12 posts tagged “pete”
Once again I will shamelessly brag about him, "for Pete's sake." :)
Today was Wingate's graduation, and Pete was surprised during the ceremony when they called his name for a big award -- for Teaching Excellence!! The description of the award says is it is presented to a faculty member "who has served with distinction in the classroom" and is selected by nomination from students, faculty, administration and alumni. So he got this fancy plaque -- and a nice check!!
The kids and I were at Strider's baseball game this morning, so we missed the whole thing :( but when Pete came home and showed me, I started crying. This is because: A.) Ever since I became a mom, I cry about everything and B.) Since I am not in a position to win awards these days, I live vicariously through him!
But, apparently, he himself did NOT cry during the ceremony. I'm sure winning it, though, helped make the sitting-in-heavy-black-robes-on-a-sunny-85+degree-day-for-hours thing a bit more bearable.
Yay Peter!
This evening I had to leave for a few hours (back to SAT tutoring work) and it was a time for me to appreciate my brave husband! I actually worked last week as well, but Miles was only 9 days old at that point and slept pretty much the whole time I was gone. This week he's been awake more, so tonight was the first real test for Pete to have to watch all 4 kids. As I prepared to leave, one kid was folding laundry, 2 kids were taking a shower, and 1 kid was getting a bath. But as I walked out the door, I heard one kid singing, one kid yelling, and 2 kids crying. I didn't know whether I should grimace or chuckle. Either way, I appreciated Pete's courage!
And by the time I got home all 4 were asleep -- including Miles, who really should have been awake so he'll sleep tonight, but that's ok -- so I'd like to nominate Pete for Daddy of the Year.
Yesterday Pete came home with this book! This has been a project that he, his friend Gordon, and his former professor/advisor Roger, have been working on for a few years now -- and it has finally come to fruition!
If you want to read more about it, check it out on Amazon here. With that super-low price, I'm sure everyone will want to rush right out and buy a copy. As Pete says, they're really pricing it to move. Hey -- at least it's eligible for free shipping!
Apparently the publisher is targeting mainly university libraries, etc.... so we're anticipating huge numbers of sales. (yeah, right) And since Pete and his co-editors get somewhere between 1 and 2% of the profits, we're anticipating getting very rich off of this. (yeah, right)
But still, it's very exciting to see one's husband's name in print! And on a hardback even! I'm very proud of him.
One of my Christmas gifts to Pete was a pair of tickets to a Wake Forest basketball game -- in a box labeled "Date Night" so he would know he was supposed to take ME and not Strider or someone else. So it was a gift also (mostly) for me -- and thanks to a friend of a friend, the tickets were FREE. Can a gift get better than that?
Anyway, off we went to Winston-Salem Tuesday night to watch the currently ranked #6 team in the nation (!!!) -- who is undefeated, by the way -- take on Radford. As Strider said beforehand, if Wake didn't beat them, that would be a disaster for their ranking. But, true to form, the ol' Demon Deacs did keep the game... interesting, letting Radford keep the score very close, and even take the lead, for much of the game. It was exciting to watch, and the only drawback was a highly annoying and extremely critical redneck-sounding man sitting behind us who yelled throughout the game at the players with his make-your toes-curl Southern twang. Every time one of the Wake players made a mistake, he would yell stuff like, "C'mon Chase! [as if he was on a first-name basis with each player] You can't let them get inside like that!"
Other than that minor irritation, though, the game was a thrilling experience -- especially when Wake finally pulled out the big win at the end. We had great seats and the stadium was filled with pumped-up fans. The best part for me was the opportunity to feel like a student again -- I rarely missed a game when I was at Wake years ago. Pete and I even went to our favorite Winston restaurant (Village Tavern) before the game -- one that we had gone to many times back in the day.
It can be argued that Wake hasn't had a consistently excellent team since the years I was there -- also known as the Duncan Years -- so I'm hoping my attendance at a game this season will give them the boost they need this year to regain the superiority they once knew. :)
Go Deacs!
Yesterday I was wearing some warm clothes, since it was freezing, and I decided to put a non-maternity vest over my shirt. I knew I looked a little funny, but was just happy I could get it zipped over my very large belly. Pete smiled when he saw me, and when I started to make some defensive comments about how I couldn't find anything else to wear, and it was warm, even if it didn't look good, etc., he was quick to reassure me.
"No," he said, "you look cute! I like that look."
So I was feeling better about myself...
Until he added,
"It kind of reminds me of that scene from "Tommy Boy" where Chris Farley puts on David Spade's coat."
And he proceeded to sing the "Fat guy in a little coat" song for me.
I'm thinking this was NOT a compliment.
(Here's the link to the scene if you haven't seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YWwQZp7r_8&feature=related)
WARNING: There is some offensive language in this scene, unfortunately.
Pete was invited to present a paper at a conference last week, and, sadly for him, it was in Europe. So poor Pete had to spend several days there, which I know he just hated. Yeah, right. He had a great time, both at the conference and sight-seeing in the Netherlands and Germany. The conference was sponsored by the United Nations University World Institutue for Development Economics Research, and there were apparently people from all different countries there -- in fact, Pete was one of the only 2 Americans present. He was very interested to hear the perspectives of presenters from developing countries, especially in Africa. (If anyone wants to know more about this conference, here's the link to the main page. He got some great feedback on the paper he and his colleague wrote, and I know he's anxious to explore more in this academic (and practical) area.
We're happy to have him home now, and are thankful he had a great time!
As mentioned before, Pete joined a bunch of his friends for their semi-annual "ATF" gathering last weekend. By some rough calculations, I think we have determined that this was approximately the 26th such gathering! There is a group of 10 of them who attend regularly -- 9 former Grove City students, and one former Grove City professor.
