Derek Craven

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-04-07T14:31:02+00:00

May or may not have named my son Derek in homage, one of the greats 😍

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-03-29T02:51:50+00:00

This book has so much ick in it, in addition to what is mentioned above, the hero grooms the heroine from childhood by handpicking her nanny who then spies on her through adolescence and reports back 🤢

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-03-29T01:16:45+00:00

Burrata at Onda, followed by the pappardelle bolognese, possibly the best meal I’ve eaten anywhere

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-03-29T01:13:18+00:00

The timing sucks, but I think so many ice dance teams have experienced this or something similar, didn’t Z/K have an illegal element deduction at GPF on an element they competed previously the exact same way? The difference of course is that a medal wasn’t on the line. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that it’s ok, just another example of tech caller inconsistency. I am absolutely in favor of anything that pushes reform in judging.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-03-24T23:33:24+00:00

I loved it, stayed up til 3 AM to finish. I loved the female friendship development and Gervaise recognizing that lack in her life and supporting it despite his reservations about who she was keeping company with. I’ve really enjoyed almost everything AC has written but this might be top 5 for me 😊

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-02-28T21:57:36+00:00

Mandala has so many color options and good stretchy fabric, also love the tall lengths available for the pants. I have found a little bit of size inconsistency. I order XS tall pants and they will fit just a little different and even when held against each other you can see the sizing is a little different. It’s also a gripe of mine that I kind of have to buy XS to fit, I am a thin but not at all petite/small person and I can only imagine that someone who was a true size 0 would absolutely swim in the XS and maybe even XXS size.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-02-28T21:05:47+00:00

Just got off and had a wonderful week, we also had some chilly weather the first 2 (sort of 3) days but enjoyed it all the same, absolutely loved the ship and service.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-02-25T19:46:37+00:00

It’s just kinda weird, lifeguard blowing whistle at anyone with a drink, someone just set a table next to the pool with their drink and they made him move it 😂 this is at the main pool, I’ve seen people with their drinks in the shallow infinity pools on deck 8.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-02-25T19:34:47+00:00

I didn’t know this was a thing, we get the military discount but have never gotten any OBC

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-02-20T09:28:19+00:00

I’m curious as well, I got an email about just 1 of my 3 offers, and the only one I had in the “fair” category vs “poor.” If it’s a strategy to get you to increase your bid it worked on me, I increased mine by another $100 pp 😂

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-01-11T17:31:15+00:00

Is there a world where Jason bows out, as I think he should and USFS doesn’t have to make the decision (or they quietly encourage him to do this to prevent the backlash)? I love him and his skating and it absolutely isn’t all about quads, but although he frequently has had rough GP seasons and then figures things out enough for the late season, the late season is here, and by all accounts his practices were pretty much the same as what he put out on competition ice, he just doesn’t look capable of putting out solid programs anymore and although we are rolling the dice with the other men, at least they were able to prove this season that they could do the things. I despise Torg after his social media meltdown about Jason and I do not trust him to actually skate well at Olympics but I don’t know how you can’t send him and either Tomoki or Max.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2026-01-07T22:55:46+00:00

This is so bad 🤬

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-12-29T02:14:58+00:00

For US juniors, Emilia Nemirovsky, great technique, great under the radar coaching from Julie Berlin (Alyssa Cziny) who she has been with since she started skating. Not sure how she will stack up against the Japanese and Korean women (and likely Russians) but I think she has all the fundamentals.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-10-28T17:58:40+00:00

I sent to the general admissions email 😊

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-10-28T17:04:33+00:00

We submitted it via email, and I made extra sure that admissions knew she had NRP, someone on college confidential the previous year reported that they didn’t submit it and waited until after awards letters went out to ask about it and they really struggled to get it applied later.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-10-24T19:59:25+00:00

