March-ness

It's crazy to think that March is almost over! Winter Term is finally beginning to cough with that "i'm gonna die soon" rattle that every student loves to hear. If all goes according to plan, Sherrilyn and I will be graduating in December. After a lot of thinking and looking at all of our options, we have decided to continue our lives in Austin Texas after we are done here in Laie. Bothe the Edgar and Hansen portions of our families have installments there, so it will be nice to be somehwere near them. Also the Social work masters program there is pretty good and there should be plenty of work for me, Austin being the live music capitol of the United States and all.

In the mean time, we are just keeping our noses to the grind stone and trying to get everything finished in time while keeping our sanity intact. We have recently aquired some fun things to help with that, but there will be another post on that later when its safe to talk about. (ooh! Mystery! you just DYING to know arent you?)

We hope all our friends and family are well and healthy. We love ya!

m+s

Zero

Both Sherrilyn and I have a soft spot in our hearts for dogs. We are what you call "dog-people" that is not to say, however, that we posses any canine-like attributes ourselves. We do not, for example, eat garbage or sniff each others hind quarters in a friendly greeting. But when we see emaciated puppies abandoned at beach parks we cannot sit idly by. that is how we met this wonderful little fellow.

We discovered him at Hukilau beach park starving and literally covered in fleas. We took him home, cleaned him up (which entailed picking hundreds of fleas of his bony little body for the better part of three hours.) We named him Zero because he had 0% body fat :) He was one of the friendliest little guys we have ever met. Sadly, because we live in an apartment complex that does not allow pets, we had to find him a new home via craigslist. He went home with a very nice woman a day or two later.














The treatment of dogs here on the island is disgusting at best. They are puchased at shady pet stores on a lark and as soon as the novelty wears off they are chained to a tree and forgotten, either that or beaten and turned mean to hunt the wild pigs in the mountains here. It's heartbreaking really. If you are a dog owner on Oahu and you are reading this, please treat your animals with the love and respect they deserve.

better late than never....

...and this post comes with NO promise of regular follow ups, but i do feel a bit silly that we have started this blog and have not updated it with any regularity. We have been crazy busy though. here's a brief update:

Sherrilyn - Is now going to school full time and is about a year away from completing her degree in social work, after which we are going to find a good school for her masters degree. She is getting better and better at the glockenspiel and has added the melodica and the omnichord to her line up of instruments. The two of us play in a fun gypsy-like band called Haberdashery and have our own wife and husband duo called "Oh No!"...we mostly cover songs by artists we like, but it's a lot of fun. Her hair is a bit longer than it has been in recent years and I for one think she looks fantastic (as always). she is still cute as a button and is getting very sneakey with her giving of hickeys the last few weeks, my neck bears witness to this with many shades of red and purple.





Me (Michael) - I am still working at the media production center for the school and going to school full time for my degree in art. I am currently doing ceramics and sculpture and have found that I completley suck at turning pottery on the wheel. I broke down and got myself a banjo this last month because I have been wanting one for a long time. I am having fun learning it, but I am sure I am driving our neighbors crazy! I have also developed a taste for Gruyere and Manchego cheese and am looking for others to devour with gusto.


We recently had a litte vacation on the east coast over the holiday break and I will post some photos here below. We are very grateful to Shelli and Devyn for putting up with us for two weeks and showing us the sights of Massachusets, New Hampshire and New York. We had a great time and it was a much needed break from school, work and all the mormons around here (heh heh).

