Excuses, excuses

I've got a million of them for why its been so long since I blogged.

1. My replacement started last week so I've been super busy at work training her and trying to make sure things are in order for my departure. It's going well so far. Last week I had to spend a lot more time "driving", then watching over her shoulder as she drove. This week she's working mostly on her own while I finish up some special projects and catch up on chores that I've put off due to interviews, like filing/organizing/etc.

2. My evenings have been filled with watching the Tour de Lance...er...France, and procrastinating on the task of packing. Now that the Tour is over, I'll have to get more creative with my procrastination. My room is a disaster and I'm not looking forward to taming the beast. I think I need to do another round of purging with a couple more trips to goodwill & the dump.

4. I also need to get my ass in gear making sure that all of my papers are in order and that I'm caught up on my to-do list. The financial aid stuff is in the bag (I've already had some paperwork sent back to me), my immunization records are ready to be sent, and I just enrolled in health insurance for the next year. I still need to finish up all of the tasks for pre-term (aka LEAD). I've done the Myers-Briggs personality test thingy (for what must be the 10th time in my life) and another standardized "intersts" type test, but I need to complete my self assessment, make sure my 360 feedback providers do their part (3 of 5 are done), get a draft resume uploaded to career services, etc etc.

5. Then there's the move. I am officially on the lease as of August 1st, which is the day I plan to depart Washington. I'm in the process of planning my road trip, trying to figure out which sights I can see, where I can stay, and how I can make it work so that the drive time for each day is reasonable (read: in the vicinity of 10 hrs). I'd like to drive through Yellowstone if possible (never been) and I definitely want to see Mount Rushmore (also never been), but we'll see how it works out. I need to call my friend and see if it may be possible for me to crash at her dad's place in Butte, MT. That would eliminate one night in a hotel, although it may mess up my objective of ~10 hrs driving a day. We'll see how it works out. I'd like to arrive in Chicago by August 5th at the latest, so I can be in town when the Seattle Mariners play the Chicago White Sox. Then I will have my furniture and other misc crap delivered out of storage on August 8th. I called today to get that scheduled but my "move coordinator" hasn't called me back yet. I hope that day will work, I don't think I can go much longer without my own bed. Sleeping on my 15 year old twin mattress for the past 4 months has not been kind to my back.

6. On top of all that...I'm just too busy having fun with family and friends in my final throes of pre-school life in Washington. This past weekend my folks and I went camping near Plain, WA (aka Middle of Nowhere). Their friends have some property on the Wentachee River. It was nice to see a bunch of their friends that I've known forever but haven't seen in 5+ years. The weather was awesome and Saturday we did a 2+ hr float down the river in tubes and rafts with plenty of beer. This week I plan to hang out with my local girlfriends, do a sort of ladies night this weekend (they'll get their husbands to babysit while we tear up this town). We're also going to have dinner and play cards with my grandparents on Thursday (our family favorite is Chicago Rummy). Sunday I'll probably head down to Seattle to stay with a friend so as to avoid Monday morning traffic.

So yeah, that pretty much sums up why I've been a slack blogger. Can't promise it's going to be much better for the next couple of weeks, although my new roommate is getting everything in order to make sure we're hooked up with high speed internet. Oh, forgot to add that I also need to get around to buying a new laptop. My current one is a 3 year old Compaq model that I've already had to reformat once and the keys are not working so well lately. I need to do some online research with my dad tonight, who has recently expressed interest in providing some financial assistance in the technology department of my b-school adventure. Sweet! Although he's making noise like he's going to try to talk me out of the laptop I've had my heart set on for the past couple of months, the Apple 12-in Powerbook. Don't you go thinking I'm a follower on this little trend of MBA bloggers going Mac, I've been talking/thinking about this one for awhile. The Powerbook is one bad ass machine, IMO.