new path

Well here starts the next leg of a lot of traveling. I know I haven’t kept up on this site so here it goes while I wait to board in southwest Fl back north. 

If you didn’t already know I’m moving to Chicago taking a great job opportunity. This is going to be a HUGE change for me. I’ve been in northern MI for over 16 years and this move to the windy city will be an interesting new chapter.

So here’s the tentative schedule. I fly back to GR from SW FL today, drive back to TC, pick up the uhaul trailer, load up tonight, finish last min packing, then head to Chi-town early the next morning. My hope is me and my friend will have it unloaded within a couple hours, so I can return the trailer by early evening/ late afternoon. 

One of the shows Lisa and I would watch on Food Network was Dinners, Drive-Ins and Dives. We used to think it would be soo cool to visit some of the places on the show. Well, this week I’m in Denver for a conference and had the opportunity to visit one of those places. Tue morning I had a very good breakfast at Sam’s No 3 in downtown Denver. I don’t remember seeing this episode but let’s just say it lived up to the reputation. I think I will make another stop before I leave. 

I know it’s been awhile but heck, I have time to pass until we start boarding. This was sunset last night from Gilchrist Park, the weather was nice and I couldn’t pass up taking this pic.

If you didn’t guess I’ve been visiting good ole southwest Florida again. This has been the longest trip I’ve here in a while, week and a half. In the past the max has been 4 or 5 days. The reason for this trip wasn’t to relax. The weather was on the warm side ... average high 80s - low 90s ... which made it hard since I didn’t make it to the beach.

Sounds like they’re starting the boarding process soon so I’ll make it short. In a nutshell making all the arrangements so I can manage mom’s affairs takes a lot of work and time. I probably could of stayed here a few more days to get more done.

First of I probably should change the tagline above on the site and remove "recently". It's hard to believe it's been about 2yrs since Lisa past.

So the "sigh" image isn't because of the 2 yr anniversary of Lisa's passing, although I'm sure that adds to it, As I'm typing this I'm at the gate in Ft Myers waiting for my flight back to the tundra is Michigan. This has been a very short trip (flying in Sunday and flying back Wed) and was for all intensive purposes unplanned and all work.When I say work I don't mean my day job, I mean family business work.

I was just here visiting family in Florida about a month ago. At the tail end of that trip my mom hit me with just the tip of the iceberg of her situation. Without going into all the details she is learning a hard lesson in the realities of retirement. 

So I have been here for the last couple days making appointments, helping her fill out paperwork, and making a new plan for her going forward. I am nowhere near where I would like things to be progressing but we did make some headway. Living 2k miles away doesn't make this easy but I don't think either one of us moving either north or south is the answer right now.

<insert deep breath>..... sigh......

I find it fascinating to read other people's experience with cancer or someone who has a loved one going through it. A few weeks ago I came across this blog. As sad as this loss is, from the sounds of it they made the best of the few days they had together.

The fact that I lost Lisa about this time 2 years ago is not lost on me.

So last weekend ended up being quite the adventure that covered five states in the span of a little over two days. If it was just a little earlier in the season it could of been a long color tour.

Let's go back to where this started. My friend has been shopping for a new car over the past few weeks since selling the previous one. They ended up finding the perfect fit ... about an hour south of Boston.

So here came the idea ... fly to Boston early Fri eve ... hang out in Boston for a bit ... drive down and crash at the hotel ... next morning get the new car (a lot of prep for the new car like financing and ironing out the details was done ahead of time) ... drop the rental off back in Boston ... enjoy the city for a few hours before needing to get back on the road back to Northern MI.

That is pretty much the short version of how it went down. We left MI at about 5p-ish ... landed in Boston at bour 9p-ish ... about an hour of shuttle and paperwork at the rental car place ... then at about 10:30p we found a spot to spend a couple hours in Boston. 

Fri night's spot was a small place called Lord Hobo's in Cambridge. Definitely a college hang out based on demographic but still a cool place for very little research. By about midnight made the drive south 45 min to Rayhnam and crashed for the night.

The next morning went to the car dealership where the car was obtained ... then driving back to Boston to drop off the car.  We then spent maybe 3 hours having a late lunch at a pretty cool cafe ( I don't remember the name but it was a block from the common park) and walking around the city. As is with driving in any city ... it's just frustrating ... construction doesn't help. It was also a beautiful day at about 65 degrees ... so it was busy out. I wish we could of stayed the night but we both had to get back to work that following Monday morning.

