Category Archives: Work

Puerto Rico to Colorado- Starting at the End

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Where to start? Well, I guess I will start at the end of the Puerto Rico trip and work my way back to the few days that we missed in between. The reason for the lack of posts was that the internet was out at the house we were staying and that was about the only time we would have been able to update because we were so busy those last few days (but at least our server and router were working!).

IMG_0202
View from the last house we saw on the trip -near another property we saw

Anyway, back to today and yesterday. We saw one final house in the Rincon area (up the hills) in the morning, but we were really pushing it for time, so we left directly from that showing to San Juan at about 10:30am. I was really not looking forward to coming back. It seemed too short of a trip and we really didn’t make any major decisions like we had hoped (more on that later).

On our way back from Puerto Rico to Colorado, we needed to be in San Juan by around 1pm, so you can see that we were pretty tight on time. The traffic was horrendous in Aguada and Aguadilla but once we got on the 22 (the main toll road/freeway) we went a lot faster.

Somehow once we got to San Juan we got turned around and ended up crossing a big bridge with a lot of US and Puerto Rican flags all over it. We needed to get to the car rental return place and knew we must be in the wrong area. We got to the cashier lady that changes money for the toll road and asked her if we were going the right way. She said, no we had to just turn around and go right back across the bridge to the first exit -oh and pay the toll of $3.00 each way!! So we paid the toll, turned around and paid the toll again.

We finally got to the car rental place and then to the airport, got our boarding passes, through screening and on to our flight. The flight to Chicago was uneventful but long. We had about a 45 minute layover and then our plane was supposed to leave. Well, they loaded us up a little late (about 8:15 instead of 7:50pm CST) and then over the intercom, the pilot says there may be a delay, and then that they were deciding whether or not to cancel the flight all together. They would tell us by 10pm.

Well, I was hungry, so Britton and I left the plane for some grub, and thank goodness we did! They canceled the flight at about 9:45pm because of the snow storm in Colorado. They were too backed up with de-icing so they stopped all incoming planes. Too bad we weren’t stranded in Puerto Rico!! 🙂

Tropical-Beach-Anasco
Why couldn’t we be stranded here!? This is my favorite picture I took at the beach in Anasco.

They issued partial discounts (about 25%) to area hotels and they rebooked us for a 6am flight back to Denver. That meant that if we went to a hotel, by the time we got there, spent the money (which would have been more than we paid for a whole week of sleeping in PR BTW), got settled, took a shower and so on, that we would only get about 3-4 hours sleep before we would have to come back and go through security all over again in the morning, so we decided to stake out a space at the airport…Ugh!

Let me tell you. I have never had to sleep in an airport, but it is not the most comfortable place to be. The fluorescent lights buzz, the intercom keeps reminding you not to leave your bag unattended or take rides from unauthorized vehicles and it is kind of cold! Luckily we were able to snag a few blankets and pillows from United.

We dozed in and out of “sleep” with a few other of our stranded castaways at Chicago O’Hare airport when suddenly we heard the cleaning lady vrrooom her vacuum between our legs, through the poles of the chairs, clink our seats and weave in between us. The babies started crying and it was altogether a hysterical situation. I just had to laugh and thought this should be on a Saturday Night Live skit.

One cowboy bullrider named Sean who had absolutely no optimism whatsoever kept yelling at her which only made it worse because she spoke no English. When she wouldn’t stop, he went over and unplugged her cord.


A Cool Walkway through Chicago O’Hare -we were like Tom Hanks in The Terminal!

Then some plane cleaners came at about 1:30am and each and every one had to swipe their ID card, beeeep in, then exit out the door toward the plane, slamming it and letting in freezing air as they went. It was a comedy scene. I seriously should write this skit, I just laugh at how ridiculous it was.

In a way it was kind of cool meeting our castaway friends while we were stuck there. It was kind of like a lock-in and we all were commiserating together. Besides, this is where good material comes from, right?

So finally we arrived back in Colorado (thanks Dad for waking up so early and picking us up in the crazy weather) and I immediately called into work to tell them I wasn’t going to be coming in after all and Britton was able to work from home. I took a shower and a little nap, and am feeling much more revived.

More about some Puerto Rico options/decisions and a few more pics and adventures in a post to come. Stay tuned…

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Manifesting Our Life -in Puerto Rico

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Today we saw a few properties that were at the top of our list to see. They were pretty much as we had imagined based on the descriptions and photos, but you always get a different feel for something when you actually visit it. It is like a place has a certain vibe or something. We liked the one that we could make into a guesthouse type of place, but we have been doing a lot of soul searching as of late about what exactly we want to manifest in our lives. We seem to gradually get closer and closer to an ideal of some sort, but because it is so fuzzy in our minds, it’s hard to make out. Today (it may change tomorrow) we are leaning toward something a little smaller.

