Been a while

I figure it's probably a race between Beth, Jessie and I on who can go the longest without posting an update. I think Beth has this one won, so I'll go ahead and throw in the towel. And since I am torturing myself by watching Louisville run over UK right now, I might as well be productive. So here you go.

I'll start with the latest goings-on, then give you pics to look at. My project is in full-on close-out mode at this point. The building is totally enclosed, finishes going in, systems running. We just have to do all the little things that entail finishing it up. Unfortunately, it's those little things that are the most stressful for me on a project. They all add up, and make for a full plate. The last few weeks have been especially trying, as our team has kind of started to fall apart. The project manager for our partner company has not been doing his job, which has put more pressure on Tim, Scott and I, the on-site management team. The result has been the VP of my company, Clement, calling the VP of their company, TCI, and hashing it out. And since everyone knows I am the one person on site who will not sugar coat the situation, I am the one who gets to deal with the two sides. And given my experience a few years ago with a similar PM who threw me under the bus for everything, I am not going to let that happen again. So this past Friday, when our PM tried to throw me under the bus, I sent him an e-mail that as politely as possible said I would do this particular part of my job if I had the time, but I am too busy doing his job. He disagreed, of course. Needless to say, I have no respect for people like him. I'm just counting my days till I'm done with him.

The project manager from my company called my co-worker, Tim, the other day to check up on me and make sure I was not losing my mind. Tim told him I have high standards, and it's killing me that I have to lower them just to get people to do their jobs and get the project done. Which made me feel better, at least my team sees my stress. If I actually required them to meet my standards, we would never finish. It literally has been turning my stomach to know what I am letting go, all in the name of finishing the project. And sadly, the bar is set so low here, the Corps thinks the building looks fantastic. We did a punchlist last week, and the Corps person would walk past something and say it looked fine, and I would write it down as something that needed to be fixed. I was annoying the subcontractors big time. The lack of pride in one's work here is truly amazing.

Anyway, all that being said, I did sort of get a bomb dropped on me two weeks ago when the owner of the company, the VP, and my PM were on site. Before I could even say hello, they were asking what I thought about Tampa. After a second of trying to figure out why they would ask me that, I realized they were saying that was my next project location. They didn't ask, they just said, "You're going to Tampa. And we need you there now. So when can you leave?" So the project is a parking garage for McCall Air Force Base, which is right on the water at the southern tip of Tampa. I'm coming around on the idea, only because it means I get to leave this hell hole. But the thought of a parking garage, in Tampa, is not really exciting to me. Unfortunately, I can't find a job back in Seattle. So for now, I'm heading to Tampa the first part of October.

On to other news, back in July I headed down to Charleston for a weekend. No particular reason, it just sounded fun. I left here after work on a Friday, stayed the night just outside of Charleston, then headed out Saturday morning. It was in the mid-90's and not too humid. But it was hot enough, that by 7:00 that night I was done. Anyway, I wandered Charleston all day, put some miles on my shoes, took nine thousand pics, and generally had a nice time. I stayed at a hotel right in downtown, it was an old building that had been updated. It was nice, but I wouldn't recommend it. Too much money for not much. Anyway, here's some photos of my adventure:
This is the Miles Brewton House. Not sure if you can blow this pic up to read the sign, but it says this house was built between 1765 & 1769, and has been in the same family since. It was the British Headquarters from 1780-82, and was the Federal Headquarters in 1862.

This is just a fun shot of several of the rooftops on one street. I like all the different chimneys.

There were several houses that had plaques noting the property was granted to the owner by the King of England. I thought that was kind of cool. Some serious history in these places.

Some other random houses.

I have a ton of other pics, I pretty much went crazy taking photos of the houses. I love the old architecture, and found several houses that had foundations that were sinking, one house was actually leaning a lot, and a lot of brick. All things that get me excited to walk around.

On Sunday I headed back to Fayetteville. But I decided to take back roads to get there. So what was a 3 hour drive down was a 6 hour drive back. I stopped a lot. I came across this house along the side of the road:

Notice the floor beam is sitting on another beam, that's sitting on the brick footer. That middle beam looks a few termite lunches away from being gone.

