"tanks" for the memories

Friday morning I checked out of the motel and attended my last 1/2 day of class. We had a short review and then some closing remarks from the Northern Zone Training Manager for my company. During his talk he asked the class to nominate one person who showed them the most leadership and positive attitude during the class. I was shocked when I was nominated and the class all decided that I was the "man". The training manager presented me with a coin bearing the company logo and seal. I found out later that the coins are a limited edition and each "zone" only gets 10 coins to present each year. I was very honored to not only receive the coin but also to be recognized by my peers. It was pretty cool.

We all had to take an assessment test covering all the items we had learned in the past week. The test is taken on line and is graded as soon as you finish and hit the "submit" button. I missed 3 out of the 50 questions for a 94. I passed !! Whoo Hoo!! Now picture me doing a "happy dance" :-).

As soon as I completed the test I was out the door and headed towards home.

The wind was howling today and the weatherman said a cold front was moving through. My little car was tough to keep in my lane and I kept thinking "I'm glad I'm not driving an 18 wheeler in this stuff". I did see a truck towing a 5th wheel and the wind had ripped off part of the outside bedroom wall. They had pulled off and were using duct tape to make temporary repairs. They had traveling companions stopped helping them and looked like they had things well in hand or I would have stopped and helped them.

I made it home shortly after 6pm. Rudee was waiting for me to arrive and after a quick change out of my work clothes we went out for a quick dinner and then back home where we turned in fairly early. I was pretty wiped out and I was really looking forward to a nice nights sleep in my own bed :-)

Saturday was unpacking and laundry day. We did manage to take a nice motorcycle ride in between all the work though.

Sunday we were up early. We were meeting our motorcycle friends for a scheduled ride to a museum. We met them in Lebanon and our first stop was to a gentleman's house who is a retired welder and now creates yard art and displays them at his house. He was quite a character and took us all around his property showing off his "art". He had dinosaurs, birds, turtles and just about anything else you could think of and they were all made out of discarded metal. Pretty neat stuff but I forgot my camera :-(.

Our next stop was in Crawfordsville for lunch so I was able to make a detour and pick up my camera. That was a good thing because our next museum was a "private tour" of the Ropkey Armor Museum ( http://www.ropkeyarmormuseum.com/) just outside of Crawfordsville Indiana. The museum is a private collection of military vehicles and equipment and is owned by Mr. Ropkey himself who welcomed us.

The museum is actually a very large pole barn behind his house and is quite extensive. He is a former tank commander and his collection leans heavily towards military armor but he does have several aircraft, trucks, jeeps and even a Viet Nam era patrol boat and UH1 "Huey" on display.

This was a "hands on" museum and you can touch and feel as much as you want. It was awesome being so close to these massive machines. He even had a Japanese tank that was captured by the Marines during WWII.

We spent probably 2 full hours touring the museum. If you are ever in this area and enjoy history, especially military history, this place is a "do not miss"!

Rudee and I dropped the bike back at the 5th wheel and hopped into the Dakota. We had decided to drive to Lebanon and combine dinner with watching the Colts play Denver. We arrived at the 32 Warehouse just in time for the game. We enjoyed our dinner and it was nice to watch the game on a "big screen" projection TV. We were able to cheer the Colts on to a victory. They are starting to look like the "contenders" we have come to expect after a pretty miserable opening game loss.

Monday will be my first day using the new computer system "live" They are supposed to start me out slow to help me get used to using it, we'll see how it goes. I'll keep you posted.

still in Ohio

I'm over 1/2 way through with this classroom stuff .... whoo hooo!! I'm ready to be back home. I am staying at a Hampton Inn right behind the office where our classes are being held. My commute takes all of 2 minutes:-). The motel is pretty nice but I sure do miss my own bed in our comfy little home.

