Where we're supposed ... part 2

Why did I go into all that history of how we came to live in Colorado? The story felt as if part of it was missing didn't it?
If you thought so, you'd be right. See, I was visiting my family when Kcbrat applied for the Jeppesen job. We discussed it over the phone and thru text messages. I returned home a few days later, and the following week we flew out to Denver to give the place a dry run so to speak. I'd never been at such an elevation, much less seen Denver before. I fell in love right away with the area.
So, of course it was that much harder to accept when the deal went into Frozen Over Time.
When she applied to Boeing in Seattle, I did not make a trip to check the place out. Nor did I travel to see Rochester NY when she applied to Kodak.

My family lives outside Cincinnati OH, so there was no need for me to check out the area for either Skybus, Delta Air Elite or ABX. It would have been nice to be back in the area where I grew up... But looking at it now, we would have been living in my parents' house while looking for work in a field that is spread pretty thin.

No, in that whole year of job searching, the only place I got to see ahead of time was Denver. We even visited 2 of the larger LYS while we were in town.
When Kcbrat flew out to find our apt, it was a mad dash. She flew out on sat morning, and had to be on a plane back mon to be able to work tues. Sun, after finding the apt she thought I would like as well, that allowed pets, was on the first floor, and had a really nice floorplan, she pulled out of the complex and turned right. She went 3 blocks, and there on the left was a LYS. 3 blocks. Talk about a sign LOL.

After she had been working for Jeppesen about 2 weeks, we learned how lucky she was not to have been hired at Boeing the previous year. See, they didn't hire her because she didn't have enough international exp, something she would quickly build up at Jeppesen. But that's not why we were lucky. Boeing owns Jeppesen. Just after she started working there, Boeing decided to close it's dispatch dept and have Jeppesen do all the dispatching. We would have been just moved to Seattle, when we would have had to pack up and move again. To Denver. To the job that she wanted in the first place.
Sometimes it takes a long trip to end up at the beginning. But sometimes, the beginning is where you're supposed to be.

Being where we're supposed to be

Flash back to 2 years ago.
We lived in Texas and were miserable. Kcbrat worked for AMR as a flight dispatcher. A job that had no room for advancement, no way to move up a ladder, because there was no ladder in her job field.
In early May of 2007, she found a listing online for a job with Jeppesen in Denver CO. Still as a flight dispatcher, but not within the commercial airline industry. This would be a very good thing since the commercial airline industry was and is still suffering major difficulties. She applied for the job, made it through the phone interview, the face to face interview, and by the end of June, was told to expect a phone call from HR with an offer. 24 hours after she received that message, the dispatch dept was moved internally, and placed under a different dept head. This move also caused a hiring freeze. No one had any idea when the freeze would be lifted.

The promise of leaving Texas had motivated both of us, and the search began again for a new job.

In July, she applied to Kodak in Rochester NY. She made it through the phone interview, and flew out for the face to face interview. She did very well in both interviews and was sent home with gifts! Yes, gifts, a ceramic coffee mug, and an acrylic plaque commemorating 50 years of Kodak's something (I cant remember what now). They seemed to feel she had the job in the bag. They only had one other applicant to interview. Halfway through Aug we learned that other applicant got the job.

The 2nd week of Sept, she found another job to apply for. After the phone interview, the 3rd week of Oct had her flying to Seattle, for a final interview with Boeing. They were very positive, but the following week they called to inform her that she missed out on the job because she didn't have enough international exp.

The end of Oct saw her applying to Frontier Airlines, again a Denver company. The phone interview went well, as did the face to face when she flew out, again, to Denver in late Nov. She never got a final word from them, but that could be because they were too busy trying to save their own jobs since Frontier laid off half the dispatch dept and filed for bankruptcy in April.

While still in the interview process with Frontier, she found a job listing in Wilmington Oh. ABX, owned by DHL.
She applied with them in mid Nov, and this time did not have to fly out for the interview because we were at my family's home only an hour and a half away when she got the call to come for a face to face.
She got that job.... sort of. See, they had a pilot on the dispatch desk that wanted to go back to flying, and as soon as he transfered back to the cockpit, she would start. Except he decided not to transfer after all. And the company decided that maybe they didn't need more dispatchers. And yesterday it was in the news that DHL is, for all intents and purposes, closing that company and putting 8000 people out of work.

Now, while still going through the process at ABX, she also applied to Skybus. After the phone interview, she decided not to take that job for various reasons. They went belly up in April.

Delta Air Elite offered her a position in early Jan, but she turned down that offer for lack of pay and bennies. They were dissolved to help pave the way for the Delta/Northwest merger.

In late March of this year, she received an email from Jeppesen. The hiring freeze had been lifted, but because it had been so long after her interviews she would have to go through the process again. So, again she filled out the application. The end of April saw her once again going through the interviews. May 5th she was offered the job. AMR received her 2 wks notice that day as well. The next morning saw her on a plane to Denver for a mad scramble 3 day apt search. We had 3 weeks to pack up 8 years of life in a 3 bedroom ranch house, and get it halfway across the country to a storage unit and a 2 bedroom apt. Her new job started May 26th.
My stash is buried deep within a storage unit from hell. I may never see it again. I don't care.
Denver is where we were supposed to be. The PTBs kept trying to get us here... just took the scenic route I guess.

Prop 8

So many thoughts have been running riot in my mind since wed morning. Even though I don’t live in California, I feel like the vote was a personal attack. I keep asking myself how can people hate me so much? It’s a collective “me” they hate. It doesn’t matter what words they want to use, discrimination is hatred.

Various churches spoke out, donated moneys, sent key representatives and extorted their congregations to vote to remove a basic civil right from a single group of people. According to quotes from people in authority in these churches:

"It is disturbing that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being singled out for speaking up as part of its democratic right in a free election," the church said in a statement Friday.

This statement confuses me. People have rights, not institutions. Churches do not pay taxes, vote, serve on a jury, defend our country in times of war, or in any other way participate in the day to day existence of our country. A church’s people may do any or all of these things, but that does not transfer their rights and responsibilities to the church. Personally, I think if a church wants to give up its tax-exempt status, then it, as an entity, has all the right in the world to speak up about political and legal issues. Until then, they need to keep their moneys and their sermons to the subject of their god.

If all marriages in the United States are under the umbrella of the church, then perhaps they should be speaking out against all the civil ceremonies performed by judge, justice of the peace, and Elvis in Las Vegas.

Theoretically, we have in this country a separation of church and state. Unless churches want their sermons taught by lawyers, maybe they should stay out of the arena of politics. Then again, if churches feel they have a right to have a say in the laws of people who do not follow their beliefs, maybe those people should have a say in what is taught in those sermons. Perhaps one could sue the church when one’s prayers are not answered. I wonder how the various doctrines would hold up under The Burden of Proof.

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