What You Learn By Sitting By Brett...

Working in a common office with several cubicles is a rich pasture ground for any companies greatest resource: people. I sit next to Brett. Y'all may know Brett, but I'm the only one who sits next to his least favored left. Larry is down the hall to his right, and it's a very appropriate yelling distance. Anyway, sitting next to Brett these last 10 years, uh months, has provided opportunity for:
1) Introspection
2) Reevaluation
3) An occasional funny smell
Among other life shaping things learned:
a) Each and every phone conversation must start with "Hey" (This is southern posturing)
b) It's OK to tell your computer "I hate you" but only several times a day.
c) Xactimate has only 2 syllables (who knew?)
d) It's best if Larry locks his office door before going on vacation
e) If Itel samples are kept long enough, eventually another job will have the same floor covering
f) If he asks you if you've seen the pictures from one of his basement sewage mitigations...you might want to decline
g) All on call schedules are written in stone until the next revision
h) Never go an entire day without at least 1 "Dumb and Dumber" reference

All of this notwithstanding...he may have the most demanding job in this company-responding to emergency 24/7, and doing so in such a way homeowners still want us to do the reconstruction work. I get to follow up Brett and his crew and see the positive results when they help people out of a distressful situation. Maybe his personality makes him perfect for his job.

Actually I wondered how many acronyms on could get from the word B R E T T. Then I remembered I have to blog next month...let me get back to you with that.

Keith Barnhart - Estimator

Quick and Easy Penne with Shrimp and Herbed Cream Sauce

My wife and I love this recipe and thought I would share it.  We originally found it on www.foodtv.com. It's by Giada De Laurentiis--so you know it's good! You can 'lighten' this dish by reducing the cream and subbing low-fat milk, also use whole wheat pasta instead of traditional.  It's a great recipe for entertaining.

Ingredients

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Fishing With David Or "Is This Really A Vacation?"

Recently, Joel and I went fishing in Alaska with my expert fisherman brother, David. Of course, you are all wondering about our big catch. Well, I learned a few things about myself and also about fishing in Alaska. The first day we spent fishing on a boat out of Homer, Alaska. We were on the hunt for the BIG halibuts! My first two lessons were learned the first day, right there on that fishing boat. First, I learned that I do get seasick. Second, I learned that halibuts are heavy. When you add that incredibly huge and large sinker that probably weighed about 5 pounds, they are even heavier. So, I confess that the deck hand had to help me reel in my halibuts. Joel would have helped but he was busy being seasick and also reeling up his own halibuts. Ditto for David!

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The Busiest Month Yet

There has been a lot going on here at Champion in the past month. But I think that September was the busiest month I have ever had!

To start off the month of September, I married my beautiful fiance' Angelica. The final week of planning, stressing, working, working, and more working was truly a bear. For example, September 3rd, the day before the wedding, was especially busy.

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Meet Me In Montana

This year for our vacation we decided to go to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. We spent a week in Yellowstone we saw some amazing rainbows, bison that held up traffic for at least 3o minutes, grizzly and black bears, even wolves. We went to see Old Faithful, but the most amazing geyser we saw is not that famous. It is called The Great Fountain Geyser and it was great, it just kept going and going. We did some hiking, saw some of the hot pools.  Then we went up to Glacier National Park. We were there for a week where saw more bears. We hiked the Highland Trail where we saw some sheep.  We went rafting down Lake McDonald. In the two weeks of being there we saw 21 bears several of which had cubs they were so cute.  We really enjoyed being in the outdoors and taking in all the sights can't wait to go again.

