When it rains it pours...

Lots to update on so I'll get right to it. Work is getting especially crazy with the impending task of moving our sawfish from the Dining tank on the second floor of the building to our Shark tank located across the parking lot in our shark building. For those of you not familiar with sawfish here is a pic to give you an idea:
The one we are moving is roughly 9 feet long and she's not the most cooperative of animals. Some of my coworkers were part of a team that did this same thing a while back with another sawfish that was only about 7 feet long and she was relatively mild tempered. Really this whole thing involves a group of us diving into the water and some how securing her rostrum (fancy word for the long thing in front with all the teeth sticking out of it) and then wrapping her up like a burrito inside a large mesh stretcher so we can "safely" lift her out of the tank and then carry her down two flights of stairs to a waiting transport tank. Why use the stairs you ask? She's too big to fit inside the elevator of course! Once we get her over to the other building we have to hoist her up about 20 ft to the top of our shark tank and then release her to join the other two sawfish and 21 other sharks that will become her new tankmates. As if diving in that tank wasn't exciting enough why not through in another animal to mix things up. :) Now it may sound like I think this all very horrifying when in reality it's something I'm really looking forward to. It's things like this that define people's careers in this industry. I'll join a small group of people that can say they were directly involved with this type of animal move. Granted the risks are very high so we are trying to plan for every possible scenario and doing all we can to make sure this goes as safely as possible. More than likely I will not be in the water which is fine by me...I like all my extremities just the way they are and am not looking to acquire any "bad ass" scars that may be the result of this move. I'll let you know how it turns out. :)

As far as life back home in MN things are dicey. My grandpa has been suffering from dementia for some time now and he ended up back in the hospital earlier this week with kidney failure associated with his advanced prostate cancer. Honestly everyone was glad it didn't have anything to do with the multiple hip surgeries he's been through over the past few years. My mom, being the saint she is, was with him through it all since she is really the only person he makes a solid connection with anymore. The doctors prepared her for the worst but thankfully it turned out better than expected. They were able to resolve the main problem and he's now back at home in his memory care apartment in PL. It was amazing to talk with my mom through this ordeal because the whole time she was so focused on making grandpa as comfortable as possible considering what it must be like for him to go through something like this not being able to truly comprehend his surroundings. Things are day by day at this point and we're all just praying things continue to go well for him.

We also received news that my grandma (dad's mom) is in early kidney failure but it's nothing serious at this point. I guess it's just a product of the fact that we are all living a lot longer than we used to and things like this are just part of that. Needless to say I'm incredibly thankful to be going home this Thanksgiving so I can spend time with everyone and give my grandma and grandpas big hugs!

Matt unfortunately will not be able to make it home for the holiday. With the transition to the new store at such a busy time in the year it's not as easy to get away for an extended period of time as we thought it might be. If by some miracle he can hire a few extra people he may make it but the likelihood of an affordable airfare at that point are slim to none. The one thing keeping me positive through this is knowing it won't have to be this way for every holiday. The higher ups have told him there's no foreseeable reason for him to get a new store in the future so the next time these holidays come he'll have the staff in place that can cover while he takes time off. I'm slowly learning what it's like to be an adult and I'm admittedly not liking it much although I'm doing my best to understand it's something everyone else is going through too.

I'm really looking forward to a break from work and a chance to reconnect with my family and friends back home. Although going back to the snow will only be fun for about the first 10 minutes considering we are having the best weather of the year down here I am still very excited to travel north. One thing I'd really like to do is head to the zoo and finally see the revamped Minnesota trail and new Russia exhibit that have opened since I moved. I've heard wonderful things from everyone who's visited and am looking forward to seeing them myself. Hopefully I can work my connections and get some behind the scenes looks too!

For my next post I will put together some pictures of the exhibits I take care of so you all can get an idea of the animals I work with and the tanks I dive in everyday. I know it's not feasible for everyone to come visit, although I would never turn down the prospect, so I figure this is one way for everyone to get an idea of what they're missing out on. ;)

Keep on keepin' on

I'm getting really lazy about this whole posting thing...probably a product of the constant craziness surrounding work and the rest of my life. Things have pretty much settled down completely since the storm. We're still doing things here and there to support the other properties but thankfully the Rainforest Cafe in Galveston is back open and we'll be bringing some fish down there tomorrow to fill up their very empty tanks...this will be a small load off us for a while. Our apartment situation hasn't really improved since my last post. We still have a giant hole in the ceiling but I think while I was taking a nap the other day I heard people on the roof...hopefully a sign that things will be getting fixed soon!

