On Vacation

This is my second morning in Alaska.  The hotel is very nice (thanks, Mom!) but it's a little weird that it does NOT get dark here at all.  Seriously.  We finally went to bed about 10pm last night local time and it was still as light as if it was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon.  I can feel my circadian rhythms just cringing :).  Not only am I three hours off my regular time zone but the constant daylight makes me think that I'm not tired at all.  I am going to be a mess when I get back to LR.

Have hugged grandbabies!  I was really surprised that Rylie (the two-year-old) took to me right off.  Usually, it's the SU that gets glommed on first (I think he exudes some kind of small child pheromone or something).  We were over at my daughter's apartment and Rylie was being a little shy so I asked her about her Dora the Explorer backpack.  She nodded that she liked Dora and then I told her that I liked Diego too.  The look on her face was classic :).  It was along the lines of "Wow, this big person knows about my favorite people!  Maybe she's okay!"  After that, she started playing with me and offered to share her lunch when it was time to eat.  People, no greater love hath a grandmother than she will eat a frozen pea offered by her two-year-old granddaughter.  I HATE peas.

Today, Grandpa, Peter and Rylie will probably go to the Aviation Museum.  I'm not sure what the rest of us will be doing.  I know Great-grandma wants to take Jess and Rylie shopping at some point so we will probably do that.

In quiet moments, I sit here in the hotel room and take MAT practice tests so I can take the actual, for-real, no fooling test when I get back to LR.  I'm still not quite sure what I was thinking by applying for graduate school.  The MPA program will take me about three years since I would be going part time and that would be about two classes each semester.  I am just set in my ways enough that I like being able to go home after work and have no particular obligations tugging at me so I can read or plink on the computer or whatever.  With the MPA program, it will be going back to something close to my undergrad days.  Undergrad = working full-time, owning a business, training/teaching muay thai, fighting, full-time student.  Grad student = one-two nights a week in class for three hours, working full-time, back to spending many Saturdays in Starbucks working on assignments.

I do like public administration/public management.  I enjoy reading about policy and writing about it more than I enjoy the budgeting and financials, though :).  It takes me a while to break down those since my brain tends to head to "Oh, big number.  With commas." and stop right there for a bit like a spreadsheet is some sort of intellectual scenic rest stop.  I like the program and I like working within the arena of public management, I'm just still having Kermit the Frog moments where I wave my hands in the air wildly and scream "Aaaaaah!"  And then I keep telling myself that, yes, I am smart enough to do this.

I'll post pictures later on this week - probably an early P365 entry if I can get around to it.  I'm hoping Peter can take us flying and I'll get some good pics there too.

So, to recap:  Trip good.  Granddaughters wonderful.  Hotel nice.  Concept of vacation proving interesting (hey, c'mon, my last one was at least 15 years ago!).

Oh, and the hotel bar makes really good Long Island Iced Teas and has a decent whiskey selection :).