Random Thoughts

Now that I’ve got some of the software upgrades completed and back to the normal craziness here (John returned from a trip Boston on Sunday morning and I just walked in the door a few hours ago from a class in Cleveland), let me get back to last…well, last last weekend. John had asked me months ago about going to the Historical Construction Equipment Association’s (HCEA) show since it was one of the last weekend days I’d have off for the remainder of the summer. I said sure, why not?

So off we went on the Saturday of the event. Now for me, it was interesting to see the old equipment moving dirt with their pulleys instead of hydraulics. A couple hours worth of interesting. For John, his face lit up like a kid in a candy store and he had to restrain himself from begging the various operators to let him run the machines. He could’ve slept out there between the old earthmovers and started all over again on Sunday. Actually, if we’d let him, he’d have probably gone home with one of them.

The kids enjoyed playing in some of the areas set up for their enjoyment and Mommy taught them to listen for the “music” of the machines to keep them entertained while Daddy was off gawking and grinning. Food was reasonably priced. And there was literally dirt in the air. I guess I was expecting more of a static display. If I had known they’d have demonstrations, I would’ve worn my ratty sneakers.

I suggested to John that he write his first blog about the day, but it obviously hasn’t happened yet. Maybe he’ll wax enthusiastic in the comments section instead. LOL! If you’re interested, pics of the day can be found here on our site.

Tags: digger photos, earthmovers, HCEA, Historical Construction Equipment Association

If you check the comments on my previous post, you’ll see that Lijit offered assistance…before I asked for it. And it worked!

Now that’s what I call customer service.

Tags: Lijit

Well, my intent was to post something about last weekend. Guess it will have to wait since it took me too long to upgrade my WordPress software. I got tired of seeing that a new version was available, so I decided to update the software. But the theme we were using isn’t compatible, so I had to find a new one, customize it a bit and then after all that, couldn’t get the newest version to work properly. I was able to upgrade from 2.3 to 2.6, but 2.6.1 is giving me grief. I can’t seem to get my Lijit widget placed where I would like it either.

I’ll eventually figure it out, but in the meantime, feel free to tell me what you think of the new look. I think there’s an option to have the header “flow”, but I think it might make it too busy. But then again, it might be an appropriate silent commentary on our lives…too damned busy.

Tags: Lijit, Mandigo, WordPress

Last week was a week of contrasts for me. I spent the early part of the week in Chicago at one of NATCA’s pre-convention meetings. (Watch out Miami, we’re descending on your town in September!) We stayed at the Palmer House Hilton. It’s been a long time since I’ve stayed anywhere that exuded opulence. Lots of brass and glass. I loved the glassware - tall (like 3 foot) vases that have the look of Murano, tiny chandelier track lighting, hefty earthernware mugs for that morning shot of coffee. Not somewhere I’d feel comfortable at all with the twins along at their age.

Morning breakfasts in the restaurant overhearing conversations in other languages, not just French or Italian or German, but also the language of big business and insurance. Long days full of briefings and information, followed by long nights of conversation and, yes, alcohol. I don’t get the chance to act like a semi-irresponsible adult very often nowadays. I enjoyed it immensely. Okay, maybe not so much come those early morning meetings, but it was worth it.

I was able to take a shower with no one opening the door, sleep uninterrupted through the night or getting pushed out of my own bed, finish my own beverages without someone spilling it on me and use my laptop without someone trying to Google “Little Einsteins.” Absolutely luxurious!

On the weekend, one of John’s best friends hosted a gathering at the Austin Lake Campground. Very family-oriented place. We spent hours traipsing after the kids at the great play areas they have set up, in the lake hoping our son wouldn’t take the extra step to drown, and on the beach trying to keep our daughter from throwing sand on anyone and everyone that happened to cross her path. And two over-tired 3-year-olds crawled into our bed that night which pretty much required me to sleep in a shape like a pretzel. Absolutely exhausting!

But, I noticed some striking similarities between my time at the Palmer House and Austin Lake. The staff at both places was incredibly friendly and helpful. Beyond-the-norm friendly and helpful. I’d recommend both places in a heartbeat.

Another similarity is that I was able to have a lot of fun in between all the work. Fun with my NATCA brothers and sisters when the day’s work was done and fun with my family and friends, even while wondering if I was going to need a chiropractor at the end of the weekend.

Remember to have fun, everyone, and to laugh and play. And please remind me of the same when I start getting wrapped up in all the responsibilities on my plate and start to forget.

Tags: Austin Lake Campground, NATCA, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, Palmer House Hilton

Sadly, Todd W. also recently took down his blog, Vanity Fair Musings. For all you conspiracy theorists, it sounds like he was just tired and ready to move on for a bit. Hope he’ll be back, even if it’s just every once in awhile. Don Brown wrote about it here.