Two weekends ago I went on a fun trip with two of my coworkers to an event called Trashfest in New Braunfels, TX (between Austin and San Antonio). It's this event that's been going on for many years now where tons of scuba divers come together to clean up a river that people use to tube down (very similar to the Apple River for those of you from back home). You can imagine the plethora of items that end up at the bottom (ie: beer cans, sunglasses, shoes, ID's, cash, cameras, etc.) So every year they have this event to help clean up and they give away tons of prizes to all the participants. The neatest thing was that we actually camped for a night right on a nearby river which I haven't done since I was in high school. It was so fun to spend the night in a tent and all that other fun camping stuff. The diving was a blast as well. We teamed up with a bunch of people from a local dive shop that works with the aquarium and we actually managed to collect the most beer cans of any team! We didn't find much other than beer cans but someone we dove with told us another time they dove to clean up they managed to collect almost $800 in cash from the bottom of the river. We had an awesome time diving, drinking, and relaxing. I think this will definitely be a trip that becomes a tradition in the future. Oh and another really cool thing we did was go to one of those wildlife sanctuary things where you drive your car around and the animals come right up to you. It was pretty crazy! We had zebras with their heads inside our truck and some very hungry ostriches, one of which totally bit me trying to get the piece of food I had...don't worry they don't have teeth. It was really cool to see the animals up close and I also saw the biggest cow in the whole world. It was a Texas longhorn (of course) and it was bigger than the four door sedan we were following...amazing!

Only in Texas!

Everything with Matt is going well. He'll be starting at his new store this coming Monday which he is pretty sure will be the one that is only about 15 min from our apartment! He's very excited to shorten his commute and we're both excited to start looking for a new home since our lease will be up here at the end of January. The new store is much newer than where he's at now and it's in a part of town that's really growing which bodes well for business. Roxanne, Matt's mom, is coming to town for the first time on Wednesday so we're looking forward to having her as company and hope to show her around the city as well as go to a Dynamo game (it's been too long since we last went).

Life back in Minnesota is going well for the rest of my family. My mom finally caved and got two kitties of her own....Guinness and Indy...they're the cutest freaking things ever!

I am almost for sure coming home for Thanksgiving...hopefully Tuesday through Saturday so I'm really starting to look forward to that as well.

One last thing...since this is my first time spending the entire fall season in Texas I have really realized how sad I am to be missing the fall colors. It is my absolute favorite time of year and there isn't even a hint of that down here. The temperature has finally cooled down but the complete lack of fall color is totally depressing! Needless to say all my desktop pictures are of fall colors from up north.

Hope everyone reading this is doing well. I miss you lots!

PS: Michigan State football kicks ass! (and those Gophers aren't too bad either!)

Getting back to "normal"

Things have been a whirlwind here since my last post...hence the gap of time between them. Needless to say this city is a mess but I can happily report things are looking up from the last time I posted. Many more people have power, more gas stations are open which means no more waiting 5 hours in line to fill up, grocery stores are getting back on their feet despite losing their entire dairy/meat/frozen foods sections, and traffic lights are slowly but surely being repaired. This last note is especially important considering traffic is bad enough in this city without turning virtually every intersection into a four-way stop...it usually takes me 25 minutes to drive home on any given day and last Wednesday it took me an hour and fifteen minutes. Needless to say I came very close to abandoning my car and walking home after reasoning I'd probably make it home sooner that way! Thankfully many of the intersections that remain without functioning signals are now manned by cops directing traffic...sometimes you gotta love those boys in blue. The cleanup still continues for many people, including those living in the ultra-rich neighborhood just north of our apartment complex. Unfortunately for them, their gargantuan houses turned into enormous targets for the many large trees that surrounded them and as a result almost every home was damaged by a tree falling on it. As if that wasn't bad enough all the power lines in the area were damaged in much the same way so that entire area still has no power and may not for a few more weeks. I was chatting with people at work about how all those rich people are managing without power considering the comforts of home they are accustomed to and one of my coworkers pointed out that most of them probably flew off in their private jets as soon as their houses went dark and are now enjoying a vacation in some posh destination across the globe! Well I may not have a private jet but I've got electricity...take that!

