Yet another long break between posts.
So, what have I been doing over the summer? Looking back, the short answer is not much. No vacations, no travel, no major projects, no friends. I work, I come home, I sleep. Thursdays and Sundays, I go to church. A lot of the time it feels like I could drop of the planet, and the only people who would notice would be my co-workers, wondering why I didn't show up. To this day, I doubt anybody else would really care, including my supposed roommate.
Overall, I'm frustrated. Frustrated in my job, in my church, my personal life, and in politics. I guess I'd better explain those.
My job situation's changed recently. In effect, I've been demoted, though they aren't calling it that. I used to be a Systems Administrator, basically one of 3 people responsible for keeping all the servers at work running smoothly. Over the last couple months, I've been moved more and more into being, and now officially am, a Network Security Specialist -- a fancy term for an overhyped paper-pusher. My job now is to make make sure everyone has access to the network locations they're supposed to (and nowhere else), and that all the little security software bits we use are staying updated on everyone's computers. It's the kind of job that you could hire anybody with rudimentary computer knowledge for, but has to be done by someone the company trusts. I've been selected for this august imbecility because I'm the least experienced person, and because I'm the only one who thinks about security before doing something stupid. It also means I have absolutely zero chance of any advancement within the company, and insufficient experience or contacts to have a good shot at getting a job elsewhere.
My church situation feels like it's going downhill steadily. A few months ago, my church made a decision that I strongly consider un-Scriptural. They asked for private comments from the congregation, so I made my feelings known. The pastor of course disagrees, and we ended up in an e-mail debate for about a week, until I, in a single e-mail, found a self-contradiction between what he was saying and his past statements, and brought out what is probably our base source of disagreement: I take a passage literally, and he doesn't. At that point, he went silent, and I haven't heard a word from him since. The change made doesn't affect me, so I haven't left. In the pastor's sermons, though, he's taken a couple of passing shots at my position -- saying that my position is wrong, but without providing any information or basis for people to actually think about. In some ways, I feel the only reasons I'm still going there are because I have been for years, and the Men's Group is good enough for me to stay around. That doesn't mean I'm particularly happy, though.
My personal life, really, is just going nowhere. All my old friends are gone, and I haven't connected with anybody new to fill those voids. The only person left I have a long-term connection with is Nacho, and he's here for maybe 2 days a month, on average. We enjoy ourselves during those times, but over the last several months I've seen him breaking ties with his former mentor, albeit for very good cause, and it's eating him up more than he wants to admit. Add in that his physical condition is steadily deteriorating, and he's not really willing to make the major changes necessary to improve, and I'm getting tired of having to fill the role of his Keeper. At least he knows where he wants to go, which I don't. But I'm becoming less certain he realizes how much he'll have harmed himself before he gets there.
Finally, there's the always-annoying world of politics. As a hard-line "conservative," I can't remember the last time something happened in the political arena that I agreed with. Then I look ahead to the 2008 election, and it gets worse. I've already found the candidate I support: Mike Huckabee. I don't agree with him on everything. In fact, I'm downright opposed to a couple of his key platform points as being un-Constitutional. However, they're points that are shared to some extent by all the candidates, and I agree with him on the rest of his ideas, many of which I am fervently in favor of, like the Flat Tax. The problem is that he's a "second-tier candidate," firmly in 5th place, and not even close to being a contender on fund-raising. He's operating on a shoestring budget, working off the hope (I'd like to call it a theory or premise, but honestly can't) that if he can win or do very well in the very early primaries (IA, NH, SC), it'll give him the momentum to win the rest of the country. Now, I'll be the first to say he's probably the most likable and personal of the candidates. He's got the relaxed speaking abilities of his Baptist pastor past, and is able to clearly articulate his ideas and make them sound like the common sense they are. However, he's barely keeping his campaign afloat financially, bringing in less than $1M in the just-finished 3rd Quarter, and I think his "primary slingshot" theory is fundamentally flawed. This leaves me in a rather frustrated position, because I don't think that I can in good conscience vote for any of the "front-runners," for various reasons.
So, that's my life. Not very fun. I'm going to Houston for work training next week, so we'll see if I think to post again.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
France Leads the Way?
Election day was today. I'd almost forgotten, as I did early voting on Monday. Now, the polls are closed, the counts are in, and I'm appalled by the results.
