And the correct answer is....

A!
Thanks for playing! Yeah, I like D and E - I think F breaks several laws of physics, maybe I'll shoot for one of those on the way back!
Even though my connecting flights in Chicago were 1 gate apart from eachother (I would have gladly gone to get my bag and put it on the second flight) it unfortunately did not make the same trip I did. Since I had to be at the plant at 5 this morning - I decided to wait for a couple hours until my bags got there.
I managed to get 3 hours of sleep before work, but then I fell asleep for a few hours this afternoon, so I should be good the rest of the week.
It is nice and warm here in MO, oh and I'm staying on Rt 66 - good times so far :)
24 is about to start, later!

Airport mishap trivia

This is a fun game... Any takers? Am I....

A) Stuck in Springfield airport because my bag didn't come
B) Stuck in Chicago airport because I missed my connecting flight
C) Stuck in Milwaukee airport because someone hit my car and I missed my flight and can't get home until I can pick up my car
D) In Mexico because I got on the wrong plane
E) In Hawaii because I met my soon to be husband and we decided to elope
F) All of the above
G) None of the above

Official member of uRATS!

So, I guess I am now a member of the "unofficial Racine Area Triathlon Society" - yes uRATS - they have a fancy brochure and everything with a drunk looking rat standing in a U on the front. You'll have to take my word, it is very cool. I sent an email to the group leader, and he emailed everyone letting them know I was a new member. I had a few people write me emails today welcoming me. So, I guess I'm doing triathlons again this year!

I got going on my first big work project today which was good. I didn't work out though, cuz I didn't feel well. It was a good day for a recovery day anyway. I promise not to go on and on about my training, but I will post my workouts - mostly as a personal motivation - but feel free to ridicule me if I start slacking off!

So Day 1: I did nothing but write emails and post on my blog
Day 2 plan: Weights and swim after work

I'm not leaving

Lately I've been feeling rather unwelcomed. I'm not talking about individual people, I'm talking about whole states. I try to live in Indiana and I get kicked out after 5 weeks, I try to live in Tennesee and it tries to drive me out with killer allergies, and now, I've been here two weeks and have been bombarded with 5 snow storms, and a deep dive below zero all weekend. (it was -26 with wind chill when I woke up saturday morning). But I've learned its always going to be something, so I'm staying here, so stop trying to make me leave!!! I'm done with that rant.

So, in other scary news, I hung out at the Y for almost 2 hours today. I ran into one of the members of the Racine tri club in the pool and got to talking to her afterwards. I have the info to mail the club leader and find out when things are starting up for the season. A lot of the people in the club train at the Y, and since I have all the stuff, and some people to train with, I might just start up the tri fun again. I need to ramp up my workouts though. Kel - you'll appreciate this, I did a 200 warmup, then 6 300s on the 6. The last 300 was rough. I'll keep you all posted on that.

Work is getting a little better. I still feel very lost most of the day, but I am getting to know the people who will be helping me a lot, so at least I can start making progress on my first couple projects. I'll be spending next week in Missouri, right down in the corner by Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma. Oklahoma is one of the 4 states I have never even driven through, so I think I'll get that crossed off my list while I am down there.

Uno mas!

So, I'm excited that there is only one more day of training. Today was a REALLY long day. It was another full day of training, and then dinner with Sr management - which was awful for me for the first part, but got interesting at dinner. When I first got there, everyone was at the bar, there was no room to walk around and everyone was fighting for a spot talking to the CEO or one of the VPs - I was just trying to stay out of the way. At dinner we went to a place where you cook your own steak, so 40 of us stood around a grill and cooked our dinners. The Executive VP wound up sitting across from me and he was really easy to talk to. I found out lots of company secrets that I can't talk about (not that you would care) - but to answer Sarah's question - Modine is a thermal technology company - basically meaning heat exchangers, but recently we are getting into fuel cell technology and some newer markets with the companies we bought overseas. While I'm answering questions - Kelly, no, fortunately, none of them bought me a dress, they were wonderful men and all acted very upset when I left. I've actually gotten to know the Italian guy better today - for some reason I seem to be having better luck with foreign guys than US guys....hmmmm.....
On Friday I fly to Missouri and Iowa and back to Racine for quick plant tours. Oh, and Sarah, I do have a new phone number, give me your email address and I'll send it to you, for some reason I seem to have lost your address :(
Anna, yes, I remember going to Panera with you on Valentines day last year - interesting day/night for you :)
OK, enough ramble typing...

Training day!

So, for Valentines day today, I had dinner with 6 men (can anyone beat that? :))- 2 Germans , a jet lagged Korean, a Chinese man who spoke better english than I do, an Italian, and the corporate HR recruiter. After enough beers, the Germans really enjoyed my stories...
I am in the middle of a 3 day executive training class with work, I felt like an idiot most of the day since I know basically nothing about the company outside of the Clinton plant. I am one of two females in the class(which is nice for bathroom breaks) - but dinner tonight was fun, I think I probably learned more about the "global" challenges of the company tonight than I ever would except for maybe an overseas assignment. Everyone was comparing different ways of doing business in the different countries, and some of the stories were unbelievable, I promise I won't ramble on about that, but it is nights like this that really make me want to work overseas for a while.
I should be doing my homework now, but I needed a break.
Hope everyone had a great Valentines day!

Sights of Racine

Well, it wasn't a quiet boring weekend in Racine, cuz Kel came to visit yeah! Here is us by Lake Michigan (just 3 miles from my place) before our swim:



Um, just kidding about the swim - maybe in about 4 months :)
Two people called us twins today. Much better than being called her Mom, I must say.