Things at work have finally started to calm down after an insane week of trying to clean up the mess in our shark building as well as making a trip almost everyday to some other destination to retrieve animals or help with cleanup. We have managed to remove all the animals from our aquarium on the Kemah Boardwalk which faced overwhelming devastation due to the storm surge. Here are some pictures:

This is where you first come into the boardwalk. The water was up to the bottom of the "B" in Boardwalk on the arch sign.

This is the side of one of our restaurants that was ripped off by the winds.

Amazing what the waves brought in....

The camera isn't tilted...the boardwalk is.

All that debris used to be the biology office inside the building.

Two amazing stories from Kemah involve finding animals we originally thought were lost during the storm: There used to be an alligator snapping turtle (weighing approximately 70 lbs) that lived in an exhibit with a 6 foot caiman (similar to a gator) both of which were missing when employees returned to survey the damage. The snapping turtle was eventually found 3 days after the storm sitting atop a pile of debris where the biology office used to be. The guys who found him said it was almost as if he was waiting there the whole time for someone to notice that he was waiting to be rescued. On our way back to the aquarium downtown we decided to name him Spike in honor of his ordeal with Hurricane Ike. :) Unfortunately, finding and securing the caiman proved more difficult. We first spotted her floating on some debris near the boardwalk and decided we should try to snare her with a customary reptile noose...this proved impossible so Tony, my boss, decided it would be a better idea to jump on her Steve Irwin-style. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. They thrashed around in the water for a while and she eventually got away and Tony crawled out of the nasty sewage diesel water of the bay to reveal a gaping wound on his leg. He no doubt cut it on some piece of sunken debris and was rushed to the hospital right away. He ended up with 13 stitches and an insane story to tell everyone back at work. The next day the caiman surfaced again and this time the game warden found her floating in a nearby marina on a piece of plywood. He noosed her...she was considerably less feisty due to the fact she had now spent 4 days living in a mixture of saltwater and diesel fuel...and our guys from Kemah secured her mouth and leg/arms so she could be transported to downtown. When she got to property she was barley breathing so we rinsed her off with Dawn dish soap to cut the diesel and got her in some freshwater so she could drink and start to get rid of all the salt she had absorbed. Thankfully she improved overnight and is now doing fine awaiting transport to her new home at a local croc guy's reserve. She's one tough cookie and earned the name of Tina since she got her ass kicked by Ike but managed to persevere through his beating! Many of the fish we caught the first time I was down there have found new homes in our tanks and are actually really making the place look great! I almost hope we get to keep them and they just get all new ones when it's time to reopen Kemah.

We were also called out to help out the aquarium on Galveston island where my friend Andrea works. They did an incredibly poor job of planning for the hurricane. (ie: securing their animals/setting up transport for the ones that needed to be taken off the island, etc.) Not to mention it took them until Wednesday after the hurricane to admit they needed our help and after we did so they declined our offer to come back the next day to take more animals that still could be saved. It was all very shady and it seemed like the guy in charge was scared the media would find out how poorly they prepared considering they sit directly on the bay! Either way we were happy to save some of their animals which are now being housed at the Houston Zoo. We were able to bring Andrea down to the island with us so she could check in on her animals and help out with the whole process. A couple days later she was able to get back to the island to check out her apartment. She sustained little damage to her stuff but no one from her apartment management was on property so she still doesn't know if she can continue living there. At the moment she is staying at the hotel on the grounds of where she works. She doesn't really know what's going to happen as far as her job/living arrangements go and in the face of this is managing to continue to go to work and take care of the animals as best she can.

I welcomed the opportunity to spend my normal weekend sleeping and catching up on laundry and cleaning that were neglected. I also went to the SPCA to help out their wildlife people with all the new residents they have thanks to the storm. I cleaned kennels that held various raptors and seabirds blown around in the storm that were not in the best of moods considering they had just weathered a hurricane. I sustained no major injuries but a word to the wise...seabirds have serrated beaks to hold tight to the wriggling fish they catch making it especially painful when they peck at you! I also worked with a bunch of orphaned opossums and bottle fed baby squirrels.

All in all it felt really good to do my part to help out all the innocent animals tossed around by the storm. On an inspirational note...the SPCA workers went down to Galveston island immediately after the storm searching houses for animals left behind and were able to recover hundreds of animals that will hopefully be reunited with their owners in the near future. I was actually witness to a couple picking up 20 horses rescued off the island that they are going to foster until their owner can reclaim them.

Hope everyone reading this is doing well and thankful for life's basic necessities considering so many go without while the rest of us take them for granted. I miss you all tons and can't wait to see you again!

