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!!!!!!

JUNE 28, 1978

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLLY

Beach Bums

Whew, everyone needs to take a little summer vacation. Holly and I spent a good weekend in beautiful Jacksonville, Florida. I spent the week there working at the airport. I have decided that this is a great way to travel. It is like having an advance team, for all you military types out there. I scope out the lay of the land, know some good places to eat, and how to generally navigate the city.

Being that Holly’s birthday is June 28^th and my Birthday is July 6^th, I decided that this would be our little birthday trip. It has become somewhat of a tradition for us. Last year we traveled to North Carolina to visit our great friends (HI Clint and Erin!). Holly arrived at 1pm on Friday afternoon. I decided that we need to really enjoy the Florida sunshine and rented a convertible for the weekend. Something odd about renting a convertible, you have to program in a country station into the presets. ;)

We loaded Holly’s bags and took a long way back to the hotel, to give her the lay of the land. We were staying in downtown Jacksonville, a good central point for all things in the city. We decided that we should catch the local Double-A affiliate of the Dodger’s play a little baseball. So we headed off for the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville (we had to go simple because of the cool name like Ballpark in Arlington). We have this crazy knack of catching baseball games that have fireworks attached, without even knowing it. So we were watching the Jacksonville Suns battle it out with the Montgomery Biscuits (serious the Biscuits?) when we heard the stadium announcer say “Remember fans to stick around after the game for the NAPA auto parts post game fireworks show.” SCORE!

So the mighty Jacksonville Suns won and the fireworks were great. We get up on Saturday and head to St. Augustine, Florida. It is about an hour south and claims to be the oldest city in the USA. It is a cool town that reminded Holly and I of the old European cities you see on TV. It has very narrow streets that are made of rickety stone and brick combo, uneven sidewalks and buildings all smashed together. It would never pass Texas wide-open space planning rules. We toured an old Spanish hospital, an old wooden school house (not really worth it) and an old fort. While at the fort they were demonstration how they would fire cannons and we actually saw them fire one. It was pretty freakin’ loud and very cool. We rounded out our visit to St. Augustine by visiting a lighthouse and climbing 219 steps to the top of the 14 story house. I loved it, but Holly hates heights, so she literally climbed to the top for a single picture and less than 25 seconds of views.

After St. Augustine, we headed north to Jacksonville Beach. We camped out and played in the super fine white sand for a few hours. Having only seen Padre Island and Galveston bay, it was like playing in the Caribbean to us. We then headed back to the hotel and out to a fancy dinner. We went to Benny’s Steak and Seafood and had a scrumptious dinner as we worked our way through a bottle of wine (It was a Riesling Trey and Viki!).

Sunday we slept in and headed back to the airport. After some tense moments trying to get on some flights we were on our way. Take it from us, get out for at least the weekend and enjoy some quality time away from reality!

My Adventures in Mass Transit

by Justin

While spending a week in Chicago for work, we utilized something we do not have in Dallas (or Texas for that matter) a great network of trains for mass transit. From our hotel at Midway airport we took the trains twice, once to Wrigley Field the other to downtown. While the ease and cheapness of the train was great, there are some interesting times to be had on the train.

Our first train ride to Wrigley was a nice crowded affair. We are riding the Orange line into downtown and know we need to get off at Lake to transfer to the Red line to get to Wrigley. So doing what every good tourist does we watch our handy-jim-dandy map and listen to the on-train announcements to ensure we get off at the correct stop for transfer. We know where we are suppose to get off right? Lake! So we come to a stop and the train announces Library & Lake stop. We are confused, but it says Lake so we jump off. We search and search to no avail. We finally ask a worker for the transit authority and he, with NO enthusiasm explains that there is in fact TWO stops for Lake and we need the other one. The thing is that the handy-jim-dandy map doesn’t tell you this important fact. No fear after a twenty minute stop on the red line, we make it to Wrigley in the middle of the second inning, just in time for a rain delay…perfect.

My second train story is one of those Joan Osborne moments. You know the “What if God was one of us? Just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home” song. We are sitting on the train headed home from have some mighty tasty brew from a place downtown called Jake M’s when a man sits in front of us. He all of the sudden looks up and says “I don’t want to love you anymore” and gets of the train. We all look around and realize that he is not exactly playing with a full deck of cards. He gets off at the next stop and we think we have just experienced our funkiness for the evening, WRONG.

The same stop this guy gets off a new crazy gets on. This guy strikes up a conversation with us wanting us to go to a block party in three weeks. We try to explain that we are only in town for business and we won’t be here, but he insists we attend. He tries hard to convince us that we need to be there because it is going to be like the ‘Left Behind’ series and we don’t want to miss it. He pulls out a crinkled up piece of paper and shows it to us and indeed it is a ‘Left Behind’ themed block party. He goes on to stress that we should not bring any alcoholic drinks, as all beverages will be provided. He promises that the ‘spirit’ will control us and we will dance all night with their beverages. We were a little scared what those beverages might be. The first thought is like those cult guys who tried to hitch a ride on the comet a few years back with Kool-aid. He finally gets off and we are freaked out.

