I'm getting a new job inside my company. I'm pretty excited about it. I realize this has nothing to do with running, but I'm getting a new job...woohoo!!! Here is the official intercompany announcement...
Effective June 1, 2006, J. A. (Jenny) Ortis, currently Plant Manufacturing Planner, Polypropylene Manufacturing, Baytown Chemical Plant, will be promoted to Section Supervisor, Baytown Chemical Plant Fixed Equipment and Inspection Section, Baytown Engineering Services Department, Engineering Services Division.
I love working here, for those of you that don't know!
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Friday, May 12, 2006
Trip to Fort Worth
My wonderful brother-in-law graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on May 5th, so I headed to the Metroplex to celebrate. My parents came and my youngest sister was there. The rest of the fam couldn't make it because of work, school, etc.
I drove into FW on Thursday night and got in at a decent time. The benefit (?) of not being married is that I still get to stay in a hotel suite with my parents (i.e. I don't have to pay for my own room!). So, I was staying on a sofa bed in their suite and they both snore horribly, so I had built a fort around me to muffle the sound and finally fell asleep. I woke up to them talking and thought it was time to wake up. Alas, not so. It was only 3:30am. They were talking about the fact that they smelled something BURNING! If you know me, you know I'm a freakshow about fire. I think I have a right to be a freakshow since I woke up in the middle of the night once to find my bed on fire. Anyway, it turns out that the fan on the A/C had burned out. The smell was horrendous and the A/C wasn't working. So, the 90-year-old security guard that came to "help" (after we called twice to ask for someone to come) told the front desk to get us a new room. Fortunately there were available rooms (I specifically asked that we not stay in the same building with the burning A/C fan). For many reasons, it was obvious that this was not your normal Residence Inn by Marriott. It had been converted from something else because the door to our room faced outside. Which means that we had to switch rooms at 3:30 in the morning in the RAIN with all of our stuff. We really looked like homeless people with all our wordly posessions, running across the parking lot in the dark. We just had to laugh the whole time. I mean, who else besides my family would this happen to?
Fortunately, the rest of the trip was uneventful. Graduation was fine (very LONG). Bob Reccord from NAMB was the speaker and he actually had a great message. I think there is some controversy over him or someone around him at NAMB right now, but I try to stay away from the politics. Anyway, we spent Friday afternoon hanging out with the whole family. My mom, dad, sister, and I went and saw Mission Impossible 3. It was way better than the first 2, I thought. I probably wouldn't have gone to see it (I'm majorly anti-Tom Cruise these days), but my parents wanted to see it, so I went and it was good. The producer is the same guy that created Felicity, Alias, Lost and What About Brian, all of which I like. Alias is my favorite of all of those and MI3 is a lot like an episode of Alias. So, overall, I was pleased with it.
Saturday morning, Daddy and I got up and ran a 5K at the Fort Worth Mayfest. Man was it muggy. I have lost my running edge and can barely make it through at 5K...I've got to work on that!
So, that's about all I have to share. I think I'm going to stop traveling with my parents...they're trouble! (See my last post for previous adventures)
I drove into FW on Thursday night and got in at a decent time. The benefit (?) of not being married is that I still get to stay in a hotel suite with my parents (i.e. I don't have to pay for my own room!). So, I was staying on a sofa bed in their suite and they both snore horribly, so I had built a fort around me to muffle the sound and finally fell asleep. I woke up to them talking and thought it was time to wake up. Alas, not so. It was only 3:30am. They were talking about the fact that they smelled something BURNING! If you know me, you know I'm a freakshow about fire. I think I have a right to be a freakshow since I woke up in the middle of the night once to find my bed on fire. Anyway, it turns out that the fan on the A/C had burned out. The smell was horrendous and the A/C wasn't working. So, the 90-year-old security guard that came to "help" (after we called twice to ask for someone to come) told the front desk to get us a new room. Fortunately there were available rooms (I specifically asked that we not stay in the same building with the burning A/C fan). For many reasons, it was obvious that this was not your normal Residence Inn by Marriott. It had been converted from something else because the door to our room faced outside. Which means that we had to switch rooms at 3:30 in the morning in the RAIN with all of our stuff. We really looked like homeless people with all our wordly posessions, running across the parking lot in the dark. We just had to laugh the whole time. I mean, who else besides my family would this happen to?
Fortunately, the rest of the trip was uneventful. Graduation was fine (very LONG). Bob Reccord from NAMB was the speaker and he actually had a great message. I think there is some controversy over him or someone around him at NAMB right now, but I try to stay away from the politics. Anyway, we spent Friday afternoon hanging out with the whole family. My mom, dad, sister, and I went and saw Mission Impossible 3. It was way better than the first 2, I thought. I probably wouldn't have gone to see it (I'm majorly anti-Tom Cruise these days), but my parents wanted to see it, so I went and it was good. The producer is the same guy that created Felicity, Alias, Lost and What About Brian, all of which I like. Alias is my favorite of all of those and MI3 is a lot like an episode of Alias. So, overall, I was pleased with it.
