Say What?

It's been a mild week in the Midwest and I took advantage of it by getting out for a couple of nice rides. I took Wednesday off from the salt mine and finished hanging the remaining Christmas lights on the outside of our house then rode into St Paul. I caught a couple of guys climbing highway 13 into Lilydale and they asked me if I wanted to tag along. They were both in their early 30's, from St Paul and working the hills. They knew where to find them and St Paul has several worth seeking out. I accepted their offer . We spent the next 45 minutes riding from one climb to the next. I'm always game for hills. Both the ups and downs. I'd have stayed with Brad and Caleb longer but I had to get home so I could catch a few hour's sleep before the all-night shift. I got back with just under 55 miles on the day. Today was another gorgeous day. I got out at 1:00 and headed west into a light southwesterly breeze. The plan was to do the Jordan loop. I got a bi...

I want to congratulate Erin (my niece) and Clayton on the birth of their daughter, Anja, this past Friday night. She's a tiny one. Welcome to the world, Anja. I can't even begin to imagine what the world has in store for you. Erin and Clayton, she looks like a little sweetheart. I'm so happy for you. Congratulations! My trainee, Kristie, came into work last week talking about the fun she'd had over the weekend playing Wii at her parent's home. It sounded like a blast. I'd tried to find a Wii game console last Christmas as a family gift for the three of us but there were none to be found. Some of the guys at work were saying that they weren't too hard to find now so I went to Target on Tuesday night and sure enough they had a bunch of them. I asked the guy working in the electronics department to load me down with whatever he figured I'd need in addition to the game. I walked away with Mario Cart, two steering wheels and a charging platform f...

I attended Crew Resource Management (CRM) class yesterday at work. It's an all-day required class designed to promote the concept of teamwork. I can't imagine that any federal agency needs this training more than the FAA—the agency I work for. But until there's any sort of moderation from management with respect to their heavy-handed approach to dealing with disputes in the workplace, a class such as this is meaningless. One of the first segments of the class was a video about the Blue Angels and how they utilize CRM to get the most out of each training session and aerobatic show they perform. Every member of the team enters the debrief room by first checking their rank at the door. Open and honest discussion is a must or the entire endeavor is futile as they work to perfect their skills. I sat there and watched the video and my mind began to wander back to the disciplinary action taken against me by management this past April. Most of the rest of the facility ha...

I was in the middle of something the other night while carrying on a text conversation with Rachel. My preoccupation with whatever I was involved in was winning out over our text conversation and so to her last reply to my previous response I commented with one word, "cool". I didn't realize that with my one-word response I'd committed a texting sin. I'd one-worded her. I suppose I knew on some level that there was a chance my one-word reply to her may have been a hint that I didn't really feel much like texting but I had no idea I was doing something well known among the texting crowd. Later that night when she came home she said, "wow...you one-worded me". I knew exactly what she was referring to. Smile. She said not to worry and that Trina was one-worded three times in a row by three different people the day before. Wow, I don't know how or if I'd ever recover from that if the same thing was to happened to me. Tammy and I have ...

Tammy and I made it out to the craft fair at Canterbury yesterday. Hey, it's one of those things a guy does for his wife because he knows how much she enjoys going. To be truthful, I actually don't mind tagging along as I'm always interested in seeing what sort of ideas people are crafting together to sell. We came away with a few items; a suet feeder for birds that I've got hanging among our feeders outside the den window, a beautiful hand-beaded small purse for Rachel which we'll give her at Christmas and a few other forgettable things that I can't recall. As we strolled through the fair we repeated the conversation we always have when we go to this kind of thing. We imagine what sort of booth we could have. Tammy mentioned an idea for birdhouses with real stained glass lit from within. Hmmm...that's an interesting idea. I'm not only looking at the crafts for sale but I also spend some time looking at how people construct their stands/booths....

I came back to work Sunday afternoon after having been off the past week. Sitting at the sector it began to set in that the FAA would soon be under new leadership and what that may mean for those of us who have been so disrespected the past two-plus years by an anti-labor administration. I don't think I'd allowed myself to imagine an FAA led by another Republican president's appointee until the election was over. The thought of coming to work after a McCain win was a very depressing one. I remember telling Tammy a few days before the election that if Obama lost I could see myself slipping into a mild depression. I'd work my way out of it but it would take some time. If you're not sure what I'm referring to, here are a couple links to help you understand:  here and here . There are some within FAA management who are sympathetic to our situation but I have to wonder how many of them wrote to those above them and expressed that sentiment? Not very many I...

Bryan and Sue are still stuck in Kadoka , South Dakota as they try to make their way back to Portland. I was thinking of sitting down and penning some blues lyrics for them but that should be their job. You have to experience the blues to write about them. I-90 is still closed across the western part of the state but Bryan said they're being told it will be open early tomorrow morning. I heard one news report that there had been people stranded in their cars until recently. I loaned Bryan and Sue our Garmin Nuvi to play with on the way home. It came in handy when they were in search of a place to exit the freeway where they could find accommodations. Bryan's plan was to avoid the north route home as it looked like that was going to be where they'd encounter the most snow. When I talked with him tonight he felt that a more southerly route, I-80 across Nebraska would've been the best choice. They'd be home by now had they gone either way other than I-90. ...

Tammy and I got to the polls at 9:00 yesterday morning. We figured we'd let the crush of people trying to vote before work wind down before we got there. We were in and out in less than five minutes. So much for having to make a sacrifice to vote by waiting in line for hours as many people across the country had to. Tammy had a lunch date with her friend Jonie in St Paul and Bryan and Sue were heading into Minneapolis to try and hook up with a friend of Sue's. That left me with no other choice than to get on my bike and take advantage of what will most likely be the last warm day of the year. And so I did. I went south on Cedar and biked past Greenvale Township town hall north of Northfield with several cars out front. I circled back to take a photo . It looked to be an older crowd of people coming and going. I imagined small town halls similar to this one all across the country buzzing with people finally getting a chance to have their say. I pressed on south int...

We celebrated my mother's 80th birthday yesterday at Jax Cafe' in northeast Minneapolis. It was a lot of fun to get so many of us together to mark the occasion. Mom isn't comfortable being the center of attention but she handled it well. Here's a video I put together from the brunch and some photos I uploaded to my Flickr account. If you made it to the end of the video link above you would've seen all of us siblings together with our mom. This would've been us from a much earlier time, circa 1970-71. In my last blog post, I talked about some unknown person who didn't like my Obama sign. Both Saturday and Sunday mornings I went out to get the paper and found that my Obama sign had been covered with a black plastic bag. I thought that maybe it was my neighbors across the street, Mark and Becky, playing a joke on me but I couldn't be sure. Last night I came home from the late shift at work and as I got out of my truck I noticed two McCain/Palin...