Say What?

Rachel is beginning to do the senior-slide. She's got her college acceptance out of the way and has pretty much accomplished all (and more) that she set out to do going into high school. Her GPA isn't as important to her now as it was last year at this time. She's still putting in some late hours though between teaching dance (some nights until after 9:00) then hurrying home to finish whatever homework she may have. She thought she was going to have to pull an all-nighter last week but her project came together much more quickly than she thought it would. I put the finishing touches on the third of six panels above our entertainment center over the weekend. This one as well as the next three are all going to be less work than the first two as they're not as wide. Plus, we're getting into a nice rhythm and making much quicker work of each successive panel. The three of us headed out to Southern Theater in Minneapolis last Thursday night to watch the play/dance, ...

Remember, this blog is for my personal reflection. Regulars who frequent here will likely find what I've written below to be repetitive. I make no apology. In following through on my last post I've penned the following and sent it to Administrator Babbitt. Thanks to Rob at work for his help in keeping it focused. Administrator Babbitt, My name is Kevin Gilmore and I'm a controller at MSP ARTCC. I've been with the agency since March 1982 and I also served in the U.S.N. for 4 years in the mid to late '70s. I've been around a while. I first want to thank you for your efforts in getting us a ratified contract to work under. The imposed work rules did more to wreck employee morale than I ever imagined possible. I was a 'company man' just a few short years ago but today I find myself disillusioned with my employer and struggling to find any remaining respect for management. Mentally, it's not a place I enjoy being, but it's where I am. There ar...

It's the dead of winter here in the Midwest and I've been pretty much cocooned in our home for the past couple months with the exception of an occasional trip to the mall. Usually this time of year I'm out on my bike but I've been content to do my training on my rollers in the basement. It's probably a better workout anyway. I got suited up Thursday morning to hit the roads for a couple of hours but after putting one foot onto our driveway I found that the light drizzle which had been falling was freezing to the surface despite a temp in the mid-30s. Maybe next week. I'm not sure if it's a phase of life I'm transitioning into but I've taken to feeding birds this winter. Along with the birds we've got a bunch of squirrels too and if I do like most people I'll get caught up in the game of trying to keep the squirrels from the bird food but that's not me. I probably enjoy seeing squirrels out there as much as I do birds so I feed them a...

...in a virtual sense. Stay with me to the end of this entry to see what I mean. This is a continuation of a series of writings about my time in the Navy. The first in this series of posts can be found here or go here for the most recent. It had been 9 months since returning from our last WestPac (Western Pacific) deployment and I'd found a nice routine in my life. We'd go out to sea occasionally, possibly a run up the coast to San Francisco or a day or two spent off the San Diego coast doing maneuvers. We were never gone for very long so what was not to like? I came back from a ride one weekend afternoon to find our ship had experienced a fire while I was gone. The following taken from my journal, "I spent the day out in the country today and while I was doing that, number 2 engine room on the Fresno was burning up. They finally got the fire out after three hours of work. I got there just as they were finishing. So now it looks like REFTRA (refresher training) h...

I started my blog over 6 years ago. There's no one particular reason why I write in it but I'd say that more than anything, it's therapy; a way for me to sort through my thoughts. I also like the idea of being able to look back on all that's been written here many years from now and reminisce about my life. There's one other reason though that it's important to me: it allows me to tell my side of the story on that rare occasion where I feel it's necessary and that's where this post is headed. I had a conversation with one of our facility's managers at work last week. The conversation eventually worked its way to the incident I was written up for in April, '08. It became apparent that he'd only heard one version of the story; he hadn't heard what actually happened. Management wasn't the least bit interested in my side so it only stands to reason that he didn't know the truth. He implied that he was surprised by what he...

I'm not much of a pack-rat, in fact, I'm distracted by clutter in our home. I wouldn't say I'm obsessive about it but I function best when I keep it to a minimum. Removing all the clutter from our garage during its renovation last summer was more satisfying than you can imagine. Nearly equally as satisfying was the project Tammy undertook within our home for most of last week when she tackled the job of emptying out all our cupboards, drawers and closets to get rid of stuff we no longer need and reorganize whatever was left. To any visitors who happened by, they must've thought we were terrible housekeepers to see our home in such disarray. She's got a bit left to do but the majority of it is done and I know she's feeling good about having that monkey off her back. Me too. I stayed out of her way by immersing myself in our stained glass project down in the shop. I made good progress on it and hope to have this panel wrapped up in the next few weeks which...