Monday, September 29, 2008
What a Whirlwind
Deployment orientation started last Thursday. That's when everyone rounds up in Denver for hours of PowerPoint presentations about safety (#1), waste practices, ethics, IT, and the list goes on. It's also the first time in seven months that we've seen each other, and questions about your summer fill the air. What have you been up to since February? Where did you go this year? How many hours did you work since you were last on the Ice? So I started thinking about my summer and what a whirlwind it has been.In summary, I got off the Ice in late February and spent three weeks with friends in New Zealand. Then I flew to Tonga and spent 10 days there. I got home (eventually) after being stuck in Chicago for almost 24 hours and repacked my bags for Africa. I flew out for that trip five days after getting home from the Ice, but I was able to make a quick stop in the Netherlands to visit friends for three days. Then onto Africa where my buddy Andrew and I spent seven weeks or so traipsing around the southeastern part of the continent. Back home to hostess for Mark and Alice, the Aussies, on their road trip through the US. They arrived the day after I flew home and left the day before I started back to work. I put in 53 consecutive days (at 70 hours + per week) of work through the week after the 4th of July, but still managed to fit in a night at the Medford Rodeo and a visit to the Tomah Tractor Pull. I spent the week after the week after the 4th of July doing almost nothing before flying out to Seattle for Lab Safety Training for a week. The end of that weekend found me visiting Erin and her mom on Bainbridge Island and spending time with Cindy, Delaney, and Andrew in the city. I came home and packed my things to move to Chicago where I had "accidentally" gotten myself a job for the month and luckily landed a room in a killer church-house in the Logan Square neighborhood. Home for a couple days and then up to the Twin Cities to visit friends and celebrate at Beth's wedding with old college buddies, some I hadn't seen in five years. Then home for a week visiting friends and family and attending the Vernon County Fair (a yearly tradition). After that, I was off to Denver for two weeks of temporary work in the office, and the craziness didn't stop. I caught "Avenue Q" with a friend, had dinners out on the town with friends I wasn't going to see for another year or more, performed at an open mic night in the suburbs with 5/6 of our Ice band, and even fit in a weekend trip to Taos with the Marquez ladies. Talk about a CRAZY summer!
All of this retelling of summers leads me to question: "Is this really my life?" WHOA! I am amazed that my time management skills have become so finely tuned!
And if I didn't get to see you this summer, you need to email me and remind me that I haven't made it to your neck of the woods in ___ amount of months/years/decades. I need reminders sometimes!!
Read or Post a Comment
I think it's been about 87 months since you've been to Minneapolis...