Back In The Saddle

A few weeks ago Leigh casually mentioned that she thought I should get back into home brewing. So for the last couple of weeks I have been thinking about it. So yesterday I mentioned to her that I liked her idea and wanted to go to Winooski to the Vermont Homebrew Supply and get a beer kit and get started. Merry Christmas to me!!
I picked up two different recipes and the ingredients to brew them. I am starting off with tow India Pale Ales. One is called Expedition's Reward that is a custom blend from the store and the other I got from one of several recipe books they keep on a table with some other literature. They have different grains and a different beginning hop. I am sure I will be calling Gary frequently to ask him questions as I start brewing my own beer again.
I brewed up the Expedition's Reward as soon as we got home yesterday afternoon. All seemed to go well. The wort is now upstairs bubbling away.
Thank you Leigh.

Vacation

On Friday Leigh and I will be headed back to Italy. This will be our third trip to Italy. It is a big world and there are lots of places to go see but we really enjoy the country of Italy. We have had great times there and plan to do so again this trip. We arrive in Rome at 8:30 local time. We pick up our rental car at the airport and then head for our villa in the Tuscany region. We are staying near San Gimignano. Our plan is to visit a different hill town each day. One of the towns I am looking forward to visiting is Montepulciano. We went to this town last time we were in Italy and had a great time. They have some of the best wine in the region. I really like the Vino Nobile. It is a red made with sangiovese variety. Our plan is to ship home a couple of cases of wine from this town. We will be in Tuscany for one week. We will then drive to Venice and drop off the rental car. We are staying in Venice for only a couple of nights. From there we are taking the train to Rome where we have rented a top floor apartment. One of the highlights of this apartment is the terrace. It has great views of the city. Last time we were in Rome we also rented an apartment. We were on the top floor that time also. We found that we spent most of our time while we were at the apartment on the terrace. The only time we were inside the apartment was when we were sleeping or cooking our meals. One huge advantage of the apartment is that you get to have your own space. Plus we could cook as many meals as we wanted to. Last time we only went out for dinner twice in the week we were in Rome. It will probably be a similiar story this time. I will post pictures when we get back on July 10th. We are quite excited for our vacation to Italy.

Graduated!!

The very happy graduate.

Graduation Day

Today is it! The ceremony starts at 2:00 eastern time. I am very proud of my accomplishment. As happy and excited as I am about today, the best part was getting a job. Today would be a bit subdued if I had not yet gotten a full time job. Of course Leigh will be there cheering me on, as will Betty and Lynn. A few years ago I would never have thought I could accomplish this. I had friends around my age that had gone back to college and I always commended them and felt I could never do it. Well I proved myself wrong. I worked hard to get the good grades I got. Over the two years I got 9 A's, 6 B's and 2 C's. There were lots of sacrifices made these past two years and not just by me. Leigh has been a tremendous partner through all of this. (I bet Karen would say the same about Gary, as she just graduated yesterday. Congrats to them). All my family members have been very supportive. Leigh had more confidence in me at the start of this than I did. My hat is off to her.

One of the things I gave up was playing hockey three times a week. I cut it back to just playing Friday evening. We have a great time slot from 6-7:30. They are a great group of people I play with. One of the traditions we have with our Friday Night Hockey Club is to have a couple of cold adult beverages after we skate. It is an important part of the game. That way if you get a little perturbed with the way someone hacked you or tripped you can laugh it off after over a beer. Since I started school I haven't been staying to drink with everyone. Well I am happy to say that last night for the first time in about 2 years I stayed and had a beer with everyone.

I only have one down side to all of this. I am really sorry that my Dad is not here today to see me graduate. I think he would have been proud of me. Hopefully he is watching.

I will have some photos to post of the event.

Bring on graduation...I am ready.

Happy Day

 

Happy Mother's Day to all Moms and especially to my Mom....

The Rewards

I found out on Monday that a company called Greenman-Pedersen, Inc. had offered me a job. I will be doing construction inspection. Most of the work I will be doing with be with the VT AOT out of St. Johnsbury. That is about a 75 minute drive. I will working all around the northern part of the state. I think the first project I will be working on will be a "Marking Project". That would be any of the lines that are on the roads. I am not really sure what I will need to do exactly as the construction inspector on these jobs but I am sure I will find out soon. Some of the other projects I will probably work on will be bridge inspection and paving inspection. This year I will only work through the construction season. Then I will get laid off for a few months. If I did a good job for GPI they will hire me back again in April. After that first year you can usually get year round work if you want to. The guy who hired me said there were many of the inspectors who like to have the winter off so can either go South or go skiing or some other winter activity. We will work enough overtime during the year to cover the down time. So if you budget your money properly you can get through the year. I am extremely excited to start my new job. Meanwhile the job I have had through this past school year with the State is still going on. My boss told me I could work until I started with GPI. So I have a couple more weeks with the State.

It was such a relief when the job offer came. Not very many of my classmates have gotten jobs. Summer jobs are even difficult to come by. Vermont Tech College prides itself on 98% placement of its graduates. This year they will not be even close to a number like that. Some of my classmates are going to continue their college educations either at VTC or some other 4 year college.

Here is their website. http://www.gpinet.com/

My graduation is Saturday May 16th in Northfield, VT. It will be held on the campus of Norwich University. I am not really sure why we don't have it on our own campus in Randolph Center. After all we did go to school in Randolph Center not Northfield.

My Award

I see from my brother Mike's blog that the word is out that I got some kind of an award from Vermont Tech College. It is true. I will write down what it says on the award. I thought the best part was the $100.00 check that I got with the award. Needless to say this went straight onto my resume.

Here it is:
"The Vermont Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers Award is presented to Jeffrey R. Warner to the graduating senior with the highest academic average and greatest all-around academic development in the Civil and Environmental engineering Technology program."

I am really happy to have gotten this award....hopefully it will help me to get a job.

I would never been able to get an award like this without the support of Leigh. Her encouragement and support over the past two years has been beyond words. She deserves this as much as I do.