Jaded?

This morning when I opened my curtains and looked out the window, I was greeted by the above site.
When I was a kid, this would have been the best day of the year.  The first real snow fall!  And it's a nice, solid, wet snow that you can really do something with.  This means a full day of playing, sledding, and building igloos, forts, and snowmen.  And there would be plenty of breaks for hot chocolate, soup, grilled cheese, etc.  As a kid, life didn't get any better than waking up to a Saturday covered with snow.
Fast-forward to today.  I've spent 26 winters in Utah, 3 in Virginia, and 3 in Michigan. I've been through several blizzards- two weeks after moving to Virginia, we had a blizzard that shut down the city for a few days and left piles of snow that were still in the middle of busy streets a few weeks later; a few times in Michigan we had storms so bad that everything was cancelled and even going for a walk to the mailbox was taking your life in your hands (Jacob and Jenni- it's not that bad; everybody else, yes it is).  And then a couple years ago we had a storm like this about this time of year, and about a month later it ended up in my basement.  So my first thought when I looked outside this morning was, "oh yuck".  What's happened to me?!  Am I really this jaded?  Or do I just need a few years away from real winter to learn to appreciate it again?  Either way, I'm done with winter for now and would like summer to come back quickly.

Special Skills

A couple weeks ago at work we had an 'End of Summer Luau'.  It was just a potluck lunch, and some people wore Hawaiian shirts, and the breakroom was decorated with streamers.  They also had a hula hoop contest.  As a little history, during my year of job searching, one of the skills I decided to learn was hula hooping.  I researched it online, found a quality hoop, watched YouTube videos, and practiced until I could go nonstop while I watched entire tv shows.  Until now, I've never mentioned my hula hoop skills to anybody at work.  It's just never come up in the conversation.  And in general, nobody expects anybody from the finance team to have any kind of personality or talents outside of spreadsheeting and running reports.  The administrative assistants put the luau on (which explains why it was scheduled on the day finance was doing the month-end close, our busiest day of the month), and they're kind of used to finance just showing up for the food and then going back to work.  But I brought my hula hoop to work with me and just had it sitting quietly in my cubicle.  My boss noticed and asked me what it was for, and I told him I was a hooper.  Unfortunately, the contest started right when I was in the middle of running my first batch of month-end reports.  That's my busiest hour of the busiest day of the month.  But my boss was so excited at the prospect of somebody in finance showing up the rest of the company that he decided the reports could wait, and he let me go hula-hoop.  The only interaction I have with anybody outside of finance is to email them reports and answer questions.  I'm pretty sure they just see me as a lifeless drone who sits in the corner until they need something.  So they were shocked when I not only showed up to participate in the contest, but came with my own hoop.  It was me, three administrative assistants, and one guy from operations who was forced to play.  With about 40 people from the rest of the company watching and cheering.  Including all of finance thrilled that one of their own was finally representing.  When the referee said go, we started swinging our hips.  The operations guy lasted about half a second, a couple of the admins lasted a few seconds longer.  The last admin and I were in it for the real competition.  That's when they realized I meant business.  Eventually the other admin's hoop fell and I was the champion.  Finance cheered, the rest of the company stared in disbelief that finance can do something not related to numbers, and I went back to running my reports- after collecting my prize of an inflatable palm tree, inflatable flamingo, and a marraca (for shaking it).  The rest of the day, people throughout the building were talking about the upset, and my boss was bragging about the intense interview process he puts us through before he hires us, just so he can cover all his bases in these types of situations.

Warm Fuzzies

Last night I went to my 5 year MBA reunion.  I don't think anybody knows this, but I cried through most of my MBA graduation.  Not because the speeches were so great or I was terrified to tears of what lay beyond, but because I had grown so close to my classmates and I knew that we would never all be together in a group making memories again, and I just wasn't ready to let that go yet.  The two years of my MBA were the best I'd ever had.  Sure, I spent every minute from 7am til midnight during that first semester doing something school-related, and sure, I spent that first Christmas break looking for a job because I was certain I couldn't make it through another three semesters of that.  But after that Christmas break, when I found myself sitting in the MBA lounge greeting all my friends and comparing our new schedules, I knew I was home again.  We were friends because we'd all been through the same hell that first semester, we all knew each other's pain, and we all faced the same fears of what came next.  And it turned out the next three semesters were fun.  We were surrounded by friends, including our teachers, and we had fun in our classes.  We still spent inordinate amounts of time in the MBA lounge with study groups, writing papers, working on homework assignments together, etc, but it felt more like productive hang out sessions with friends than work. So when it came to an end and everybody scattered across the country (and, in some cases, across the world), I was none-too-excited.

