I could be back to Portland soon

My employment has changed somewhat over the last few months, but not really much has changed for my job. At the end of March, Unicom was bought by the Eschelon Telecom, Inc. We had learned a few weeks earlier that another company was about to buy out Eschelon. The new company was Integra Telecom. We had several months of meetings and announcements of the impending buy-out. The merger closed on August 31st, 2007. I am now an Integra Telecom employee working out of the Unicom office.
For a while it was a possibility that I might be able to stay in Bend and work for a local network and computer repair/consulting company call AccTech Solutions, Inc. This would have been great and would have put me right on track for doing what I went to school for. They would have helped me to get and/or finish my certifications towards becoming a Network Engineer. As it came down to it, they were in need of a Cisco Engineer, and I did not have those skills yet. They found someone that did.
So as it turns out, Integra has their support staff in Vancouver, WA. They told me shortly after the buy-out that they would have some openings there as things began to settle down. Most likely next spring. Last week I was told by my supervisor that they are going to need someone there much sooner, probably before the end of November. I told my supervisor I was ready to go whenever they would like. Living in Vancouver would be great. I'll most likely get a nice raise, and if I live in Vancouver, no more state income tax. (So kind of another raise) I'll be back close to family again and Ican keep up with all my nieces & nephews who I miss a bunch.
I moved back from Reno just in time for Shirey's wedding last time. This time I might have moved back in time for Rosanne's.
Other than work, nothing much has happened here. I did have a great Birthday though. Chris Angie, and Pria got here the Friday night before. We went out to the Roadhouse Grill and got to throw peanut shells on the floor. The next morning we ate at Shari's (I think) and went looking for a camera shop. Got to see quite a bit of Bend. We went and saw Tumalo Falls that afternoon. Angie took a bunch of, I'm sure, great pictures. We soaked our feet in the freezing cold water down below the bridge. Angie is the champion for leaving her feet in the longest. We got back in the Yeti and drove back to town and relaxed the late afternoon away.
We had some tacos for dinner at my cousin Randy's and then made our way to Pilot Butte to watch the sunset. Pria had fun running all around the top of it. Angie made fun of all the people using a flash when trying to take pictures of the sunset. We stayed well past sunset and watched as the lights of Bend began to come on. Angie took many more pictures. (I hope to see some when I'm back in town.) Back at the hotel we ate some snacks while waiting for my parents to get in to town.
They got to their hotel about 11 that night. On my drive home I decided to stop by. We talked and got caught up and then the next morning we met out at Jake's Diner for breakfast with Chris, Angie, and Pria. No one went away hungry.
Glinda and Keith got into town just as we were finishing up. C, A, & P had to head back so Chris could go to work. The rest of us went for a nice drive around following "The Lakes" loop. Got back that evening and drove to Redmond for my Birthday dinner. We ate at Madeline's Mexican Restaurant. Best Mexican food in the area. Glinda and Keith were just here for the day so they headed back after dinner.
I took Mom & Dad up to Pilot Butte but we got there just after sunset. I was a little cloudy which made a beautiful sunset. Dad started talking to a guy and he had their camera with all their pictures from their Alaskan trip. Surprisingly the guy went through all 240+ pictures. The next morning we went to church. The Bend Stake was being reorganized and Elder Scott was there to officiate. Afterwards we had some lunch and went to the High Desert Museum. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I would have enjoyed it better not being in my Sunday clothes, but it was a lot of fun. Definitely would like to go back again. Mom and Dad headed back after that. I made it over to Randy's for our usual Sunday dinner/movie night. Got a good night sleep and was back to work Monday morning. A busy weekend, but a lot of fun.
I'll be happy back close to family again. I'll keep you all informed of when that might be. See ya.