Thanks to Trey Miller (owner of Pascal Agency -- how's that for a plug?), I got to see some pictures of this auspicious event. The guys usually stay in cabins that are part of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, and this time they picked one they had not tried before. It required them to park and then hike in for about 2 miles, reportedly on a narrow and harrowing trail with multiple switchbacks, the threat of killer bears and an uphill incline in both directions. But they were MEN about the whole thing, hauling in whole cases of beer, several pounds of meat, etc. It looks like it was in a beautiful location once they got there!
They got to spend some time hiking on the Appalachian Trail on Saturday, and by the looks of things, also got to spend a lot of time talking and talking and talking...
The name for these ATF weekends was originally meant to be "alcohol, tobacco and firearms" but from these pictures it looks as if it's become more like "alcohol, talking and food." To be fair, I think the "F" has actually been usurped by Football usually... although I did not hear about this this time. Maybe something about the average age of attendees precariously tipping over the far edge of 35 has now brought this activity to an end as well?
They DID try and revive the original "F" intention last winter, though.... Here's a picture from that event.
In all seriousness, I am very thankful for this group of men. Even though I don't get to actually go on these trips (thankfully), I do benefit greatly, having a husband who comes home refreshed, newly challenged, and encouraged by these life-long friends. I admire their commitment to the group and to one another, and the accountability they provide for each other is amazing to see. I won't get all sentimental and weepy, since this is supposed to be a manly post, but I'll just say that Pete and I are both very thankful for these friends!
Rayna has decided she really loves "Show and Tell" these days, so I figured I would take a turn myself today. This is a picture of the book that Pete gave me 10 years ago yesterday, on the day of our wedding. It is a blank book inside, but he made the cover himself by taking a color-copy of a 3-dimensional art-form he made -- which inclued even stitching those letters on paper.... Here is where everyone says, "Awwwwwwww....."
Anyway, he gave it to me with the instructions that I should write in it through the course of our marrriage, to keep a record of our journey together. I've never been a good journaler, but when I have something specific (and infrequent) like this to do, I enjoy it. So, starting during our honeymoon, I wrote several pages. I recorded all my thoughts and our observations about our wedding, the receptions, and the rehearsal dinner -- things people said, funny things people did, the crazy songs the various reception tables sang to get us to kiss, etc. I even wrote down all the dance moves that the "palace guys /ATF guys" did to Saturday Night Fever. And I'm so glad I did -- I would have forgotten almost all of it by now, knowing my lack of memory these days!
And then on each anniversary and on other special days, such as days when we got good or bad news, or the days our children were born, I've written my thoughts and recorded what was going on with us. Occasionally Pete has written some entries as well... though he's not as verbose as I am (surprise suprise).
The pages are now so fun to thumb through, to see God's grace to us over these years. I never pictured myself as marry-able before I actually got married, and I love seeing His whole plan in retrospect now. And there was a very long season in this first decade in which I was sure that Pete had gotten the raw end of the deal: I was not at all the same person that I had been when he met me in college. But Pete never balked at the whole bait-and-switch move it appeared I had executed -- he's been just as consistently in love with me and patient with me all along. Even when I have been ugly, mean, incompetent, vulnerable, weak and sorrrowful, he's continued to pursue me. When we got married I remember writing that Pete's love to me was a picture of how I pictured God's to be -- so unconditional. And the past 10 years have only borne that out in greater detail and strength.
I could go on and on (obviously) but I'll just sum up by saying these past 10 years have been a greater blessing to me than I could have ever pictured. And as we are now 1 day into our 2nd decade together, I look forward to more adventures together!
I guess it was just a matter of time...
Dan is an MBA student at Wingate, and Pete is teaching an MBA class at Wingate.... so sooner or later they were bound to end up in the same classroom (well, sooner in this case, since Dan planned his schedule out to purposely take Pete's class... probably for the sole purpose of wanting to make Pete nervous while he works.)
So this fall both Pete and Dan head off to Econ class each Wednesday night. Before the first class, Pete said he was going to make an effort to not let the other students know that Dan was his brother-in-law. So I told him I would give him 10 bucks if when he called the role for the first time, he said, "Daniel WARY." (a name we Wray's heard a surprisingly high amount of times at the beginning of each school year in the initial role calls)
So he did it.
Then, after class at home when we was reading through the list he had passed around the class asking for the students' email addresses, he found that Dan had listed his as yourmom@frankfamily.com. Thankfully he was the last student to sign the list.
And the next day Pete got an email from him with the subject line, "here's what you look like when you're teaching" and this picture was attached, taken obviously by Dan's cell phone when Pete had no idea:
Pete says it just shows how expertly quick he is with an eraser.
So we'll see how this semester goes... I do know that when it's over Pete plans to head over to Dan's office and just sit and watch him work for a few days. And I'm sure he'll be happy to fill out an evaluation form for him when he's done.
Pete's been quoted in two of our local papers lately! In one article he was asked about his opinion of the latest tax rebate stimulus checks, and he talked about how they are probably not going to be all that helpful to the economy in the long-term. And for the other newspaper, a reporter called him to ask his opinion about the future of gasoline prices. (And it looks like he was right on both counts. He's so smart!) Over and over both articles use him as the expert, putting in several of his "quotes" that he told the reporters when they called.
All of it reminds me of a time way back in college when one of his good friends wrote a speech for one of his communications classes in which he quoted something Pete said, calling him "noted economist, P. Merritt Frank." It's fun to see how Pete has followed through on that initial dream he had way back then, and now really is that man his friend encouraged him to be! (The other friend quoted in the same speech, B. Alan Stewart, I believe, is also now the "noted theologian" he was said to be then! BKB -- you were prophetic.... and a good friend. :) )
