I've spent the greater part of the last 3 days confined to very cramped quarters. Monica and I drove from Utah to Rhode Island so she could start her studies at URI. We left on Tuesday night and drove through Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa and into Illinois. We stayed at a KOA cabin for the night, and then drove through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island. It was a lot of time crammed into a car. It was made much easier by splitting the driving duties and watching The Simpsons and House while I wasn't driving.
There was one thing that I didn't want to do on the road trip. We tried to eat at the same time as we got gas. On some of the toll roads, they had gas stations/eateries that you didn't have to exit the toll road to go to. We were getting desperate for gas, and the restaurants at the travel center were McDonald's and Dairy Queen. I loathe McDonald's. We figured it was safe to eat at Dairy Queen, and we really needed the gas, so we stopped. It turned out that the Dairy Queen was pretty much desserts only. I had to buy a McDonald's burger, which ended up making me feel sick. I didn't think I could hate McDonald's any more than I already did, but they failed me when they were my only option. If I never eat another McDonald's burger it will be too soon.
There was one thing I absolutely wanted to do on this trip, get a cheesesteak in Philadelphia. The fastest route to Rhode Island didn't go through Philadelphia, but it only added an hour to our driving time, and we had plenty of time to get to Providence, so we decided to alter the route a bit so I could go to Philly and get a cheesesteak. I even called Geno's up and made sure they wouldn't be closed when we got there (guy on the phone sounded irritated that I would even ask, he was like "We're NEVER closed"). We started veering a bit south towards Philly as we got to eastern Ohio. The Indiana and Ohio toll roads cost us about 9 or 10 bucks a piece. We got to Pennsylvania on the 76, which takes you through Pittsburgh and Philly, and when we got our toll ticket, we saw that it was going to cost us 30 bucks to get there. Adding 30 bucks to the cost of the trip didn't seem like something we wanted to do. We checked the GPS for how long it would take to get there avoiding the toll road and it would have added 4 or 5 hours to the trip. So we got off the toll road, and drove through backwoods Pennsylvania on one lane roads to get back to the 80. By the time we got back to the normal route, the only restaurant open that we could eat at was Denny's. The drop off from an authentic philly cheesesteak to moons over my hammy makes me want to cry.
I don't want to drive anywhere for a very long time.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
What is wrong with this picture?
I had to run to 3 college campuses today to get transcripts for all the college courses that I have taken over the years. We took the whole family along, and ended up going on a scenic drive through Provo Canyon. After leaving the canyon, we went to a pretty cool park in Pleasant Grove. I took some pictures and videos.
After posting this, I noticed that the pictures will look much better if you click on them.
After posting this, I noticed that the pictures will look much better if you click on them.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Grrrrrr
I had planned to take the Federal Air Marshal exam on August 6 in Anaheim, since I was going to be in California anyways for CHP testing. There were no exam sites in Utah, and the closest site to Spanish Fork was in Las Vegas. I was notified through email that I needed to take the exam as soon as possible, so I called up their HR line and gave them my reason for scheduling my exam 3 weeks out. I was told that it would be ok for me to wait. About a week later I received a call that all applicants who wished to be considered for open positions under this announcement needed to be done testing by the end of July.
I considered dropping out of the process, but ended up scheduling my test for Monday at 11:30 am in Las Vegas. Monday morning I woke up at 5:30, took a shower and got out on the road at 6am. The drive down was long and uneventful, and I got to the test site at about 11:00 am Vegas time. I started the test, and finished it with time to spare. I drove back home, and got back around 6:30 pm.
This test was accessible by internet. I could have taken the test in the basement here if I had a proctor. It was a little frustrating to have to spend that much time and money to take a test 6 hours away that should have been accessible much closer. It's not like a whole lot of training went in to making sure the proctor knew how to administer the test.
I think I did pretty well. I'm glad I made the trip at least, it's nice to keep as many options available as possible.
I also got my results for the Houston Fire Department exam. I scored 100. There were 770 people who took the test, and my 100 ranked me 73rd. There were 72 ex military guys who scored at least a 96 and got bumped ahead of me with their 5 points of veteran preference points. I was lucky that the raffle number I picked was near the top of the order, because I was the top non-military rank in the entire exam. It appears that I will be back in Houston to go to Orientation and run my PAT in October, which is great because it shouldn't be too hot and muggy while I'm out killing myself on their course. I'll also have an extra month of training in before I have to run it. I am fairly certain that with my rank, there will be enough people ahead of me that drop out of the running that I will have a spot in the January academy as long as I don't flunk out of the rest of the process. Some of those poor suckers are going to have to run their test in the middle of the September heat. There are supposed to be 60 spots in the academy.
