Friday, March 27, 2009

Courtney Quote

I forgot to include this in my blog earlier today. Courtney was displaying her attitude towards Skyler (as usual) and when we told her she should be nice to her sister, she told us (and I quote word for word), "That is not my plan." She said it so matter-of-factly and calmly. Traci and I were shocked and busting up on the inside and had to look away from her so she wouldn't see us laughing. Fortunately, we were pretty successful since she didn't catch on. But hey, at least she's honest, right?

What's Going On

It's been a little while since I've posted, but I'm afraid this may be the new regularity. That is because with my new job at work, I have switched to a 4/10 schedule (work 10 hours M-Th with every Friday off). It's great because I now have every Friday off. It sucks because I now get home about 6:30 every night and only have about 2 hours with the girls before they go to bed. Plus I need to get to bed a little earlier, which takes some time away from Traci, since I'm getting up at 4:30, or at least trying to.

Last weekend I was able to get a little dirty with the help of a friend when we changed out the fuel pump in my car. This was no easy task since the pump is in the gas tank. Needless to say, we dropped the tank, changed out the pump and reconnected the tank. It sounds so simple, but when you've got 12 years of grime making sure things stick together pretty good, it takes that much more work. Fortunately our friend Bill (thanks, Bill!) is really good with cars and was willing to work on it. He did most of the work, but I was able to help out some. Took a little skin of my thumb in the process, but that's all part of the experience. Hopefully it won't stall anymore now. It needs to last at least until Skyler finishes pre-school in a little over 2 years.

If you have Facebook and check it regularly, you may have seen that Traci has allowed me to get some pretty cool tickets for my birthday. So, come August 23, I'll be going with a friend from church to WWE's Summerslam at the Staples Center. I've only been to one WWE (WWF at the time) event back in junior high with three members of the jr high staff at church and one of my good friends back then. It wasn't even a televised event though. Summerslam is a pay-per-view! Should be a fun time.

I was able to make a trip up to Dodger Stadium this morning to get my first tickets of the year. We (the four of us, my parents and good friend Eric) will be heading to see the Dodgers Manny-handle the Colorado Rockies on April 17. And there are fireworks after the game, just for my birthday! Ok, not really, but their fireworks are always awesome. We're going because I thought that would be a fun thing to do near my birthday, which is the day before. I also got 2 tickets to the May 7 game. Then my mom calls and asks if we want to go on May 1 with her union. The cool thing about the tickets I got at the stadium is that it was a total of 9 tickets that normally would have cost $240. I only paid $80! The reason for that is that last weekend when I was at the Honda dealership getting some maintenance done on the car, there was a sales guy selling a package of tickets. For $50, you get 6 buy-1-get-1-free vouchers (I used 3 of those today) and two vouchers good for 2 free tickets each (I used one for field level seats May 7, normally $50 each). Needless to say, considering I paid $50 and saved $160 today alone, I'm already ahead on the deal. The sales guy said they were selling the packs to get some demographic info on who is buying the tickets. I can handle a little spam (if I get any) for some Dodger tickets.

This weekend is our church's Serve Weekend. Traci and I are on the photography project, where we will be running to 10 different projects (9 on Saturday) to take pictures of those projects to be shown at the celebration at church on Sunday evening. I'm looking forward to it as we will be all over Whittier and poking into La Habra and Fullerton for a couple.

Considering we're dropping dinner off for some friends tonight (in less than an hour) before going to Disneyland for a birthday, I should go start getting ready.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Breathing...A Good Thing

Today was the day we have been waiting for for a long time. Our federal tax refund landed in the bank today. With things having been so tight for so long, it was weird going to Costco and Ralphs tonight and feeling restrained as to how much we could get. We didn't go nuts tonight, just got some stuff we needed, but not feeling stressed about going to the store is not something I ever thought I would be so excited about. It's nice to be able to breathe again.

Unfortunately, we have plenty that needs to get done with this nice little tax money. Fortunately, it should all be covered with a little to spare. That means we can just let the state refund sit whenever we get it (if the state actually has the money for it). The same goes for my bonus when it rolls in next month (at the same time as a raise...happy birthday to me)!

On the work front, things are going well, but busy and about ready to change. I begin the transition into my new job on Monday, which involves a physical move back into the refinery. (I was up in San Ramon last week to transition my responsibilities over to the other analyst for our group.) That's not all bad though. I give up my 7th story window cubicle for an office that I will share with someone for two weeks before having it to myself. No windows, but having an office is pretty cool, I think. It should be interesting as my workload will be increasing and it sounds as though training will be minimal at best. I hope that changes but I'm not holding my breath. At least I know that the people I will be working with can help me out. Seems like a pretty fair trade off since I've already worked with them and done some training for them. And they are all good people, so that only helps. My new boss is pretty cool too. I'm looking forward to working with and for him. This is the first of what I hope will be many changes/promotions throughout my career at Chevron. Also, it's pretty weird to think that next month will mark two years that I've been there already. It's the third longest I've been at one place behind UABT (4 years, 4 months) and Disneyland (4 years, 5 months). And as I was telling a friend at lunch the other day, this is definitely the best job I've had since being at Disneyland.

With Spring training well under way and the World Baseball Classic in full swing, I am extremely excited for the season to start. (And how about that team from the Netherlands, shocking the Domincan Republic twice to move on to the second round and sending the Dominican players back to Spring Training for their respective teams!) In case you've been under a rock for the past week, Manny Ramirez re-signed with the Dodgers after an insanely long, but ultimately rewarding, negotiating process. We have made plans for 7 of us (me, Traci, Courtney, Skyler, my parents and my good friend Eric) to go to the Dodger game on April 17th, the day after my birthday. There are fireworks after the game so that should be fun as well. It makes it a little more fun that they are playing the Colorado Rockies too. I am looking forward to seeing the Dodgers beat them pretty handily (I'm thinking like 7-2) with a Manny home run in the mix. (Take that all you siblings who have moved to Colorado in the past two years!)

Well I guess I should go enjoy some of the yummy Costco cookies we picked up tonight before I go to bed. Oh, and Traci is awesome! 24 pounds gone! There is definitely less of her to love, but what's left gets more attention. =)