Weekend round up

Zac is on his way to Florida as I type tonight. There's something rather comforting knowing that he's back in the states, even though he's still about 1,489 miles away. (I Google-mapped it.) He'll be there for the next five weeks going through what I like to call, "chief school," and what he likes to call "initiation." "Initiation" sounds ominous, doesn't it? It doesn't exactly have a positive connotation. "Initiation" sounds like it involves the basement of a frat house, hooded figures and a wooden paddle. Or maybe hooded figures, drinking doctored Kool Aid while waiting for aliens to show up.

[Hmph. What's with the hooded figures? Is that standard "initiation" attire? Are there guidelines to this? Does Emily Post have an etiquette rule about what one wears to an initiation?]

Anyhow, at the very least "initiation" involves some sort of humiliation. When I was in high school and made the hockey cheerleading squad I got to go through "initiation." It wasn't too painful, but there was a certain amount of embarrassment. Since I don't like the word, I think I'll stick with "Chief School" which makes what Zac is going through sound much happier. They could have called it "orientation" instead - I would have been okay with that choice too.

As for me, I've been working out at Thomson as a contractor for a whole whopping three days. So far, so good. I like the people I work with, and I get to see my friends each day either at lunch or when we take a coffee break. It's nice to be back in the building. I'm working in the depths of the basement with a bunch of other contractors. My supervisor affectionately refers to it as "Temp Land." It's a bunch of contract workers with their itty bitty cubes, all working on something different. My cube is about the size of a large card table. (Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's pretty close.) But for the work I'm doing, I don't really need any space. Just a computer and a desk.

This weekend was full of excitement. On Friday night I went to the Vikings' first pre-season game. Then on Saturday morning I went up to the Dome. I got home a little after lunchtimes today. After I got home I took a nap and then walked around Lake Calhoun with Sara. It was good to get up to the Dome- I haven't been up there since I've been back in MN. We (i.e. Dad) spent all that time, energy and money rebuilding it so I need to start using it.

My family affectionately refers to our cabin as "The Dome." We don't say, "We're going to the cabin this weekend." We say, "we're going to the Dome this weekend." It's not because we have some sort of great affinity for the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis, home of the Twins and Vikings - it's because it's a geodesic dome. If you're unfamiliar with what a geodesic domes looks like, picture a half-sphere made out of triangles. (I'd put a link in here to point to an example on the Internet, but I haven't mastered that blogging skill yet. Time to call Heidi, obviously, as she is my Sherpa up the blogging mountain.) Typical Ayers family - we're a little odd. What? A standard shaped building? Pshaw! No generic rectangular cabins for us!

The Dome is located about an hour and a half North of Minneapolis. It makes it a nice, easy drive to get to. You can easily go there for a day or a weekend without killing yourself with the drive. Yesterday it was blazing hot up there. Even though I was exhausted at bedtime, I couldn't sleep too well. This morning was lovely, but I had to come back home and prep for the upcoming work week. There were ducks that needed to be put in a row . I'm hoping to make it up to the Dome many more times, especially this fall. I LOVE it up there in the fall - all the leaves change, the weather is beautiful, it's quiet -- it's perfect. And since it's Minnesota, and the State Fair is in two weeks, fall is just around the corner . . . .