Finland!!!

So from May 5-11th, I was traveling the western parts of the US.  The following weekend, I drove to LR to see V graduate from pharmacy school. I had ordered her flowers, but by 6pm that night, I realized they weren't coming.  I spent over an hour on the phone with the florists, but no luck.  I ended up having some time after the Friday ceremony to swing out and grab some flowers and, essentially, make a bouqet for her.  On Friday, she got her Pharmacy hood.  The place was packed, but kinda brought back good memories from graduation.  We went to eat out with her family and some family friends and had a great dinner. 

Saturday morning, we went to a breakfast in DT LR where she met with some friends and just kinda sat around.  I used some points from my 60 days in a hotel to get us a nice room on the river and we (her, her family and myself) hung out until it was time for the real graduation ceremony.  It was held at Verizon arena and it was stupid crowded getting there.  Once inside, we moved up to the top deck and had a great view of her walking across the stage. After that, her family left and we down to the river to walk around downtown.  I left on Sunday and headed back to DFW, where my week was just waiting to be rocked.

Monday morning, May 21, I got a phone call asking me if I had an active passport. I did, so the next question was if I would be willing to go to Finland for six weeks.  Of course, I said yes and that leads me to today, where I am packing my bags to head back to the USA.  I have been here for almost six weeks (over forty days) and I will spend a few days in Dublin with my little brother. 

The town I am living in is called Jyvaskyla and it's a university town. Many places know English and I've talked to several people at great length.  It's a gorgous little town.  I started my first two weeks in an apartment uptown (one week with Dennis and one with Tommy).  Our apartment had a nice sauna and two bedrooms.  Now I am living in a sweeeet studio that overlooks the bay and is downtown.  I can see several bars from my patio on the 10th floor and it's probably the tallest building downtown. It's AWESOME! 

The second weekend I was here (June 9th) we drove eight hours to the arctic circle.  It was myself, Tommy and Robert.  Dennis had just arrived after being in the states for a week and didn't feel up to a long trip. Boy was it long!  It was really cool seeing about half of the country.  On the way there, we stopped at an IKEA in Sweden and I got a geocache.  Once we got to the arctic circle, we were starving and wanted McDonalds (it's the further north in the world) and decided it was probably at the Santa Claus Village.  We were wrong. However, we did see a bunch of cool shops, got a webcam cache and found a real cache in a little native Finnish village.  It was cool stuff.  On the way there, we saw a moose and on the way back, we saw several reindeer.  Apparently people own reindeer here like cows.  Every year they gather up the heard and split up the new calves and such.  Since it was warming up, the reindeer were shedding and ugly. 

The next weekend was a relaxing weekend; we didn't do much of anything since we had such a big trip the week before.  On the 21st, at work, we had a sausage cookout.  The 22nd is the mid-summer holiday for Finns and everything shuts down.  Since we figured most people would be out of town, we went to Helsinki.  It was dead!  On the way there, the road was packed leaving town and empty heading there. We were able to walk around freely.  While we were downtown, I noticed two people who seemed to be looking for a geocache. It turns out, they were from Seattle and were looking for a cache.  We pointed them in the right direction and they turned me on to a cache nearby with two TBs.  I gave them one of mine to carry along.  As we were in town, Dennis called and told us about an airshow about four hours from Helsinki.  The last show was at 11pm, so we hurried and left town to check it out.
         The show was going to cost 35 euros, so Robert bailed out.  Tommy didn't want to go, so I headed off into Finland to find this show.  Turns out that the show ENDED at 11.  I got about 30 minutes down the road when I got a call from Dennis and I decided to turn around.  I could get to town by 10:30, but I didn't want to pay full price for a third of a show.  Instead, I decided to geocache nearby.  It was a nice nature trail and the cache was on a gorgeous still lake.

Speaking of gorgeous, the weather here is great!  I think it's been in the 70s maybe three times so far. Most of the time it's cooler and it rains a lot. I like the weather, although the mosquitos do too.

Wednesday, the 27th, we went out with the plant manager, an engineer Marko and Tommi, the program manager for drinks and dinner.  We had one or two and headed to a place called Harolds.  It was a viking themed place two floors underground and it was gooooood.  I had reindeer steak, boar sausage and pheasant breast.  We also took shots of "tar" and had "tar" ice cream.  It tasted a lot like liquid smoke and I suspect that is the main ingredient. It was good, but not great. 

Last weekend,  June 29th-July 1st, we managed to get a cruise to St. Petersburg.  I did lots of research and found out you can enter Russia for 72 hours if you enter via cruise.  The ship was really cool.  There were several restaraunts and bars and the bottled drinks and food was a little cheaper than here in Jyvaskyla.  It took forever to get through passport control in Russia and we all ended up carrying our bags around town because we booked two one way trips and couldn't keep our room.   We stepped out of the station at 11am without any Rubles.  We grabbed a tour bus (you have to take a tour bus to town) and stopped at the first place we could.  We walked into a hotel and exchanged our Euros for Rubles (I now had three currencies in my pocket).  We started at St Isaacs cathedral and the map I had was completely useless (I ended up buying one at a store later).  I was completely disoriented, so we wandered around for a bit before we finally made it to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.  Of course, we took lots of pictures and then visited the market. After that, we went for food and decided to catch the metro to the Harley shop in St. Petersburg.  After getting off way out of town, we walked to the Harley shop.  It wasn't there!!!  So we kept walking and visted Peter and Paul Fortress.  I went after my first cache there, with no luck.  We then decided to walk the rest of the way around the island and go by the Military Museum.  I visited there with Megan and Chris and Titus when we were in town in 2006 and it looks like it has expanded some.  We then went by the Naval Columns (I got a cache finally) and on to the main square.  From there, we went back to the market and I got two Razorback nesting dolls and a sweet beer glass.  Overall, I spent around 100 Euro on the excursion and then we took the metro as close to the ship as possible and walked...and walked...and walked...until our feet hurt and finally, 15 minutes before closing, we made it.  It was only six or so hours in town and we saw a lot, but there was plenty we didn't see. On the way out of port, there was a nice Soviet era Leningrad sign. A great way to end the day! 

Now it's almost time to go and I'm a bit sad.  I bought an ammo can and a dummy bullet at an army navy store and I took them to work.  One guy offered to repaint the can and did and another guy got me a brand new, legitimate dummy bullet.  It's so cool!  I took them apart and really, really hope they don't get stuck in security.