That’s my experiences with Chicago and mass transit. My thoughts go to those of you who have to put up with this randomness everyday. At least I only have to put up with idiots in their cars! Next week I am off to Jacksonville, Florida. I will give you a beach update soon!

Blessings

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers for my grandad and the rest of our family over the past two weeks. My grandad actually didn't have a heart attack, but a gall bladder attack. When he went to the doctor, tests showed severe heart blockage which led to his actual triple bypass on June 2. He was doing fine from that, but then his gall bladder ruptured, which led to emergency surgery. He was very sick for a couple of days, and the stress from that made his kidneys fail temporarily. He had to have dialysis 4 times, but thankfully today was the last of those. And finally... he got to go home today!!!
It will be a long road of gaining strength, regulating blood sugars and learning to rest a little more. So please feel free to keep sending the prayers our way! :)
Justin and I are ready for a break. He's been travelling so much and we've been to Lubbock the last three weekends. Thankfully, we can stay home this weekend and do a little bit of nothing.
Hope you all have a good weekend and are enjoying your summer so far!
Holly

Prayer Please

To catch you all up on our craziness, here we go. Justin is on his third four-day business trip since starting his job May 1. He came home last Thursday from Ohio, we left Friday for Lubbock for the long weekend, and he left Tuesday morning for Chicago. He gets back tomorrow (Friday) and we leave Saturday to go see my family again... which brings me to my next point.
We had planned to go home this weekend for my grandparents' 60th Anniversary party. However, my grandad had a heart attack today and is in the heart hospital in Lubbock. He will be having a double bypass tomorrow, which is actually their anniversary. So please keep him in your prayers for recovery, my grandma for strength and peace and the rest of my family as well.
Thank you all and hope you're okay.
Holly

Was that Trey and Viki?

By Justin

Well what a week it has been, right? I caught the first flight out of Love Field on my way to a whole day of traveling to get to Columbus, OH. Let me say that this was my first time traveling under the Wright Amendments and we must all rally to SET LOVE FREE. (www.setlovefree.com). It is ridiculous. I took off at 7am CST and flew to Houston. South, mind you, and I want to go North. I then flew to Chicago Midway. I then changed planes again to get to Columbus, OH at 2pm CST, pm their time. It was a full day of travels just to get started. To get home today I flew Columbus, OH to Chicago Midway to Kansas City, MO to Dallas Love Field. Three planes and six hours with my max stop over being one hour. Come on people. Help a man out.

I was excited to get to fly to Midway. I was looking for Viki and Trey the whole way. I thought I spotted Viki at a station waiting on the train, but alas I was to high to tell. Oh well, I will try again next time. Wait, next time is next week. Yes that is right I get to spend Tuesday through Friday in Chicago at Midway. Now I will be putting in a ton of hours, but I would really like to catch up with my friends from hinder lands. What do you guys think? I do not have any contact info on ya'll, so lets get together.

I am going to put this family dispute to an end. Yes I did laugh, because it was funny. No Holly would not have laughed right away, but she would have laughed eventually. Yes I would have laughed at myself. HOWEVER, the fact remains. I didn’t hit my head!

In My Defense

Okay, so Justin laughed his head off when I ran into the light fixture. For all of you husbands/boyfriends... don't ever laugh at your girl when she's in pain. He said I was trying not to laugh. Not so! I was in pain!
Also, what he failed to tell you is that he almost walked right into it the next morning. I said "watch your head!" and he had to duck quickly and said he felt the heat from it on his face. So, who's laughing now?
Besides, I'm just trying to keep things exciting around here. He teases me about living with the same furniture arrangement as long as I live at one address. For those of you who haven't been to his parents' house, don't ever sit down without looking behind you, because the chair you sat in last month is probably not there this time. Now me, I come from a home where you can be gone for 5 years and come home to the same comfortable normalness. Is one better than the other? No, so I'm just trying to see his side of things sometimes.
I can't say that this always works though, because when I do change something up, I usually end up blaming Justin for messing with my stuff. This being because my short term memory is almost non-existent. It's fun around here!

The Light Fixture

Before I dive into my tale, let me update you guys on the happenings of my life. I have been working at Southwest Airlines now for almost a month. In my month I have decorated my cube, worked to get to know some great coworkers and tried to adapt to the Southwest culture. On day one a group of fifteen grown adults sang a song to me to welcome me ‘aboard’. On day five the finance department went through the entire five floors of the company in parade style, dressed in complete Cinco-de-Mayo garb. After the parade (3pm) my boss cracked a beer open and passed out other beers in our office. We walked through the company, carrying open containers, to the huge maintenance hanger for a Cinco-de-Mayo party. At the party there were piñatas hanging from the ceiling lifts that they use to work on the planes, a band, games, free cokes and more alcohol to purchase very cheap. I spent the next week in Kansas City, MO, which was a great learning point for me. This last week was more orientation and getting things organized.

