Two and a half weeks, two trips, one illness.

I need to stop traveling in such rapid succession. The last weekend of March Ben, Elyse, Erika, Jenn, Kristen, and I took a little trip to New York City. Ben had an agenda for some museum shows, Erika needed to spend some money, and Jenn needed some time with her bf. For Kristen, Elyse, and myself the only agenda was to have fun. This trip was much less stressful than my last, as I had no truck to worry about. On Katie P's advice we drove to D.C. and hopped on a bus for $38 round trip to NYC. No car, parking, or directions to worry about. It wasn't a bad idea, it just happened our bus's A.C. was broken. It wasn't exactly a comfortable ride. We hit Coney Island, Union Square, Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge, and plenty of good restaurants. I returned to work on Tuesday, only to go home at 6pm with a fever. Somewhere along the line I picked up strep throat.

Two days of bed rest, doctor's orders. He even gave me a note to take to work, haha. I returned to work on Friday, worked Saturday, then flew out Sunday for Indianapolis.

April brings the Fire Department Instructors Conference to Indianapolis every year, along with the 28,000 firefighters that attend it. I took a class on fire investigation and learned a lot on what to look for in suspicious fires. The class had two accelerant-sniffing dogs available (we practiced real scenarios as if we were investigating them) and it made me wish I had a highly-trained dog. The dog could not only tell you that accelerant was used, but also point with it's nose or paw exactly where it smelled it. Between myself and Mark we bought a lot of stuff at the trade show, and as I was the only one with a second bag all of the stuff we bought got crammed in with my fire gear. Needless to say my bag was overweight and incurred a $50 fee from the airline. No matter, it was fun, I learned a lot, and I didn't have to pay for it.

So now I'm back at work, but no full work week this week either. This Wednesday will be the one year anniversary of the shootings on campus. I'll be working standby with either the fire department or the rescue squad, whoever needs the help.

I didn't take any pictures in Indianapolis, but here are some pictures from New York City: link to pics.