My Nightmare

General state of me

Well, now that the crisis at OLLU has mostly subsided, I managed to get sick. I have lost my voice and have badly congested everything. Oh well, it had to happen after all I've been thru. The first week back Tuesday night thru Friday, I worked 56 hours. I didn't even have to submit any vacation time for my vacation!

Now it is Memorial Day weekend and I can afford to slow down and be sick for a while.

I finished listening to all of the Secret World Chronicle that is out and also just finished listening to Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey. I love that book. I highly recommend it.

Playing games with the kids this weekend. Had JoseLuis, his Jen and Jeremy over Friday night and we played all kinds of Wii games and rock band until the wee hours. Have been sleeping late and enjoying.

Bren's keyboard is hurting my wrists and I'm hungry, so I'm going to pause now...

Mario Kart Wii

Been playing a lot of Mario Kart Wii lately. We love it!

OLLU Donations

OLLU has set up the “Our Lady of the Lake Rebuilding Fund” to accept monetary donations. Those interested can visit any Frost Bank location and donate to account number 01-0494593. Donations are also being accepted at ollusa.edu through checks or credit cards.

Make checks payable to OLLU.
Mail to: OLLU Development Office
411 SW 24th Street
San Antonio, Texas 78207

Or you can make a credit card gift: give here.

Thanks!

Moon Pie

I just ate my first Moon Pie... a strawberry mini one, to be exact. I bought a box in the Food Lion in Wallace, NC and hauled it over two flights and a taxi ride back home to Texas. :)

I thrive on crisis

I really do. The last 3 days have been the highest adrenaline I think I've ever had. I really am at my best during a crisis where there are many things to do and I know how to do them. I have been keeping people's spirits up, fixing things, mega-multitasking, and working my butt off to help my team rebuild our data center.

This terrible experience has taught me a lot. I've been calling it "phoenix week" because we will rise from the ashes.

Fire at OLLU

I got off the plane from North Carolina (RDU to BNA to SAT) tonight at 9:10 and when I turned on my phone, I got 7 voicemails. Before listening to them, I called my mom and she told me my beloved Main Building at work was on fire. Oh shit.

Glad I got my vacation in before.

Last day in NC

We are enjoying our last full day in North Carolina today. Tomorrow we fly home. Am standing in Jen's mom's front yard watching Andy play in the wading pool while traffic and thundery storm clouds meander by. Its nice here.

(This is my one actual post from my phone during this vacation. The others were written weeks later after what happens in my next post.)

Wallace NC

We had a good time staying in Wallace. We visited one of Jen's friends somewhere south of there, ate boiled peanuts, went to a Food Lion store for the first time, went to the tiny Wallace library. We ate at a fast food joint called Andy's, which was fun, and just generally lounged around doing not much.

You need that once in a while.

Lighthouses and Ferries

I climbed to the top of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse this morning. We then travelled South along the outerbanks and did two Ferry rides. At the southernmost point, we saw another lighthouse. One ferry ride was rather short and one was 2 hours, 45 minutes. That was a lot of fun. Me and the boys walked around and around the ship and we had a picnic out of the back of the car on sandwich makings that we'd bought in Williamsburg.

Late, late we finally made it to Wallace NC. The driving is beautiful, but damn, the speed limit is 35 or 45 in every little bitty town, and only was I able to get to 55 rarely. Once again, driving took drastically longer than we expected.

CBBT and OBX

Today we drove from Williamsburg (bye, bye) down the Outer Banks. But on the way we crossed and came back across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. That was great. It was one thing I really wanted to do on this trip. So neat to be driving below that much water.

We proceeded South stopping various times thanks to crying Andy (thanks bub) and finally late in the evening got to a motel in Cape Hatteras. We drove thru Kitty Hawk in the dark and didn't get to see anything of the Wright Brothers museum except the closed gate. Oh well.

Colonial Williamsburg

We spent two days exploring Colonial Williamsburg. We took the Governors Mansion tour, saw Patrick Henry speak, saw the reading of the Declaration of Independence, went to the cooper's, the shoemaker's, the apothecary's, chatted one-on-one with a servant girl character about how she was treated and about her family (very cool). We ate Welsh Rarebit, which I will never touch again unless I'm starving, and paid way too much for sodas. But it was all good. We had a very good time. I bought lots of souvenirs, including a mousepad that I haven't found yet.

I enjoyed it immensely. It was beautiful there.