The best part of this is the clothing I can wear. I came from an environment of wearing slacks or Dockers each day and being able to put on a tie if you were going to a meeting. We did wear Polo’s during the warmer months, but only if you didn’t have a meeting. On day one, I wore my normal work attire. Day two was pants and polo. Day three was shorts and a polo. Day four was pants, a polo and flip flops. I adapted very quick to this relaxed atomosphere. The fun thing is that it starts with the CEO and goes down. For the stockholders meeting, which was last Wednesday, I say the Chairman of the board and President both wearing jeans. It is great. During the summer my office has Hawaiian shirt Fridays. So I wore linen pants, an open Hawaiian shirt a green undershirt to match and flip flops. My new coworkers were amazed how quickly I have ‘embraced’ the culture. Me too!

The light fixture story is quite humorous. Holly has wanted to create a little more room around our breakfast table. To do so she decided to put one side of the table against the kitchen bar wall. This left the light fixture hanging over the table low enough to crack your head on it. Currently there is not enough chain and cord to swing the fixture over the new placement. Now she spent a lot of time working this out but I was worried about the light fixture, so I place a bar stool in the middle of the fixture so I wouldn’t hit it. She was ticked I did this and refused to go to dinner on Wednesday, unless I moved it back. I tried to explain, but she didn’t care. We get back from our evening out and I am on the phone with a friend when bam, she hits it. I crack up laughing and she has to fight to keep from laughing, even though her head hurts.

So now we have one of our chairs pulled back to keep us from walking under it. Did I say I told you so?

Living with Justin

So I'm hearing that you want to know what living with Justin is like. That's a very interesting inquiry, as it just seems like normal life to me now. Hmmm... Perhaps a look into Justin doing chores will enlighten you.
Justin has taken it upon himself to clean the litter box once a week. I would love him forever for that alone, but there's more. He dusted, vacuumed, took out the trash/recycling and cleaned the litter box the night before my Tupperware party. I was blown away! Imagine my surprise when I found that he had swept litter under the sheet that the litter box sits on instead of sweeping it up! Now, I started to get upset, but stopped myself and said, "What man would be so willing to clean house so that his wife can spend the evening before her party perusing the Tupperware catalog and making lemon bars?" MINE!
On a serious note, or perhaps you might find it not-so-serious, I had made quite an extensive list of character traits I wanted in a husband while I was in college. Keep in mind I was 19 and hadn't quite developed the maturity that this old 27 yr/11mo lady now has! Anyway, it included rubbish like "looks good in Wranglers" and "has blue eyes" and "likes cats". I shared this list with Justin after we were engaged and we had a good laugh about it. The humbling note here is that God knows our hearts and wants to see His children happy. So, besides Justin living his life for the Lord, being an honest and loving husband, and making me laugh, he also looks GREAT in Wranglers, has blue eyes and likes cats.
Now there's something to think about. Next time he's cleaning the litter box, you know I'll be checking out his Wrangler clad bum.

Day One

I am assuming that we all have just been busy. Updating has been few and far between on some people (not naming names, YET).

I started at Southwest today. It was a good start. Most of the office is out of town on business. It looks like I get my first dose of that next week. My job doesn’t require a lot of travel; I just started right in the middle of the traveling season. I’m looking forward to it.

Nothing much is going on in the Noble household. Holly and I volunteered to be in charge of decorating the sanctuary at our church for Vacation Bible School (VBS). Now this is great fun to me, but it is interesting that we were picked to do the main area of the church when we have never seen a VBS at this church and don’t have any kids. I have sprung into action complete with composite sketches and perspectives. Who said six years of Architecture is going to waste?

Holly hosted a Tupperware party over the weekend. Can you believe they still make that stuff? It is coming back, according to the sales lady. She was pumped as Holly’s party was the highest grossing party she had ever had as a consultant. Holly received something like $180 worth of free stuff of other people purchases. Crazy…

That’s the update from Dallas.

Set Luv Free!

A Blog about Blogs

One month ago today I was persuaded to try this thing called Blogs. I really didn’t see it working. I thought to myself, we will do it for about a week or two and then it will fall off. I thought, “There is no way possible to write something every week that is entertaining enough to read”. Boy was I wrong.

One month and going strong. I have greatly enjoyed blogging. I feel like I am getting to know my long time friends better and keeping our friendship fresh and strong. I can see how blogging is expanding my friendship with the ‘Ab Show’ and Viki and Jelaine. It is good to know about the everyday things, I think it will help when we do see each other and feel like we have been there all along.

So here is to the next month.

So I played Cornhole or ‘Bag-o’ as my friends call it. They are good Midwesterners from Nebraska and Iowa. Last night they drug out their bags and boards and we played guys verses girls. While I am no expert I will say that the guys won all three rounds. I contributed my fair share. At one point it was 20-0 guys!! I don’t understand how a whole league could surround this sport. Three games were good for me! A cross-cultural experience, for sure. Does Bag-o count in the Presidential Challenge?