So far the training has gone well and I am getting more and more confident using the system. We start our classes at 8am and end at 4:45pm with a 45 minute lunch break. I have eaten lunch at the office cafeteria each day and have been pleasantly surprised with how tasty the meals have been. They don't have a large menu, just a few deli type sandwiches and a daily hot plate special. Yesterday the special was 2 tacos with beans and rice. Today I had a turkey manhatten with corn. Pretty good stuff :-).

Tomorrow is our last full day of classes, Friday we do a review and then have to complete (aka: pass) an online assessment. We are scheduled to be done by noon but I am hoping we can get out a little early since I have about 6 hours to drive.

We have been having trouble with our water heater in the 5th wheel. It quit working a couple of weeks ago and we had a mobile technician come out. He had to order a part and finally got it replaced today. Rudee had to leave right after he left so she was not able to test it out. Hopefully she will have lots of hot water for her shower tomorrow.

No big plans this week end except to catch up on my weeks worth of laundry :-O. If the weather cooperates I'm sure I can convince Rudee to take a motorcycle ride in between loads :-). I'll keep you posted.

off to Ohio

This week end we had a great time with Nick. He stayed both Friday and Saturday nights sleeping on the couch. Saturday morning we introduced him to geocaching. He was really excited when Rudee told him it was a "treasure" hunt and was not too disappointed when he found out the "treasure" was just trinkets and the fun was in the hunt and the find.
I had picked out several caches in the area and we ended up finding all but 1 of them. Nick caught on pretty quick. We have two Garmin handheld units that we use for geocaching so he got to operate one and guide us to the "treasure".
We ended up back home in time to get ready for the Saturday night races in Putnamville Indiana.
One of Rudee's co-workers races his car here every week end so the rest of her team felt like it would be a great outing for the office. They even had t-shirts printed up with his picture on the front so he had his own rooting section :-).
We were supposed to meet everyone at a restaurant at 5pm and have dinner and then go to the races. When we got to the restaurant things started falling apart pretty quickly with several people canceling out for one reason or another. We ended up with only the three of us and one other couple. Oh well, their loss because the races were great!!
Jimmy (Rudee's co-worker) won his heat race and then started on the outside of the first row in the feature race. He ended up coming in second but was battling for the lead the entire race. It was really exciting.
Nicholas enjoyed the race cars and was on his best behavior. He is really growing up to be a nice, well mannered young man. We were both very proud of him.
We made it back to the 5th wheel shortly before midnight and we all headed straight to bed.

Sunday we made a little later start than normal since we had such a late night. I had my suitcases already packed and after loading them into my car we all went to breakfast. Rudee and Nick followed me in the Dakota so we could head separate ways after our meal.
I was driving to Cleveland Ohio today for the start of my training on our company computer system.
We had a nice breakfast and I hit the road shortly after 11:00am for my long drive. Rudee and Nick followed me for a few miles before turning off and heading for Nick's house.
The drive was pretty boring since it was all interstate. There sure did seem to be a lot of road construction going on. At least it was Sunday and the traffic was fairly light except around the larger metro areas.
After turning North from Columbus I noticed a definite change in the trees. The leaves are changing a lot more here that at home. It sure did look like Autumn here.
I arrived at my motel and got checked in about 5pm. Plenty of time to get settled in, eat some supper and be ready for the Colts game to start at 8pm.
The game was a lot better than last weeks and the Colts won by a large margin.

Today has been my first day of class and things went pretty well. The class seems well organized and we have a lot of hands on practice with training laptops. They are using my computer as the class demo unit so everything I do is up on the big screen for all to see (Yikes!!) , The best part is I get even more hands on practice rather than just sitting and watching someone else move from screen to screen while they teach us where to locate everything we need.

The office here is pretty large and they have their own cafeteria. I plan on eating lunch here everyday where I can relax some after a quick bite. Sure beats having to fight traffic just to rush around to wolf down a greasy burger somewhere and then rush to get back to class on time.

Only 4 more days of class left. I am trying to just be a sponge and "soak it all in". I guess we'll see how much "absorbed" once I start working on the system for real. I'll keep you posted.