Today was my last day at the Farmer City State Bank. It's kind of weird knowing that I won't be working there anymore. Everything is changing and it's all so fast. It's a good change, but yet it's still sad at times. There are just so many different things going on. I have so many emotions for all of them. I am looking forward to getting to see Kristina and Becki again. I haven't seen either one of them in awhile. I got to eat dinner with my family at Monical's tonight. Each time I go home I realize how much things are truly changing. I am going to miss them, especially since I am going to be so far away. I probably should have started studying tonight, but I didn't get home until 8 and then I started talking to Kristina and packing some of my stuff. I know I will do fine on my finals so I'm not terribly worried.

4/28/2004 at 7:42 AM (Mark Baylor) - Yesterday was another fun practice. I am going to be playing shortstop in the games, which means I should get alot of action on that side of the field. I had a better batting practice also. My left knee is bothering me, it feels like I twisted it, but I have had a problem with this knee for sometime now. Hopefully I will be in ship shape for Thursday's opening game. Looks like it could be rained out though. I hope to see everyone there :)

4/27/2004 at 8:50 AM (April Wible) - Graduation is getting closer and closer. I have an exam today (yeah, this close to finals and my final is Monday). Other than that I have to prepare for finals which means getting everything completed for my financial planning class and of course studying for the other ones. I am looking forward to packing because I'm a nerd like that. :) Since my finals are on Monday and I have a take home final due Tuesday, I am going to leave Tuesday. (I think) I should probably stay and work, but I need to get stuff moved to Mark's.

4/26/2004 at 11:40 AM (Mark Baylor) - Well I was needless to say just a little sore this morning. April had to carry me outta bed and put me in the shower. hehe j/k. A little exercise here and there would be nice to help me to prepare for softball. I had a great time at practice yesterday even though it was a miserable day. I know that we will have an absolute blast this year even if we do only win 3 games like they did last year. That doesn't matter. What matters is that I get in shape and have a little friendly fun. Hitting a ball the size of a dang melon isn't easy. Batting practice was a new experience. I have to use all of my will to wait until the ball gets there, otherwise I will hit a small fly ball to many probably capable fielders. I am sure with the games I will get experience.

4/25/2004 at 7:16 PM (April Wible) - This was a pretty good weekend. Mark surprised me on my Birthday by meeting his parents at a restaurant then going back to their place where there was a cake. :) It was cute; they sang Happy Birthday and everything. Mark and I played catch and I bruised my hand because I am a wimp. He had softball practice today and loved it. I am happy that he found something that he likes so much. I get to go and watch his games this summer! I have one week of classes left and then finals. May 8th is graduation and afterwards we are having sandwiches at my parent’s house. If you plan on going then just let me know. It’s nothing major, just a small get together. Mark and I have been watching Iron Chef America. It has been pretty good, but we both like the original Iron Chef better because it is more entertaining. If you have ever seen it, then you probably know what we are talking about.

4/22/2004 at 11:56 AM (April Wible) - I am pretty much finished with school. All that I have left is an exam on Tuesday, a small homework assignment, and finals. Even my finals may not be too terrible. I have one take home, one class I just have a bunch of stuff to turn in and my other two classes I have finals. In class today, we are going to try to get one of the finals to be take home and the other teacher said that he wasn't sure what he was going to do about the final. I got a call back from Gateway Community Bank and they want to meet with me again tomorrow! I really enjoyed speaking to everyone there last Friday. They were all very friendly to me. I hope something comes out of this because I think that I would really like working there. I am looking forward to graduating, but I am really going to miss some of my friends here at school. Mainly, Megan, Bridget, Jessica, Michelle, and Ashley. It's going to be weird getting used to something completely different. I'm pretty used to Rockford, but I will be living there and not just visiting anymore. That is going to be my home. It's exciting and scary at the same time. I feel that I am ready for this step in my life so I know that it won't take long to get used to all of the changes.

4/22/2004 at 7:25 AM (Mark Baylor) - This morning April is in a really good mood because she has finished her major papers and her birthday is tomorrow! Work is starting to pile up at KMK again, which is just a ton of fun. ;) Nothing has really changed at all. My annual review is coming up at work, let's hope they see all of the hard work and present me with a decent raise! I know I deserve it. I have only been programming for a year, but I feel that my skills have surpassed a years worth of experience thanks to some help from others (Ken, Shamus). It's fun talking about cool things you can do with programming with other programmers. I looked into getting some more indepth training. Turns out that would cost over $2,000 and I'm not even sure if it would help out. It is a 5 day course though :) I would rather just take that $2,000 for myself and buy some more books.