After this house, I followed some signs to a plantation that was literally in the middle of nowhere, South Carolina. It is the Hampton Plantation, and was established to grow rice. Some photos:

This is the kitchen house:

As I was walking around the building, I went to walk between those two trees in front when I noticed an absolutely ginormous spider web between the two trees. I stopped and stepped back, assuming the little spider was in there somewhere. Upon discovering the absolutely ginormous spider, I shrieked and literally ran. Scared the crap out of me. It was a banana spider, look it up. HUGE! I asked the park ranger about it, and she said the huge ones are the females. The males are tiny, she showed me one of those. She said the females eat the males when they are done with their business. I said, "As it should be." :)

Anyway, a couple of cool things about this place. The first pic of the house above is actually the second version of the front entry. The second pic was the original entry. There was a still very distinguishable path down to the waterway that ran to the north of the property. That was the original way to get to the house. They later added on to the house - a wing on each side and the new grand front entry - which the park ranger seemed surprised I noticed. I can see these things, call me weird. Anyway, here's a pic of the still very apparent drive up to the house from land. It's not the way we drove in, so it's stayed this way over time from the wagons.

 The other cool thing was this tree:

If you can enlarge the pic, check out what that plaque says. This is called the George Washington Oak, and says he took care of it when he came to the plantation. How cool is that! I was standing where GW once did. It was pretty neat to think about.

Anyway, I headed out from here. In the hour or so I was at the random house and the plantation, some kind of bug called no seeums, or whatever, ate the crap out of my legs. My legs were covered in welts and itched like nothing I've ever felt for days. Annoying!

Anyway, I stumbled on this lake and old mill on the way too. It was insanely beautiful!

One last thing, on the way into Charleston, I stopped at The Citadel. Amazing buildings, it literally looks like a fortress. And is complete with the checkered flooring in the middle of the barracks buildings I've heard about. I wanted to take some pics, but a security guard was slowly driving behind me, so I figured I wouldn't ruin my little trip by being stopped by police for some stupid reason. :) Anyway, here's the parade grounds with one of the barracks as a backdrop.

 Lastly, a beach shot. Heavenly...

Anyway, I suppose I should wrap up the world's longest post. It's been a crazy busy summer, between work, trips home, and random trips around the Southeast. I've wracked up enough miles on Delta to cover my trip to Hawaii this Christmas, which is nice. Between having the timeshare, and now a points ticket, I think I spent about $50 on flight and housing for 7 days in Kauai. Can't argue with that! I put my house on the market again, though I'm not expecting anything. But I've got to give it one more try before last resort measures are taken. The joys of life...

Anyway, hope all is well with everyone!!

Love, Squirrel

About town

When we first came out to Fayetteville, we were told two things:
1. Live in Spring Lake. It's the nicer part of the area, despite being on the other side of the base from the jobsite.
2. Never go downtown, it's scary down there.

Well, I have since discovered:
1. Spring Lake is the 'hood. The police department was so corrupt, they closed it down. Only in the last couple of years have they gotten back up and going. There's shootings there regularly. And it's generally not a nice place to live. My current location, on the other hand, is just fine. Most of Fayetteville is.
2. The historic part of downtown is beautiful. The main strip has some nice little cafe's and shops, and the historic areas are really neat.

So why we were told these things, I cannot for the life of me figure out. People's opinions of good versus bad are interesting, to say the least.

Anyway, yesterday I was headed out of town to visit the beach, I couldn't think of anything else to do, and I wanted to get out of the apartment. On the way out, I drove past the Army's Airborne & Special Operations museum. This is what I saw:

It was pretty impressive, to say the least. So I pulled over to take a picture. After looking at it for a few minutes, I figured I had been planning to go to the museum at some point in time, and I had to real reason to go to the beach. So I found a parking spot and went to the museum instead. The flags in the photo above all have a tribute to someone on them. This is at the entrance:

The plaque says this is Iron Mike, and it's dedicated to the Airborne troopers. The sidewalk around it has stones that have been etched with tributes from families to their loved ones who have died in the various wars. It's pretty humbling.