These are the kinds of questions we have been asking ourselves. For instance, do we even want to start a business? Do we just want to lounge around in hammocks all day? Do we want to grow and sell fruit, eggs, and other farm products? Do we want to travel? What will we do for work/money? All of these are factors  in the realm of possibility for us. All we have to do is pull the trigger to set into motion a whole new world. We need to have enough income to do so, and we need to have something meaningful to do with our lives. When you get down to the basics of life, that’s really what it comes down to. We will create our reality one way or another.

It is interesting because in Greeley, usually you can buy a property for less than you can rent it, but here in Puerto Rico, it is opposite. So, that begs the question of whether or not it would be smart for us to just rent for a while? Then we could travel the world or go back and forth or do whatever. Well, I told Britton that I am kind of a home base type person, even though I love traveling. I like to have a “home” I call mine and I am not used to renting (but that’s not to say I necessarily wouldn’t also). 

I think we are really blessed because most people never really think about manifesting their lives; they get what they are given and try to make the best of it. And to some extent we do that as well. But really what we have been given is an opportunity to take our life in any type of direction we want. Sometimes having so many choices can actually be harder than being limited (you know, the kid in the candy store scenario).

Today we seem to have come to some sort of plan that we are both pretty happy with, but we still have a little bit more time here before we make it official, or even to see if all the stars align from other people’s perspectives. So all we can say is row, row, row your boat…steer it the best you can…because you never know where life will take you, and it’s not all in your hands.  

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A Day at the Colorado Capitol

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Yesterday as part of my Leadership Weld County class, we had “government day” where we learned about our local and state government. We met with some government officials, including our mayor, Tom Norton. During the Q&A section with the mayor I asked him if he had possibly reconsidered his position on chickens. Suffice it to say that we had words in front of the whole class and there is no way that he is changing his position.We also met with a county commissioner and our clerk and recorder.


With my friends Kelly and Jamie at the Capitol

Then we headed out on the bus to the capitol in Denver. We took a tour of the building and then met with some of our representatives and senators. It was a pretty fun trip.

 


Looking out the windows of the dome to the Colorado Rocky Mountains

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From Busboy to Software Engineer

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I started out my professional career working at Village Inn when I was 16 years old as a busboy. I learned how to clean the tables pick out which cleaners to use and was responsible and timely with all aspects of the job. It paid off. They moved me up to Dishwasher. Eventually I did so well they moved me up to waiter!


From This (not actually me, Im way hotter)

Its much the same as I did for the company I work at now. Just proving oneself can get you places. I started doing some CD production and distribution and now I am working on software engineering projects for 911 and doing software quality testing with no formal education.

For me its all about setting goals and being persistent. I came here not knowing what the vi editor was in unix. Now I can make advanced shell scripts that run at an enterprise level site (have several hundreds servers and several datacenters). Learning new programming languages, learning about system administration, data cabling, fail over philosophy and many many other attributes of computing that I didn’t even know existed a few years ago.


To This (not actually our data center, our cabling is much cleaner)

When I look at where I started it gives me a good sense of pride to know where I am at now. I don’t exactly know what I will do once I get to PR but if the past is any indication I will do whatever it is I set out to do. I’ve never really failed at anything I’ve tried (rentals, carpentry, flying, computers, sports, jobs, etc)

The saying is true. You can do whatever you put your mind to. The part they don’t tell you is that it takes hard work, perseverance and dedication. Most important of all is that you can’t give up. Ever. The best skill that I’ve gained thru all my hard work is that I will do ‘whatever it takes’ to accomplish something.

I feel the same way about our Puerto Rico goal. I’ll do whatever it takes. Sometimes its discouraging to not have already completed this. Cassie and I were talking about it and as it happens to be; we could complete our goal to move to PR today. We could do this pretty easily.

The issue comes from knowing ourselves fairly well. We have realized that we want a challenge out of this. That is what we do, seek out and accomplish challenging goals. We aren’t ready to retire, we want to get to PR and make a difference or a substanial positive impact and have an adventure.

Who knows. I could start out there doing whatever it takes to get by and end up somewhere I never imagined or thought possible asking myself, “How did I get here?”. I ask myself that pretty much daily already, I don’t expect it to change! lol.


To This?

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