4/20/2004 at 3:55 PM (April Wible) - I can sure tell it is getting close to the end of the semester. I have been working on my MQM 385 and FIL 354 group papers all weekend and all this week. They are both due tomorrow plus the presentations for them are also. We are finished with FIL 354 paper as of today at about 3! It turned out to be about a total of 26 pages. Jess, Megan, Bridget, and I are getting together tonight to work on our PowerPoint and presentation. I have been working on revising 385 and it is difficult because of the financial analysis. We will get it done because we have to. Megan, Bridget, Jackie, and I are meeting for this presentation tonight also. Jeff has to work so he won't be able to meet with us. That just means that tomorrow we are probably going to meet at 3 in order to go over it one last time. My exam that was Thursday has been moved to Tuesday because about everyone in my class has a ton to do this week. Most of us are taking the same courses so that is why. I haven't heard back from Rock Valley Credit Union yet, but she said I would sometime this week so I'm just waiting. That is my life this week. Busy, busy, busy!! Next week school is pretty much all over!!!

4/20/2004 at 12:28 PM (Mark Baylor) - Today has been peachy, at the most. Planning for KMK Media's new site is underway, and I am in charge of building all of the dynamic content, including a login area for clients to view their company profile and a login area for us to view client information. April is stranded with homework...big surprise at the end of the semester. I barely even got to talk to her yesterday. That will all change in 3 weeks when she comes and crashes the bachelor pad. I guess Pamela A. has to come down off the wall. Softball meeting is tonight, I am anxious to find out what they have to say and to meet my teammates. I guess the team only won 3 games last year. We will need to change that. I already know that April and people from work are going to come watch me play, sounds like I will have to hot dog it out there. No matter how tidy I try to be in my office there is STUFF everywhere! The half dead plant in here is going home tonight, it looks terrible and hopefully being outside will help it out a little. Alright, back to my monosyllabic life.

4/17/2004 at 4:49 PM (April Wible) - I had my interview yesterday as well as the two meetings to discuss my career interests. I feel that all three went pretty well. I sure hope that something comes out of them. Mark and I rode bikes to Rock Cut today. It was a total of about 7.5 miles. It was beautiful riding by the water. We are now going to go to Wal-Mart to get some food and possibly cook out on the grill. :) We set up my computer beside Mark's so that I can work on my papers while he programs more stuff for our site. Yes, we are nerds, but it's not fair for me to take over his computer and make him be bored.

4/14/2004 at 2:47 PM (Mark Baylor) - Well, got a few new sections done on the site today. This includes an events section, tech section, and the photo gallery is finally done. There are even two photo sections in the gallery already. There are going to be many more as time warrants. I am looking forward to April interviewing, I really hope she gets this job as it is coming down to the wire. I DO have confidence, but do have doubts because of the awful job market. Go April. Go April. I am the cheerleader at this point, cracking the whip to make sure she is calling, calling, calling! Tonight I think that I am going to pull the bike out.

4/13/2004 at 10:07 PM (April Wible) - I have an exam tomorrow in my risk management class. I studied some yesterday and a lot today so I am not too worried about it. I also have tomorrow morning to study. I have started packing since there is only two and a half weeks before finals. My graduation announcements came in the mail today so my mom is bringing them to me tomorrow night. Be expecting them very soon. :) I did get a call back from the phone interview on Thursday. The interview is Friday so I can't work at the bank at home. Oh well, I do need the money, but I need a full time job a little more. I really hope I get this job. I know someone that works there and she said that the benefits are really good. To me that is a major plus even if I don't get paid all that much. I will always need insurance. Time to study a little more then it's off to bed.

4/12/2004 at 12:05 PM (Mark Baylor) - April's computer is faster than mine, so I am going to tell her that all of her parts are bad so I can steal them one at a time. Only kidding...Today has been a decent day, kinda boring. Programing in ASP is like driving down Alpine during rush hour (all you Rockford residents know what I am talking about!) Had a Tom and Jerry's chicken sandwich for lunch. Bad for me, but it was awesome. Now for the rest of the day I get to work with ASP and SQL. SQL gooood. ASP baaaad!

4/12/2004 at 10:42 AM (April Wible) - Last night was very stressful because Mark and I thought that my hard drive was going to fail. My computer has been very slow lately and locked up without booting into Windows. One of my fans is going out too, so Mark opened it up and took a look and said that my hard drive was making a weird sound. So we looked it up online and it means that it's going to fail. I backed everything up so that if it does fail I will not lose all of my papers that are due soon. When Mark got home he listened to his hard drive and said that it sounded very similar to mine so maybe mine isn't going to fail. We can sure hope; we decided that we would try reformatting this weekend and see what happens. All I know is that I cannot lose my papers for these projects, so I'm going to save them on a cd.

