Boston Day 4

Pictures first.

Old South Church.

Old South Church again.

Ceiling of Old South Church.

Old South Church organ.  There was a woman practicing while we were there.

This is a reflection on either the Prudential building or the John Hancock building.

North Chruch tower was where the lanterns were hung.  Fun Fact: He did not call out "The British are coming, the British are coming." Because at the time, everyone was British, we had not garnered our independence at that time.  What he actually said was, "The Regulars are coming, the Regulars are coming!".  The British loyalist were called Regulars.  The more you know!

Cool building, can't remember which one it is though.

Brickwork memorializing the site of the Boston Massacre.

We didn't go in, but I thought the plaque was interesting.

Alright, now down to the activities.

We came downtown and tried to figure out what to do.  We had made reservations for lunch at Atlantic Fish Co. (Website Here).  I had sashimi grade Yellow Fin Tuna, prepared rare.  I was quite amazing in my opinion, but I suppose you've really got to like raw fish to get into it.  I was pretty impressed with everything.  While we were eating they brought out a 40 year old lobster that weighed in at 7.5 pounds.  They said it was $127 but would feed about four people.  If you ratio it out, it's really not that bad of a price, all things considered.

Then we meandered around town and saw some non-Catholic churches.  Not sure what they were I want to say that one was Episcopal.  Then we hemmed and hawed for a bit trying to decide what to do. And settled on a Super Duck tour (Website Here).  I wasn't overly excited by this because Wisconsin has some ducks as well, so the whole car/boat combo was old news.  It was, after all, worthwhile though, we had a 45 minute land tour and then 45 minutes out in Boston Harbor.  I guess the Super Duck is the only one who actually is able to go out into the harbor instead of just on the river, or something like that.  Either way, Super Duck's the way to go.  First Mate Todd was a little dry, but he was more than knowledgeable about everything that was going on in the area.

After we finished up with the Super Duck tour, we walked over to St. Anthony's Festival in Boston's North End.  (Website Here).  We walked through and made a donation to St. Anthony so that J, a member of the party, could get a job interview and hopefully a job.  (Side fact:  While we were in the airport, he received an email from someone to set up a phone interview!)  After that we waited in line for what seemed like forever, to eat a Giacomo's Couldn't find a website so this will have to do).  I was very impressed with it.  I got shrimp and scallops in red sauce.  I must say that I've had scallops a lot of places and these were prepared very, very well.  

The sad fact is that they don't really have a lot of Italian food options for lactose intolerance folks. Which is awful, I could pretty much go from eating pasta one day, taco's the next day, and pizza the following day.  If I kept up that routine, I'm pretty sure that I'd never get bored with it.  Except, oh wait, cheese and pasta are like peas and carrots (to quote Forrest Gump here), same as tacos/burritos/nachos you can't have those without sour cream and cheese, I mean seriously.  Who does that?  Well, I do, and it's not the same.  Even with my lactose free/vegan/parve stuff, it's just different.  Pizza, oh good lord.  Pizza is amazing.  I've been trying to eat it sans cheese and it's just not the same.  Plus it takes about twice as long to order pizza without the cheese, the figure you're pranking them or something.  It's not fun...I usually just pick a pizza place I like and get them into a routine so that I can call in once a month and get a pizza sans cheese.

Back to Boston now.

After Giacomo's we...

Wait...back up again.  The girls while we were waiting in line, went to Modern Pastry on the North End (Website Here), to get some Italian cookies.  In our humble opinion these were of a much better quality that the Mike's Pastry cookies that I discussed previously.  I guess the draw for Mike's Pastry is the cannoli's and they didn't get any cannoli's they got cannoli's from Modern Pastry, which in turn is known for it's cookies.

So yeah, back to what I was saying...

After Giacomo's we walked back to the car. But as we were walking we passed Paul Revere's house.  It was late and it was closed for the day.

Wait...back up again...

In line for Giacomo's we almost didn't make the cut.  Turns out they really don't have formal hours, they also, don't take reservations, hence the line.  Also, they arbitrarily place a cut off point on the line and say no one after you.  We almost didn't make that cut.  Two people behind us and that was it.  Rough.  We had to turn people away.

Also, a funny side story is that the couple that was behind us was in line got a table first (They were a table of two, we were a table of 6, I get it, I'm over it...moving on).  But at the end of their meal, when they payed up, their server came over and asked if their service was okay.  They said that everything was fantastic.  She then proceeded to say that normally when you think things were fantastic you tip more than 10%...BOOM....good move on the waitresses part.  I thought the guy was going to cry.  I mean it was obviously like a second date or something they couldn't keep their hands off of each other, the PDA was ruining my shrimp and scallops...almost ruining them, those scallops were damn near perfect.   It was epic on the part of the waitress.

Back to Paul Revere's, closed.  End of story there...took a bit.  But yeah...over now.

Then we head back towards the car.  Turns out that an emergency bathroom break was needed by one member of the party.  He's also a J, just a different one than I've been mentioning.  We searched all over the freedom trail to find something.  What we were forgetting was that we were in downtown Boston on a Sunday night.  Everything was closed.  Even the port-a-john's were locked up for the night.

Rough.

A shinning beacon in the night, or was it a UFO? Brought us in the direction of Cheer's!  Oh life saving urinals of Cheer's.  I feel bad, we didn't even get a drink.  Oh well, the rest stop was appreciated by more than just J.

