Rabbit Family Update

I've been one busy bunny during the month of October. Lots and lots of stuff going on. I took today off to take my wife to the airport, have lunch with my son at school, and to volunteer in my son's class later on this afternoon. More on that in a separate post. Here are some assorted rabbit ramblings to get you caught up with what's going on my busy world.

• My company had it's annual company picnic a couple weekends ago. It was held at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA. That's about an hour's drive from Richmond. We've never been there before. We had a good time, but I don't think I would ever pay to go there. We would end up paying close to $200 for us to go there if you include tickets, parking, food, and a couple souvenirs. Like I said, it was a good time and we had fun but it's not worth $200. Maybe if you were really into rides and roller coasters it would, but not for us. Probably the highlight was when Boo Jr and I went into the aviary and some birds landed on us. Boo Jr was so excited. At 3:00, we met the rest of the company at one of the pavilions for an ice cream social. They had raffles and other prizes. Including family members and guests, there were close to 500 of us there. Quite a turn out.
• A week or so before the company picnic, I had a meeting in the Tidewater region for a project that I'm working on. It was about an hour and a half drive. About 1/3 the way there, I started feeling a little sick to my stomach. I kept my eyes closed the rest of the drive there. My stomach settled down a little bit while we had our meeting. The meeting with the first group of people ran long, so we had to postpone eating lunch until after we met with the second group of people. We didn't eat lunch until almost 3:00. I was starving. I still wasn't feel all too great when we started home, so I continued to keep my eyes closed and try to nap. We were literally only about a mile from the office when I asked my coworker to pull over so I could puke. I haven't puked since getting drunk in college over 10 years ago. The meeting was on a Thursday, so fast forward to mid-week the following week. My stomach was still feeling sour and my head just didn't feel right. I ended up going to the doctor figuring I should have recovered from a bout of motion sickness by now. Turned out that I had some fluid and wax pressing on my ear drum (which the doctor cleaned out). The pressure on my ear drum was causing my nausea and "unbalanced" feelings. It may have been a coincidence that it reared its head during my road trip. At the very least, being couped up in the car didn't help things. I'm happy to say that I feel better now.
• Speaking of puking, there was a lot of puking going on last weekend at the Rabbit household. Thursday, Boo Jr got off the bus from school and told us that Maggie Mouse threw up at school. Sure enough, Boo Jr must have caught whatever bug that was as he was puking the ENTIRE night. About every 15 - 30 minutes, he was up puking. We ended up going through three sets of jammies and one set of sheets that night. Needless to say I was exhausted when I went to work on Friday. My wife started feeling "not too great" over the weekend and started throwing up too. Fortunately, Boo Jr rebounded quickly. He stayed home from school on Friday (and later learned that about half the class was out sick on Friday as well) but was recovered soon there after. My wife got puking so much that she started feeling really dehydrated. I made numerous trips to the pharmacy to pick up numerous drugs that the on-call doctor called in. We ended up taking her to the ER Sunday afternoon. Sunday night was my turn to puke. I was feeling OK all weekend but started feeling pretty bad right around bedtime. I didn't sleep a wink because I felt so nauseous and had major stomach pains. At about 4:00, I finally succumbed and threw up. Good thing Boo Jr was back to normal and could go back to school. My wife was the better off of the two of us Monday morning so she took him to the bus stop. I stayed in bed and slept on and off for the rest of the day. I was feeling good enough by the afternoon to pick my son up from the bus stop. He was pretty upset in the morning before heading to school because "Daddy was sick". He felt better seeing that I was feeling better. Even now, three days later, my stomach is still recovering. Earlier in the week, I felt OK but had no appetite. I felt hungry but nothing sounded good to eat.
• I've been super-busy at work. I've got three major design projects going on. The first is a renovation/expansion of a 60,000 sq ft courthouse. The second is a new 3-story, 90,000 sq ft courthouse. The third is a new 1,024 bed medium security prison complex. Those project are enough to keep me majorly busy, but I also have to deal with a couple other smaller projects such as a condition assessment report for a juvenile detention facility. I also have construction administration (CA) duties for 5 or 6 projects currently under construction. If a Request For Information (RFI) comes in, I am obligated to drop what I'm doing and put my resources into answering that question. CA tasks hold priority over design work. And those phone calls and e-mails always come at the worst time. I've been putting in some extra hours at home working on specifications. So I'm keeping my nose above water for the time being. But when it rains it pours. We just signed a contract for ANOTHER new jail. Fortunately, that won't start up for another couple months. Any architects or engineers out there looking for a job? Seriously! We're so busy and it's so hard to find qualified people to work. All the firms in the area are super-busy and the supply of job applicants is so low, it's hard to hire additional staff. But I'd rather be super-busy like this than the alternative.
• My wife volunteers for her sorority and is at a conference in Chicago. I dropped her off at the airport this morning after putting my son on the bus. I just got back from having lunch with him. Kids haven't changed at all. The cafeteria was really loud. The kids were all laughing and talking and were more interested in goofing around than eating their lunches. I will be going back to my son's class at 2:00 for a presentation about architecture and engineering. Apparently, Mrs. Gopher (my son's Kindergarten teacher) made a big announcement and/or there's a big sign in the classroom welcoming "Mr. Rabbit" to the classroom. All the kids were saying, "Hey! There's Boo's dad!" as they were filing into the cafeteria. I felt like a rock star. At the lunch table, one kid asked me why I don't have any hair. I said, "Because I'm old!" He then points at me and says, "You're bald!" The things kids say!