Sitting down here at Mike's aunt and uncles house, so thought I'd post since I'm not doing much else. Besides watching people be drunk :)

I got down here to Muscatine, IA Wednesday afternoon. Took about 4 hours-nice trip. It was about 80 degrees and so sunny. Very nice drive with my thoughts...Went to the funeral home that afternoon for the wake of Mike's Uncle. Met a lot of family and friends of course. It was pretty cool-they buried him in his Cubs hat and jersey. About 4 cans of Budweiser and packs of cigarettes made their way into the casket as well. As they joked today, they're probably already gone :)

The funeral was much more difficult as we all know. Unfortunately, the pastor was a real boob and delivered a very inappropriate sermon to say the least. A lot of people were very upset. The hard part was the song played-Butterfly Kisses by Bob Carlisle. Since he was a dad to 3 kids, it really broke a lot of people up. As usual, I underestimated the impact of the cemetary just like I did at my Grandma's funeral. Military funerals are hard and so emotional (Tom served two tours in Viet Nam). The part that hit me was when this old VFW guy in his outfit comes up to Tom's oldest son (who is currently in the army and was dressed in his uniform) and said with the flag in his hands: "On behalf of the United States Army, we'd like to present you with this American Flag in appreciatation for your father's service to his country." Wow. Then, they did the 21 gun salute and Taps. Taps hit everybody hard. Anyway-I think we all felt a large weight lift off our shoulders when everything was done. He's really going to be missed by his family and friends.

Leaving tomorrow morning to head back to Rochester and stay there until Sunday. Mike will leave here on Sunday to come home. Back to work for us both on Monday. I've been checking my work emails and I'm starting to get nervous. They want a full staff meeting with us all on Tuesday and the request was that all the staff bring their schedules of what they have planned for work in the next month or so. What can that mean? I'm really thinking shut down early.

Jobs-send 'em my way. PLEASE!! :)

It's been over a week since I posted-been extremely busy.

We had our last big event with Target Market this weekend. I haven't had a day off now in 9 days, worked 43 extra hours on top of my normal 40. Ready for a break!! :)

Unfortunately, we had more bad news yesterday. Mike's Uncle Tom was killed in a car accident Saturday night. So, he left this afternoon to head down to Iowa. I'm leaving Wednesday for the funeral on Thursday. He's very shook up about it, as are the rest of the family. Hopefully all goes well this week.

FYI to Dad, Pat, Lyn-no NASCAR results probably until next week. I"d do them, but I don't know where he has the Excel sheet. Lyn-I heard you're sick of Steve Park being the human wrecking machine?

I haven't had time to catch up on my war news until today. Just found out that Peter Arnett was fired. That's a story, for sure. Heard Geraldo got fired too...that on the other hand isn't so surprising.

Pat-Kirby's trial is all the news at night up here. He's supposed to be testifying himself sometime this week.

I'm watching the movie Primary Colors tonight. I love it-John Travolta was great in it. Makes me miss Clinton. I can't help it. I was reminded of an SNL right after Bush took office. Will Farrell's on the phone talking to Bush Sr. and says, "Daddy, this is HARD!" I love Barbara Bush's quote last week. She said (and I'm paraphrasing big time) "I'm counseling the former President, the current President, and the governor of Florida." Then I think she said something about how she's really running things. Pretty close!

I'll be out of state from tomorrow through the weekend. Our HR director who is acting as the boss these days had the nerve to ask me if I was taking sick time for funeral leave. My response? "How many hours do you think I worked this past weekend? I'm taking comp time." I would have liked to have added a name to punctuate the sentence, but I did not. I need the unemployment. :) Pat, I keep your advice in my head each day, believe me. It's the only way I don't go postal.

Again, I agree with Pat's analysis of Clerks.