The Big Trip!!!

Well I guess you could say that it’s been a while since my last posting! Like one great band Aerosmith says, “Same old song and dance.” Work has been going great I have created around five videos I believe and they look great to me. Since my last blog I have been down to Bozeman for a whole day job with those students again. Which was Tuesday of this past week, and then from Wednesday through Friday I was in a fantastic class. It was how to give effective presentations; I really enjoyed this class because of my lack of speech experience. The only experience I have is giving four ten minute speeches this past semester in class. The thing I liked the most was the presentation style our instructors used, we went through a smaller Power Point and then most of the teaching was done by discussion and not by notes or Power Point. We had to give two speeches only five minutes long; I did one on playing Left Tackle and the other on my video job profiles that I have been working on. So today will be the beginning of my four day adventure through Eastern Montana, I will be heading up to Lewistown to do one interview. Then tomorrow I will be a busy guy, from Lewistown I have to get two interviews done. One of them is in Glasgow and the other will be down by Fort Peck Dam which is nice because I will be making my way towards Miles City where I’m staying tomorrow night. Well everyone I’ll check back in later!!!!!

"HHHEEEYYY"

Well everyone, it’s Tuesday and just think that you have made it past the worst day of them all: MONDAY! Yesterday I was in Bozeman doing some videoing, of course. This program is called the Summer Transportation Institute which is held at Montana State University. There are sixteen high school students enrolled, and they stay on the Montana State University campus in the dorms for two weeks. They go through different classes, such as Geotechnical Engineering introduction, demonstration lab, and soil tower competition, which I watched yesterday, and one group’s soil tower held 150 pounds. Well I’m not going to lie to my loyal blog readers; I almost died running my ten one hundred yard sprints last night! I made all of them in less than nineteen seconds, but jeez I can definitely tell that I haven’t run wind sprints in quite a while. We have to run these sprints at the beginning of football this fall, and if you can’t run all ten under nineteen seconds then you have to run extra after practice with Coach Bo. Or I hear you get kept out of fall practice until you can run them all under the time. Well this weekend I’m back down to Butte to coach the eleven man football camp, which should be tons easier since I played eleven man, and I think that the whole strategy in eight man is a lot different. So I will be leaving for that on Friday, and I have to remember to bring my dang weed whacker because my grass is about four feet tall and looks like crap. Well since I know Shannon baby reads my blogs, I’ll give a shout out to him, “HHHEEEYYY” Shannon baby!!!!!!

Dumb Battery!

To start off this morning’s blog I would like to make a statement: there are no stores in Butte, Montana that have camera accessories. Yesterday I was down outside of Butte videoing the core drillers, and my battery went out on me. I charged it all night before, which was thirteen hours, and the battery decided not to hold a charge. So I had to run back into Butte to look for either a new battery or a charger. My first stop was Wal-Mart which had nothing, then Staples which had nothing, Radio Shack had nothing as well, then Kmart, which didn’t having any to purchase but had a charger from their display camera that they were nice enough to let me charge the battery in the store. I wanted them to lend me the charger, and I was offering to leave some sort of collateral like my cell phone or my driver’s license, but it was a no go. I don’t know why they wouldn’t lend it out, because if I didn’t bring it back, they had my name and everything on my driver’s license, but oh well; at least they let me charge the battery. This morning I’m off to Livingston to video tape the Snooper truck which winds around the bridge and lets the inspectors take a better look at underneath the bridge. So this weekend I’m thinking about heading down to Butte to help out with the eight-man team camp we hold at Tech each year. I hear that it’s pretty fun, and word on the street is that you get paid pretty well also. Last night after work, my parents and I went out and grabbed a campsite at Joe Bonner. My dad is going to bring the camper out today and leave it for a couple of weeks like they did before. My parents really enjoy staying out there for weeks at a time, because when they had the old business, they had no time to leave work. If you haven’t seen the lake in the past week or so, the water is up a ton. I’m thinking from the last time I saw it, which was a two weeks ago, it has risen twenty yards up the beach. Think about how much water it takes to bring a twenty-six mile lake up twenty yards: A LOT!!!!!

Travel Travel Travel!

Once again everyone it’s Friday, and I’m very ready for it to be! This week was crazy for me. Between working at MDT and mowing, it takes a lot out of you. Just about everyday this week I woke up at six so I could be to work at seven, then work till 3:30, go lift at Fuel Fitness with Louie Blood, then mow until around nine every night. So when I got home, I was pooped. A couple of nights I just went straight to bed without eating dinner. Now I must have been really tired if I was skipping a meal, LOL! So on Monday, it was just a regular day at work with meetings and such, but on Tuesday, I went down to Butte and interviewed and videoed the officers working. It was a really interesting work station since you always see semis pulling into them and you don’t really think about all that takes place in them. On Wednesday I took a “How to Interview” class which was an all-day thing, but I really think it will help me in the long run. On Thursday, I was up to Big Sky to do some more interviews and videoing, and I really hadn’t ever been up that way, so it was a treat for me and the river was roaring. Then today I was around Helena with Bob Weber, and he took me around to different construction sites so I could get some video. If you couldn’t tell I’m doing a lot of videoing and not much editing, which means later I will have much to do in the editing division. Also if you couldn’t tell I really haven’t been in the office much and have been doing a lot of traveling, which I really enjoy. Well this weekend my parents are calling it a family weekend, which really is code for lets condense out storage units. We are doing this so we can rent them out, since at our first location we are pretty much full so we are going to move and shift things around so we can rent them out. Well everyone have a great weekend!!!!!

JERK!

Well here’s to another work week! Camping was a blast, except for the minor problems I had with the boat. So Ms. Abigail and I got out there about an hour late, which never sits well with me, because I always need to be on time. Well that night we just hung out by the fire and talked. Ms. Abigail and I had stopped by the local pizza parlor, because my parents were there, and we grabbed a pizza for the ride out there. Just to let you all know the Camp Host at White Earth is a JERK. He treated us like garbage. I don’t know if he did because we were younger or what, but it really made me mad, and I will not camp there as long as he is there. Sorry for the side track; back to the boat. First of all, the battery was dead when I tried to put the boat in Saturday morning.
Luckily we had a spare battery in the boat, so I changed it, and we made our way out to the fishing hole. We caught six trout that morning while we were out, and then after we headed back to camp, I cooked really cheesy scrambled eggs with hash browns added into them. If you’ve never put hash browns into your scrambled eggs, you’re missing out. When we tried to go fishing Saturday afternoon the boat was acting weird and wouldn’t get up and go like it should have. While this was happening a storm moved in on the lake, so the water was pretty choppy, and if you don’t know a lot about storms on Canyon Ferry, they hit with the blink of an eye. Usually when storms hit, the boats scram like when school gets out. There’s always the one or two boats that tough it out and think it will blow over, but I don’t call them tough. I call them thick. Well, I finally have a lifting partner. Louie Blood signed to play football with us next year at Tech, and I’m going to try and help him get ready. Well, I hope that everyone has a great week.