Well it has been roughly a year since the last update of the design of my blog. I decided to search for a design, really layout, that I liked so I could modify it. Well I found one and I modified it. You are now looking at the fruits of those efforts. I will continue to make small tweaks to get it just perfect. I will admit I haven’t tried all the pages so I am not sure how they all render in a browser. Feel free to let me know if you find a flaw.

Things that are new: I started my new assignment at work. I am not downtown yet as I thought a couple of posts ago. I am at an office that is really close to home. I don’t even get on a freeway to get there. I have been saying that the assignment is different from what I used to but after some time working it I have found it is not much different. I still have to troubleshoot problems and fix them as quickly as possible. Although some of the issues will have to be worked immediately and that means working until everything is fixed. Then I see a problem with that approach. We can only work issues once a day when the processes run. Oh what fun lies ahead.

Evan has started walking on his own. He is very confident in his new found skill. 

Grant is almost finished with Kindergarten. He is reading very well.

Tucker… well he is Tucker. Getting bigger and following the example of his big brother in both good and bad habits. 

my boys on Easter

There were many things that drew my interest to my current employer. I won’t go into all the reasons now but one is the opportunity to change assignments every few years. There was nothing more scary to think about in college than to graduate and get a job doing the same things for 30 years. If I didn’t want to do the same thing I’d have to go find another job and that, as we all know, is such a pleasant experience.
So I am here working for the man. It is good. The man is very understanding.
This week I started a new assignment. Doing something totally different than I have done in the past. In fact I had been doing essentially the same job for 10 years. Now it all changes. Maybe it’s the English in me but it is a little hard to change from what I have grown to know. The other half of me finds it very exciting to try something new.
So my first week happens to coincide with training for this new product. Today is the half way point of the training this week. That’s right 5 days of paid work to sit in a classroom and listen. Oh yeah and absorb some info.

So learning is a good thing. Moving on in the career is a good thing. Getting paid to do it all is even better.

ExxonMobil Building

If everything goes according to plan I should find a new home away from home on the 10th floor starting next Monday. This should be interesting…

Building Name: ExxonMobil Building
Structure Height:606
Number of Stories:44
Year Built: 1963
Architect/Design Firm: Welton Becket & Associates
Style: International Style
Use: Office Building
Publicly accessible areas:Outside plaza.
Hours: Monday-Friday, 6am-6pm
Cost: None.
Address:
800 Bell
Houston, Texas

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Some history: Admittedly, like Marina City in Chicago, many consider this one of the ugliest buildings in Houston. But the beauty is in the engineering – everything about the building is functional. It’s hard to believe that an energy company in 1963 would be worried about saving energy, but the building was specifically designed for the harsh sun of Houston’s notoriously horrid summers. Windows are set back, to avoid direct sunlight, and the effects of the sun were further mitigated by horizontal bands of aluminum fins encircling the building.

The top two floors, without protection from the sun’s rays, don’t hold office space; this is home to the Petroleum Club – where the wheelers and dealers (think JR Ewing) of the energy industry meet, making and breaking good ole’ boy deals that ultimately dictate how much you’re paying at the pump. For two years, the building was the tallest west of the Mississippi, and was outfitted with the pre-requisite observation deck on top. The deck was closed in 1971 with the erection of the still-taller One Shell Plaza.
***

I had lunch on the top floor once. It was awesome.

At my job safety is the number on thing we do. It is not oil or gas. So recently I had to do a computer based training on the company policies regarding driving 1) company cars, 2) on company time and 3) on company property. It was basically a review of the defensive driving course I took a month into my employment. There were a few videos of bad crashes and they were good reminders not to use a cell phone while driving. The main theme was when you are driving then you should focus on driving. Any distraction could be fatal. Ughh. Ok that was very heavy. I follow company policy and don’t ever use my cell phone while driving and rarely will I use the hands free.
Anyway so after I completed the course a was able to print a certificate that proved I had done all the slides. There was a slide that said thank you at the end and some clip art was on the page too. I took a screenshot because I thought it was very ironic that I had just finished a vehicle safety training and the art shows a car with all four wheels off the ground.

[UPDATE]: I noticed also there doesn’t appear to be any seat belt wearing. The head with longer hair (female? you can never tell these days) is in the middle too. Interesting.

Car Safety?

So after the hour drive to Galveston we had lunch at Willie G’s awesome seafood place. I had red snapper encrusted in almonds and bread crumbs, a scoop of chunky crab meat and asparugus. The guy across from me wanted the same but he also wanted the ultimate seafood platter. We decided to share so I also ate a crab finger, a crab ball, some shrimp and a stuffed shrimp. Then came desert. See the photo for more details. It was good in a simple kind of way.
Then we went to a oil rig museum. Nothing too spectacular but it was better than work. I’ll add some photos from that also.