Over the last five years, I've kept in contact with people through various social networking sites, but too often that's more like internet stalking than actual communication.  We all see each others' updates, but we don't actually talk to anyone.  So I wasn't really sure how it was going to be to see everyone at the reunion.  I was a little nervous to see if friendships would still be remembered, let alone be comfortable.  But as usual, my fears were for nothing.  When I walked into the garden court at the Wilk, it was just like old times, if not better.  We all greeted each other with handshakes or hugs, caught up on each others' lives, and talked as if we'd seen each other yesterday.  Even the people I'd only been casual friends with during school- we were hugging and talking like the best of friends, as if time has only strengthened our friendships. 

A couple of our professors spoke- one gave us a quick lecture on the current state of the economy (and for one of the first times, I understood what he was talking about and I remembered why I love finance!) and the other updated us on happenings and rankings of the Marriott School.  It was just great all around.  I don't consider myself a cheesy person in general, but when the evening ended, I was reluctant to say goodbye again and I drove home full of warm fuzzy feelings.  I'd been reminded of why I loved the MBA program so much, and it was just wonderful to spend a few hours surrounded by those memories again.

Signs of the Seasons

I've realized that different places mark the changing seasons in their own ways.  Of course, generally, cold and snow mean winter, warmth and flowers mean spring, sun and hot mean summer, and cool and colorful mean fall, but in the various places I've lived around the country, there are other signs for the changing seasons. 

In DC, I knew spring had arrived when I would go to bed and it was still cooler outside than inside, but when I went outside in the morning, it was hot and steamy.  And I knew that outside would be a steam bath from that morning until October, every year. I knew summer had arrived when all of the sudden, overnight, the metro system became clogged with tourists during the daily commute.  It'd be fine one day, and packed full of sweaty people asking for directions and talking too loudly the next day.  Not a bad thing; just a sign that the summer travel season was upon us, and all of America had chosen to vacation in the nation's capitol that year.

In Michigan, one day in November you'll see a few snowflakes start falling, and you realize you've seen the bare ground for the last time until April.  It's time to get out the snow clothes and get ready for some alpine kickball, frosty football, blizzard baseball, etc.  You get the idea.  Spring arrives in April, the first day the temperature gets into the 50s, and the neighborhood comes to life with everybody out walking, biking, gardening, and doing anything else they can think of to soak up some sun.  It's the friendliest day of the year.  And for a sure sign of summer, just look to the freeways.  Traffic isn't usually too bad in Michigan.  But in the summer, the freeways right around the cities become parking lots. I think this is because with all the cold temperatures the rest of the year, the roads take extra work during the warm weather.  Of course, it doesn't help that every now and then you get a really stupid driver who takes a turn too fast and rams into a fuel tanker right under a newly completed overpass (that took a year to build and had just been finished a few days earlier) and causes an explosion so big the overpass melts.

Utah seems to be the opposite of DC and Michigan.  Summer officially arrives when the roads clear out.  My commute the last few months has been awesome.  There have been plenty of days with traffic jams, but overall, the roads have been nice and easy compared to the rest of the year.  I'd complain about being the only person in the state who apparently has to go to work, but the commute is just so great, I can't complain.  And the latest sign of the seasons changing is one I discovered today.  I realized it was the first day back to school for most kids when I got to the gym this morning.  For months, when I've arrived at 6 every morning, there have been about 4 people in the gym.  Suddenly and without warning today, almost every piece of equipment was occupied.  It was nuts!  I guess everybody's back to their regular schedules.  And I'll know fall has arrived when there's a line for the equipment.  That means it's too dark/cold for people to exercise outside anymore.  I'm all for people exercising and making America healthy;  I just don't want them doing it on my time.

Montana!

