Okay, one last post before I get to bed... I'll be posting some other time about my weekend down in Indy for my good friend James's surprise birthday party... What I want to post right now is about all the storms we had drive through both on the way to and coming back from Indy. We drove through several storms, but the worst storm was one I drove through coming north on US 31 near Rochester... I took Rach's car down there, and after all the hail damage that poor thing took already (see Rach's previous post), I really feared I was getting more as I drove through this storm. It's always scary when the rain drops just keep getting bigger and bigger, then louder and louder... I don't think any hail actually came down, but it certainly got me to slow down quite a bit. I took a picture right as I was getting out of the storm (yes, I know it wasn't totally safe to take a picture with my phone while driving)...
Take a look at the blue skies up above and contrast that with what you see in the side mirror... Not fun.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Stormy Driving
Nerd Alert!!!
As some of you know, I used to wear glasses (from kindergarten to third grade)... In third grade the optometrist told me I no longer had to wear them (because what little correction I needed had gone away naturally due to normal development). So, I had one pair of glasses for that time period, and when I didn't have to wear them they got tucked away in a drawer somewhere. I did, however, keep them, and I found them with some of my stuff as we were moving out of our house down in Bloomington. Rach happened to be upstairs with Lucas when I found them, so we had him try them on. The scary thing is that the glasses are only a tad bit big for his head, but not that big... I tried taking several pictures with my phone, but only a couple came out...
"Mommy, your glasses aren't nerdy like Daddy's..."
"Hurry! My nose isn't big enough to hold these things up!!"
Good Taste in TV
Trip to Wal-Mart
I haven't had the chance to post lately (This is Brian), so I thought I'd talk a little about a trip I took recently to Wal-Mart... That doesn't sound that exciting (I guess unless it's the story Rach told about her recent experience there during a storm)... But I'm not talking about going to your local Wal-Mart supercenter, I'm talking about the trip Wal-Mart paid for me to fly to their headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas...
This story actually has a funny start because of how I first found out about the trip. Now, take into consideration that it wasn't more than a couple months ago that I finally decided to take a contract at a new Wal-Mart up here in the South Bend area (Osceola, to be exact). I hadn't even signed a contract at this point. So, I get a phonecall from a very perky, full-of-energy person asking if I was interested in an "opportunity" she'd like to tell me about. My initial reaction was to move my thumb to the "End Call" button since I thought it was a telemarketer. As I listened a few more seconds, however, I heard her mention she was calling on behalf of a Dr. Patel at the corporate office of Wal-Mart, and that they were putting together a meeting of new Wal-Mart doctors called "Best New Doctor/Patient Experience." Basically, it was a meeting geared toward new doctors to help us learn more about Wal-Mart and the way they are changing the way they do things, but also to help give us some ideas on how to run our offices (not just procedures, but help on advertising, etc.)... There were only ten of us, and the interesting thing was how diverse the group was. I was one of three doctors who just graduated in May, and there were a few who had been working for a couple of years... Interestingly, though, we had a couple doctors who had actually been practicing for a long time (one who had already retired who graduated optometry school in 1970 and was coming out of retirement to start a Wal-Mart practice). One thing that was a little initimidating was Sunday night when I arrived in Arkansas (which was the only time I'd ever been in Arkansas), I was responsible for picking up the rental car and driving one other doctor to the hotel. This other doctor was the other one who'd been practicing for a while in Florida (she graduated optometry school in 1980 -- coincidentally the same year I was born, which out of respect for her I made sure to not mention). That night we ended up getting dinner together since we hadn't met any other doctors. The intimidating thing (aside from the fact that she'd been practicing for as long as I'd been alive) was when she was telling me how she'd been in private practice for 12 years, and when she sold off her practice the building alone sold for 1.2 million dollars. Here I am in debt up to and past my ears from school, and I'm eating barbeque with a millionare... We still split the check. ;)
I'm really happy I was given the opportunity to attend this meeting because it gave me a lot of ideas to help get my practice up and running. Also, though, a group of us from the meeting were able to form some good friendships in a small amount of time, and I'll look forward to seeing them again in future meetings. Hopefully, though, our future meetings won't have to take place in Bentonville, Arkansas... See, Wal-Mart made that their headquarters because it's where Sam Walton had his beginnings in the retail business... The problem with going there is the fact that the whole town (which is very small) is nothing but Wal-Mart. They have their headquarters there, their developmental center (where we were having our meeting), manufacturing labs, etc... I guess the only reason you'd ever go to that town is if you had some business with Wal-Mart, but I couldn't wait to get out of there. It was neat, however, to go into their headquarters building and see people pitching their product to Wal-Mart execs... We saw a cart full of empty wine bottles and wondered if that meant we'd just missed a huge party or if some wine company tried really hard to "influence" Wal-Mart to sell their product...
I wasn't taking a lot of pictures on this trip, but I did take a couple with my phone (so bear with the quality).
One of the planes I took on my trip... There was a common theme on this trip when it came to the planes... They were SMALL!!!
This engine is from a different plane, I believe, but I had to take a picture of what was right outside my window...
Oh, a little sidenote about my flights... The Tuesday I was coming home, my first flight went from Arkansas to Cincinnati, OH around 3:30 (where it landed just after 6pm, I believe) and didn't leave there to fly to South Bend until after 8pm -- landing just before 10pm... Given the fact that even after only being gone a couple days I was dying to get back to Rach and Lucas, it was a looong day of flying.
Lastly, this picture is of the entrance to a building a group of us went to Monday night there in Arkansas... We were going to a bar named Eddie Haskell's, which was inside this building... The building was brand new, so we all thought it was an odd name for them to choose for the building...
Old Friends & New Friends
It has been ten years since I last lived here in my hometown. A lot has changed and I don't know many people here anymore. I was very excited to reunite with a friend from high school and even more excited that she has kids, too!
I don't have a picture of Kate, but here are her cuties Lilly and Judah. Lilly loves to entertain Lucas as you can see in the video. Lilly is 2 and Judah is 2 months. We are looking forward to many more play dates.
Little Lilly
Baby Judah (this was taken upside down, sorta)
Lilly offering some helping hands
Lilly making Lucas laugh. They were doing this for a few minutes before I started recording. I'm glad I was able to catch it on film. It was really funny and totally cute!
Basketball Star
Recently we have noticed that Lucas seems bored with his toys. Last week we went out and bought some more age appropriate toys for him. One of the things we bought was this basketball hoop. He finally figured out how to put the ball in and let go. We think he is a natural!
Slam dunk!
