Cinco De Mayo!

Yesterday was a real busy day, when I got home from work my little brother and cousin came over and we went over to the park to play baseball, it was so much fun we were there for hours. The only bad part is my left hand is going to have a monster blister on it. After that I went home and got ready for a Cinco De Mayo party at the church. We had some of the best enchilladas I've ever had, after eating we played mexican bingo or Loteria in spanish. The finale of the night was Pinata's, the first one we let some of the little kids that were there take care of but the second one was all ours. There were a few people that went before me and someone even broke the rope it was hanging by so we had to hang it from the basketball hoops net, so of course when it was my turn it was a pretty easy target, I took one swat and it exploded open with candy flying everywhere, but the best part was when the head of the batman pinata when flying into the air and came back down into the hoop, Talk about a good shot!

A crappy start to the week.

This Sunday I was driving back from my dad's house, and as I was heading over the point of the mountain my truck suddenly became very loud. I turned off the radio so I could listen better then I also started to lose power and immediately thought maybe my transmission was going out. That was until I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a big puff of white smoke! So as my truck died I pulled on to the shoulder of the freeway, and I noticed two bikers yelling at me to get away from the truck, apparently when I saw the white smoke they also saw a big flame from the bottom of my truck, immediately I got away from it and noticed there was still a small flame going so I stayed away. Luckily the flame went out on it's own and my truck didn't explode, so luckily I have the best grandpa in the world who is letting me borrow his car until I leave on my mission, so of course all my problems are fixed right? Wrong, unfortunately the front passenger side tire is flat and now I get to go find a new one. What a great start to the week!

Texas Dallas Mission!

After more than a year of preparation and the hardest diet and exercise plan I've ever been on, last night I finally found out where and when I will begin my mission. On June 3rd I am to report to the MTC and soon after will be going to the Texas Dallas mission! It's been a long wait and I am so anxious to get going I can hardly stand it.

The $300 clock battery.

At the site that I work at we have a system in place to track pretty much everything that has to be replaced, fixed, or modified. I initially thought it was a great idea, so we can keep track of all of it and figure out exactly were we can improve. Well I recently also found out that each time one of these items has to be entered into the system to be fixed, etc. it costs the company $300! So the other day I was informed that our wall clock in the fitness room wasn't working and it needed new batteries, so I notified the right person (obviously It's to much of a risk for me to replace them) and was told that it still had to be entered into the system! Talk about an expensive pair of batteries! (remember all requests are $300)

So much for being early!

Yesterday I made the mistake of forgetting to set my alarm clock, so of course I ended up being late for work. So I decided that today I would make sure that didn't happen and made it a goal to be even earlier today than usual. I woke up right at 4:30 got dressed, combed my hair and headed out the door. I ended up pulling in the parking lot at 5:25, got out of my truck and as I reached the front doors realized I had forgotten my access badge. So I ended up having to wait until 5:50 for someone else to arrive and let me in the building, what a crappy way to start the morning!

A good reason not to annoy airline employees

First of all some background info. Not to long ago I was working for a certain airline company as a ramp agent. Now as most people are aware there is a limited amount of space on board an aircraft that is set aside for baggage some times weight allowances are enough to accommodate all of the bags and sometimes not. During the summer flights to vacation hot spots such as Cancun are extremely full and as a result have quite a bit of luggage, and that's where the bag sorting becomes very important. From the bottom up the priorities are as follows, Inter airline "hot" bags, (bags from other airlines where the bag has missed the flight) standby luggage, "hot bags", (same airline bags that have missed their flights) and finally the bags that belong to paying customers for that flight. Each of these bags are sorted into heavy and regular heavy being marked as 50+ pounds and all others at 25. Also on full flights the ramp agents check all bags to make sure that the passenger names on the bags match up to the names on the passenger manifest, all extras usually won't make it on the plane. Now that you have the basic rundown I can continue. On a really hot summers day at SLC international myself and three other "rampers" were beginning the sorting process for a full flight to Cancun. After having already removed all of the extra luggage we then began to load the luggage into the aft (back) of the plane. About ten minutes into making sure all the bags we were attempting to fit on the plane matched up to the manifest the customer service agent came out to the back of the plane to let us know that one of the passengers had insisted on her coming out to make sure her dog (a golden retriever in a huge kennel) made it on to the flight. We told the agent we would do our best and sent her on her way. About ten minutes later the agent came out again to inform us of the passengers insistence that we know that their dog needs to be on that flight with them. (at this point we have now loaded about a third of the bags) So again we sent the agent back to let her know we would do our best to make sure the dog made the flight. So again we continue to load the bags when ten minutes pass and again the agent comes out to the ramp and at this point we already knew what she was going to say, so this time we sent her back to the customer to let her know that we would make sure the dog definitely made the flight. At this point we were extremely tired and annoyed. So we started to load the remainder of the luggage when we reached the luggage of the same couple that had the dog, so we put their luggage back in the cart of luggage to be sent on a later flight, made sure to put the dog on the plane, locked the door, pushed the plane back, and sent it on it's way. Needless to say when the couple arrived in Cancun their dog was at the baggage claim, and their bags where sitting in a baggage cart waiting for the next flight out to Cancun.

Finally a Brooksby!

Well its' official after twenty one years of having the most common of last names and having to explain to way to many people why my last name is different from my dad's and my mom's I have finally had it changed. It's definitely interesting how difficult it is to go through the process, but yet it's also so simple at the same time. First of all you have to get all the required paperwork and fill it out, next get verification of your identity, and be able to prove you don't have a criminal record. Afterwards you go to the court and pay the fee (in Utah $155) and get your court date scheduled. Finally the day in court you have to explain why you want it changed and if you are doing it to evade creditors, next when the judge approves the change you finally get copies of the approval form to take to the DMV, Dept. of vital records, social security, banks, and for me DOPL. So far all that I have time to change is my Licence and my church records. But it's getting done and I can finally say I am officially a Brooksby.