Ow?

Thanks to my brother Patrick, I've been starting to play golf a lot recently. During my last week of freedom before I start to work I've been to the driving range, been to a separate pitching/putting range, and played 27 holes of golf. Once you start figuring out how to play it becomes a lot of fun and Patrick has been very helpful at giving me pointers. Yesterday we went out and played a round of 18 holes, and with no one in front or behind us we could take our time and really enjoy ourselves. Unfortunately for me that translated into a minor foot injury.

On the 7th hole, Patrick was driving our golf cart as we went out to pick up a stray ball that I had hit. He zoomed past the ball and I failed to grasp it as we were passing. I assumed that since we passed the ball, Patrick would stop the cart so I could jump out and pick up the ball quickly. Meanwhile Patrick thought he would quickly turn the cart around for another pass at picking up the ball. The result of the situation was me jumping out of the golf cart at the exact moment Patrick sped up and turned sharply! And so I rolled along the grass, spraining my left ankle. With no one behind us I was able to rest for a few minutes before I stood up and "walked it off". I then proceeded to finish the hole and then play 11 more holes afterwards!

It really hurt at first when I teed off on the next hole, it being my outer foot and thus having to bear most of my weight after each drive. But once I got accustomed to it, I ended up playing some of my best golf ever. Maybe I should teach that as a class: "Spraining your ankle to improve golf scores - 3 simple steps!" Of course once I took my golf shoes off it started to swell up and so I've been trying not to be on it too much. Hopefully it will be bearable tomorrow when I start work.... I don't know what to tell them, whether I should just make up some phony excuse or let them know that their new employee likes to jump from moving vehicles. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.........

The Aftermath

It's officially summertime where time itself becomes quite paradoxical: the days drag on slowly but the week races by. Since the last post more interesting things have occurred, the foremost of them being a trip to Cambria with my friends, as sort of a graduation present to us all. Now that we're officially 21 and "gradumacated", it seemed like a nice idea to go out and share a typical Cambria experience with some friends. Well, we did that and more. By the end of the trip, we had been to a total of 8 wineries (an average of 2 per day)! Needless to say we consumed our fair share of alcohol along the trip which was at times relaxing and at others a bit more "interesting". All in all, we had great fun and really got to introduce Heidi (my school friend) to the Bakersfield crowd.

Afterwards, Heidi was able to stay around a couple of days before going back home to Houston, so I showed her around town (not much to see) and we turned Apples to Apples into a drinking game. Of course, the day after the drinking night I took my drug test for Aera, which won't show any traces of drugs, but might reveal how much alcohol was in my system. I wonder what they think they're getting themselves into with me? For Father's Day my brother the chef made some delicious rack of lamb, with grilled vegatables and all the other fixings. As a family we went through 3 bottles of excellent wine. I think for a while now, I'm going to be laying off the alcohol...... though I could drink wine for "medicinal" reasons.

Speaking of medicine, my mom had surgery yesterday to sort of fix up her internal organs. She's fine now and will be back home hopefully by Friday to rest up for weeks to come. While we were visiting her I kept waiting to see something wacky happen, and it was then that I realized I've watched way too much "Scrubs" episodes recently.

I start work Monday, so after then I should be online more to post about the random adventures that occur daily. Until then, go read a book!

Just to Check Back in

The one thing I hate about being home for the summer is the internet connection we have here. Using dial-up to connect makes using the internet so much more of a hassle, because everything takes so much longer. This is why I've avoided using the computer as much as I can while still checking for those "important" emails, and so this page comes to a halt for a while. But now that I'm bored enough to be on our family computer I feel I can give a couple brief updates.

I had a fun couple of roadtrips earlier in the summer to pick up Patrick and then go wine tasting at the coast. It's been a great start to summer and along the way I've golfed, swam and played ultimate frisbee. Unfortunately, I have developed a rather unpleasant cough the past two weeks and so my recent activities have been limited as a result. The coughing, however, hasn't stopped me in getting a job, which I can officially declare that I have done.

I have decided to take the job offer I received from Aera (a Bakersfield-based petroleum company)! The offer itself was too good to pass up and I would only be holding out longer for something that may never work out. My job title is officially "Reliability Engineer" which means that I won't be working directly with the oil aspect of the company, but rather the mechanical side of it, something that I can apply my education towards. My starting salary will be around $68,000 a year, plus a $2,000 signing bonus, plus an amazing benefits plan including 4 weeks paid vactaion! Plus, I get every other Friday off. I see this as a great job for me to get started in, where I can start making some money and get out on my own. Then if I desire to move into a different career path, I will have kept up on my mechanical engineering and could easily transfer over to something else.

So anyway, I'm excited about working there and I'll start sometime by the end of the month. Tomorrow, I am taking some friends to go wine tasting along the coast for a couple days and from there I will enjoy my last official days of summer. I will try my best to keep posted how things turn out, and I'm sure once I start working, I can post more regularly from work.