HOV Police

Okay Chris and I get to carpool most of the time to work during the week which has been so so so nice lately and quite a blessing! We get to ride together in the HOV lane and let me just tell you... if I were a cop I would be posted by the HOV lane all day long. I would say about 7 out of 10 cars are in the lane illegally. Which just urks you early in the morning if you know what I mean. HOV stands for High Occupancy Vehicle, meaning more than one person/lady... We are amazed at the number of people that feel they deserve to be in the lane or that they are entitled to break the law. It really makes me wonder what kind of people we have living in our society these days and if they even have morals.

Look for more updates on what we've been up to soon... I'm waiting on some photos then I'll update you.

How many pillows does your car hold?

Random question of the day... How many pillows does YOUR car hold?? Sadly this picture doesn't do it justice...

I was priveleged to find this information out about our car yesterday... any guessess? Chris guessed 50, and that's not even close............ Drum roll, wait for it.....I fit 135 pillows into my car, yes there was a little cramming, but it all fit. Now, I didn't just do this out of curosity so don't think I'm weird, our company does community service each month and this month we were collecting pillows for the new Ronald McDonald house in Dallas.

So we stuffed all of the pillows into my car and headed out to the current Ronald McDonald house located a few minutes from our office. We started to unload and the lovely ladies at the front desk were SHOCKED and thrilled at how many pillows were being brought in. You see, they are in the process of building a new Ronald McDonald house that will house more than double than their current capacity. I think the lady said it will house 60 families. After we dropped our pillows off at the front we managed to get the nickel tour.

It was a great opportunity to learn a little bit more about the Ronald McDonald house and what it has to offer to families in need. They currently have space for 30 families, they have multiple large family rooms, a library, a kitchen, and a laundry room. This is basically a home away from home for families battling cancer and other medical conditions. They are running purely on volunteers and donations. An interesting fact that I learned, yes, Ronald McDonald founded it in the early 80's I believe, but now they only receive approximately 5% of donations from them. Their big fundraiser is the trains at North Park Mall at Christmas time; which is always a fun activity to stop by and at least watch while you're finishing up your shopping. Some more info about the house is that food is provided by volunteers 3 times a day 7 days a week all year long. We were going to sign up, but they are booked through next year on meal volunteers. We had a great time touring the facility and I am really excited to see the new facility in December 09. Check out the picture... it's going to be a great home away from home.

D.C. Trip

Well it’s been a while now hasn’t it. Things have been super crazy around our neck of the woods; I’ve been traveling a lot with work lately so that has been taking up a lot of my time. My first trip was out to Washington D.C. I got to see the rural side of Virginia and the downtown side since one of my buildings was smack dab in the middle of things. The hardest thing about this trip was actually getting there, so y flight left at 8:00 so of course naturally and obediently I arrived 2 hour early, ate my breakfast, and hopped on the plane. The crew however didn’t mention that we were delayed due to storms in the area until ALL of us boarded the plane. So we waited and waited for three whole hours. I am so thankful that the air was on in the plane; otherwise I don’t feel everyone would have been as pleasant to deal with.

Once we finally made it there I made my way down to rent my first car, what an ordeal. I went ahead and purchased a navigation system in order to help me find my way out to one of the centers I needed to field verify, but more importantly how to get back to the airport to return the car. So I get my little Jeep Compass; which was okay but not my favorite V4. I go to insert my ticket to exit and it says my time has expired. Now wait a minute, what do you mean my time has expired. So apparently the folks at DC Airport expect people to get in and out in less than 3 minutes. So I had to back up through all of these concrete pillars to go get another ticket since there wasn’t anyone from Dollar working at the little stand. How convenient, I know. Anyways so I tried it again after I got a new ticket, and the same thing happened again. So at this point 20 minutes into trying to get out of the stinking parking lot I am now confident in my backing up skills and glad that I purchased the insurance on the car so if something happened it wouldn’t affect me at all. Luckily nothing happened to the car, my parents taught me well. So I go back to the counter and basically tell the guy, OKAY I am already 3 hours behind schedule because my flight was delayed now it’s taken me 30 minutes to try to get out of the stinking airport rental car garage, just get me out of here. So finally he printed me a new ticket and walked up to the little stand, HILARIOUS, the newest ticked didn’t even work. So he typed in some magical code and off I went. The drive was eventful out to Herndon Virginia I tell ya, especially after missing my very first turn out of the airport. Me and my friend Garmin had a love hate relationship from the very beginning. O well it got me there, I did my field check although I made the center team stay with me until 6:00 mind you I didn’t get out there until 4:00 due to the 40 minute drive. So I made my way back to the airport, I had finally gotten the hang of the navigation system. I have heard horror stories of people trying to drive in DC so I decided to return the car that night and take cabs for the rest of my trip. Returning the rental went a little smoother, let’s just say I learned a lot about rental cars on this trip.

