July has Flown BY!

Holy cow, am I ever sorry to all you people out in webland for the delay in my postings!  To be honest I think it's just because this whole J-O-B thing is seriously getting in the way of my real life priorities...ie blogging.  So I guess a quick recap of the month is in order to bring you all up to speed and of course in hopes that I will continue to regularly update!

The month started out FANTASTIC with a trip back home to SLC for the 4th of July holiday weekend.  Seriously, it had to go down as the best 4th of July ever!  When I got into town Norman and I headed over to a super small new locally owned Thai food joint where the one the only Scott Schoenbeck resurfaced and joined us for dinner.  It was great to catch up over some yummy food and of course a little gelato for dessert!

Yeti of course came to the airport to pick me up...it's hard to tell if he was happy to see me or not!

On Saturday I of course grabbed my bike and hit the streets to conquer some of my favorite roads and mountains on the bike.  IT was of course on this ride that I realized how much I miss living in Utah, how  beautiful it is living here, and of course what a great lifestyle one can live in the mountains.  Seriously nothing better than riding along and staring at the beautiful landscape here.  It's rides and days like this that I know how lucky I am to live where we live.  Of course no return home is complete without an impromptu party to be held up at the mountain house!  Turns out that my dear friend and nicest human on the planet, Laura and her husband, Super Mike were in town visiting too!  We ended up having the two of them, plus our friends, Carol, Peter, and Clara.  It was absolutely fantastic to get everyone together for a great evening!

The next morning Laura and I went for a ride up in Park  City, just a little loop nothing to crazy, but it certainly was nice to have company on a ride.  I've been doing all solo riding in COS and well the voices in my head can only stimulate limited conversation.  We of course made this a coffee shop ride, followed by a venture to the Park Silly Farmers Market, and I even got to show her our little Mexican Market to grab a tasty taco from!  All in all a fantastic day of what Norman likes to call...bee bopping around!  (Just an FYI Norman, Super Mike, Derek, and Carol all went golfing so don't take any pity on them!)

Just when I thought the fourth couldn't get any better we headed up to Snowbird for a little skiing on the 4th of JULY!  That's right folks you heard me I hit the snow on the fourth of July and it was actually really good!  We had so much fun up there doing a couple of good runs and of course embracing the crazy ski culture that is Snowbird complete with costumes, beers, music, and plenty of good times!

Did I mention how much I love ski bums!  I mean seriously awesome costumes, music, and atmosphere!  Way too much fun!

After the 4th I headed back to COS for a return to what I like to call the factory.  I'm sure you've heard this over and over I have a serious phobia of excel.  I mean I hate it and my department lives in it!  It's kinda crazy, but despite this phobia I pretty much love my job and all that it entails.

We are now going to interrupt your reading pleasure to bring you this months Intern Blunder...proudly sponsored by Cheerios!

Of course there is an intern blunder to speak of this month....do you all really think I understand this work thing!  Of course not!  So this months intern blunder involves the CEO of the USOC...yup that's right the CEO.  Hey when I blunder I blunder big!  Scott Blackman is the CEO of the USOC, and prior to joining the organization I've had quite a few interactions with him and find him to be truly exceptional.  At the beginning of the month he called me into his office to "check in" with me and see how everything was going and was happy to see that I had chosen to work with the organization.  A couple of days later his assistant came over to my cube and asked if I could meet up with Scott.  I said of course, and walked over to his office.  I sat down in his office and he started to make a little small talk and asked me what I was doing for lunch the next day.  I told him that I was actually having lunch with a friend (but also pretty much the #2 at the USOC).  His reply back, "oh that's great I was going to have you come to lunch with me and a prospective donor, but not to worry I don't want you to change your plans."  (D'oh!) I then countered with, if you need me to change my plans I am happy to this is just a friendly lunch nothing special.  Again Scott insisted that I not change my plans, and that we would for sure grab lunch together another time. D'oh! Upon leaving his office, I let him know that I was truly feeling welcomed and loved by the executive team of the USOC  with so many lunch offers!   He chuckled and I probably stand to be the only person within the company that turned down the CEO for lunch...again D'oh!

We now return to our regular scheduled reading of the Normans on Mt. Aire....

The rest of the month was pretty much full of spread sheets, team selections, and working on contracts for London 2012, followed by boot camp at lunch with my co-workers and riding my bike as much as possible on the weekends.  

One thing that I have forgotten to highlight in the blog are the intern Olympics.  All of the interns have gotten together and made teams and we try to do an Olympic "activity" each week and track the winners. I have to admit while I haven't been able to make many of the activities it is still pretty fun.  We've done kickball, ultimate, water polo, basketball, and fencing.  Fencing was certainly a lot of fun and I pretty much suck at it!  It's all about the jab not the swipe!

Thank god I found success in speed skating because I don't think my Olympic dreams would have come true in fencing!

I think the best way to categorize fencing is to refer to it as a "country club" sport!

The return to SLC! 

So we're now back to the end of the month and pretty much current on everything, but of course there is lots to fill you all in on.  I came home on the 22nd of July for an extended trip home.  I sit on a couple of board of directors here in town and was able to schedule several meetings during this one week while I was home.  That being said my Manager was kinda enough to realize it was pretty much pointless for me to stay and work one day and then head home as opposed to leaving Friday evening after work and getting to spend an additional two days on the home front over the weekend.  Upon landing in SLC on Friday evening Norman and I headed up to Idaho for a long weekend in Stanley!  

The view into Stanley at the top of Galena Pass!  I rode in from Sun Valley to Stanley always a great ride.

Yup our most favorite place in the world...Stanley Idaho!  (pop about 300) I know you all have heard me brag about just how beautiful it is up there over and over.  We love visiting Stanley and do our best to make it up at least once a year.  While this was a short trip, just the weekend, we still had a great time camping, biking, and of course swimming with Yeti on the lakes!  As always Yeti's ears were "off" while we were there as the trip to Stanley was much more about it being his vacation rather than ours.  On Sunday he and I spent 5 hours at Pettit lake together, where he of course swamp, chased sticks, and fished out rocks the entire time.  He was a pretty tired pup after that day! 

Yeti swimming at Pettit Lake - 5 Hours of swimming!

 Norman and the pup in the water together!

 Each year kids get school pictures, for Yeti it is more like his Dirty Dog Day Pictures!  He was of course referred to as Pig Pen for the rest of the weekend and he looks pretty happy about it!

 Pig Pen!  He is supposed to be white!  Check out the picture below where he even has bugs landing on him.

The rest of the week I've been cleaning up around the house some, had some meetings around town, and of course getting lots and lots of riding in!  Ohh how I miss it here!  I leave tomorrow evening again for COS and I'm not sure if I'll be back until early September.  I keep hoping to find a cheap flight that I can make it home on the weekend again sometime in August to break up the time away.  Regardless it's been a fantastic trip home and I of course look forward to being home again sooner rather than later!