Happy Turkey Day(s)!!!

Thanksgiving was great this year. We managed to make it to three total Thanksgiving events, two in Michigan and one at our house in Indianapolis. It was great to see everybody. Here's a couple of pics of everybody at the Caswell Thanksgiving festivities in Michigan.


Grandpa Takes In The Game


The girls.


Today Jen's family drove up from Bloomington to have dinner with us. I cooked and managed not to screw anything up. Of course, I did make enough food to feed an army. Seriously, by the time we were done eating we barely even put a dent in the food. The potatoes were piled so high that even after dinner they were still at a level above the top of the bowl. Oops! Apparently Jen and I will be eating ham and other leftovers for about 3 weeks. Good thing we like to eat!


The Lucas Family


Nicole pretends to read.

Our house

I realized this weekend that I hadn't posted any pictures of our house for everybody to see. When we got home we saw that our nice tree out front had finally changed color so we figured it was a great time to take a picture.


Our House

Pumpin' Iron

Well, I'm still a little confused as to just how it happened, but Jen and I joined a gym this past weekend. There's a family owned mini-franchise place called "Cardinal Fitness" here in Indianapolis. They're really cheap and everybody there seems pretty nice. $32 a month for the both of us. That's less than you usually have to pay for one person.

They're small but they have good stuff. They don't have a pool or raquetball courts or anything, but they do have all new equipment. It's kind of nice that they aren't too big because that limits the exercise freaks that you have to deal with. There's plenty of cardio equipment and enough weight equipment to accomplish everything we need. It's pretty comparable to what they had at Stanford.

Jen and I have each been there twice now and the pain is definitely present. I couldn't really move my arms yesterday. Apparently my biceps were on the brink of explosion, or at least they felt like it. We'll have to take it easy for a while I guess. It feels good to be healthy though. I know I'm getting older because my motivation has moved from looking good to feeling good.

The amazing swimming Mosby!

Mosby has done some funny stuff since he's moved in, especially as he gets used to his lack of claws. But he topped it all last night as he went for a little swim in the toilet. He got himself nice and soaked. We not sure what happened but he must have just fell in. We're keeping the lid down now.

Congrats!

I'm sure everyone who reads this already knows, but congratulations to Dad for becoming Associate Speaker Pro-Temp. Nice work!

The Kitty Is Surviving

Well, the cat has officially made it an entire week without destroying anything or having anything bad happen. The day after we got him he had a blown pupil, but that's almost healed. His one eye was completly dialated. It was huge. It still detected light, because he would squint, but it wouldn't contract. Weird.

The vet said that happens sometimes, though. Apparently they have a long optic nerve, and things like trauma or infection can inflame it and cause these kinds of problems. He didn't really know the cause, but he pulled the standard doctor trick: He gave us some antibioitics and said to check back if it didn't get better. We wonder if it was just a side effect of the anisthetic from the surgery. Who knows? At least it's getting better though.

We also put some "soft paws" on Mosby. He was scratching us quite a bit. Not on purpose, just when he lays down he likes to alternate stretching out each of his paws. It's actually kind of like a mini massage, but it can hurt when he gets you just right. We didn't want to get him declawed yet because, frankly, we don't want to spend the cash until we know he isn't going to keel over on us from his eye thing. So we got these little caps to glue onto his claws. It was a fairly easy thing to do.

The funny part has been watching Mo get used to not having claws. He likes to walk along the back of our chair, stand up on the back, and bat at the blinds. Well, since he doesn't have claws he can't hold himself up. He keeps wiping out and falling off the chair. It's pretty hilarious. And now the little mini-massages are quite nice. Of course, they aren't nice at 5:30 in the morning like today, but they're nice at other times.

Mosby comes home.

Jen and I picked up the new cat today. We got him home and he seems to be doing pretty well. He's mostly just exploring right now. We decided to call him Mosby. Not sure where that name came from, but it seems fun. Here's a pic...

Mosby getting used to the new digs.

Pet Attempt: The Sequel

Jen and I just got done adopting a cat. Yup, you heard me right, a cat. It must have been a momentary weakness on my part. I'll post some pictures (and a name) when we pick him up Thursday.

Washington D.C. Trip

I just got back from a trip to Rolls-Royce headquarters in Chantilly, Virginia. They took all the “Early Career, High Potential” members from North America and sent us there to get a feel for the upper levels of the company. There were 33 of us all together, with 15 coming from Indianapolis. We were all somewhere between 25 and 30 years old. I think I was one of the younger folks (at least maturity wise! Just kidding! :^).

