Monday, February 16, 2015

I Live in Iowa: Week 191

Eh, another week, getting it done. The first part of the week I was on vacation, I mean a work trip, to Coffeyville, Kansas. It was the first work trip I have been on where we were not going to investigate a failure. Monday and Wednesday were spent all day driving, which is surprisingly faster overall, and less expensive than flying down to Kansas. Rather relaxing to spend time with two of my coworkers in the suburban for a couple days, getting to know them better. Tuesday was all meetings and tours, and resoundingly good news. Okay, there was one incident, but we made the best quality decision out of it.

Thursday and Friday were back in the factory, earning stress. Then my supervisor had me go home early Thursday and Friday, well, he had the keys and was driving, so I didn't work overtime this week. Total disappointment. I feel like I am being lazy and not pulling my weight, I'm not going to say like a supervisor or manager, but I wonder sometimes. I didn't check my work email ALL WEEKEND either. It's hard, not working. But it's taken a toll on my healthy the last month, so despite the higher pay of overtime and the genuine feeling of real contribution and value it's actually good that I cut back a little. Still hard though.

I ran 55 miles, including a run in shorts and a t-shirt at 6:48 pace in Kansas in 60F weather! Ugh, winter is just not great for running. With all of the clothing and poor traction we run slower. That's the most mileage I've run since the first week of November, but that was 120 miles. So I'm getting back into it, and with only eight weeks until the 24 hour world championships, time is fading fast to actually get in shape.

We did have a long 90 minute conference call about the 24 hour world championships in Italy this past week talking about training, our backgrounds, the uniforms, lodging and logistics. Most people seem to be bringing family members, at least on the men's side, so we're going to be quite a large total American contingent, I wouldn't be too surprised if there are over 40, maybe even 50, Americans in our group. Dinners out at a restaurant are going to be a mess!

Other than that, not much happened. I went out to eat once, on Valentine's Day, at Buffalo Wild Wings, with three of my rock climbing partners, who are all single male engineers. Sometimes I read articles online about the difficulty women have meeting nice men, and well, they're not living in Dubuque, Iowa. This town is overflowing with 20something active engineers. Yes, we're awkward and shy and don't understand your subtle hints, and you're going to have to be a little patient with us, and we argue logically not emotionally, which I understand can be annoying, but we're here.

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