If you haven’t heard, Susan and I took a little trip down to Mexico in
\nJanuary. One of Susan’s sorority sisters had a destination wedding, and we
\nthought this was the perfect excuse to get out of cold, snowy, Michigan.
\nOur trip started off pretty early (before the sun was up) as we made our
\nway down to Detroit. We took Susan’s car, so that meant I got to ride
\nshotgun. As most of you know, a good “avigator” gets the directions and
\nplots a route to make it easier on the driver. Since we’ve been to Detroit
\nMetro before, I figured it would be easy enough to wing it… As we were
\ngetting into Detroit we managed to time it just right to hit rush hour
\ntraffic (glad I wasn’t driving \ud83d\ude09 ). Whether it was early morning or
\nstress from so many cars around, Susan doubted I knew where we were going.
\nI told her to watch for the big sign that had “Detroit Metro Airport” on
\nit. Susan knew Detroit Metro wasn’t actually in Detroit, and expected not
\nto see such a helpful sign. Just as we rounded a corner, sure enough there
\nwas a big blue sign that told us where to go… had it in the bag all
\nalong. \ud83d\ude42 We managed to get our bags checked and through security and
\nstill had plenty of time to sit and wait for our flight…<\/p>\n
The flight out of Detroit was on time and went smoothly, our connection
\nout of Chicago on the other hand was not so much. We boarded on time, but
\nhad to wait on passengers from connecting flights. After at least 30
\nminutes with no one getting on, the pilot comes over the speaker to tell us
\nthere was a problem with a light bulb. This particular light bulb was for
\nwhen the plane lost power, the pilot’s would still be able to navigate
\nusing the control panel (probably important…) Finally, the connecting
\npassenger’s boarded and we were hopeful to take off soon, but it was
\nat leastan hour before we pulled away from the gate. Since it was pretty
\ncold out, we needed to get de-iced, well we waited in line for the de-icer
\nand that took a good 30 to 40 minutes. We started taxi-ing and before you
\nknew it, we were off, a couple hours later than expected.<\/p>\n
We landed in Mexico and it was a nice change to see the sun shining.
\nNormally I don’t have problems flying, but I had a head cold this time and
\nmy left ear was plugged up pretty bad… I couldn’t hear much over the next
\ncouple days. The line to get into Mexico was crazy long and we spent quite
\nsome time waiting with foreigners that had no personal space bubble
\nissues. Once through customs, we were ready to get to our resort. We found
\nour shuttle (the guys with the sexy flower shirts) and were soon on our
\nway. There were a few others on the shuttle and I think we were the second
\nto last ones off (which meant we didn’t get to the resort until late
\nevening). The resort we stayed at was really nice and we were happy to
\nfinally be in Mexico, where the sun is always shining (or so we thought).<\/p>\n
The next day, we met up with Susan’s sirority sisters on the beach. We
\nsat in the sun (and partial overcast) and relaxed, until the wedding party
\nleft to go get ready for the wedding. We took this oppurtunity to explore
\nthe resort and go monkey hunting (apparently the resort had monkeys that
\ncame to the grounds, though we didn’t actually see any…) The wedding
\nwas nice, although the armed guards roaming the beach in the background
\nwas an interesting sight. There was a mariacchi band and drinks on the
\nbeach after the ceremony. Someone got a pretty strong mojito and must have
\nbeen feeling pretty good before dinner. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
The resort was pretty big (it was technically two resorts in one) and
\nhad four different restaurants you could go to (Italian, Mexican,
\nJapanese, and American Steakhouse). Dinner was at the American Steakhouse.