The museum was really cool, I learned quite a bit. I am a bit of a WWII nerd, so I spent a good portion of my time in that area. By the time I finally left, I had been in there an hour and a half. It's not that big, so that's a little scary. I was a little too into it. :-)

And as a side note, I made two major trades this week for two of my fantasy baseball teams. One of them went through Saturday afternoon. While I was in the museum. As further proof I was way too into the museum, I totally forgot to check my teams before the first game. And the major acquisition that hit my roster that afternoon went on to hit two home runs and go 3 for 4. So it didn't count for me, because he was on my bench. It's a good thing I was having fun, that result would have caused me to drink an entire 2-liter of Mt Dew out of sheer depression otherwise.

After the museum, it was too late to head to the beach, and I was hungry. So I figured I'd try to find a little restaurant or something. I ended up driving into the historic part of downtown Fayetteville. I quickly found an awesome little cafe that had an area out on the sidewalk of the street where you could sit. I had a fantastic pecan, raspberry, and brie salad on lettuce, with some chicken salad on it. So tasty! After that, I found some cute little shops that I checked out. I will definitely head down to this spot again.

Next I headed out to drive through the historic district. I didn't make it very far before I found a really cool cemetery. I played it safe in this little space, you could tell it was probably not a spot to meander alone. But I managed to get some cool photos. Just some general shots:

 This monument honors the soldiers of the Civil War. Of course, it's meant for the south :-):

The engraving on it says: "In memory of the Confederate dead". Most of the headstones in this area of the cemetery were of people who died around the 1860's. I thought this one was really neat:

It's hard to read in this photo, but the bottom engraving says, "Died at Kinston, NC April 29th, 1863. Of wounds received the day before at the Battle of Gum Swamp, Craven Co., NC. He fell, in the 22nd year of his age, bravely fighting in the cause of Southern Independence." I thought it interesting that the words "Southern Independence" were a larger font and capitalized. Shows the importance to what those people were fighting for. I also wondered what they would think if they could see how things turned out in this day and age.

Lastly, in a corner of the cemetery, there's a fenced off area of four headstones. A plaque in front notes these graves had been moved from a family plot. But they were four men from the Revolutionary War. One died in 1766, and the other in 1798.

On another side note, being as this was my weekend of history, I couldn't help but be amazed at where we are now as a people compared to the past. Here are the headstones of people who fought to create this country, to give us the rights and freedoms we now enjoy. There are people who fought to split the country over race. I watched a few episodes of the series Band of Brothers. There is a part where they are interviewing the actual guys being depicted in the series, and one guy notes that three different men from his town committed suicide when they found out they weren't allowed to fight in WWII. And here we are today, so many people of our country are doing everything possible to tear this country apart. To take away the freedoms all our ancestors gave their lives for so we could have. To give up the fight and just let a few people run the show. It's so sad to me. I wish more people would look back and see how we got here. Maybe it would change their tune.

Well, off my soap box now. It was quite the adventurous day, I really enjoyed it. And I'm glad I decided to turn into the museum rather than head to the beach.

I needed the relaxing day, this week is going to be pretty crazy. My superintendent, Scott, is off vacationing this week, so it leaves me and Tim to run the place. And as is typical when Scott leaves, we have not one, but two, major concrete pours. I swear he plans it this way. So on Tuesday and Thursday, we have to be at the jobsite at 3:30 in the morning. And given Scott refuses to enforce the work hours on the jobsite, we have subs who like to work till 5:00, when we finally kick them out. So it will be quite disappointing to them all when we tell them the gates are locking at 3:30 each day this week. I refuse to be up at 2:30 in the morning, and have to be at the jobsite till 5 or 5:30. And since Tim has no backbone, it will be up to me to throw everyone out. Fun times! Can you tell I'm excited? Tomorrow's morning jobsite meeting is going to be so fun when I announce this. Pray for me.

My light at the end of this - I am on a plane at 5:00 Friday night for my week of vacation!

La di da....

It's been a while, and I am trying not to work at work. So I'll catch you up on my goings on. Nothing new to report, I'm still bored as all get out in North Carolina, the job is clicking along, and we are all counting the days till we get to leave. Right now, we're at 4 months. I feel like a kid in October when the JCPenney Christmas catalog comes out and we get to start picking our Christmas gifts. Mine this year is a trip home. For good!