Mollie Reets - Administrative Assistant

Hiking the famous Kalalau Trail

If you have ever been to Kauai and are a hiker there's a good chance that you didn't pass up hiking at least some part of the Kalalau Trail. There was no way I was going to miss it. Why fly 4,600 miles and pass it up? But pass it up is what we almost did. We saved the hike for the last day of our trip. We woke up early that day and it was raining like every other morning but you could tell this rain was set in and it sounded like it could rain all day. (The other mornings it would stop by sunrise and didn't do much harm to our plans.) I was thinking I should have listened to my wife who said "You shouldn't wait until the last day, what if it rains?" We went back and forth and ultimately decided to just go for it. The trail in its whole length is 11 miles. We had decided to do the first two miles to Hanakapi`ai beach and then take a two mile spur trail to Hanakapi`ai falls, 8 miles round trip. It was sprinkling as we started on the trail but the it soon stopped as we gained elevation. The start of the trail is very rocky and gradually goes up and then you reach the dirt or in our case the muddy part of the trail. The trail hugs the cliffs for awhile offering views of the coastline and the cliffs ahead. After a few slips and falls and crossing the river for the first time of many, we made it to the beach. The ocean at the beach is very dangerous to swim in and there was actually a sign that was notched every time someone drowned. We took a break and then hit the trail to the falls. Pretty quickly the trail became narrow and muddy.

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Kauai Highlights

So I just got over my jet-lag and I'm already ready to go back to Kauai! I can't think of more idyllic settings: lush tropical forest, beautiful golden beaches and  majestic sea cliffs. Kauai is the oldest of the Hawaiian islands so it's beauty has had more time to be perfected. Unfortunately, we only got to enjoy Kauai for one week but we got to do and see a lot so I thought I'd share our highlights with you.

BEST SHAVE ICE: First things first: I love shave ice (it's not "shaved" in Hawaii) so I was very excited to try the real deal while we were in Kauai. We tried 4 different places and we all agreed that our favorite was Jo-Jo's in Waimea. It was amazing! I got the triple berry special with vanilla ice cream on the bottom and vanilla cream on top and I loved it. My sister got the Haupia special which was coconut shave ice with macnut icecream on the bottom and coconut cream and coconut flakes on top and she said it was one of the best things she had ever eaten. Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of Jo-Jo's to share with you but this is Wishing Well in Hanalei which was my second favorite but the lady there is really cranky.

BEST BEACH: We loved Tunnels Beach! To be honest, this is the beach we stayed at and we only visited 3 others very briefly but it was so perfect we never felt the need to go anywhere else. First of all, it has the back drop of the NaPali mountains and the famed Bali Hai. Second of all, it is surrounded by huge, half moon shaped reef about 1/8 mile off shore. This reef not only provides excellent snorkeling and diving, it also creates a barrier from the rough surf conditions and strong currents. You can snorkel right off the beach and see beautiful fish, colorful coral, eels, sea turtles and even sharks

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A Hike to Hike Inn

Seven of our family recently spent three days in one of the most unique facilities you will find anywhere in Georgia, the Len Foote Hike Inn at Amicalola Falls State Park. The Len Foote Hike Inn is named for Leonard E. Foote, a leading conservationist, biologist and nature photographer who lived and worked in Georgia until his death in 1989. He was a pioneer in the field of wildlife management who was devoted to preserving and studying the beauty of the outdoors.

The best part of the Hike Inn is revealed in the name. Guess what?

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Deep Thoughts By Thomas Stuart

Why are there donut holes if the donuts have holes in them? Why not just keep it all one donut?

Why do we drive on a parkway but park in a driveway?

How is there an interstate in Hawaii?

How do you trip over a cordless phone?

If you have answers to any of these questions just reply to the post!!!

Thomas Stuart - Mitigation Crew

Water Damage Restoration - What's In a Name - Part II

Part II - Yesterday in 'What's In a Name' we explored the most common customer last names that Champion has had the privilege to work for over the last decade, and SMITH took the prize. On the flip side, our customers communicate with a number of Champion employees throughout their project, and keeping all of us straight can no doubt be a challenge especially considering we have a Gary, a Jerry, a Larry, a Mary, and a Jeremy. Not to mention an M. Brown and M. Smith.

Greg Ahlstrom - Accounting Manager