Katy's Mom Visits

Hooray for family visits! My Mom arrived on Wednesday evening, thankfully with smooth flights. Paul and I were concerned for a bit because we looked up the wrong flight and saw it had been delayed to the point that she would have been running between gates in Denver (and anyone who's flown to a smaller city and knows what it's like to go from the B terminal to the A terminal (the outdoor gates) and what a hassle that can be!). But as I alluded to, we were looking at the wrong flight and her connection was time-filled so that she was able to get dinner at Jimmy's Bistro in the Denver airport. That place has very good food, I've enjoyed it whenever the chance has been had to eat there. 

Unfortunately I had to work 2 of the 3.5 days of her visit. But, Paul was able to take off Thursday afternoon, and had Friday off for Spring Break. So, they had plenty of quality visit time. On Thursday, they went out to lunch and to a couple small stores. Mom went with me to my book-club meeting that night where we discussed Three Cups of Tea. It was great having her there, I really enjoy going to book-club. Friday it sounds like Paul and Mom had a fairly busy day. They went shopping for a friend's birthday gift, and then down to Lander to get a new fish for the aquarium. In the evening was the birthday party for our now 21 year old friend, which consisted of dinner at The Depot (Mexican) and then cake and present opening at their house. Saturday has been more shopping and just general relaxing. It's been great having her here, and we'll be bummed to see her go tomorrow afternoon (though I'm sure my Dad will be glad to have her back).  Tonight we're planning on going to The Bull Steakhouse, and then Mom and I are going to have chick-flick night while Paul goes racing. We're going to watch The Miracle Worker, which I have to watch for my LEAD program and she wants to see again... and Nights in Rodanthe hopefully. At least Miracle Worker, and Nights in Rodanthe may not happen until Sunday morning, but we'll see what happens. 

The furry kids have loved having my Mom around...Clouie even chose her to snuggle with one night...which I have to admit was kind of nice to have the bed dog-free for one night. Anyhow, that's the news around here. Nothing overly new for me at work. I got a package in the mail for the LEAD program which had copies of The Miracle Worker movie, and two books - Courage, and The Servant...all of which I need to have read/watched by my arrival to Louisville in June. Shouldn't be a problem. 

Hope all is well elsewhere. Take care!!

Katy's Good News

I tend to keep quiet when I apply for anything regarding work. Be it a position at a new office, promotion at my current office, or a selective program. In late January, I completed my application to the Leadership Excellence and Development (LEAD) program. It is a selective program to enhance/develop leadership skills for people in the Central Region in the weather service. Within a couple weeks, I'd heard they were about to send out the "Dear John" letters to those people who didn't get interviews. I hadn't received a phone call, and assumed I would be getting my letter soon. During a curiously busy period of a rather benign weather day, the phone rang. I answered and was greeted with "You're just the person I wanted to talk to...Congratulations!" Now, we had just hired a new administrative assistant named Kathleen, so I assumed that this person actually wanted to talk to Kathleen about the new position. Then the person on the other line introduced herself as a higher-up with Central Region Headquarters who was associated with the LEAD program. I lost every ounce of air that was in my lungs, and immediately my hands started to shake. She informed me I had gotten an interview! We set it up so that it was the day after I was done with my evening shifts the following week, and in the later afternoon hours to ensure I would be awake and alert. 

