New title... kinda the same job

So, on Monday, Julie had finally had enough.  I applaud her decision to stand up for herself... but at the same time it really put the rest of the team in a bind.

 

The first reaction for me was "oh, well I guess I'll get that raise I was hoping for."  Which is insane, because that was essentially me talking to myself saying that I'd already accepted her job.  AAAAHhhh

 

So, the day plays out, and it's all quiet.  The phone call comes in from 'head cheese'.  We talked for a while, and he essentially offered me the job right away.  I told him I'd have to think on it... which I have been doing.

 

I made lists of all the concerns I had.  I talked with Rain about her point-of-view on the situation and the whole "independant business" aspect.  That had me a little spooked.  I mean, c'mon, I've got a kid on the way and a house to pay for.  AAAAhhh

 

So, after some long chats to Tony and discussions with the wife, I made the decision.

 

I'm a CENTRE MANAGER for PTC Thunder Bay!

 

The wage is slightly less than I would make teaching Full Time... but there is potential to grow.  I just have to get a hold of the Lakehead Board and figure out what the situation would be if I were to put myself on hold with them for the year.  See what happens after that.

 

Wish me luck! 

updates? i have none - did go camping tho'

So, yeah, not much new going on in teh Moore font.

 

Some pretty nice short weeks I'm having.  Every weekend in July was booked up, plus one in August.

 

First was Tconite, then Hibbing, then this past weekend was the camping with Mandy, next will be Butternut and then the guy's canoe trip.

 

So pretty busy.  I booked off every Friday at work so I could make sure I get everything in order.  I feel guilty, but I really enjoy my time away from work.  Especially lately.

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Anyways, so this past week we went to the KOA to visit Uncle Al while he's camping there instead of going to band practice.  It was a good time.  I've been trying to be all about having a good time at band lately and try to build the comraderie.  I think this was a god time for that.  I'll post some pics ... enjoy.

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Also, I promised Mandy that she'd get at least one wekend in with me where we'd go camping.  So this past weekend I called it our Anniversary camping trip.  It was really good.  Site #29 at the Sleeping Giant Park.  Just a few down from where we were a few years back with the kids (Alex, Cayley and Jordynn).

 

The first night we just sat back and relaxed.  We got in for like 5:30 or so. The girl who checked us in recognized me as a teacher (still an odd experience) and we set up camp and had some hotdogs.  I accidentally trapped a chipmunk in our screen tent.  He climbed in ok the one door ... but couldn't find it again.  Trapped like 3 of them (not all at once tho').

 

Then we slept. 

 

Next day we woke up, had some deepfried pancakes.  Well I did at least.  THen we hung out for a while, napped a little, then headed down to the beach to swim.  I say swim, but really we just waded up to our waists.  We're getting old, our excitement level's dropped.

 

When we got back, Mandy's parents came by for a visit... then Charm and her kids and my mom.  The camp was a hoppin' at that point.  The kids wanted to go down to the beach... so we did, came back and had some dinner.  They also made soem s'mores after borrowing (mooching) some marshmallow's from the neighbours.

 

Soon it was all peaceful again and Mandy and I hung out watching the fire for a while.  I could stare at a good coal based fire for hours.  But, we were pooped.  So we turned in earlier and went to sleep.

 

Now mandy will tell you the aztek is cold... i don't think so.  I was so wam.. Plus we put the double sized mattress in there and it fit beautifully.  Never had a better sleep in there.

 

In the morning we pakced up and headed over to the Howie camp... it was ok, we got to say Congrats to Kris and Greg (except Greg wasn't there).  Then my allergies really kicked in (even after i took medication) so we hightailed it home where I could get some real rest.

 

Check the pics!

-ry

peter's joke

just in case you wanted it...

 

http://soapbox.msn.com/?user=-6745576166321313024

 

this is my soapbox page, look for some good videos

the most recent is Peter's joke telling ability.

Officially growing up... papers are signed and everything

So, ... with all the news of mandy being pregnant we're becoming more and more 'adults' as we mature and ready.  Mandy's been given books by Rain on what to expect, Charm's giving advice, we're planning financially and ... just well ... being adults.

 

It's cool.

 

The only thing we were missing was a house so far.  We've been looking for some time now.  Had MANY fights over what houses we've liked etc...

 

On the 9th we went out with Mandi for another round of 4 houses.  We looked about and really liked the first one we saw.  So much so we went back to have another look at it.  We called my dad, and Mandy's dad to have their opinion.

 

They really liked it... and we really liked it... 7:30 we went home to just think about if we were to put a bid in or not.

 

By 8:30 we had put a bid in... 8:35 we had one the bid by $100!!!!!  Mandi was just going bonkers... I was ready to throw up, and Mandy was just excited as all she could be.

 

Tonight we just finalized all the mortgages and signed the last of all the papers.

 

It's official... we're a family with a home now.  It's going to be awesome.

 

We have to wait until Aug.13th now to take possession and move in.  I really can't wait.

 

Now those who will get to see it, be warned, it's cozy... but i'll have my own basement.  OOOOoooh!!

Hibbing '07

Another year, another Hibbing Mines & Pines Jubilee comes.

 

It was weird this trip because it was setup that I would drive with Deb and the girls.  Let me tell you it's entirely a different scent to:

 

A) not drive

B) not let any bodily functions go

 

crazy.  What also was weird that the girls fell asleep in the back pretty quickly... well after I let them watch some DVDs.  So it was a quiet ride.  But it was a nice ride.

 

Hibbing was a blast as always.  When we got there we enjoyed our normal first night relax.  I showed Peter my joke list on my palm and he spent most the night reading the jokes.  It was pretty funny watching him read the palm and then just stop reading to laugh hysterically before he could finish the joke.  He also would try to incorporate the people around into the joke.  Well, not all the peope, just Brandy (we had to do something since she doesn't like the Towelie-Head Brandy song).