Day One Saturday 
We got up a little late at V’s house and ended up leaving at 7:30. We stopped in a town just inside Missouri to get some hog magnets and an atlas and some water. They didn’t have hog stuff, so we left sad. Just prior we had danced in front of the Missouri line. The whole state was pretty boring, although KC was kinda cool. Just north of town, we stopped to eat lunch at Panera ; it was great. We grabbed one cache at a rest stop just north of there and moved into Iowa. They didn’t have a welcome center, so we moved on until we came to one of the points where Nebraska was close. We jumped over the river to the Lewis and Clark trail center outside of Nebraska City. We talked to the guy at the counter there for a bit, bought some honey sticks and a post card and went looking for the cache. We searched all over this big wooden replica, but it turned out that our cords were off. We found the cache pretty easy over in a picnic area. We jumped back across the line and headed north to Omaha. There we decided to go for a quick PnG. We got lost and decided to keep trekking north to Blair, NE. Once there we stopped at a veteran memorial and found the cache. Then I went over to Walgreens and got some local sports team shirt. They are the Blair bears. Awesome. We drove back across the river and stateline and jumped out for our first Iowa cache at a truck stop. It was hidden in an electrical box attached to a light pole. Obviously didn’t belong. We then decided to cut north into MN. We kept screwing around with the GPS and it gave us all sorts of directions (good and bad). As we crossed the line, we saw this little state sign. So I stopped and we dance some more. We had hit MO, IA, NE and now MN on our dancing state line stops. We grabbed the three caches in MN as the sun set and the cold rain came in. We stopped on the way through Sioux Falls and had some nice Arbys food. I ate way too much, but it was good. On our way to the hotel in Mitchel, we were detoured by a cop. He sent us north to some road that looked like it was out of Jeepers Creepers. Creepy. We hit some bad rain, and when we made it to Mitchel (thanks to the atlas and NOT the GPS), the town was flooding. There was water everywhere and we couldn’t find our hotel. Finally we found it and crashed for the night. They had received softball sized hail earlier that day, so I was worried about the rental, but we made it through the night.

  Day Two Sunday 
We got up bright and early and headed to the Badlands. On the way, we stopped at the Minuteman Missile site and decided to go on a tour of the launch control center. It was awesome! It was just Chelsea, the ranger and myself. We talked about how there are still several missiles left active in the US and how we were not far from a mutual destruction with Russia. Awesome! We went down 40 ft or so into a capsule that was vibration isolated from the shock of a nuclear missile blast. They each have control of ten missiles and can have up to 50. After that, we went into the Badlands National Park. Here we took lots of pictures and managed to make a video dancing with some people from Canada. They were really nice and the dad seemed to like the dancing. There were fossils in the area. At the gift shop, I bought Chels a buffalo head band. It has horns and everything. One of the caches we found involved us hiking to a geographic marker and recording the erosion of the dirt around it. We did some math and figured like 0.16” a year! We got our first glimpse of some prairie dogs here. We left the Badlands and headed to Devil’s Tower. Heading there, we decided to stop at the WY welcome center. The only problem was that it was closed. So we drove the wrong way up the exit ramp for it and made the grab; it was in plain view of the interstate and the local road, but we got the cache! On the way there, some prairie dogs were in the road and we had to wait for them to cross. They were oblivious. We hiked the trail around the monuments and went on our way. On the way out, we grabbed a nice cache with a view. It wasn’t much of a cache, but the view was awesome. We then headed back to Rapid City to visit Mt Rushmore. We stopped on the way to grab a cache that was supposed to have a few TBs. Well it didn’t but it did make for a nice short hike in the woods near the view. Once we got to Mt. Rushmore, we decided not to pay to get inside and instead just took pictures outside. When we arrived, there was just enough light to see the faces. We waited a little bit and then the lights came on. We got several pictures and went back to the hotel in Rapid City, stopping at Little Caesars and Dominoes to get dinner. The hotel was a little nicer than the one we stayed at in Mitchel.  

Day Three Monday
We started the day in Rapid City, SD and headed due north. I’ve never driven on such a straight road. On the way there, we stopped in Belle Fourche to find the geographic center of the US. We stopped at a gas station and it was there we had our first hiccup of the trip; as a lady backed out of the gas station, she didn’t see us and she bumped against the car. We had a slight scratch and a small dent near the wheel well. It bothered me a lot, but the rental company seemed cool. I got the lady’s info and we went to the geographic center monument. It was only the center because of the addition of AK and HI. We couldn’t find the cache, so we rolled on to ND. On the way, we stopped at a local fire department and got a cache there. It was a huge tin with some decent swag. Chels grabbed a harmonica. We finally made it to the state line and got out to dance. I turned on the GPS and discovered there was a cache nearby. It was hidden near a fence post and was a small lotion type bottle. We made our first grab in ND and headed on. We kept on driving in the nothing and finally came on another cache (turns out I only loaded two for the state!). It was hidden in a bell near a church. We both had to use the restroom and considered asking to use the one there, but we decided to try the “gas” station. We weren’t really sure it was a gas station, but we stopped and there were bathrooms, we were relieved. We then rolled on west to Montana. Our first cache there was at an ATV, off-road vehicle park. We ran up the hill in the crazy wind and found the .50 cal ammo can. Not much swag, but I grabbed a jet. We found one other cache at a rest stop and then went on the Little Bighorn battlefield. Little Bighorn was really neat and we enjoyed all the history. We did a short trail and then the road trail, where we called a number to get details every stop. It was cool and there were tons of soldiers killed there. Heading back to Billings, we stopped at a museum and found a cache hidden in an old farm tractor. Chels grabbed some white shoe laces and we headed to Red Lodge. Once in Red lodge, we went to see if Beartooth pass was open. It was closed, so we went back to the hotel. The hotel is the Pollard and it’s an old school place. Really cool and old, but clean and nice. I called several places to eat and most were closed or closing, so we dashed across the road to a local bar and grabbed dinner. I had a buffalo burger and some porters. I tried the Red Lodge local porter and a Pigs Ass Porter. Gross.  