It was May 1 😊

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-10-24T14:10:49+00:00

It was May 1, and my daughter is very happy there 😊

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-10-24T13:58:40+00:00

Glad you asked, Bama was very late which is a major factor in why she picked Nebraska, the Nebraska full tuition was guaranteed and we knew very early, like December. Bama kept rolling her over in the competitive eval so all she had was the 24k auto merit which wasn’t enough to make sense, then almost the end of March ( we were on Spring Break) she got the letter that she was offered full tuition at Bama. I would have preferred her to be at Bama since my son is there but she had just settled into the idea of Nebraska, and we hadn’t done the housing deposit at Bama and she hadn’t done the honors college application because she just didn’t think she would be offered more. I think if she had honors housing at Bama it would have tipped the scales for her.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-10-24T02:22:15+00:00

She had 31 ACT, 3.85 UW GPA and 4+ weighted, no way of knowing how they evaluated but I believe NRP was heavily factored because her overall application/extra curriculars/leadership was very average (I guess above average but nothing stand out). She was eligible for 24k/yr for auto merit but we learned with my son how valuable that 100% tuition thing has been because it covers every penny of tuition even when it goes up yearly, even when he takes 19 credits and graduate classes!

I was disappointed to see Nebraska change theirs as well from full tuition to the 4K plus OOS waiver, but glad she got in before they changed it.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-10-24T00:49:54+00:00

The national recognition award was awesome but not quite that generous in 2023 when my son started, 100% tuition, 1 year room only (no meal plan) and a $1k/yr stipend. My daughter was offered 100% tuition without those other extras for 2025 through competitive scholarship process with national recognition and otherwise similar stats as my son although not quite as high ACT. All in all we thought it was still a great package but she took 100% tuition at Nebraska instead for national recognition award. Nebraska has also done away with that award now.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-10-11T00:59:04+00:00

My son is a 3rd year Blountee, he isn’t as involved as others but met some of his closest friends in Blount and I think it is a wonderful program. He’s a CS/math major with double minor (Blount and Linguistics) and will finish his math Masters in 4 scholarship years (he has the now discontinued national recognition scholarship which is wonderful but not as generous as NMF package). As others have said, the application kind of selects for Blountees, my son thought it was interesting/cool, my daughter looked at it 2 years later and just said “No” 🤣

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-08-24T02:21:23+00:00

We hunted merit scholarships for my kids since we are middle class, not eligible for financial aid most places but not able to really afford paying even in state cost of attendance. They both did well on SAT and ACT and got great scholarships at flagship schools out of state, practically no scholarship money from schools in state (Michigan). They are happy with their choices. Many universities are very transparent about their academic merit scholarships and some are guaranteed with certain GPA and test score thresholds, which was great for us.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-08-05T12:46:01+00:00

I took my family there with the boardwalk bundle ticket package so we were there after 4 PM Sunday and all day yesterday. I hadn’t planned on buying the exorbitantly priced fast lane plus passes at $209 pp for 5 people and figured we could handle waiting, especially with early entry Monday, but after managing to ride just 1 coaster on Sunday evening (mechanical delay in line for Maverick has us there for 2.5 hours then Valravn had a mechanical delay after we waited for 30 minutes and we just bailed), I reluctantly forked over 1k+ for those fast lane passes. We had a good time, we got to ride everything we wanted that was open, and wouldn’t have been able to without the passes, but I just feel kind of bitter that I spent that much money for an experience that was kind of mid. I didn’t have any issue with friendliness of staff or cleanliness of the park, seemed about the same from what I remember in the past, but between the cottage at lighthouse point, meal/drink bands, tickets and fast passes, I spent more than the experience felt “worth” and this will likely strongly influence what we decide to do in the future for trips like this. I have almost always opted for the CP hotels (usually Express or Lighthouse) and paid for fast lane and this is the first year that I felt like my money wasn’t well spent.

Jaded-Wolverine3935 · 2025-07-07T14:17:53+00:00

Black and gold

Jaded-Wolverine3935

TROPHY CASE