Saturday morning, Daddy and I got up and ran a 5K at the Fort Worth Mayfest. Man was it muggy. I have lost my running edge and can barely make it through at 5K...I've got to work on that!
So, that's about all I have to share. I think I'm going to stop traveling with my parents...they're trouble! (See my last post for previous adventures)
Monday, May 01, 2006
Latest running trip
Some of you may not know, but my Dad and I have a goal of running a race in every state. So, we take running trips once or twice a year and run multiple races in multiple states on the same weekend. This past weekend, we went to Michigan and Illinois. We ran a race in Kalamazoo, MI on Saturday and one in Chicago, IL on Sunday. We were pretty consistent...32:29 on Saturday and 32:30 on Sunday. Saturday was hilly and Sunday was rainy. In between, we managed to go to Indiana and see the Notre Dame campus, eat at some good restaurants (in the past, we have had TERRIBLE luck with restaurants), meet some Amish people (we ate at an Amish restaurant), visit Cereal City USA (Battle Creek, Michigan is the birthplace of Kellogg's and Post cereal companies), go to the top of the Hancock building in Chicago where you can see out over Lake Michigan, and visit Willowcreek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, where Lee Strobel spoke on "Cracking the Da Vinci Code." I strongly recommend his website (www.leestrobel.com), which has good material about this book/movie, but also has some great stuff on the case for Christianity (his testimony is very cool!).
Some of the less normal things we got to do:
-Ride in a cab on the cab driver's first day...I had to give him directions and he almost took 2 wrong turns (apparently when you are about to make a turn and the passengers are yelling "LEFT! LEFT!", it finally clicks that you are not supposed to turn right and you, instead, decide to tear across the intersection in front of 3 cars to make the turn) and almost got into 3 wrecks in a matter of 6 minutes (didn't seem to notice that we were careening into another lane where there was already a car!). I'm not so sure it wasn't his first day ever driving a car! My recommendation for everyone would be that, if you get in a cab and the driver tells you it's his first day, immediately get out of the cab!!!
-Meet someone who worked in my home town, which is not that big and definitely not close to Kalamazoo, Michigan!
-Learn the area code to Albequerque, NM (it's 505 in case you're wondering).
-Spend time in the Southwest Baggage Services office in Chicago Midway airport.
-Learn that, when you have someone paged at an airport, even when they try to respond, sometimes the folks manning the friendly skies are not helpful and tell them that there was not a page for them, when, in fact, there was!
-Meet a very nice couple from Albequerque, NM, who accidentally took my Dad's bag when we got off the National rental car shuttle. Fortunately, they left their bag and it had their phone number on it (cell phone!!), so we called and they met us to give us my Dad's bag after we had frantically been having them paged by Southwest. Then, we went back to Southwest Baggage Services to get their bag for them.
All in all, a very fun trip, but I was ready to be home after the luggage issue...it wore me out worrying about it.
Now, I have to plan our next trip, which will involve fuschia luggage with fluorescent orange flashers to make sure no one takes our luggage!
Some of the less normal things we got to do:
-Ride in a cab on the cab driver's first day...I had to give him directions and he almost took 2 wrong turns (apparently when you are about to make a turn and the passengers are yelling "LEFT! LEFT!", it finally clicks that you are not supposed to turn right and you, instead, decide to tear across the intersection in front of 3 cars to make the turn) and almost got into 3 wrecks in a matter of 6 minutes (didn't seem to notice that we were careening into another lane where there was already a car!). I'm not so sure it wasn't his first day ever driving a car! My recommendation for everyone would be that, if you get in a cab and the driver tells you it's his first day, immediately get out of the cab!!!
-Meet someone who worked in my home town, which is not that big and definitely not close to Kalamazoo, Michigan!
-Learn the area code to Albequerque, NM (it's 505 in case you're wondering).
-Spend time in the Southwest Baggage Services office in Chicago Midway airport.
-Learn that, when you have someone paged at an airport, even when they try to respond, sometimes the folks manning the friendly skies are not helpful and tell them that there was not a page for them, when, in fact, there was!
-Meet a very nice couple from Albequerque, NM, who accidentally took my Dad's bag when we got off the National rental car shuttle. Fortunately, they left their bag and it had their phone number on it (cell phone!!), so we called and they met us to give us my Dad's bag after we had frantically been having them paged by Southwest. Then, we went back to Southwest Baggage Services to get their bag for them.
All in all, a very fun trip, but I was ready to be home after the luggage issue...it wore me out worrying about it.
Now, I have to plan our next trip, which will involve fuschia luggage with fluorescent orange flashers to make sure no one takes our luggage!
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