So then came the start of the drive back. We started at about 4pm-ish. Our first stop was in Syracuse at about 9:30p-ish for a late dinner. It was a cool city and Empire Brewing is definitely a place I would like to visit again.

From there I used the power of the internet to book a hotel in Buffalo. So we powered through towards Buffalo ... which was about 2 hrs from where we were. I was never glad to see a city I never been too when we saw the signs for Buffalo on I-90 because it was about 1am-ish by this time.

I ended up booking at an Embassy Suits because of price. When we drove up I thought ... I better get the price I reserved at because this looks like it could get more expensive. When I walk up to the desk they don't have my reservation but do have rooms ... at that hour I just said I already paid but need a room. They were very accommodating and after explaining the trip we're making gave me a complementary upgrade on the room.

When we got to the room it ended up being a huge suite with a view.The complimentary breakfast was also nice. We were soo tired but finally gathered ourselves up and left Buffalo by 11a that Sunday. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. Some pretty colors along the way between MA, NY, PA, and OH. We made one more small stop in Ann Arbor for a late lunch / early dinner at Panera Bread ... then back north. 

In all it was a fun yet very compact weekend. I just wish I had more time to spend at each place. It will be travel time again in a couple weeks. I'll be heading down to FL for a quick trip to visit mom,

Oh man ... where do I start. I'm coming off probably my most crazy weeks at work and somehow fitting in USTA state championships for mixed doubles. 

So I guess I'll start with work. This year has been especially crazy with one hectic project after another. So the past couple weeks has been filled with getting the telecom infrastructure in place for our new Colorado office. I had the hair-brained idea to stand up a more Avaya red system than the our current formerly Nortel infrastructure since that's the direction Avaya is going and this would start laying a good foundation to migrate to going forward. I knew the expected delivery dates from the business were a little crazy but when I was just starting to register phones to the new system thinking I had a few weeks to test and get right I was told I had to get phones functioning for outbound calls the following Monday, I found out on Friday. So I got on our vendor's project manager pretty hard and we were able to deliver. It was sloppy because of the time frame but it happened.

The next step was to start standing up the call center servers up. We hired out a pretty sizable vendor for this project because of time frame. Even though I thought the expected completion dates were pretty close I thought we "might" be able to meet them. The problem is I'm green to some of these systems and have to rely on the vendor for assistance. In addition to that the vendor contracted out a few other companies to do bits and pieces of the project. Nothing like three different companies coming at you at you at the same time with their requirements and finding the internal resources to make it happen. 

So here I am after a couple months of talking about it .... two weeks of in the thick of juggling 5 jagillion tasks .... 9 servers stood up ... some info from the 2 months of talking not completely jiving to the doing ... now waiting on a certain company to go through their process before I can close this out and have true call center call routing in place for this Colorado call center.

In all I'm exhausted and probably why I have this head cold I'm fighting off the past couple days.

Let's move on to tennis. As I wrote back in July I was asked to be part of a mixed doubles league. I have never done that competitively before so I thought why not. As I have had the opportunity to play more mixed it's such a different game. The ball mostly goes to the female player because the thought it they are the weaker player and the guy has to get in there to win. So we ended up losing a close meet to qualify for state championships ... well about 3 - 4 weeks before state's our captain lets us know the winning team couldn't go so we get to. My brain had pretty much shifted away from league or competitive play so that was an adjustment. 

So this past weekend we made a weekend of it and stayed with friends which happen to live 10 min from the facility states was being held ... super convenient. We basically played the other 2 division team winners, s.e. michigan (so Detroit area) and west michigan (so local for GR). Our first match was at 8am Sunday ... first off I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON ... so playing that early is not ideal for me. Second, the s.e. michigan team REALLY wanted to win and advance to sectionals.

Incidentally sectionals would be this weekend in Indiana. So spoilers ... glad we didn't advanced.

So the morning match was odd because the other team was SUPER competitive and really .... how do I say this .... the complete opposite of balanced. The guy was probably a low 4.0 player (I consider myself a solid to high 3.5 player) and his female partner was probably 3.0 to 3.5. Mind you this is supposed to be a 7.0 league (so the combined rating of both players). So my partner and me are both 3.5's.

