Well, it seems that life is settling into a steady pace while we're both studying hard.
Ian has been attending the Firefighter Academy religously on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, but he's already studied way beyond his current lessons. He has also been getting into some "proper" work though as he's been getting some jobs with the limo company. His first two trips have both been Friday afternoon pick-ups from Boston Airport. We're taking bets on when he'll pick up his first IAE customer But today he was in the yard for some training when they got a call from someone just wanting a ride to his friend's house, to sit around and wait for him while he watched the Daytona 500, then take him home. Ian was right place, right time! It's the easiest job going and Ian even got invited into the house to watch the race. Then an hour or so later, the client got driven home. A $400 cab ride but he was still a good tipper .
We've been spending a bit more time socially with some of Ian's firefighter friends. Last Saturday night we went out for a meal with Matt and Kristi (who's housewarming was a couple of weeks' ago) before Ian went round to theirs early on Sunday to watch the Aresnal game. Matt is about the only American we know who knows anything about football (soccer). This Saturday night Tony and Robyn were having a "burn" where old Christmas trees are, well, erm, set on fire. Good job there were a bunch of firemen present then It was supposed to take place a few weeks ago but it was too cold. It was hardly toasty now but it was at least bearable (with a nice fire to warm the cockles!).
Elsewhere there has been a baby shower for our neighbour Suzy who is due to give birth in a month. The girls all had to submit baby photos for a competition so Annalie put in the one of her at around 18 months with a black eye! Suzy was the only one who actually guessed it and a few people thought that Fi's photo was of Annalie.
Annalie's Masters assignments are slowly progressing. She is getting incredibly frustrated with JetBlue though, who still continually promise to get back to her to set up some time to go in and see them and take part in their new employee orientation, but she's still not had anything from them. She'd already decided that her last assignment before the dissertation would have to be switched onto IAE instead, which is a little frustrating.
The one ray of light though is that her university tutor has told her that deadlines are "flexible" enabling her to focus on getting the right results rather than trying to make do with what she can get in time. She doesn't really want to take the end deadline beyond the end of May though as she'd like to get it over and done with as soon as possible. And boy, does she want it over with?! By the time the end of May comes she'll probably be just about dead as the biggest air show of the year is during the second week of June in Paris and then there's a huge event in China that she's likely to be at soon after. So there's no way she wants to drag out the dissertation any more than she has to!
Seeing as Ian finishes at the end of May too, we're thinking that a weekend away is in order around that time. We'll have deserved it don't you think?
Work is incredibly frustrating for Annalie as well though as she's got an awful lot of meetings to go to and there's no one in her team that can do her work for her while she's not there. So she's trying not to work late to enable her to come home and study, but sometimes it doesn't work out like that.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Ski House shenanigans
Not a huge amount to report this week I'm afraid. Life is trundling on. But I guess the biggest news is that we've left the ski house We weren't getting on with one of the girls in the house and she kind of put a bad feeling on any occasions that we were all up there together. On Saturday night we had a bit of a falling out with her and it wasn't going to work out for the rest of the season, so we decided to pack up our stuff and leave We're not sure if we'll be able to get any of our money back yet, but we'll talk nicely to Mhairi and Steve, who are reasonable people, but they are also very good friends with this other couple.
We are planning to go back up to Killington during the remainder of the season, especially as we've got season passes. But we'll probably try and find a cheap hotel/motel nearby to stay for a Saturday night.
Before the drama of Saturday night occured, the boarding was really good as Killi had 20 inches of snow in 24 hours over Wednesday and Thursday We thought that Killi would be pretty busy, so we headed to the smaller, sister resort, Pico. It's very small in comparison to Killi, but much less crowded, especially at weekends. It was really nice in the morning as there was virtually no one on the mountain and no lift queues. The snow was great because of the dump from Thursday and we had a really nice couple of hours.
