Juliana has no friends at Rose-hulman

LOL - that was what my main page at facebook said, how sad! Web pages aren't supposed to be mean like that....I'll have to find a friend at Rose...
...
So, I then opened up Kelly's profile and facebook was kind enough to tell me that she was my sibling, sheesh! So now I am friendless and can't remember who I am related to, blah!

rambleless

So, yeah, nothing too exciting in Racine. Work is kind of boring right now - life is kind of boring too. 24 is on now, yeah! I'm waiting to watch the rest of it without commercials. I'll try to make a better effort to pay attention to life's subtle details to post some interesting comments on my blog - if I fail, well, it won't be the first time.

Today there was a guy wearing gym shorts who jumped in the lane next to me - I'm thinking, ok, he is kind of cute, but obviously not a swimmer. So he is about to pass me and all of a sudden I am in a wave pool - not even that, it was like being in an antlion trap, (I know only Kelly will find that amusing, but that is like 25% of my audience) anyway, the normal forces exerted on my body while swimming had altered profusely. Apparently he was a swimmer, just not wearing normal swim atire. The girl I was swimming with (who I will probably be doing more training with) and I counted his strokes....he was just doing a relaxed stroke, he took 13 strokes per 25! I'm kind of hoping gym shorts boy shows up in my lane again...I'll keep you posted!

About the only other news I have is that I talked to my Utah friend (yeah, you all know who I am talking about) on Friday. Nothing big, but I had gotten to one of those points again (about the third or fourth time) when I figured I would never hear from him again, so it is always a little shocking to see the name in my inbox.

OK, back to 24, Sarah, I'll try calling you again this week, arg!

The "cow" picture (for Shannon)

Shannon - I hope you came to look at the cow, giant cows are fun, aren't they!

"You can not be anything you want to be"

I had a pretty good weekend. The title of the blog is a quote from one of Kevin Twit's podcasts that I just suscribed to and listened to a couple today. Kevin is the RUF campus minister at Belmont and God has given him extraordinary talents in presenting the gospel message and in particular calling out false truths laid out by today's culture and even within Christian culture. I love listening to Kevin talk because he does not shy away from difficult issues and finds a way to tear into everyone's comfort zone. In my struggle to find a church up here it was especially timely to hear him talk about the church being a place that should bring you closer to reality, not tune out of it - which a lot of church services seem to do. The other thing I really like about Kevin's messages is he doesn't just throw out flowery analogies and tell you to believe something without telling you why. For any given message, he usually explains the history, the opposing opinions, the scripture - going back to greek, other reference scripture, the improper interpretations, etc. - ties all that together and explains his interpretation of the scripture message along with the implications. Anyway, I highly recommend Kevin's podcast - type in RUF Belmont in Itunes to suscribe - it is only half an hour a week, and no matter what you believe, I promise it will intrigue and challenge you.

Other items of note from this weekend:

- Company bowling tournament! This was hilarious - we all were very curious to see how Mr. Jo (from our Korean plant) did at bowling. He got up for his first bowl and nailed a strike - it was a classic moment in my life - we all just looked at eachother not sure whether to laugh or cheer - he was already celebrating so we jumped up to give a good American high five - I guess in Korea they do fist knocking, so we did a little of each as the games went on. Mr. Jo wound up beating all of us. I don't want to talk about my scores - they were my worst ever.

- It always crack me up when older married people want to know what I did over the weekend, hoping it is something exciting so they can dream about life as a young, carefree single person. Well, these are the weekends when I really let people down. So here it is, what I did with my Saturday night: I was up until about 1 am working on getting around the moon with a car that could only carry 1/5 the fuel it needed to make the trip and a full container of fuel that could fill the tank. If anyone asks me the classic question on Monday - I imagine they probably never will again....I'll let you know.

- I think I set a record for time on the phone in one day. Saturday I talked to Grandpa, Kelly, Anna, and Megan. And that was on top of bowling tournament and my moon trip - what a crazy day.

