Jasper Jones

With the cost of gas going out of sight we are starting to worry about how this will affect air fares and available flights around Christmas when we want to go home for the winter break. Alex needs to go all the way back to California, so we decided to check out some things on the internet.

Alex likes to use Expedia to make his travel plans, so we checked out the regular fares for a trip home. Then we went to the discount coupon site that I like to use and checked there for coupons and promo codes that we might be able to use for the trip.

He found promo codes to use on the Southwest Airlines flight he wants to take, so we went ahead and booked the flight and saved some money with that.

He won’t need a hotel room while he’s out there, but he will need a rental car since he drove his own car out here to have it for school. So when he goes home he’ll leave his car here and just get a rental out there. The coupon site had travel coupons for car rental companies and we found a good deal on Budget Car Rental so we booked that, too.

Alex is all set for his trip home for the holidays. Now I have to make my own plans, but I actually need to stay here for most of the holiday and work at my new job. It will be nice to have a break from school, but I still need to be earning money and the hospital needs me available for my shifts. So my trip home for Christmas will probably just be a quick 2 day weekend.

Late summer is the time for rodeos all across the country. There are still two rodeos that I haven’t been to yet and I’m hoping to go to one each year after I get out of school.

I’ve alway wanted to go to Canada and the Calgary Stampede rodeo and festival every July is the perfect reason to go across our northern border.

And for the rest old west of America, the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo is 10 days of everything cowboy.

My dad was telling us this morning that his company has a bid on a big new project in San Diego and there is a good chance that they’ll win the award next month. This sounds like a dream job - to live and work in one of America’s most fabulous cities. Everyone says that San Diego has the perfect climate and the most beautiful beaches on the mainland.

The job obviously involves the airport, because that’s what my dad’s company does - airports. But it could be anything from new runways to remodeling the terminals to adding a new parking garage.

If he gets this contract I might even be able to score some summer work with his company when school is out. I can work with tools if I have to, and the money from construction work is a lot better than the other summer jobs out there for kids.

They would have to partner up with local suppliers, like Concrete Contrators Interstate. CCI is a commercial concrete construction that does structural concrete and site concrete - the kind of jobs that my dad’s company subcontracts out.

Dad puts out bids for structural concrete San Diego contractors and negotiates their rates before bidding on the complete job. I’ve helped him in the office with his proposals before and I’m learning the whole process. If I’m running the copier I even read the documents - I figure I might as well learn something while I’m there.

For a lot of the bids my dad already knows some of the major players from past experience, but if it is a new location or his preferred contractors aren’t available, he gets a lot of contacts from the internet. For instance, just searching for concrete street construction San Diego or concrete San Diego will pull up a good list to start checking out, and CCI comes up in the top search results for both.

Had the chance to watch the Cardinals play the Cubs in St. Louis last night. It was an awesome game - up and down with many close plays and at the top of the 9th it looked like the Cubs were going to wind their second game in the Cards series, but hang on to your seats! because at the very last possible minute the Cardinals got the 2 runs they needed for a BIG WIN! Whew! That game was really exciting. I hope they can pull off another win today to send the Cubs home with 2 losses in a row.

We are still hoping to find a way to get to Chicago for one of the games when the Cards come to Wrigley in August. We’ve done that every year since I was a kid and hope that the high price of gas doesn’t ruin all our travel plans this summer.

You may have noticed that I don’t go into a lot of details about my love life here on my blog. That’s on purpose, as I want a little privacy there and I’m sure that the person I am dating wants her privacy, too. So to everyone who’s been wondering, I’m fine, OK.

Would really like to go to the beach for a few days. It seems like all my friends are going to either Destin or Cancun and here I am at work instead of sitting on the sand watching the bikinis go by. It’s making me chafe a little, I have to admit. However, I have responsibilities and one more year of college before I can have all my finances in order and afford to take time off for fun and games.

Instead of driving 8 hours down and back to have a few hours in the sun, I’ve been making the most of the fun things that are around here. We have tons of parks and there is always the lakes and rivers. Lake beaches are not the same as ocean beaches, but they are sand and water and sun, with a few bikinis worth watching, too.