When we went in for lunch, we noticed it getting a bit busier and the lift lines got a lot longer. It turns out that Killi had virtually shut down because of the winds - which were icily cold but Pico seemed to be sheltered - so a lot of the Killi skiiers moved round to Pico for the afternoon.
We tried this one lift that had an off-ramp that was almost like a ski jump in itself!! The first time we went up it we weren't expecting such a dismount! So we just launched ourselves off it and managed to both stay upright. The second time though, we knew what we were expecting and this kind of made it more difficult, ironically. Ian managed to make it in one piece but Annalie didn't get out of his way quick enough and went flying. No damage done though.
It's probably not a bad thing to not have the commitment of the house every weekend now. What with Annalie's Masters and Ian's firefighter training taking up lots of time, even at weekends, we could do with claiming some of that committed time back.
Elsewhere this week, Ian has been doing a lot of his training. He had a drill on Sunday morning and then the Fire Academy started in earnest on Tuesday and Thursday. He is getting well ahead with his homework though and had already read around 4 weeks ahead of where he is! Doubt he'll get any bonus points though.
Ian was due to be working at the limo company on Wednesday, but due to the forecast snow and ice storm rolling in, they called to cancel his training as they needed all drivers available to cope with any disruption. Hopefully he'll be back in this week for some more. Although there's another snow storm due to roll in on Tuesday.
Annalie has just been working steadily all week and getting on with her Masters in the evenings. She's still waiting for the airline she's studying to get her in to their offices to start her research - which they've promised her countless times - but there's no sign of a date yet, which is getting her worried. She keeps dropping them hints about her deadlines but it doesn't seem to spur them on any She is planning to be in New York anyway on February 19th so is hoping to tie something in with that at the very latest.
We are planning to go back up to Killington during the remainder of the season, especially as we've got season passes. But we'll probably try and find a cheap hotel/motel nearby to stay for a Saturday night.
Before the drama of Saturday night occured, the boarding was really good as Killi had 20 inches of snow in 24 hours over Wednesday and Thursday We thought that Killi would be pretty busy, so we headed to the smaller, sister resort, Pico. It's very small in comparison to Killi, but much less crowded, especially at weekends. It was really nice in the morning as there was virtually no one on the mountain and no lift queues. The snow was great because of the dump from Thursday and we had a really nice couple of hours.
When we went in for lunch, we noticed it getting a bit busier and the lift lines got a lot longer. It turns out that Killi had virtually shut down because of the winds - which were icily cold but Pico seemed to be sheltered - so a lot of the Killi skiiers moved round to Pico for the afternoon.
We tried this one lift that had an off-ramp that was almost like a ski jump in itself!! The first time we went up it we weren't expecting such a dismount! So we just launched ourselves off it and managed to both stay upright. The second time though, we knew what we were expecting and this kind of made it more difficult, ironically. Ian managed to make it in one piece but Annalie didn't get out of his way quick enough and went flying. No damage done though.
It's probably not a bad thing to not have the commitment of the house every weekend now. What with Annalie's Masters and Ian's firefighter training taking up lots of time, even at weekends, we could do with claiming some of that committed time back.
Elsewhere this week, Ian has been doing a lot of his training. He had a drill on Sunday morning and then the Fire Academy started in earnest on Tuesday and Thursday. He is getting well ahead with his homework though and had already read around 4 weeks ahead of where he is! Doubt he'll get any bonus points though.
Ian was due to be working at the limo company on Wednesday, but due to the forecast snow and ice storm rolling in, they called to cancel his training as they needed all drivers available to cope with any disruption. Hopefully he'll be back in this week for some more. Although there's another snow storm due to roll in on Tuesday.
