Random

I’ve been pretty silent on the bloggong front for the last month.  It was partly due to me not having a lot of time, but I also didn’t have a lot to blog about for a while.  When I was travling in Atlanta there really wasn’t much to write home about: I worked all day, ate like a king every night (which was pretty bad), and did the same routine for 2 weeks.  I did manage to see the Aquarium they have out there – it was pretty sweet.

I also went out to LA for the Religious Education Congress and had a good time as well.  I came back and got my butt kicked at school for missing two weeks, but it was expected.  Now we’re on Spring Break, which gives me a little study time to prepare for the rest of the semester.

Today begins my two weeks on the road, traveling first to Atlanta for business.  Originally I opted to leave on the President’s Day holiday in hopes that I could get into Atlanta at a decent time, and be checked-in so that I could watch 24.  Unfortunately, it looks like that’s not going to be happening.

This morning I left a little early to have breakfast, but after that everything that could go wrong did go wrong in terms of delays – from the restaurant taking forever, to traffic being bad, to bad parking, to the stupid automated check-in not taking my  reservation (because it was too late and told me to go to the desk).  After waiting in line for 20 minutes, it was obvious that I was not going to make my flight.  Right now I am on standby and if all goes well I will be departing Denver at 7pm and arriving at 12am.  This wasn’t exactly the way I had hoped to start off my trip.  Argh…

Update: Well being on stand-by was no help for the 7pm flight.  Now I am stuck on the 11:59pm flight, which will put me in the ATL by 5am.   Not exactly happy with it, but at least I’m guaranteed a seat. I’m just glad that I managed to find some free Wi-Fi on the B Concourse at DIA.

The official word has come in that I’m going to be doing some traveling in February for work.  In my role I normally don’t travel for work, but it this looks like it’s going to be a great opportunity.  Working on a virtual team, I always love an opportunity for a face-to-face with my teammates.

However, there’s a pretty big wrench thrown in – I’ll be traveling for two weeks.  Worse yet, this trip is going to be back-to-back with my LA Congress trip I previously scheduled.  I’m going to be out of town for 2 straight weeks.

Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, but this absence is going to deal a crippling blow to my class schedule.  Missing four class sessions in a semester is always a bad thing, and it becomes worse when they’re consecutive absences.

I’m trying to be proactive about this, and hopefully that will pay off.  Right now I’m emailing my instructors with hopes that they’ll have enough advanced notice to accommodate this situation.  The other advantage is that I’m traveling to Atlanta, so it’s not like I’ll have an abundance of activity at night.  I’ll probably be able to devote 3-4 hours to homework each night, plus an entire weekend to play catch-up.

Right now it’s a bit nerve-racking.  This is an exciting opportunity, but it couldn’t come at a worse time.

It’s not technically Monday morning, and in a few hours we begin another busy week!  I was hoping that this weekend was going to offer some time to unwind, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.

Saturday morning was spent with family time and errands, then finished with drumming at church.  We spent some extra time practicing this week getting ready for the Nigerian Mass they’re going to have.  It’s been a lot of fun swapping out some of my traditional drum set components for African drums.  Originally I was dreading the musical change of pace.  After practicing some of the songs, I’m really excited about it.  If you’re going to be in Fort Collins on Saturday the 28, you should come to the 5:15 Mass at Bl. John XXIII.  It’s going to be a blast!

I logged in some quality family time Saturday night, which was spent planning a Vegas trip in May, as well as getting some time on the Wii.  It’s funny how popular the Wii – a video game system – has become with my family.  My sister who hates video games, always insists that I bring the Wii over when she comes up.

Sunday was the big gig for Greenfoot, which turned out to be a pretty long day.  I woke up to a little snow on the ground up in Fort Collins, which I found was a lot of snow in Denver and along the interstate.  The trip down was pretty long, and put all of us into a weird funk.  I don’t know if the snow just seemed discouraging (dissuading fans from coming to the show), or if the cold threatened our musical chops – but it just starting things off on tough footing.  The weather turned it into a slow day at the bar, and it didn’t help that we were screwed out of some of our stage time.  The soundguy apparently was late, which pushed everyone back a half-hour.  While the first act was on, he approached us and said that he would have to shorten our stage time by 1/3.  Having little choice, we accepted.  Looking back, I’m disappointed and a little pissed about it.  We got to the bar 90 minutes before we were scheduled to be on stage, and when we saw the snow we left earlier to make sure we were on time.  Yet it was our group that was punished for having our set list chopped.

We also encountered some instrument difficulty during our show (broken string), but in the end we recovered quickly and got back into the groove.  I’m grateful to my friends that came out and supported us, and hope they’ll come back when we don’t encounter all of these hardships.

I passed the time on the rough drive home by listening to the Colts/Pats game, and Bethany and I made it home in time to catch the 4th quarter.  It was an amazing comeback and with no dog in the fight, I’m really glad to see the Colts go to the Superbowl.  I like Payton Manning and want to see him get a ring.  I was also hoping they would match up with the Saints, but it looks like we’ll have to settle for a Bears matchup (which isn’t bad either).  It should be a great game in two weeks!

Most of all, I loved to see Tom Brady and “Hoodie” Belichick pout on the sidelines after the game.  Part of the reason I was rooting hard for the Colts was because I didn’t want to see the Pats head to another Super Bowl and begin 2 weeks of “greatest team of all time” talks again.  The Pats are good and they have a great system, but these guys couldn’t be sorer losers about the whole thing.  Hoodie showed a lack of class when he tapped (or shoved) Payton Manning after Manning sought him out in the sea of cameramen to shake his hand after the game.  Give me a break!

Oh, and amidst all of the weekend activity, I didn’t do any homework.  Hello Monday!

The first week of school has been brought to a close, and with it all of my time has essentially vanished.  It’s been a tough adjustment from having a lot of free time to now having virtually no free time.  I had a lot of random ideas that I wanted to blog about, but couldn’t create the time to sit in front of the computer to do that. I’m going to try to get a little better about it and see how things go, but I can’t make any promises.  Thanks for your patience!