After that we decided to drive around Fenway park.  It was cool to see, but most of it was closed down.  They had a game earlier that day and everyone had cleared out.  We didn't even get out of the car.  Oh well, have to save something for another trip.

That's it for that night, we went back to the hotel and had some Modern Bakery and called it a night.

That's it for now.

Hasta.

Boston Day 3

Again, I'll do the pictures first, it helps to jog my memory.  I really should have taken either more photos or some notes on what to write about, I'll have to remember that in the future when I go on excursions.

Memorial Library at Harvard.

Picture from the balcony at the wedding.

Shoot out to the VIP.

Slow start to the morning, but then we headed out to Harvard.  The campus was....disappointing.  I mean, I guess I had this image in my head of this super prestigious and elite campus where everyone turned up their noses at you and whatnot.  But at the end of the day, it was like almost any other college I've been too.  Yes, some of the buildings were older than most of the colleges that I've been to but at the same time, it was very, well, lacking in impressiveness.  (Yes that's a word, Google didn't flag it out as misspelled, so there).

We walked through the campus and J one of the members of our party, knew quite a bit of information about it.  So he took us on a sort of walking tour of the area using a map on his phone.  It turns out a key part of his mission was to find a notebook that said Harvard on the front of it for his Mom.  What a nice guy!

Also, before I get to far.  It's pronounced with a very hard prolonged 'H' sound at the front of it, drag it out until you think you're going to run out of breath and then finish the rest of it in that last breath.  Just makes it more prestigious I guess.

After Harvard, we went back to the hotel to change up and shower and whatnot for the wedding.  The wedding was a short trip away in Topside, Mass, at least I think that was the name of the town.  It was an outdoor ceremony performed by a friend of theirs who got his credentials online for the wedding, it was short and sweet, but very hard to hear everything with the traffic and things going on outside, not to mention the motorcycle that must have circled the block twice.

After the wedding was a mingling hour wherein, everyone got some drinks and appetizers, they were serving Chambord Kir Royale's (Recipe Here) at the wedding, I'm not much of a champagne fan, but these really did the trick.

Rewind a bit, when we finished the wedding,  we went inside and realized that we didn't have any place cards.  S was mildly irked to say the least and she asked around to other familiar faces to see if someone had played a trick on us and just snagged our cards before we got in.

They did not.

Shit.

My first thought is, well, they're still serving us at the open bar, so it's not a total loss.  But her thought was something different.  She finds out that her cousin and her cousin's husband, also do not have a place card.  Which I figure is good news, because misery loves company sitting alone at the bar, while entertaining it it's own right, really isn't a good way to spend a wedding with the in-laws.

The girls go and hunt down the day-of-coordinator, which I guess is a thing so you don't have to do anything the day of your wedding, seems like a good gig to me.  And she checks her list and sees that we're on it, and finds a place for us.

In the balcony.

Away from 90% of the people that I've met before.

Shit...again.

Oh well, if you know me then you know that I don't really clam up in social settings, I tend to really get in there and figure out what's what.  We ended up sitting with two of S's cousins, whom I had met previous (one of which was the other one without the place card, go figure).  And the evening was not a total loss.

I'd like to give a shoot out to the bride though.  She's a dietitian, I guess, and she was really good with my allergy.  My salad, while I found it unpleasing, still contained no cheese.  My steak was also prepared sans butter.  The dessert options were cannoli cake or carrot cake.  I got a big plate of fruit (to be fair, I actually got 4ish plates of fruit because I kept running up to the balcony to grab the plate and another one was always not far behind.  As someone with my condition, it's nice to know that people are looking out for you, but on your wedding day? Come on now, there's a limit to how far I expect people to go, but I'm still very grateful.

Long night at the wedding, I'm not much of a dancer unless my BAC reaches a critical level. So I didn't much hit the dance floor.  Also, I think the bolognese may have had some dairy in it, so I wasn't operating at 100% anyhow.

Afterwards, they had to cart out all the liquor they brought in, dry county.  I guess a good portion of it ended up across the hall from us that night.  I was pretty much calling it quits due to operating 18 hours a day site seeing and the dairy curse, but I hear they had a grand old time mimicking Boston accents.

Quite a good trip so far, wouldn't you agree?

If you go over to S's blog (Website Here) You'll eventually see more pictures from the trip there.  We've both got android phones and Google+ so any pictures we take from our phones are auto-uploaded to there and the we can post them here for your viewing pleasure.

Boston Day 2

Alright, day two.  Let's just start with the pictures and then fill in the blanks afterwards, shall we?

Captains of the U.S.S. Constitution.

I believe this was on the first level below deck.

View from the end of a pier in Salem, Mass.

Not too many pictures, but my phone was acting up and I was trying to conserve battery (Read: Play Temple Run and Words with Friends).

Anyway, Day 2 was fun.  I was fairly well rested, ate breakfast in the overpriced Marriott Peabody downstairs restaurant, and then started the day.

We started off they day visiting the Bunker Hill monument.  (Side fact: Did you know that the battle of Bunker Hill was not actually fought on Bunker Hill? Google it!).  We were going to go up the 294 steps up the monument to see the city, but it was closed for a half hour to replace some bulbs.  There's no elevator so they had to walk up and then back down.  It's supposed to be amazing once you get up there, but most of the people I was with weren't going to make the journey to the top anyway.

