I've found myself in a place I've never been...

So the days of college have been behind me now for a few months and it seems crazy, almost unimaginable to think that the days of staying up late working on engineering homework, chatting with friends, coffee at Roh's street, and bike rides on Tuesday nights are a thing of the past.  It's something that's hard to get over because in actuality those were some pretty unforgettable times, days I will cherish as I wake up daily now and I attend work and have things planned out.

Since last March I had prepared myself for the days of being a real engineer by beginning my career as an engineer, but at that point it was still only part time and the other part time was enjoying senior year of school.  Many people don't know the reasons behind why I chose to come to Kentucky when I've been in Ohio for so long.  But to be honest it was on a whim, I felt as if God was leading me to come to Kentucky and take an adventure that today I can say I do not regret for a moment.  I say God led me here because, mostly because He led me to a girl who had lived in Kentucky for her entire life.  I didn't get to spend any time senior year with her going back and forth to spend time with her, my time was instead spent on Skype, so I didn't really get a feel for Kentucky.  All I really knew of Kentucky was that I had gone to Scout camp a few times there and Red River Gorge for numerous outings.  But at the end of senior, I was planning on moving there!?  What was I thinking?

Erica and I met twice while she was home from Panama, then she left for 5 months, 5 excruciatingly long months.  Excruciating in the sense that I had to wait that long to see her in person again.  For that time we spent our date nights on Skype talking about our weeks.  She would be enjoying some warm weather and squashing cockroaches, I would be going through all the seasons of weather and doing school work.  It was not a normal way to start a relationship, but it was something, an amazing sort of something.  The whole time that we were Skyping, we learned so much about each other that allowed us to really get to know each other.  We discussed many topics that were deep and many that were just surface level.  But we covered a lot of ground in those 5 months.  (I missed out on a few events and some time with the people that I now miss, due to Skype, so I apologize, but I hope you forgive me.)  We were preparing for what was to come in June, because she would be returning in to the States for good.

June was densely packed with so many positive things and it seemed that there was no downtime.  I had two countdowns going for myself: one- graduation, two- Erica's return.  While I had my countdown's, two amazing couples had countdowns of their own going.  Nick and Adrienne George and Josh and Mackenzie Elrod were gettin' hitched!  June flew by in such a whirlwind of positive events and it's hard to believe that was 6 months ago.  All four of those countdowns turned out to be pretty amazing even if they were all run through pretty quickly.  I'm sad to say that I didn't get to spend a ton of time at either wedding, but I enjoyed them as much as I could.  While everyone was attending Nick and Adrienne's wedding, I was officially becoming an engineer.  While everyone was drinking and dancing for Josh and Mackenzie, I was introduced to my first Kentucky truck pull (which is a big deal here!).

I didn't get a picture of the two of us, because I was so nervous about sounding crazy.

When June finally wound down to the last few days, I was really looking for a full time job because I now had my piece of paper touting the 5 years of brutality in engineering school had been successfully completed.  With that piece of paper, I applied for so many jobs, most of which were in Kentucky.  I decided on Kentucky, trying to find somewhere halfway between my parents and where I would have to drive to visit Erica.  I didn't know if she was going to have a job back in Versailles, KY or if she would have a job elsewhere.  I really wanted to get a full time with SWECO, where I had worked since March, but things weren't working out in my favor.  I went out on interviews while I was working at SWECO to interview with other companies, which then encouraged them to try harder to find me something.  With the fear that I would be leaving, the HR lady found me my current job in quality.  I didn't know if I would get that job right away either.  I had to interview for that one along with the dozens of other candidates, and prove myself as a worthy candidate.  When I interviewed my boss had already offered another guy the job, and wouldn't know his answer for about a week.  He was hoping for me to get the job, he told me that if the other guy declined the job, I would have the position.  So I waited a week and was anxious the whole time.  During that week, I had planned to go backpacking with Erica and her dad at the Gorge.  That turned out to be an amazing insight into personality and response to different challenges.  But being on the trail I couldn't check my phone for calls if I had been offered the job.  So we just hiked and enjoyed the time away from the craziness of life.

We started our hike on a Friday morning, despite the forecast for some heavy rain in the area. (Unfortunately I made the call that we should do it anyway.)  We wound up hiking for about 6 hours in the rain and sloshing through some extremely muddy and slippery portions of the trail.  By the end of the day we were soaked through and had really tested our waterproof gear to it's limits.  But we managed to keep our spirits up and try to dry out, which we did until we ended our hike on Sunday morning.  When we got off the trail, we quit because it was over 100F and we were low on water.  After leaving the trail and determining that we could each eat half a cow a piece, we determined that it would be required to get some food.  Let me interject though... After leaving the park and on the way to Miguels, I turned my phone on and found that I had a voicemail... The voicemail was a call from HR informing me that I needed to come in Monday to fill out paperwork to accept my full time job!!!  I was so excited by the news I couldn't contain myself.

The adventure doesn't stop here, just for the evening.  I'm an old man now working an 8 to 5 job requires me to get some sleep...  But I will continue from here soon to explain the rest of the year and the beginning of 2012.