Good trip home last week, although I didn't get the shed done. AA put me in first class for 3 out of 4 segments, so that made it fairly painless. Weather cooperated and I didn't need to drag any luggage - all more pluses. FYI, the weather in Kansas sucks. It varies between 10 and 70 about once every two weeks. This isn't nearly as nice as when it does this out west, because here it happens in about 12 hours. And wind blows and blows and blows every time there is a change. It's not like I'm planning on moving here so I guess it doesn't really matter.
It was birthday week for Pedro and he had asked me to take him for an airplane ride so on Sunday we went to Marana for breakfast. Very short trip in the Mooney - straight shot it is about 2 minutes if I go straight and fast. Instead we did some low and high messing around out north of the Tortolitas on the way to and from. Nice to fly after a month away. He also asked me to take him and two of his friends to the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Farm at
Picacho Peak last weekend. It was a surprisingly fun time, we took the monster truck ride in their converted school bus on steroids and got to hear the tourist spiel. Of course Pedro and I were the only Arizona natives - the bus was filled with people from Canada and California. The kids liked it because even though they are painfully familiar with Cholla and Saguaro cacti, they hadn't heard the tourista version of the stories as we older farts have so many times. On one stop they let you fish for ostriches by hanging halves of oranges from sticks while the birds fight to snag and swallow the fruit, fairly strange, but fun.
After the ride we fed the ostriches (stupid mean birds), the little deer, and the mini-burros they keep on site. They also have a nice bird house full of lorakeets that you go into and they come swooping down to sit all over you (or is that to sh&* all over you) and drink the 'nectar' they sell for some ridiculous price. I'd love to have the aviary for our greys' or some of the other birds. Overall recommended as long as you are ready to cough up the money for the ride.
Work turned very weird this week. As you know, I'm a consultant who is working at their pleasure, i.e. they can send me down the road at any time for absolutely no reason. Not news - that's what I do.
But the folks who actually work for the company - some of them for two or three decades - were shocked on Thursday when they were called to a meeting on a different floor and promptly escorted from the premises. They were told that they couldn't take the family pictures off their desks or the finger paintings that their children had made for them hanging on their cubicle walls. I'm not even going to address the legality of this maneuver (I checked and it constitutes theft under Kansas law), but the message that is going out to the local work force, and the nuclear industry as a whole, is that the company is not one to work for. I'm still there as far as I know, and if they pull this on me, I will be a bit more aggressive about retrieving my personal property.
I'm also anxious to talk to the VP who I've worked for off and on for about 10 years now. I suspect he is livid too. The company has a 100-year history of doing engineering work for cities, towns, states, and the fed's. But they have been trying to break into nuclear work. The two forces - old vs new - have been pushing on each other trying to maintain old sweat-shop engineering forces versus the modern (80's style) model of professionals treated as such. I'm glad I don't own any of their stock, and I'm looking for my next assignment pretty aggressively. There are a few nibbles already, so I'll let you know where I end up if and when.
Amparo is working the jewelry, gem and mineral show again this year. It wears her out, but she enjoys seeing all the old friends she's made over the years. It's funny how she is surprised when people thank her for her expertise with jewelry pieces, parts, tools, and techniques. Surprise, she's been doing it for a long time - she doesn't realize it but she is an expert now and the people she sells to every year know it.
Jose is plugging along, working fairly long hours at Dominoes. Pedro is happy to be nine finally (as of Thursday, 2/5). Chach turns 19 on the 19th - scary, eh?
As I mentioned, we are moving to all cell phones over the next few months. All of the phones have unlimited texting and plenty of time - I'll upgrade if needed and still be way ahead on the price curve. So feel free to text or call anytime. Maria and I have our Samsung Epix now - I get email everywhere all the time - I'll set hers up next trip to Tucson and let everyone know what address to use (probably amparo (at) att dot net.) Chach's phone has text also.
Well, off to run a few errands around KC - it's very boring on weekends here. I usually try to work when away, but there just hasn't been enough to do to justify the time. So I bum around the metro area. Yesterday I wandered into Cabela's and found some RAM mounts for less than $10 total in their bargain cave. Would have been $30 - 40 retail, so that was worth the stop. Today I'm going to run by one of the mega-farm stores for Amparo - I really wish I had the money to open about three of these in AZ - one each on NW, SE side of metro Phoenix, and one on NW side of Tucson. Really cool with everything from work clothes to tractor parts and dog food.
Off to the cold,
Karl
