Random thoughts at work

Ok, this is Andrew speaking; this is officially my first contribution to our blog. It is my first attempt at blogging period. Annalise has been after me for awhile now asking me when I am going to contribute to our blog, well today is that day. Look out world. I am now joining the high-tech world of blogging. Which means anyone who reads our blog will now be subjected to my rambling, high speed, often hard to follow thought process. This gets worse when I am forced to endure long periods of intense boredom, when I talk about something I really enjoy, or when my blood sugar spikes for a variety of reasons. I just drank about a liter of Pepsi by-the-way. This is more soda than I normally drink in 2 weeks. Why you might ask, did I do such a thing? Let me tell you.

Once every week we have what is called Post Academy day. This is a day where we are stuck in a tiny overcrowded computer room that does not have a sufficient enough air conditioning to keep one from suffering from heat exhaustion. We are there for 8 hours. It is supposed to be a continuation of our training from the academy but it is all online. I usually finish my classes within the 1st hour, leaving me 7 hours of agonizing boredom. You might not think it is that bad of a situation, let me quickly relieve you of such an erroneous assumption. First off, we have to be prepared to go out to the field at any time. That means wearing our duty belt with full gear. However, the genius involved in outfitting the classroom with chairs was never informed of this fact, or he gets a kick out of knowing that the chairs he put in there are too tiny to sit in with your duty belt on. This causes one to sit at a somewhat sideways position with your back twisted, trying to fit your feet under the desk. Every now and then you must change which way you are twisted or run the risk of serious injury and embarrassment when you try to get out of your seat 8 hours later.

The wonderful electrician who wired the room never thought that you would want the computers, lights, and ceiling fans on all at the same time. You can't have them all on and the air-conditioning too apparently. So since we are in full gear, this includes body armor, and there are around 10-20 of us in the room, all using computers which put out more heat than my space heater at home, it gets a little toasty at times. They do give us internet access, kind of. About 80% of anything you would want to look at is blocked, like say....news, sports, social networking sites, games etc. Hence why I am writing this at the moment, it’s not blocked. I have had the opportunity to read plenty of interesting things on a variety of sites though. Did you know that the Snow Leopard can leap over 6 times its body length? Man, if I could do that I would be leaping like 37 feet. That would be awesome. I haven't measured my leaping ability recently but I am pretty sure it’s not even close to that. Did you also know that sharks have special cells in their brains that are sensitive to the electrical fields other creatures generate. This ability is so refined in some sharks that they can find fish hiding under sand by the weak electric signals their twitching muscles emit. Dang, I would like to see tonks get away from me then. Go ahead hide, I will find you, then jump attack you from over 30 feet away.

Sorry, I got off topic. Wait a minute, I don't think I had a topic. Um, guess I could come up with one real quick though. It would have to be how much I love my wife. She is truly great to me. I am so glad I have her in my life. I can't imagine being without her, well, yes I can. I was without her for 3 months while at the academy and it was terrible. Am so glad to be back with her and going through this adventurous trail we are on. It has been so very hard at times, very stressful and demanding on us both. But well worth it. If you never leave your comfort zone how do you expect to grow? I can say with everything happening in the move and change of jobs that we have both been way outside our comfort zone. We have grown so much together though. I love my little family. My wife and my dog. I also love the rest of my family, my brothers and sisters, my in-laws (who have supported me and helped me so much, thank you,) my father. . . family is so important, it's hard being far away from them all. I hope you all keep in touch.

Alright, I know a lot of you have questions on what my job entails. Actually I don't know that, but I am guessing you might wonder. Maybe. In the middle of the night when you can't sleep. You think to yourself, "Remember Andrew? The guy who joined the Border Patrol. I wonder what exactly it is that he does." Well tune in next time to find out. I might even post a video of Border Patrol work. If I can figure out how to post it that is.