Spackman geneology

My Mom found this on footnote.com. This is our first Spackman ancestor to come to America from England, Thomas S. E. Spackman. This is his passport application in August 11, 1862. He was born March 6th, 1814 in England. It says he has fair/gray hair, blue eyes, 5' 7 ½" tall.

I am amazed that after six generations I have blue eyes too. Plus, I am taller than him. He actually has a cool story. He was born in Bristol, England, married to Sarah Ann "Annie" Bushnell and lived in London. They had four kids, three boys and a girl. Turns out Annie was crazy, so they put her in a hospital. Thomas took off with the boys for New York and left Annie in the hospital with the daughter. The middle son, also named Thomas, took off for the California gold rush, stopped in Salt Lake for supplies and ended up meeting Sarah Ann Criddle, a good Mormon girl. He converted and they got married in 1863, I am related through their son William Henry Spackman who moved to Alberta, Canada. I love hearing these stories.

Gaye Merrill

Gaye Merrill has been the Director of Sports Medicine at BYU for the last couple of years, but she has been there for many years. She died Monday of cancer. It is sad to think the last time I was in the Athletic Training Room over Thanksgiving was when I saw her and she looked fine. I didn't know she had cancer, or was sick. Gaye was the ATC over all the student trainers after I got home from mission. She is the one I learned about professionalism in athletic training. I was covering the cheerleaders one football game, it was a hot day so I wore shorts. On Monday I got a comment from her how at other schools they may wear shorts at football games, but at BYU we wear pants.
When I taught at Tooele High School, I called Gaye to ask if I could bring my students in to do the modalities lab. She had set up this whole thing (with ultrasound, diathermy, massage, e-stim, etc) and then gave all my students T-shirts afterward. She didn't need to, but she did anyway.
Her funeral is next week and they set up a blog so everyone could share their stories.
Thanks Gaye

2 days of fun

Friday I spent with my roommate Melissa. She took me around Birmingham. Saturday I toured with some of the YSA's to church history sites.

Friday

This is Melissa. We ate at this great Italian place downtown.

It's kinda weird that in Europe they put the dead people next to the church. Here in this church square people are actually sitting on the graves like this is a park and we can have a picnic with the dead person under us. Just weird!

one of many Queen Victoria statues

Street performers

Melissa's friend showed us the short cut through the forest back to campus.

Saturday

If you didn't know my religion, you do now.

This is Malvern Hills. It's a pre-Roman village area where Brigham Young and other apostles would come to pray. The sign says British Camp.

There are several hilltops with trails and trenches that the people lived in.

The tree area is where the bus is parked. It is very steep, like hiking the Y.
The first permanent chapel at Gadfield Elm.

10 essential things

Yesterday I read an article on Yahoo called "10 Things We Can't Live Without". One of the things is our laptop. Even though we are in a recession we still cannot live without our laptops. The article highlighted Brianna Karp and her blog. What are the 10 things you can't live without?
I definately couldn't live without my laptop. Since I couldn't fit everything in my suitcases or take 10 suitcases with me I have learned to live without things I usually need. Hopefully this is a hint to my Mother to send the rest of my stuff to me quickly! I only brought 5 pairs of shoes and one school bag, because I could really use my hiking boots and camelback tomorrow.

9 days

I have been in Walsall for 9 days now. BTW, even though it is spelled Walsall this is Black Country and they have their own accent, so it is pronounced more like Warsaw.
The cleaners discovered that the weird smell in my room is because the shower next to my room is leaking water. Hopefully there is no mold.
I must have lived in areas of the USA that non-smokers lived, because I have noticed that there are alot of smokers here in the UK. Hopefully I don't get cancer from all the second hand smoke. Another thing I have noticed is that women here are wearing spandex as fashion. I can honestly remember the last time I did that was in 6th grade, but we were all following Madonna back then, there is no excuse now. Seriously it is ugly, why did they bring it back?
I splurged a little today. I was missing home, only because it was cold at lunch, so I went to Starbucks near the bus station and got a Caramel Hot Chocolate. In the US it is only on the menu at Christmas, but here it has a permanent spot. So YUMMY!

The fire truck

Fruit, Vegetable, and Flower shop

The Old Market in the Walsall Town Square

the Walsall Bus Stop

the old Guild building across from ASDA

this house by campus was built in 1893

the street I live on

street sign, I guess it's their version of dead end

the lilacs are starting to bloom

Welcome to campus!

go to the yellow thing, then go upstairs and you will be at my office

all the doors have this code system, this is my office door

random pictures

Here are some random pictures I was taking as I walk to ASDA. Yeah I said walk, this is definately a new lifestyle for me and it is taking a bit getting use to.

There is a cricket field on campus, when I was walking by some kids were practicing.

A bunch of trees in the neighborhood have these flowers and they are pretty.

The tower again with the pretty flowers.

I am on the 3rd floor in the dorm, but they call it the 2nd floor in Europe because the first floor is considered 0 floor. The view looking down from my window.

The view looking out from my window. It is definately different than the brown dirt of Las Vegas.

I still am having a hard time switching time zones. I want to fall asleep at 8pm and get up by 5am. The gym on campus doesn't open until 8am, but I do have an office that I share with other PhD students, except they don't show up so I get it all to myself (which is good because then I can blare my Glee soundtrack). My room has a weird smell and the cleaners are suppose to come today to fix it. They turn the heater off in the middle of the night which makes me wanting my parents to send me my quilts sooner than later. No central heat/air, I have a radiator in my room so I have to open the window in the middle of the day or it gets really stuffy. Yeah, heat during the day, but not at night, where's the logic in that? It was Brylee's 1st Birthday last week and we all got to talk on the internet, which just made me miss Caimon and Brylee. But the best part is that I have started my research and I really like it, this is going to be fun. My surveys should be out in the next few months, so I am a little ahead of schedule. Yippee!

On the way...

On the way to ASDA (which is the UK version of Walmart) I get to see this:

Pretty Cool!