Rain Rain, Go Away…oh wait

Having never received rain, I am moving on. When it does happen you can be sure I will post it here.

Holly and I have had a great weekend. I had original plans to make a marathon trip to West Texas to pick up a dining table we purchased in Amarillo. It turned out to be a bad idea and so the day off I had planed for Friday fell through. Well Holly is on ‘Summer Hours’ and works longer days to get half a day off on Fridays. I decided that it would be fun for us to spend the afternoon together and I also took Friday afternoon off.

It has been a really long time since we have been to the movies. First off they are freakin’ too expensive. Who wants to pay $8-$9 bucks a piece for a movie? NOT ME. I am too cheap. So friends of ours have been telling us about a cheap, but good, movie theater close to our house. Turns out it is $2.75 a piece before 6pm for first run movies. SCORE!

We went to see Cars. Well I screwed up the start time and we missed the beginning by ten minutes. So we opted to see You, Me and Dupree. It was a pretty cute movie, albeit predictable. On our way out the door to the car Holly looked at me and said, you know it is only 30 minutes until Cars starts again. So we stayed for a double feature. We loved Cars. It was a very fun and adult oriented movie.

Saturday, with no rain in sight, we slept in and had plans to have friends over that we hadn’t seen in some time. We ate Holly’s famous Enchilada Casserole and had a fiesta. We played a round of Settler’s of Catan (a very fun and long game) and we lost again. Freakin’ Kolb’s always win, Seth you readin’ this?

The Kolb’s left so the rest of us could have a chance and the Seabourns stuck around for a game of Hand and Foot. It was girls vs. guys and the guys were ahead by 700 points going into the final round. Now if you know Hand and Foot (and if you do you earn bonus points) then you know that 700 points is nothing. The girls won the final hand and beat the guys by less than 300 points. That is nothing more than going out first in this game. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday was church, cleaning and napping. It was a good long nap too! Much needed, if you ask us.

Now for the rest of the week…I think there is rain in the forcast.

A Misguided Isolated Thunderstorm

That is our only chance of rain for the rest of the week, or at least that is how my favorite talk radio meteorologist called it this morning. We went from a 40% chance to the possibility of a misguided isolated thunderstorm. We need a job where we can be wrong by 40%.

Just imagine if I was 40% off in my analysis of our passenger revenue. What’s $100,000,000 between friends? What if you were 40% off on hooking up with that refueling arm of the aircraft? What if you were 40% off your note while singing in the play or 40% off in your assessment of how much that high dollar bottle of scotch cost? Seriously now…

Do you realize that you do not even have to have a meteorological degree to call yourself a meteorologist? So from your Blogspot Weather center, this is Meteorologist Justin Noble, we’ll see you in the morning.

P.S. There is a chance of rain, somewhere around 40% no matter where you are…

Rain in the Forecast

I am not complaining about the possibility of rain. I promise. I whole heartedly welcome any and all precipitation. In fact I welcome the mere chance of rain. However the first CHANCE of rain in our forecast in a long time has come across the news like a typhoon warning.

It is true that we are in a historic drought here in North Central Texas. Some places are 30 inches below normal. Lakes are drying up. In fact the lake that provides my water is 11 feet below normal causing sever watering use restrictions. But people please it is rain.

For a brief time this morning the Dallas Morning New website’s leading story was the CHANCE of rain. On my way to work I was listening to Talk radio to get the traffic reports and they spent a full seven minutes talking about the POSSIBILITY of rain. Last night on the evening news they showed an animation sequence that was explaining how we MIGHT get some rain, then spent the rest of the cast hedging against it in case they are wrong.

So pray for rain, but please do it quietly. I am sick of hearing about the rain before it even rains or even if it does.

Next on News 8: “The Rain That Never Was” and here is Troy Duncan in the weather center to show us an animation on what went wrong.

Class Reunion

Some of you may not understand this if you didn't go to a small school, but some of you may be nodding and smiling (or grimacing) as memories come flooding back to you.

Well, Justin and I attended my 10 year high school reunion yesterday in Amarillo. I was looking forward to it for months and was even a little nervous at the prospect of being back around those people who hold the power of making you a part of the in-crowd or an outsider. We spent the afternoon in a park, chatting and getting over that awkward phase of knowing each other, but somehow not knowing each other at all.

We went back to the hotel to regroup, change clothes and hang out for a little while in the breakfast area, looking at scrapbooks, pictures and reminiscing. Then we headed to a local restaurant where we had a party room. Now the "fun" begins. The classmates who always thought they were cool for drinking haven't changed and haven't developed the ability to know their limits either. I'm not ashamed to say I was liked in school, but never got the seal of approval from the athletes. So here we go. My personal rival bought a shot for me and two of my friends, the 3 people who were band geeks. Now, would you take it personally if someone you can barely stand to look at bought you a shot called Death Fart? Needless to say, I didn't take it. Justin passed it down the table and it wasn't wasted. Rival calls me out saying, "where's your shot? When someone buys you a drink, you drink it." I responded with "I don't take shots and I'm not starting now." They laughed at me and quickly forgot about it, as they were already drunk. Anyway.

