Tagged - Not Dog Tags

Okay Roman, you're going to have to move over for just a moment. My best friend from college (and mother of one to whom I was once betrothed) has tagged me to get us out of our rut of waiting for E to get around to posting about all those pictures of fun stuff we've been up to. So here are my memories...

20 years ago: July '88 I attended our first ever family reunion. (I still have the shirt!) My grandmother was the youngest of 11 and the reunion was for all of her siblings and their descendants. We all hung out at a Holiday Inn. My memories of the reunion are pretty vague beyond some dinners and swimming in the hotel pool and the picture that supposedly contains everyone who was there. But what I do remember is that after the reunion I went to Michigan and spent a week with some of my cousins. We listened to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack the whole way there, and I'm sure I hadn't been allowed to see the movie and I had no idea what I was singing about! They took me across to Windsor, Canada - and the border guards almost didn't let me back into the US! Then at the end of the week, my grandma and grandpa picked me up and we headed back home. That ended up being the first of many road trips I took with my grandfather - he liked having me as his navigator!

10 years ago: Summer '98 I was living in the Russian language apartment on campus. Our apartment complex was just around the corner from the home of my "betrothed" so I spent a lot of happy times hanging with him. He was only a couple of months old, so we were heavily chaperoned by his parents. But then again, maybe the betrothal wasn't quite official yet at that time... okay, so truth is most of my time was spent hanging out with A&R and the little guy was a bit of a tag-along. ;-)

5 years ago: In 2003, I had the opportunity to embark on 2 different US Navy destroyers as part of the testing for the development of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. For both trips we sailed from Pearl Harbor, HI - one of the trips stayed within the Hawaiian waters, but the second trip was for about 2 weeks and we went within sight of the CA coast before returning to HI. For my first underway, I had been counseled to take some Dramamine before embarking and if I started to feel it wear off, then I should take another. I never felt it wear off, so there wasn't any motion sickness on my part! Come to think of it, I actually still have some of those tablets! There were only 8, and they were in a handy container, so I've added Advil and Tylenol to the container and along the way I've shared the Dramamine with others who were in need!

3 years ago: 2005 was the half way mark of my participation in the company's (sector level - not corporation wide) System Engineering Associates (SEA) Program. Up to five employees are selected each year to enter the 2-year program. I worked in 4 different business areas, each for 6 months, over the 2 years. The company pays for temporary relocation and puts you up in corporate housing! I however chose to stay in the DC area and didn't travel the country in 6 month increments. 2005 was also the first year that I worked with the YCLs at camp, and I've continued doing that every year since then.

1 year ago: I lost my green ruler! :( Seriously! I loved that ruler and it just up and disappeared one day. It was perfect for checking lines on my drawing reviews, it was a transparent, flexible plastic and it had the perfect set of markers for various size scaling. There are all sorts of fun office politics that played into that time frame too. But it was notably gone before I was forcibly relocated to my 5th desk within the office spaces to allow "construction" to begin immediately. Said construction still hasn't begun and I much preferred the lighting environment of the cube where the entrance opening was oriented towards the window and allowed all the light to come in. I'm still by a window now, but I only get 1/3 of the light that makes it over the cube wall which actually casts a shadow gray area on my workspace where I'm scrutinizing earlier mentioned drawings without my green ruler!

This year: Most of the past year has been filled with the adventures of welcoming Roman into our family. See many of the blog entries for details on his antics.

Yesterday: I got an email saying that I'd been tagged! It was a good thing the email was sent, because I've gotten a bit out of the habit of checking my google reader for blog updates. I also went to a digi-scrapping gathering and learned a little more about how to use the new fangled camera that E bought recently and has been going hog wild with taking pictures. I'm really glad we have a dog. Roman is such a better photo subject than I am!

Today: I'm getting entirely not enough done at work because I'm having too much fun reminiscing. But tonight's plan is to go to obedience class with Roman and see if we can continue to improve his behavior and responsiveness in the presence of other dogs.

Tomorrow: I hope to get more work done at the office, but it seems to be very quiet on Fridays around here. Oh wait, no, I get to go to a fun luncheon tomorrow at one of the other offices so there should be many things going on around me! yippee! Then E and I will head out for our usual Friday "date night" and service opportunities.

Now to pass the tag along... I don't even know who reads this blog!!! Okay - so if you are reading this, then you've been tagged! (And let me know you still happen to check in even though it's been 2-1/2 months since our last post...)

A

Time Well Spent

So E had a few weeks off between jobs. He really liked his short commute but an opportunity came up that was a career move he couldn't pass up. I miss him coming home so early during the day. It means more time in my crate then I like. :(

But for two weeks I had my run of the house and yard as E and I worked on all kinds of little projects. First was the brick patio out back. I really tear up the yard when it rains as I jump in and out of the back door. So E thought we would expand the brick patio that the grill sits on. While E was working on that I did my best stick my nose in the freshly dug dirt trying see if there was anything interesting under all the grass. When I got bored with that I started wrestling with the bags of gravel E bought to put the bricks on. I amazed even myself when I found I was able to lift and move the 50 pound bags!

A few days later when E's back recovered from moving all those bricks he started hanging new closet doors. I didn't see why we needed new doors but humans are a different breed.

The worst project we did was the painting. E & A want to repaint the main floor of the house. That is going to require a lot of prep work. It started with the priming since E had already sanded the wall down after applying putty to hide a few scratches in the wall. I wasn't as invited to help with the paint. Apparently dog fur and paint don't work well together, or so I'm told.
I liked working with E because he is a pretty cool boss. I helped when I wanted to help and took a nap when I wanted to take a nap. I think he needs to learn to delegate more of the work because every time I got too involved he would tell me to relax and not work so hard. I love E & A so I just want to help wherever I can!

R

Another week gone by

Nothing too exciting happening here. E&A say that the spring rains are a bit cooler than usual, but I just find them to be wet! A took a little hop up to Long Island for work, but made it back in time for my class - that hourly shuttle comes in handy! E has put in his 2 week notice with the county and is going to be starting a new job soon. Still not sure exactly which position he'll take, but he's going to have to adjust to the commuting lifestyle again. They say that's going to affect our play times, but we'll still get time to play...it'll just be later in the day when he gets home.

R