In Longview, we didn't have any offices being voted on, just 7 propositions: 5 for tax bonds and 2 related to liquor laws. I voted "no" to all the proposals, but all except one passed. I'll admit that it doesn't make me any happier, but what I'm appalled about was the turnout.
The total voting count for the election was <7,000, in a city of somewhere around 75,000. 10% of the people decided what the other 90% should do. To compare to that, the French presidential elections got an 85% turnout a week ago.
Now, I realize that a local ballot is nothing compared to a national presidency. However, it still makes me wonder, when did voting become an unimportant act? In this republic of ours, we don't really get a say in what goes on in the big picture. People like to think that they can contact their member of Congress and that what they ask that person to do will affect his or her vote, but in truth that's wishful thinking, unless the vast majority of fellow constituents also express their opinion in the same way (and oftentimes, even that doesn't matter). The closest we come to that is in a presidential election, when we vote for our representative to the Electoral College. My opinion expressed to Louis Gohmert ain't worth jack squat.
The only place where I really have any hope of being heard is at a very local level. And to see that only 10% of my fellow citizens feel the same shows how far we are from restoring any control over this nation.
I'm not really that mad that I lost this round. I'm mad that so few people care enough to spend 10 minutes checking out what the issues were, and another 30 minutes to go punch a few buttons at a polling booth. We have become so lazy that an hour of our time is too much to spare for our civic duty.
In Longview, we didn't have any offices being voted on, just 7 propositions: 5 for tax bonds and 2 related to liquor laws. I voted "no" to all the proposals, but all except one passed. I'll admit that it doesn't make me any happier, but what I'm appalled about was the turnout.
The total voting count for the election was <7,000, in a city of somewhere around 75,000. 10% of the people decided what the other 90% should do. To compare to that, the French presidential elections got an 85% turnout a week ago.
Now, I realize that a local ballot is nothing compared to a national presidency. However, it still makes me wonder, when did voting become an unimportant act? In this republic of ours, we don't really get a say in what goes on in the big picture. People like to think that they can contact their member of Congress and that what they ask that person to do will affect his or her vote, but in truth that's wishful thinking, unless the vast majority of fellow constituents also express their opinion in the same way (and oftentimes, even that doesn't matter). The closest we come to that is in a presidential election, when we vote for our representative to the Electoral College. My opinion expressed to Louis Gohmert ain't worth jack squat.
The only place where I really have any hope of being heard is at a very local level. And to see that only 10% of my fellow citizens feel the same shows how far we are from restoring any control over this nation.
I'm not really that mad that I lost this round. I'm mad that so few people care enough to spend 10 minutes checking out what the issues were, and another 30 minutes to go punch a few buttons at a polling booth. We have become so lazy that an hour of our time is too much to spare for our civic duty.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Back On
Okay, I know. I haven't posted anything in three months. No, I don't have an excuse. I've thought of posting many times, just never actually did it.
The reason that I'm finally typing away is that I'm bored. I'm in a hotel room in Houston for the week, atending a training course. So now you know what it takes for me to actually say something about my life.
So, what's been happening to me? In short, not much that I consider noteworthy. However, I'll run through the high points.
February came and went pretty quiet. The only thing I really remember was that I did my taxes. When that's the high point of the month, you know it was quiet.
March was a bit more active. I bought the parts for a new computer, and put it together. I'm still trying to get the TV card to work, but that's another story.
Also, we got a new guy in at work for me to break in (even though his position makes him senior to me). He's OK, though still getting up to speed on some stuff. He's already taken over a couple of projects that I didn't like anyhow.
April started on a bad note. My grandmother had a stroke that destroyed the left half of her brain. She went into a coma, and died a little over a week later. She had signed a DNR, including no feeding tube, so she basically starved to death. I spent the days before Easter in Ohio attending her funeral. Not exactly the circumstances I wanted to see my family under.
The rest of April was quiet. I missed a Saturday canoe trip with the Men's Group that I had really been looking forward to. My apartment's AC had died, and I couldn't get to sleep. Woke up for the alarm clock, and fell asleep again. I was very annoyed.
May looks like it'll be busy. I've got to re-work a project plan for the 5th time, and I'm getting sick of it. However, I have to have the first phase of that project complete by the end of the month, and I lost half of last week on another system failure.