For all of you who have been searching for The Main Bang in the last couple weeks (thanks for the blog hits, too!), I’m happy to announce John is back.

Hope to find some time to write some more this week. We’ll see.

Tags: air traffic control, ATC, John Carr, The Main Bang

Our friend, John Carr, has taken down his blog, The Main Bang. John is the immediate past President of NATCA; he held the position for six years. Johnny the Bull retired from air traffic control last year. On a personal note, John and his wife have multiples as well - a beautiful set of triplets - as well as a beautiful singleton.

There has been a lot of speculation as to why John has made this decision, but my take from his last post was that it is for personal reasons. I was going to leave his link on the blogroll and leave it inactive for now, but I haven’t figured out how to do it. I don’t doubt he’ll be back to blog on the failings of the FAA or whatever else catches his fancy. The question that remains is when.

I’m not the first one to blog on his recent decision. Don Brown over at Get the Flick, Blue Eyed Buddhist over at The FAA Follies, and Todd over at Vanity Fair Musings all beat me to it. There will probably be more to follow. John’s writing had a lot of followers, not just those of us in air traffic control clicked on his site.

In the meantime, I’m going to leave the RSS feed for the Bang on my favorites toolbar. Who knows, maybe one day - sooner rather than later - the feed will load again with some biting, satirical bit of alliteration from my friend. One can only hope.

Tags: Blue Eyed Buddhist, Don Brown, FAA, federal aviation administration, Get the Flick, John Carr, Johnny the Bull, JTB, NATCA, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, The FAA Follies, The Main Bang, Vanity Fair Musings

For awhile now, people have been asking me if I’ve seen the series on TLC, Jon & Kate plus 8. For some reason, it makes people think of us. Now I’m not sure why anyone thinks I have time to watch television, or would have the energy to wrangle the remote control from the twins, but I recently was able to catch bits of some episodes during my breaks at work.

With the exception of the fact that the Gosselin family and our family each have a set of twins, I’m not sure where the resemblance is that makes people think of us. According to their bios, they would’ve been having their sextuplets right about the ages our twins are now. I cannot even begin to imagine adding 6 more babies into the chaos of our lives right now. I can’t even imagine have 4 more of the same age as ours our now added into the mix.

Although all parents need a sense of humor, it is absolutely necessary when you have multiples and it was there between Jon and Kate. Sad thing is, the first thing that caught my eye was how clean their kitchen and dining room was. I thought “Well, TLC must help them out before filming.” My mistake. I later caught a few minutes of the episode where Kate was interviewing maids and heard she gets on her hands and knees to scrub both floors 3 times a day! How on earth does she find the time or the energy!?! Trust me, I’m lucky if we can give the sticky floors a lick and a promise every three weeks…hands and knees scrubbing is probably closer to every 3 months.

I saw no crayon and ballpoint ink pictures on the walls and even the kids’ playroom was cleaner than our empty guest room. (Okay, I’m exaggerating there. Our guest room is locked off from our kids, so it stays fairly clean.) I saw no dirty laundry strewn about from kids getting into the hamper or laundry baskets, no toys or books to trip over, no sippy cups in the living room, nothing that looked familiar at all to me. And the plain truth is, even if we able to afford for me to stay home full-time, my home would never look that camera-ready unless we were planning to throw a big party.

Jon and Kate have guts. Not only with raising two sets of multiples, but to allow filming on a regular basis into their lives. I’m not sure I could handle all of America being able to tune in whenever they want to hear when I get frustrated and lose my cool. Hey, it happens. Like the 85th time our daughter decides it’s fun to shake salt over any flat surface she can find, or the twentieth time our son has used me as a jungle gym and gotten his elbow into some sensitive part of my body.

The past couple weeks we’ve been dealing with our daughter getting stung by hornets and having her eye swell almost shut, our son getting poison ivy in some interesting and painful areas and me with some stomach bug that is really making my stomach roil. I can’t imagine having a camera crew here during all of that and pretending to be remotely sane with the lack of sleep I was getting.

Kate made a comment during the first episode I saw, which was the reason I tuned in again when I had a chance. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but it was essentially, “Every day is painfully the same and vastly different.”

Maybe there’s more of a resemblance than I thought…

Tags: Jon & Kate plus 8, multiples, sextuplets, The Learning Channel, TLC, Twins

Well, I worked the 4th of July - a day shift quickturning back to the mid, so the family was unable to go see fireworks. Our township is having their Community Days celebration next weekend, so hopefully the weather will favor us and the kids will get to see fireworks next Saturday.

But we ended up going to the Big Butler Fair yesterday (after my much needed nap) in the hopes that they might have fireworks after the Y108’s Freedom Fest concert. No fireworks, but the kids got to ride a merry-go-round for the first time and a few other carnival rides. We (mostly John) pushed them around in the double stroller and let the kids enjoy the sights and sounds.

