Well its been a while and I've been through a few cities and some pretty drama filled family situations since my last post. I'm not sure how well I will do at giving a recap so please bare with me as it may be a bit scattered.
I guess first I should pick up where I left off with regards to my new venture into the world of VW. At the last post I had gone through the training and was waiting to hear weather or not I had passed. Well, I PASSED! I received the formal phone call several days later to let me know that they were very pleased with my performance during the training class and wanted to make me an offer. This was welcome news because as far as I knew, when this tour that I am on now ends in November, I would be out of work again. That fact has been at the forefront of my mind for quite some time, so this bit of news was a HUGE relief.
I am excited about the new opportunity. VW is an awesome brand and I know some guys that are currently doing the same job that I have been offered and they love it. Of course I have the nervous stomach about taking on a new venture. I love new challenges, but even so I still get nervous.
So anyway, I've signed my contract and I will start work with them at the end of the tour that I am on now. Well, actually, I will start right away with training, product knowledge and job shadowing some of the guys that are already in the position. The good thing is that I can do all of this on a schedule that works around my current tour. I'm sure at some point, if I continue this "blogging" thing, I'll make a blog about the VW gig. We'll see.
With respects to the Main Street In Motion tour that I am on and where my schedule has taken me.
After the VW training it was back home for a few days to see my oldest son graduate. Hard to believe I have an 18 year old, but the fact is, I do. I was so proud of him. He really changed over the past year in a lot of good ways and Adrienne and I are so thankful that he has become the young man that he has. For his graduation present he got this truck.
Dylan loves the truck and its been an interesting time trying to tech him how to shift with a "three on the tree" transmition as well as dealing with no power steering and no power brakes. lol.
After my short time home it was back on the road and I was off to Aspen Colorado. Aspen was a beautiful place. I had never been to Aspen before and all I had ever seen of the place was on TV or in photographs. I was there at the end of May/early July and up at the Independence Pass (12, 095') there was still snow on the sides of the road that looked like it was 15' deep. I havent seen snow this deep since I was in Arjeplog, Sweden.
We were not on the Main Street tour in Aspen, we were doing a one off event at the Aspen Environmental Forum. It was a perfect place and perfect group of people to pitch the Volt to and let them take it for a drive. The people responded very well to the car and were very excited that they had the opportunity to drive it.
As a side bar, we were just around the corner from Lance Armstrong's house and at one point his kids as well as some of the neighbor kids had an old school lemonade stand out on the curb. They were selling lemonade for fifty cents a cup to raise money for the fight against cancer. Lance was out there for a short time as well, but I'm not a "ooh it's a celebrity" type person so I didn't bother him. He was having fun with is family. On the other hand, one of the guys that was working with me is a huge Lance fan and also an avid cyclist. When we went by and he learned that we had passed Lance and I failed to pint Lance out to him so that he could have his picture taken with him, he was not pleased. lol. We did go back a bit later but Lance was gone by the time we got back. Neal is not gonna let me live that one down.
Pic's from Aspen...............................
My hotel room
Volts staged for the drive
This old Jag was sitting in the parking lot
While in Aspen I was once again provided a 4x4 vehicle as a rental car. Well of course this meant I had to take it off road right? I mean duh, it's a 4x4 AND a rental! There's not a more off road capable vehicle on the planet is there?
I asked one of the locals if there were any off asphalt roads that I could explore nearby. I was told about a road that went up "Smuggler Mountain" and it was very close to my hotel.
The first time I went up I went alone and I went up again one other time with Darren. There were a lot of people that hike up this road as well as mountain bike. At first I was afraid I was gonna get ugly looks from the locals for coming up this road in this full size Chevy 4x4 and disrupting there hiking and riding. However, it couldn't have been a more opposite experience. The hikers, joggers and riders were VERY nice. They didn't seem to have an issue at all with me treading on there turf. The ride up was fun. It wasn't too aggressive but it did require a bit of delicacy at times to get over the large rocks and negotiate some of the turns.
smuggler mountain pictures.......................
The view of the sunset from atop Smuggler Mountain was great
Darren insisted I take this picture of him. lol.
Back home for a few days and life is good. I love getting out with my boys and playing basketball in the driveway. I missed out on so much due to my previous job and how I let it consume every part of my life. Now I look forward to the time I get to spend with them shooting ball or just talking. Gosh I wish I could get some time back. Ya know, you can make more money, you can get another house or another car. You can get new clothes, you can get new stuff. But you absolutely CAN NOT get time back. When it's gone it's gone. And all too often, especially us guys, we get overly wrapped up in our jobs and making money, and we lose so much time with our families in the process. Of course this is nothing new and even I had herd the old sayings like "A man on his death bed never says, I wish I had one more day at work". But MAN it is so easy to get caught up in trying to build your career or make enough money to obtain "things". When the reality is that the "things" that really matter are usually at home while you're at the office working. It's a delicate yet oh so important balance that too many of us get wrong and now that I realize that, I'm trying to get a better balance. It may seem like having a job that requires travel would have the opposite effect for what I'm looking for, but so far that's not the case. I have a lot of time at home and when I am home, I'm home.
And obviously we play with the goal lowered. It just makes it more fun :-)
Lol. They like to play in their slides and all to often they lose one or both of them.
The next city on the Main Street tour in NY. I was staying in Flushing, NY. Now, if you've never been to Flushing, well, you're not missing much. I was staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Flushing. The hotel was nice enough. Certainly more than I expected from the area in which it was located.