 

The next day was pretty low key - the parade wasn't until 3!!  That's a pretty late parade for us.  I watched some of my Spinal tap, Jim Breuer stand up comedy...  It was pretty weird as it was only going to be me leading the parade.  Rory was back in town for a wedding.  So I had to be on the ball calling the shots, when to tune up, when to suit up.  Luckily the parade was easy.  We must have waited at least an hour or more.  When we finally moved we had plenty of space so that we didn't have to keep stopping and starting.

 

The barn-storming wasn't as fun as it usually is, hard to keep together a band that has a million different ideas and very little listening ability.  Sorry, I am just frustrated over it still.

 

Checco's treated us very well.  Too bad we had to keep going to other places.  I wanted to go back, but we had to hit the Brick Yard, which turned out to be pretty fun as well.  We played on the second level of the bar, just over the crowd.  Still boggles me how people go so crazy over piping.

 

The ride home meant we stopped at the Lake Superior Trading Post.  I like that place.  I usually go looking to get stuff for camping and end up with other stuff.  I picked up a book on basic science experiments... I'm such a geek.  We also got to cruise around their dragon boat festival... it was kind of like how Bayfield had all their craft booths out.

 

All in all - a good trip.  If you're in teh facebook group, you can check out some of the other pictures.  I'll post what I have, but I tend to take less pictures these days.

 

l8r

Stress #2 - i'm such a good lawyer

Remember a while back when I blogged about that car accident thingie?

 

Well I've never really found out anything about the court date.  I've called a couple times but got no real answer.  They kept saying "you'll get something in the mail".  That mail never came.

 

I did however get the date fo the trial.  It was for y esterday.  So Monday I went in and asked the questions WHERE/WHAT TIME?  I had about the RUDEST person available.  First she said that "WE NEVER MAIL ANYTHING OUT" ... which begs teh question, "how would somebody find out when their trial is?"  I was aggrevated.  SO I asked her that question, to which she replied "well how DID you find out about the date?"  I told her that I had called and that was all they gave.  So she said "wait one minute, i'll be right back".  She came back with a returned envelope.  The thing that they NEVER mail out was returned to them because they wrote my address wrong.  And they did it back in MAY!!!!... so 2 months have passed and nobody even bothered to contact me to say 'hey we couldn't mail this to you'... so I would have been in default had I not called.

 

Well I then follow this up with the request for my disclosure forms (the report from the officer's point of view).  And I get the meanest response ever - "you won't get it".  "But i do have a right to it", and she got snippy saying that it would take a while.  But I was never informed that i HAD to request them with a certain amount of time to get them.  So she let me fill the paperwork out.  At worst, I could as for a stay of the trial because I haven't had all evidence made available to me yet.

 

Fast forward to Tuesday.  I get a call from the Provincial Offences office... "Mr. Moore, you requested the disclosure forms, and upon rview of the forms we have decided we will withdraw the charges.  You still have to go to court to present yourself to the prosecution attourney and at that point they will inform you that they are officially withdrawing the charge."

 

WOOHOO  -  take that Brandon.  I'm such a good lawyer, I didn't even have to go to real court and I got myself off.

 

Well the day of the court I went and presented myself half an hour before trial starts.  And the PA looked like he was surprised I was there "you do know we're withdrawing the charge right?"   He said I didn't ahve to be there... but I wanted to be sure, so I stuck around.

 

After the 15th person came into the court I figured it could be a long time before I have my moment, so I had the PA reassure me that I did NOT have to be there, that i COULD leave and everything would be alright and they would still withdraw the conviction.

 

I have my little piece of paper  photocopied today saying "withdrawn R/P"  (at the request of the prosecution).

 

Okay... that down... now to get a hold of that other stupid guy and make his ins. company see that it was NOT my fault at all.

Trip to Taconite

Sounds like a good pipe-tune.  If I knew how to write one, I would.

 

Well... what an amazing trip.  We were so well taken care of.  Taconite, you are an amazing city.  I wish every year was your 100th anniversary.

 

So what happened is we all decided to take off to Taconite, at about the same time, I took the new route, that went along hwy 15/16.  I think it was shorter, but there definitely needs to be more work done on the roads before it's a pleasant short cut.

 

Well we figured Deb would be there first so we decide to head on straight to Grand Rapids, where we're being put up for the night.  We were to look for the Rainbow Inn.  Turns out there is none... it's changed.  So that took a few to figure out... then we had to get a hold of Lefty.  That got us nowhere (as we didn't have his cellphone).  So we feel awful ... we were supposed to play at like 1 or something when they started their celebrations, and it's now like 3.

Finally we get a hold of somebody as we walked around downtown Taconite.  We were given a nice place to park our vehicles, a big tent for shade and even... drum roll... A COACH BUS.  This bus is to ferry us around from town and back and whereever else we wanted.  It was like mega star life.  A real live hotel, and  fancy bus!

 

We played alot down town... by the firehall... in the VFW... even in some lady's back yard.  It was awesome.

 

The night was just about as good.  Same sort of deal, just bussed around for dinner, then back to teh town for some more playing.  It was an awesome time.

 

The parade the next day... man it was warm.  But, for only 3.5 blocks... who cares.  We could have done that like 10x and not worked up a sweat!  Maybe we should have worn full dress.

 

Then it was a leisurely drive home.  I got a weird allergy attack on the way back.  I just kept blowing my nose the entire time.  And Brandy said she had some major dehydration without realizing until it was too late.

 

Well, the pics should be up ... check 'em out.  I was too busy to take real pictures... Chris has some on his blog.  Check his space out!