Something about Gene

Last Friday, I went up to Kernsville with Scott and two of this buds Eric and Ken, to meet up with Peter and Adam to make a 2-day run down the Kern River. It was to celebrate Scott’s Bachelorhood! Which worked out great for me because I get very uncomfortable in Strip bars. This was a constant source of entertainment for all others on the trip at my expense. What can I say, it makes me uneasy. Anyway, I was delighted to go and Deanne’s folks were very gracious in helping me out with the cost.

We drove up on Friday after work and camped out in Peter and Scott’s RV. In the morning, we headed over to the base camp and got learned up on running the rapids here in Kernsville. The usual primer in why we use a life preserver, a helmet and some best practices when floating down a river (feet forward, keep your eyes open and breathe). We bussed to the launch area about 10am, had another little reminder of humble we need to be on the river and got geared up.

We were going to be 6 big guys with a guide and a student River guide – 8 in all, about 1500 pounds in all with gear and raft. Thankfully we were all ready to pull our weight. We had another conversation with Tom, our guide, and got rolling. It must have been my lucky day as Tom picked me to be lead paddler (front left), which essentially means I get wet first. I expect that he anointed that title on me because of my previous experience – I tend to think it was because I was sporting a mountain man look (scruffy, stinky).

Either way, I was glad to be in front especially with Peter who was more than glad to provide feedback on communicating, keeping our eyes open and generally being a good up front paddler. He is chatty and pretty quick to elevate himself through berating others, which limits him in my humble opinion, but he is extremely physical and kept us all on our toes and in good spirits (generally at the expense of Ryan, nicknamed Scrappy doo).

The first day was mellow, some gradual falls and lots of beautiful wide open river. We made camp by 4pm and got an opportunity to float down a class 1 rapid in just our life vests. Tons of fun! Fun to feel the power of the river nipping at your river shoes – it felt like the bottom of the river was trying suck them off the bottom of your feet!

We settled into appetizers and a delicious dinner of potatoes, green beans and grilled chicken and tri-tip. Followed shortly by a number of beers and topped off with some Bushmills. We dug up some cards and had a good time playing Texas hold’em. About 11pm, I pooped out and headed to my tent. I had forgotten my sleeping bag (Gene = idiot), so I slept on the mat that they had provided in my sweats. My night was basically 3 or 4 one hour naps. It counted for something though and I was glad to have some peace and quiet.

I will finish up the trip a little later today. Pics can be found on my Facebook or Picassa page if you want to see any of them.

I met up with some of the group that I have been enjoying runs with as of late and had a great run out by Pauba Park here in Temecula. We had a 7.3 mile run with varied slopes – it felt great. I hit just over 1:18 which was fine by me as I am taking it easy on my right foot since the Coronado run. I was concerned that I might have done some damage to my right foot, but I expect it was the affect of not having done proper (any!) cool down stretches after the Coronado 15K run. Only 4 more weeks till the America’s Finest City Half Marathon! I am also hitting the Marina Madness Half marathon in early October – I wonder if I will setting up for a half marathon in September? Anyone up for it?

After the run, I came over to Deanne’s folks house and got caught up with Doug and family as they were checking out at 10am. We had some good times while he was down here for sure! Looking forward to his next visit. I had some breakfast and ended up taking a nap. Ah, a two-hour nap. Nothing finer.

I woke up and joined Deanne, the girls and Leighanne out by the pool. It was perfect weather for the pool – such a glorious day, we are blessed to have good health and such fine family to share it with!

I went into work today for the first time this week since I gave notice on Monday. Yeah, it was a little awkward, but only because we have a pretty tightly knit bunch and no one really expected that I would leave. It was a little surprising even to me in that my office is close (the coolest in Temecula I might add), my job is fun and I for the most part, I enjoy what I do.

Admittedly, doing staff augmentation for a Process and Compliance team is no small feat. Our group is widely varied in the services that we offer and everyone is quite good at what they do, so I have learned some valuable skills along the way that I would not have otherwise had to in any other IT type job. SOx testing, SDLC, Change / Incident Management and Project Management. That and good ol’ customer support makes for a nice day at the office if you ask me.

On a lighter note, we went out to the Thursday night concert at the Sports Park down the street with Doug, his family, the nieces and Mama. We saw a band called the Trip who played classic rock. They played some Pink Floyd, The Who (both of which had pre-recorded introductions that were sampled off the original recording – impressive), Bad Company, Zeppelin, Stones, Beatles and my least fav, Bon Jovi (living on a prayer). With the exception of the aforementioned, it was spot on rock and roll AND both guitarists and the bassist shared in the lead vocals. That made it really interesting and fun to watch.

I was REALLY bummed we did not get to make it over to Eric’s house to play some music as Doug and I were looking forward to doing so, as there was a motion to get ice cream (frozen yogurt anyway). We headed down to the White Lime for some fun and managed to get some fun pics along the way – I will post to FB soon enough.

Last weekend, we went up to LA to spend some time with mama as we were going to have lots of family in town. You cannot imagine the fun we had! Mary and Sue made it down from Oregon and Doug, Miriam and Vivi were in from Redwood City. On Sunday, Pat & Irv and Mike, Beth and Kyle were able to make it out and we had a great time down at Rustic Park.

It seems that I am spending more and more time down there for special occasions these days! And of course, there was lots of cooking – Doug was especially fired up on Sunday when we went down to the Witherall house to cook for them. We dragged them into a game of Sorry! I think Leighanne won  that round, I had to relinquish my crown from the night before – sigh.

Unfortunately for us, Liston, Teri and Wally were going to be checking out some live jazz, but we did get a very special opportunity to spend some time with Jaime and Teri’s kids. Teri and Wally were SO gracious – it was so nice getting caught up and getting to know them a little better. I even got a chance to talk to Jamie on Sunday night! Turns out he is quite the longboarder and has been quite instrumental in popularizing longboarding in Tahiti. Not really a surprise to me as he was always quite good at surfing. He sounded good when we spoke and I am hopeful that maybe some day we can visit him in Tahiti! Someday.

We spent some time down at 18 on Monday, but it was gray and washed out. That was a bit of a drag as we don’t get many opportunities to go to the beach, but we did get plenty of time together, so it was all worthwhile.

On an unrelated note, I was called back by IBM and offered the SharePoint Admin gig. I am going to be giving 2 weeks notice today at Abbott Vascular after three and half years! Hard to believe, but it is time for a change. The gig will be 100% remote, so I am excited to finally have the chance to officially telecommute – and who better to do this with than IBM!?

Upon notifying my family, I was reminded that my grandfather on my dad’s side was an IBM typewriter salesman. How about that? And while I won’t be selling any typewriters, I am looking forward to having the opportunity to manage and administrate larger SharePoint farms. Very exciting!

So, I am 41. So far so good. I was able to take the day off and spend some quality time with the family which was really a lot of fun. We went to IHOP for breakfast and then saw Toy Story 3, which definitely lived up to the hype. It was also the first movie that we saw as a family in a theater, which is probably just as well as it was $40 for tix and another $6 for a medium popcorn.

Still, the girls had a good time and I got to check out the iPad up close out at the Mac store which was fun. Fun to see all the people lining up for phones.

Looking forward to going skydiving again with my brother when he comes out in early July. Also hoping to find some open mic nights so we can get some jam time together.