Yay, I did it! Yep, that's me with fake diploma in hand and everything (it's for a Masters of Science - Computer and Information Systems). The real one should get here in the mail in the next week or so.

We drove all the way down from Boise to Phoenix last Wednesday in one 17-hour loooooong day. We stayed at my Uncle's place where he and my Aunt were just the most wonderful hosts. They have a beautiful very large house in one of the Phoenix suburbs and we had so much fun. The house is right on a private lake/pond and we all took turns fishing from his little dock. We swam in their pool when it got too hot and played golf 3 of the 4 days we were there. I shot my very first birdie where I chipped into the hole a 20-yard, off the green, in the grass hazard shot for three on a par 4, yippee! It was cool. I ended up with a 43 on the 36 par back 9. Best game I ever played. We had a fun game of $5 buy-in poker at my Uncle's house that night then graduation ceremonies the next day.

UoP is quite the outfit. There were 1,400 of us alone graduating from the UoP online program. They had congratulation speeches from everyone from Steve Young, Joe Montana and a whole bunch of baseball stars I had never heard of to the governor of Arizona and mayor of Phoenix. All on video of course. They gave an honorary degree to some other baseball big-wig and there had to have been well over 10,000 people in attendance. It was quite the to-do.

The next day we left in the afternoon and drove down to a cute little motel called the Parry Lodge near Zion National Park in Utah. We drove into the park the next morning and drove and hiked around. It was a nice way to break up the too long drive. I have uploaded some of the pictures ove on my picture blog, if anyone is interested. It was a very nice trip.