After that we headed to the U.S.S. Constitution, which I believe is the oldest still operating ship in the U.S. Navy.  It's nickname is Old Iron Sides because I guess they manner in which the ship was constructed, cannon balls bounced off the sides as if they were made of iron.  Pretty cool if you think about it.  I'm not much of a mariner or into old boats for that matter, but S's dad was really into it, so it was cool to see him enjoy it.  (Turns out thought he's got a fear of enclosed spaces so he didn't spend too much time below deck.)

After that we went to eat at the oldest pub in Boston.  (Website Here) I had fried oysters.  I must say that I was quite impressed, normally when I eat shellfish, they overcook the hell out of them.

Afterwards, we loaded up the cars and headed to Salem to go to Capt's Waterfront Premium Steak & Seafood Grill (Website Here).  It was an open bar and free appetizers and a pretty decent piece of fish.  I got the fish and chips, very good.

Afterward we walked out onto a pier, and by we I mean S's dad and I.  Everyone else was afraid of witches or ghosts or they ate to much for dinner.  The picture above is the shot out at the marina from the end.

After that they had a small gather of peers (Read: party) in one of the other rooms, S and I decided to play it cool, we need to try to find time to just hang out because I'm still in NJ for the foreseeable future.

Oh well, another day down.  Pretty good one too.

Hasta.

Boston Day 1

So I apologize for the long absence, but I've been busy you see.  If you've been following along, then you know that I've been in Boston, MA.  I'll try to sum up my trip over the next few days.  This is probably cheating by normal blog standards, but eventually I'll have a buffer of blogs to post.  You'll just have to stay posted for updates.

Anywho, Day 1:

I wake up at 2:30 in the morning, shower, etc.  Get in the car and drive to Baltimore, it was about an hour and forty five minute drive that saved us about $200.  So, all in all, I'm going with that it was worth it.

So I get there soo early that not all of the restaurants are open yet.  I settle on a California Burrito place that had a decent looking breakfast burrito and then wait on my flight.  I almost was late because I parked in the Long Term B lot, which apparently isn't even in the airport proper, so I had to await a shuttle and then get through security and all that. But I made it with time to spare.

Ate breakfast and then boarded the flight.  Landed.  Safe and sound.  I then proceeded to the rental car place to see if S made a reservation  (See I had reminded her almost weekly about it until she said that she took care of it, so I wasn't much concerned).  Turns out, we did not have a reservation, but they still had plenty of cars so no big issue.  (Other than that the EZpass didn't work at all and we had to actually use the tolls.)

Then I had about an hour to kill so I drove around the airport, went into town to get hairspray and some combs.  Then doubled back to pick up S from the airport.  Then we went to the hotel to check in and get settle before meeting up with some of the in-laws to go hang out for the day.

The adventure started in an old graveyard near Boston Common, it was either at the start of the freedom trail or pretty near to the start of the freedom trail.  I'll put up some pics now:

Here's a shot looking toward the center of the graveyard. Very old stones here.

6 years old.  You'll also notice throughout the pictures that the stones are practically on top of one another, turns out they just used burial shrouds and not caskets. (Click to Enlarge)

Sam Adams tombstone.  Everyone put pennies on it, they're not really sure why it started, but they think it was a secular thing.  I guess it's supposed to bring good luck.  I put a dime on there.

Some of them had a ton of names on them.  Very odd, in my opinion.  The caption on this one reads, "The innocent, first victim of the struggles between the Colonists and the Crown, which resulted in INDEPENDENCE."

Monument to Paul Revere I think, not sure though, it was on the left side as you faced the center.

"Stop here my Friend & Cast an Eye as you are now so Once was I as I am now so you must be Prepare for Death & Follow me." By far the coolest epitaph that I saw on the trip, and there were many contenders.

You can't hardly read this one, but it was quite lengthy.

The gravestone of the woman they attribute Mother Goose too.

A very old church that was on the Freedom Trail.

First four commandments, different from what I remember.

Last six commandments.  S thinks they are out of order.

Martha Balls grave.

Robert Balls grave.

I mad this one considerably larger than the other so you can see the musket ball marks on it.  You'll be able to find out what that's about a few pictures down the line.

Gravestone from 1661, one of the oldest we saw

Here's the explanation to the musket ball marks in one of the previous pictures.

Freedom Trail marker.  The red bricks ran all over town to let you know that you were on the Freedom Trail.  We'd use it quite often to get back to the car.

That's right, we got hoodwinked in Boston, but we did get to see the replica bar they made and the bar that was the inspiration for Cheers.

Moose #1

Moose #1 in better light.

Moose #2 and random guy who's probably wondering what I'm on.

Anywho, that's about how we ended the night.

Other stuff we did during the day that I didn't take any shots of was that we went to Faneuil Hall, which is of some historic significance, but it was mostly a market and restroom visit for us.  There were also a troop of dancers out front, the emblem on their shirt was YAK (You Already Know), I guess they're regulars there because we passed them again a few days later.

 

Not my video, but it gives you a sense of what we saw.

We went to Lucca's for dinner (Website Here).  I felt that it was good, but very overpriced.  I can't remember exactly what I had, but Italian and I are limited friends due to lactose issues.  I want to say that I got some pappardelle with a bolognese sauce, but I can never be sure of these things.

After that we had some Mike's Pastry (Website Here) for dessert.  We thought they were also so-so.  A swing and a miss today for Boston food.

