48 hours later… (Tuesday and Wednesday)

It’s a blur, but I’ll try to recap. Shawn, Ryan and I flew on a four-engine prop plane to Memphis. It was either too hot or too cold on the plane, but the vibrations of the props made it good to sleep in the plane. We landed at four thirty in the morning.

We were standing out on the runway, by the plane, waiting to be picked up when the gas truck came by to fuel up the plane. One of the crew chiefs asked the three of us to “stand over there while they re-fuel in case something goes ‘unbelievably wrong’”. So the three of us move THIRTY FEET AWAY while we waited. I’m not sure that actually constitutes “Unbelievably wrong” to the crew chief, but I’m pretty sure that if that gas truck were to go up in flames, we would have had to have been moved more than thirty feet away. But we all had a good laugh about it.

Memphis was really hectic. Go here, do this, go there, do that. Turn in these, fill out those. I was just so hungry and tired that all I wanted to do was go to sleep for a whole day. I took a two hour nap and kept on working. We were on Memphis for not quite 24 hours when we had to catch our plane out of there.
And then I finally slept on the plane. Three legs to the trip and I slept on and off pretty much the whole way.

Sara and the kids were waiting at the airport with lot of other people and it was soo good to see them again. Liam and Rebecca were jumping up and down like little pogo sticks. After lots of hugs and kisses we went to the car and left the airport and went to McDonalds and went home. Home. Finally.

24 hours later…

So after I hit send I went to the gym. Mike, Keith, and Jennifer came and tracked me down. They didn’t get the note I left on the whiteboard telling them that my flight was delayed 24 hours. I went to go get dinner and spent time in my apartment relaxing and reading my book. It’s been so long since I’ve had a chance to just relax and not really have to worry about work or having to wake up or when to get back to work…

I played on the internet for a while and finally had to go to sleep.

And I woke up this morning around seven… seriously considered going to the gym, but I was just exhausted. So I went back to sleep and woke up at ten. I slowly got ready and headed over to the cleaners and picked up my last load of laundry.
I ate lunch (a bowl of Special K) and looked at all the stuff that I have to take with me. I can’t understand where all of my stuff came from. I mailed so much stuff. How can I still have more stuff? I spent a few hours packing my bags (again) and I wished I had more time to mail one more package. I could leave a box of stuff and have Sean or DJ mail it for me tomorrow, but I’ll just suck it up and drag it with me.

I headed back up to the office one last time. I want to see if my buddy Brendan is back from his trip. Brendan is one of the nicest crazy people I know. Like, REALLY, crazy. Like, bite the head off of a snake crazy. He’s been gone a few days and I didn’t have a chance to see him before I had my going away dinner. He was in his office and I was glad to get a picture with him.

Then a bunch of us had a nice dinner of beef brisket and I headed back to double check my stuff one more time. My taxi was supposed to come at seven thirty to take me to the airport. Mike and Keith showed up at my door at ten after to help carry my bags. Chip showed up after we lugged everything up the steps. Since we’re a bunch of guys, there weren’t any tears. They just threw my stuff in the taxi, we shook hands, and I left.

It was only a 30 minute ride to the airport. I got there two hours before check in, so there was a little waiting for the counter to accept us. There were two other guys waiting there and one looked familiar. He was a buddy of mine that I went to school with nine years ago in Florida! So we caught up with each other, looked at pictures of our kids, and talked about what we’ve been doing for the past year. Finally we were allowed to check in and now I’m sitting here waiting to board our flight. I can’t believe this airport doesn’t have wi-fi.

Packed Up

And being packed up isn't doing me much good.

I thought I was leaving today.  And I'm not.  My flight to Memphis was pushed back until early morning on the 28th.  So early on the 28th - that I have to get to the airport on the 27th.  As soon as I founf out I was being pushed back a day, I rushed to turn my big bag of dirty laundry in to the cleaners.  I'd rather not travel with dirty laundry, but I also didn't want to have to leave without picking up laundry in the cleaners.  Though having laundry in the cleaners wouldn't stop me for one minute for leaving.

