust already, however, I'm certain that as I get into the swing of things and figure out how to best schedule my time, this will change. I still need photography time to remain sane ;)

Wish me luck!

This weekend we're planning to stay in South Fork, Lake City, and Gunnison Colorado while spending a great deal of time around Creede, the Black Canyon of Gunnison National Forest, and the Silver Thread Trail. We're hoping to be able to see the Bachelor Historic Tour, Creede's Underground Mining Museum, the Waterfall at North Clear Creek Falls and the Wheeler Geologic Area. Of course we'll look for off the trail dirt roads and hidden wonders every step along the way. We should land in South Fork around 2am Saturday morning and not leave the Gunnison area until Monday afternoon for the long drive home. Hopefully we'll have some decent pictures and videos upon our return! Click the image to see our basic itinerary.

Though the higher quality larger versions of our video memories will always be available on PicOlio.com my daughters and I decided to go ahead and add to the disk space at YouTube as well. So we signed up for our YouTube page which is located at http://youtube.com/profile?user=PicOlioCOM. I guess it's sort of a way for us to challenge ourselves to see if we can make decent videos using less than 10MB each as well as an opportunity for us to have them rated by the masses (yikes!). Maybe it was just because we can and as such we finally did ;) Nevertheless what's done is done and we're now "tubers" oh boy!

Windows Media Video Compression Using Adobe Premiere Pro

I've written this tutorial for anyone who uses adobe premiere pro and wants to find out the best way to compress a video using "Windows Media Video".

I cover things like what bitrate to use with what resolution and frame rate aswell as what a few of the different settings do and mean. Find out for yourself and take a read...

On September 11th we visited Seven Falls Colorado which claims to be the "Gradest Mile of Scenery in Colorado". I don't know if that's true or not but I do know it is gorgeous and that it gave me the opportunity to do something I had never done before... at least not like this! Climb Stairs. The steepest flight of stairs I personally had ever climbed with the most interesting view I could ever imagine seeing from a flight of stairs.

Seven Falls is a large water fall with seven areas where it 'lands and starts over'. It's very pretty and includes some hiking trails. To see the falls from a distance you can take a flight of stairs or the elevator. We chose the elevator lol. However, to see the top of the falls up close there is no option but the stairs. So we took the stairs. Going up was a bit rough on the legs.... but coming down was rough on the balance! The concept of 'don't look down' isn't possible because the stairs are too steep not to... but when looking down it is a bit disorienting. I must admit I enjoyed it *grin*.

Beyond the stairs were some pretty sights... click here to see the pics we took at Seven Falls.

A little late with the notice but I do not want to fail to make mention of more of the places we have visited as of recently around Colorado. On the 12th of September we took a trip down to the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.

While there we hiked every trail they had to offer and then some (I must admit we got turned around a bit). I believe we clocked about 10 miles or so and every inch of it was beautifully breathtaking! This is absolutely a park we plan to return to! To see the pics click here.

The weather was perfect on the day we went and we followed it up with a trip to the summit of Pike's Peak (Which I'll blog about later). Over all we had a perfect day at the Garden... one I hope to be able to share with others in the future.