Buried Treasures

Other than the obvious benefit of having less junk, another plus to sorting through old piles of stuff is the laughs that come with it. With Katie's encouragement, I took a look through some crates that I haven't given a second thought in several years. Found a Tracfone from around 2000, a bunch of questionable batteries, and a pencil sharpener (Jill!). The highlight, however, was the old shoe box filled with letters, drawings, and cards. Many were from Chris. (He used to love me when he was little and I have proof.) There's also a few from college friends and the letters from Grandpa diligently typed on the see-through typewriter paper. Oddly, I also felt it necessary to keep the birthday cards from my Orthodontist, Dr. Molin and Staff. I made the big step today of recycling those ones. I also came across an old Polaroid of Chris. My guess is somewhere around 1994. Wasn't he cute?

Things on want to say on Facebook, but don't for fear of retribution

1) TICK…TOCK…TICK…TOCK… (No, you’re reading that much too quickly. I’m sure I just saw the second hand go in reverse.)

2) Seriously?!?! How is this airport still open? I’ve been here 21 days and screened a total of 4 passengers.

3) Whoever designed that defensive driving course is cruel. Could the narrator read any slower?

4) I think TSA should consider an exemption to the rule for Cat. IV airports. All internet sites (well, almost all sites) allowed in order to prevent us from poking our eyes out with sharp sticks.

5) What’s the reasonable number of miles I can "drive" daily for “authorized uses”? I want to make sure the mileage log is believable.

      Okay. That's enough for now. I could keep going but most of my thoughts right now relate to the extreme boredom I'm currently suffering so I'll spare you.

My Long Neglected Blog

Oh my...I knew it had been awhile, but almost two months is worse than I thought. Facebook is just so easy that I tend to forget about the old blog.

So what's happened in the last couple months? I guess I should start with my vacation to St. James/Southport, NC. To sum it up...I loved it. Beautiful area, beautiful weather, and welcoming community. After my visit, I think I may be even more excited about their wedding than Phill and Courtney...mostly because their wedding requires little prep work on my part.

Since that vacation, I've spent a month in Dallas, went home for two weeks, and now I'm in Fort Lauderdale. Dallas was fun. Thanks in large part to Margie, a friend and coworker who had her car for part of our stay, I had the opportunity to see a lot. I took a lot of pictures, but unfortunately my personal laptop is comatose and my work laptop will not allow me to load pics. I'll have a lot of catching up to do once I organize them on Katie's desktop and/or finally get around to buying a new laptop.

After Dallas and before Fort Lauderdale, I worked at home for a couple weeks. I chose not to take vacation so I could get my certifications up to date and also because I already have requested a week off in August plus another week in October. So I was busy with work except for one weekend which was spent mostly attending Amy Valek's bachlorette party. We had a good time at her sister's in Lakeville then made the trip down to Mankato.

I chose to put off packing for Fort Lauderdale til about 4:00 AM just 6 hours before my flight. In hindsight that may have been a mistake because it caused me to forget a few vital items. Most importantly my SWIMSUIT! I can't believe I remember to bring it for deployments to Colorado in the winter and forget it when I'm staying five miles from the beach. Luckily I have a nice roommate who I'm sure will mail it to me if she can find it in my mess of a room. It was recently struck by a F5 tornado and is still in the recovery process.

I think that's all for now. I'll be back in Minnesota on August 21st. Keep in touch!

Next Stop Dallas/Fort Worth

Just got word that I'm going to DFW immediately after my vacation to North Carolina. I'm scheduled to be there from 6/7/09-7/4/09. Unfortunately this means I won't be going to Pago Pago or Guam. Oh well, I knew my chances were slim. Really looking forward to vacation!

Detour to the Land of the Cheeseheads

I'm glad I took advantage of the weekend and made a trip to New York. Little did I know that it would be my last night here. At 6:25 pm, I got a call asking if I could make it on the 7:55 pm flight to Green Bay (via O'Hare). Since I wasn't packed and boarding was one hour away, we decided that was a little too close. Now I'm scheduled for a 7:00 am departure so in a couple hours I'll be surrounded by cheese and Packer fans. I'm still coming back to Minnesota on Saturday so no worries about making the trip to North Carolina. Time to finish packing!

Disastrous Day

Okay, so 'disastrous' might be a little over the top but I've definitely had better. Here's the highlights that I found funny even as they were happening. This was last Sunday. I chose to put off packing for Newark because I wanted to spend the little time I had in Minnesota with family instead. So my flights at 1:43 pm and I wake up around 4:00 am with my bags still completely packed from Indianapolis. My goal was basically to bring the same stuff, but less of it since I knew my trip would only be two weeks.

It didn't take long for me to realize that it was going to take some work to get my luggage down to one 50 lbs. bag. I'm sorting through my bags and throwing stuff out as I go when a plate comes tumbling out of my hanging shirts. I forgot I put it there to keep it from breaking. It didn't break on the fall, but it did hit my foot so hard that it actually bruised. Now there's an advertisement for Corelle.

Now I'm growing frustrated because I don't know what to pack, I'm tired, and my foot hurts. Jess calls after a long night on the overnight shift to cancel church plans. Probably a good thing because I still wasn't ready. After a quick goodbye to the Madsens, Tom took me to the airport. Luckily I had my badge and was able to go through the employee lane because the other checkpoint lines were very long. The plane was packed just as promised, but thankfully I was able to sleep through some of that.

I had a layover at Chicago O'Hare and on his way in for the landing the pilot proudly announced that we are actually making an on-time arrival. That was only half the battle though. I discovered that my one hour layover was delayed. I ended up waiting for a total of 3 1/2 hours, but at least my flight wasn't canceled. We board and I crawl into my middle seat. Yay! Comfy.

After arriving in Newark, I just want to get to the hotel. I find the shuttle pick up location and was told the Marriott shuttle runs every 10 to 15 minutes. I wait for 20 and nothing so I go in to call and just as I'm hanging up I spot the Marriott shuttle speeding by with no intention of stopping. Great. It was another 40 minutes before I actually got on the shuttle. Very annoying.

It's been almost a week now. Pretty uneventful. Newark has crazies too that take an eternity to test. I plan to go to New York tomorrow than one more week of work. It won't before I'm relaxing in North Carolina. Now that deserves a hardy, non-sarcastic YAY!

Easter and Indiana

Update time again. My training in Orlando went well. I passed all my testing and picked up on the training without much trouble. Katie and Renee were able to join me for a few days and I think they had a good time. Unfortunately the weather didn't really cooperate until after they left and I didn't have much time off to spend with them.

I got home just in time to spend Easter with my family and celebrate Chris and Phill's birthdays. It was an interesting day with two church services and Easter breakfast followed by hunting for our baskets, a huge dinner, and several attempts to get Chris drunk. (Sadly, he was very uncooperative.)

(Sorry these pics are so tiny. I didn't bring my originals with me so all I have for the time being are Facebook thumbprints.)

After a day of golfing and a couple more vacation days, I was off to Indianapolis known for the Indy 500 and sounding similar to Minneapolis when spoken quickly. I knew I'd be sent somewhere soon since I was called twice on my vacation, first to go to Detriot then to go to Fargo. My deployment here in Indiana is through May 15th. I probably won't have time for another deployment until after my vacation the 1st week of June which may work out in my favor since I noticed that Guam and Siapan start their testing of 2nd week of June. Here's hoping I can get on that list.