In other news, Nacho's found that he has bigger medical problems than he thought. He went home to Puebla for a physical a couple weeks back, and not a moment too soon. He has severe sleep apnea, which pushes his heart rate to over 200 in a vain attempt to keep his blood-ox levels up. Recently, this has resulted in his blood pressure crashing during the day and his almost fainting. He also doesn't get into REM sleep, so he's been walking around exhausted for a couple years. He's now got a respirator for use at night, so hopefully it'll let him sleep properly. Time will tell. He also finally has a court date later this month on selling his house, so we will officially be roommates again.
We'll see when I write more.
The reason that I'm finally typing away is that I'm bored. I'm in a hotel room in Houston for the week, atending a training course. So now you know what it takes for me to actually say something about my life.
So, what's been happening to me? In short, not much that I consider noteworthy. However, I'll run through the high points.
February came and went pretty quiet. The only thing I really remember was that I did my taxes. When that's the high point of the month, you know it was quiet.
March was a bit more active. I bought the parts for a new computer, and put it together. I'm still trying to get the TV card to work, but that's another story.
Also, we got a new guy in at work for me to break in (even though his position makes him senior to me). He's OK, though still getting up to speed on some stuff. He's already taken over a couple of projects that I didn't like anyhow.
April started on a bad note. My grandmother had a stroke that destroyed the left half of her brain. She went into a coma, and died a little over a week later. She had signed a DNR, including no feeding tube, so she basically starved to death. I spent the days before Easter in Ohio attending her funeral. Not exactly the circumstances I wanted to see my family under.
The rest of April was quiet. I missed a Saturday canoe trip with the Men's Group that I had really been looking forward to. My apartment's AC had died, and I couldn't get to sleep. Woke up for the alarm clock, and fell asleep again. I was very annoyed.
May looks like it'll be busy. I've got to re-work a project plan for the 5th time, and I'm getting sick of it. However, I have to have the first phase of that project complete by the end of the month, and I lost half of last week on another system failure.
In other news, Nacho's found that he has bigger medical problems than he thought. He went home to Puebla for a physical a couple weeks back, and not a moment too soon. He has severe sleep apnea, which pushes his heart rate to over 200 in a vain attempt to keep his blood-ox levels up. Recently, this has resulted in his blood pressure crashing during the day and his almost fainting. He also doesn't get into REM sleep, so he's been walking around exhausted for a couple years. He's now got a respirator for use at night, so hopefully it'll let him sleep properly. Time will tell. He also finally has a court date later this month on selling his house, so we will officially be roommates again.
We'll see when I write more.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Settling In
With January come and gone, many things have changed in my life. New year, new home, new responsibilities, new church, even a new age. Fortunately, I can look back on these one at a time.
2007 came to me like most years, quietly, watching the ball drop on TV, alone. Can't say I really mind, as everyone I know will tell you I'm not a party person. I'd rather worry about retraining 12 months of muscle memory and putting the right number on everything I date. I've never been one for New Year's Resolutions, either, but something Dave Ramsey said on his show on that last day stuck with me enough for me to write down. He was talking about goals, how to make them, and what they had to be. He gave six categories for goals, and four requirements.
The categories were:
The apartment lease was signed the first week of January, and we cleared out most stuff that weekend. The furniture barely fit in the U-Haul, but fit it did, and we managed to get it all moved in one trip. Our measurements of the apartment were nearly perfect, and the floor plan we'd worked up was fine. Then the next 3 weeks of shuttle-runs of more boxes of stuff (mostly mine) that either didn't fit in the U-Haul but could wait, or just wasn't packed by then. I am happy to say that I unpacked the last box Saturday, and just have to go get some drywall screws to hang stuff on the wall to call our move Complete. Next step is getting Nacho to actually go through with it and sell the house, so he can officially join me here -- not that it makes much of a difference, given how rarely he's in town.
To my astonishment, things have smoothed out at work. At the time of my last writing, I had serious doubts about my new manager. The very next day at work, I found out our department head had transferred to a newly formed position in the company, and that the manager I trust the least had been named to succeed him. I still have some serious doubts about his ability to lead, as well as my manager's ability to manage, but for now they're keeping their hands out of my business. We'll see how long that lasts. Also, the newly-formed position of Senior Systems Administrator was filled shortly before Christmas, only to be vacated again mid-January. From what my manager's said, I'm not confident on the caliber of whoever his replacement will be. The answers to those three personnel questions will determine the longevity of my stay.
