One downside to the move out west is all the time that is lost when traveling east (i.e. across multiple time zones). As Erin is now back on the road after a week off, we got to experience the joy of waking up at 4am so that she could make her flight en route to Jacksonville, Florida (via Houston, Texas). The good thing is that its a flat 30 minutes to DIA and I was driving slowly (still getting used to the 70+ mph speed limits out here). All things…read more
After a very short overnight in Lexington, Nebraska, we hit the road for the final leg out our trip. The landscape morphed from rolly-polly countryside and farmland to vast plans with the widest reaching horizon I’ve ever seen. This meant we were getting close! With many, many hours on the road with nothing but the loud noise of a diesel engine and the vibrations of a poorly maintained Penske truck, one has plenty of time to be introspective about anything and everything. This trip has helped me realize just how…read more
Well our proposed ten-hour drive turned into a thirteen-hour drive (a new record for us). To add insult to injury, Iowa is a series of foothills…..rolling up and down, on and on for hundreds of miles. Each time I would have to climb one of these hills the speed of the truck would duck down to 65, 60, 55, 50, 45 mph (get the picture). It was bad. Oh yeah, and there was something like a constant 30-40 mph head wind that kept knocking the truck all over the place….read more
Monday we found ourselves traveling through the rest of Ohio, Indiana and into Illinois….our arrival into which (Chicago) was timed precisely for 5pm so we could once again feel the maximum impact of rush hour and add an extra 1.5 hours to the trip just for kicks! 😉 Seriously though, the trip has gone well so far. Zoe (the pug) has yet to go postal nor has she needed any tranquilizers (yet). Erin has been soldiering on following me in the slow-ass Penske truck that won’t travel over 68 mph….read more
Well after a much later start than anticipated (i.e. 4pm), we made it to Youngstown, Ohio tonight. With only seven hours on the road, we’re running behind schedule, but since we don’t *have* to be anywhere at a specific time, we’re going to take it easy. Its so much less stressful to travel when you’re on your own schedule. BTW – having some difficulty with Word Press and the image uploader (all the thumbnails just show the background of CSS page) so I need to figure that out. Not to…read more
Well this is it. I graduated college on a Thursday and starting working on the following Monday almost eleven years ago. I never stopped to think about what I wanted to do with my life…..things just found me and I went with them. I’m very grateful for all of the opportunity and good fortune I enjoyed at my 10+ years at MWW Group. Rising from and entry-level nobody to the head of the IT department in just a few years feels like quite an accomplishment. Yet, now I’m hungry for…read more
As a 32 year old guy, I’ve come to a major crossroads in my life. With my mother’s breast cancer diagnosis last August (she’s in her 60’s), I thought to myself, would I be happy with the life that I’ve lived if I were told I only had six months to live? The answer to that was a resounding “NO!” I don’t want to work my entire life into retirement, finally able to do what I want and realize I’ve got months to live. What I’ve always wanted was the…read more