I've bumped my running up to 3 miles at a time now. Yesterday I finished in 26:45, which still isn't great but it's getting easier. I'm doing my runs in the mid to late afternoons when it's super hot outside, hoping to at least train in worse conditions than I will be testing in. I'm hoping to push my runs to 4 miles at a time soon.
I considered dropping out of the process, but ended up scheduling my test for Monday at 11:30 am in Las Vegas. Monday morning I woke up at 5:30, took a shower and got out on the road at 6am. The drive down was long and uneventful, and I got to the test site at about 11:00 am Vegas time. I started the test, and finished it with time to spare. I drove back home, and got back around 6:30 pm.
This test was accessible by internet. I could have taken the test in the basement here if I had a proctor. It was a little frustrating to have to spend that much time and money to take a test 6 hours away that should have been accessible much closer. It's not like a whole lot of training went in to making sure the proctor knew how to administer the test.
I think I did pretty well. I'm glad I made the trip at least, it's nice to keep as many options available as possible.
I also got my results for the Houston Fire Department exam. I scored 100. There were 770 people who took the test, and my 100 ranked me 73rd. There were 72 ex military guys who scored at least a 96 and got bumped ahead of me with their 5 points of veteran preference points. I was lucky that the raffle number I picked was near the top of the order, because I was the top non-military rank in the entire exam. It appears that I will be back in Houston to go to Orientation and run my PAT in October, which is great because it shouldn't be too hot and muggy while I'm out killing myself on their course. I'll also have an extra month of training in before I have to run it. I am fairly certain that with my rank, there will be enough people ahead of me that drop out of the running that I will have a spot in the January academy as long as I don't flunk out of the rest of the process. Some of those poor suckers are going to have to run their test in the middle of the September heat. There are supposed to be 60 spots in the academy.
I've bumped my running up to 3 miles at a time now. Yesterday I finished in 26:45, which still isn't great but it's getting easier. I'm doing my runs in the mid to late afternoons when it's super hot outside, hoping to at least train in worse conditions than I will be testing in. I'm hoping to push my runs to 4 miles at a time soon.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Too Much on My Plate
It's been a while since I've posted. Jenn has taken over posting the more kid centric stuff because apparently I wasn't doing a good enough job. There really hasn't been any groundbreaking news on the job front either. The next month or 2 should be fairly busy for me.
I will be in California for most of August. I test with the Federal Air Marshals on August 6, and then with the CHP on August 8. I fly to San Antonio to test for their fire department on August 14, which also happens to be our 10th anniversary. I had been planning on saving money over the last year for a fun trip to celebrate it, and now we're going to be spending it apart :(. I've got fitness testing with the CHP on the 22nd, provided I do well enough on the written test, and then fitness testing in Houston on the 27th or 28th. September 12 and 13 I will be in Oregon testing for their State Troopers. I should be receiving word from Oklahoma City about that time if I will be allowed to continue in their hiring process after scoring a 93 on their written test.
I've continued running and working out. Today I ran 3 miles in near 100 degree heat. I ran my best 2 mile time last week at 16:08, which is good enough to qualify for even the toughest of the fitness tests. Its very nice to be training at high altitude, considering anywhere I'll be testing will be probably 4000 feet closer to sea level than I am now. The only thing that working out hasn't done for me yet is weight loss. I hope I can shed a few pounds soon, it would be so nice to not have to lug around 240 pounds on long runs. I haven't been measuring my food or anything, but I have made a conscious effort to not eat large (for me anyways) helpings at meals, and I've cut out most junk foods. Maybe when I work up to running an hour at a time the weight will start dripping off.
I will be in California for most of August. I test with the Federal Air Marshals on August 6, and then with the CHP on August 8. I fly to San Antonio to test for their fire department on August 14, which also happens to be our 10th anniversary. I had been planning on saving money over the last year for a fun trip to celebrate it, and now we're going to be spending it apart :(. I've got fitness testing with the CHP on the 22nd, provided I do well enough on the written test, and then fitness testing in Houston on the 27th or 28th. September 12 and 13 I will be in Oregon testing for their State Troopers. I should be receiving word from Oklahoma City about that time if I will be allowed to continue in their hiring process after scoring a 93 on their written test.