No, I didn't leave Fellowship Bible Church. We just moved 100 yards. After 5 years, our Worship Center is finally complete. They made some design choices I wouldn't have, and there are still some things that need to be fixed and tweaked, but it is amazing to see the place full. For this month, there is only a single service instead of 2, and we're not even cramped. Now to see if the new building brings an unnecessary pomp to the proceedings. I hope it doesn't, but there are disturbing signs.
Last and least, my birthday came and went. Like New Year's nothing too fancy. But then again, most people don't consider watching the State of the Union Address to be much of a birthday party. That's OK, too. 26 isn't that different from 25.
Now that the past has been examined, on to the future. Given the only thing of note in February is Valentine's Day, I expect (or at least hope for) a very quiet month.
2007 came to me like most years, quietly, watching the ball drop on TV, alone. Can't say I really mind, as everyone I know will tell you I'm not a party person. I'd rather worry about retraining 12 months of muscle memory and putting the right number on everything I date. I've never been one for New Year's Resolutions, either, but something Dave Ramsey said on his show on that last day stuck with me enough for me to write down. He was talking about goals, how to make them, and what they had to be. He gave six categories for goals, and four requirements.
The categories were:
- Career
- Financial
- Spiritual
- Physical
- Family
- Social
- Specific
- Measurable
- For a specific time limit (no "one of these days" allowed)
- Your own (not someone else's goal for you)
The apartment lease was signed the first week of January, and we cleared out most stuff that weekend. The furniture barely fit in the U-Haul, but fit it did, and we managed to get it all moved in one trip. Our measurements of the apartment were nearly perfect, and the floor plan we'd worked up was fine. Then the next 3 weeks of shuttle-runs of more boxes of stuff (mostly mine) that either didn't fit in the U-Haul but could wait, or just wasn't packed by then. I am happy to say that I unpacked the last box Saturday, and just have to go get some drywall screws to hang stuff on the wall to call our move Complete. Next step is getting Nacho to actually go through with it and sell the house, so he can officially join me here -- not that it makes much of a difference, given how rarely he's in town.
To my astonishment, things have smoothed out at work. At the time of my last writing, I had serious doubts about my new manager. The very next day at work, I found out our department head had transferred to a newly formed position in the company, and that the manager I trust the least had been named to succeed him. I still have some serious doubts about his ability to lead, as well as my manager's ability to manage, but for now they're keeping their hands out of my business. We'll see how long that lasts. Also, the newly-formed position of Senior Systems Administrator was filled shortly before Christmas, only to be vacated again mid-January. From what my manager's said, I'm not confident on the caliber of whoever his replacement will be. The answers to those three personnel questions will determine the longevity of my stay.
No, I didn't leave Fellowship Bible Church. We just moved 100 yards. After 5 years, our Worship Center is finally complete. They made some design choices I wouldn't have, and there are still some things that need to be fixed and tweaked, but it is amazing to see the place full. For this month, there is only a single service instead of 2, and we're not even cramped. Now to see if the new building brings an unnecessary pomp to the proceedings. I hope it doesn't, but there are disturbing signs.
Last and least, my birthday came and went. Like New Year's nothing too fancy. But then again, most people don't consider watching the State of the Union Address to be much of a birthday party. That's OK, too. 26 isn't that different from 25.
Now that the past has been examined, on to the future. Given the only thing of note in February is Valentine's Day, I expect (or at least hope for) a very quiet month.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Language Barrier
Alone at last.
My roommate's parents and sister flew in from Puebla, Mexico for the 21st-29th. While it was nice to have someone around from Christmas, it was also frustrating. They usually spoke English when addressing me, but anything else was mostly in Spanish. I took Spanish back in high school, but was never any good with it. I might catch one word in ten--enough to catch the general idea of the conversation, but that's it.
While they were here, they did do one large piece of good: the house is mostly packed. Nacho's family turned his life into shredded paper and cardboard boxes. I'm progressing more slowly, but that's OK since they used all the boxes, and I've got until the end of the week to pack. We're not really moving until Saturday, so I've got plenty of time.
For the move, things have hit some bumps. The apartment company doesn't like that Nacho's having house payment problems, so they and he are wrestling over whether he can move in now, or after the house is sold. Either way, I should be able to sign the lease on Tuesday.
Happy New Year.
My roommate's parents and sister flew in from Puebla, Mexico for the 21st-29th. While it was nice to have someone around from Christmas, it was also frustrating. They usually spoke English when addressing me, but anything else was mostly in Spanish. I took Spanish back in high school, but was never any good with it. I might catch one word in ten--enough to catch the general idea of the conversation, but that's it.