So the last two weeks have been a blur of sorts. For Memorial Day weekend I decided to head south to Georgia. First I headed to Atlanta to see a Braves game. For those not in the know, I have taken to fantasy baseball. First, a friend asked me to join a league she's in. Then one day while talking about it in front of other friends, they decided they wanted to do a league too. Then Emerson asked if I'd join his league. So I'm in three leagues. And as my friend warned, it's a sickness that you get addicted to. I am very addicted. The first thing I do in the morning is check my team's results from the night before. I spend more time than I should during the day reading up and checking out players. I take my iPad with me when I go out to make sure my teams are set before games. And yes, the iPad was purchased with that plan in mind. Like I said, it's a sickness.

So, back to the Braves game. I have never been to Turner Field, it's beautiful. Here's a couple of shots of the main entry.

I have been a Braves fan since high school, they are my favorite National League team. However, fantasy baseball makes you not as concerned with the final score as you are with certain players. Thus I wasn't as concerned that the Braves got trounced as I was happy that the guy who hit the homer was my player! :-) I know the guy sitting next to me was annoyed, because I kept saying this player or that player was mine and needed to get a hit. Then again, he was driving me nuts with his assertion before EVERY single batter that you NEVER swing on the first pitch. Or the second pitch. Not sure how that's wise advice. It doesn't take long for a pitcher to figure that out, then you've got two perfect pitches you're letting go and you're down 2 strikes and have to swing on anything close. Stupid man. Anyway, the highlight of the night was getting to see Bryce Harper hit his 3rd career home run. He's the next big thing, and quite the player. Here's some shots inside the stadium. The second one is Bryce Harper up to bat.
















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I stayed at a crappy Holiday Inn hotel right next to the park that cost way more than it was worth. They ended up comping me back my dinner because it was so bad and cold by the time it got to my room. But the Atlanta portion of my weekend was good.

I headed to Fort Benning, GA the next morning to spend the day and night with my friend Brenda and her family. I worked with Brenda at Fort Lewis and we have stayed in touch since. Her husband transferred to Benning last summer. It was awesome to see some familiar faces out here. Some other friends came over that I knew at Ft Lewis and had also transferred to Benning, and we all hung out for a BBQ and good fun. I may not be in the Army, but working for Army projects is giving me a wee bit of an idea what it's like to be all over this country. Craziness. Anyway, we had an awesome time and I'm looking forward to my next visit.

I got home Monday evening, went to work Tuesday, then Wednesday morning headed home to Seattle for the weekend. For Wednesday and Thursday, I relaxed, worked in the yard, and ran errands. Then Friday I headed to Seattle for my birthday weekend. I met up with my friends for the customary dinner before Storm games at a place called Buckleys. The Storm royally suck this year, so the game was more about hanging out, seeing people, and having a fun evening. I managed to see a few friends I haven't seen since I left last fall, which was awesome.

After the game, a couple of us went out to just hang and catch up, then I went to my friends' house that I was staying at that night. Saturday morning we all slept in, then they took me out for my birthday breakfast at a place called Hudson's. Crazy good food here! We chilled the rest of the morning, messed with our fantasy baseball of course, then I headed back to Hudson's for my customary lunch before poker with one of my friends. Our little group of friends gets together a lot to play poker, and it's a lot of fun. Being as it was my birthday..... I had a horrible night. The one good hand I got, pocket aces, I lost to a straight flush. Do you know how hard it is to get a straight flush? And I lost to it!!! Lame. Whatever, I had fun. I stayed in Seattle again that night, then headed home Sunday morning to relax the rest of my trip. I headed back to NC on Monday. Here's some parting shots of Seattle and Mt Rainier from the plane (it's behind the clouds, trust me):

So now I'm back at it till June 22nd, when I hop on a plane for home again. Sigh.....

On other notes, the project is moving along. We are actually moving quite fast, which is nice. We are on track to finish on time, yippee!! The topic of conversation is now starting to turn to where the next project is. Given my company doesn't ever tell us anything, we're kind of figuring there's no other projects. So I've started the process of finding another job. Our joint venture company has approached me about coming on with them, which is good. I don't have to totally stress about employment. But it would mean continuing the traveling option, which I am really not a fan of. The two options that have been floated out are in Tuscon or Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Neither are on my list of desired destinations, for anything, let alone work. But, I need a paycheck, so I may be temporarily moving closer to Beth or Jeff :-). Anyways, there's still time, so we'll see what happens. All I know is right now I'm about to head into my super stressful part of the project - close-out. So wish me luck!!

