OT Fun thread - let's get to know each other!

I'm Dawn, 35 years old, and live just outside Baltimore.

I grew up in Iowa and went to college in Missouri. After school I went into the consulting industry, first working for Accenture and living in St. Louis. Later I moved to NYC and worked for a few start up consulting firms / software companies. I met my now husband on a project in New Jersey about 7 years ago. I moved to Baltimore when we got engaged and we've now been married for 4. I've been at my current company, which is a supply chain software company, for 6 years and am a Director of Implementations. I spent 12+ years traveling 45+ weeks a year for work, 2-4 flights a week, hotels, eating out every day, working crazy hours, and pretty much burning the candle at both ends.... I had my beautiful daughter in March of 2009. Luckily 2009 was a slow work year and my travel was very minimum, and I didn't have to be away from my daughter much. My husband is in the same industry, but works from home now, so we've managed to make it work so far.

In my spare time I love doing anything active. I played softball in college. My current activities are bikram yoga, light jogging, the occasional weights, and I play in 2 coed football leagues. I also want to start getting into photography more, especially now that I have a child. I have made the occasional photo scrapbook for friend's special occasions and have been told I am quite good. So if time ever permits, I'd like to get more into both photography and scrapbooking. I also want to learn how to cook, but that's also waiting until time permits. In any extra spare time, I admit, I watch mindless television.

I get on this board in spurts, sometimes multiple times a day when work isn't busy and other times not for a few weeks. When I do come on here though, it's so encouraging to know that I'm not battling this alone!

Kshoe1999 I've never met somebody working as a med tech before!! Do you enjoy it?

callalily22 said...
Kshoe1999 I've never met somebody working as a med tech before!! Do you enjoy it?

Yes, i love what i do. Plus, there's definitely job security as most med techs are baby boomers and there's a major shortage. So, you can basically get a job wherever in the united states you want. It's good to see someone who actually knows what a med tech is. When i say i work in the lab, i usually just get asked if i draw blood. LOL!

Hi, I’m 52 and live in Toronto Canada. I’m a control technician at a nuclear power plant. I worked for ten years in the plant but for the last 9 years I have worked at the training centre across the street. I changed jobs within the company shortly after I was diagnosed with UC. Working in the plant was not very UC friendly. At the training centre we have 3 nuclear control room simulators. They look and operate the same as the real ones except they use computers to simulate nuclear reactors. They are used to train and certify nuclear operators. My job is to repair, maintain and upgrade everything that is electrical, electronic or instrumentation on the simulators.

20 years ago I met my lovely wife when I was traveling through the Philippines. We were married 1 ½ years later. We have one 8 year old daughter, Alana. She is a real handful but we love her. Before our daughter was born and pre UC we loved to travel backpack style. We traveled all throughout the Philippines, Thailand and Hong Kong on 3 separate trips of 4 or 5 weeks each. I really miss that kind of travel. It all ended after I was diagnosed with UC. After diagnosis we stuck with cruises, one in the Caribbean and one to Alaska. They aren’t really my type of travel but they are much more UC friendly.

Now that my UC is gone because of surgery we are starting to travel around North America a little more. Last summer we toured the east coast of Canada, our first major road trip since UC. We are currently planning a road trip this summer out of Las Vegas to see much of Arizona and Utah.

My biggest hobby is working on our house. We had a new house built about 6 years ago and I am slowly making improvements to it. I have built a deck, laid hardwood flooring, ceramic tiles and changed most of the light fixtures. In the last 2 weeks I finished painting 2 more rooms. I only have 2 more bedrooms and washrooms to paint. The house has 4 bedrooms and 3 ½ washrooms for 3 people. Never have a problem finding a toilet in our house. I wired the entire house for whole house audio/video with electronic keypads mounted on the wall in each room. I just recently finished the wiring on the second floor. It was a major job to run all the wires through the attic.

My other love is my 1967 Camaro Rally Sport convertible. I have owned it for over 30 years and am in the middle of restoring it. Actually I put the project on hold and the car is sitting in our garage in a thousand pieces. It is going to be my retirement project in another 6 years.

Paul L- Doing a road trip around the East Coast has been a trip I've wanted to do for a looong time. How did you enjoy it? We have a little guy ( 5 months old) do you think there would be enough stops along the way to do it with him by the time he's 7 months? How long were you travelling and did you do the Cabot trail?

Beeswax - seeing the Ramones must have been amazing! Where/which year?

kweeks said...
Paul L- Doing a road trip around the East Coast has been a trip I've wanted to do for a looong time. How did you enjoy it? We have a little guy ( 5 months old) do you think there would be enough stops along the way to do it with him by the time he's 7 months? How long were you travelling and did you do the Cabot trail?

kweeks, it was a great trip. We left Toronto on a Friday after work and made it to Montreal the first night. It took us most of Saturday to get to Saint Andrews New Brunswick where our vacation started. We visited several communities along Fundy Bay in NB and made our way to Lunenburg and Halifax in Nova Scotia. We then went to Cape Briton Island and drove the Cabot trail. We returned home just over a week later on Sunday. We wanted to visit PEI but there just wasn’t enough time. We stayed at a different hotels every night. We would tour the area we visited in the morning and afternoon. After supper we would drive several hours to our next hotel. It was quite hectic but worked fairly well. We had our 8 year old daughter with us and she handled it fairly well. With a baby you will need more time. The roads are good and you should have no problem finding places to stop. If you want to see photos of our trip go to:

http://www.laflammefamily.ca/

Our east coast vacation is shown in photo albums 11 to 17.

