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Today's Featured Biography

 
Rob Nielson

20 years? 20 years??? 20 YEARS!?!

You gotta be yankin' my chain! Seems like only yesterday we were all hanging out on campus (or off) and having a good time together. Ahhh, where has time gone?

This summer I am up in Idaho finishing up my Masters degree and then taking the whole family down to Texas (where I have been living this past year). I've got a fantastic job teaching ASL at Westwood High School (one of the top 100 high schools in the nation). As much as I'd love to live in Utah, the quality of education for our kids is better in Texas, so we'll probably stay there until the kiddos finish school and then perhaps the wife and I will move back up to Utah and I'll teach ASL at the college level again.

Class is about to start, so gotta run. I'll add more (including pictures) later. Hope to be able to make it to the reunion this summer!

OK... back from class. Memo to self - NEVER take summer classes again. Compressing normal 16-week classes into two weeks SUCKS!

So, what have I been up to? Oooh, about 6 feet. Yeah, I'm still into lame jokes. Sorry.

I've been married since June 30, 1990 to the beautiful Karen Renee Prolo (17th anniversary coming up for those of you who still haven't figured out how to pass math). We have 5 kids. The oldest just turned 15 (son). My next oldest is 13 (daughter) and she was born with PMS. Anyone want her? That's what I get for promising my wife she can have a "barbie". My next is a daughter who's 11, a son who's 9, and we finished up with a son who's now 7.

What in the world were we thinking? My wife and I gave birth to our first in California (where we were living at the time). The nurse said - "do you want your tubes tied?" We should have taken that as a sign. *grin* Just kidding. We love all our kids, but as Bill Cosby said - "My wife and I have five children and the reason why we have five children is because we do not want six!" I think that explains it all.

So, what have I been up to? *takes a DEEP breath* Well, I served a Deaf mission for the LDS Church from 1988-90 in the California San Jose Mission (the GREATEST mission in the world!), came home to Utah, dated around for a bit (wow, the stories they say about girls chasing RMs are true!), went back to California, got engaged, moved back to Uah, got married in the SLC temple, attended Salt Lake Community College for a while (also taught ASL there at the same time), moved back to California and worked out there for a couple years, moved to Utah again, then up to Vancouver, Washington (rains too much), back to Utah, hopped around Utah for a bit, worked mostly as a computer programmer at this time, got sick of the garbage going on with companies in the computer industry at this time, quit and drove trucks over the road for a couple years (boooooring!), it was interesting to see parts of the US I've never seen before (been to 45 states and to Canada), but I decided to go back to school again and finish up my degree (switched from majoring in computers to majoring in teaching), taught ASL at Idaho State University and BYU-Idaho during this time, graduated with an A.S. in Sign Language Studies (easiest degree I ever earned cuz I knew more than the teachers and they knew I did too), got a BS in "University Studies with an emphasis in Secondary Education and American Sign Language" (yes, that really is the name of my degree and, like my A.S., the ASL portion of it was a breeze), started on my masters in "Deaf Education" and was hired to teach ASL at Westwood High School in Austin, Texas, hope to finish up my Masters this summer (or December - worst case scenario).

*gasps for air* Did you notice that was all one big, long, run-on sentence? Heh heh.

During all this time 5 kids were born. For the first 10 years my wife was a stay-at-home mom. But when we finally decided it was time to get serious about my post-secondary education she started working as a sign language interpreter at ISU. (I knew that teaching her to sign would come in handy some day!)

Alas, despite settling down into a new job as a high school ASL teacher and finishing up my Masters, the wife will still have to work for a bit. High school teachers just don't make much (almost half of what I was earning as a programmer but at least I enjoy doing what I do and feel like I'm making a difference) and the kiddos need braces. Oh well, hopefully in a couple/few years once my online ASL classes website takes off it can supplement my teaching income and my sweetie can stay home.

I'm still a major BYU fan (often use the moniker - BYUFanatic online) and for those of you who have seen my BYU clothes back in high school - I have even MORE BYU clothes. Seems that everyone likes giving me BYU stuff. I've properly taught some of my kids to correctly say "pukes" when referring to the "u of ewe". My middle son's favorite color is blue. If anything, he'll be a bigger BYU fan that I am. Being down here in Texas is "Football Country". The high school stadium is bigger than that of most small colleges across the country.

Uh oh, gotta run again. The librarian is kicking everyone out and I've got a thesis paper to finish up by tomorrow morning.

Bye ya'll! (working on my Texas accent)

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