I've continued running and working out. Today I ran 3 miles in near 100 degree heat. I ran my best 2 mile time last week at 16:08, which is good enough to qualify for even the toughest of the fitness tests. Its very nice to be training at high altitude, considering anywhere I'll be testing will be probably 4000 feet closer to sea level than I am now. The only thing that working out hasn't done for me yet is weight loss. I hope I can shed a few pounds soon, it would be so nice to not have to lug around 240 pounds on long runs. I haven't been measuring my food or anything, but I have made a conscious effort to not eat large (for me anyways) helpings at meals, and I've cut out most junk foods. Maybe when I work up to running an hour at a time the weight will start dripping off.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Mesquite
We needed to pick up Bailey from California this week. Ceri and Mark were kind enough to drive her up halfway, and Jenn's parent's were kind enough to get us a few nights at a "resort" in Mesquite for a mini vacation. We had a pretty fun time.
The day before we left, I went out and ran a mile in a thunderstorm in 7:37, which is my best time so far by about 30 seconds. I felt really good for about a half mile, and then hung on for the second half. I could probably go out today and run about 2 minutes slower because I ate a lot of things that I shouldn't have and I didn't exercise at all. I had planned on utilizing the fitness room at the resort, but it belonged to the Oasis casino, which has been closed. There was no fitness room available for us, and I really didn't feel like running around the parking lot in 100 degree weather. It was even hot at night.
On Monday, Mark and I went golfing at the Palmer Course at the Oasis Golf Club. I don't think it was affiliated with the casino that shared the same name, because it was super nice. It was named the Palmer course because it was designed by Arnold Palmer (much easier to type his name than to say it, if I'm not deliberate saying his name, it comes out Alnerd Parmler). Note to self: Courses designed by major tournament champions are probably not suitable for your skill range. We were awed by the beauty of the course for the first few holes, and then amazed at how stupid hard it was. We spent most of the afternoon losing balls.
We went swimming at the little pool that the Oasis "resort" kept open for us, and Bailey and Addie both took great strides in becoming competent swimmers, even dog paddling alone through the deepend. Jenn, Mark, Ceri and I stayed up late each night playing games, which was a lot of fun. It was nice to play some games with some grownups. We hope they had a good time with us.
I'm pretty sure Jenn is going to be posting the swimming pictures on her blog, so I'll just post a few golf ones.
This course had some very narrow fairways. We spent some time hitting into the dirt mounds on both sides.
Just in case you can't tell, right after the tee box, it drops into a ravine for the next 100 yard or so and then there is the green, and then more bushes and desert.
Another of those elevated tees with the narrow fairways below. I think I'd like to come back and play here again after I'm rich and I've had a few years of practice to get better.
Just stupid hard.
This looks nice enough. The tee for this hole was on the other side of that hill. The approach to this green is blind. There were several blind approaches on this course. I hit a few nice shots that I couldn't find because they landed where I couldn't see them. It was pretty frustrating. We had a good time anyways.
The day before we left, I went out and ran a mile in a thunderstorm in 7:37, which is my best time so far by about 30 seconds. I felt really good for about a half mile, and then hung on for the second half. I could probably go out today and run about 2 minutes slower because I ate a lot of things that I shouldn't have and I didn't exercise at all. I had planned on utilizing the fitness room at the resort, but it belonged to the Oasis casino, which has been closed. There was no fitness room available for us, and I really didn't feel like running around the parking lot in 100 degree weather. It was even hot at night.
On Monday, Mark and I went golfing at the Palmer Course at the Oasis Golf Club. I don't think it was affiliated with the casino that shared the same name, because it was super nice. It was named the Palmer course because it was designed by Arnold Palmer (much easier to type his name than to say it, if I'm not deliberate saying his name, it comes out Alnerd Parmler). Note to self: Courses designed by major tournament champions are probably not suitable for your skill range. We were awed by the beauty of the course for the first few holes, and then amazed at how stupid hard it was. We spent most of the afternoon losing balls.
We went swimming at the little pool that the Oasis "resort" kept open for us, and Bailey and Addie both took great strides in becoming competent swimmers, even dog paddling alone through the deepend. Jenn, Mark, Ceri and I stayed up late each night playing games, which was a lot of fun. It was nice to play some games with some grownups. We hope they had a good time with us.
I'm pretty sure Jenn is going to be posting the swimming pictures on her blog, so I'll just post a few golf ones.
This course had some very narrow fairways. We spent some time hitting into the dirt mounds on both sides.