I flew out on Monday. The put us up at a really nice hotel called Westfields Marriott. It was a pretty fancy place. We didn’t do anything Monday night so I just got to relax and watch some baseball (go Sox!).

On Tuesday morning we started off with some meetings at the headquarters. The Rolls-Royce North America President, Jim Guyette, began with a half hour spiel about the ECHP program and what it means to Rolls-Royce. It was an inspiring speech, but it was a little daunting to hear that the 33 of us in that room were expected to be running the company in the future. Yeah, right!

After Mr. Guyette’s speech we heard from eight other heads of the business. The CEOs of Civil, Defense (which I’m under), Energy, and Marine all talked with us. The leaders of the financial, human resources, legal, and corporate communications divisions also spoke. It was nice to hear about the company from the leaders and get to ask them questions. They talked too long and we asked too many questions, so we were way over time for the morning.

After lunch we went down to Washington, D.C. to the Capitol building. We drove buy all the memorials, Smithsonian museums, and government departments. It was neat to see. We ended up at the House of Representatives committee building. We went into the Committee for International Affairs room and sat down at the big chairs up front. Then we had some folks come and talk to us about government on “The Hill”.

We have four lobbyists in Washington that talk with everybody to try and swing things for Rolls-Royce. There is an ex-Senator, Ed Pees, an ex-general, Mike Ryan, and a couple staffers. They were all neat people. They told us about their jobs and what they do for the company. They also had staffers from some others Senators/Reps come in to speak with us. It was fascinating. I’m sure my Dad would have loved to be there. As it was, I grabbed some “International Affairs” stationary for him. I would have gotten more but I just couldn’t seem to pry any paintings off the wall.

We spent all afternoon at the Capitol and then bussed it back to the hotel. They wined and dined us all night and we got a chance to speak with all the people we heard that morning. It was so strange to realize that we were talking face-to-face with the 10 most powerful people of RRNA. They were all great people, very friendly and talkative, and great leaders. One lady I talked with, the head of Corporate Communications, worked in the White House for Reagan and the first George Bush. Wow! They finished up with a nice surf-&-turf dinner and some dessert. Then it was back to the room at 10:00 for some more baseball.

The next morning we headed back toward the Capitol. This time we went to the Pentagon. We couldn’t go inside because it would have taken too long to get through security, so instead we went to the Marine headquarters right next door. A couple young Marines told us about their jobs and how they use our equipment and plan for budgets. Then a four-star general, introduced only as “Spider”, came in to speak with us. What a neat guy! He was really excited about what he did. I asked him for his thoughts on Afghanistan and he seemed to be very excited about what we’ve done there. Apparently the elections went off without a hitch and the citizens of that country are ecstatic to be free and vote for the first time in their lives.

After that we went to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. There are two museums. The one by the Capitol houses small things. The one we went to, by the airport, houses the big stuff. There was an SR-71 Blackbird, a Concorde, a Space-Shuttle prototype, tons of fighter jets, even an F-35B Joint Strike Fighter (which I work on). Neat stuff. Unfortunately our tour guide decided to suck our brains out by giving the most excruciatingly boring tour of all time. He was a nice guy but he sure didn’t know when to say when. Ughh!
Well, that’s it. I got stuck in Newark on the way home and had to spend the night there. That stunk, but it could have been worse. Can’t complain too much after an experience like that. Good to be home with the ol’ lady though!

Technical Assistant Position

Well, the results are in and I didn't make the cut for the technical assistant position. Apparently they were looking for someone with actual talent. Who knew?! :-)

While I'm a little disappointed, I must say I'm a little bit relieved as well. That would have been a real long time to leave Jen back in Indy all by her lonesome self. It sure would have been neat to go to Europe for a while though.

I'm still keeping my options open for other UK opportunities. I just got an email the other day about special scholarships & secondments. They tend to be for 3 months, instead of the 6 I was considering. That would be much more bearable. Of course, I wouldn't be the numero uno coffee fetcher for the biggest engineer in the company. But it would still be neat.

I guess that's it for now. I've got some special assignment coming down the pipe, plus in December I'm going to do some lecturing at Rose-Hulman. So I've still got some neat stuff in store at work. I'll keep you updated.