I guess I should stop typing and go do something. I'm sure there's more to share, but it's Friday and my brain is shutting down. So I will go. Hope all is well with everyone!!

Stupified...

Our plumbing foreman decided I was an okay person when he discovered I have a Harley. The other day he came into my office to tell me the Myrtle Beach bike week is this upcoming week, and he will be taking a few days off this week to attend. Here's how the conversation took a weird turn:

Me: Oh cool, I will have to look into that. Sounds fun.

Him: Yeah, and black bike week is the following week.

Me and Tim: Umm, when only black bikes can go? (totally lost on this one)

Him: No, black people.

Me and Tim: Oh........

 

Only in the south. 

Further puzzling me, Tim, my "swears he's not racist" safety guy, says - "probably better that way, they cause a lot of trouble." I felt like I had stepped back in time, and felt a little dirty, after that whole conversation. It's amazing to me that we have a whole groups of people in this country who can't get over themselves and move on. Sadly, that applies to more than just this topic. 

Some thoughts

Bear with me on this post, I know this topic is a touchy one. But I want to voice some thoughts. I have never cared much about politics. When I finally was allowed to vote, I didn't. To me, politicians bought their way into office. The electorate didn't matter, it was all for show. The second term election of W pretty much proved that. And that's when I started paying attention.

I voted for W in that second term election, and I voted for Obama in the last one. I say this because I want you to know I write this as an independent voter. I vote for who I think will do the best job. I do not believe in voting for party. When people vote solely on party lines, our country ends up in the mess it's in. That's the main reason our current congress hasn't done a thing in three years. It's maddening when our congress people will say, "I believe what the other party is pushing, but I voted for mine. I don't want to cross the line." Who cares that their constituents wanted them to vote the other way, it's all about what their party cohorts want. And if you look up the reasons the two parties were established back in the day, neither one still meets those guidelines, especially the Republicans.

So this is why I write this. We now know that, barring some super weird occurrence, Romney is going to be the challenger to Obama. What I ask of you is to start paying attention to them now. Don't wait till October. There's a lot that will be said and covered between now and then. If you wait till then, you'll only hear what they want you to hear as you're marking that circle.

We already know that Obama has waited till the last year to actually try to push through his policies. He can rightfully blame Congress for a lot of that. If a bill can't get through Congress, the President has little he can do. But as we've seen this year, he can get mean and make things happen. So, yes, Obama has shown his shortcomings. And we have 4 years of on-the-job results to review.

Now we have his challenger, who is running on the platform that he knows how to run businesses. And as such, he knows how to fix this country. Here's my arguments, and what I hope you will research. How did he run those businesses, and does that translate over to fixing our economy? How does it relate to international dealings? Does he understand how to deal with war, potential war, national security? Does he understand all the other issues that come with being President? All these are things he needs to do as President. So far his answers to a lot of these questions have left me wondering if he knows.

Don't rely solely on the media, especially the 2 minute snippits on the five o'clock news. The bias is amazing, one way or the other. Read articles from both sides, watch both MSNBC (Dems) and Fox (Repubs). Get all the info you can. For instance, this last week's blow up over a dem talking head that Ann Romney hadn't worked a day in her life as a stay at home mom, and the media firestorm that caused. Coincidentally enough, Mitt Romney made a comment at a rally a few months ago that essentially said stay at home parents need to get out and work, have a dignified job (Google it if you don't believe me). So both sides have basically said the same thing. But the media spins things so dramatically, it makes it look worse than it should be. Both sides have said things that are ridiculous, and the next few months are going to be crazy.

Here's what it boils down to for me:

1. If Mitt wants to run this country, he needs to be more honest. Right now, he says what he believes people want to hear, or what his campaign donors want to hear. His spokesperson even admitted Mitt will change his platform once he is the official Repub challenger. He's been all over the place on what he wants to do as President. Pick a point and stick with it.

2. He claims to be all about America, but hides his income in off shore, tax free accounts. How does he expect me to vote for him, and trust he will fix the tax system, when he obviously knows it's screwed up by keeping his money elsewhere? And hiding his tax returns definitely does not help his cause. To me, that is dishonest and shows he knows he is cheating.