Oh yeah ... unbalanced .... during warm up when we're all at the baseline I mishit one ground stroke and it bounced near the other team's female player. She immediately shouts out .... YOU TRYING TO HIT ME ALREADY?! .... sigh I think. The male on the other team is loud and complaining to everyone how dim the lights were ... it's true they were but REALLY .... did you think they would change it for you at that moment?

The guy on the other team starts doing what I thought ... hitting most shots to my female partner ... but he was NAILING them at her. At one point he hit an overhead at the net right at her when she was just behind the service line ... she ended up falling just to get out of the way. 

So I had to respond by hitting every shot at their female partner. I didn't try to hit her just good shots I knew she would have trouble with. That strategy didn't sit well with the guy ... on a change over he yells at her ...DON'T LET THEM TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOU! .... Yikes, talk about not having fun out there. In addition to calling a lot of my shots out.

In all we lost that morning match and didn't have our 2nd one until 1:30p. That afternoon match was soo night and day in comparison. The other team was polite yet competitive. Unfortunately we lost in a close 3 set, well 2 set and tie-break instead of 3rd set match with a score of 6-7 (6-8), 6-2, 1-0 (10-8). In all it was fun to see some friends and mix a little tennis in.

The last time I posted I was recovering from a pretty severe calf strain and unable to make the next meet for the men's tennis league. Well long story short our team won but because of other team member injury we were forced to forfeit. A real bummer but that's what happens when you don't have more than just the minimum number of players.

As for the injury I'm all healed up and have been hitting the tennis court regularly. I even agreed to be in a mixed tennis league and we have our match this Saturday. Even though I'm able to run and play I am, to a degree, acutely aware of every pain in my legs. I don't want to ignore those pains and pull something. I hope Sat goes well but it's all doubles so less running.

The next big change was to move out of the apartment I had been in for nearly 7 years. The opportunity to move out and save some money came up and financially it didn't make sense to commit to another year lease. The whole process of having a moving sale, selling and unloading a lot of my things, and moving was such an experience. It was soo weird to see it empty since I haven't seen it that way since we first moved in.

Work is continuing to be a challenge. Projects and priorities seem to shift like the wind so I guess I'm getting good at rolling with the changes and trying to do the best I can. Work is work, I love what I do and do get frustrated with it sometimes but at the end of the day and grand scheme of things the little stuff doesn't matter. So make the best of it. 

It's crazy to see life unfold before me. I would never guess today is where I would be a couple years ago. Even though I'm still trying to figure "it" out and believe God for that next step and wisdom to make that next decision I'm trying not to just let it all just happen. Life isn't a straight line and sometimes you not only have to appreciate the journey but be mindful of the road signs and turn along the way.

Below was the view I got while spending a long and relaxing weekend on Siesta Key.

This pic was taken at sunset the last night I was there. Unlike last year's trip to Siesta with friends this year was more chill and a much needed break and getaway from day-to-day. I was also able to visit mom for Easter which is a rare occurrence to visit on any holiday. That trip brought it's own set of stresses I'll leave for another post.

I was able to take some of Lisa's ashes with me. I was able to cast out those remains into Charlotte Harbor at Gilchrest Park. Honestly that gesture was more for me than anything but I'm glad I was able to make that happen. 

The trip down to FL was fine because I was able to break it up. 4 hr drive to Detroit the night before, 1 night hotel stay, then flight the next morning. On the way back was rough. Early flight (7am) out of Tampa so that meant get up REALLY early from Siesta, return car, and to airport in enough time. When we got to Detroit at 10a-ish grab some breakfast. For some reason at the time it sounded like a good idea to check out Ikea. 

I've heard rumors of said superstore of everything you could need for their home.

Let's just say it was a bit overwhelming after traveling and getting up so early. Needless to say the 4 hr drive back felt like it was never going to end.

So the work week was really short for me and I was able to not only keep old projects moving but be productive on somethings down the pipe.

This past weekend was the first meet for the tennis league I'm in. Our team competed in Bay Harbor 2 matches Sat and 2 on Sunday. The good news is as a team we swept the weekend 4-0 and my individual result was 3 out of 4 wins for the whole weekend.

