I couldn't visit the Shrine of Speed without going onto the track and kissing the Bricks. This is a racing tradition both in NASCAR and INDY car racing that the winner of the race pays homage to the track by kissing the bricks at the start/finish line. I feel honored to have had the opportunity! (Yes, I am on the actual track and No, I didn't get run over by any of the vehicles that were on the track. I actually got on local Indy TV for doing this...)
Time for another round of "catch up with the elusive engineer".
First, the vacation was an absolute BLAST! Lots of cars, lots of excitement, lots of Europeans, the best group of people I could EVER have the opportunity to hang out with for 5 days! I went with some of my co-workers up to Indy for the F1 race, it was great. They had 3 other racing series there (Indy Pro Series, Formula BMW and Porche). The next door neighbor of one of our group actually had a Pro Series car entered so we hung out in the "garage" and watched them work on the car for a couple of days. I was in engineering heaven! Another surprise at the track, Frankie Munoz (Malcolm from the show "Malcolm in the Middle") was racing one of the Formula BMW cars, so that was pretty cool. We were also introduced to two very wonderful people named Al and Kittie. No trip to Indy is complete without a stop at Al and Kitty's house. We met all sorts of racing folks at their house and heard all kinds of really neat stories about NASCAR, F1 and Indy series. A big THANK YOU to them for opening up their house to us and showing us some wonderful Midwestern hospitality. I also discovered a new cocktail there called SKYLAB... Yummy!!! More on that in another post...
Medical update - I am going in on Thursday, July 20th to have said abnormality removed from my right breast. I will have Friday off of work, the weekend to recover then back to work on Monday, so no leave is necessary. Whee! Time to be out of it for a couple of days. A week to 10 days after the surgery, I will have the biopsy results.
Work update - Yeah, the bragsheet is done! Big relief! I had a phone interview on June 25th for an etch engineering position and I am going to Phoenix on July 12th for the second interviews! It will be a same day trip, so no suitcase is necessary. Today, I had a phone interview for litho engineering positions and they will be scheduling second interviews for that position on the same day, so it will be between 4 - 6 interviews in one day... WOW! I will hopefully hear the results by the end of the month so I can plan accordingly. Right now, looks like either October or January of 2007 for a move...
I taught my first class last night at Village Wools. Since it was my first class, there were a few things that didn't go as well as I would have liked them to go, but overall it was a positive experience. We went through beginning sock knitting. I printed up a 6 page pamphlet to cover the basics up through the heel turn. This weekend, I will finish the print out and go through the rest of the sock, answer more questions and put online resources into the document so the folks in the class will have reference material for after the class is finished. My 2 socks on 2 circs class may not happen since only 2 folks are signed up.
My kiddo, Chris, left for Florida yesterday to hang out with his Dad for a month. I know he will have fun down there, but I really really miss having him around! He's a great kid!
That's about all happening in life here... It's short so I will try to go into more detail if I get some time over the weekend...