Oh man did I sweat that interview. It's been a while since I have done so much to prepare for an interview. I contacted 3 women that had been selected for the LEAD program in 2008 to ask them about their interview experiences. They were all very nice and told me what they could remember. I went in to work the day before the interview to meet with our Warning Coordination Meteorologist (WCM) just to see what kind of questions he thought I would get. We chatted for about an hour, and at the end he gave me 5 and told me that he thought I would do great. I was iffy on my shift the night before the interview. I worked on some notes on topics in-case I lost my train of thought during the interview. I stared at my application (and found a couple grammatical errors!) and felt my stomach do flips. Amazingly, I fell asleep quickly when I got home at 3a. I woke up fairly early...probably around 930a or so, and couldn't get back to sleep. I got up and showered to wake myself up more so I wouldn't be sluggish during the interview. I cleaned up areas of the house I would be looking at so I wouldn't be focusing on the neglect the house was under during my time of stress. I put out my notes on the table with a pen so I could take notes. Paul came home and we had a nice lunch while he watched me stress. :) After he left, it was around 1p, and my interview was around 2p. So I called my Mom and chatted with her for the majority of that hour. She helped calm me, and when I hung up with her I felt ready for the interview. The interview went well... 6 Meteorologists-in-Charge were on the call, along with a regional union steward. I stumbled during 1 of the questions, and had to come back to another one... but they seemed happy with the answers. I felt ok after the interview. Then the waiting period began. I was a tad jumpy Friday, Monday, and Tuesday whenever the phone rang hoping it was HQ telling me I'd been selected. No call...and I started to think I didn't get it. I was driving to meet a couple girl friends for dinner when I received a text message from one of my coworkers. He congratulated me on being selected, and let me know that our regional director had sent out the announcement email!!! I couldn't believe it! Dinner was great with good friends and good conversations. You know as soon as I got home I checked to read the email myself just to make sure. I can't believe I got picked! Overall, there were 91 applicants of varying positions. In the end, 30 people got interviewed...and 15 people get selected for the program.  

So, now another chapter begins. It's a year long program from what I understand...though it seems that the last couple months is really helping to prepare offices for getting their employees to apply to the program. I have a week long, intensive training session in Kentucky in June, and after that I believe it's quite a few teleconference calls. It looks like some interesting people are in the class with me, I recognized a couple names on the list...and was told by our WCM that a couple other people from the list are outstanding people. I think that's a good sign. 

Maybe 2009 won't be such a bad year afterall. 

Rough couple of weeks on the aquarium

Well over the past few weeks we've lost a couple of our fish. First we lost our Red Dwarf Guarami. Then this past week we lost one of our angel fish. Nothing seems to be out of place with the water. So not sure what the cause is. I'll do a water change here soon. Sometime over the next week, I think we'll go out and pick up at least one new fish, maybe two. See how it goes.

Outside of that, we're back from our trip to Billings, which was really nice. Katy is the best for taking me up there for my birthday. I had a lot of fun. Next weekend, I head down to Rock Springs for their carpet off-road championships. It won't be as good as the Billings, but it'll be a new experience.

So the time change has hit Katy and I pretty good. We're both extremely lazy today I think. Although we did visit the Riverton Mall (Wal-Mart) for some goodies for the house. Both of us have a few things happening this week. Tuesday, I have a WyMoPA club meeting. Woo! NOT!! Katy is going out with a couple of friends that night for some non-work related fun. Should be great for her.

I finally ordered the tonneau cover for my truck. Will be happy when that arrives Should be nice to have.

Cya,
Paul

Race Results and the Beginning of Evening Shifts

Just thought I'd ship along a quick update regarding the R/C race that we went to Billings for over the weekend. Paul got Top Qualifier in his trans-am class...which was especially cool since he got it during the last qualifying event, and knocked out the guy that had held the Top Qualifier position from the beginning. Paul got a nice trophy for that one. For the race results...he got 3rd place in his trans-am class, 6th place in his 1/12th scale, and ended up not being able to race his touring car. So overall, a very successful adventure for him. I helped the Billings economy by doing some (more) shopping. Made a good dent in the paycheck...which is alright, I'd skimped the last couple paychecks so I could have some extra spending money for the trip. I didn't even get as much as I was going to since I never officially hit the mall there.

So tonight I start a rather quick string of evening shifts. I took off the first 2 of them to go to Billings, so I've only got 3 evening shifts this string. Works for me. ;) I did not prep well enough for these shifts though. I probably only stayed awake until 1130p last night, when I really should have stayed up until 1 or 2 am. Oh well...that's what caffeine is for! :) Working with a great crew over the next three nights, so that will certainly help me out quite a bit. As will the guaranteed sugar/caffeine high that I'll be on after 11p tonight. I should make it to 1230a or so ok...but after that I'll be struggling a bit. But hey, it'll work out alright...it always does. 

Anyhow, as I've said before, I will try to get some pictures of the race (or at least Paul holding his trophies) up here someday. They are still residing on that camera, so when they finally make it off there I'll update. Hope all is well.