While they were here, they did do one large piece of good: the house is mostly packed. Nacho's family turned his life into shredded paper and cardboard boxes. I'm progressing more slowly, but that's OK since they used all the boxes, and I've got until the end of the week to pack. We're not really moving until Saturday, so I've got plenty of time.
For the move, things have hit some bumps. The apartment company doesn't like that Nacho's having house payment problems, so they and he are wrestling over whether he can move in now, or after the house is sold. Either way, I should be able to sign the lease on Tuesday.
Happy New Year.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Of Alpha Particles and Cardboard Boxes
A few highlights of the week:
NAM
- A couple months ago, our steel mill got a load of scrap that, somewhere in it, included a piece of radioactive material. We don't check loads for that sorta thing, so it wasn't known until the leftovers went to our recyclers, who does check that. They determined that the stuff had been inside some shielded box, and was vaporized during the melting process. It left traces throughout the refuse vents, and they've spent tons of money to clean those vents and install sensors to check incoming material. Monday was the day to get the sensors working, and I got pulled in to fix a couple of bugs our networking guys couldn't figure out. So I spent the morning waving a piece of Cesium-130 around to figure out all the combinations of how the alarms, software, and e-mail system worked. They say that the stuff is harmless, but anything involving the word "radioactive" doesn't exactly set me at ease...
- I spent another day's worth of time at work packing up my office. No, I'm not quitting. Given the increase of personnel in our department, we've run out of room to shoehorn people into, so next week they're going to completely redo the cubicle layout of our office. None of us are going to be in the same place, so we've all had to pack up everything, and find temporary working spaces for next week. They're dumping me in the data center, which isn't exactly a quiet environment. I'm glad I have those bid Bose sound-man's headphones and the Creative Zen MP3 player I just bought.
- I think we've found an apartment. A place called Treehouse Apartments, and we're going to get a 2-bed, 2-bath apartment (the B2 floor plan, if you want to have a look) that opens up at the beginning of the year. All the basic utilities are included with the rent, so we only have to take care of phone, internet, and satellite. When split between me and Nacho, it'll come out to a little less than what I'm paying Nacho now, and way cheaper for him. I'll be turning in the application tomorrow. Then I have to start packing what I won't need for the rest of the month.
- I got an e-mail a couple days ago saying that a replacement TV card for my computer is on its way here. The one I bought a month ago never worked right, I'm hoping this one does better. The DVR is full and overwriting old shows. Also, got the RMA for my video card, which is also not behaving. Hope they get that back to me quick.
NAM
Saturday, December 2, 2006
There And Back Again
Two days ago, about this time, I completed my first business trip. I was sent to Minneapolis, Minnesota for a training course called Crucial Conversations, given by a course named Vital Smarts.
I was up ridiculously early Monday morning (which means anytime before dawn in my book, 5:30 in this case) to go the East Texas Regional Airport for a puddle-jumper to DFW. From there I sat around the terminal until my flight to Minneapolis, about 4 hours later. I finally got to Minneapolis around 1:30, got my rental car (a Mustang convertible--terrible instrumentation panel), and got lost trying to find my way around 1-way streets in downtown Minneapolis (in which 5th St. meets 7th Ave., with a few named streets mixed in to mess you up) to the Raddison Hotel, where the company had decided to put me up.
After I got settled in my room and checked-in with work, I found out that the class I was supposed to fly to Chicago for in a couple weeks was already full, and had to cancel plans with my folks. By the time that was done, it was past 7, so I decided to go looking for some food. I then discovered one of the great things about Downtown: the 2nd-story Skywalk that connects most of the buildings. You can get almost anywhere downtown without ever having to step foot on a sidewalk or go outside. The annoying parts were that it's a very confusing layout and there aren't many maps to help guide you from building to building, and that everything except the major stores closes up at 6, so all the food joints were already closed. Had to venture out of Downtown to get dinner, then come back in, which I survived and only got lost once. I didn't touch the car again until I was leaving town.
The class was 8-5 on Tuesday and Wednesday. Not a lot of revolutionary material, just general stuff about disengaging your emotions. They also gave us the book and audio CDs, which I have yet to read. The intent of my going to the course was to evaluate it for the rest of my department, and my general evaluation was that there may be some nuggets to pull out, but the course itself isn't worth sending people through normally. The fact that I was the only non-manager there didn't help much (most people were managers or executives from hospitals). I've still got to go through the CDs and book to see if there's anything more directed there.