Day Four Tuesday 
Today was our Yellowstone day. We slept in again and ended up leaving around 930. Since Beartooth Pass was closed due to snow, we ended up going north and then south to get to the park. On the way into town, we stopped at a cache hidden at a cemetery. It was our first cache in a cemetery and pretty neat. The weather was quite nice, so we enjoyed getting out. We also decided, after talking to Andrew Miller (coworker from Montana), to visit Chico Hot Springs. It is naturally hot pools and pretty cool. We were a bit surprised to see it looked more like pools than anything. I was expecting something that looked more natural. There were a bunch of seniors from high school there and we got them to jump in our dancing video; they thought it was cool and asked us to take a picture with them for their yearbook. Awesome! We then headed to YSNP. The first place we visited in the park was the town of Mammoth Hot Springs. The town was literally that, a town. There were bison and caribou all over the place and tons of people. We went into the visitor center and looked around, but decided to just move into the park. Chels and I hit up the gift shops and I got a YSNP shot glass and then headed to the ice cream shop across the road. The flavors weren’t special, but they were good. I talked to a cute blonde at the counter (from Tennessee) and asked her opinion of the best place to see stuff. She advised the Grand Prismatic springs, which had lots of colors. We hit a few virtual and earth caches then moved on to see the sights. Really nothing too extraordinary, but it was cool to see the different kinds of bacteria and their colors. Many of the pools were boiling and some were mud pits that just popped and hissed. Cool stuff. We walked a few trails, many of which we had to ourselves. While heading through the park we hit a Bison-jam: a traffic jam caused by bison walking down the road. That lasted about 45 minutes or so and lots of traffic built up. It was kinda surreal. On the way to Old Faithful, we stopped and got a tent site reserved. I was upset they didn’t give me a discount for having a National Parks Pass, but I paid the $24 anyways. Finally, we headed to Old Faithful. We ended up walking the wrong way about a half mile before we figured out which way to go (after talking to a local employee). We were perturbed and it turned out we had just missed a show. So we sat for about 95 minutes until the next explosion. It was starting to get cold, so we headed to the camp site to build a fire. We set up the tent, built the fire and grilled some ham and cheese sandwiches. They were awesome. We cooked some marshmallows and called it a night. It didn’t take long to get super cold and I ended up sleeping with frozen toes most of the night.  

Day Five Wednesday 
Since we were freezing (34 degrees) and camping, we got up around 730 and started the fire. It didn’t do much, but we grilled more sandwiches and marshmallows, which were awesome. We then headed out of the park. It was bit sad we couldn’t spend more time, but we had seen enough. We stopped in West Yellowstone and changed into non-smokey clothes. We also grabbed a cache at the library and some gifts at a gift store. On to Idaho! We hit the Idaho line and did our dance and then went across the road to grab a cache in Montana. I walked across packed snow until I found a non-packed area. I fell in a foot or so, but didn’t get too wet. Grabbed the cache and moved on. Idaho is a lame state. The back roads weren’t very good and they had low speed limits. One highlight of the trip was stopping to get a cache at an Army depot store. The place was huge and I ran inside to check it out. Tons of stuff! The prices were a bit high though, so that was a bummer. However, the cache outside was pretty good according to Chelsea. She picked up a nightlight lava lamp thing. Finally, we made it to Utah. We did our dance (and got a nice honk from a trucker) and moved further south. We worked our way over to Golden Spike, grabbing a few caches on the way. Once we got to the spike, it was pretty lame. There were two big replica trains that were done down to the ¼” dimension. They also had some replica spikes (the real ones are at Stanford). Overall, I thought that the place was pretty lame. It was cool being way out in the nothingness though. We then headed into SLC. The traffic was busy, but moving. We finally made it through to Provo, the home of BYU around 6 or so. We had time to unpack and then go grab something to eat. It was okay, but nothing special. They had sweet potato fries that were pretty good, but nothing special.

  Day Six Thursday 
Got up on time this morning and left Provo, UT. We headed south towards Moab, to the Arches National Park. On the way there, we passed car after car had bikes or ATVs with them. It was like paradise. The closer we got, the more bikers we ran into. We stopped at the visitor center and, once again, there was a tour bus of Asian people. There were also busses at Yellowstone, so we were used to it. Once in the park, there were even more bikers; they were everywhere. The arches were cool, but it was hot (88 or so) so we didn’t hike much. We did some shorter trails, but nothing too much. The best hike was to the Delicate Arch, which is the one you see on license plates in Utah. We actually just hiked to a view of it; the trail to the arch was 3 miles long. We did our dance and moved on. I didn’t have any geocaches for it, so I had to call V and walk her through grabbing some for us. That was a pain, but we got it done. I got what I needed and hung up frustrated. Shortly after, my cell died. After leaving the park, we took a scenic route out of Moab. There were people camping on the side of the road the whole way and tons of bikers. I hope we can go back sometime and bike the area. It’s epic. We then headed to CO and stopped along the way at Colorado National Monument. It was cool, but after all we had seen, it was not too exciting. We ended the night at a Buffalo Wild Wings and since we were in Denver and the Nuggets were playing, it was packed. We waited a few minutes, but finally got a table. It was good and then we headed to Motel 6.  

Day Seven Friday 
We got up a little later and headed out of Denver. I got enough gas to make it to Kansas, where gas was cheaper. I actually got enough to go about 20 miles more than we needed…WRONG! About 20 miles out, the miles to empty dropped…and kept dropping. We pulled into the station on 0 miles to empty. I filled up over 12 gallons. The tank is only 12.4 gallons and we put in 12.18 gallons!! God was really looking out for us. We stopped at a camp ground and found a cache hidden under a sun dial. A worker nearby spotted us and we talked to him for a second, then we got on the road again. At this point, I was ready to get to Vanessa and rest for a bit. I really struggled until we turned south in Kansas. I got my second wind and headed on. We stopped at a cache in Oklahoma and then we were on the last stretch. We finally made it to Fayetteville around 10:30.

Finally home

Well a ton has happened since I last posted on here. I'll sum it up in a few lines.
1. Moved to Dallas.
2. Ran out of time in temporary living and had to hotel hop until my apartment was open.
3. Moved all my stuff out of Camden.
4. Received an offer on my house in Camden.

That brings me up to today. I just received the offer last week and I accepted it, so now they have to do a home inspection and all that jazz. I did get what I asked for on the sale price, but after the small things I agreed to, I only end up making about three thousand more than I paid for the house (still not bad for dodging rent for three years). Assuming everything works out, I'll be debt free with a little extra money to put towards the next house. Woohoo! God is good and I'm still praying all the home sale goes well. I don't know of any serious things the inspection could turn up, but those guys are experts at finding stuff.

My job here in Dallas is kinda cool. It's basically design support for the program I worked in Camden. I make phone calls daily to Camden and talk with engineers there that I worked with when I lived down there. It is a very slow program though, and that gets annoying sometimes. There's one other guy under the age of 30 on the team and he's fun to hang out with. He lives on the other side of town, though, so he doesn't make it up much.

