I started writting while sitting on a Boeing 757 20o in seat 31f at ~32,000 feet headed for a connecting flight in Saltlake city next flight bound for Charlotte North Carolina. I’m on a plane with Biscoff cookies in my belly, baby screaming behind me, and the sun so hot to my right even with the window shade down I’m a good 10 degrees warmer on one side then the other.  – I used to live to be on a plane like this headed somewhere, anywhere.  Now I am all like,  my couch bed at home with the Millfam by my side is an awesome place to be; I’d rather be there.  // curse you growing up, adulting, and having kids at the top of my priority pyramid.

I took the Kitsap Airporter shuttle to the airport on this trip vs. driving.  Wifey dropped me off between shuttling kids to and from school because taking me all the way was logistically not something sounding super cool to either of us. On the shuttle I sat next to an Olalla Local Mr. Peter Stefanic. He and I had a pleasant chat on the drive. He’s a financial planner headed to Laguna beach to meet and greet some clients. Gee rough, a “business trip” to laguna beach = ].

After a pleasant ride on the airporter I made it to the airport early enough I managed a nice two-mile walk from one end of seatac to the either end, then back to the middle again. After the walk, I picked up and ate some Chinese at some random terminal with a nice standup work station with power outlets. After eating I found my gate, boarded the flight and slept for a good hour until the cookie cart came by to provide me with some amazing Biscoff cookies. Mmmm Biscoff cookies.

The start of this post I typed on a tiny blue tooth keyboard using the WordPress application on my phone. So much more civilized then busting out a big ole huge massive laptop and trying to type in an airline seat. Keyboard is another hallway Freebe from work. I, literally, found a Pile of them a while back. All of them worked and I picked a Samsung as my favorite because it is all black and matches my uniform

On the flight I bought a cheese plate for a snack. The gentleman sitting next to me, Andy, offered me some amazing fresh-baked bread. Turns out Andy works cooking bread at boutique bakery in Driggs Idaho called 460 bread . Andy is headed to Charlotte to pick up a new truck to drive home. Amazing bread!!

Made it to Charlotte Monday Night

Kellie and David picked me up at the airport and hosted me at their place my first night. Kellie and I used to sit next to each other at work as Tech and Shift leads on the same shift – I think of her as my office wife and we’ve been buddies since! Kellie moved across the country to manage the Charlotte branch. It was great to catch up with her and David – they have a nice couch.

After a great nights sleep we woke and chatted for then Kellie took off to work and Brad dropped by  to pick me up. Brad took me out on the lake he lives on, Lake Wiley, for a ride on his party barge.

Super rough day out on the lake with Brad and his Dog Dayta relaxing looking at houses and catching up about stuff and what not. Then the day roughed up more. After the boat ride we floated in Brads new fiberglass pool for a few hours telling stories untill Brad’s wife came home. With the wife super vision we figured it was time to eat some food. We took the Golf cart to the “club house” for dinner. Work the next day starts around 5am for everyone in the house, so we went to bed around 9 or so.

Getting to work

I have no clue what time it is internal clock wise. Brad went to bed around 9pm – I Stayed up untill about 1am, my normal sleepy time on a work night. After a great night of smuggles we woke up around 4am to shower and head into work for the 5am start time.  We made it into work on time and started doing some work and stuff. I stroll in begging for a SEV A or SEV 1 but none are to be found. Brand and I messed around with a blob update, and I walked about.

The morning Charlotte shift has big chuck of overlap with the Dublin team. It was nice to have so much online time with Dublin to catch up and do chat. Wednesday is overlap so all of the shifts were in providing me ample opportunity to smooze with nearly everyone minus Fowler who left the state upon finding out I was coming to visit – I used his desk and farted all day long in his chair to mark my territory and let him know how I felt.

Wednesday night with Thevaos and the team

After work Wednesday team boss took the team out to eat at a bowling place down the street. I hitched a ride to the venue with Bob to eat the amazing meat balls and chicken on waffles. After hanging out with the team for a bit, when the free drinks rand out, Thevaos took me back to his place to cook up some beef and ramen for second dinner. Thevaos’s wife is knocked up due on thanksgiving day so some of our chatting centered about baby. Sure is going to be fun for them to have a little kiddo in the house.

