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.

I'm going to Disney World! Want to come?

Maybe I should start off by saying that I'm coming home soon! Yay!! At least I think I am. I'm still waiting for an itinerary but I'm scheduled to leave Sunday, March 15th and I'm currently training in my replacement so everything seems to be on track. I'd also like to note that I am now updating my blog because I want to and I actually have some news to share; not because some annoying people (cough Burman) are pestering me again.

Now on to the Disney World part. I just found out the my next deployment will be to Orlando, April 6th-10th, for training to become a test administrator. I was once again volunteered for this duty, which I hope turns out to be a good thing. I personally get nervous for testing and will probably have a slightly nauseous feeling until April 6th when I complete my part of the testing and can breath a sigh of relief. I'll be tested on my abilities the first day then, assuming I pass, I'll spend the rest of the week training for the temporary position. After being certified as a test administrator, I'll travel around the US up until September 1st when the testing should be completed nationwide. The traveling will likely be short deployments of 3-15 days with time at home in between, which I would spend working at MSP unless I take vacation.

So I'm not actually going to Disney World, just Orlando. However I will be staying in the Buena Vista Palace Hotel (www.buenavistapalace.com) for a week and if any of you want to share my room free of cost for the week you are welcome to join me. You will have to make your own flight arrangements though. Let me know if you're interested or have any questions right away.

Since I'm scheduled to return home on April 10th, I'm hoping to be home for Easter. What are the Stewart family plans? I think I'll request vacation for it, especially since it's little Chrissy's 21st.

I really should get back to work now, but I can't end this post without sharing the big news. My brother finally proposed! And even more shocking, Courtney said 'yes.' I'm so excited for them because I think Courtney's awesome and will be a great addition to the family! They're working on plans for a fall wedding in North Carolina. CONGRATULATIONS, PHILL AND COURTNEY!!!

The Good and the Bad of 2009

The new year just started and there's already a couple defining moments...at least in my life. Starting off with the good news, I am very excited to have a new President in office. I'm working in Virginia right now just outside of DC so it was an exciting place to be during the inauguration. The crowds were so enormous for this event that many agencies worked together to make sure everything went smoothly. Over 300 TSOs (Transportation Security Officers), most of whom were part of the NDF, were brought into help. I was hoping for a more direct role in the inauguration but I had to work behind the computer writing reports just like any other day. It was fun to see so many of my NDF friends though. It had been year's since I've seen many of them.

I was able to get together with Patty, Alice, and LaDonna. We had a chance to catch up and play Shanghai Rummy. I'm sure Patty would want me to let you all know that she won with 125 pts. It doesn't happen too often so I'll let her have a moment to shine......Okay, moments over.

The other big news was that LaDonna's engaged!!! She's been keeping this very quite so she caught us off guard, but we're all very happy for her and wish her the best! (If you look close, you might be able to see the ring! I should have made her show it off but it's hard enough to get her in the picture at all.)
Now for the bad news. As many of you have probably heard, my dad will begin radiation treatments in about two weeks. After rereading his test results, my dad's doctor noticed that there are signs of cancerous cells in the "margins" surrounding his prostate. It seems as if the same test results were misread back in September. Of course this was a major blow to my dad and my family since we were all very hopeful and happy with his recovery after surgery. The good news is that time wasn't lost on treatment because he would have had to wait at least 4 months even if he had known right away that there were still cancerous cells. That fact didn't help on the emotional side of things however. So now it's another waiting game. We're all praying for the best results possible.

Well, that's all for now. The invitation is still open to come out for a visit to DC if anyone wants to come and can get the time off. I've got plenty of room for guests. And one last note since every one's asking...I'm still here until March 15th as far as I know.