Report of the Week

Monday – April 30, 2012
I woke up in Schaumburg, Illinois.

I am here to teach two classes for a company called Invensys in Carol Stream, Illinois. Three people are from Illinois and five are up from Mexico. They have asked to have two 3 day classes taught in five days. Yikes! That is going to be a lot of work. I was not especially pleased with the way the class went today. I have some language difficulty with the people from Mexico. Also, the people from Mexico have zero experience, two from Illinois have a little bit, and one probably knows more about this software than I do. So the first day was a little bit rocky, and I didn't let them leave until 5:30, which means I didn't leave until 6:00. With me arriving at the office at 6:45 in the morning to get set up, that made for a real long day.
I did learn an interesting thing – well interesting from work perspective. The company is closing the training room in Schaumburg – meaning the Chicago area. It means there will probably be a lot less training in that area.

I am sorry to say that I did not exercise this day – but I did drink all of my water and did pretty good on my food choice and portion control.

Mar is in Sothern California. I would like to say she is visiting her Michael and Taylor, but that is not true – she is visiting the new grandbaby, Page. Mar says she is beautiful. Well – she is.

Tuesday – May 1, 2012

Happy May Day. I woke up in Schaumburg, Illinois.

Class went okay, but again I pushed them real had to make up for the shortened schedule. Most of them are doing okay. However, there is one person from Mexico who is struggling. I think it is more that he is struggling with the language. I find that he gets stuck at a point in the lab, but when I explain what is happening, he just moves on.

In the evening I went to the Chicago Temple for a session. I wasn't going to go, just because I was so tired. But I girded my loins and went. I am glad I did. There were only four of us in that session so they really needed my presence.

Ashamed I am – again. No exercise today.

Mar spent the day "holding the baby and folding the laundry". She was happy about it all.

Wednesday – May 2, 2012

I woke up in Schaumburg, Illinois.

Today we finished our first class on schematic capture – at noon. My people from Mexico and their manager really upset my schedule. They went to their home office in Carol Stream to "meet people". They promised they would be in by 8:45. At 9:30 they actually got there. I recovered by streamlining the lectures and the labs for the morning. I felt sorry for the non-English population of the class because I was talking very fast.

We started the second class on PCB Layout at 12:30. We added one more person from another company in Minnesota. He really already knows a lot about the software.

In the evening – well I did nothing much. And no, I did not exercise.

Mar did a little bit of shopping for Michael and Taylor – but most of the day was holding the baby. She never gets tired of that.

Thursday – May 3, 2012

I woke up in Schaumburg, Illinois.

Class proceeded at a quick pace. I kept them late again so I didn't leave work until after 6:00..
I didn't do much in the evening. I didn't exercise, but I did the next best thing. I took a nap. I have decided that this plan of exercising after work just doesn't work. I am too tired. However, we are starting the class so early I cannot exercise in the morning. I am burning a lot of calories.

Mar spent her day as she has spent every day this week – holding the baby. She says she is starting to feel like she is in the way – and then they express so much thanks that she is there to just help them and allow them to get a little bit of rest. Oh, how I remember new babies and how tired Mar and I were for the first few months. Keep up the faith, babies are worth it – up until the time they are teen agers. I guess I still like them then also.

In my reading this evening I finished the Book of Mosiah. I also finished Deuteronomy. Yep, I am reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon at the same time.

Friday – May 4, 2012

I woke up in Schaumburg, Illinois.

I informed the class that I wanted to be done by 4:00. They were all agreed to that. So we pushed ahead quickly through the remaining material. Then lunch came and the vice president for engineering came down to have lunch with his guys from Mexico. You can just imagine what that did to our momentum. Rather than the ½ hour lunch we had been taking, this one stretched to 1 ½ hours. So in the afternoon I pressed on very fast and guess what – at 4:00 I was done. The guy from Minnesota left and then the people from Carlo Stream stayed and talked – and talked – and talked. I just cleaned up the classroom around them. At 5:00 when they finally left, I was ready to go.

They all said they liked the class. They are having more training at the beginning of June and they hoped I would do that – but I told them it would not be me (cause that is a vacation for me). So the customer was satisfied. But I was not. I do not like these "teach it faster" classes. The customers don't know what they miss by not letting the instructors take time and really tell them things to be aware of and how things really work.

I left the office and drove to O'Hare airport. I have learned a route to the airport that avoids the highways and toll ways altogether – which is a good thing because the highways and toll ways often backup and are slower than taking my surface road route.

There are simple victories that happen when you travel. I got to the airport and got a better seat. Yea! I had time to try a new restaurant at the airport. Yea! My flight boarded on time and left on time (unlike the poor people who were trying to get to St. Louis and their flight was already 4 hours late and their plane was still in Connecticut. Yea! Yea! The flight went well.

I took a nice long walk in the Chicago O'Hare terminal – there is plenty of room to walk there – and I took a nice long walk in the Denver airport because I park half-way to Utah when I fly. I count that as exercise because so it is.

I got home about 12:30 PM – and guess what – I went to bed, but not without a little drama first. We asked the missionaries (Elder Epps and Elder Phillips) to stay at our house while we were gone. I was home so late that I was sure they would be in bed (which they were). Still I tried to be quiet so as to not wake them. Elder Epps chose that evening to have a hard time sleeping and he forgot that I was coming home on Friday evening. He heard me and was "worried" that a burglar or prowler had entered the house. He sneaked up to the kitchen and got some knives and started searching the house. He carefully knocked on the bedroom door and then it was that he discovered I was home. He went back to bed and so did I.

Mar spent the day "holding the baby". She is loving that.

Saturday – May 5, 2012

I woke up in my own bed at home. Still it was a little bit sad because Mar was still in Southern California.

I spent the morning doing yard work – mowing the lawn, watering the lawn, spraying pestilent weeds and trimming things. I also did all of my laundry. In the afternoon aI spent an hour doing some service, and then did some more yard work.

We did have one sad event that happened on while we were gone which we learned about of Saturday. We had a wind storm and the nest with four eggs in the wreath on our front porch was blown out and destroyed. It was very sad for both Mar and I. Still, the robin nest on the back porch is intact and well – in fact, we have baby robins. They are newly babies and are truly ugly creatures at this age. I risk life and limb to take a picture. That mother robin actually attacked me. She is a good mother.

The real focus of my day was on the time I was going to go back out to the airport to pick up Mar from her flight back home. Her flight was more adventurous because she had to fly "a little tiny airplane" from Ontario airport to Phoenix, and then catch a connecting flight back home. All went well, and I got my beautiful wife back at about 9:30 at night. I am glad she is home. I am glad I am home. She is glad she is home – but she missed the baby (and Michael and Taylor). It was a good trip for her.

On the way home to the airport, I finished a book on Tape – The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith. It is another of the "Number One Ladies Detective Agency "books. I will report on them later – but this is the fourth one I have listened to on tape – so you can guess that I really enjoy them.

Sunday – May 6, 2012

I went to a leadership meeting at 9:00 and 9:30. We then had Sacrament meeting, where Mar offered the invocation. Shortly after that she felt ill and nauseous so she went home. I stayed for Sunday School and Priesthood, but the life of a clerk does not let a person go to Sunday School or Priesthood with any regularity – or even at all.

We had an afternoon together. Mar took a nap and felt better afterwards. And then my employment got in the way.

I went back to the airport and caught a plane to Tucson, Arizona – where I will be for the next week. The flight went well and I arrived without incident. So next week, I get to wake up someplace other than home. This will make three weeks in a row on the road. But we count it as a blessing that I am able to support us well and help others in many ways.

But I wish I was able to stay home.