- Today I took another adventure on the bike - I really liked the loop I did, it actually took me by work and the Y, and about 5 miles of it is along Lake Michigan, which is awesome. I miss Cherokee Blvd, but it doesn't come close to being lakeside :)

- I didn't make it to church today - I am still church hunting, I just didn't make time like I should have to set the plan for today. Next week I think I might drive to the closest PCA church, which is 50 miles away, but at least I might be able to talk to people and find out what other good churches might be closer. I figure, if I could drive 30 miles to work every day, surely I can drive 50 to a good church if I need to - we'll see. But, I downloaded Kevin's podcasts and as always, he had very relevant and timely things to say that I needed to hear.

OK, definitely enough rambling for today - I hope everyone has a great week!

Favorite moments of today:

7. Fish day in the cafeteria

6. Will posted a puzzle, yeah!

5. I had hearing and vision test at work today and learned that yes, I can indeed both see and hear, yeah! I also learned that Modine is a sponsor for the big Racine triathlon in July, so I can compete for free if I decide to do the half iron man - it might wind up just being a team if I don't want to do the whole thing.

4. Mr. Jo from our Korean plant is spending a month here - he has picked me as his English teacher (his English is already very good, he just has a lot of questions) - so we had about a half an hour lesson today. I did my first Asian business card exchange. I had already heard how important it was to read the card and comment on it before putting it away in a respectable location - so I was glad to pass that test.

3. 24! I haven't even seen it yet, but I'm sure it will be a highlight

2. I hope you made it this far, because this is great....I'm having a pretty good workout on the treadmill today and as it gets darker I can start to see reflections in the window - yeah, there were 2 VPs of the company on the machines directly behind me. Fortunately I returned focus back to myself and determined that I looked fantastic and it was time for me to run faster :) I guess I'm going to have to get used to that - I'm sure a lot of people at Modine work out at the Y, but it made me laugh. And yes, it is a small enough company that I have met both of them - so they know who I am.

1. A cute German guy had some time to kill so he hung out in my cube for a while, I love corporate :)

Found cool website:

Here are my "places I've been to maps" - I noticed I missed a state on my previous list - I don't think I've been to Nebraska either.
The website is www.world66.com

Just random comments

States I haven't been to: Sadly I have been within 10 miles of both Washington and Delaware on multiple occasions, but never made it across the border. I got Oklahoma crossed off my list on the trip to Missouri (although the first exit was 20 miles over the border, doh!) So states remaining: Delaware, Maine, Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Vermont, New Mexico.

Everybody who is not on myspace.com should leave the blog now and go sign up (and be sure to add me as a friend) I wasted a lot of time there this weekend - very cool though, I found a bunch of friends I hadn't talked to in a long time.

I didn't really post last week just because I was having severe computer strained eyes (seriously) - I was focusing way too hard on my solid models I was working on and had really bad headaches by the middle of the week, but now I have hopefully learned my lesson and will take more breaks and relax my eyes more.

OK, enough babble for today, hope everyone had a great weekend!

SNL

So, I DVRed through SNL last night and there were a couple skits that were hilarious.

One was the opening skit - it was some girls in the airport on their way to spring break - basically being crazy college girls telling spring break type stories and talking about all the trouble they are getting into. The whole time you see an older couple sitting between the 4 chatting girls. At the end you learn that they are the parents of some of the girls. So, the punchline becomes the shock that kids would talk like that in front of their parents and them sitting there like they have no problem with it. Funny skit, but interesting commentary on how many parents just don't care what trouble their kids get in to. I'm sure some of it is that they figure they did it and wound up ok, but I hope if I ever have kids I am not oblivious to the world that they live in. And by the way, for those of you who have never experienced a typical college spring break beach trip - it is every bit as crazy as it is on MTV and more.

Anyway, the second was a skit of a live podcast from Joplin, MO - which cracked me up because that is the town I stayed in the other week (and I will probably be spending a bunch of time there on and off). Then it got even funnier as a main theme became karaoke night at the Holiday Inn, which where I stayed, and I even caught part of karaoke night! I was actually in the lobby area because they had free WiFi, but it was amusing to watch.

Highlights of my trip to Missouri:

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 :)