Preparation

After driving all morning we arrived back home this afternoon. Got to talk to the neighbors about the local happenings. The lawn is looking sad, overgrown and brown, I’m sure our local watchdog is not very happy with us. Oh well I clean up next week. For now I’ve got to finish up the work I brought home and we leave for Santa Barbara tomorrow for a couple of days.

The last blog was written about events on Monday/Tues. One Tues I did some calculations and found that the stop I wanted to make in Tishomingo would actually add lots of hours to my trip home and to pick up Dale on Sat. would be pushing it. Dale had off Wed and Thurs nights so we talked and quickly decided that we would meet Wed morning in Albuquerque, NM. I picked up an airplane ticket for him and started preparing to leave.
In the meantime the company asked if I’d quick do a claim in Garden City, KS, only 2 hours away. I said yes as they were short, so instead of writing up more claims I went off to Garden City.
Back at the RV I spent the evening writing up claims and hooking up. When I couldn’t get the hitch to work a neighbor came down; not the old idiot who’d been next to me earlier, but someone I’d said hi to before. He helped me get battened down. Thank goodness for nice people.

Finally the claims are completed and now it is”sit back and wait for the money” time.
In the meantime before China I’d signed Justin and I up for a claims conference with Crawford which takes place in Dallas TX this week. We have signed up for workshops to get our earthquake and flood certification. Justin also will have the opportunity to meet with HR and have the estimating program installed in his computer.
I’d wanted to fly but it saves money to drive and pull the RV with both of going. Then on Friday Crawford called and said bring work supplies, they will try to send us out to work since we are ½ way across the country.
We have packed up the RV with our computers, printer, scanner; a ton of food and everything work.
I’ll blog along our adventures along the way of I-40

Just when I thought things were under control!

I told my brother Mike that we needed to get our visa for China and we had a plan. I’d download the form, leave it at my mom’s this next week, Mike would fill it out over next weekend and then I’d take both of our info to the Chinese Embassy the next week and get the visas. Great Plan Right?

Today I got onto the embassy site and found that a person applying for a visa must have 6 months left on their passport plus have several pages available, neither of which I have on mine. What this means is that we are 5 weeks out from leaving and now need to apply for a replacement passport, then get my visa.

I went to Costco quick and had two sets of photos taken for passport and visa. Now tomorrow I’ll need to get my passport in the overnight mail so that it will be at the office on Monday, unless I can find a place to take my app and get it that way. I’ll be checking it out.

To complicate matters, I’m on standby to work storms in Oklahoma/Texas. I was told today that I may need to be on site Monday morning. This will add a small problem but maybe Dale can run down to L.A. and obtain the visas for Mike and me.

It’s always something!

A few years ago our oldest son Nate, his wife Bekki, and two kids went off to China to teach English at a Chinese University. I was able to visit 4 times during their stay. A year ago my brother Mike wished that he had visited our son with me so I offered to go with him.
Also about that time Nate started a eco-tour company for China and we thought that it would be a good idea to travel with his company, Dragon’s Village ww.dragonsvillage.org/Home.html.
My mom had decided that she would give us her frequent flier miles as my dad passed away and she wants to live with the memories of travel with him. So we were able to get both tickets with the miles.
We will depart on May 15th, about 5 weeks from now.
This will be a blog on our preparations and subsequent travel in China and Japan.