3. He has made it very evident he has no idea what the majority of this country is dealing with right now. When he goes off script, he makes statements that are economically offensive. I get that he's rich, so be it. It's everyone's goal in life to have the money he has. But don't flaunt it by saying the idiotic things he does.

4. Everyone in the country is in agreement that Obama wasn't ready to be President. But how is Romney better? They essentially had the same "on-the-job training". So what makes a first term Romney better than a second term Obama?

5. Lastly, tell me HOW you're going to fix the problems. Just telling me the system is messed up does nothing for me. I know that. He is admittedly not telling us his plans, because he's afraid we'll use that against him. Well, duh!

Like I said before, we know Obama's track record, so I'm not making any talking points here for him. Go on your own judgement there. We all know he has just as many downsides as Romney. Trust me, I wish the Dems had put someone up to challenge him. If for nothing else than to push him to do a better job.

So here is my plea to you - don't vote for Romney just because you hate Obama; don't vote for Romney just because of his religion; and don't vote for Romney because he's Republican, and that's how you have always voted. And don't vote for Obama for those same reasons. Research them, pay attention to what they really stand for, know who you are voting for. The next six months will bring out who these two really are. Just know that whoever gets elected, it's not going to instantly get better - oil will still be ridiculously expensive, jobs will still be scarce, the housing market will still suck. They are both still politicians, after all. And to them, their bank accounts and interests matter more than this country. It's just a matter of who is going to get things headed in the right direction.

Pollen SUCKS!!!

I have been not so fondly reminded of one of the main reasons I was glad to leave the eastern US so many years ago - pollen. It has been atrocious this week. My blue truck was yellow when I left work yesterday. It started on Sunday with my fateful decision to go for a ride on the motorcycle to enjoy the wonderful weather we are having. It seems that woke up my sinuses to the fact there's pollen here, and lots of it. And now my nose is constantly running, and I feel like a huge clamp is tightly attached to my head. I woke up this morning with a huge headache. Given it's already 74 degrees today, and it's only noon, I have had my windows open to enjoy this. And of course, it's contributing to my misery. So I will be making a trip to the store to stock up on allergy meds this afternoon.

On to other happenings, it has been a while since I did any updates. My project is finally up and running at full speed. This next week is when all the trades will be officially in the building going to work, so it's going to be a little crazy. I've been doing coordination meetings with them, in hopes that it encourages them to look ahead a little. Too many times the foreman get the drawings and don't take the time to think of anything other than what's on them. You would think that wouldn't be a big deal, but it is. Relying on designers to think of any other scope of work is like relying on the foreman to think of anyone else's work. It rarely happens. So it's up to me and Scott, my superintendent, to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. We'll see how that goes.

Speaking of work, I was talking to my project manager yesterday about another project in Colorado, because that QC manager is too lazy to do his own job, so I'm doing it for him, but that's another story. Anyway, the topic of future work came up, and I asked what other stuff my company has in the pipeline. After a long explanation from the PM, and his seeming sense that he knew why I was asking, he ended his discussion with, "Well, we don't have anything right now. But don't worry, there's time before you finish this one." What I heard - start looking for work. I already knew this was coming, it's not hard to see with my company. The other company in our joint venture effort is my first call, because I know chances are pretty good I can hire on with them. One of their head honchos is going to be here in a week and a half, and I plan to pull him aside and discuss it. We'll see what happens. My current project doesn't end till October, so there's still time.

I'm still doing my monthly trips home, I am definitely wracking up the miles. I had to call Delta the other day about something, and the guy I was talking to saw how quickly I've piled up the miles and was amazed. I said - "when you're flying from Seattle to North Carolina monthly, that tends to happen." I'm doing a super duper quick trip next weekend, I fly into Seattle Friday night and leave Monday morning. All to participate in two fantasy baseball drafts. I have priorities :-). Then I go back for my normal 5 trip the first weekend in April.

So, a few weeks ago, I did a whirlwind of traveling around the country. I hopped on a plane on a Friday afternoon amid tornado warnings and flew to Dallas to witness my nephew Keyan's baptism. It was great fun to see everyone, even if only for one day. Somehow on this trip, I managed to not get a single picture of Brynna. I'm such a horrible aunt. But here's what I did get:

Keyan and Tracen at the baptism. Donuts and milk were provided afterwards, as you can see here. Such cute boys!