Oh well, back to the hotel to rest up before another big day in the city tomorrow.  Not to mention that by the end of that day I had been up for almost 24 hours straight.

Hasta.

Productivity

Today I was probably the most productive that I've been since getting out here.  I went through 145 some odd penetration seals, their associated drawings, and dimensions.

Very tedious, but the feeling of accomplishment is still there.  I tend to get super productive when I've got plans to be out of the office.  It's probably my secret way of making sure that I'll have an uneventful last day in the office and a relatively stress free first day back.  I bust my hump as best I can the week leading up to the day off, accomplish far too much probably and then take off while everyone is still reeling from the pile of paperwork I dropped on them.  Most of the time I don't think they even get around to it until after I get back and start my round of follow up questions.  Pretty much a fool proof plan.

Bottom line.  I'm off for Boston over the next few days.  Took Thursday, Friday and Monday off of work.  Saturday we've got a wedding to go to and then I've got I think a rehearsal dinner on either Thursday or Friday night.  I'll do my best to make some posts from my phone while I'm out there, but this first day is going to be pretty rough.

The airport I'm flying out of is about an hour and forty five minutes away.  It's a 6:20am departure time, so assuming I need to be at the terminal 30 minutes early, that puts me at...what...4:05am? Oh wait....security.  That should probably be another hour.  So 3:05am...but that's not including a shower and last minute packing, so probably I'll be getting up at 2:30 or 2:45.  Gross.

Well, as that's 7 hours from now.  I'm calling it.

Hasta.

P.S. I'll try to do a recap post when I get back with pictures hopefully.

Jersey Day 9

Sorry for the unoriginal title, I'm running low on creative juices this week.

So for today I started the day in the Wilmington office in the usual manner (as described in the previous blog, shower, breakfast, drive.

Then spent the morning pulling drawing numbers off of other drawings.  Thrilling I know.  The people I'm working for understand that though.  They stop by periodically to reduce the tedium.  I did go to lunch with some of the folks today.

Wilmington is actually a very nice area, if you stay on a key few streets.  It turns pretty shady pretty quickly, but our office is right in the banking district and I guess the thing to do is to go to other places (banks, etc.) to get food from their cafeterias. Or restaurants or whatever you call it when it's mostly for the employees of the building but they also let the general public come in as well.  It seems like it's a pretty nice layout.  They change it up daily, but it's the same foods on Monday's, Wednesday's, and Friday's every week.

I really seems like the people in the office are pretty much all foodies.  Or at least they all seem that way, everyone's got suggestions on where to eat and what's better than something else.  It's strange.  That is to say that there is still stuff like that in Chicago, but I don't think our hearts are really set on the argument, we know what we like on a personal level and don't really care if you like it or not.

S is very anti "Fast Foo's", but that's probably my favorite Chinese food.  Other people are "Big Al's Beef" fans, when I'd rather go to "Fontano's".  It's all relative.  Just like some people can tell the difference between an oaky chardonnay and a buttery chardonnay and others cannot.  It depends on what is pleasing to your unique palate.  I just don't think they get that here.

Anywho, the afternoon was much more productive, even if it wasn't any less tedious.  I was at the plant pulling information off of their system.  It's probably the least user friendly interface that I've seen in awhile.  But that's my cross to bear for the majority of tomorrow (when I'm not in meetings).

They have a cafeteria there that I might check out tomorrow.  I'm just not up for packing my lunch tonight.  P90X and I had another bout and I decided that I need to switch up the program a little bit.  I'll get it working by the time I leave I promise.

That's all I've got for today.  Sorry it's on the boring side, but you can't always win, someone has to lose.

Hasta.

P.S. The bartender for happy hour already knows my drink and started making it as soon as I got into the bar room at the hotel.  So progress is being made.

Hotel Laundry

First day back in NJ and only three more days before I go to Boston.  Which is nice, but at the same time it's hard to get into a routine.  Those of you who know me know how important schedule and routine are for me.  You can pretty much set your clock by when I do things.

For instance, I get up at 6:30, I shower, get ready, take my pills and leave the room for the day.  Then I'm downstairs getting my tea by 7:05, then we leave for the site about 7:40.  The time's shifted as we've got a third person here from S&L Chicago.

But back to the facts, not being able to make a consistent schedule for laundry has put me in a spin.  Normally, I'd get up relatively early on a Sunday and start laundry and then eat breakfast.  I'd then be able to leisurely finish the laundry throughout the day.  Nice easy Sunday to get back into "work mode".

I'm not quite as bad as Sheldon Cooper per say (shout out to all my Big Bang Theory Peeps), but I'm pretty sure that I have at least some mild OCD tendencies (Laces go in the socks, after you untie them; socks, underwear and undershirts go in the top drawer, pants in the bottom drawer, etc.).  It's not all bad, everything is pretty much always right where I left it (read: right where it's supposed to be).

Anywho, back to laundry.  It's $1.50 for a wash and $1.00 for a dry.  I'm not sure if that's a good deal or not, but I was in a pinch....and it's a Monday.  Motivations is at an all time low today.  But I was able to finish it all, they've got two washers and two dryers and I'm pretty much the only person crazy enough to do laundry on a Monday.