Annalie has just been working steadily all week and getting on with her Masters in the evenings. She's still waiting for the airline she's studying to get her in to their offices to start her research - which they've promised her countless times - but there's no sign of a date yet, which is getting her worried. She keeps dropping them hints about her deadlines but it doesn't seem to spur them on any She is planning to be in New York anyway on February 19th so is hoping to tie something in with that at the very latest.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
A big week for Ian
This week has seen two major milestones for Ian. First and foremost there was his start at the Fire Training Academy. He has been waiting over six months for this to happen so you can only imagine the excitement he felt when he finally got to join his fellow probies. He turned up on Thursday night to be presented with his text book, which is over 1,500 pages thick and also to receive the rest of his official paperwork. So there was no proper training involved. On his way back from the Academy, he received a shout so went to get some more practical experience to help his game. The swot has already done four more chapters of "homework" than he is required to do before Tuesday
Also this week, Ian had started his new job with the top limo firm in the Hartford area. He did one day's training and was paired with the trainer, Randy, and another driver who has been there a while but who was being taught the new procedures at Boston Airport. So as well as doing some local driving around the Hartford area, Ian had a trip out to Boston. He didn't get home until nearly 7pm (which was a shock to his work-starved system ) and after a quick bite to eat, he headed back out to Boston Airport to do one of his "hubby for hire" chauffeur jobs, picking Suzy's dad up. He earned more in those four and a half hours picking Alan up than he did in nearly 10 hours at Premier Limo!
We stayed home again this weekend rather than heading up to Killington as Ian's best buddy from the firehouse was having a housewarming party (nothing literal about warming the house and them being firemen!). Ian had a good time bonding with the guys while Annalie mostly enjoyed bonding with Matt's dogs, Daisy and Duke (do you think Matt is a Hazzard fan??!). Daisy is a Beagle, although quite an old one, but very cute. Duke is a young, over-excitable mongrel, possibly lab x pit bull, but he's lovely all the same. Annalie soon had him under control Ian is off to Killington today to get some boarding in tomorrow as he's got to make up some of the time he's had off lately. But he has to be back on Tuesday morning to have a crown put on his tooth before going back to the Academy on Tuesday night.
Annalie has been working hard on her Masters doing lots of reading this week, but she finally started writing this weekend. She's been in contact with the airline again and she's going to visit them in New York in a couple of weeks and then she's hoping to get on one of their employee orientation sessions soon after. These sessions take place in Orlando so she's not yet figured out whether she'll get flights from the airline themselves, get work to pay, or fork out for it herself. She's going to wait until she's got the date from the airline before tackling that one - one step at a time. It's a shame that her deadline is in May (initially it was supposed to be the end of June) because she could have used the trip to meet up with her sister and family in Orlando at Easter, but that's just a little bit too late for Annalie's comfort. So she might have to make a second trip instead
She gave herself a night off though on Friday to go to the Rolls-Royce monthly Girls' Night Out. She's only managed to get to two others since she's been here so it was a nice opportunity to catch up with them. We went to the South Tavern at the bottom of the road, so it was nice and easy. Calamari and a shrimp special were on the menu - plus a few Tenpenny Ales
We've finally got some new pictures up for you to see what we've been up to. There's a new album for Hawaii, plus some new pictures in House and Stuff and Killington and the Ski House. We hope you enjoy them because it took around two and a half hours to upload them as the resolution is so big and this site can't handle too much at one time. In the House pics there are some great images of Mr Squirrel trying his hardest to reach the bird feeder We've also been getting a lot of bird action on the deck with lots of Blue Jays and the Cardinals back again. The Dark-eyed Juncos are also frequenting our feeder quite a lot (there's a pic of one uploaded). The Jays and Cardinals are a bit too skittish to catch most of the time, but we'll try and get some photos. We also managed to catch a woodpecker in the trees this morning but we haven't downloaded that one yet.