Oh, great. This is going to be like shooting baskets with Magic Johnson watching. [Bill Pullman on watching Independence Day with President Clinton]

I hope that you had a good Independence Day Celebration. I spent most of the day trying to beat the heat. I rolled into town that afternoon to get a bite to eat and had a little excitement of my own. My car has been making some awful sounds and I couldn't find where it was coming from. Well I finally found out. While waiting in line at the Bell my car started screeching and getting louder. There was nothing much I could do while stuck in line. I made it through and drove down the road to where I could pull off. Popped the hood and still couldn't tell. I figured I better get back home. About two blocks later I heard a thump and all went quiet, all except the engine, and it sounded normal. I came to a stop sign and then started to turn towards home and the power steering wasn't working. I figured my power steering pump had gone out. I strong-armed my way towards home and gave Randy a call. Told him the issue and he said we could fix it this Saturday. He was online and quickly gave me the bad news as to how much it world cost me. $85 for the pump and a $45 core charge. I wasn't happy about that, but at least I could get my car running right again.

I got home and ate my lunch and continued to try to beat the heat. I had my fan on high trying to circulate the air and help me survive the afternoon. I didn't want to run my computer as it puts out quite a bit of heat on its own. So I tried reading. I got a couple chapters read but started falling asleep in my chair but would wake every few minutes to wipe the sweat off my face. That wasn't working so I broke out the laptop. It puts out heat but not as much as my other. Played a bit of Simpson's Hit and Run until it was almost 10. I had heard that Bend had the largest fireworks display in Oregon and they set it off from the top of Pilot Butte, an old cinder cone in the middle of Bend. You can see it from any high point in the city and from the lookout you can see all of Bend.

The fireworks started at 10 and so I took off and drove to the Forum ( A shopping center not far from the butte) There were quite a few others in lawn chairs watching the show. While I was parking I noticed some lights on the south side of the butte and thought they might be having some kind of display/show going on there. Turns out the fireworks caught the butte on fire. News report says about 3 acres. I heard also that it was about 6 acres. They had fire crews on hand so It was under control/out at about midnight. The fireworks though were preety good. When the big ones went off it shook the ground. It took about 3 seconds from when they burst until the sound reached us and echoed off the buildings, setting off a few car alarms.

Back to my car, when I got to the forum I noticed some steam coming out from my car. I popped the hood and the serpentine belt was loose. There wasn't much I could do there and the car had cooled off fine, but I waited until the traffic was pretty much gone and drove home, which is only 5 min from the Forum. I woke up early this morning as I wasn't sleeping too well anyways. It was about 5:30 and I kept wondering what I should do about my car. I still wasn't exactly sure what the problem was. My mind kept going in a loop and I wasn't going back to sleep, so I got dressed, grabbed my tools, and went out to check the car.

It was 6 am and still nice and cool (I wish it was in the house). The sun was up and I had plenty of light to work. I could see the belt had off of the pulleys and one of them was very loose and wasn't turning too easily. I wasn't sure what it controlled and thought to go get my laptop and see what I could find online. I eased the hood shut and shut the car's door and reached into my pocket...no keys, I had just locked them in and I had locked the house door on my way out. I guess someone else would be getting an early start too. I walked up to the door, turned around and started back to my car. I didn't want to have to wake Delores up. Changed my mind again and rang the doorbell. The house doesn't have a regular doorbell with a simple ding-dong, it's a rapid bell almost like a buzzer and easily wakes you out of a sound sleep. I stood and waited putting on the most apologetic face I could. Silence at first, and then her dog Buster started yipping, soon he was barking, and shortly after that she came to the door. I apologized and she mumbled about getting up anyways to open the doors to let in some cool air.

I got my spare keys and my laptop and made my way back outside, checking to see if I could find what the part is that's loose. I couldn't find anything that resembled it, checking several parts stores, google images, anything that I could think of. No luck. I gave up and decided to close up the car, but first wanted to see if I could get the belt back on and confirm my suspicions. It took me a couple minutes to figure it out and got it back on. I started up the car and the squealing was back but I also had my power steering. I shut it off and went back inside. Tried finding the part again and not succeeding. I still had a couple more hours before I actually had to get up and so tried gong back to sleep and succeeded marginially.