"Life" after the storm

Well for starters Matt and I are ok. We rode out the storm at our apartment and it was unlike anything I've been through in my life...needless to say we didn't sleep at all Friday night. Our apartment complex was a debris field of shingles, trees, roof pieces, bricks, etc. Part of the ceiling in our spare bedroom is on the floor as there was roof damage and then the water saturated the ceiling causing it to cave in. We actually fared well compared to our neighbor across the way whose entire living and dining room ceiling has come down. He is in the process of moving his stuff out now. We lost power and water for about a day a and a half which was surprisingly short compared to others in our area who just got stuff back today. Of course the majority of the eastern parts of the Houston and surrounding cities still have no power or water.

The aquarium fared ok considering they never lost power in our main building but our shark building did. Thankfully we have generators that kept that building powered until they were back online. I spent yesterday in that building waist deep in water trying to salvage pumps and anything else before the water got any higher. All our animals are alive and we managed to open for business today. Many employees stayed at the aquarium throughout the storm and did amazing things to keep that place running. We are in the midst of a massive cleanup effort that will continue for many weeks but we'll get through it. Landry's owns many properties that were also affected by the storm that we are trying to support since our facilities are in the best shape. We have an aquarium on the boardwalk in Kemah, TX which sits on the bay and I was there today catching fish. Most of the boardwalk is completely gone including the entire first floor of the aquarium there. The storm surge was so powerful it was in essence like a mini tsunami and it took everything in its path with it. We saved many fish today and it felt amazing to do that but at the same time there was an overwhelming sense of loss as we looked out over the devastation that surrounded us. And the crazy thing is that isn't even the worst of it. Many places along the coast basically cease to exist compared to before the storm. Entire communities are completely gone so that really puts our own lives/homes in perspective. The island of Galveston is a whole other story. The highway/bridge onto the island is closed to all traffic besides emergency crews and people being evacuated. The is debris covering one entire side of the multi-lane highway including yachts, fridges, parts of houses, jetskis, etc. There is so much stuff it has buckled the road. No one that evacuated before the storm is being allowed back in including my friend Andrea who lived on the island and worked at the aquarium there. Please keep her in your thoughts and pray her apartment is still intact and that she will be allowed to return home soon. She evacuated to Austin with someone she used to work with that currently works with me so she is ok. Cell phone activity is very hit or miss so it can be tough at times for everyone to stay in communication. I have many pictures built up and I will try to post a few that will give you an idea of the devastation I have witnessed but I promise you none of it will even compare to what it's like to actually live here and be surrounded by it day in day out. There are lines miles long to get gas since many stations are still without power and many grocery stores are still not open.

Matt's store fared the storm fine thanks to the fact it is so far to the west. We closed the store down midday Friday and got it ready to go through the storm. They reopened today to large crowds but are forced to close early since all cities are under curfews because it's so dangerous to drive after dark with debris and downed traffic lights. Despite all this they are making boatloads of money renting movies to people desperate for a distraction from the storm.

Tonight is our first night with internet back so I wanted to make sure and give you all some idea of what is going on but now it's time to head to bed. We've all been pulling 12+ hour days to work to get things back so we're quite exhausted. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers...keep them coming....we need it!

Rock me like a hurricane....

Well Ike is on his way and he is PISSED! I spent a lot of time today at the aquarium getting everything ready that we could...making sure all the animals are as safe as they can be...now all we can do is cross our fingers and hope we don't flood and lose our pumps. We also had to retrieve 25 large stingrays from Kemah which is right on the ocean because they will more than likely flood. It was craziness but well worth the effort.

Matt and I live on the west side of the city so we are not in a mandatory evacuation zone so we will be "sheltering in place" as they say. A lot of people have been evacuated and are heading out of town including some people from work...kinda makes me glad we decided to get an apartment on this side of town. We've stocked up on all the necessary provisions and we're gonna have ourselves a hurricane party. Matt's store is up in the air at this point as to whether it will be open tomorrow or not. Ultimately it's his call and I really don't want him to go in at all tomorrow since the outer bands of the storm are supposed to start hitting us around 10am. In our area we are expected to get 5-10 inches of rain and sustain winds between 75 and 100 mph. The eye of the storm will pretty much hit at Galveston and then come pretty much right to Houston so we'll get a lot of the worst of it. I don't really foresee any issues for us at our place...we live on the second floor so no flooding threat and we face west so there shouldn't be any chance of us having our windows blown out.