Speaking of hanging out, I got to chill with Ryan and Landon this weekend. We had a blast Saturday, starting at the Mellow Mushroom and ending at Riscky's BBQ singing karaoke. I miss those two guys and I was glad to get to see them. As abrasive as Ryan is, I really believe he has a good heart and I know Landon is a good guy too. We hung out with various other people as they came and went throughout the day. I toured the Rahr brewery, which was neat. Good times.

I am flying to see V in two weeks. I am excited for two reasons: 1) I'm flying, 2) I haven't seen her in forever. Those weren't ranked in level of excitement, btw. =-)

DFW is great. I do sometimes miss just a short jaunt over to the store and being able to drive without thinking, but there is just so much here to do. It's great.

Well, that's about all for right now. I may have finally found a church home; it's a little bit of a drive, but the college/singles group is fun and they do actually hang out outside of worship. It's too bad so many people aren't connected to the group, though. Sigh...if they only knew what they were missing.

p.s. Pray for my engineering math class. I can't seem to stay caught up on the theory in there and I never seem to make enough time to actually study up. I have to get a B.

I'm going to the big D

So I'm here! It's great so far. Work is still work, but right now I don't have much going on since I am so new. I am trying to hit the ground running, but Engineering Week is looming and I'm nervous about that. I am in charge of engineers visiting local schools and it's been an adventure to schedule it all. It's nice to be here with my scheduling partner though; he's a nice sanity check. Once I get that all set up and ready, prepare a presentation for the classes and then set up my experiment (the real kicker now), I will have that gorilla off my back. I don't know why I get so stressed over this stuff, but I just want it to go smoothly.

The move went fairly well. I'm chillin in the Holiday Inn right now (really it's some residency place), but I have 60 days and I'll be moving into an apartment and then a house! That's assuming my place sells soon. And let's hope it does. Cut those strings holding me back to Camden.

Anywho, work starts at 7-8 every day and that's super nice. I plan on being there around 730 most mornings, starting with a workout at 6, breakfast at 630, shower and head in to the mix. So far the only negative thing I've noticed (beside traffic, which really isn't that bad) is the fact that WalMart is crazy packed. I've been twice now and both times the lines have been five or six people deep. However, I'm starting on a fresh leg and I'm not going to let this bother me. Not going to let much bother me, if I can prevent it. And with that, I'm off to bed.

I hope that tomorrow is a wonderful day for you, if not, make it one!

Almost there!!!

I have four weeks of working here left! The last two weeks of the year (next two weeks) they are forcing us to either work early (5am) or use vacation. They just love driving the nail into the coffin for me. I can't believe the junk here. I really hope that Dallas is better. I'm worried that work won't be, but I know that the town will be better. It is worth the trade.

I have my kitchen and bedroom left to pack and then I am done! I'm almost to the point I am just throwing stuff in a box. It's funny how we have those little nooks where we store junk. I'm going through and throwing out a lot. I have so much left to do here, I feel. Some guys are working on the yard this week, so I will put it on the market to sell next week. I'm super pumped about that.

My UTA class is almost over. I have one homework assignment due tomorrow at noon and then the final. I hope to get at least a B. My application to Georgia Tech was rejected due to no background in Aerospace Engineering. Ugh...I was really banking on that coming through for me. I can't do two more live classes that I skip at UTA. It's killing me. I'm not sure my next move; I just can't believe I didn't get accepted.

Great way to end a piss poor day.

Happy Turkey Day!!

I realize I'm a little late posting for Thanksgiving, but I was busy doing nothing (and loving it). I did go to the last (for at least the time being) Texas vs Texas A&M game. It was a blast and the place was packed completely full. It came down to a last second field goal for Texas to pull off the win. I wore my Arkansas shirt and really didn't cheer for either team much. I just applauded good plays.

So my professor finally mailed me my homework and tests from class. I now have something to study (although I didn't do too hot). I figured my grade in there now to be a low B, but that's a real limited grade, so I doubt it's that good. I really need to do well on the final, but this whole class has been a nightmare. It's soooo hard to teach yourself Statics. I've spent hours at a time trying to do homework and making little to no progress. I'm really worried that I might get a C and get kicked out of the program, or maybe have to pay back the money for the class. I can deal with the money thing, but since I am planning to transfer to Georgia Tech, I really can't handle a C. I need a B; that's all I ask for.

In other news, the house is remodeled. I've been packing up stuff and I'm down to the laundry room (a complete mess), bedroom closet and the kitchen. Not too shabby. I already offloaded all my furniture (except couches), so that is nice. I plan to put it on the market soon. I just have to clean it up enough to take good pictures. That'll be the challenge.

Wish me luck, say a prayer for me, whatever you need to do. =)

Back from the big D

Wow! That is really all I can about last weekend. I had to get out of town and so I went to Dallas for a house hunting trip. Landon and Ryan (two coworkers) decided to come as well and we headed out right after work on Thursday. We met up with Landon's fiance at the Flying Saucer just east of Dallas. We grabbed some drinks (we had stopped in Texarkana for Chik-fil-e earlier) and Landon went off with his lady. Ryan and I staggered (from being tired, not from drinking) to the hotel in Grand Prairie. We got up at a reasonable hour Friday morning and got picked up by a local housing agent. She showed us around town and I have a pretty good idea where I want to live now. I think I'll shoot for the area around Lake Joe Pool.


Anywho, we did that for a few hours and then went back to the hotel so Ryan could order some tires for his car. We grabbed lunch at Krystal (amazing) and went to grab some State Fair Tickets from Brian Oney. We then headed to the state fair where we started with a test drive of a few GM cars. I drove the Sonic and then rode with Ryan in the convertible RS Camaro. Lame. We checked out some booths and then headed to the car shows. We saw some great cars and I got the scoop on the FSR from Scion. It is a 2.0L RWD "sports car" that is going to be under $25k. I am excited and hope it turns out as awesome as the picture I saw (I am told it is 90% of that picture). We saw some sick tuned GTRs with over 1000HP, a ZR1, a CTS-V, the Z07 Stingray concept and the ZL1. All of them (except the Camaro) were awesome. The 'vette had a great metallic dark silver paint job. I had to drag Ryan out of the Caddy. He's such an old man. Landon met up with us and then we headed to the food. We tried fried bubblegum (pink marshmallows), fried pineapple upside down cake, fried ice cream, fried salsa and some sausage. It was a good time. The fried ice cream was AMAZING! We headed to Grand Prairie, with Landon tagging along.




