New-nique Week

This week was full of new and unique experiences for me, and I love new and unique.

Wednesday was the first time I have ever had the day off for Veteran's Day. And not only did I have the day off, but it was right in the middle of the week and my children were in school, except for the youngest. My wife convinced me it was a good time to shop for some new shoes. I bought some new casual shoes, which has been very rare for me over the last few years of wearing suits 6 days a week. I caught my oldest as he got home from school early and we played a game we have never played before, St. Petersburg, for a couple of hours and had a blast.



Another unique first for me was the work schedule around the mid-week holiday. The first two days of the week I did not have anything in particular scheduled in my training so I am supposed to find productive things to do. Monday I went in to the training center and did some administrative business most of the day and also read up on Indonesian history and culture. The really unique day was Tuesday because I really didn't need to go in for anything. Instead of wasting an hour of my day commuting, I stayed at home and read and did other work. I have never had that experience before. I liked it and did manage to get a full day in with almost no interruptions and a much more comfortable place to sit.

I had a negotiating class on Thursday and Friday and had a good time being selected by my group to be in the final negotiation scenario. I probably could have been better at interest-based negotiation except that sometimes I am a little stubborn and I like to pick at details for fun. I think I may have had more fun with it than I was supposed to. The only sad thing about these two days, besides all the rain, was that my children were out of school while I was in!

Saturday was a beautiful day and we were lucky because we had chosen that day to visit Baltimore. I have never been there before and will have to go back. We did something we thought our children would love and we were right. We visited a children's museum near downtown. We stayed the entire day from near opening time to closing time there and went through everything. I was happy that they encourage the adults to accompany their children since they had some really fun stuff like a huge climbing jungle thing. I am happy to report that I can keep up with them and fit through small spaces almost as well as they can. We also took some time to walk along the dock and go to a restaurant. It was such a beautiful day and we had a good time.  It definately tired me out.

Something else I did this week that I have not done in years is exercise, running or weight-lifting or both, every day this week. Usually I just go running three times a week. This week I added weights and my wife helped me figure out how to get something in every day like she has been doing.

There are probably a few other things I am forgetting, but I have really enjoyed my new-nique (new and unique) week.