I didn't time the dryer right so I had to iron my own clothes.  I hate ironing.  Scratch that, I don't know if hate is strong enough, I mega-loathe ironing.  Must be my least favorite activity.  I think part of it is that it's so hot.  I don't do hot. It's just not my thing, the other part of it is that it takes forever and I usually have to redo stuff because it doesn't look right the first time....  Oh well, I'm done now.  Going to call it early tonight, I didn't get much rest last night and they've actually got stuff for us to start working on now, which is nice and should help to pass the days a little bit better.

Hasta.

Irish Fest Part Duex

(Editors/Writers Note:  Apologies for not putting this up last night.  I was pretty wiped after all the travel and figure an early morning post would make up for it.)

So, Irish Fest this year was very different.

For starters, I wasn't there at all on Friday, which was anticipated since my flight was getting in so late.  So that's not too big of a deal.  But then S and I stayed at a different hotel.  What was cool was that from the 7th floor deck you could sort of see the campus center building for MSOE (Milwaukee School of Engineering) where I went to college.

It's to the left of the twin buildings, in red lettering you can almost see the M and O.

It's pretty cool going back to the area you went to college.  Strange, but there's something inherently comforting in seeing a place you spent so much time.

As far as my projections, I did indeed enjoy an Irish soup in a bread bowl and fried eggplant.  But the Irish egg rolls had cheese in them, so that was a pass.  Only had one 'Big Jamo' up on the Jameson deck.  Did enjoy a relatively large quantity of mead.

The performer line up this year was vastly different and I hope that it's not a harbinger of things to come.  That would be disappointing.  They were highlighting blue grass this year...seriously.  I could not have been more shocked, appalled, and disappointed.  Blue grass of all things...makes my ears bleed.

I did get to see Gaelic Storm though on Saturday, I watched it alone, but it's still one of my favorite bands, so it's all good.  The Red Hot Chili Pipers were not in attendance, neither were the different drums of Ireland.  Hell, they even downsized Blarney to a super small stage after the death of one of the founding members of Irish Fest.  Sad really.  Like most people, I'm not super big on change.  I like to let things happen as they may, but this is all too much too fast.

I took some pics throughout the day and evening as well.

Here's S showing me her support in buying her popcorn.

Sprag Session

Gaelic Storm!  I tried to zoom to make it seem like I was closer...

 

 

 

Shown actual size.

I made a couple of videos too that I'll try to post up here as well:

 

So that's Pina Colada in a Pint Glass and Rag and Bones (from the new album).

Sunday we went to the Liturgy for Peace and Justice (second largest outdoor mass in North America) which is always nice.  Then a corned beef sandwich at Winston's (more for traditions sake than anything else at this point) and a round of hitting the shops.

S and I had to leave earlier than usual because I needed to get back to Midway to catch my flight and I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to get past all the construction on I-94 near Highway 50.  But we made it, even had time to stop at a TGI Friday's in the ghetto for an appetizer before I made my flight.

After that it was a pretty smooth flight.  I must say that Southwest has gotten pretty stingy with their ginger ale, I remember when they'd give you the whole can.  Jerks.  Oh well.

After that I drove back to the hotel and couldn't really sleep so I watched a bit of the Newsroom on HBO while trying to get tired.  Interesting show I suppose if you're into politics and broadcasting (i.e., not me) but it was a nice let down at the end of the day.

Hasta.

Irish Fest

So I'm writing this blog in the past, it's sort of like a time travel maneuver.  I'm writing this on Friday and you're reading it on Saturday.  But I will have no foreknowledge of the events that occur between when I write it and when you read it.  So that in itself is kind of a hassel.  What if something horrible happens on the plane or I get delayed forever again.  You'll have to wait until Sunday or Monday to hear about it!

Not to mention about all the cool stuff that I'll be doing then (or right now, or yesterday, or at some other point in the past, depending on your frame of reference.  Pretty trippy stuff, I guess that relatively and cosmology class I took in college paid off after all,  now if only I could find a practical application for that near light speed packing of a shed....)

Anyway, it's safe to assume that I will have/am having/had an Irish soup in a bread bowl, a few whiskey's up on the Jameson deck, fried eggplant, possibly an irish egg roll, and mead....lots and lots of mead.

Also I will see/am seeing/have seen Gaelic Storm, Red Hot Chili Pipers, and The Different Drums of Ireland.

I think that's all the safe assumptions of what happened today.  Everything else will have to be reported later.

Work

So today I mostly sat at my desk and looked up things to do when the opportunity presents to not be at my desk, be it later this evening, this weekend, or a year or two from now, give or take 3 months...

Anyway, the tone of the day was very much hurry up and wait, which I might add is company policy at this point.  All morning I was harried around trying to get LAN access and my desk phone working, and then to get the corporate email available on my cellular phone.

After that was pretty much nothing, sure I read through the Project Work Plan (PWP) for the work that I'm out here for, but we've got a bottle neck when it comes to getting the drawings pulled down from the system.  It's a pretty standard bottle neck, the nuclear industry is notorious for not trusting anyone with access to their systems.  And if they do trust you, then you're screwed.  Everyone will now be coming to you for absolutely everything.  So you become the one man bottle neck that's hold up an entire office.  Just a little bit of pressure there when everyone's harrowing you about why their personal project is more important and they can't push it back any further.

I mean, at the end of the day, I don't care whether I see the stuff or not.  Just so long as I still get paid, I'm good with it.  It just tends to make for a very boring, very long day.