As we headed out, Landon realized that he left his stuff in his fiance's car. We managed to get out of the crazy fair traffic and grabbed his stuff. We almost died a few times, but luckily the Hummer handled it all really well. We saw an old Mercedes almost t-bone another car. We were on a two way road and this guy flies up besides us to run a stop sign. There was a car coming perpendicular to the road to turn left. It was crazy, but they both survived. We headed back to the hotel, changed clothes and went to a nearby bar to meet a friend of mine from school (Trip). We played darts until 2 or so and then headed back to the hotel.

Saturday we got up and headed to an Irish Pub for breakfast. We ate a great meal and watched some soccer. After that, we headed to a car show at the Ducati dealership. There were a ton of cars, but close to half were Mustangs. Boring. However, there were a few Ariel Atoms, two Ford GTs (one was a Hennessey GT850), a Lambo and lots of bikes. Ryan and I entered a contest and Ryan walked away with $110. He then donated it back to the charity and moved on. What a guy! We quickly headed to Target to get a gift for Tim (our coworker who was getting married in Tyler later that day). We ran to Landon's fiance's apartment, changed and headed to Tim's. We stopped for Sonic near the wedding and then made it into the ceremony. The wedding was good and Tim seemed really happy to see us. We dropped off Landon at the apartment and checked into our Fort Worth hotel.



Sunday I got up and worked on homework. I really wanted to attend a church in the area, but I got up late and worked on homework. I still feel guilty. After a few hours of homework, Ryan and I went to eat at the stockyards and then headed down to see the cattle drive. We met up with Anna and Landon at Cabelas and then Jonnie P showed up. We chilled there until they kicked us out and then we headed to downtown Fort Worth. Landon and Anna checked into the same hotel we were in and then we headed to the Water Gardens. Everyone was impressed and I breathed a sigh of relief (I was concerned they wouldn't like it). Jon then bailed on us and dropped us off downtown. We checked out the Reatta, which is a sweet rooftop bar and grill. After that, we headed to the Flying Saucer, where we grabbed a bite. Then we headed to the Fox and the House to watch some sports (not much was on anymore) and we hung out until 2 or so.

Monday morning, we got up early to pack up and head to the Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth. We got a sweet tour of the production line, but we all agreed we would have liked to see more. We ate lunch there at the awesome cafe and then headed to Grand Prairie. We got a few more tours there and I met with my future manager before we headed out of town. It was right around 5:15 but we hit the HOV lane and flew through town. To celebrate our ease of getting out of town, we stopped at the same Flying Saucer we visited Thursday night. It happened to be $3 pint night, so the guys had a few and I drove them back. We ended up in town around 12:15 on Tuesday morning. We hit the sack and then headed to work early the next morning.

All in all, it was a sweet weekend. I feel much better about moving there and finding a place to stay. I found a great area of town, but I have to make sure it is something I am really going to like.

LDC1...complete

I spent all last week in Lansdowne, VA hanging out with what Lockheed Martin deems some of the best talent in the company. I was there with operations, engineers, human resources, communications, and finance folks. It was a great time. We had big shot speakers, very informative classes and some great team building games. The days were super long, but I enjoyed being with all the crew so much. I finally got to meet the team I have in Dallas and now I am even more excited about getting out there.

All in all, the conference was a much needed boost. I feel much more motivated for work now and hope I can apply some of what I learned at work.

On Friday, after I dropped off the Dallas team, I drove in to DC to meet Aaron Schoolcraft, an old friend from college. He is doing great and looks the same as always. We laughed a ton and explored many of the sights there in town. While at the Vietnam memorial, we got hit with a thunderstorm and ended up getting soaked when it poured for about 45 minutes. We looked everywhere for a place to get some cover, but never could find any. We ended up ditching our plans and just got some to eat at Qudoba (which is where we used to eat in college). It was still a great time, even though we got soaked and missed many of the sights.

The church here is starting to break me down. I typically go to church for a chance to be rejuvenated, but lately I just haven't enjoyed it as much. We just can't seem to get any progressive movements going. It seems we keep covering the same material and the songs are never newer than 1950. It drags me down, big time. I'm going to keep sucking it up, but I really need to get out of here.

Until then, I'm going hardcore into remodeling this house. I have just a few things left to do inside and then I am going to start looking at the exterior. I hope I can make a little money off this place.

Stir Crazy

This might be my most negative post to date, so prepare yourself.

I'm going stir crazy. This is probably the first weekend I have had absolutely nothing to do. Last weekend I went to LR on Friday, had a cook out on Saturday and then went stir crazy on Sunday (so I went mountainbiking when it was 103 outside). I started this weekend by biking on Friday morning (45 minute drive). I had a great time hanging out with a good Christian friend of mine and then grabbed some lunch with some of his church buddies. It was a lot of fun. Last night, I drove to Eldo (45 minutes or so) and met up with some geocaching buddies to discuss an event we are doing in August. I went to Burger King and their a/c was broken, they were out of ice and their drink machine was missing half of the flavors. That started my downward spiral. I then went out geocaching with a friend and decided it was too hot and humid so we went to the downtown square to hit up the night life. We checked out this quaint little bar and then realized that everyone in Eldo leaves town on the weekends. The bar was empty and other two bars were mostly dead too...on a Friday night! Lame.

I have been sitting in my lazy boy recliner all day. I've been rotating between finishing recorded tv shows, reading my Christian dating book (which really depresses me) and playing xbox. I folded clothes, iron clothes, cooked lunch, balanced my checkbook, wrote a letter in Russian, clean my room up, arranged my work station and walked to the post office. I just can't sit around. I go crazy. I had these same problems when I lived at my parents' house. I just like to go. I enjoy going to new places, old places, whatever. I want to socialize.

Next weekend I will be heading to Heber Springs, so that will be interesting. I haven't been there in many years and I look forward to finding caches. I will have to bring a couple of sets of clothes since it's so humid here, but oh well. That's the price I pay for being active. Speaking of, I'm down to 181 as of this morning. I still eat about the same stuff, just less of it. I also cut out sodas completely and I do pushups and run almost every day. I love the way I feel after running in the mornings, but it really depresses me when I run here. There aren't many sidewalks and I almost always get chased by dogs.