Well, we are off to our twice a week yoga class, here are a couple photos from our vacation (you can see more of them as well as videos of Lynn and I performing with our band on my Facebook page

www.facebook.com/people/Michael-C-EdgarHansen/1355685302

enjoy!

pictures and stuff

So as I was sitting here putting together my application for some Art Scholarship/Grant thingys, I figured it might be kind of cool to throw some of my work up on here for you fine people to check out. If all goes well, I am looking at anywhere from $1000 to $3000 in free money to help me finish school. My main focus has been 2D imagery (photography, block prints, etching etc...) I have a bunch of color slides I have yet to get added, but that a whole different story. Basically, I go to the only university that, when it shifted from film to digital photography THREW OUT OR GAVE AWAY all of it's 35mm equipment! SO I have no way of reproducing my photos without going all the way down to Honolulu (grrrrrr....the is a frustrating/sensitive topic for me) Anyway, here's what I cobbled together so far! Enjoy! -Mike

Mangoes and Sunburns

Hey folks, Mike here. We've had a pretty hectic past few weeks, full of both fun and work. Sherrilyn started school and I quit one of my jobs to concentrate on school and media production training. However, we still manage to log enough time at the beach to get horribly sunburned. Observe:



Poor Sherrilyn got the worst of it, I spent that weekend applying multiple layers of aloe to her lobster red shoulders. I took a swimming class the previous term and spent lots of time in the sun, so I didn't really get too toasty. The lesson learned here is....the sun warm, and deadly!

It's mango season! There are mango trees EVERYWHERE here! and they are just dripping with these little beautys! There are so many mangoes lying around that you can practically pick them up off the ground just about anywhere you go. (and yet, oddly enough, they are still $1.69 a pound in the grocery store).

We Demand to be Taken Seriously!

Ridiculously Good Looking

It's been a while since anything was put up here. So I, Michael, sensing the vacuum of content, have stepped in to provide you, the reader, with some entertaining news and visual stimuli. We'll begin with our recent move: We moved. Away from our beautiful ocean and mountain view apartment to the barracks of married students here at BYUH known as TVA (or Temple View Apartments).

Our sad little empty studio.....

Now while we miss our old place, I must say that living closer to both work and school, not to mention our good friends here; James and Elizabeth and Nate and Camille, is very nice! We have had get togethers almost every other day since moving in, and the social interaction has all but killed the reclusivity that set in while we were living at the edge of civilization.

We do save almost $400 a month in rent now so it's hard to complain about much.....however, i do have one major issue with TVA. Just about every night around 3 a.m. our neighbors small child starts a screaming frenzy that would send chills up even Mother Theresa's spine. The kid usually quiets down again about two hours later, but by that point I am wide awake....not to mention a little disturbed at the prospect of having a few of my own screaming dynamo's. And if there is any justice in the universe, after what I put my parents through, my children will be able to generate the kinds of decibels that shatter glass.

So we've spent the last few weekends on various projects. Sherrilyn expressed an interest in learning to play the Glockenspiel. So I sprang into action and ordered the first affordable one I could find. She is getting pretty dang good at it and I am SO PROUD of her! We've played music together a few times, we even wrote a song together. I can honestly say that singing and playing music with my lovely companion is my favorite thing to do.....ever.

The sexiest woman alive, rockin' the glock.

The walls in our new diggs are almost entirely bare white brick, which is the same stuff they make mental hospitals out of. So we went a bit nuts and decked the walls to match our flava'. Here's a shot of our handi work: I call it "art punches you in the face, right in the face!"

In addition to bare walls, we also have pretty poor circulation due to the fact that our windows are rusted shut. Not to be done in by the summer island heat, I found some plans for a cheap air conditioning unit online. It's a pretty simple idea really, but brilliant! A copper tube attached to a fan is filled with cold water and as the fan blows warm air across the cool pipes, the air cools down and so do you! I made a few modifications to the design by adding an aquarium pump. James came over to help me assemble it and before long we had a self contained, self circulating air conditioner. Observe:Building...

Testing.....Success!

Yeah, it works well. If ice is added to the coolant reservoir than the room gets chilly pretty quick. Sherrilyn actually got too cold sitting next to it. Yes, I am very pleased with myself!

Thats about all i have for you at the moment. Be sure to check back later for my full and detailed report on life in Laie. There will be snacks. yes, there WILL be snacks!

Also! If any of you are interested, my album is still available on iTunes, Rhapsody AND Napster. Just type in Sir Anthonys Ghost in the search bar and you should find it no problem. All proceeds go to me! (which I then give to BYUH in exhange for a Fine Arts degree....huzzah!)