I'm good though, I'm practically a master of the internet, I think my friend Sniperscross might have the upper edge, or at least he used to before he got a real job and had to grow up at least in terms of his day to day internet usage.  But there comes a point in every day, especially those days when you've had nothing productive to accomplish, that you simply run out of internet.

I've got a Google Reader set up, so most of my web browsing is filtered through that means of being aggregated.  It's nice, it's convenient, but at some point, I run out of stuff to read.  That's usually when I'll go search for a new web comic to read from start to present so that I can add it to my Reader.  But there are sometimes when you can't find something worth getting into.  I don't want to say it's frustrating, I don't really know how internet boredom can be considered frustrating, but it's definitely bothersome.

I've also got a set of YouTube subscriptions, and when I'm in the home office, I can usually keep up to tabs o that as well, if not S got me a Google Tv and I can catch up on the rest of it at home.  This satellite office has it's desks set up differently than I'm used to and privacy is not really a thing you get to have here.  I'm on a cut through pod (group of four cubicle style desks where the backs of everyone face each other right by a floor printer, it's not high traffic, but I'm sure that they wouldn't appreciate Mr. Arturo Trejo or Jenna Marbles or some of the other things I watch on YouTube.

I do have some intelligent things like Veritasium and Smarter Every Day on my subscription list, but I still don't think that my personal quest for knowledge is a thing that the company is concerned with when they're paying me not just to be here, but for my lodging, food, and gas as well.

Everyone that stops by can blatantly see that I've nothing to work on.  My laptop being the only thing on my desk, kind of gives it away.  The project team basically just stops by to say that we're working on it and we'll hit it hard on Monday.

Monday.

That's practically forever away.  I've got a flight to Chicago, a drive to Milwaukee, a drive back to Chicago, and a flight to Philadelphia between Monday and I.

Not to mention IRISH FEST!  But more on that after it occurs.

Hasta.

P90X

So.

I realized something today.  And that is, I'm way out of shape, or more succinctly, my body has changed shape into one I'm not all that happy with.

I ran track freshman year of high school and that was probably the best shape that I've ever been in.  But then after I stopped running track, I still was able to maintain a certain level of activity because I rode my bike all over the place (read: I didn't get my license until I was 17ish and didn't really get a car until I was 18 or 19).  So I maintained.

But then I went to college and for the first two years I was okay because, well, I drank a lot and walked around a lot to class and stuff.

Junior and senior year, I lived "off-campus" which isn't hard to do at MSOE.  But I got a moped at that time and really stopped the majority of my walking.  But I was still okay, mostly because I was broke.

The just after college I wasn't okay, but I had an obnoxiously small figure, maybe if I'm brave enough to reveal some skeletons I'll delve into that tail in a future post.  (If I forget, and you feel it's important in the telling, remind me and I'll at least respond to it and try to give an answer as to what's up.)

After that I moved to the city and still kept relatively okay, I even joined a gym for a few months (paid for a year, but honestly and truly went three times a week for about three months solid).  Nothing doing after that though.

Then I moved to the city and my commute got smaller and smaller.  That's when I decided to buy a bike again and at least up my daily activity level.  And that works for the summers but not really a long term thing.  It's kind of like a roller coast work out.  I've tried dieting, but it turns out that people and I don't really get along when I'm just tired and hungry all the time.  So that doesn't turn out all that well, since I can't stick to being mean to people all the time.

So today I got out of work a few hours early to drive down to the site to get my badge and dosimetry.  When I got back to the hotel, I thought, now's the time.  I acquired a quasi-legal copy of P90X and I thought I'd give it a shot.

I made it about 30mins into the first hour.  Not good.  Not good since I was definitely not even doing the required amount of time on each work out than I was supposed to.  I gave it my all, in my running shoes and t-shirt in my tiny hotel room.  Some of the floor work was a little tough do to limited space, but I still managed to do most of it.  Then I got light-headed and decided that I've pushed myself too far, so I stopped and just watched them go for the rest of the session.

So, I think I need whatever comes before P90X, which I think is just Power 90.  I think that's about the level that I need to start at.  So if anyone has a quasi-legal copy of that, give me a holler, and I'll definitely take you up on it.

I'd like to get into better physical condition, the longest bike race I've done was about 45 miles, and I think that's the upper level of my capability.  I didn't put up a good time or what I would consider a good time, but I finished and that was an accomplishment for me.

I think my overall problem is a severe lack of motivation and an ability to easily incorporate a work-out routine into my daily schedule, not to mention maintain it there for a considerable amount of time.  I'd like for it to just be routine.  Go to work.  Come home.  Work out.  Eat. Tv.  Sleep.

So, motivation, I don't really have's it, but I needs it.

Hasta.

New Boots

So I decided that now my badging activities are done (save for actually getting the badge and the dosimetry), I decided that I needed a pair of boots.

This wasn't something that I was going to undertake lightly.  As with everything else in my life, I go by what I've heard about something and what I've researched about something.

I selected some Red Wings.  I'd heard nothing but good things about them and I figured that if I was going to end up wearing them for the next month or so, I might as well splurge on something worthwhile.

Composite Toe Boots

I went with the composite toe.  I decided that taking my boots on and off at every checkpoint, could get very annoying very quickly.

I searched for a retailer online in the area and found one not a mile from my hotel...how oddly convenient for the size of the town I'm staying in.

It's owned by this super old couple that I'm pretty sure do more shoe repair than actual shoe sales, but they had the boots I needed.