At this point I'm kind of morbidly excited about the storm since I've never been through it but at the same time I'm very worried about the aquarium and the animals. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers...I'll keep you updated!

SPCA

So I've decided to spend some of my time off from work giving back to the community...I know how unselfish of me...and I thought the most fun way to do so would be to volunteer at the Houston SPCA. I finally had my volunteer orientation this past Saturday and I wondered as I pulled into the parking lot how any orientation could possibly last four hours but I soon found out. We had to listen to a power point presentation for the better part of two hours detailing the ins and outs of the organization as well as their policies and procedures...including euthanasia. Now I was fully aware going into this that volunteering somewhere like the SPCA I would be faced with the reality that not every animal that comes through their doors gets adopted. Apparently I was one of the few people in the room with the same idea. We had to watch a video about euthanasia and I swear to you half of the people in the room were sobbing...and I mean like full on crying in need of a tissue sobbing. Now I don't want to come off sounding insensitive...I didn't enjoy the film or anything...obviously euthanasia is sad but do these people realize what it's going to be like volunteering there? I really hope some of them reconsider volunteering because they are in for quite a depressing experience otherwise.

But enough of the sad stuff...it was really exciting to be there and see the kinds of opportunities they have. They have an entire exotics/wildlife ward that I'm really hoping to work in since I have specialized experience and this is apparently the only way volunteers are allowed to work in that area. The day I was there the tour guide said they currently are housing a bear that was seized! Crazy people in Texas can pretty much own any animal they desire so the SPCA frequently sees lions, tiger, bears, mountain lions, and various other ridiculous creatures people have no business owning but it sure will make for an interesting time for me! :) I am also excited about getting the chance to do some behavioral training with the larger dogs before they get adopted out. One of the funniest things about the whole thing is they actually have a policy that volunteers are not allowed to adopt any animals for the first 3 months they volunteer because let's be honest all of us would probably walk out of that place with a new pet every time we volunteered otherwise! It'll definitely be a real test of self control for me to walk out of their without a new furry friend once those three months are up.

Well in my last post I promised to continue the update so I figured I'd fill everyone in on some of the fun, unique things Matt and I have done since moving down here. Mardi Gras is obviously a big deal in New Orleans and since we were too poor to make the four hour trip we settled for Mardi Gras Galveston style. There's actually quite a huge celebration on the island so we went down for the opening parade and it didn't disappoint. I got pretty bead crazy and Matt had to keep reminding me to let the kids around us get some too...oops. Here's some pics:
Yes I am wearing mittens in the first picture even though I'm only about 50 yds from the ocean...it was February and the breeze off the water was freezing! I was just really excited about my awesome turtle beads. :) The float you see was my favorite...it was a bunch of people dressed up like Vegas showgirls and if you look at the front of the float that is a life size Roy with a white tiger...AWESOME!

One of the other neatest things we've done so far was to attend the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo which is one of the biggest events of the year around here. The best thing to compare it to is the state fair but on a somewhat smaller scale and all you can buy is western wear. I of course got totally decked out for the occasion and bought my first pair of cowboy boots as well as a cowboy hat. Matt and I blended right in and we got to eat some awesome food and the best part of the day was the full on rodeo followed by a kick ass performance by Brad Paisley. It was definitely the most Texan either of us have felt since we moved down.

Other than that we've done a lot of exploring and amazingly still haven't made it to NASA despite one attempt that was thwarted by Matt being called into his store to work because someone else didn't show up. I've actually been there after hours to work on a tank that was set up and needed some maintenance which worked out pretty well because I ended up getting a private tour of the main exhibit from the curator who knew all kinds of cool stuff you wouldn't normally hear if you were visiting during normal hours. We played in an indoor soccer league this spring which was super fun but we couldn't afford to play the next season but I'm sure we'll start back up once it gets a little cooler. Once soccer was over we formed a co-ed softball team with people from work and our random significant others which was a ton of fun. Matt was one of the best guys on our team and he really enjoyed it so that was cool. Plus it was a totally legitimate excuse to drink with our bosses which is always a lot of fun!!! :) Nowadays we spend most of our time just hanging out at the apartment when we do have time off together and taking full advantage of Matt's movie benefits of five free rentals a week. We also have a Wii so I tend to spend countless hours playing on that too.