Anywho, enough moping around. I'm going to watch "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and see if that will motivate my a little. =)

The night is darkest just before the dawn

Geez it's 178 days until I am finished here and I sure hope, pray, beg that Dallas is better than here. I just got done biking, on the road, and almost got hit three or four times. I drive an hour, one way, to get to church on Sundays only to hang out with mostly college kids at a super conservative church. I'm trying so hard to stay positive and see the positive stuff here, but man it's tough. I guess I am lucky to not have traffic to fight, relatively low utilities (I think) and um...lots of trees. Plus I can go shoot for free down the road at a public range (it's an hour away). I am employed at a great company and a relatively good job.

I guess I just want to enjoy somewhere with more opportunities to do stuff. Anything from Habitat for Humanity builds to learning how to cook sushi on dates to watching the Rangers play baseball. I just would like more options instead of hunting or fishing or swimming in a brown river. I love my church family here; the college kids keep me young and give me a great chance to share advice from my college years.

I really have no room to complain; I am extremely blessed, even beyond what I could ever deserve. I have wonderful friends here and have done some cool stuff (Vicksburg, Disney World, White Sands, etc). In the end, I am blessed by God and I need to find ways to use my talents here in south Arkansas for just a little longer.

Like the preacher said today, "If you are ever out walking around thinking your life is bad, just visit the nursing home and see how it is to have machines keeping you alive."

Halfway there

My parents came into town this weekend and we built a porch. My mom and sister helped clean the up the yard and dad, Cory and I built the porch. I still have a few hours of work left but I should be able to finish up soon. I think I will take tomorrow off (after worship service) and go to the range and send some lead down the way. I enjoy going to Magnolia and seeing my college buds. They are still in college and have some learning to do, but they are open to advice and help keep me young. I enjoy their antics (nerf wars, bowling, etc) and think they are all very unique kiddos.

Life is going so fast right now. I am moving out in about 185 days, which means I am almost there. It is nice knowing when I will be moving/transferring/etc but at the same time, I am just dying to get away. This town never grew on me like I thought it would. I had hoped with all the forests and such there would be ample opportunity to get out and enjoy it. However, when it's nice, the mosquitos are alive and well and then when it isn't nice, I don't want to be out. I'm really surprised there aren't more big parks with trails and stuff. Oh well. I have met some great people and I am glad for that. I have had a chance to save up money and should come out pretty well ahead when I leave here. I hope Dallas doesn't break that up. We'll see though.

Have I told you about my new health goals? I run a couple days a week in the morning and then I am watching what I eat. Since I've started, I have dropped about 10 pounds. Just 15 or so left to go. Plus I do pushups every day and work my abs a little. The ab workout isn't official, but I have to do 50 pushups a day, which is really doing a good number on my arms. I like the results and hope I can keep it up. It is tough to pass up good food so often, but I am getting better at it.

Being single has shown me just how blessed I am in the area of female friends (and males to some extent). I have started talking to Libby Weiler again, which is always fun. She is at an interesting point in her life and I like to listen to her optimism. V is there for me, as always and I really can't find a way to show her just how awesome her encouragement is to me. Really, both of them have been a real pick me up on bad days and I am lucky to still have them around, even with my jerk actions sometimes. Jonnie P, as usual, is there to support me, even with his crazy problems in his own life. He is risking being without a job right now waiting on the perfect opportunity and I am proud of him for that. Plus he has a serious girl interest in his life and I enjoy helping him with advice. His constant advice is not always asked for, but always welcome. I have gone against his advice once and it turned out okay, but I still consider his every pointer he has for me. One of the good things God blessed me with by coming to Camden: I got to meet one of my best and most trusted friends.

Anywho, life is good, God is great and everything we experience happens for a reason. If you can't figure out why, don't worry about it, it will become apparent when the time is right. Sweet dreams.

Patience is a virtue

Wow these past couple of weeks have been a real challenge for me. Work has been super tough and my weekends have been super packed. Three weekends ago, I drove in from Dallas, then to Little Rock and biked a couple of hard miles. The weekend after that, I drove to Faytown (where I biked at least 30 miles) and then up into SW Missouri for a wedding. Last weekend, I went to Mobile and hit the beaches (not quite as challenging as other weekends).

Most challenging of all has been the challenge I've taken with my patience. The Dallas trip resulted in a job offer (which I accepted) and so now I have to wait until Jan to start working in Dallas. WOOHOO! Super pumped about that, but I have to finish up strong here in Camden. I'll survive, but it is tough.

The weekend in Faytown was tough because I had to let God show me patience with my relationships and let Him point me in the right direction. I am always so impatient, but I am going to let Him direct me. The same goes with last weekend in Mobile. I have lots of ideas about what God wants for me, signals that I get and such, but I am just so friggin impatient. I want answers NOW. However, I am praying and meditating and relaxing so that I can see the path in due time. It is tough, but I want to make sure I take the right plunges when I need to do so. I slipped up, in different ways, both weekends by trying to rush stuff (and I guess I sorta am doing that now) but I am dedicating my spirit to being patient. All things come to those that wait...or something.

The beach last weekend was excellent. I got a bad burn on Saturday, but I braved the sun on Sunday and did it all again. The burn is fading away now and I looking a little darker for it. I wish I could have just spent a few more days in the sand doing nothing but reading. I got to see an old friend of mine from the Arkansas Governor's School days, which is always fun. Anywho, that was that. I ate lots of good food and covered lots of long miles. The trip was worth it for the beach and rekindling of a friendship that will be in Dallas when I step into that foreign land in January.

Well I think that is all for me. I am going to get into serious overdrive at some point and remodel this house a little more. We will see how that goes.

I hope God blesses you today and if not, I hope you can see the blessings in disguise out there for you.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel

I may or may not be going to Dallas next week to interview for a design engineering position!!! WOOHOO!! I am so excited. This will be just another step forward in my career goal of being a subject matter expert in engineering...or something. The news could not have come at a better time; my car's alternator went out Saturday, my oven broke and I need new truck tires. So yeah, I could use some good news.

Work has been soooo tough. I am exhausted at the end of every day. I love it though, deep down. I have a ton of projects that are really big and I enjoy the responsibility. However, the results never reward me enough to keep me happy all the time. I think it's mostly my issue, but I feel like we just don't get any respect. I know that deep down we are respected as MEs, but it seems people just don't want to admit it. Oh well. I'll keep working hard and I know my work will pay off eventually. Anyways, I just wanted to fill you in with my latest status on going elsewhere. I really hope this stuff pans out, but if not, I will keep looking for the next opportunity to develop my skills and position myself somewhere I will be valued.

In other news, I got the chance to visit Pleasant Valley's young professionals class last Sunday. It was great to study the Word with intelligent people who are experiencing life in the same way I am. They have great comments and I enjoy the change of perspective (sorry SAU folks). PV has some great stuff going right now.