Just in case you can't tell, right after the tee box, it drops into a ravine for the next 100 yard or so and then there is the green, and then more bushes and desert.
Another of those elevated tees with the narrow fairways below. I think I'd like to come back and play here again after I'm rich and I've had a few years of practice to get better.
Just stupid hard.
This looks nice enough. The tee for this hole was on the other side of that hill. The approach to this green is blind. There were several blind approaches on this course. I hit a few nice shots that I couldn't find because they landed where I couldn't see them. It was pretty frustrating. We had a good time anyways.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Working Out
One of the requirements to graduate from the Border Patrol academy is to be able to run a mile and a half in 13:00. Directly following the run, you need to be able to run through an obstacle course in a certain amount of time, so you can't be completely dead after the run. Back in the old days, a mile and a half would be a drop in the bucket. I got my 3 mile time under 18 minutes in high school, and I ran a mile in less than 5 minutes in college.
I started running again 3 weeks ago. My first run was a mile and a half, just to see how fast I could run it. I did 13:07 and I was pooped. I was also pretty sore the next day. I've been running either a mile or 2 almost everyday now for 3 weeks. I've made hardly any improvement on my time. I have noticed though that I am not getting sore anymore, so I am seeing some minuscule results. I ran 2 miles this afternoon, clocked the first at 8:15, and finished mile 2 at 17:30. My goal was 18 minutes, so I'm happy about that, but it's pretty sad for someone of my athletic background to have to be setting such crappy goals. I'm kind of ticked off that I let myself go for 11 years.
I've also been doing push ups every day, in sets of 15 or 20. I just do them whenever I feel like it, or remember to. I've done anywhere from 20-90 push ups a day.
The Houston Fire Dept. also requires a 13 minute 1.5 mile run. The Oregon State Trooper test requires a 2 mile run, time is dependent upon age and height. I'll be bumping up my daily mileage soon, now that my body is becoming more accustomed to running. My goal is to someday catch up to Brie. :)
I started running again 3 weeks ago. My first run was a mile and a half, just to see how fast I could run it. I did 13:07 and I was pooped. I was also pretty sore the next day. I've been running either a mile or 2 almost everyday now for 3 weeks. I've made hardly any improvement on my time. I have noticed though that I am not getting sore anymore, so I am seeing some minuscule results. I ran 2 miles this afternoon, clocked the first at 8:15, and finished mile 2 at 17:30. My goal was 18 minutes, so I'm happy about that, but it's pretty sad for someone of my athletic background to have to be setting such crappy goals. I'm kind of ticked off that I let myself go for 11 years.
I've also been doing push ups every day, in sets of 15 or 20. I just do them whenever I feel like it, or remember to. I've done anywhere from 20-90 push ups a day.
The Houston Fire Dept. also requires a 13 minute 1.5 mile run. The Oregon State Trooper test requires a 2 mile run, time is dependent upon age and height. I'll be bumping up my daily mileage soon, now that my body is becoming more accustomed to running. My goal is to someday catch up to Brie. :)
Friday, May 29, 2009
Border Patrol
I went to my Border Patrol Oral Board today. It was out past the Salt Lake airport at a hotel. I had to be there at 7:45 am.
There were 6 of us that were needing an interview. They went in alphabetical order so I went third. Each interview took about an hour. So after sitting in the lobby for 2 hours, talking to the other applicants, I got called up into the room.
I answered their questions as thoroughly as I could without any real law enforcement knowledge, and left the room feeling really stupid. I totally blew it. They finally called me back in and told me that I had done really well, and that they liked my thought processes, and that I had passed. I thanked them for their time and for the job that they did, and went on my way.
The three agents that were on my board were all normal agents from the Tuscon sector. I have to say that I was very impressed with them, and I'm excited that I'll have a good career with the Border Patrol if most agents are half as decent as they were.
There were 6 of us that were needing an interview. They went in alphabetical order so I went third. Each interview took about an hour. So after sitting in the lobby for 2 hours, talking to the other applicants, I got called up into the room.
I answered their questions as thoroughly as I could without any real law enforcement knowledge, and left the room feeling really stupid. I totally blew it. They finally called me back in and told me that I had done really well, and that they liked my thought processes, and that I had passed. I thanked them for their time and for the job that they did, and went on my way.
The three agents that were on my board were all normal agents from the Tuscon sector. I have to say that I was very impressed with them, and I'm excited that I'll have a good career with the Border Patrol if most agents are half as decent as they were.
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