Rollover

The rooms here are small and kind of nondescript. Basically, there are four closets and four beds (two sets of bunks) in a square room. It has been two of us in our room simply because we are a small group but another set of unrelated people showed up and needed a few more beds. All that to say we now have another roommate. While the rooms may have enough equipment in them to accommodate four people, they were for sure not designed to house that many. We had to move all our items we stored on the empty beds and find places for them. They now live shoved under and around the beds; not the most organized solution.

We have a guy in our group that loves movie quotes and attempts to apply them to real world scenarios. Hilarity typically ensures as we all realize how absurd it is and how bizarrely applicable those quotes can be. I think my appreciation comes from his ability to recall literally thousands of quotes from movies both old and new and then think quickly enough to recall them word for word. If I can remember what I had for breakfast by the time lunch rolls around, I consider it a successful morning.

Time is flying lately. I just hope I can remember these people once dinner rolls around.

Close

We have been having an absolute blast here! We have a small group which means we are able to really get to know everyone and spend all our time together (be that for better or for worse). Some of the other groups that we have heard about have had a lot more difficult time gelling and getting along and we think that is due to their size. Put too many people together and you quickly realize that not only do you not get to know everyone, you can’t play of people’s strengths and weaknesses as well as when you only have to deal with a few other people every day.

My roommate was telling me the weather was going to be a slight change from what I am used to back home and he was absolutely correct. It is a ton cooler here (home is in the 90s and 100s each day) but the humidity and weather is a vast departure from what I have come to know and love from home. Some thing they do have here that I have most certainly come to miss are tall trees and emerald green grass. I think the weather/lack of precipitation at home really hinders plant growth whereas there is more than enough water falling from the sky here to go around … even when you don’t want it. I think it is humorous how quickly home becomes the normal scenario by which you judge everything; I measure rainfall, temperature and landscaping by how different it is from home.

Things that make days awesome:
1. Great people: we all get along and everyone has a great sense of humor which means we all joke (perhaps a little too much at times) and kid one another while doing our job.
2. iPods: hooking music up to speakers so everyone can hear it and putting your iPod on random makes for TONS of laughs and lots is singing.
3. Sleep: catching it when and wherever you can makes for funny pictures for the rest of us.

Working Hard for the Money

As it turns out, it’s hard to keep up with a blog while out of town and away from most Internet and phone connections. Over the next few weeks, I will try to get a post or two up while I am out of the area, but there are no guarantees.

This past week was mostly filled with prep for this coming trip. On Friday, we made the decision to go out of town (only an hour and a half away) for one of the guy’s birthday. Seeing as I needed to be at the airport at 0730 the next morning, I made the decision to go up there and drive back instead of staying the night. That made the next morning a little rough because I had to wake up early an pack. All said and done, I got about 30 minutes of sleep before heading out.

That meant I was asleep before the tires left the pavement on the first flight.

Upon arrival, I found out my roommate (yes, we have roommates here) is a guy I went to school with. We knew we were both going to be here together but we figured it would be one of those things where you hang out together and go to your own room in the afternoon. Nope, there is no escaping this guy. He’s going to be my closest (literally) friend here for the next few weeks.

Tron

I had a mental health review for work which typically is not that big a deal. Basically, you go in, see a psychologist (I think; those are the thought doctors, right?) and they sign a piece of paper that says you are still capable of doing some parts of my job that are more sensitive. This time, it was with a different doctor that I’ve never seen before and it took more than an hour and a half. I didn’t realize there were so many questions people could ask. I’m no stranger to long sessions of being questioned (our job makes that more common than you would think) but this one was intense. I walked out exhausted and craving something sugary.

We had a gigantic pile of stuff on our Ops Floor that we have been meaning to take to Goodwill for a long time. When two of the roommates moved out to get an apartment all their own, they decided to make the pile bigger with the things they didn’t want to take or didn’t want to pack. One of my roommates and I finally took it to the donation center and realized that removing two people’s desks and an enormous pile of clothes from the Ops Floor clears up a TON of room. Who would have thought?

One of my friends is headed out next week so we took him out to the dance hall for one last night of dancing and fun before he leaves us. We had an AWESOME time out there! It was a typical night out except for one thing: there was a girl out with her friends at the same place (we didn’t know her and had never seen her before in our lives) and she may have had a couple of drinks before we met her. She decided I was something worth looking at and pulled me out on the dance floor. No big deal, I’ve danced with plenty of people I didn’t know before. It turns out dancing/walking/remaining vertical was a challenge for her. Dancing turned into me basically carrying her around the dance floor for a few songs while she slurred mostly incomprehensibly. When I took her back to her table and delivered her back into the hands of her friends, they looked at me and mouthed “I’m sorry”. Anytime someone has to apologize to a person you ‘danced’ with, I think that’s very telling. We got a good laugh out of it though and a couple of pictures!

There was a sale online for a fathead (basically a giant wall sticker) of a Tron character. It now lives on our wall next to the NERF wall.