4/10/2004 at 4:49 PM (Mark Baylor) - I'm sitting here in April's room, and she is asleep (not a big surprise :) ) I thought that I would write about my dad. He had some problems with irregular heartbeat and he was in the hospital again. They checked to see if his stint closed, and it was fine, so they had to put 3 electrodes into his heart to test his heart's ability to deal with heartbeat changes. He was really worried about the test, but he passed it with flying colors...what a relief. My dad and mom are watching Jeff play baseball up in LaCrosse. I hope that if he pitches that he does great. I am not going to be able to see him over Easter, which is unfortuate, but I am celebrating with April's family instead. I haven't seen them in a long time. Well back to watching April sleep..ha!

4/9/2004 at 1:03 PM (Mark Baylor) - Well, just got an e-mail about softball. We start playing this month on Thursday nights! It's time to get in shape. I need a glove and shoes...etc. Brings back the excitement of playing ball in the past. We are playing at the Sportscore diamonds if anyone in Rockford wants to watch. I will post the schedule when I am sure about it.

4/9/2004 at 6:46 AM (April Wible) - The last couple of days have been ok. I did receive a call from a place that I sent a resume to. It was somewhat of a phone interview and she said that they would call back to set up an interview or I would receive a letter in the mail. So hopefully it's a call! I really don't understand some people, they don't respect others around them very much. We now have 3 weeks until finals! Pretty much all of my work is due the week of the 19th then I am done until finals, at least with my major projects.

4/7/2004 at 7:53 PM (Mark Baylor) - It was honestly hard going back to KMK today. I really enjoyed being at Cadbury Adams, what fun! Coming back to KMK means programming in ASP (ick) and dealing with problems on other websites. I am excited because KMK Media Group is getting another identity, which is much needed. The website is also going to get a huge facelift. I will keep you posted as updates are made to www.kmkmedia.com.

4/6/2004 at 9:23 PM (April Wible) - Tonight was awesome! I basically had nothing to do. I revised our Risk Management project so that we would be able to turn in a draft to our teacher. Other than that I watched TV and talked online. I guess I did compare answers to my Advanced Financial Theory homework with Megan. We got the same thing so that means it has to be correct, right? hehe I started to write my part of our Problems in Business project, but realized that I needed to talk about some of the information with my group members and my teacher. I watched American Idol and none of them were very good. Of course they were better than I am! Tomorrow is my parent's anniversary, but I have no idea how many years. I know it's at least 12 because that is my brother's age. I know, I'm a bad daughter. :) I spoke with a few more people about jobs today, but they aren't hiring so I had to just send them my resume and hope for the best. Someday, I will get a job, I know it! If I was smart I would start packing some of the things I never use so that way it is done.

4/6/2004 at 8:21 PM (Mark Baylor) - Don't you hate it when people pretend they are listening but really aren't showing interest at all. Me too! Today was a very good day. I was in-house at Cadbury Adams today installing their new intranet. We were having a problem yesterday that could not be fixed, but today we found a workaround. I came home a little early, and pumped up the tires on my bike and took a 12 mile ride in Rock Cut State Park. It was a beautiful day, as you probably saw on our homepage in the weather section. It was up to at least 73 today. The weather man apparently said not to look forward to that for much longer. I like days like this because I actually get exercise. I tried making some chocolate pudding on the stove from the mix and burned it. Nothing tastes or smells much worse...my apartment still stinks of it. Oh well, live and learn. If you have any ideas for making this site better, go the Contact Us section and send us some suggestions. I have run out of ideas and have too much time on my hands.

4/5/2004 at 9:59 PM (April Wible) - I called a few more people today about jobs. I also spoke with the guy I interviewed with and he told me that he had two loan officer positions and one loan coordinator position available. So I'm not really sure what is going on there. He was actually out of town and said that he would call me later this week. So hopefully he does. Both of my groups for my classes have gotten a little more done on our projects. Both of them are due on April 21st and will probably be at least 50 pages a piece. Thank goodness they are group papers. Actually they haven't been as hard as I was anticipating.