The driving event was taking place at Citi Field and the route for the Volt was by far one of the most interesting yet. One of the streets we had to go down was basically a row of chopshops. The traffic in and out of these shops was insane and the drivers had very little regard for what we were doing.
This location was also close to where my Uncle Tommy lives on Long Island. I made arrangements to go to his house and have dinner. It was great to see him and my aunt Brenda as well as other family members that I hadn't seen since I was very little or had never met at all.
My uncle Tommy is a man that changed my life for the better. I went to stay with him for a short period when I was young and I learned a lot from him in a very short period of time. I wont go into all the details, I will just say that it was literally a life experience that followed me from the time I was twelve years old and still guides some of my decisions to this very day. I had the opportunity some time ago to tell my uncle just what an impact he had on my life. It was what I felt to be, a rare opportunity to let someone know just how they have impacted your life. You know, kind of like if you had a teacher that had a great impact on your life and you get to go back as an adult and let that teacher know what they had done for you. The strange thing was, as I started to tell my uncle, I realized I couldn't find the words to describe what I was trying to tell him, but somehow I think he understood.
I didn't get to do any sightseeing in NY and no off roading, however, driving in the traffic was AWESOME! I love driving in NY. It's like survival of the fittest. You get in wheer you fit in or you get left behind. So fun, but only as a visit, I wouldn't want to live it.
The event in NY went great. The people were supper nice and did a great job driving our "challenging" route.
On the final night Darren and I went to a Chinese place to eat. It seemed like a sketchy place, especially when we were told to go to the basement to eat, but we figured what the heck. It wasn't the greatest of environments, but not the worst either. In reviewing the menu they had some pretty interesting options like: Intestines and duck blood with sour cabbage or stir fried kidneys in brown sauce.
I didn't go for either of those, but I did have the Stir fried duck tongue with cayenne chili.
These pictures are a little hard to see due to the lighting in the basement and my poor camera phone. The mess on the plate is my duck tongue dish and te thing in the chopsticks is a duck tongue.
Let me just tell you, That's the last duck tongue I'm ever having. It was not a pleasant meal. I did eat about twelve of them to see if I could acclimate, but no...it wasn't happening.
A couple NY pics.....................
Flying into Laguardia, NY
View from my room in Flushing, NY
Back home after NY and looking forward to several days off and hanging with the family. I had a total of 8 days at home this time and only had a couple of thing scheduled to do.
There was some interesting family drama that took place that I'll refrain from sharing on here, but it took a pretty heavy toll on my wife and her family.
One of the days that I was home, Gabe and I took the drift car to Carolina Motorsports Park. I was heading down there anyway to work a corporate program that afternoon, so we used the morning as a test session for the car. The car did great UNTIL something let go in the engine AGAIN! SO FRUSTRATING! The engine was built with great parts and by reputable people. We still arent sure what happened because we haven't gotten the engine apart yet. All we know is that it started to make a rattle in the bottom end and there were small shiny metal flakes in the oil on the dipstick, not good! Gabe is taking the engine out tomorrow and should know more soon. He also already has an LS2 replacement engine that he will be dropping in this week. We currently have a lightly modded LS1 so the LS2 should be comparable to what we had.
Video from CMP............................
Pics from CMP...............................
I also spent a lot of time playing basketball with the boys at night. So much fun.
Adrienne was working a good bit trying to finish up a huge deal she sold and she finally finished. Dylan had been going to work with her to help get things installed and I even went one day to help. But she's finally finished with the hard part. Now I hope she can chill a bit. It's great to hang with her at night and watch TV and/or talk. There is nothing quite like sharing your life with your best friend. I can tell my wife ANYTHING and we can talk about anything. I know I still have a long way to go in order to be the husband I should, but I know that I will get there and there is no better motivation for me that to simply make her happy.
And now, I am in Washington DC. Our tour is being held at FedEx field, home of the Redskins. It has been an interesting start to the program due to our trailer not showing up until early in the morning of the day the event started. But once we got set up and rolling, things went great.
The weather has been crazy humid. The temp was 88˚ but the heat index was 93˚. You would think I would be used to it considering I live in South Carolina, but nope, it's just plain 'ol hot.
One of the guy on the Volt team, Kai, is a photographer and we went into DC one evening so he could show me how to take night shots. It's something I hadn't figured out yet, so his hep was much appreciated. We got a few cool pictures and I can wait to shoot more night pictures.
DC pictures.................................There are a lot of pictures of ducks. Not because I like ducks, it was just that they would let you get right up to them.
Having fun with night shots. The streak is a plane that flew over while taking the picture.
Tonight myself, Kai and Darren went to diner. On the way back we swing through the city so that Darren could see some of the sights.
We had a good time checking out the city. This was my third time into the city this week, think iIm over it. I'm ready to be back on the calm streets of South Carolina.
Air force Memorial
We swung by the pentagon
Playing around with long exposures while moving the camera lol.
Then I started taking pictures of random people as the drove by. lol. I blurred their faces on purpose.
And now your up to speed on this new life I'm leading. It's been one of the most difficult yet best times of my life and I can't wait to see how God uses me in the future. We have a mission trip coming up at the first of July that I am really looking forward to and I am sure I will be blogging about that trip as well.
Until the next post I'll leave you with this:
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews13:5
JM