Also this week, Ian had started his new job with the top limo firm in the Hartford area. He did one day's training and was paired with the trainer, Randy, and another driver who has been there a while but who was being taught the new procedures at Boston Airport. So as well as doing some local driving around the Hartford area, Ian had a trip out to Boston. He didn't get home until nearly 7pm (which was a shock to his work-starved system ) and after a quick bite to eat, he headed back out to Boston Airport to do one of his "hubby for hire" chauffeur jobs, picking Suzy's dad up. He earned more in those four and a half hours picking Alan up than he did in nearly 10 hours at Premier Limo!
We stayed home again this weekend rather than heading up to Killington as Ian's best buddy from the firehouse was having a housewarming party (nothing literal about warming the house and them being firemen!). Ian had a good time bonding with the guys while Annalie mostly enjoyed bonding with Matt's dogs, Daisy and Duke (do you think Matt is a Hazzard fan??!). Daisy is a Beagle, although quite an old one, but very cute. Duke is a young, over-excitable mongrel, possibly lab x pit bull, but he's lovely all the same. Annalie soon had him under control Ian is off to Killington today to get some boarding in tomorrow as he's got to make up some of the time he's had off lately. But he has to be back on Tuesday morning to have a crown put on his tooth before going back to the Academy on Tuesday night.
Annalie has been working hard on her Masters doing lots of reading this week, but she finally started writing this weekend. She's been in contact with the airline again and she's going to visit them in New York in a couple of weeks and then she's hoping to get on one of their employee orientation sessions soon after. These sessions take place in Orlando so she's not yet figured out whether she'll get flights from the airline themselves, get work to pay, or fork out for it herself. She's going to wait until she's got the date from the airline before tackling that one - one step at a time. It's a shame that her deadline is in May (initially it was supposed to be the end of June) because she could have used the trip to meet up with her sister and family in Orlando at Easter, but that's just a little bit too late for Annalie's comfort. So she might have to make a second trip instead
She gave herself a night off though on Friday to go to the Rolls-Royce monthly Girls' Night Out. She's only managed to get to two others since she's been here so it was a nice opportunity to catch up with them. We went to the South Tavern at the bottom of the road, so it was nice and easy. Calamari and a shrimp special were on the menu - plus a few Tenpenny Ales
We've finally got some new pictures up for you to see what we've been up to. There's a new album for Hawaii, plus some new pictures in House and Stuff and Killington and the Ski House. We hope you enjoy them because it took around two and a half hours to upload them as the resolution is so big and this site can't handle too much at one time. In the House pics there are some great images of Mr Squirrel trying his hardest to reach the bird feeder We've also been getting a lot of bird action on the deck with lots of Blue Jays and the Cardinals back again. The Dark-eyed Juncos are also frequenting our feeder quite a lot (there's a pic of one uploaded). The Jays and Cardinals are a bit too skittish to catch most of the time, but we'll try and get some photos. We also managed to catch a woodpecker in the trees this morning but we haven't downloaded that one yet.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
A winter wonderland
So Ian arrived safely back home in the UK after his luxurious flight over the Atlantic. His excuse to go back had been that his two football teams, Arsenal and Plymouth Argyle, had been drawn against each other in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. It's probably the only time in his lifetime that this game will happen, so he thought it was a valid reason to make the trip, and thankfully his old match mate got him a ticket. An expected win for Arsenal capped it all off.
Ian thought he'd be escaping the cold weather here in CT for a milder winter back home, courtesy of global warming and all that! But while he was there he probably suffered colder temperatures than those that were seen in New England. He seemed to be trekking around the UK to try and find the warmer weather, putting 1,108 miles on his hire car in the space of a week! From London he travelled to Manchester, then down to Plymouth and back to London again. Still he didn't find much above zero.
Annalie meanwhile has been trying to crack on with her final Masters assignments. she has one module assignment to complete and he dissertation. She's going to study one of the local airlines based at JFK and has received the all-clear from them that they are willing to grant her access to material, people and events that she needs to do a good job of her dissertation. She's also going to use the same airline as the basis for her other module so it doesn't quite feel like it's double the work right now, although she's sure it will become veery stressful over the next few weeks.