\nAfter dinner, we went to the beach, where a small hut serving drinks was
\nopen for us. Apparently if you’re Greek, that means you need to drink a
\nlot… Susan was looking kind of tipsy, but the night wasn’t over yet. We
\nheaded over to the DiscoTeca… where there was a dance floor, and of
\ncourse more liquid refreshments. It was getting pretty late, Susan and I
\ncalled it a night, but the rest of the crew stayed until they closed it
\ndown.<\/p>\n
The next day was a day of recovering, *ahem* for some of us… It wasn’t
\nparticularly nice out… overcast and a bit chilly. We were invited on an
\nexcursion with the rest of the group, but we had made plans for an
\nexcursion the next day. This actually turned out in our favor, we found
\nout it was rainy and they didn’t really have a good time. We hung out in
\nthe resort, read our books, and tried to find those darn monkeys.<\/p>\n
Our excursion was quite the trip… we signed up for Tulum Extreme. This
\nincluded seeing the Mayan ruins and some extreme sports, zip-lining,
\nrepelling, and snorkeling. We got up early and waited for our shuttle to
\nshow up. Any where you go in Mexico, it seemed you needed to go through a
\nsecurity checkpoint (atleast at the touristy places). After a half-dozen
\ncheckpoints picking up the rest of the group from various resorts, we were
\non our way. We headed off on what seemed to be a highway until we started
\nslowing down and turned onto a dirt road… no signs, no nothing. A couple
\nmiles down this road, we pull off onto a two rut road with a gate. The
\ndriver gets out, unlocks the gate, pulls through and locks the gate behind
\nus. As we’re traveling down this “road” through the jungle, we started to
\nwonder what we had gotten ourselves into.<\/p>\n
We finally pulled into an area with other shuttles… and people, whew!
\nAfter putting our bags in lockers, we were fitted with harnesses and given
\nsome instructions on our first activity… zip-lining. The climb up the
\ntower was interesting, they were pretty high up and the stairs weren’t
\nreally level or the same size. Although the shortest, I think the first
\nline was the most exciting, mostly because I hadn’t done anything like
\nthis before… There were three runs and it was really a lot of fun! After
\nzip-lining, we got to do repelling. Another short lesson before we started
\nand up the tower we went. I thought it would be down a rockface or wall or
\nsomething, but it was actually a free-fall repel. It was pretty thrilling
\nto walk backwards over the step at the top of the tower… and after I got
\nmy picture taken, I went down… fast! \ud83d\ude42 Susan was a little unsure of
\nrepelling, but she was happy she did it.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t a really hot day (like we thought Mexico would be), so we were
\nkind of anxious about the snorkeling part. We headed down to the cenota
\n(kind of like a cave with water in it) and put our snorkeling gear on. As
\nwe got in the water, I was pretty surprised, it didn’t feel at all cold to
\nme… one of the couples commented it was warmer than the outside pool at
\ntheir resort. Our guide look pretty chilled, but he got in the water and
\nlead us through anyway. After drying off and changing clothes, it was
\nlunch time. The cooks at that place were awesome, we had some of the best
\ngrilled chicken I had ever had. Once we got back on the shuttle, it was
\ntime to go to the Mayan ruins… Unfortunately we weren’t actually allowed
\nto climb the stairs or touch the ruins, but it was still really neat to
\nsee.<\/p>\n
We got back to the resort later in the afternoon and hung out with
\nSusan’s sorority sisters until dinner… we had made reservations at the
\nJapanese restaurant. You get to sit around a hibachi grill and the cook
\ncomes out and does a performance while he cooks your meal. Even though I
\ndidn’t catch the shrimp in my mouth, after the cook flung it at me, the
\nfood was great and we had a really good time.<\/p>\n
The next day was our last day, and it was beautiful out… figures…
\nOnce we got to the airport, we needed to check our bags and get our
\nboarding pass… no easy task. The line for our airline was big… almost
\nas bad as getting into Mexico… We finally get to the counter at least an
\nhour later and had our boarding passes in hand. We were pretty hungry, so
\nwe got a quick bite to eat… heading the warning of a co-worker to stay
\naway from the nachos… Our flight started boarding shortly after we
\nfinished eating. Once our group was finally called, we had to go through a
\nsecurity inspection. Little did I know, Susan was going to try to hi-jack
\nthe plane (ok… not really). She had a thumb drive on her (don’t ask me
\nwhy =P ) that the end retracted on and security didn’t know what it was. I
\nhad gone through with ease and was wondering what the heck was going on…
\nAfter going through EVERYTHING in Susan’s carry-ons, including opening
\nperscriptions, she got the OK to board… The flight back was pretty
\nuneventful after that.<\/p>\n
Although a short trip, it was a fun one, maybe we’ll go back some day!
