Time To Say Goodbye To Indiana.

.....It was a long week compressed into a few short days. The good news is that I get to board an airplane tomorrow morning (at 5:50AM) and fly home. There is so much happening in the world of submarine batteries that everyone was anxious to get back to the front lines. The bad news was that we crammed two weeks worth of material into three long days. Which means a lot of things went unanswered.

.....I was hoping for more solutions, but have been doing battle myself with the evil e-mail and cell phone monster all week. Nextel does not get a signal out at NSWC - Crane, so I would go back to the hotel room each night and deal with the several dozen or so messages waiting for me. I'll be rather glad to get back to my desk next week and have the ability to deal with issues immediately.

.....I sound rather frustrated when I really shouldn't be. It is always a good thing to meet face to face. Putting faces to the voices you hear on conference calls every week makes for a better connection and greater comprehension of what the other is thinking when they speak to something on the phone. It's also a great way to talk things out to ensure what you are saying is what they are interpretting. It is amazing what you think others understand of what you say.

.....What IS frustrating though is dealing with a lot of the engineers here. I get the fact that having a degree means you have a good deal of knowledge at your disposal, and a system of sorts on how to use it. But, Dude! The fact that I have only a two year degree, or my boss, who only has a high school diploma, does not mean that we are stupid. When you throw some data on a board that was gained in a haphazard way and slapped together in a half-assed fashion and expect us to buy it without comment? And looking annoyed when we shoot holes all through your data and results? Why waste all of our time. Grrrr.

.....Indiana itself is rather nice. The people are friendly for the most part. It's hot and muggy, but not nearly as bad as Florida and Georgia. I could get used to it. Although the part that religion plays in their daily lives is rather scary. Their media is saturated with it, as well as their politics. I'd have to learn how to drive a lot more defensively if I lived here as well. :-)

.....There are turtles here as well! I almost ran over one when driving out of Crane. I thought it was a tan rock in the road and realized what it was just as I was whizzing by it. I immediately pulled over and put on my hazard lights and hurried out to make sure it was all right. The turtles are not friendly here, that's for sure. It kept trying to bite me! I just wanted to get the silly thing off the road so it wouldn't get run over. I finally pulled out a binder from my daypack and pushed it off the road. The people who drove by all had the same look on their face. As in 'FREAK'! :-) Oh, well, I like turtles, even mean and nasty turtles, and didn't want to see it hurt.

.....I had hoped to get out early today so I could go and visit Donnan and Callista. But that was not meant to be. Maybe next year.

.....It's an hour drive to the Indianapolis Airport. With a 5:50AM flight, I'll need to be there at least by 4AM. So it looks like a 3AM departure from Bloomington. Sigh! I need to go to bed really soon.

.....Don't have to be anywhere this weekend though. Definitely looking forward to that. An Tir / West was already off the plate. Work is just too intense right now. There was first the possibility that this conference would last all of next week. But even coming back I'll need to catch up with other things back at home. I might try making arrangements earlier next year in order to specifically be able to go to An Tir / West. Too many things to plan for.

.....But am really bummed I missed Newcomers Night. TBT could really have used the support. Plus I would have liked to meet the people who are eventually going to become the force behind Dragon's Laire's success. I like to get in on the ground floor for those relationships. :-)

.....Now I'm rambling. It's time for bed.

.....Aaron / Arontius.