Before Ian came home, Annalie decided to make the most of her freedom by heading up to the ski house. She turned up on the Friday night with three of the others, only to be met by a freezing cold house as the gas tank had run out of propane. It was so bad that you could see your breath. Annalie took on fire duty, getting a log fire going to at least take the edge off the cold. Luckily the owner was able to get us an emergency supply of gas, but that didn't arrive and get started until 11pm, so it was still a rather frosty night.
Saturday was a hard day on the slopes with some good conditions but Annalie was the only boarder in the four and she was also the slowest, so it was a hard day's skiing all round. The guys she was with took her down some of the hardest terrain she's done this season, including a couple of double black diamonds - the hardest grade of slopes. She had to leave Killington early on the Sunday to head down to Boston to pick Ian up, so she hit the slopes by 8.30 on her own and managed a 3-hour stint. It had snowed a fair amount overnight, but the powder was awfully lumpy, so it as a killer on the legs to stay upright - but at least it didn't hurt when she fell over!
The journey to Boston was a lot more uneventful than the last one we made from Killington, when we went to pick Melly up. The roads were clear, despite the snow, so she was there in plenty of time. She was left waiting for quite a while though as we had our usual experience of putting golf clubs through Boston Airport. When we came out for our pre-assigment visit, Ian bought a set of golf irons that didn't make it back to the UK on the same flight as us. He got them a day later. This time, Annalie's mum had bought her a putter for Christmas, only that didn't turn up with Ian either. Luckily it was found and arrived with us on Monday. (Thanks Mum! ).
Upon his return, Ian got some fab news that he's been accepted into the Firefighter Academy so he can get his formal training That, by the way, is an image of Ian's face when he found out he'd been accepted! It's like a dream come true but it is a big commitment. Every Tuesday and Thursday evening and some Saturday mornings for five months. He takes his exams at the end of May, the same time that Annalie's dissertation is due in, so that will be a stressful time in this household!
The weather back here in the US has been varied but a true winter wonderland is evident. There have been snow and ice storms, but mostly the former, so the place is covered in white. We have got some more photos to show you but we just keep forgetting to download them. The best ones we have are of an adventurous squirrel that managed to climb up onto the deck (remember this is our first floor, not ground) in search of food during a big snow storm. We'd left some bread out for the birds, which Mr Squirrel made a bee-line for. Then he spied the full bird feeder. Up the post he went to try and get at it, but it was always just beyond the reach of his thieving paws Still, we returned home one day to find the bird feeder in pieces on the floor of the deck. Thankfully it's not broken and we've put it back out again, hoping that Mr Squirrel has gone into hibernation at last.
We've also been cultured this week as we went to the theatre with Dan and Fi, intrdoucing them to the delightful venues of Hartford! The Bushnell is actually a lovely theatre, but we usually sit in the balcony, which has enough leg room for a gnat! So you can imagine Ian's discomfort. We went to see Avenue Q, which is best described as Sesame Street for adults! There are some hilarious songs, which I won't recite in case there are children watching . Some things on stage were things that puppets simply shouldn't do but it was a great night. We started it off by discovering a decent curry house - which is a rarity in the States. We all had a good experience so I'm sure we'll be heading back there when we fancy an Indian, and at least we've now got somewhere we can take our visitors from the UK .
We've taken a weekend off from the ski house as it's another blackout weekend so we'd have had to pay for our lift tickets, and at $82 a day each, it's not cheap. Plus it gives Annalie's knee a chance to rest properly.
Ian thought he'd be escaping the cold weather here in CT for a milder winter back home, courtesy of global warming and all that! But while he was there he probably suffered colder temperatures than those that were seen in New England. He seemed to be trekking around the UK to try and find the warmer weather, putting 1,108 miles on his hire car in the space of a week! From London he travelled to Manchester, then down to Plymouth and back to London again. Still he didn't find much above zero.