Now, I don't know how many of you know me all that well, but I can be pretty gregarious if the mood is upon me.  So I walk into the store with about an hour to kill before the free drinks I posted up before, and end up chatting with the lady about my need for a boot without a metal toe.  She proceeds to tell me that she's got several and scurries (yes, scurries, she was very small) into the back room and proceeds to bring me every boot with a composite toe in the shop.  Which compared to their display was actually quite exhaustive.  We settle on three for me to actually try.  The other brand they carried was Carolina boots.  I'd never heard of them, but they seems a bit too tight in the ankle and a bit too loose around the foot.  So I stuck with my original thought and got the Red Wings.

Then came time for the price.

Here's the thing. Old ladies love me.  I don't know what it is, but they do.  I mean really.  This past weekend, pre-flight, I went to a festival back home with my Aunt and we're were getting to the end of the night and I was trying to burn through the rest of our food and drink tickets.  So I meander over to a bakery booth and ask the woman (who's probably 90) if the chocolate brownie looking things are good.  She says yes, all the items are good.  I said are they really three dollars, she gives me this odd grin and walks to the end of the booth and just hands them to me and says take it, you'll love them. (This concludes my pre-flight portion, I know it's lame but the rest of it was just drinking with the fam at the fest and then my Aunt's version of a cook-out with out actually "cooking out".  Still good food though.)

Back to NJ now, the woman, looks over her shoulder at her husband, sees he's busy and then looks at me and says that she's going to give me 15% off for coming in today.  I think sweet, what a bargain, then...BOOM...she rings it up and it's $152 flat.  Turns out there's no sales tax on clothes in NJ.  Awesome.  Now I just need to buy some big, thick socks.  Can't really wear my boots with ankle socks, I imagine the chafing would be unreal.

I just hope that I don't get one of those weird sock lines that people get from long, frequent boot usage.  My legs are way too hairy for all that action.

I'm off to Wilmington tomorrow.

Hasta.

P.S. Not sure if I mentioned this before but I'm probably going to be out here for about 9 weeks at a minimum, but I don't think that count starts until Monday....Super.

At least from Sunday thru Thursday I can get 4 free drinks a night from 5-6.  It should help me cope.

Free drinks

So my hotel offers a free happy hour from 5 to 7. Today's food is salted jumbo pretzels and cheese.  So I miss out on the cheese.  I'm over, it.

Pretty sure.  That my drink isn't free.  But oh well. I'll pay the charges in cash at the end. It's probably only a dollar fifty for my mixed drink. Not bad. Tomorrow I'll probably stick with wine though.

I'll post again later about my new composite toe boots and my activities over the weekend, pre flight out here.

Jersey Day 2

Got to eat breakfast today, so that was a vast improvement over yesterday.  So I've got that going for me.  Starting off good, I'm feeling it.

Get about 5 miles away from the site and I realize that I left my lunch at home.  Shit.

Well, I'm committed now.  So I don't eat lunch again for the second day.  No worries.  I've got a few extra pounds to shrug off.

Strange thing happens though.  S's dad gave me a pen.  It's inaugural run as far as I know was when I put pen to paper Monday morning in my first Computer Based Training (CBT) class that I had.  I ran out this morning about 10am.

I don't know that I've ever ran out of ink on a pen before.  I mean seriously? Is that a thing? Running out of ink?  I normally lose the pen before then.  I've got a pen I got when I turned 18 and I've still got it, rights the same as ever.  That's about 9 years ago, almost 10! Still has ink... But no, a day and a half at the site taking notes and I'm already one pen down.  I had to borrow one of theirs, not that they mind they've got a whole slew of them.  But the looks you get when you tell someone you ran out of ink on a computer-based-training class...I mean, I might as well have kick they lady's puppy.

By the by, my hand hurts.  I've not written that much since...well, probably since freshman or sophomore year of college.  After that I just took the majority of my text only notes on the laptop.

I tried to snag some picks of my drive to the site and from the site.  I'll see if I can find them.

You can see the old school cooling tower on the right there.

I tried to get the two dome shaped reactor buildings (Salem Unit 1 & 2)

Turns out that the ones I took on the way home only got the windshield and the rain drops upon it.  I was trying to snag a shot of the turtle crossing sign.  I'll see if I can snag that tomorrow.

Other than some wild peacocks crossing the road on the way to work, it's been a pretty animal light trip so far.

As far as my work, I found out that after I finish the CBT I'll be going to Wilmington almost daily to go to work.  Kind of wish I would have know that, I would've stay on the Delaware side of the Delaware river.

Oh well.  I don't like living all that close to work.  Need some personal/work separation time.

Hasta.

Jersey Day 1

So I intended to put this up last night, but I, well, I'll just get right into it...

So I go on vacation with my family because work was screwing me around as to whether or not I was going on the road.

At first I was supposed to go to South Carolina in the Clemson area, which would have been sweet because I was going to be close to the mountains and rivers and stuff.  I would've taken S's car down there and saved on the rental car and stuff like that.  Plus I would've made like an extra $3k/mo to be there.  Granted that would have to pay for my living expenses while there, but I would have been able to put away quite a bit.

Then, about a week-ish later, I was supposed to go to Arizona to the Buckeye area, west of Phoenix.  Would've only been like $2.4k/mo extra, but it was the desert, so I was considering that a sweat tax for making me go there.