\n\ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n
Work has not be fun lately… my new motto is “They keep paying me, so I
\nkeep showing up…” We’ve been told to work a set number of hours for the
\npast couple of months that has been well over the typical 40. I’m still
\nwaiting for them to give us a requirement less than 40 (hah, like that’ll
\never happen). If you recall (or you can check out pretty much the only
\nblog for last year) I had a business trip from hell. Well, I didn’t
\nrealize it, but that trip actually seemed pretty good compared to the one
\nI went on last December. I’ve been working on a video viewer application
\nand I was to deploy it on site. What I was told was not what the client
\nwas expecting (yay communication!) I was in Ontario, CA (about an hour
\nsouth of L.A.) for about a week. The first day I got in late afternoon and
\nwas a short day. I talked with their IT guy and the project lead about
\nwhat I was told and what they wanted, needless to say they were a little
\ndisappointed and definitely upset.<\/p>\n
I went back to the hotel… and for some reason I got the company’s
\nworst laptop and my programming environment wouldn’t compile anything. I
\nhad grabbed the installation discs before I left and tried installing and
\nre-installing to no end. Finally, I decided to download a free
\nenvironment, which took quite a few hours on the hotel’s slow internet
\nconnection. I finally got my laptop set up and was ready to code the next
\nday (or so I thought…)<\/p>\n
I wasn’t given an entry code or fob to enter the building, so I had to
\nrely on someone being there when I got there. I knocked on the door and
\nrang the bell (which I found out before I left was broken…) No one let
\nme in. I jumped in my rental car, pulled my laptop out and starting
\nprogramming. The project lead showed up, but must have missed me as she
\nlooked like she was in a hurry… I tried packing up my laptop and jumping
\nout, but I was a little too slow. This time I noticed a number in the
\nwindow. Gave that a call, managed to get a hold of the IT guy and he let
\nme in. This day was a long day, but I did manage to fix some bugs in our
\nsoftware. The video portion wasn’t working quite to their liking… I
\ntried my best to replicate what their old software did, but it wasn’t
\ngoing well. I was in contact with my co-workers, but they couldn’t really
\nhelp me. I left this day feeling a little optimistic tomorrow had to be
\nbetter (hah!)<\/p>\n
After I got back to my room, I decided to take a walk and went to the
\nmall not far from the hotel. It was one of the biggest malls I had ever
\nbeen in and was pretty impressive. After clearing my head, I went back to
\nthe hotel room and started programming. It was getting late and I hadn’t
\nmade much progress, but I thought I was on to something. The next day I
\nwas stuck outside the central for only a few minutes, as someone actually
\nheard me knocking on the door this time. This day was by far the worst and
\nby late afternoon I was pretty stressed out. While I was working, people
\nwould come in and talk to me and I would explain what I was doing (or
\ntrying to do). Apparently the central owner came in (I wasn’t introduced,
\nbut I guess that’s no excuse) and I told him I don’t know why it’s not
\nworking or when it would be done, but I was trying my best. He seemed
\npretty irate and stormed off. About 15 minutes later, the IT guy comes in
\nand tells me that I shouldn’t tell the owner I know jack-shit about a
\nproject and that I should just go home. Yeah that was pretty nice, so I
\npacked my stuff up and went back to the hotel…<\/p>\n
Another late night of coding and a call to Susan for moral support, I
\nwas glad I had only one more day left on my travel. I actually made some
\nsignificant progress that day, I was able to demonstrate how the software
\nwould work… eventually… but the project lead and IT guy weren’t too
\nimpressed and wanted nothing to do with it until it was finished.