After the baptism, we went back to the house, changed our clothes, and headed to a park to play for a little while. Keyan and Jeff took on Jessie and I in a game of basketball. It was good fun, it has been a while since I've played any ball, even just messing around. So I enjoyed it. Keyan made the winning shot for his team, then we headed to his actual basketball game. He was playing for the 2nd grade league championship. He played awesome, even getting a rebound and taking off down the court for a lay-up, only to be stopped by the ref to remind him he had to dribble as he ran... :-). It was cute. Anyways, they won the game. Here he is proudly with his trophy:

Here's Jessie with Maddox afterwards:

Tracen playing during the game. Apparently basketball spectating isn't his thing yet.

The other funny part of this day was as we walked into the middle school, there was a couple of machines that sold pencils and paper for 25 cents. Curious, and somewhat nostalgic, I bought some paper. Tracen was with me, and assumed it was for him, saying "Thanks!" as he grabbed it from the machine. :-) I wasn't going to argue, I had no need for it. So while we watched Keyan's team practice before the game, Tracen drew some pics for us.

Trace: What should I draw?

Me: A lion eating grandma's head.

Trace: Okay!

Once done with that excellent picture,

Trace: What should I draw now?

Me: A cheetah chasing Aunt Jessie, and she has a monkey on her head.

Trace: Okay!!

Again, awesome picture. Love it!! Alissa, probably not so much ;-) Sorry. What are Aunt's for?

One last one, here's Mad chillin' at the house:

We had a fun time, but alas, I was headed back to the airport on Sunday morning to go to a seminar in Vegas. I stayed at my timeshare that was just a short way from the Orleans casino, where the seminar was. This was a week long seminar for building inspectors to get a little smarter. I was a wee bit out of place, and quickly realized I don't know nearly as much as I thought about building inspection. But it's a good start, and I learned A LOT! I did a class on Monday for soil and foundation inspections, Wednesday was fire and smoke barrier construction, and Thursday was concrete inspections.

Tuesday was my off day, which ended up not being quite the play day I was expecting, but for a decent reason. Being I was at my timeshare, they of course wanted me to sit through one of their sales pitches. It worked, I bought a few more points. But I also got some free dinner coupons out of it, which is why I agreed to it in the first place. So that night, I took advantage and went to Bobby Flay's restaurant at Caeser's Palace. Here's the inside:

It was really nice, good ambiance. It was also insanely expensive, I was glad I had coupons. Here are pics of my meal. This was the appetizer, a blue corn crepe with some mexican type pork inside. Delish!

Next was the main course, seared ahi tuna on couscous. It doesn't look like much, but it seriously filled me up. And was super tasty.

I debated on desert, because I really was full. But then I figured, I'm at Bobby Flay's restaurant, when will I do this again, might as well. So I did. And oh my, was it a good idea! It's a chocolate cake thing that was like a lava cake, and had a warm toffee syrup on it. When I took the first bite, I actually said out loud "Holy crap!"

I felt like a rolly polly when I left, I was so full. But it was so worth it. All this, plus a soda, for a mere $85.... Good thing I had $75 worth of coupons. Throw in a tip, and not a bad deal.

Afterwards, I headed to the Venetian to catch the Phantom show. I've been before to this, and loved it. I love Phantom, so I take the chance to see it whenever I can. This night's version sucked. I seriously was watching my phone for the time so I could leave. I don't know if we got the understudies this night, or if they were off for whatever reason. The guy playing the phantom was trying to do some weird accent, and it wasn't working. He cracked several notes, and I swear I heard him sing the wrong words a few times. The actress who played Christine wasn't too bad, and the guy who played Raoul tried too hard. So I counted it as $130 down the drain. But such is life in Vegas, right? I decided not to do any other shows while there, save some money. I headed to the airport on Thursday night for a red eye back to NC.

So those are the goings on for now. I suppose I should shower and go buy my sinus drugs so I can get home and amply prepare to cheer on UK tonight. I think my neighbors may have wondered about me last night. I was seriously clapping and yelling when I was watching Duke lose. :-) Hope everyone is doing well, and cheering loudly! GO CATS!!!!