4/4/2004 at 10:21 PM (April Wible) - Tonight has been frustrating because I have been talking to Mark about jobs and looking online for them. Everything about finding a job is frustrating. I am trying my hardest to not lose hope, but it sure is hard. I know that I just need to keep calling people and asking more questions. Eventually I will fall upon something. Mark has been very helpful in trying to keep my spirits up. That is one of the reasons I love him so much! I know that I can be difficult, but he somehow continues to talk and gives me more hope. It was a little cooler out today, but still nice. Mark and I watched movies on Comedy Central all day. Yes, we were very lazy. :) He had to go home which gets old, but I know that means it's one week closer to graduation. Looking at my schedule for the week, I don't have all that much to do except study for an exam that I have on Monday. Have a great week and continue checking back because I'm sure we will have more to say. :)

4/4/2004 at 1:50 PM (Mark Baylor) - Today has been a relaxed day. April got a rejection letter in the mail from First Federal :(. She will get a job, I'm convinced. It's just so hard to get one in Rockford now. I hear that garbagemen and women get paid well. j/k! The job market in Rockford couldn't be much worse. There are lots of Bank Teller positions, but I know that Arpil wants to take a job that utilizes her major, which is understandable. In my job I really feel like I am starting to get the .NET programming thing, which makes me feel good. Soon I will have my 1 year review, and let's hope that KMK recognizes my ability to program. I know other people do. Well now I am off to relax and maybe go out and enjoy this sunny day. Send April an e-mail to help her cheer up!

4/3/2004 at 10:38 PM (April Wible) - We went to Weldon Springs with Mark's Grandma today. It was a lot of fun. I already changed my clocks so that I won't forget. :) Today's weather was very nice. The sun was shining and the wind was blowing. We were at the mall a little too long to make it to the food court for dinner so we decided to eat at James John's (that is what Mark calls Jimmy John's). Since we were busy all day we decided that tonight we would just sit back and relax watching some tv.

4/3/2004 at 10:15 AM (Mark Baylor) - April and I got up this morning, and looked out the window, what a beautiful day! So we decided...maybe we should go to Miller Park. Then I thought, we were going to go have lunch with my Grandma tomorrow, but she was going with her sister. So we are going to Clinton today to visit Weldon Springs with my Grandma. We decided on either Jimmy John's or Monical's for lunch. Either one will hit the spot. We are now off to beautiful Clinton, IL. It's going to be 60 today...a taste of what's to come.

4/2/2004 at 9:36 PM (April Wible) - Mark is making me write this. :) He basically summed up our night. We wanted to do something, but since everything costs money we decided we better not. The weather was pretty nice today, but a little cool tonight. I love that it is beginning to warm up! Wouldn't it be nice to be given $5,000 to go shopping for clothes? My only problem would be that they have you buy things that are incredibly expensive. I want the money to buy clothes at the prices I spend now. That would be so many clothes!!!

4/2/2004 at 9:19 PM (Mark Baylor) - It's Friday night, and April and I are watching What Not To Wear, and it's a commercial. We went to Chili's tonight, yummm. Saw Chris Hardi and his fiance Angela. It was good to see them again. They of course were going to the best store on earth, Best Buy. I bought a G3 DVD tonight, starring Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Yngwie (pronounced Ing-vey) Malmsteen. It's good, like my last post, we could have seen that concert! Back to TV!

4/2/2004 at 6:33 AM (April Wible) - I love waking up when the sun is shining into my room. It puts me in a good mood. Mark is coming to ISU tonight to visit me. :) I am working all day at the bank, but since I got a lot accomplished last night I won't have to do any homework this weekend. That means that Mark doesn't have to be bored unless we both are. haha Have a great Friday!!

I would have to say that I programmed about the coolest thing I have programmed today! Our blog automatically archives entries by month. I know, I know...why am I so excited?...because that's one less thing that I have to do!

I watched a Steve Vai DVD tonight, what an amazing musician. He can hang with the best of them. I have been on this instrumental rock kick lately, listening to Joe Satriani and Steve Vai religiously. Sure I like modern rock, but do you know a single modern rock player that can play like Satriani...not even a chance. I had the chance to go to the G3 concert (I have already been to one), but I wanted to see them again...Vai, Satriani, Malmsteen...didn't have the funds! Oh well, maybe next time!

Since the completion of the Cadbury Adams intranet, I have felt much better about my abilities as a .NET programmer. It feels good to finally have it done!

For anyone that is not familiar, Cadbury Adams manufacturers a lot of items that most people see every day, such as Certs, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, Trident Gum, Dentyne Gum, Halls Cough Drops, and the list goes on and on. I had a meeting here in the Rockford plant to show them the intranet and everyone loved it, which takes a thousand pounds off my shoulders. Now I think a KMK Website redesign is in order.

What else is on the plate you ask. Prince of Peace Church website (off hours), Aquaritrack website (also off hours), and whatever KMK has to throw at me. I am looking forward to this warm weather to get out biking again. Won't be long!

It is very frustrating looking for a job. Every place I called today said they are not hiring at this time. I know I just have to keep trying, but it sure does get frustrating. Mark is doing an awesome job at making this site interesting! Hopefully we will continue to think of new ideas to add. If you have any suggestions, let us know.