Whew...that was fun

The past two weeks have been wild!!! Last week was e-week at work and I spent a ton of time doing that. The kids really enjoyed the competition, but man it was stressful. We had to constantly look at the rules and make sure it was as fair as possible. In the end, the competition was fierce, but one of the underdogs pulled out and won the thing. Good times! I spent soooo much time that week and the week before getting ready, on top of supporting the production line and learning as much as I could. It was a long, tough week but I really enjoyed all the planning and power. At one point the plant manager even asked me and another guy to make the decision and go with it. Pretty awesome!

Then this week came along. My boss was out most of the week and stuff just seemed to keep going awry. I worked with my QE and we took care of the issues on our end and I think we took care of it in a very professional manner. I stayed late every day to help clean up the mess and get stuff running smooth again. I didn't mind it, but I was being pulled in so many directions and that got frustrating. So this whole time, my boss is gone and yet the ME group is pulling it together and making things run. Boss shows up today and things are pretty good, except I find out one of my projects has hit a major hurdle that could put us behind a week or two. I tell my boss and he flips. Goes into this "do whatever it takes to get this done" mode. Typically, I would probably roll with it, but this time I was already stressed and super tired. I start telling him how stretched thin I am (we are missing at least three MEs right now) and how I can't get the priorities of stuff straight. He basically tells me I need to both support the floor (by being out there) and get this project done (which involved very little true work on my part, mostly just bugging people). I go into his office to discuss this project further and the conversation ends (as I am telling him how busy I have been) with him telling me that I need to be careful how I use my time at work and not to use it for personal stuff too much (instant messenger, browsing the web, etc). I instantly take this to mean he's accusing me of being so busy because I'm goofy off at work. So, needless to say, I've been upset this evening. Here I am working my butt off as a level 1 (when I will be eligible for level 3 in just a few months) and getting talked to about doing personal stuff at work. I couldn't believe it.

I thought moving to this new program would help me stay around a little longer, but I am just about done dealing with it here. I rode my bike through town and there are a ton of abandoned houses and houses for sale around here. It is kinda scary.

I feel much better now that I blogged about it. I will keep working hard, and if I don't get recognition, I know that my recognition is somewhere else (up high). It's really frustrating and I will probably discuss it with my boss tomorrow. In the meantime, I think I'll start job hunting again. Any of you want to hire an over-achieving mechanical engineer?

Really?!?!

The weekend was going well; I got to play some xbox, didn't have to drive all the way to Magtown to go to church this morning, got some lunch with some of my favorite Riders for Christ and I got to play basketball. Then it dawned on me: "real life" begins again tomorrow.

It's amazing how frustrated I get about work. I'm really torn right now because I feel like I have always given my 110%, got a Masters degree while starting up a new program and constantly try to find new ways to get young people involved at work, yet I can't get a promotion. I just switched to a vastly understaffed program and I have been working my tail off. I hit the ground running and have been trying to keep a positive attitude even though most of the MEs are anything but. I am keeping my responsibilities with e-week, which keeps me super busy, and still trying to learn as much as possible. I just don't understand. It's not the money bonus (although that would be nice) but rather the appreciation and respect that would come with the bump. My friend, who started the exact day as myself, got a promotion last summer and he doesn't even have a masters degree. If I did something to screw up, I just want to know exactly what I did so I can figure out if it was worth it.

Whatever. I'm sick of being upset and so I suppose I should adjust my attitude. That's what leaders do, right? Keep me at my "cloutless" level 1 engineer and I'll keep working my tail off. That way, when I grow up, I might get to move to a level 2. Woohoo! My enthusiasm for work is ever growing.

Chi-town

I just got back from Chicago and I loved it! I never thought I would like such a large, yankee city, but it turned out to be lots of fun. I thought often of Moscow and St. Pete and enjoyed the L there (that's the metro). We worked out of a local church and so we spent a ton of time there. One day we cleaned the whole building, one day we visited nursing homes, one day we spent a few hours at the Great Chicago Food Depository (packaging milk in a 40 degree room) and one day we went sight seeing. The church there is small in number, but large in size and personality. I really connected with a old lady that went with us to the nursing home; her name was Jan and she was young at heart.

While at the nursing home, she entertained an older man who was in a wheelchair. He was very quiet but quite mischievous. He wanted an RC cola, so Jan bought him one. He then wanted the change because it was pretty. She didn't give it to him. He then offered me a drink of the soda, I reached up and he pulled it away and told me to smell it. As I put my nose up to it, he pushed it up rapidly and hit me in the nose. What a stinker! Later, he kept threatening Jan with pouring the soda in the song book bag. It was quite an experience and, come to find out, the guy hasn't spoken much at all until this last visit. Pretty amazing.

We spent Tuesday at the Field Museum. It was really neat, but very dated too. There were a ton of exhibits, but they all need to be updated. I loved the dinosaur skeletons though; super cool! We also explored the "Magnificent Mile". It's a strip of some of the top end stores in America. I didn't go in many of them (the Lego Store, Vic Secret, Eddy Bauer, were about it) but I did enjoy the walk. For dinner, we hit up Ed Debevic's place. It is set up to look like an old diner and the waiters insult you. They're quite rude and it gets to be quite entertaining. Weird right? I paid to be insulted and waited on horribly. Christ, KT and I were the only ones that went and it was worth the long walk (almost a mile off the mile). We got to ride the L train back to the Mag Mile, so it was worth it. Altogether, we walked over 14 miles.

I should mention at this point that I woke up early every morning and lifted weights and swam for at least 30 minutes. I was proud of myself and once again showed that I don't oppose getting up early, but that getting up at 5 is too much (I was up at 6 most mornings). However, I just weighed in and I definitely gained weight. I'll tell myself it was muscle, but I'm still disappointed. On Tuesday, I met a Russian down in the pool and we got to be good friends and speaking with him was something I looked forward to every morning. His name was Anatole. I wish I could have gotten his contact info.

Anywho, fill in the other days working in the church cleaning or preparing the food supplies. There were some adventures in there (like walking to McDs at 10:45 pm on Thursday night), but nothing real big. Friday, we hit up the Lincoln Park zoo and then hit the road. Chicago: been there, done that.

The trip was eye opening for me because I have really become intolerant of people. I tried my best to put up with stuff, but I just constantly found myself cursing under my breath, rolling my eyes or just plain ignoring people. I won't get into the details, but I found myself questioning the sincerity of people's prayers, the immaturity of people being loud and obnoxious and people presuming to be experts because they once did this one thing a million years ago. I'm praying about it regularly and trying my best to help others instead of just criticizing them. I'll survive, I guess I'm just not a college kid anymore but if I want to be a professor someday, then I need to learn to cope.

