Quite a bit has happen over the last three weeks. We finished the upgrade at San Diego, I spent a week at Ft. Monroe for Guards, drove from Ft. Monroe to Mitchell, SD, drove my car from San Diego back to Sioux Falls, spent a week back at work in San Diego and now I am getting ready to start Monday morning in St. Paul, MN.
Back to the beginning. The weekend I flew back to San Diego to finish the upgrade went well. It was tiring and hard to get motivated, but everything went well and it was a success. The next week at AT (Annual Training - 2 weeks of guard duty) I was quite tired from the long weekend and the red-eye back to Virginia.
It was very fun to spend a full week with the unit. Everyone was having a great time and enjoying the duty. We had two concerts that week: a jazz concert on the boardwalk and concert band performance. The jazz concert was a good time. The stage was on the boardwalk, so the beach and ocean were only a few feet away. The attendance was good - most people who walked by ended up staying for the entire hour.
The last day of duty at Ft. Monroe we performed a concert at the gazebo on post. The US Continental Band has a gazebo that was built to hold a concert band. Every Thursday night in the summer, the Continental Band hosts "Music Under the Stars". The crowd was fantastic. The gazebo is on the Chesapeake Bay, so Navy ships pass by during the concert. Before our concert, we saw a nuclear submarine go through the Bay to the Naval Base. Very cool.
Friday, myself, Tim Storly, and the Groons loaded up in two vehicles and began the drive to South Dakota. We were driving all of the units equipment back in two large trailers. I have never driven through the eastern half of the country, so it was fun to see new parts of the US. (Ohio is crappy - speed traps, bad roads - not fun). We took two days to drive from Langley AFB to Mitchell, SD. Tim bought two-way radios for each vehicle so we could talk with each other. We had more fun with those radios that we should have. I just hope that no one else was listening in on our channel :)
I went up to Watertown on Sunday to see the family. It was good to be back home. Dad and I went up the park to play some tennis. It was fun to play with him again. The rest of the day I spent hanging out at home.
Monday and Tuesday I made up a few days of duty in Mitchell. Nothing exciting.
Wednesday, I flew back to San Diego. I needed to bring my Crossfire back home since I was going to be starting in St. Paul in a few weeks. I spent the night at the apartments in San Diego - but first I made a stop by Chipotle for supper. Mmmmm.
Thursday morning I took off early and started off toward Phoenix. When I told mom and dad a while ago that I was going to be brining my car back, mom said that she would like to ride with. So, I bought mom and ticket and picked her up in Phoenix Thursday afternoon. We made it to Albuquerque that night. Friday morning we were off again. It was nice having mom along on the trip; when I drove the Crossfire out to San Diego, it was just me. When I got tired of driving, mom would take over. I think she enjoyed driving the car too, so that helps ;)
During the drive, we listened to most of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that book. Jim Dale, the reader, is fantastic too. Unfortunately, we didn't finish the book by the time we reached Sioux Falls, so I gave mom the CD's and I have want to re-listen to the ending.
Friday night we made it to Kansas City. I had hoped to drive all the way to Sioux Falls, but driving in Kansas was slow. So, we made it back to Sioux Falls by 1:00 on Saturday. When we got to my place, I gave mom my 12" PowerBook. Since I bought my MacBook, I wasn't going to use it very much. I figured mom and Anna would get more use out it.
I spent most of the weekend doing nothing. I hung out with Kim - it had been a while. I finally washed and waxed the Crossfire. That hadn't been done since I bought it (I've taken it through car washes, but that just gets rid of the visible gunk.
Monday morning I flew back out to San Diego for one last week of work. They wanted some help fixing some remaining issues and cleaning up from the upgrade. I did get a chance to say "good-bye" to the people there. which I hadn't been able to do on Go Live weekend. The Go Live party was this week too, so I finally made it to a Go Live party for a project I worked on. (Until now, I have never made it to a Go Live party for a project I was on - only other project's Go Live parties. Not that it is a big deal, or really disappoints me, just something I've noticed.)
So, this weekend I plan on relaxing, seeing the family again, and driving to St. Paul. I am now in full marathon training mode. I "get" to run 14 miles tomorrow morning. Thankfully the heat isn't as bad as last week. Also, I won't eat two burgers before I do my long run - I learned last week that that is a bad idea.
On a different thought - I'll be working in the twin cities for at least a year, so I've decided that I'm going to move there. It won't be for at least a month, but by late September I hope to be settled and a new home owner. I'm sad to leave Sioux Falls and South Dakota, but it will be nice to not fly every week, for at least a year. Most of my friends live close to Sioux Falls, so it'll be a change - but I'm also looking forward to meeting new people. I've though about moving to the twin cities since I took the job at Empower, so I think this is Gods que to get movin'.