Time to make dinner and watch the Vikes hopefully kick the shit out of the Pack. Yay for Monday night football! :)

Welcome to the Wild Side

I never considered having a blog in all the time I've known they exist yet I find myself tonight beginning one of my own. I guess I've been inspired by a close friend and family member who've both created theirs and I find it nice to be able to keep up on their lives when we find ourselves, in some cases, on completely opposite sides of the world.

I guess my intention is to give friends and family an opportunity to keep up with the happenings of my life as I find myself far from home making it difficult to keep in touch as much as I'd like.

So just to catch up...Matt and I have been living in Texas now for ten months. We've almost made it through the worst of the heat and are eager to welcome the cooler fall temperatures. (I realize for those of you reading this from up north this idea of fall temps is more like what you experience in may and june!) The heat hasn't been as bad as people made it out to be...we've definitely used our air conditioning pretty much continuously since July but it hasn't been unbearable to spend time outdoors. I've actually found a golf course that is fully lit so playing golf has been made bearable considering I can tee off as late as 6 pm and still get in an entire 18. For those of you that may not know...I came down here for a job opportunity at the Downtown Aquarium as suggested by a previous boss who I worked with in Minnesota that is now the curator here. I have to say it was definitely encouraging to know before I moved down that there would be a familiar face at work. He's a great boss and has really made the transition a smooth and enjoyable one!

I love my job at the aquarium and have been given opportunities there I would have never dreamed of when I first accepted the position. We have four white bengal tigers on display as well as a variety of small mammals and raptors which are primarily used for education. We also house many parrots, some of which are display animals while others are on property because they couldn't continue to live elsewhere. As an aquarist I never thought I'd find myself working with tigers, sloths, servals, or parrots but it's really been an awesome addition to my job. I've always been interested in working with a variety of animals so I've now had the opportunity to begin doing so. The tigers are truly awe inspiring while the mammals are cute and cuddly while also serving as amazing ambassadors. One of my life long dreams has been achieved while working at the aquarium...performing in dive shows using an AGA mask! This is probably confusing to most so I'll explain...AGA masks are used most familiarly by fire fighters to communicate and breath while working inside burning buildings. They have since been adapted for underwater use and allow us at the aquarium to interact directly with our guests from inside the tank while we're diving. The mask covers my face and mouth and has a microphone embedded in the regulator as well as headphones to hear the person speaking into the microphone from outside the tank. Every weekend we do these "DiveCom" shows and it's something I look forward to. It's really cool to see the little kids faces when they realize you're talking to them from inside and it's even more fun to see parents reaction to realizing I'm sharing the tank with an eight foot nurse shark that in actuality is a lot more like an eight foot puppy dog as he comes right over and sits in front of me while I give my talk.

One of my most recent aquarium adventures was fishing in the gulf for a type of fish called a Lookdown that we are putting on display in the near future. They are an odd looking but very cool fish that commonly feeds in large groups around underwater lights that attract a variety of bugs and other tasty morsels. We were in contact with someone in Galveston that owns a slip at the yacht club there who was willing to let us come down and fish after dark in an attempt to save some money (it's much cheaper to catch them ourselves than it is to buy them from a wholesaler and have them shipped to us). I've never been much of a fisherman as I find it relatively boring but I had a blast hooking the Lookdowns. We also got to see a variety of other marine creatures including some really cool jellyfish! (I know I'm a nerd.)

Life in Texas for Matt has been somewhat of a roller coaster but he's really settled into his job and finds it rewarding yet frustrating but overall a good fit. He's a store manager for Blockbuster running his own store in Rosenberg which is about a 30-45 minute drive from our apartment. The commute is probably the most unfortunate part of his job but the store he works at has taken a 180 from where it was when it was given to him. Matt has been able to clean things up and bring back customers not to mention the huge improvements in revenue. All his fellow managers, who I will point out cannot believe how young he is, are incredibly impressed by his success and ability to turn his store around. Matt gets lots of creative control which he loves as well as a chance to interact with the public and build relationships with his customers which I believe is what he's best at and not surprisingly his favorite thing about the job. As I said the commute is brutal considering current gas prices and keeping in mind he's essentially on call anytime the store is open meaning he may have to drive out there at the drop of the hat. Thankfully a new manager is being trained to take over Matt's store and he will be moving to one closer to home which makes both of us very happy although Matt is somewhat apprehensive to leave the store he's worked so hard on.

Well I think I've babbled quite extensively enough for one night...there's more to be updated on but I will leave it for another time. Night!