I'm back from vacation

I went to two friends' wedding over the weekend (they married each other). It was a great experience. I got to see lots of friends again, I got to travel, I got to take a vacation, I saw pretty trees changing colors, I got to go to Cedar Point and ride my favorite roller coasters, and I had an all around great time.

I also got to play around with my SLR camera. Oooooh. It was amazing. Between my two cameras, I took more than 1,000 pictures of the wedding, friends, hanging out and Cedar Point. Some of the pictures looked really good. I might upload some here, but I'd have to resize them from gigantic.

But I really needed this vacation. It was fantastic. I love my friends.

Speaking of friends, my plans to get back to the Cleveland airport fell apart. But a friend of mine who lives in greater Cleveland offered to give me a lift to a motel near Cleveland and drive me to the airport the next morning. What a great guy.

Being in Cleveland made me realize how much I love big cities. He drove me around a little bit. We visited another friend, who was totally surprised to see me. That was so fun. But I also enjoyed driving around the roads and seeing all the businesses. We drove by downtown Cleveland. I like it because the tall buildings are pretty cool.

And it made me realize how small Amarillo really is. This city's got about 200,000 people, but that's it. There are no suburbs. There are two interstates, but they just pass through the city. Not much of a loop. Downtown's small and not too lively.

Don't get me wrong, I like Amarillo. Anything larger than Kayenta is cool. But Amarillo's not big enough for me. Ever since I lived in Tucson and Denver, I've been an urbanite. I love cities. That's all there is to it.

This was pretty corny

A co-worker, Brittani, and I went to a corn maze yesterday. I got to really try out my new camera. There were two parts of the maze. The first part took us about 40 minutes, and the second took us about an hour. We got so lost a few times in the second part.

But it was fun. The skies were clear, and it was in the 80s. What great weather for mid-October.


There was a slide. The view above the corn was no help.


It was pretty fun. I'd never been to a corn maze before, and I had a good time.

After a year

Wednesday is my one-year anniversary at the Amarillo Globe-News. I'm really happy here, and I've been given so many opportunities. My design, editing and headline writing skills have improved vastly, and I'm doing a lot more with the Internet.

I got my camera today and am currently charging the battery. I can't wait to try this sucker out! I guess I'll be making more blog entries with photos.

De shuttle photos

Half of the photos I took with the SLR didn't come out because the film was damaged. Boo. But the pictures that did look really cool. Man, that thing's big. I'll scan some photos and post them here sometime.

Camera!

I ordered my camera, and it's being shipped. I can't wait! It should be here Tuesday. I am nervous because UPS was the only shipping option, and I've had such bad luck with UPS. I want to boycott UPS, but it's hard to when it's the only option. So hopefully things aren't screwed up. It even requires a signature, which is one plus.

I bought my tickets to fly to the wedding. Things seem really good right now. Except the weather. It's cooling off a little after two days in the 90s. But it is fall now, so I guess I'll have to start dressing warmer.

Coolest thing ever!

The 747 that the space shuttle piggybacks on flew into Amarillo yesterday to refuel. It flew here from Edwards Air Force Base in California. It was easily the coolest thing I've seen and done since I moved to Amarillo nearly a year ago. I'm just going to post pictures of it. I'm so geeked about it, so the pictures will replace my rambling about the awesomeness.




Woo! Best day ever!

Good news!

At last! We got our schedules for the next four weeks. I'm getting my weekends back (Sundays and Mondays), and our new guy starts on Tuesday. I'm so excited.

And apparently I proved myself as slot, so now it looks like on Saturdays I'll be rimming and slotting to help speed up the process and get all the pages read for the big Sunday paper. That's awesome.

I am a little nervous about going back to doing some design, but it's nothing too big. I'll be fine.

Vacation: My days off were approved, so I'm going to be attending my friend's wedding in Pennsylvania. Now I just need to find plane tickets.

Ah. Feelin' fine.

Time off, huh?

My supervisor called me today asking about the time off I requested. Sounds like it's going to be approved! I'm excited. I'm taking six days at the end of October and beginning of November to go to a friend's wedding. That should be cool. It'll be a great break from the six-day weeks and changing days off.

The new guy starts Monday or Tuesday, and I couldn't be happier. I'm totally burnt out. With fluctuating days off and no weekends, I'm going crazy, and it's showing at work. I've been missing mistakes lately, and my headlines aren't good. Good thing we have people look over the proofs because I've just sucked lately.

So going to the wedding in Pennsylvania will be good for me. I'm only going to Pennsylvania for a couple of days, so the other days I think I'm just going to lounge around and do nothing. I might drive to Albuquerque and visit a museum or something. I'm such a bum. I've lived here nearly a year, and I haven't done anything.

I'm already thinking of real vacation ideas for next year. I do want to get back to San Fransisco and visit my cousin. My brother's trying to get time off so we can go together, though his time off seems to never be approved.

I'm not sure where else I could go. Maybe I could go back to Denver. Or Washington, D.C. I'd also like to ride some more roller coasters since I only got to Wonderland this year. I'll figure it out when the time comes. For now, I'm just thankful that it sounds like I'm getting some time off!