How sad is this?

OK, so I firmly believe in continuing education and as such constantly exceed the state required minimum in clock hours (30 hours every 2 years) to maintain my license. I typically do 90 - 120 hours per year. So that means taking 3 - 4 weeks of classes each year. The largest provider of training in our state is Rockwell. Well their offices are in Bellevue, 50 some odd miles north of my home. Normally that wouldn't be a big issue. BUT to get to Bellevue from my house, the "direct" route is to take Highway 512 to Highway 167 to Interstate 405. Basically a straight shot. HOWEVER, taking that straight shot with traffic being what it is in the Puget Sound region, I generally leave my house at 5:30 to make it to Bellevue by 8AM. 2.5 hours to go 50 miles. Is it just me or is that rediculous? Sometimes, traffic is fine and it only takes me about 1.25 hours, but it has taken over 3 at times.

So the last class I took, I decided to try a different route home. It adds 10 - 12 miles to the drive. Now I go 512 to 167 to 18 to I-90 . . . just over 60 miles from my house and I can generally do it in JUST over an hour. Unbelieveable.

Today I'm in Bellevue and we had snow and ice this morning . . . so I left the house at 5:30 and got to class at 8:20 . . . and that was going the "quick" route. Almost 3 hours again. About 2 hours of that was just getting to highway 18. Then traffic was fine, but with the snow, I could only do about 45 - 50 MPH.

Now for some craziness . . . the last 3 classes I've taken, we've had STORMS during each of the classes . . . 2 classes ago, it was the WIND STORM which eventually left a million people without power for up to a week. Last class it was wind and rain again with snow forecast. Today of course it was snow. SO when s*** like that is forecast, I've deemed it BETTER to actually STAY in Bellevue rather than drive home and come back in the morning. During storms around the sound, I can expect 2 - 3 hours each way in commuting. So by staying up here during a 2 day class . . . I save myself roughly 6 hours of commuting . . . Normally I can get William Shatner and Priceline to hook me up with a room last minute and end up in a 4 star hotel for about 100 bucks. Today for some reason Priceline wouldn't let me book a hotel for today. Strange . . . so I ended up paying aobut 3 times that . . . YIKES . . . my classes are getting WAY too expensive to keep this up . . . I need to petition Rockwell to open up a southern campus!

So it's sad that I can drive an extra 10 - 12 miles to SAVE time on a commute.
It's sad that it's WORTH it to me to spend up to $300 bucks on a hotel room to AVOID the commute.
If this isn't reason enough for people to take a good long hard look at mass transit in the Puget Sound region, I don't know what is!

The Engagement Story . . .

Teri asked me the other day why I hadn't posted our engagement story to the blog . . . no reason I guess, just that I had e-mailed everyone the story and thought it would be redundant to post it here. Since I'm snowed in today, I guess I'll go ahead and post it. This was originally told October 27th, so all time frame references are from that point. Enjoy!

About 3 weeks ago as I was preparing to go purchase the ring, I met my good friends Brandon and Chad for lunch to tell them of my plans. I wanted to make sure I had their support before moving forward and after the questions of "Are you happy?" and "Why now?" were successfully answered, I had their blessing. Chad and I then went to EE Robbins where I showed Chad the ring and he helped me pick the center stone. Sarah at EER was awesome and led me through every step and made the experience very enjoyable. She sent the diamond out to be laser etched and it came back about a week later for setting.

Last Monday (16th) I picked up the ring and called Teri's dad. We agreed to meet the following day for a few minutes. At that point, I asked for his blessing. He of course gave it and I showed him the ring and told him of my devious plot to "pop the question". He was thrilled.

Tuesday afternoon (17th), I called the Canlis Restaurant in Seattle and made reservations for Monday night (23rd) in their Caché room. It's a private dining room for 2 overlooking Lake Union. (For an example of the view and the room look here: http://www.canlis.com/dining/about_cache.aspx) Totally cool, you give them your CC in advance and you never see a bill. There are no prices on the menu (except the wine list . . . which by the way is 88 pages long!) and you get AMAZING service. There is a $100.00 fee for booking the room. If you EVER want a VERY nice dinner for two, I highly recommend it! Anyway after making reservations, I called Amy's limousine and scheduled a Town car for pickup at 5:30 on the 23rd. Then I called Kim (Teri's friend) and told her that if Teri mentions dinner at the Canlis to not ask ANYTHING about "Do you think he's gonna do it?" or something that may clue her in. I called Teri and told her that I had won a sales contest at work and that Doug was giving us a night out on the town with Dinner at the Canlis and a towncar up and back. She immediately started looking at the Canlis wine list on line and asked "Do we have a limit?" I told her that Doug said anything over $150 I'd have to reimburse him. All I needed was her ordering a $4,000 bottle of wine (and yes, they have one). So far she was buying it.
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Happy New Year Everyone!

OK, so it's the 4th, but happy new year anyway! I just wanted a blog post on the main page, so here it is. I have been updating the exercise portion of my blog though as I've been working out.