\nI’m not sure how I got stuck with my return flight, but it was not very
\nmuch fun. I returned my car, and got to the airport around 5 pm pacific
\ntime. My flight out of California was at 7, and I landed in Phoenix an
\nhour later. I started walking around the airport, but couldn’t seem to
\nfind my connecting flight. I must have looked lost, because one of those
\ncart driver guys asked if I needed help. I told him I was looking for a
\nDelta flight and he said hop on. There wasn’t hardly anyone in this
\nsection of the airport, so we were cruising along pretty good when he
\nasked if I was sure I was looking for a Delta flight. I pulled out my
\nitinerary and it said Delta, even though my boarding pass had a different
\nairline on it (because I printed it from their kiosk). He brought me to an
\nexit and told me I had to go to a different terminal. Afterwards he
\nmentioned he didn’t work on tips, but if I wanted to tip him I could. I
\ngave him a couple bucks, reconfirmed how to get to the terminal and I was
\noff.<\/p>\n
I ended up leaving security and had to go through it once again when I
\ngot to the new terminal. I’ve been on quite a few flights lately and I
\nnever had to take my shaving kit out of my carry-on. Well, as I was
\npushing my bag into the x-ray machine, the operator clearly indicates to
\nremove all liquid items from your bags. I tried grabbing my bag, but it
\nwas too late… oops! The operator than announces to remove all liquid
\nitems from your bag and proceeded to list all the contents of my shaving
\nkit in an unfriendly manner. My bag was ran again and I had to have
\nsomeone inspect the contents of my shaving kit, including a chemical test
\non my bottle of contact solution.<\/p>\n
I got to my gate and had a few hours to wait, I was flying on the red
\neye that left just after midnight. I must have been tired, because I don’t
\nremember much of that flight. I got in Atlanta around 6 am eastern time,
\nmy flight here left at 9. If you’re thinking this flight plan wasn’t a lot
\nof fun, your right it wasn’t. I landed in Detroit a little after noon and
\nFINALLY made it home around 2:30.<\/p>\n
I somehow managed to rack up 80 hours of work time in five days…<\/p>\n
We went up to Winter Carnival this year and even though the snow statues
\nweren’t AS impressive as they normally are, it was still a lot of fun. We
\ndrove up Friday night and stayed the night in Michigamme. The next day we
\nheaded up to Houghton and met up with a couple we knew. They had already
\nseen the statues, so we went out on our own. It was sunny and a little
\nchilly, but a nice day nonetheless. We had dinner reservations at the
\nrestaurant on the top floor of the hotel downtown (the restaurant name
\nalways seems to be changing). We had a window table and were able to see
\nthe ski-torch parade and fireworks. That was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n
After dinner, we headed back to our friends house. They had recently
\ngotten a cockapoo and she was really cute. We had been talking about
\ngetting a puppy… a flyer had gone around at Corning for labradoodles…
\nand I think when we saw that cockapoo, it sealed the deal. We had gone to
\nsee them before their eyes were open and they were pretty cute than. We
\nwent back later to pick one out, and Waldo will be coming home next week
\n(not sure how Scout is going to like that, but it should be interesting \ud83d\ude42
\n).<\/p>\n
As you might have noticed, there will be a new section to my website.
\nI’m going to try to keep track of my progress of 5Ks and my workout time.
\nMostly for me so I can update it anywhere, but feel free to check it out.
\n\ud83d\ude09 I have been playing a lot of racquetball recently and have more wins
\nthan losses in my league. I really wish another one started up for the
\nsummer. I’ve actually been debating upgrading my racquet, so I headed over
\nto a couple of sites online and signed up for the demo program. The first
\nracquet I got was the most expensive of the three, but it was really nice
\nand I’m tempted to get it… I’m still waiting for the other two to come,
\nbut from reading online, I’m still leaning towards that first one I got.