Annalie meanwhile has been trying to crack on with her final Masters assignments. she has one module assignment to complete and he dissertation. She's going to study one of the local airlines based at JFK and has received the all-clear from them that they are willing to grant her access to material, people and events that she needs to do a good job of her dissertation. She's also going to use the same airline as the basis for her other module so it doesn't quite feel like it's double the work right now, although she's sure it will become veery stressful over the next few weeks.
Before Ian came home, Annalie decided to make the most of her freedom by heading up to the ski house. She turned up on the Friday night with three of the others, only to be met by a freezing cold house as the gas tank had run out of propane. It was so bad that you could see your breath. Annalie took on fire duty, getting a log fire going to at least take the edge off the cold. Luckily the owner was able to get us an emergency supply of gas, but that didn't arrive and get started until 11pm, so it was still a rather frosty night.
Saturday was a hard day on the slopes with some good conditions but Annalie was the only boarder in the four and she was also the slowest, so it was a hard day's skiing all round. The guys she was with took her down some of the hardest terrain she's done this season, including a couple of double black diamonds - the hardest grade of slopes. She had to leave Killington early on the Sunday to head down to Boston to pick Ian up, so she hit the slopes by 8.30 on her own and managed a 3-hour stint. It had snowed a fair amount overnight, but the powder was awfully lumpy, so it as a killer on the legs to stay upright - but at least it didn't hurt when she fell over!
The journey to Boston was a lot more uneventful than the last one we made from Killington, when we went to pick Melly up. The roads were clear, despite the snow, so she was there in plenty of time. She was left waiting for quite a while though as we had our usual experience of putting golf clubs through Boston Airport. When we came out for our pre-assigment visit, Ian bought a set of golf irons that didn't make it back to the UK on the same flight as us. He got them a day later. This time, Annalie's mum had bought her a putter for Christmas, only that didn't turn up with Ian either. Luckily it was found and arrived with us on Monday. (Thanks Mum! ).
Upon his return, Ian got some fab news that he's been accepted into the Firefighter Academy so he can get his formal training That, by the way, is an image of Ian's face when he found out he'd been accepted! It's like a dream come true but it is a big commitment. Every Tuesday and Thursday evening and some Saturday mornings for five months. He takes his exams at the end of May, the same time that Annalie's dissertation is due in, so that will be a stressful time in this household!
The weather back here in the US has been varied but a true winter wonderland is evident. There have been snow and ice storms, but mostly the former, so the place is covered in white. We have got some more photos to show you but we just keep forgetting to download them. The best ones we have are of an adventurous squirrel that managed to climb up onto the deck (remember this is our first floor, not ground) in search of food during a big snow storm. We'd left some bread out for the birds, which Mr Squirrel made a bee-line for. Then he spied the full bird feeder. Up the post he went to try and get at it, but it was always just beyond the reach of his thieving paws Still, we returned home one day to find the bird feeder in pieces on the floor of the deck. Thankfully it's not broken and we've put it back out again, hoping that Mr Squirrel has gone into hibernation at last.
We've also been cultured this week as we went to the theatre with Dan and Fi, intrdoucing them to the delightful venues of Hartford! The Bushnell is actually a lovely theatre, but we usually sit in the balcony, which has enough leg room for a gnat! So you can imagine Ian's discomfort. We went to see Avenue Q, which is best described as Sesame Street for adults! There are some hilarious songs, which I won't recite in case there are children watching . Some things on stage were things that puppets simply shouldn't do but it was a great night. We started it off by discovering a decent curry house - which is a rarity in the States. We all had a good experience so I'm sure we'll be heading back there when we fancy an Indian, and at least we've now got somewhere we can take our visitors from the UK .
We've taken a weekend off from the ski house as it's another blackout weekend so we'd have had to pay for our lift tickets, and at $82 a day each, it's not cheap. Plus it gives Annalie's knee a chance to rest properly.
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