Friday, May 04, 2007

Bogged Down Week

I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, I just feel that way some times this week.
The training on Tuesday went well. I had a bit of a time getting to the site. (please pardon me while I yell at this stupid laptop for a moment... the cursor keeps doing wacko things... Ok, I'm back.)
The site is located about 30 or 40 km from the hotel where I was staying. I had to be there by about 7 to miss the 'buss curfew' that they have. (There's almost no parking so there are tons of shuttle buses that bring people to the site every morning and afternoon and everyone has to stay off the roads at certain times.) Well, I got stuck in some construction traffic. I didn't quite make it there before the buses, so I had to wait a few to be picked up. Other than that, the training went quite well. I had 10 people who were mostly interested in what I had to tell them and were a bit of fun as well. I then went to dinner with the guy who set this all up and it was an enjoyable time. I'll be heading back up there in a few weeks.
Wednesday was looking to be a decent travel day. I had two layovers, but nothing too painful. I was going to have to go through customs though and hoped the line wouldn't be too bad as the second layover could be a little tighter than I like for that size airport. I made it through customs with no problems and made it to the gate with time to spare even. Then the delays rolled in. They kept saying something about our inbound crew being stuck in customs or whatever. No big deal. Well, it turns out that they had overworked and over scheduled the pilots and they weren't allowed to fly any more hours. There were no other crews available either. So about 10 of us got stuck in Toronto over night. This means I got the joy of going back through customs again. Mind you, that made filling out the customs form a little interesting, I mean, what do you put down for arriving flight information? The lady at the counter understood and there weren't any problems. The biggest problem was trying to find the ticket counter I was supposed to go to. Canadians are a friendly and helpful lot, but in this case, they just didn't have the right information. I can't be too mad at them, they were trying to be helpful.
I did manage to get home with no problems yesterday. It was neat to fly home in the daylight. I actually got to see the Finger Lakes of New York from the sky. They really do look like fingers from up there. They are so very long and very skinny. It was nice. Gak picked me up at 11 and we had an early lunch. We then went home. I crashed for about an hour or so and then grabbed a shower and got to work. Gak took himself into the office.
Kat, Zoe and Scott all came over for dinner last night. We has spaghetti. I was smart and made up the sauce while I was downloading my email and set it in the crockpot to simmer for a couple of hours and get really friendly until supper. (Yes, I even remembered to use the liner bag this time. Gak was very thankful of that one!) We had a good time and everyone was very appreciative. I kept telling them that it is almost always more fun to share a meal with several friends then to eat alone. I eat alone way too often when I'm on the road. I also enjoy cooking and cooking for my friends and family is the best.
As I posted Monday, I wasn't feeling very well. I haven't felt well all week. I've been feeling better and better, but I'm still not quite healthy again. My throat hurts (but my tonsils aren't 'fuzzy' or white, so no strep), my head is somewhat clogged with industrial strength snot (you know, the green gunk so thick that it resembles half-dried up rubber cement?). Well, I figure that I'm not 100% (more like 75%) by now and it's been almost a week. I also figured that I'm leaving for another four days come Monday. I decided that I'd better just call the doctor and see if I could get in today. I couldn't with my regular doc, but I was able to get in. This other doc is nice, but very quick. I definitely didn't get the warm, friendly feeling that I get from my normal doc, but that's OK. She asked the right questions, listened to my answers and came up with a good diagnosis. It turns out that I've got a good, old-fashioned case of tonsillitis, not strep, but annoying all the same. She put me on my good friend Amoxicillin and told me to use some saline spray for my sinuses. I truly hope this kicks it out of my system quickly, I'm getting tired of this. Maybe after tonight or tomorrow I'll be able to sleep through the night (haha) and not wake up with a painfully dry throat. We'll see.
Anyhow, I've got a metric ton of crud to catch up on, but thought I'd better post a quick one so that everyone knows I'm alive, in the States and still going crazy! Peace to you all and please take care of yourselves!

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