Saturday I won a long 1st singles match in 2 1/2 hours 4-6, 7-6, 10-5(10-point tie break in lieu of a full 3rd set). The afternoon was a pretty easy doubles win that took about an hour 6-0, 6-2.

Sunday morning capt once again put me in singles for the morning match. This time I was against which seemed to be their best singles player. I kept up with the kid even getting some good easy service points, a few winners, and down right barely out-running him. In the end he won the points that mattered (deuce & ad points) as I lost 2-6, 2-6. It was fun but too many errors and giving him just a few too many easy shots to nail back. The afternoon match is where it gets somewhat interesting. 

I originally told capt I would play either singles or doubles but would prefer not to play singles. Luckily he put me in doubles. So we start out well leading 5-1 in the 1st set. Then I injure myself straining a calf muscle. I can no longer run and honestly not very mobile. Then I think, this team isn't that strong let's see if I can close out this set ... and we do 6-1.

Then I think to myself .... if I play smart by standing either a little behind the service line or literally kissing the net I might getaway with this. Low and behold we were able to pull off a win 6-1, 6-2! I thought a couple times they figured it out hitting a couple drop shots and lobs I wouldn't move for but I could still server (with tons of spin and no knee bend) and balls were landing to where I could either hit a decent ground stroke or volley to finish it off.

In all it was worth the win for the effort. Afterwards I felt it and having a hard time walking. So today and most of yesterday afternoon has been alternating heat and now ice today along with rest to keep weight off that leg.

So I've made the decision to leave the apartment I have been in for the past 5 years -ish to downsize and save some monies. I absolute love the location, view, and space but I realize it just doesn't make sense to sign yet another year lease (..for even more in rent). 

This past week I've been posting the bigger furniture on Craigslist. Although I shouldn't be completely surprised stuff has been selling like hot cakes. (As if there is some global shortage on hot cakes ... and if so .. this must be addressed!)

In the course of selling the things I have a small mess on my hands, and I don't like clutter. Combine with the the stress of moving and dredging up some emotions because I am going through some of Lisa's things ... let's just say it's been an interesting week.

My brain has already started plotting all the endless possibilities to work through stuff. Did I mention I have a FL getaway planned from a month ago this Wed which I will be gone for about 5 days. Then when I get back the following weekend a tennis tournament for league, then in May scheduled a tooth to be pulled.

I know it will all work out and for the most part feels right. I just wish I wasn't juggling so many other things but then again ... when would I or anyone not be. Life doesn't stop just because you have an event or plans. Just more "stuff" to work through.

If I sit and think about it I my brain will have a tendency to overload with "possibilities" or how I "should" be doing things. For instance, tennis league, I would prefer to be more fit by now but I'm not. I know what I needed to do to get to that point and in reality I don't know how I would of fit it in my schedule. The good news is I did play a lot of tennis this winter.

So part of me really wants to rant about: work yesterday, that I didn't leave until 3am this morning/last night after getting there at 3pm, that some weren't nearly as prepared as they should've been ... but I'm not going to do that :p 

The past few weeks have been just crazy. Somehow I came down with a cold/flu the last couple days after taking a class at home for 2 weeks. Which left me in a nyquil induced state last Sunday. Yesterday's work was a big project so last week was all about getting prepped, in addition to other projects and day-to-day activities. I even took off from tennis last week to "rest" and be ready.

I sometimes chose humor internally (and externally) to deal with difficult situations. Encountering a challenge can sometimes be easier if not taken too seriously.  I blame my dad for that because I either saw dad approach things with humor or upset , so I try to chose the former.

Today marks one year that my wife went home to be with the Lord. Part of me feels like I should reflect and have something insightful or profound to say but I honestly don't.  Maybe it's because I've spent most of the past year trying move forward.  Maybe it's my personality that doesn't like to dwell on the negative too long. Maybe I'm slightly numb emotionally because of who I'm around today. Now don't get me wrong, I do spend time processing and dealing with emotions from time to time and I do miss her very much. 

Part of me is sitting here watching the tons of snow that has fallen and sad that Lisa isn't here to see how pretty it looks. Then there is the part of me that is glad I'm not bitter and alone for this holiday. I'm sure there is much more to be processed as we move into Christmas and New Years.