You know the saying, “be careful what you wish for?” Well, it’s really true. I had been pondering lately some of the bigger questions in life and lo and behold I was presented with an opportunity to explore these questions. I won’t go into details but I can say that the world doesn’t look quite the same to me as it did just a few weeks ago. Mind blown.
Checking In
A catch-all, catch-up post
There are 1,132 posts filed in Checking In (this is page 13 of 114).
Bouldered over
As I mentioned earlier, I took a new job recently. Last week I visited the company headquarters in Boulder for the company’s new employee orientation. Though I dreaded the thought of days of mind-numbing meetings it turned out to be a lot of fun. I was particularly impressed that my new colleagues and I took an afternoon out to volunteer for a local charity. That, and everyone was incredibly enthusiastic and helpful during the event. Obviously the company hires the right people – these are people anyone would want to work with.
I stuck around a few extra days to get in some work with my department, too, which was spent in a few team-building exercises and overviews of the product I’ll be supporting. It was a big jump-start to my daily responsibilities.
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The Penguin Tamer moves on
On Monday, I put in my notice at my current job in preparation of starting a new adventure next month. It was a decision I made with much regret as I loved the work, the team, and the company. What I didn’t like was being awakened by my pager on countless nights as some production system or another at work melted down. That, and the several weekends of marathon maintenance work, some keeping me awake all night. I have been hit hard enough lately with the Gulf War Illness fatigue that I couldn’t pile on weeks of guaranteed disrupted sleep. It was affecting my health, it was disturbing my wife’s sleep, too, and taking family time away from me on those work-filled weekends. Unfortunately, no other relief was in sight other than to change jobs.
It wasn’t log into my job search that I realized just how in-demand my skills were. My resume on CareerBuilder attracted 2-3 job opportunities each day. Unfortunately, many of those were generated by lazy recruiters doing keyword searches and consisted of far-flung jobs that often didn’t match my skills or interests. On the bright side, several actual, clueful recruiters did reach out to me with decent opportunities. One of them wrote that this was the hottest IT job market his firm has seen in years, and I believe it. Actual quote:
We are in the strongest market for IT careers that we’ve ever seen and will be sending out lots of emails today.
Sixteen years and counting
It was sixteen years ago that Kelly and I got married. It’s been a blast! I’m lucky to have met such a smart, confident, funny, and all around amazing woman. Oh, and good looking, too! I’m still hopelessly, goofily in love with her.
Back from Anchorage
Well, over 12 hours and 3,500 miles later we are back home from Anchorage, having walked out of RDU around 11 AM. It was an amazing, unforgettable trip filled with many stories I have yet to tell. The red eye on Delta was exhausting, however, and my head does not know what day, time, or place it’s in. I thought I would blog more tonight of our trip but catching up on lost sleep seems more prudent.
Tomorrow I may awaken to wonder if it was all just a dream.
Rafting the Matanuska
Rafting the Matanuska
Yesterday we rose early to make the drive to the mouth of the Matanuska River in Alaska for some whitewater rafting! The Matanuska is a glacier-fed river and our rafting outfit, Nova, was about a 2.5 hour drive from Anchorage. We rode up some beautiful, twisty mountain roads to get there, passing a pair of moose standing in the ditch on the way. It was our first moose sighting in Alaska!
We arrived around 10:30 to the rafting office, a nice but remote cabin by the river. After using the pit toilets and checking in, we were given rain gear to wear and spent some time adjusting our GoPro camera before taking the short bus ride to the edge of the Matanuska glacier.
The put-in point near the glacier is private property and the rafting staff (Colin, our guide; Riley, our other guide; and Marsha, our bus driver) paid a hefty fee at the entrance for us to visit. On the way to the launch site, we stopped momentarily at a picnic spot overlooking the glacier: a massive, brilliantly-glowing sheet of blue ice. It was stunning to see! We took lots of pictures and witnessed the trickles of meltwater from this ice combine to form the ice-cold, silt-loaded Matanuska River. We would be rafting on water that was only hours earlier part of a glacier. That was incredible to think about.
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Kayaking at Eklutna Lake
Kayaking at Eklutna Lake
The drive was a scenic one as the weather cleared out for the first time we’ve been here. Sunny skies surrounded us as we drove north to Eklutna. After an hour’s drive or so, we pulled into the parking lot at Eklutna State Park and wandered over to get our kayaks.
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Hiking Flattop Mountain
At the top of Flattop Mountain!
We arrived a little before noon, having taken a variety of clothing since we didn’t know what the weather there would be like. It was overcast and in the low-60s when we arrived, so layers were the rule of the day. After a stop at the trailhead’s pit toilets, we set off for the summit.
Difficult? No kidding!
We hadn’t made it up to the first saddle, a mere few hundred feet away from the parking lot, before Kelly and I were already huffing. This clearing offered our first incredible view of Anchorage below us, though, so we took a moment to catch our breath and take it all in. Trudge on we did, though, winding our way along the east side of Blueberry Hill loop.
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First thoughts on Anchorage
Next stop, Anchorage!
The family and I made it into Anchorage Saturday afternoon after an 18 hour day of preparing and travel. Getting here took a long time (only slightly less than flying to London, Kelly says) but was surprisingly smooth, all things considered. Our Expedia booking put us on different airlines for each leg and the outgoing one was on United through Houston. I’ve complained before of how airlines are going out of their way to make flying as miserable as possible, squeezing every last cent out of its customers, but our flight didn’t suck as bad as I thought it might. The leg from Houston to Anchorage got us there in under 7 hours, though we weren’t treated to the spectacular views of the area that I’d been told about due to the cloud cover.
Waiting an inordinate amount of time for our baggage at the carousel gave me some time to people watch. I saw a number of bearded young men there, all in the Alaska uniform of the day: ball caps (preferably camo) with cheap sunglasses propped on top. In Raleigh, bearded young men are considered hipsters. In Anchorage, they’re rednecks. It made me wonder what it must be like to be so rigidly conformist, if these guys ever felt trapped in the routine.
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Neighborhood hero Victor Spence passes away
Yesterday I worked from home and had the occasion to take Travis home from his camp at N.C. State. As we approached by the Bryan-Lee Funeral home on Wake Forest Road, I spotted a number of motorcyclists standing around near the street. Passing by, I saw a number of flags planted in the lawn of the funeral home and several motorcycles in the parking lot.
“I wonder what’s up with the flags,” I said to Travis. “It’s not a patriotic holiday. No famous politician died today. I wonder who this is for?”
Tonight I was sad to learn that the honoree was none other than my neighbor, Victor “Vic” Spence. Mr. Spence lived quietly and alone in the home that he built with G.I. Bill money at the corner of Monroe and Madison. I would sometimes see him as I walked the dog past his home. He would always smile and say hello and I’d do the same. Other times I’d see him driving slowly down the street in his dark blue Ford Crown Victoria, wearing his Marine Corps hat and on his way to his usual stool at the Fenton Street Dunkin Donuts. He was there so often that when the Dunkin Donuts finally closed last year the first thing I thought was “what will Mr. Spence do now?”
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