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Sue


Food Depository


Lincoln Park Zoo


p.s. I should mention I am already ready to travel again.

Ugh...

I have been in such a dull mood for the past couple of days. It cycles up and down, but mostly I've been down. I really don't know why, but I am trying to combat it with exercise and eating healthier and such. Actually I'm doing those things so I can sport my sexy hott speedo on my trip to Chicago (there's an indoor heated pool).

I really like my new job. Yeah, I still deal with the same old local junk, but the job keeps me really busy and I enjoy that. Today, the guy that trained me was gone, so I ran basically the entire line. It was super fast paced and I did great in it.

Anywho, I just felt like venting on here about being in a foul mood would help. Didn't do as much as I liked, but I do feel a little better. Time to clean the house and go exercise before going to bed. I work at 5am tomorrow morning. Guess who is excited? :) Life is still good.

What a day!

So much has happened since I last posted on here. For one, I have a new significant other. My last girl just didn't work out; I'm sad things did not go better, but I know that God puts everyone in our lives for a reason and I am glad I got the chance to know V. I hope our paths cross again someday. My new significant other, which I will refer to as KT, is cool. She's an ag major (a little different), fairly athletic, smart, witty and extremely kindhearted. She might just be one of the nicest people I know. It is pretty exciting to be in the starting stage again, but, as usual, I have the common worries of throwing my heart out again to another person. She does seem to be the real deal, but I don't want to throw that label out there just yet; there are still things that need to develop before I can make any sort of outlook. However, I will say this: I think I might have finally found a girl (since I've been seriously dating) that likes me as much as I like her. That's extremely exciting and something I just absolutely adore about her. We'll see.

Enough about all that. I got transferred to another program at work last week. I had spoken with a manager about switching over to help my career a little bit. I am now on a mostly automated program that makes other products that seem much more advanced than the truck. However, they make about 800 times more product than my first line. I have to be at work at 6 (no slacking) and I really don't like that. If I could just come in a little later (7 or 8) I think I would be so much more productive and a better employee; I just don't like going to bed early. All weekend, I stay up until midnight or better, but then I have to get used to going to bed at 8 or 9. Ugh. Beat me with a stick. However, with gas doing like it is, I am glad to have a job.

While life is going very well for me, I must admit I am struggling in many areas right now. First, I just can't seem to get my attitude right. Whether it is dealing with work or just other people, I seem to take the wrong mindset. At work, I see people just being unethical and I can't get over it. It's just so blatant and no one seems to care. On a personal level, I just need to start seeing people like we all are- flawed. I can't really get into it on here; it's just too hard to explain but basically I keep getting mad because I try to do nice things for people (genuinely because I really want to) but don't get appreciated for it. It's selfish and not the way to see things, so I am pretty ashamed of it. However, I am going to start trying to hold onto the original reason I do things for people and forget about whether or not I get thanks for it. Finally, the area I am really bothered by is my weight. I just can't seem to get it under control. It's hovering around 195 and I need to be around 170 or so. I am trying to eat a little better, but it just seems the healthier I eat, the hungrier I am. I had one soda today and I am limiting myself to that (less if I can). I also had an orange, sandwich and small salad for lunch. Within an hour, I was starving. I have found that oatmeal works best for breakfast; I typically don't get hungry again for a while.

Whatever, I am sure I will figure something out. I am heading on a big trip in a few weeks. I am going to work in a soup kitchen and food pantry in Chicago. I'm super excited and hope I really get to do some good work.

Great Week!

This past week was probably the best week since I've been in Camden, within the confines of the two counties of Camden and Magnolia. All week long, I've been working engineering week activities at work, which is a ton of fun. I have been trying to take the reigns of it and planning events left and right. Tuesday, I went to Eldo for half a day to buy supplies and then I spent yesterday and today putting the kits together. I also visited CF today and got to work with the kids building some cool machines to do different things. It has just been a great week.

Outside of work, I've been quite busy. Last weekend was wild! I went geocaching all day Saturday with Carrie and Jeremy (both cool cats) and then went to Shreveport to a great acapella singing class. On the way back, I had an awesome time with a full truck (Katie jumped in for the ride). Sunday, I worshiped and then went to hide geocaches with Melanie and Katie. We had fun and then went to evening worship. Afterward we had dinner and I headed home. Wednesday I had an excellent dinner of alligator and steak, which pretty much made my day (and something I was looking forward to all week). Then tonight we had a night of singing, which I always love, and then a movie night. Good times, good times.

Compared to last month, this month is shaping up quite nice. Basically figured out that life goes on, even if not as planned. God is pretty amazing for His ability to make things work out okay. I'm not sure what he has planned for the next couple of months, but I hope it goes just like He wants it. I'm still dazed and confused about a lot of stuff, but I'm getting along just fine. Now...as for my career...I may end up staying around a little longer if things work out right.

And the walls came crashing down...

Man I had a great time snowboarding last week. I went with the Razorbacks for Christ and we enjoyed some great powder. There were plenty of setbacks for the trip, like a the trailer didn't have lights, we had to use a bus instead of a van, the van had transmission issues and my handle broke off on my hummer, but otherwise we had an uneventful trip. No injuries except for plenty of skiers who had their pride hurt when they tried to snowboard and failed. I hung out with some old friends and met some new friends and really enjoyed the energy of the group. I hit up some bowls and might have pulled off a jump or two. I think if my knee is better next year, I might really try some jumps. I have the stability part down now, so jumps are the next step.

So about a week after that last post, the walls collapsed. I'm not sure where my life is heading now because what I had held as a constant has proven to not be so constant. I am sure that it will come back for me, but for right now I am putting it in God's hands completely. It's a scary feeling to not know what will happen. I know God has tests for us so that we can see our need for Him and I truly believe I am seeing that now. I will have to grow some and it will be painful, but I really hope that she can truly grow and see the love God has for her, just as she is. Regardless of what happens, I am still blessed beyond measure and truly appreciate her running into my life. God sends us people sometimes to help us become great and I believe she helped me on my way. I hope that she can continue to be my motivator, but it's in His hands now.

Work tomorrow. Should be interesting to see what I missed last week. Hopefully I can stay busy. However, in my spare time, I think I'll do some job searching. Like many people have said, it's time for change. Have a great week!