Tuesday evening I decided to venture down to the Mall of America, courtesy of the Light Rail that runs straight there from a station 2 blocks from my hotel. Unfortunately I didn't know it was 2 blocks, and ended up walking to the wrong end of the Nicollet Mall before figuring that part out. At the MoA I went straight to the aquarium, which didn't exist when I was last there 10 years ago. It's a walk-through underwater aquarium, so my engineering training kicked in right away at how many tons of water pressure were around me trying to turn me into filleted bits of shark food. Having stingrays and tiger sharks resting on the tube directly above me didn't help much with that part, but by the time I got halfway through I was getting over it. They have a small touch pool near the end, where they keep some smaller stingrays and sharks. They'd just fed them, so they were very active, and I eventually mustered up the courage to touch one of the stingrays; very slimy feeling, but I'm not sure how much of that was just the water. That was the last stop in the aquarium, so I went on and walked around all 3 main levels before grabbing dinner and heading back to the Light Rail station. I didn't buy anything except dinner and a Strawberry Banana Julius, not that I'd planned to. A mall is never a good place to buy something, especially not a mall designed as a tourist trap.
Wednesday evening, the class was over, and I was debating what to do. I found out that the Hollidazzle, a small Christmas parade down the Nicollet Mall, was starting that night. The cold weather had finally come in that day, and the temp was about 12 degrees, but that didn't deter me from going down to see it. I even was able to get pictures of about half the floats before my camera's batteries froze; I'll try to post some of then here in the near future. After that, I went back to my room to warm up, and watch CBS for the night. However, during CSI:NY, I heard real-life gunfire outside my window. I wasn't able to see the actual shooting site; I was on the 6th floor, and there was a bus between us. From what they said on the news later, two guys got into an argument, one of them pulled a gun, and I heard 4 or 5 shots. It took the police about 5 minutes to get there, and the ambulance another 5 past that. Rather poor response time in my opinion, given it was light traffic downtown at that hour, but the guy who was shot was moving and looked OK when they got him into the ambulance. I just checked the local news station, and it says that as of the next morning he was listed in serious-to-critical. That kinda spoiled my mood for the rest of the evening.
Thursday morning, I was up too early again, and got lost again trying to find the I-35 on-ramp. Managed to get to the airport eventually, and checked my car back in with Avis. The flight to DFW was fairly good, though we hit some turbulence during our descent. I even think I got some sleep on the flight, which is amazing. When we got to DFW, I sat around for a while, then walked all of B Concourse, and found that it connected directly to D, so I walked all of that too. Then, an hour before my flight's supposed to leave, they announce that they're providing a bus to Longview for anybody who wants it. They hadn't canceled the flight yet, but given the cold weather had followed me from Minnesota and it was actually snowing outside, plus what the turbulence we'd encountered on the way in would do to a puddle-jumper, I decided the bus was a good idea. We didn't leave the terminal until almost an hour after our plane was supposed to leave, and there were only a half dozen of us on the bus, so I think the plane made it. However, we made it to Longview safe and sound, and it worked out since that's when Nacho had just gotten into town and was able to pick me up.
Friday I was back at work, in the mad rush to get caught up. Now it's the weekend, and I'm starting to look ahead; I've still got more catching up to do, and Nacho and I need to go look at an apartment on Monday. We hope we like it, because the price is good and it's the close to both LeTourneaus, while still being in what looks like a safe neighborhood. More on that in my next post, hopefully.
I was up ridiculously early Monday morning (which means anytime before dawn in my book, 5:30 in this case) to go the East Texas Regional Airport for a puddle-jumper to DFW. From there I sat around the terminal until my flight to Minneapolis, about 4 hours later. I finally got to Minneapolis around 1:30, got my rental car (a Mustang convertible--terrible instrumentation panel), and got lost trying to find my way around 1-way streets in downtown Minneapolis (in which 5th St. meets 7th Ave., with a few named streets mixed in to mess you up) to the Raddison Hotel, where the company had decided to put me up.