Last night, after the movie, I tried to read more of The Stand, so I read until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and I slept until eleven this morning.  I think that when I return to Dover, I won't get the "sleep in until eleven" experience for a while.  Rebecca will see to that.

I actually got up around eight.  I had some breakfast and was planning on hitting the gym and decided that a nap sounded better.  That's when I went back to bed and slept until eleven.

So I headed into the office and checked to see what time my flight was tonight; and that's when I found out that my flight to Memphis was pushed back a day.  SO I went back to my apartment changed into my gym clothes and I'm sitting here now writing my entry.

Yesterday (Friday) and a little bit of today.

Was super-super-super busy.  I was at the office until midnight with Mike, Chip and Jennifer.  We just got nailed with a bunch of last minute taskers.  I guess I could have left them and gone to my room to pack, but I felt bad for them since most of the stuff they were working on was stuff that sort of fell into my lane.

So when I got back to my apartment, I just wrote a quick e-mail to Sara and then fell fast asleep. 

Last night I had my going away dinner.  The director said lots of nice things about me and I got my going away plaque and I shook everyone's hand.  Then we all went back to the office to get back to work.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good after not getting much sleep.  I went to the gym, did a little cardio, and headed into the office.  I finished up the rest of my turnover with Jennifer.  I feel pretty good leaving my desk in her hands.  Well, I guess it's her desk now.  I think the first thing she's going to do is clean off the desk and sanitize the desk top.

I'm supposed to be packing my bags now.  I REALLY need to triage my stuff and figure out what I'm going to throw away, pack, and have Mike mail for me.  I hope I have a big throw away pile.

I'm going back into the office tonight to find out what time my flight to Memphis is tomorrow.  And tonight is also my last movie night.  So I pick the movie.  I'm choosing the movie Superbad.  It might be super-inappropriate, but it's hysterical.

Time to pack.

Conference

Jennifer and I had to sit in a couple of conferences today.  One was really quite awkward when two deputy directors got in a little snit in front of us.  Actually, one got in a snit and the other just sat there and pushed his buttons very calmly and laid back.  It would have been funny, had it not been awkward.

We also sat in another video teleconference when we were supposed to only talk about "A".  So we were all prepared until J, K, and L were brought up and our boss ahd no idea what we were talking about and neither did we.  We were totally ambushed and I was really quite ticked off when the meeting was over.  I felt like we were mislead by the people that called the meeting and no-one likes feeling like that.

Aside from that, today was just more training.  I introduced Jennifer to a bunch of people in different areas that I normally work with or get information from.  And it was another tiring day.

Training

I spent all day training Jennifer with what I do, how our office works, and how our office interacts with the other offices within our directorate and within the company.  I am finding this task somewhat challenging since my job here is outside of what I am expected to do.  This job isn't process based rather than production based and right now we don't have any packages at my level being worked.  They all are all at higher levels than my office.

Anyway, I am absolutely beat.  Mentally.  I completely skipped going to the gym.  I am so excited with the prospect of going home in one week.  Excited that my replacement is here.  And just feel pooped after all of the talking and talking and talking that I did today.

Arrival

Jennifer is here!!!  I can't remember the last time I was so excited to meet a total stranger.  She flew in to Boston this morning and wasn't having any luck getting a connecting flight into Kissimmee.  But we have a mutual friend named Pete, who works in Boston, and Pete was able to get her on a flight here this afternoon. 

Poor woman though, she had been travelling since nine-thirty last night and she didn't get to her room until two in the afternoon.  I gave her the briefest of tours to show her around the place and I hope she slept all afternoon and all night.  Tomorrow I'm going to start the proverbial "drink of water out of the firehose" on her.  I've got four or five days with her and we've got a lot of ground to cover if I want to get out of here by the 29th.  That's right!  I should leave here on time.  WOOT!

And, no, I didn't say "Gee Gosh!" yesterday.  But I did say "Piece of my mind…"