We also went to check out the Wisconsin stores:



As the saying goes, its all fun and games until someone gets abducted by aliens (or something like that) - fortunately Kel escaped mostly undamaged:



So, its snowed 3 times in my first week here and I've barely seen the sun, but at least I have DVR!
Church was good this morning, I think I'm going to try some more churches over the next few weeks.
Yeah for Sunday night! I've already done laundry, so I just get to bum out for a while and read, wahoo!

Containment!

Well, I've managed to get all the rooms organized except for the room I'm in now - which is a disaster, but at least it is all in one place now!
My place smells like smoking hair dryer (not good) because sadly, my Sharper Image ionic conditioning dryer lived its last day today :(
In other news, I got a laser pointer from one of the managers I met with today - he decided he liked me by the end of the meeting so he gave it to me, wahoo!
I'm very excited to hear people give directions in cardinal directions again - I never caught on to the landmark system.
I think this weekend will be rough settling in - the first real time to relax and realize my world has completely changed. Of course, I've done that before, but it is never easy - I really miss you all.
OK, sorry not too much entertainment tonight.

Random comments

So I've learned a couple things so far:

If you leave your coffee mug in the car over night, the coffee will freeze.
I remember why I had the huge scraper sitting in my car for a couple years before I threw it away....I bought another one tonight after using my hand to wipe snow off the car after work.
Work is about what I expected so far, I'm overwhelmed with information, but it is very different from the plant. Most projects in the plant are urgent and must get done before you go home. My first assignment here my boss estimated would take about 6 months.
I learned about the different between lunch table revolts and expansions today. Apparently a revolt is when table sitters leave as a group of 2 or more and don't invite current table sitters to join. This can get bitter and cause permanent political and career fallout. An expansion is simply growing to another table because there are too many people to fit - in this case anyone is welcome at either table.

I'm heading to Tennessee (the plant by Nashville), Missouri, and Iowa over the next couple weeks to visit plants where our stuff is built. Sometime within the next month I will be spending a week in Missouri, yeah! I'll let you know all about how fun that is!




Check out this picture outside my place - it is in night mode and my hand was shaking, but it looks really scary! That is the cemetary that I can see from my bedroom and living room, I'll take another picture when it is more clear.

OK, thats all for now - oh! But I did watch lost! I'm heading over to that blog maybe tomorrow sometime.

The storm begins

Thanks for the comments - they made my day when I signed on, oh and Tony, I wore that shirt on Thursday night, so it had a days rest before I grabbed it off the floor again :)

I now have high speed internet and TV with DVR, and 24 will be on in 1 hour! (tick tick tick).

Not too much excitement today, just the fun of unpacking. And it is REALLY cold up here, they said the high today was in the low 30s, bleh. I start work tomorrow, good thing I am totally exhausted before I even start, doh! I'm kind of nervous, but mostly I just want to get the first week over with.

I thought of taking pictures of my new place before my stuff started exploding all over it, but thats no fun. This place is huge - I have plenty of room for everyone who plans on coming and visiting me! Its about the same size as the place in Knoxville plus a huge rec room downstairs, wahoo!







This room is where I'm at now - it has no lights yet...

Moving day(s)!

Welcome to my blog! While the rest of the country is watching a football game, I thought I'd take some time to try to make my move sound exciting, so here it goes... I started my northbound migration on Thursday when the movers came to get my stuff. They got started a little late because the police showed up....seriously....


I could make up a better story, but the truth is they were just writing a report for some cable lines that the truck took down on the way in. There were no laws broken except for the lines being hung too low, but the police were called so they had to write a report on the incident...good times...

So by 3 almost everything I owned was on a truck and pulling away. The last DDR party at Tony's was that night and we played Apples to Apples, very fun game even though Tommy bloinked us all....twice! Thursday night I slept on the floor at my empty place.

Friday was another action packed day - I stopped by Panera twice to get on the internet in the parking lot, had lunch with a good friend/previous coworker, cleaned my place, and went shopping for toilet paper because the movers packed it. That night was a fun night hanging out at Anna's and playing Settlers, Anna and I basically tied, although if we played by the official rules according to my sister (build clockwise) then Anna won, so congrats to the Queen of Catan....again! :) I didn't sleep much Friday night.

And of course, the big day of leaving Knoxville was Saturday. After 7 going away parties and gatherings, I finally got the hint that it was time to go :) I left at 7:30 am and I wanted to share some of the joys of the road that day...

In the morning it rained...and rained...until....it snowed!


The snow flakes were HUGE!


I took a 3 hour break from driving to visit my friend Jess in Indianapolis, we had a great time! Jess made pancakes, eggs, and sausage, yummy!



Check out me in my new shirt!


The weather did get better so I could enjoy the beautiful views in Indiana...
Drivers side view:

Passenger side view:


Angela called which was an excellent distraction from Indiana monotony. Angela, thanks for helping to inspire this rambling!

But at least I got to drive by the beautiful Chicago skyline:


Seriously, some of those specled lights are downtown Chicago, but you could barely see it driving by that night. So the weather wasn't great and the scenery was less than inspiring, but at least there were no traffic disasters. My destination that night was my parents house in Libertyville. My sister had some friends from high school over, so I had to rally for social time even though I was sleep deprived and road weary.



Which brings me to today. I went to church with the fam in the morning and picked up my keys at my new place this afternoon. I didn't take a picture, I'll post that soon I promise... Tomorrow is hopefully the final chapter of the moving adventure as my stuff comes and the cable company arrives in time for 24! I hope you'll visit my blog as it develops, most posts won't be this long, and I'd love any feedback on how I can attempt to provide entertainment from my boring life :)