John and I haven’t been to the Big Butler Fair since before the kids were born. That was on the 4th of July that year. That time, we went a Monster truck show and discovered one of the drivers was from my hometown in Massachusetts. Talked with him afterwards to find out I graduated with his older brother - and that he did excavation work when he wasn’t traveling. Small world!

Anyway, I get the impression that the Fair was originally about the 4H events and over the years they added on the other stuff - carnival rides, concerts, demolition derbies and the like to pull in those of us transplanted from other areas. The kids really enjoyed the animals; they did have some nice entries this year - cattle, poultry, sheep, pigs and more. Hey, I spent time on my great-grandparents’ farm when I was a kid. I may not engage in the 4H events, but I can recognize quality when I see it.

The people with the free Petting Zoo were great. They were very personable and friendly with the kids and, most of all, patient! I would’ve like to spend more time in there, but once the kids reached the point of throwing up the shavings to make it “rain” in the pens instead of petting the animals, we decided it was time to leave.

The primary performer at Freedom Fest was Phil Vassar. He did a great job getting people to interact and sing. Luckily the concert wasn’t in the main grandstand area, but down on the field with some bleachers widely spread out. We got to let the twins run loose for a bit before Phil’s performance.

Phil did a wonderful job with America, the Beautiful and there were other songs that the band did that showcased their individual abilities: some AC-DC, Dire Straits, Black Crowes, The Police and Billy Joel. When I heard him singing “Just Another Day in Paradise” I thought “this is sooo our life right now!”

We all had fun, although Phil’s performance might have set us back a little on the homefront. I’ve been trying to keep the twins from climbing onto the piano and jumping off. Watching Phil do it and having such a great time might mean John and I can expect it to be a bit longer than expected before the kids internalize our message! But they thought he was good enough to be an Aristocat - high praise from our children, indeed!

I’d like to publicly offer our sincerest apologies to those sharing the bleachers with us. Two 3 1/2 year olds climbing up and down and used to being the center of their known universe can be trying. LOL! To the young man with the crewcut, please know that you made huge points with your girlfriend with your goodhearted acceptance of our son rubbing your head for luck. And the older couple who found themselves with our children leaning up against you and explaining what they saw, I’m grateful you remembered when your kids were little and extended kindness instead of irritation.

To the little boy who was enamoured with our daughter A - you were very cute and I know she enjoyed you showing her your spinning top, but when you started to use your plastic sword to dissect a firefly to show off, I just had to draw the line on your acquaintance with my little girl. It’s a mom thing.

As a parent, the fact that our son B has never met a stranger fills me with pride at his self-confidence and self-assurance. As a mother, it absolutely terrifies me, especially in situations with thousands of people around.

Sitting here with my residual aching muscles and sunburnt face, I’m glad we went. We don’t get nearly enough time as a family for the fun stuff. On those rare occasions when John and I are both home with the kids for a day, it ends up being me with the kids inside while John mows the lawn, or John with the kids outside so I can get some housework or NATCA stuff done.

Back to the daily grind here, but I think we’ll carve out a few hours later to do nothing but play together in the pool as a family. I have a feeling it won’t be long before we turn around and find our American children have grown up to be teenagers.

Tags: American Child, Big Butler Fair, Just Another Day in Paradise, Phil Vassar, Y108 Freedom Fest

Take a look here at the FAA bid for air traffic controllers at Miami Tower (MIA) which closes at the end of the month. It’s listed as an ATC-12 bid, but what they fail to mention is that you won’t be working at an ATC-12 facility. Bid closes June 30, 2008. Even assuming the Agency can finish their paperwork for selecting individuals in record time, not one facility is going to let a CPC go before the end of the summer, probably closer to mid-September (if this year at all with the staffing the way it is nationwide). At my facility, we’ve been waiting for a transfer for over a year simply because the releasing facility is too short-staffed to let him go.

The FAA notified NATCA via letter on March 31, 2008 that MIA is scheduled to have the tower and TRACON functions split in January, 2009, as is Philadelphia (PHL), Memphis (MEM) and Orlando (MCO). There’s no way it’ll still be an ATC-12 facility, regardless whether you stay with the tower or the TRACON. Which means, according to the Agency’s imposed work rules, you can expect your pay reduced within two years - 4% per grade.

I’m not even going to try to go into the short-sightedness of the Agency to decombine facilities at this time. That’s a subject for another blog.

Even if I were interested in moving to MIA (which I’m not), I wouldn’t go under these conditions.

Tags: decombining split facilities, FAA, federal aviation administration, imposed work rules, MEM, Memphis Air Traffic Control Tower, MIA, Miami Air Traffic Control Tower, NATCA, National Air Traffic Controllers Association

Sorry I haven’t been writing lately, but lots going on here. I’ll try to get something new up soon. With any luck, it’ll even be interesting.