So I made my way over to the terminal to catch a cab, and off I went to my hotel downtown. I stayed at the Marriott at the Convention Center, it was really nice, more traditional than I would like, but it was only a few blocks from my center I needed to be at early in the morning. It was an old bank that had been renovated into a hotel, very cool. I met up with my client and we decided to make the trek over to the National Mall. Now just a brief background, I was one of those people who didn’t go on m 8th grade field trip, and my last trip to DC. I didn’t get to see any sites due to certain circumstances. So this time I wanted to see as much as I could. We walked to the National Mall where they were having some Screen on the Green where they were watching a movie, and people were playing softball, flag football, you name it people were doing it. So I walked from basically almost the capital all the way down past the Washington Monument all the way down to the Lincoln Memorial. It was a beautiful site; I absolutely want to make a trip out there when I have a lot more time. I am kind of a history buff and I missed out on a lot of stuff since it was dark and all the museums were closed. It was a lot of fun, Chris and I need to plan a trip back out there sometime soon. I can’t wait to go back. The next day I went and did my Punchlist for one of my projects downtown, and afterwards on the way back to the airport we saw Arlington Cemetery and the National Mall, the White House, and all of the secret service people on tops of the buildings. Overall it was a great trip! More updates to come...

They Are Here...

That's right, Girl Scout cookies are here! Get Excited! I was greeted yesterday morning at work with the wonderful saying... "the cookies have arrived"/pay up. I went ahead and ordered some for some friends and family, so when my co-worker said... "Emily here's your box" I was made fun of a little, at least until I explained myself. Everyone who had ordered immediately opened their boxes and dove in. I called my mom and told her to stop by our house to pick hers up before I ate all them. Later on in the afternoon another co-worker was talking about how they had heard on the radio that girl scout cookie sales were actually down 19% from last year... are you ready for this... except in North Texas. (We're up 2% from last year) I tell ya people, don't get between us and our cookies. Anyways those cookies made my day, it's crazy how food can do that.

The Omni Hotel

Last Friday I had the day off and I figured it would be my only chance to head out to see Chris’ hotel that he’s been working on for the past almost 3 years of our lives! It’s crazy to see how beautiful everything is and how successful they were at making it look “Fort Worthish”. Chris has been working so hard on the job and I know he’s learned so much. I finally got to meet all of his co-workers who I have heard about, which was nice. We were able to walk most of the floors and believe me I will be a happy camper when the elevators are finished. We took the stairs all the way to the 15^th floor. Check out this Omni Fort Worth link and scroll through the pictures and renderings. 

http://www.omnihotels.com/FindAHotel/FortWorth/Photos.aspx

This is pretty much what things looked like when we were there except they were still missing some FF&E items (Furniture, Fixtures & Equipment). I am so proud of Chris and this accomplishment, although all he can see are all of the headaches that got them to this point. This is quite the project, so I thought I would share it with you guys. Take a look. 

Quite the trip...

I wanted to share my adventurous ride into the Office yesterday morning. So I left the house later than I should have, especially with the Dallas drivers and the icy conditions. Anyways I make my way down 35 and I get to about Valwood and all of these cars are stopped, but they don't have any cars in front of them.  So we keep inching along and then I see a cat in the road, and it's freaking out because it doesn't want to get hit obviously and it doesn't know which way to go. So I pull up until I can't see it anymore. At this point I am looking to the two other cars beside me to tell me if I am clear to drive on or not. So after reading the lips of the guy whose next to me I slowly inch forward. Luckily I didn't feel a bump or anything, however I couldn't see him in my rear view mirror either. So I am already an hour late to work and I hadn't even made it to 635 yet. So I keep driving cautiously due to the weather and make it all the way to work. By this time I have completely forgotten about the whole cat incident. 

