Monthly Archives: July 2006

Need a Good Firefighter?

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I’ll dedicate this blog entry to my best friend Lacy. After many months of hard work, he completed firefighter school this week and passed his state exam, so he’s now a certified firefighter. He worked a tough job all day and spent his evenings in class on top of being a good husband and father. Now he’s looking for a firefighting job, so if you know of any, drop me an email. He gets very excited any time you bring up his new career, so I know it’s a perfect fit. It feels a bit odd to be so excited about seeing your friend pursue such a risky career, but if my house were on fire, I’d want him on the scene.

And in other news, I want to give a shout out to my homegirls in the Labor and Delivery unit at Baylor Irving. Apparently they check out my blog sometimes between deliveries, especially on the night shift. Thanks for stopping by! “Empuje el nino!”

Finally, I want to make sure you know about one of my other favorite websites: babelfish.altavista.com. You can type in a word or phrase in a variety of languages and have the site translate it into various other languages. It’s not perfect, but it’s fun to play with. Give it a try!

The Next Challenge: Ordeal in the Sun (dun dun dun!)

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I’ve been thinking for a while about what to do once I finish school and have more free time. The Playstation 2 will definitely be involved, but I think I’ve found a new challenge: PF Chang’s Rock & Roll Arizona Marathon/Half Marathon. As the name implies, it’s a marathon or half (I’ll stick with the half) in the Phoenix area with about 70 live bands playing for you along the way to keep you motivated. I’ve loved the idea ever since I heard about it several years ago, and I think I’m going to sign up. I doubt I can run the whole way, but now that I have some decent running shoes and time to train, I’ll give it my best shot in January. I’d better get in shape!

Five Years at Southwest

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Last week was my five-year anniversary at Southwest. I started on June 25, 2001, so I was quite grateful that Southwest didn’t lay off all the new guys after September 11. To celebrate our anniversary, many of the new hires from my SMART Camp group (Technology new hires fresh out of school) met for lunch, and I got to join them. It was great to see some folks I hadn’t seen in months and catch up. About 2/3 of us are left from the original group of about 22, which is pretty high for technology workers. I think the high retention rate is partly due to SMART Camp, which was 6 weeks of orientation to the company, its various departments, and its history along with lots of fun. Sure, it was a long program, but it helped make us die-hard fans of the company.