\nI’m still trying to get in shape and am still running those 5Ks. I
\nalready ran my first one for the year, in Montrose. Seeing as how I ran
\nthis one last year, I figured I’d be able to find it pretty easily. I
\nprinted off a handful of directions and left with plenty of time to get
\nthere. Well, I guess I should have brought my avigator with me, as the
\ndirections weren’t quite accurate and I somehow got turned around in
\nSaginaw. After retracing my steps, and getting on the correct road south,
\nI finally saw some familiar sites and new I was almost there… which was
\na good thing, because the race was starting soon… I got to the school,
\nfound a spot to park and headed to registration. They couldn’t find my
\nname to give me my packet… luckily I had looked the day before and knew
\nmy number… sure enough my name was on that package. I tossed the shirt
\nin my car, quickly put my number on and headed to the start line. It was
\nprobably less than 30 seconds and the race had begun (…no sense in
\ncutting it close or anything…) The sun was shining, the wind wasn’t
\nblowing, and I was packing some handwarmers. I wasn’t as cold this year as
\nlast year, and had a lot of fun. I didn’t stick around long and headed
\nback home (the right way) with a 5K under my belt to start the year.<\/p>\n
I must have been a good boy last year, because Santa brought me a PS3
\nfor Christams. I know I was promoting the Wii… and for good reason (it’s
\nstill topping the sales charts), but the need for an upgrade was there. We
\nhave an HDTV and having a video game console that could play blu-rays
\nseemed to make sense. \ud83d\ude42 After getting everything set up, we watched our
\nfirst blu-ray, The Dark Knight, and I was hooked… and not sure if we
\ncould go back to watching standard definition. \ud83d\ude09 I signed up for a
\nGamefly account, which is kind of like Netflix but for games (…and a lot
\nslower…) and have been fighting for TV time ever since. We also have a
\nstreaming disc that allows watching things off our Netflix account
\ninstantly to our TV which is pretty cool… I was surprised how flawless
\nit looked, it was like watching a DVD, but over the internet…<\/p>\n
As some of you may know, I took an accounting class last fall. Before
\nour final, we had a chance to earn some extra credit by taking a ten
\nproblem exam during class. Each question was pretty detailed and it was an
\nall or nothing kind of thing, and each worth ten points. Silly me, I had
\nforgotten to grab my calculator before I left for work. I get to class and
\nfound out I wasn’t the only one who forgot one. The professor did have an
\nextra one, but I was the second to ask… I told him I had a basic
\ncalculator on my cellphone and he said it was alright to use. After
\ngetting through the first couple of problems, my phone starts vibrating…
\nit was a call from one of the guys I was to play racquetball with that
\nweek. So, I hit the button to ignore it and continued with the exam. Sure
\nenough, ten minutes later, I get another call… I bet that didn’t look
\nsuspicious… at all… I must have done decent on the exam, I think I got
\n7 out of 10, which meant a whopping 70 points of extra credit… I didn’t
\nnecessarily have to take the final, but I did and ended up with a 98% in
\nthe class! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
It was that time of the year when I had to get my eyes checked and
\ncontacts ordered. I signed up for an appointment at Lenscrafters and
\nintended to get the contact brand I’ve been using for quite a few years
\nnow. During my appointment, they kept asking if I wanted a scan of my eye
\nand were surprised to hear I had a previous eye injury (even though I
\nmentioned this before…) After getting my prescription and telling the
\nsales associate what brand of contacts I wanted, she outright told me they
\nwould be more expensive then this other brand. I told her I’ve tried other
\nbrands before and they didn’t work out for me. She said these were
\ndifferent… so I said fine I’ll try them. I ordered two boxes (they had
\ntwo in the store) and was told I could take them back if I didn’t like
\nthem.<\/p>\n
One week later, I was back and said I didn’t like them and wanted to
\norder the brand I liked and didn’t care if they were more expensive.
\nWELL… it turns out the brand I wanted was 35 bucks a box and the brand
\nshe wanted to sell me were 50 bucks a box… Yes, that’s right what I
\nwanted was less expensive then what she sold me. After returning the four
\nboxes I had and ordering the other brand, the price “magically” ended up
\nbeing the same. I had gotten a discount on the brand that cost 50 bucks a
\nbox, but it was still nine dollars more than what I should have paid. I
\nwasn’t really worried about the nine dollars and was happy to just have
\nthe contacts I wanted. I decided right then I would not be going back to
\nLenscrafters… ever…<\/p>\n
Funny thing is I got this thing in the mail the other day from them,
\nthanking me for going back to Lenscrafters. Well, there was an online
\nsurvey I got to take and I told them exactly what I thought of their
\nservices…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mexico If you haven’t heard, Susan and I took a little trip down to Mexico in January. One of Susan’s sorority sisters had a destination wedding, and we thought this was the perfect excuse to get out of cold, snowy, Michigan. Our trip started off pretty early (before the sun was up) as we made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,15,8,3,19,16,7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}