It's a new decade

Happy New Year!

2011 rings in a new decade and makes me think back to the turn of the prior decade which also happened to be the millennium gloom and doom of Y2K that passed without incident.  With each milestone year, comes a series of prophets who will tell us how the world is about to come to an end, blah blah blah.  Those milestones come and go and we are still around pontificating the next gloom and doom story.

Our only gloom and doom around here right now is our weather!...it might be a minus 15 F when we wake up and it might deter us enough from playing outside, but this too shall pass!  At least it is sunny outside.  We just got back from running errands and the -4 that the thermometers were showing felt decidedly warmer than the -15 when we left a little earlier.  It seems absurd to think that -4 feels significantly warmer than -15 but somehow it does.

2010 was a good year.  We managed to get a lot in and we hope that 2011 will follow suit in terms of progress.  We made great progress on the Airstream and are planning to use the Globetrotter for more than just taking up space in the garage this year.  There will be some spring work needed to finish off the tin can but we are getting closer.

We also were lucky enough to get a couple of road trips in.  We did a nice tour of the Tetons, on both the east side and the west side.  There is something very therapeutic about smelling a camp fire and sitting around it and being forced to chill out (while keeping an eye on the roaming bear that was eyeballing the campsite).  We also pulled a trip to Oregon where we got to catch up with friends and bask in the heat wave that had enveloped the area.  I also had a chance to meet an old friend from HS in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics.  All in all, there were some keeper memories fo' shizzle!

The missus had a busy work year.  She had lots of additional leadership opportunities outside of her regular work that really were incredible and gave her the chance to get involved at a state and even federal level.  She does not talk about it enough (not her nature) but I marvel at how quickly she has been able to earn these opportunities & respect within the extended medical community.  She organized a conference, she met with state reps in DC, she was chief at the hospital, & she even managed to put up with me on top of all of that (while training for her 1/2 Iron Man Tri).

The only downside on her plate was that she owes the devil (gov't) more time at her current work.  All of these wonderful opportunities she had, resulted in having to be away from regular work a couple of days and in return she now gets to pay back the government with a couple extra weeks of time at the end of the 4 year contract.  The absurdity of it all is that she more than works her commitment off on a weekly basis where she has worked many more hours than what she is required to but the government does not take those 'banked or OT' hours into consideration.  What a crazy system.  To put it into context, if she were to take the vacation time she is allowed to at work, she would have to work additional time to make up for the allotted allowable time in payback to the gov't.  The good thing is we can at least manage that proactively moving forward so that she does not get dinged again.  It is always good to understand where you stand and this certainly helps to clarify how things work...

Enough about 2010...time to map out a little of 2011 and figure out what is on tap for the new decade.  It should be a great year!