I got up and got ready for work, in fact I was running about 1/2 hour earlier than I normally do. I went out to my car debating as to whether I should call in or go ahead and drive. I chose the latter. The car squealed as I drove off. I was almost to Empore Blvd when it stopped squealing. Now comes the test... I've got about anothe 10 minutes of driving before I got to work. I decided I had gone that far, I would go the rest. I got to work and the gauge was showing only a little hotter than normal. Again a bit of steam came out, but nothing gushing.

I went in and told my boss the situation and that I could use a ride to the parts store later. He decided to take me right then. We went to Schucks and talked to the guy at the counter. I explained what it was that there were four bolts holding it in place, and he brought out some pulleys. They were'nt right. We got a parts book out and found a ggod diagram. He said it looks like the water pump cover ( I forget what he called it exactly, but my dad will know) He says when the shaft of the water pump goes back it will often become loose and sloppy. That's what mine was. They had the pump in stock and it cost me just $41.99. I bought it and we drove back to work. We even got back in time for me to clock in on schudule. So now is the waiting game. Randy won't be able to help me put it in until Saturday (Actually we do a trade off, he does the mechanical work and I do the computer work) So I just have to keep it from over heating until then. Only short trips to and from work. The weather isn't helping. ( We hit 102 degrees today) It'll be back to the 80's by Saturday we hope and I should be ready for my trip back to Portland next weekend.

See you soon.

When you give a lesson in meanness to a critter or a person, don't be surprised if they learn their lesson - Will Rogers

We had a little "critter" visit us in the little area behind our office. Added a little bit of excitement to an otherwise dull, and quiet day. We tossed out some chips and some pretzels but he was a bit to timid to check them out. I got a couple pictures though. Quality isn't good. If I moved towards the window he would hide in the pallets and had to use the digital zoom on my camera to get a close enough shot. I took these sitting in my chair at my desk.

We also get quite a few birds visiting us just about every day. It's kind of nice, we have a whole wall of windows to look out. It's mostly just the parkway that we look out onto, but since spring and summer arrived we've got crttiers and wild flowers to brighten up the area.

I'm trying to keep my camera with me more often so when the opportunites happen I can snap a few. I was locking up the building a few weeks ago and had four young deer walk across the back of ourparking lot. My camera was in my car. They were gone by the time I came back out.

Keep smiling and maybe someday your face will stick that way!

I wanted to do something to keep in touch with my family a little more and keep a journal of my life here in Bend, OR. I'm going to work on getting some pictures inserted into this blog this week. I've got my little Sony Cybershot that does decent pictures (I'll probably need some fresh batteries) I've been spending too much time playing games on my computers, and not out getting some sun. It's beautiful here almost year round. Plenty of sun and very little rain.

Nearly each morning on my way to work I get a fabulous view of the mountains. Often I'll see clouds piled up on the Western side of the mountains trying to make their way over. It gives me a good idea of what weather my family is having, and wishing they could be here to enjoy the sun.
To see some good examples now of Bend here's a link to an google image search: Bend, Oregon

My car is showing its age, and so I've got my work cut out for me to save up some cash for a replacement car/truck (I was going to type "a new one", but that isn't likely to happen.) The AC is starting to go. Might just need a re-charge, I'll look into that and hope for the best.

You might wonder why I titled my blog the way I did. Back in high school, my senior year, they asked us each to turn in a quote which would be put with our pictures in the yearbook. My quote is the same as the title for this post. I'm going to try to make that a theme for each post, a new quote/line that I've heard that kind of sums up how I've been feeling. That might be kind of hard to do, but will keep me thinking during the week. I'll also try to include the source.

I'm looking forward to coming back to Portland next month. Juan's B-day is coming up that week so hopefully we can get together and do something for it.

Work has taken a new turn lately. Instead of being on a call from the time I arrive until I leave, there has been several times where I go an hour in between calls. Gives me some time to catch up on things, even do a little studying, or when every one else has gone home, catch up on some missed Heroes episodes through NBC.com

Time to go and finish up some things and let you all know about my blog. See you soon.