A group of 8 of us ate, paid our bills and headed to another place for dessert and wine. Relief! We were able to have intelligent conversation, remember the good times, and also get to know each others' spouses (4 classmates/4 spouses). Trey and Viki, Justin and I had a bottle of Forest Fire from California. Fabulous!!!!

We then went back to the hotel and stayed up till 3 just because we didn't want the night to end. Breakfast this morning was also enjoyable because only the responsible people were able to get up at a reasonable time. One of the highlights is that I was reaquainted with my friend who I had lived with in college and let circumstances come between us. We apologized to each other, agreed to leave it in the past and have promised to get back to where we once were. I love you Aimee!

The moral of the story is that some people will never grow up and those of us that have are the ones who really are the "cool kids." And you know, I came away from this experience with a new appreciation and love for my husband. He loves me more and treats me better than I ever imagined possible. Thank you Justin, and I'm proud to be married to a fellow band geek!

The Spare Bedroom

Sunday night Holly decided that it was time for her to clean the bedroom sheets. We do this on a pretty consistent basis, well lets just say that it is a lot more consistent than when I was single. I am not sure, but I think the square pattern design was still on my sheets from when I bought them and move into the dorm, when I moved out (three years later).

Now the sheets were going to be dry in time for bedtime, but I had a bright idea. We have a guest bedroom and it hardly ever gets used. Why don’t we just sleep in there, and not worry about the sheets. Holly is game and we pretend it is a stay at home slumber party.

We eagerly bounce into the room and snuggle up, well wait not exactly true. I am my father’s son, so in a effort to save money in a room we don’t use I had closed the vent off. So first we un-snuggled, as to not sweat, and opened the vent. Then we tried to adjust to sleeping on a double bed when we are used to sleeping on a queen. Then our cat decided that since he never gets to go in this room it was a perfect night to explore and root around. Then every time Holly or I turned over the bed was a little extra bouncy and woke the other one up. Then we realized that the bed squeaked at every breath. Then… Then… Then…

We didn’t sleep much that night, and the slumber party was a bust. So this is my formal apology to everyone we have ever made sleep on that bed. We promise that a new guest ‘experience’ is on the radar for the future.

Executive Office Lunch

Today it was 102 degrees in Dallas. That is one hot mother, if you ask me. It also felt like 102 in training rooms A thru D at Southwest Airlines Corporate Headquarters. You see today was my first experience with the quarterly Executive Office Luncheons.

The Executive Office Lunches are a great idea. Once a quarter the president of the company invites all the persons directly reporting to her and their respective employees to a catered lunch. At this event she gives updates on the company, the CEO and Chairman of the board attend and give updates and all vice presidents give reports on activities in their areas. For instance, at this meeting I was given an inside look at Wright amendment negotiations, saw the ads that will go out in the coming weeks, as well as other insider treatments!

It is great to feel incorporated and informed about the company and its business. Now don’t get the wrong impression here, in true Southwest Spirit this was a completely informal event. The president, Colleen, was in a pant suit and sat at her front table smoking. The CEO, sat at a random table wearing his Hawaiian shirt, while the Chairman sat at the smoker’s table in his button down shirt and blue jeans making jokes the whole way through.

Another tradition of the Executive Office Lunch is that each new person must step to a mic and introduce themselves. For Internal Audit we had four new people since the last lunch. In another shining example of Southwest Spirit is often that Colleen will ask you a question, request you sing a song or other antic. We were forewarned of this and we offered to put together a song to introduce ourselves.

Our time to perform came at the very last minute of the meeting. We four approached the front of the room filled with 250 prying eyes. I lead off by getting the room to do the stomp-stomp-clap of ‘We Will Rock You’. Yes we parodied ‘We Will Rock You’ as ‘We Will Audit You’. We each had a verse to intro ourselves. We had practiced many, many times before and all had worked to memorize our four short lines. Not a one of us got through our four lines with stumbling under the pressure. We had the whole room rolling.

At the conclusion of the great performance we received a 1/3 of the room standing ovation. Colleen praised us for our performance as well. We were a mess and sweating under the amazing embarrassment.

Just another day at SWA!

Phoenix has Mountains?

I spent the weekend in Phoenix, Arizona with a college friend and his wife. Holly had plans for the weekend, so I took the opportunity to spread my new wings with Southwest Airlines and explore my Freedom to Fly!

As I approached Phoenix from the great vacuum that is New Mexico, I noticed some mountains. Mountains in Arizona? I didn’t know they had those here. My friend had mentioned going hiking north of town in the mountains, but I thought certainly that he was just exaggerating. Nope! They have beautiful mountains there.

I had a great, albeit quick, weekend of hiking, socializing and feasting on good food and great scenery. If you ever get a chance, go to Phoenix and head north for a great time!

My Private Protest

I have updated my links on the right to show those persons who have failed to keep their end of the bargain in this whole blog world. I will be happy to update you, as a regular link, as soon as you let me know you have posted. I have stopped looking at your blogs. Please let me know when you have posted!

The links are listed with the date of your last participation.

P.S. Credit should be given to Armand, he has called me twice while he was driving, however this does not count towards his overall Blog participation score.

JULY 6, 1979

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN!!!!!!