Hi

I'm 30 and from the south coast of England. I am in a long-distance relationship with an Australian (from Sydney) and have been travelling across the miles for over 4 years. I met him whilst I was backpacking and went back to live with him but then this UC hit and dented my chances of an easy visa. I needed to come back to the UK to get healthcare and so have been doing the 10,000 miles commute ever since!

I'm on remicade at the mo but I'm desperately hoping there may be some chance of me moving to Sydney next year to study Sports Massage Therapy. Last year when I was feeling a lot better than I am now, I became qualified as a Personal Trainer. Then I fell really ill again but was determined to go out to Australia to have the time of my life for my 30th birthday (my boyfriend treated me to a seaplane trip to a beautiful cliff top restaurant, a twilight climb of Sydney harbour bridge and then a holiday further up the coast where I got to do my passion (skydiving) but landing on a beach). So, that was my motivation to do the one thing I dreaded - going back on the steroids. Unfortunately that also gave me a 2 stone weight gain as well as a great holiday!!

My passions in life are exercising, travelling (I have been fortunate to see some pretty amazing places, think Cambodia and New Zealand among my fav countries and my best experiences would probably be going on safari in South Africa and swimming with dolphins in the wild in NZ) and travel photography. I have a kind of bucket list and think seeing the Northern Lights and trekking the mountain gorillas in Rwanda are top of the things that I would love to do next. I am an adrenaline junkie and love skydiving, bungee jumping (don't do that now with UC the 2 things aren't really compatible), white water rafting, glacier heli-hiking - actually i'll try most things.

At the mo i'm too sick to be working so am studying Sports Psychology, I also have a Psychology degree. I'd love to open my own personal training and holistic business one day and would def like to help ppl with conditions like ours! I'm just hoping this remicade is going to kick in and put me in remission and keep me there, have had 3 infusions so far......

Post Edited (zetlandgirl) : 4/11/2010 1:34:50 PM (GMT-6)

I'm 48 and a Jane-of-all trades. I was a team leader for a day camp, a California real estate appraiser, a securities analyst in Taiwan; and I'm now a web developer. I love taking classes, either computer oriented or exercises oriented. I speak English and Chinese (Mandarin), although my Mandarin has been deteriorating since moving back to the US 10 years ago. I just finished a program to get my yoga teaching certification. I take Indian classical dance, both Bharatanatyam and Katak, and I figure skate. I have a bachelor's degree in economics from Temple University and an MBA in finance and real estate from the HAAS School of Business, UC Berkeley.

I was born and grew up on the east coast (Pennsylvania and New Jersey), have lived in Texas, Californa (San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley), Hong Kong, and Taiwan. I've been living in the Silicon Valley for the past 10 years, trying to settle down, while everyone else is moving out. I'm currently out of work and over stressing about money problems. I just went to Walgreen's to pick up a prescription only to find out my insurance card was de-activated. I'll have to resolve this Monday. More stress.

I have a wonderful boyfriend, who I've been living with for about four years, and great kids. One is 28 and has a husband, one step son, and a daughter. She [daughter] studied film and 2D animation in college. The other daughter will soon turn 21. We plan to have a big celebration after she finishes her finals (she always has finals on her B-day). She is living with her boyfriend. They are both going to SJSU, studying 3D animation and art illustration. My boyfriend's daughter, who is also my goddaughter, is 13 and lives in Sacramento. Like me, she also learns Bharatanatyam.

We have two Taiwanese cats, who are currently living with my younger daughter and her boyfriend. They are getting old. My boyfriend has birds, one of which squawks a lot.

I have lived in the midwest for 15 years but am from the east coast.
I went to college and law school in the D.C. area and have always worked as a lobbyist, so I have more fun than most lawyers.

My husband and I have been married for 15 years (second marriage for both of us) and have no children, just a couple of spoiled kitties. One of them is fighting her second cancerous tumor, but we're trying all variety of homeopathic remedies and so far so good.

I play a lot of golf, 15 handicap. I also like to garden and spend time hanging out with girlfriends in the sunshine around my backyard pool.
My husband stepped away from the corporate world a couple years ago and is now an amazing, highly underpaid high school teacher (our "contribution to society"). Being around those kids is a new thing for us and we're having a lot of fun with it.

Paul L said...
Hi, I’m 52 and live in Toronto Canada. 

 We are currently planning a road trip this summer out of Las Vegas to see much of Arizona and Utah.

Hi Paul,

Do you realize how HOT it will be, especially for you?  As I live in AZ I would like to offer a bit of advice if I may.  If you cannot be out this way before the end of May, you may want to wait until late Sept-Oct timeframe.  June is usually our hottest month on record because our monsoon storms start early to mid July and go through Aug.  Typical temps that time of year, Jun-Jul-Aug are 105 to 115 F.  Vegas is usually even hotter.  It is tough to get used to and an will not try to feed you that line of bull about it being a "dry" heat.  It is a dry heat, so much so that you don't realize how quickly you get dehydrated.  I'm sorry if you already know or have considered all of this, couldn't help myself I guess.  If you didn't know or would like more info please feel free to contact me.

I'm 32 and live in Albuquerque, NM for about 3 years now. Originally from El Paso, TX where I received my college education. I speak Spanish (obviously). I'm an occupational therapist working at a fun hospital with great staff. I used to live in Hawaii where I did a school therapy assignment for 1 blissful year. Amazing times!

I love to read and play tennis. My boyfriend and I share many interests, such as tennis and bbq'ing, so it makes life so much sweeter. I'm also very passionate about food; I know it would be difficult for me to be on a restrictive diet. It seems like the gluten-free and SCD may be difficult for me to follow as I love breads, pastas, flour tortillas, ect. But if it makes my tummy better, I'll do it. : )