10.20.06 -Dr. Awesome at last

Today was Art's defense date for his disseration. We were up late last night getting everything ready - like finding Art's tie, belt and dress socks, as well as ironing his shirt. Why this had to be done at 9pm is a mystery. :)

Art left very early (before 8am) to make sure he did not encounter any horrible traffic. He picked Corbett up at the hotel and they went to get the room set up. Most of the family showed up for the defense (my three parents, Art's two parents, Staci, Janneke, and Karl), plus at least 4 other outside people that came just to hear the talk. Art did a great job presenting and the presentation looked great with the exception of a few misspellings. The family then went to the student center to wait for Art, while his committee members grilled him on his dissertation work. They took FOREVER! After over an hour and a half, a smiling Art appeared with Corbett and Dr. Saxena. The entire group (minus Karl who had to go back to work, plus Joy who got out of class) went for lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I had some embarassing moments when I got us lost bc I missed the turn to the Spag Factory and had to double back on a different road. Sigh. Lunch was great though and it was fun to have everyone there who had been such a huge support to Art.

Now the only thing left is to make changes to the dissertation - which will not be so easy, given it is on a Mac - and get it submitted. All the committee members signed off on it - permission to GRADUATE!

The picture is a proud Zachary with his proud Daddy (even though Zach slept the entire presentation), and one of our proud family.