Well I step out of my car and I hear a cat shrieking, and again I think nothing of it. We usually have cats down by our office. Well Rita my co-worker pulled in to the parking lot after me and as I was about to enter the office she yelled. "Emily, come back out here your car is shrieking." So I'm thinking to myself well, great I did run over the cat. So my car is still shrieking and so I got down on the icy gross ground trying to see if I could see the cat. So I start calling for the cat like I would my pups hoping that cats come when they are called. I have no clue since I'm not a cat person. Well anyways the cat finally hopped out from underneath my car. I guess he jumped up under my car and held on for dear life. I was utterly blown away that it made it under my car for about another 30 minutes after he had jumped up in it. Thankfully due to the weather I wasn't driving fast, but STILL... So I picked him up and took him in the office and of course everyone swarmed the cat. According to some of the cat people in our office he was maybe 5-6 months old. We gave him some cream, water, and his favorite tuna. He pretty much devoured anything we put in front of him. 

After he got something to eat we brought him back to our pod and blocked off the entrance so he could just roam around our pod and not bother anyone else. I sent out an email with some pics to see if anyone wanted him or knew of anyone who would want him. He hung out in our pod all day hopping from lap to lap. He slept on my desk for a little after he commandeered my mouse pad. It made the day go by quickly and even though I'm not a cat person I have to admit he was a cutie. Well luckily one of our principals ended up taking him home, and took him to the vet this morning, and the updates are good so far. When we got a good look at him it looked like someone had burned his ear (he only had half of one ear), or that he had been in a couple of fights, but overall he looked good, just dirty probably from the ride in to work.  He didn't hurt himself on the ride down which I was thankful for. So I'm glad he found a good home with a family that will love him. He was the sweetest cat, quite the cuddler. (spelling) By the grace of God the cat lives to see another day.

Now today in the office we got the update from the vet, and all seems to be okay. Everyone was pitching in with ideas for names: Some of the names were:  Fender, Rider, Asphalt, Detour, Explorer, Ford, Hybrid, Diesel, Engine, Lucky, Hitch, Drifter, Axle, Piston, LBJ, Stan Jr. (her husbands name is Stan), Van Gogh (due to the whole ear thing, quite clever) and last but not least Kermit after my car. After all they did have a lot of time to bond on my way in. I'm just so thankful he is okay and that he is making a family really happy. Thankfully I didn't pick up any drifters on my way to work today. Merry Christmas!!

Mouse Trap

So the other day I was just sitting at my desk and decided to take one of my 5 minute “smoke” breaks. (Even though I don’t smoke J I just figure I deserve a break too ya know…) Anyways so I turned around and started talking with some of my co- workers; Oh you know about anything really, what we did the night before, what we were doing this weekend, etc. And you probably will have to understand that we work in an open office setup so all six of us are in the same “pod” so to speak. Well my co-worker Greg was off somewhere so it was just Rita, Sara, and I. So we were being Chatty Cathy’s and talking away and throughout our conversation I hear this crackling over by Greg’s desk. Mind you that he isn’t there, nor is anyone close to his desk. I just brush it off and continue with conversation.

So anyways I didn’t think much of it and ended my “smoke” break and got back to work. Well Greg finally came back to his desk and we were all working away and Greg reached into one of his drawers to get a snack, and he noticed that a mouse had eaten not 1, not 2, and YES not 3, BUT 4 ENTIRE South Beach bars which are the equivalent of a large granola bar. The mouse had even eaten the wrappers on each of the bars. It was hilarious and kind of gross at the same time. So we figured that was the crackling sound that we had heard earlier during our “break”. They had gone to town on his crackers and graham crackers, it was hilarious.

Needless to say Greg changed his snack location to a more secure area, nothing’s safe anymore. We ended up leaving the crackers to set a trap and try to entice the mouse to come back. One of the guys came down and actually set a mouse trap within Greg’s drawer. PS. I hate mouse traps ever since I trapped every single one of my fingers in one at least once during a stupid Physic s project in high school. Still bitter…That’s beside the point. Anyways the trap we set had the most fake looking cheese in it… any mouse that was going for that cheese must have been starving. So not 30 minutes passed and we were all diligently work at our computers and SNAP, we all looked at each other and ran out of the pod.  Now I bet you are thinking to yourself mice are fast and I would have to agree with you but with 4 South Beach bars in its belly I can’t blame him for being slow and getting caught.  All that being said we have caught two mice in Greg’s little snack drawer, you think they would learn.  It has made for a hilarious afternoon in the office; I think they have learned their lesson. Here’s to fun times at work.