These are good days. If all goes as planned, one month from today I’ll be done with school and headed to Fort Lauderdale with my beloved to board our cruise ship. My car is finally running fine again. The temperature is cooling off. We’ve gotten some good rain lately. We had a great time in Vegas, and you can read about our trip on my new Vegas trip page. The Stars are playing again. I’m working lots of midnight shifts this month. I’m working out consistently, although I’ve pretty much ruled out the Rock and Roll Half-Marathon for this year. Sure, there are plenty of things I could stress about – how much longer my car will run without expensive repairs, when we should move closer to work, what those lab results will say, etc. But I’m trying to worry less, relax, and trust God more since He is the only one who knows what’s coming next. For some reason, I’m remembering the tremendous value of perspective. There are positives and negatives to just about anything if you look hard enough, and we all get to choose which to focus on.
Category Archives: School
One to Go…Almost
If all goes as planned, by the end of the day Thursday I’ll be done with class #12 and have one more to go. Woohoo! I’ll be a little sad when this class ends because it’s been one of my favorites. Our textbook is The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman, and I highly recommend it if you have any interest in America’s place in the world and in globalization, the ever-increasing interdependence/interaction of all the world’s nations, economies, cultures, people, and ideas. Friedman presents big ideas in accessible language, making the book an east but fascinating read. We’ve had great discussions in the class about where people fit into this new world and society’s role in helping them or leaving them to fend for themselves.
June News
Whew! We’ve had so much going on that I haven’t made time to update the blog in a while. My maternal grandmother was in the hospital for a few days last week, but I’m glad to say she’s now home recovering and feeling better. Jenny got a promotion at work! Starting sometime next month, she will be a project specialist for the onboarding group in the People dept. That means she’ll be working on a variety of special projects, such as organizing events, gathering and analyzing data, designing forms, etc. The onboarding group tries to make sure new employees at SWA get plugged in the culture and love the company from the beginning so that they stick around. I’m sure many of you saw the Wright Amendment compromise that Dallas, Fort Worth, DFW, American, and Southwest worked out recently. I’m actually quite happy with it. Sure, 8 years is a long time, but if American was going to sign off on it, we couldn’t get any less than 8. The agreement lets us keep 16 gates at Love, which is a huge plus, and allows immediate through-ticketing, which will also be a big help. I expect Congress to pass it this year. Vegas, here we come, after a stop in Albuquerque! =) I finished my economics class (number 11/13). The garden is getting very, very crowded, but we finally have 2 cucumbers! It’s schedule bidding time at work, and I think I’m going to bid midnights for next year (Feb 2007-Jan 2008). I’m not senior enough to get day shifts, so midnights are the only way to see my wife much when I’m working.
The End is Near!
I have a graduation date: Friday, December 8, in Corpus Christi. I registered for my final class today, Business Policy and Decision Making. I think it will be a very interesting class. It involves analyzing a business like a manager, finding the problems, and solving them. I’m scheduled to start it next month.
Jenny and I went camping last weekend at Cedar Hill State Park, which has somewhere around 400 campsites, all with water and electric hookups. We had a great time hiking, napping, relaxing, and being away from our day-to-day busyness. Holly came with us. She’s a pretty good camping dog, and she went on our hikes with us despite the heat. This will probably be our last camping trip for a while until it cools down a bit.
Our garden is doing well! We pulled our first zucchini today, and more are on the way. The cucumbers have many blooms, so we should start to see fruit soon. The birds like our tomatoes, and the pie plate that we hung to scare them off doesn’t seem to be scary enough. But we’re having a good time! I’ll try to post a picture soon.
The Cup Beckons
The Stars have begun their 2006 quest for the Stanley Cup. Unfortunately, they got off to a lackluster start Saturday night in Game 1 against Colorado, but I’m hoping it was a very loud wake-up call for them. Game 2 is tonight, and Mom and I plan to be there. The Stanley Cup is the most interesting trophy in professional sports. The same Cup has been passed from team to team for over 100 years. The players for each winning team have their names engraved on it, and each player gets to spend one day with it during the summer. Tradition dictates that no hockey player can touch the Cup unless he has won it, although non-players can when it’s on display. No one, player or not, can hoist the Cup overhead unless he has won it. Two full-time guards escort the Cup as it spends time with winning players during the summer and on publicity tours during the season. To read more about this spectacular trophy, visit the Stanley Cup page on NHL.com.
In school news, I finished my airline ops and mgmt course, number 10 of 13. I’m scheduled to start class #12, International Mgmt and Aviation Policy, on May 7.
Classmates Who Become Famous
The Dallas Cowboys recently signed a new linebacker from the Jaguars named Akin Ayodele. I went to MacArthur High School with him. We used to carpool for a class called PALS that we took together. It involved spending time with local elementary school students. I remember three main things about him: 1) He was usually the one we were waiting on before PALS each day. 2) He was tall and muscular, so he sat in the front seat of my car when I drove. 3) He was extremely fast.
One time we were playing touch football together, maybe for FCA. I was “covering” him while he played wide receiver. I’m not the fast, nimble kind of guy who usually plays cornerback, but I was giving it a try. He caught a pass. When I tried to tag him, he stayed just out of reach for a couple of seconds, as if toying with me. Then he switched to a different gear and was gone. Gone. It was an odd feeling – not being burned so badly, because that wasn’t so unusual, but seeing someone so in tune with his abilities and so able to turn them on at will. No matter what I brought to the game, he could bring more. Welcome back to Dallas, Akin.
It makes me wonder who else from our class wound up famous or will someday. He’s the only one I can think of. Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood and theater/film actor Kevin Daniels (Ladder 49) went to Mac, but they were a couple of years ahead of me. I’m definitely not famous, and I’m quite happy that way. =)