I spent most of the night enamored with Thevaos’s cooking skills. He made us some Spanakopita from scratch as an appetizer then started in on some beef and veggies and roman to cook in one of his Woks. Yes he has a collection of Woks, and a gas wok stove in the back yard. Dinner and conversation were amazing, I sure had a great time at the Thevaos manour. Such delicious food.

After Mr and Mrs Thevaos went to bed Kev snuggled up in bed with Nick and drifted off to dream land around midnight. Made it to about 6:30 or so sleeping then moved to shower and head back into work and do it all over again; fix more things and smooze more with the team.

Thursday work day

Chris and I made it into work with plenty of time bum around before breakfast. The morning teams in Charlotte seem to be first in line at the cafeteria when the doors open at 7:30. Thursday I left early / did not work the whole swing shift like I’d hoped to; sad face I wanted more time with the swing guys. I left early because my host for the night had things to head home to. Thursday night I spent with the Palliser family.

Scott took me on a tour of his house and back yard, then I spent some time playing his kids while Scott finished off some how work. From the looks of it Scotts yard is where they dumped ALL of the rocks when they built the housing development. Scott has some many rocks to use to build his back yard. I’m super jealous of his rock collection. Sad face for him he does not have an excavator to move them around.

While Scott was fixing the garborator and Jess was making dinner I went for a run around the development. I gotta say I prefer running in the mud and the rain then I do running on a side-walk in the 80’s. There was a heat wave in Charlotte the week I was there. Well heat wave for me; anything over 75 is heatwave to me. Dinner was amazing, company was great, hanging out with the kids was great.  – gee I had a great time

After the kids made it to bed I logged into plex on Scott’s Xbox and we watched Central Intelligence on TV and ate like 500 cookies. Jess made cookies and there were so good. Glad I ran enough to earn 5% of the 500 cookies I ate.

Friday at work

Friday we made it into work by 5am and oddly Brandon from the Redmond team was still online working an issue. 5am Charlotte time is like 3 hours after Brandon should be home with his family thinking about heading to bed. Someone pushed a GPO and Brandon was the only one able to login to a set of servers. We kicked right into SEV A fix all of the things send Brandon home mode and worked out a method for Tre to connect to server – then sent Brandon home.

I love coming to work when there is something exciting to fix! bring on the big huge issues and drama every day and I’m happy. BRING IT ON. Sadly after we worked out the access issue there was not much left going on in the high impact bucket. Sadly again I read my return flight home time wrong and it no longer made any sense for me to sweet talk one of the swing shift guys into hosting me for the night and driving me to the airport on saturday.

Friday night after work I went back to stay with Brad again. We went out to dinner with some more peeps from work then back to his house to play some cards against humanity. We made up at least 50 cards to add to the deck. Brad came up with some amazing cards to add to the collection. We sure had a fun time – I might have had some things to drink even? At dinner I an amazing spiked shake. it was salted caramel and whisky; fucking bomb good !!! could have used a few more shots, but still amazing.

Saturday Back home

Brad dropped me at the airport before 5am on his way to work. I walked a few mile around the airport untill I found a Bojangels that was open to get me a CFS biscuit before boarding my first flight home. No one entertaining on the flights home.

The only exciting thing on the flight home was my almost giving up and peeing my pants. Why didn’t I just pee on the plane? well I was at the window and there was a good 700 pounds of sleeping hard to move humans in the two seats to me, and it was not too bad untill we landed and it all hit me. Then we sadly taxied around the airport for another 30 minutes untill we made it to the gate then we offloaded as slow as possible.  — I was mentally so close to just saying fuck it and peeing.

Made it home to the Millfam on time. Wifey and kids picked me up at the airport and went to a park to hangout and catch up, then home to relax on the couch. Great time, but I sure missed the Millfam.

More pictures of the trip