travis' brain dump

I can’t believe it’s the end of Wednesday already. I’m glad, that’s for sure. Two more days this week and then next week is a four day week, so I’m excited. 🙂

This past weekend went pretty well. Amanda evidently enjoyed her birthday so that’s a good thing. It was a full three days of activities that’s for sure. LOL At least everyone came away from having had a good time.

Did I already mention how glad I am this week is almost over?! It’s been a busy one with more busy days ahead. One of these weeks I’m going to lose a few days when the company I’m working for sends me out to SLC for a couple days to do some work out there. Should be fun though, nothing too crazy, mostly just making sure some things are in line and getting a feel for a couple of the other locations.

I’ve really enjoyed it here so far. The schedule has been a little odd to get used to but I really like working for this company. I definitely would love the opportunity to stay on here if given the chance. It’s a great environment and the people here are a blast to work with, it’s like a big family here. We’ll see what the future holds though but I definitely hope for something permanent to present itself sooner than later as this hourly stuff is really getting annoying. I never thought I would enjoy the aspect of a fixed rate salary despite the obvious uncompensated overtime. I guess compensation for that comes in so many other ways like stable/affordable/good benefits and reliability on a pay schedule. Eesh.

The “benefits” I have now have got to be some of the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s almost pointless to even have them aside from the fact it keeps you in a “covered” state so anything that comes up will transfer to new insurance. Other than that, it’s a waste. Gotta love it!

Anyway, end of the day so I need to get moving. 🙂

honestly, i have to say i’ve had one long week… perhaps it’s the 9 hours in the office and the hour on the bus before and after but i’m so ready for this weekend. not a whole lot planned for it thankfully… i’ve got to run some errands and such but nothing major. we’re going to be doing a little maintenance on the snowboards this weekend or at least  i will, lol… this next week should be pretty good though… it’s a four day week which is nice. pretty soon those four day weeks will mean friday snowboarding… i so can’t wait.

amanda’s and andy’s birthdays are this week so we’re planning on going out friday night for that, woohoo! amanda gets the extra trip out on her birthday for dinner though, so that will be nice too… two nights out, whatever shall we do!? i also have to fit in putting in a window friday during the day if at all possible. i’ve gotten behind on replacing those things and i want to make sure i can at least get the one in for the living room before it gets too cold. that thing was the worst last year. i’m all for remodeling an older house but man, sometimes it’s a pain.

well, i have some things to finish up before i head out for the day so i better get to em.

later

You know, it’s been amazing to me. All the time I spend on the internet every day and sometimes it’s just plain hard to get in a good personal blog. Well, a general public personal blog that is. 🙂

Not a whole lot has changed in the last few weeks since my last public update. Life around the house has been pretty calm all in all. Amanda has gotten all settled in for the most part. She’s got her routine forming and has been watching a little boy from church for some extra money which has been nice. She’s also learned where things are and has been slowly converting the house into a fully formed home. Now it’s my turn to get off my rear end and get some more of the remodel finished. I’ve got to finish that whole downstairs in the next few months. That’s my goal. At the very least it’s time to replace a couple more windows before winter sets in full swing here. With the fever of snowboarding season beginning, so is the realization that I need to get the window tasks finished up quickly before the temps get down too low as the rest of the stuff is primarily cosmetic and all inside. At least these next two window replacements should have a profound impact on the heating bill. The two plus the new doors I installed already have since obviously helped. Arwen’s room is much warmer in the winter and the downstairs room that got remodeled has been quite nice since. 🙂

Work has been one of those changing efforts. I started a new assignment/contract right after we got back from Mexico from Tyler’s wedding last week so it’s been kinda interesting despite the fact this is my first full week here due to some illness (acquired in Mexico) that had me figuratively tethered to the bathroom for a couple days… boy that was fun. At least the trip was nice, despite being short. It was also nice to discover how quickly we can make it down there now. The old route (going through Phoenix to pick up Amanda) was insane! 15 hours to Phoenix then 8 hours to her parents house. The new route is nice… 10-10 1/2 hours to the border and 2-2 1/2 hours to her parents! Now we’ve got an updated pass for the car now too, so it makes it that much easier to make it down. You can leave at 5am and be there by supper! hehe I only wish it was as easy for me to travel home… that’s still 21-22 hours. *shudder*

Back on the job subject. This new contract isn’t too bad. I came in, met some people and they turned me loose on my list of things to do. It’s kinda wierd to be honest. I don’t really interact with the folks here too well. I really miss the place I was at before here. From day one I got along with those guys and it was an overall great experience working there. We got a ton of work done and had a lot of fun together. Here, I just kinda do my thing and rarely interact with anyone. At least I’m learning some new stuff though, that’s always a plus. Maybe I will get a good chance to use this knowledge for something more permanent in the near future. Either way, at least I’ve been keeping busy and been able to start getting caught up on everything from when I was unemployed. I would very much enjoy *not* doing that again despite the fact it was only 2 months. The only thing so far that has actually really been a downer has been the riding of the bus everyday since it’s downtown and absolutely pointless to try to drive down here. I worked it out to cost about $12.00 a day if I drove to include gas and parking. The bus… $5.50 a day. So it’s up at 5:30, on the bus by 6:30, at work by 7:15, 9 hour day, on the bus back at 4:55 and home by 6:00…. o.O Another aspect I miss of the previous contract… it was 10 minutes from home and didn’t start until 9am, LOL.

I can’t really complain though. Despite the funky schedule and the wierd working environment at least I have a family at home that loves me and I’ve got the best friends anyone could ever ask for. At the end of the day, that’s all that really matters to me.

Well, enough blogging… time to get back to work. 🙂

Well technically we’ve been back for a couple days. We got in Saturday evening. Want to talk about being beat up? 17 hours of driving. At least we were graced with a brand new Penske truck. Only had 10000 miles on it. 🙂 We headed out Friday night around 11pm PT (12am MT) and hit the road hopeful. Arwen and Amanda were out well before we even hit I-17 off the 101 which was kinda funny. Not sure if it was the vibration of the truck or the rain, but they were sound asleep. I don’t think Amanda even moved until we were just about into Flagstaff. LOL The rest of the trip went pretty well… just tiring so we swapped off a couple times so that I could get an hour here and there of sleep to knock the edge off. Overall I’d have to say I did pretty good. I didn’t feel like I was to the point of nodding off once. Close, but not quite there. Thankfully Amanda got enough sleep in between to cover for me while I took some power naps a couple times. I’d have to say the highlight of the experience was getting to see my friend Brian again. I haven’t seen him in about 3 years and it was good to catch up and have some breakfast with him when we got to Albuquerque. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see him again before he comes up in December, but it was really good to see him again. After finishing up breakfast we hit the road again and finished the home stretch to Denver. We got in somewhere around 6pm MT. It’s kind of a haze. We unloaded the truck, got some dinner, showered and DIED. I’m so glad Amanda had some soma’s because I definitely needed one. I think we both came to life somewhere around 10 the next morning. We slept in pretty good but what can ya do when you’re depleted and drugged? lol

All has been well… just getting settled and figuring things out. I started a temp job on Monday, so it’s good to see some positive cash flow coming back in instead of watching it bleed out over the coarse of a few months. Hopefully something permanent is around the corner. 

Anyway…. just an update. 🙂