Here are just a few highlights from our trip to Glacier National Park.  I'm not even going to try to get the pictures in the same order as the commentary.  Most of the commentary doesn't have corresponding pictures, and vice versa anyway, so just use your imagination.
- I've been told that there are roads in Montana that don't have speed limits, kind of like the autobahn.  You're in the middle of nowhere anyway, so you can drive whatever speed feels comfortable.  I tested this theory, and did not find agreeable results.  I won't go into details, because I don't want to.  Let's just say that, while I still have never had a speeding ticket, I'm certain that traffic cops are hiding out there on long empty stretches of Montana highway, waiting for unsuspecting out-of-staters with normal driving habits to come by.  And for the record, Dad made friends with an Idaho state trooper earlier that same day.
- We stayed in a tiny town in Montana called Seeley Lake, population 2,600.  I thought the neighborhood we were in was mostly vacation cabins, but after a day or two, I realized that about half the 'cabins' were year-round residences.  We were in a forest, with deer and fawns wandering through the yards, but that's where people live full time with their families.  I can't imagine.  It was great being out in the woods and smelling the pine and seeing the animals and being surrounded by nature, but I'm not sure I'd like living that far from a real city.
- Our first night there, we were driving down the main road in town, and suddenly there was a little pig running for all it was worth down the street.  It ran right out in front of traffic (all two cars on the road), making them slam on their brakes, and made a beeline for the forest and the lake on the other side.  It had made a get-away and wasn't looking back.  At church a couple days later, a few other people were talking about having seen the pig that morning.  So somewhere out there in the forests of Montana there's a liberated pig running free and living the good life.
- On the way to Glacier National Park on Saturday, we passed several fields that were covered with a super bright yellow plant.  We guessed that it might be mustard.  I just looked it up online, and sure enough, that area of Montana grows mustard.  Who would have thought?
- Glacier is really cool.  In just a few hours of driving through the park we saw tons of huge mountain peaks (they look really tall, but are actually a little lower than Utah's mountains), rounded out valleys carved by the glaciers, fields of wild flowers, two huge lakes, lots of waterfalls, and several rivers.  On the drive up to the main mountain pass, the whole mountain was basically pouring with spring runoff.  They call it the weeping wall because of all the water that drains off it.  At the top of the mountain, we climbed around a little bit on one of the glaciers.
-  During the day we saw squirrels, eagles, mountain goats, a black bear, and one lone buffalo rolling in a dust pile.
- The last day before we came home we found a hike just a few miles down the road from the cabin. We thought it'd be just a nice little hike to round out the vacation. It took us through lodgepole pines, then cedars and fir trees, then past a pond, then a big lake, and ended at a huge waterfall. This would be a major hike destination in Utah, but in Seeley Lake it's barely mentioned in a tourist book because this sort of waterfall is so common. It was amazing. The waterfall was 90 feet tall and put out mist about 50 feet in front of it. After 15 minutes or so of looking at it, I was so cold I couldn't feel my fingers til we were well on our way back down the trail. Pretty cool. (This is not the waterfall in the picture below- I didn't have my camera on this hike.  The waterfall below is in Glacier)

Secret Garden

A few weeks ago, I was out mowing my lawn on a Saturday morning, and my next door neighbor came over to talk to me.  Since I bought my house, there's been a strip of no man's land between our houses.  When I first moved in, I assumed it was his property.  It had landscaping to match his yard, such as river rocks, and some of the same plants as he has planted in his flower beds.  But last summer, he clearly was not taking ownership of this strip.  I thought that might be a hint that it was my property, but on the other hand, some of his flower beds were a little out of control, so I couldn't be sure.  Any way, on this particular Saturday morning, he pointed at this no man's land, and said he'd been hoping to catch me out in my yard so he could let me know that was my property.  I guess he had kind of taken care of it when nobody lived in my house, so that's why it had his style of landscaping when I first moved in.  By this year, it was just overgrown grass with signs of former gardening showing through.

I finished mowing my lawn and immediately set to work to find out what I was dealing with.  I started by digging up the lawn, and found a buried drip irrigation line!  It had been an actual flower bed at one time.  Not long after, I found another drip irrigation line. By this time, I was a couple hours into the project, and exhaustion was setting in, so I called it quits for the day and spent the next week imagining all the things I could do with that space.  The next Saturday, I started early, and ended up spending most of the day tearing up sod, shaking the soil back in (not as easy as it sounds with all the river rock that was in there), and thinking of all the colors I could add to my yard.  Sometime during the week, I had come to the realization that I would need to put in one of those plastic barriers to keep the garden from spreading to the lawn, and vice versa.  But about halfway through the day, I found a barrier already buried.  Totally made my work easier.  Anyway, all in all, I have about 2 1/2 feet of extra garden space running the length of my yard now.  For this year, I've planted bright annuals.  For next year I'm thinking flowering shrubs- maybe columbine, dwarf lilacs, etc.  The finished picture doesn't do it justice.  It really looks better than that (I think so, anyway).  I still need to dig up the parking strip area, but for now, I'm resting.

Victory!

It seems after years of 14 years of brutal competition, the results are finally in, and the victory is mine.  And let me tell you, it's a sweet victory.  Made all the sweeter by the fact that the judges don't know they're officiating in this particular tournament. The yellow post it note is to protect the identity of the specific judge who awarded this trophy, but I think it's safe to assume that any of my neices or nephews would be honored to have their signatures under that post-it.  And I'm proud to admit that this is the only piece of non-work-related decoration ever to have made it onto my cubicle wall.