Then, I vaguely here about going to Nebraska, which I was pretty much anti, simply because it's Nebraska, which I suppose isn't a fair shake to Nebraska, as I've never been there and don't have any first hand negative experiences with it.

So, I suppose at the end of the day, I would've taken Nebraska over AZ simply due to the temperature difference.

I'm from Wisconsin, I don't tolerate heat very well...

I'm digressing.

Weird. Who would've thought that would happen here...

Anyway, after all of those field assignments dropped, I thought I was going to be out of work.  But then this current assignment shook loose.  So now I find myself in New Jersey of all place.  But not like the cool New Jersey by a major city.  Oh no, I'm in Pennsville Township.  Living the high life in a single queen room, with a fridge and a microwave.  Baller.

Back to the original point now.  Shit, I just realized that I was digressing on a digression.  I might need to talk to someone about that, can't be healthy.

I'm out of town with my family because I got tired of waiting around for stuff to happen with work.  Then, the first day that I'm there I get a text from a random, says he needs my info because I'm going to New Jersey for work (not really random, I suppose, I did get a heads up that it would be happening, just not that soon otherwise I wouldn't have left).

Anyway, so I'm in the north woods of Wisconsin, God's Country, and I end up spending about two hours a day making phone calls and sending emails to figure out this trip.

I had to use the company travel agents, which, bless them, are good at what they do, they're just a little overzealous about stuff.  I didn't respond for a few hours, because, hello, north woods right? No decent cell reception, which makes it all the better if your actually trying to be on vacation.

So we get everything squared away.  I'm to get on a 9pm flight out of Midway to go to Philadelphia, landing at midnight.  Sounds fine, I don't sleep much anyway.  But then the flight gets delayed by like twenty minutes.  Oh well, I'm not in a rush to sleep or anything.  Then I get on the plane and I've got a chatty Cathy (or whatever the male equivalent is) sitting next to me.  Wants to talk about everything and anything, I'm polite but curt.  Guy doesn't take a hint until we get in the air, but oh wait.  He gets up after cabin doors have closed to go potty.  Delaying us another 5ish minutes.  Whatever.

Then we land, but I'm in the back of the plane and now chatty Carl is passed out cold.  I end up shaking his shoulder to get some life back into him.

Done deal.  We're off the plane.  Everyone runs down to go to the baggage claim.  I make the mandatory pit stop at the loo to relieve the pressure.  Then the baggage handlers send the stuff to the wrong carousel and everyone loses their shit, not their bags mind you, there minds.  I remain calm, it's not more than twenty feet between to two carousels.  I'm a big boy, I can walk.

Get my bag, go to the Avis Preferred Window after getting on the wrong bus....twice.

They don't have my stuff right.  So now I've got to mingle with the locals to figure it out.  Let's call him Donatello, had no clue what it meant that my rate was so cheap since I'll have the car for like a month.  So he takes my cell phone number like 4 times to 'find me in the system'.  I'm pretty sure I have my preferred card on the counter, I'm in there Donnie.  Trust me.  I even called to verify it.

He calls his manager over.  She asks him to put in M/C for the empty slot.  And it fixes everything.  You think that would be on the Autism flash card thing they carry around their necks with all the other helpful customer service hints.  M/C saves the day!

Donnie then tells me that it's a black Chevy Impala and that it's out front.  I walk around the store twice, thinking I just missed it because I'm super tired and it's roughly 1am at this point.

Nope, it's in it's stall.  B24.  Just like it says on the ticket.  Come on Donnie...you're better than this.

But I'm in the car and on the road.  Except, oh wait, I have no clue where Pennsville, NJ is in relation to Philadelphia.  Pull over, get my bag out of the trunk, get the printed directions out.  Work my way through to New Jersey.  Finally get to the hotel.

But wait, there's more.  The check-in's a breeze.  There's a bag of microwave popcorn in my room that I could make if I liked the filth.  But no, now my OCD kicks in and I end up arranging and hanging up all my clothes and belongings in the room.  Now it's 2:30ish in the morning and I'm just not attempting sleep.

Alarm goes off at 5am.  Shit.  Get up, shower, get dressed.  Get the directions to the site.  And hit the road.  Only problem is, it's 5am and I have no clue what's open.  So I don't stop.  (Last food consumption: Midway Jumbo Hot Dog and Fries for $8).  Get to the site, get to where I'm supposed to be, start filling out paper work.  Two hours later someone from the site comes in and tells us to fill out the paperwork...then goes over it with us...shoot me in the face.

Then I get fingerprinted and my photo taken, routine stuff.  Then I spend roughly 6 hours taking Computer Based Training classes and tests.  Only got 2.75 done before the end of the day.  I'm taking notes because I'm exhausted and....what's that? No, you're right.  No lunch.  No cash, so no vending machine vittles.

Then I leave after all that.  Come to the hotel, change and then spend an hour or so getting to know the grocery store.  Drop $135 on microwave food and stuff that'll fit in a mini-fridge.  Took forever because of my damn milk/dairy/lactose/casein/whey allergy thing I've got going on.  Come back, put it all away and then I tried to figure out Google+, not sure if I did it right, but I've got one.  Then I thought, why not have a Blogger account too and buy into the whole Google family.  Not sure if I'm missing any of there features besides Chrome and I'm sure I'll get around to that one too.

But that's all I've got for today.  I'll try to put up some pictures or something more interesting tomorrow about my location and where I'm working.

Hasta.