After I got settled in my room and checked-in with work, I found out that the class I was supposed to fly to Chicago for in a couple weeks was already full, and had to cancel plans with my folks. By the time that was done, it was past 7, so I decided to go looking for some food. I then discovered one of the great things about Downtown: the 2nd-story Skywalk that connects most of the buildings. You can get almost anywhere downtown without ever having to step foot on a sidewalk or go outside. The annoying parts were that it's a very confusing layout and there aren't many maps to help guide you from building to building, and that everything except the major stores closes up at 6, so all the food joints were already closed. Had to venture out of Downtown to get dinner, then come back in, which I survived and only got lost once. I didn't touch the car again until I was leaving town.
The class was 8-5 on Tuesday and Wednesday. Not a lot of revolutionary material, just general stuff about disengaging your emotions. They also gave us the book and audio CDs, which I have yet to read. The intent of my going to the course was to evaluate it for the rest of my department, and my general evaluation was that there may be some nuggets to pull out, but the course itself isn't worth sending people through normally. The fact that I was the only non-manager there didn't help much (most people were managers or executives from hospitals). I've still got to go through the CDs and book to see if there's anything more directed there.
Tuesday evening I decided to venture down to the Mall of America, courtesy of the Light Rail that runs straight there from a station 2 blocks from my hotel. Unfortunately I didn't know it was 2 blocks, and ended up walking to the wrong end of the Nicollet Mall before figuring that part out. At the MoA I went straight to the aquarium, which didn't exist when I was last there 10 years ago. It's a walk-through underwater aquarium, so my engineering training kicked in right away at how many tons of water pressure were around me trying to turn me into filleted bits of shark food. Having stingrays and tiger sharks resting on the tube directly above me didn't help much with that part, but by the time I got halfway through I was getting over it. They have a small touch pool near the end, where they keep some smaller stingrays and sharks. They'd just fed them, so they were very active, and I eventually mustered up the courage to touch one of the stingrays; very slimy feeling, but I'm not sure how much of that was just the water. That was the last stop in the aquarium, so I went on and walked around all 3 main levels before grabbing dinner and heading back to the Light Rail station. I didn't buy anything except dinner and a Strawberry Banana Julius, not that I'd planned to. A mall is never a good place to buy something, especially not a mall designed as a tourist trap.
Wednesday evening, the class was over, and I was debating what to do. I found out that the Hollidazzle, a small Christmas parade down the Nicollet Mall, was starting that night. The cold weather had finally come in that day, and the temp was about 12 degrees, but that didn't deter me from going down to see it. I even was able to get pictures of about half the floats before my camera's batteries froze; I'll try to post some of then here in the near future. After that, I went back to my room to warm up, and watch CBS for the night. However, during CSI:NY, I heard real-life gunfire outside my window. I wasn't able to see the actual shooting site; I was on the 6th floor, and there was a bus between us. From what they said on the news later, two guys got into an argument, one of them pulled a gun, and I heard 4 or 5 shots. It took the police about 5 minutes to get there, and the ambulance another 5 past that. Rather poor response time in my opinion, given it was light traffic downtown at that hour, but the guy who was shot was moving and looked OK when they got him into the ambulance. I just checked the local news station, and it says that as of the next morning he was listed in serious-to-critical. That kinda spoiled my mood for the rest of the evening.
Thursday morning, I was up too early again, and got lost again trying to find the I-35 on-ramp. Managed to get to the airport eventually, and checked my car back in with Avis. The flight to DFW was fairly good, though we hit some turbulence during our descent. I even think I got some sleep on the flight, which is amazing. When we got to DFW, I sat around for a while, then walked all of B Concourse, and found that it connected directly to D, so I walked all of that too. Then, an hour before my flight's supposed to leave, they announce that they're providing a bus to Longview for anybody who wants it. They hadn't canceled the flight yet, but given the cold weather had followed me from Minnesota and it was actually snowing outside, plus what the turbulence we'd encountered on the way in would do to a puddle-jumper, I decided the bus was a good idea. We didn't leave the terminal until almost an hour after our plane was supposed to leave, and there were only a half dozen of us on the bus, so I think the plane made it. However, we made it to Longview safe and sound, and it worked out since that's when Nacho had just gotten into town and was able to pick me up.
Friday I was back at work, in the mad rush to get caught up. Now it's the weekend, and I'm starting to look ahead; I've still got more catching up to do, and Nacho and I need to go look at an apartment on Monday. We hope we like it, because the price is good and it's the close to both LeTourneaus, while still being in what looks like a safe neighborhood. More on that in my next post, hopefully.
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