Alright.
So I just learned that Faith's mom is getting married up on the north shore the weekend of June 3rd. A wonderful thing, but one that throws a wrench into the Escalante timing. Offsetting that is that Faith and I are probably NOT going to Australia at the end of the year (too big a trip to deal with at this time) so I can be more flexible about when I go to Escalante.
I know Cory fills up his summer, and I'm sorry to shift this after making such a push to go as early in June as possible, but I just can't be gone for two alternating weeks like that.
Any suggestions, bitterness?
Anything out of MT regarding this?
17 comments:
Possible crazy suggestion.
So, I broached the subject with MT last night. He started waffling around again and I actually found myself getting a little pissed. The discussion got a little more "elevated" than I would have expected, but I think some decent things came out of it. He may well end up going, but it's time to face the facts: unless something changes, Gibbons simply doesn't place the same importance on this trip as we do. This has been tough for us to understand, especially since he was the guy who had the "Escalante class" in college and was one of the co-founders of the "Escalante plan." Giving him the benefit of the doubt last year due to his uncertain job/other life situations and his problem dealing with stress may have blinded me slightly. But this year, some of the issues he threw into the mix while waffling would be issues that the three of us would not consider barriers to going. He has either forgotten how important he used to think this trip was,or has simply changed priorities in life.
THAT SAID...I did make a little headway in the discussion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I gave him the idea that our plan is to use one Saturday to all begin assembling at a central jumping-off point, and then to leave Sunday morning, return the following Saturday, and use that final Sunday for "many partings" and return to our respective homes. Right? Well, he seemed to be a little warmer on the idea since it wasn't involving more than one work week.
Now, here's my crazy idea that may have a <20% chance of working: Gibbons ALSO has a wedding in Minnesota on June 3. WHAT IF (and this only works if Mixxy's wedding festivities do not extend into Sunday-you guys go to your Saturday weddings, then meet in Minneapolis. Save you coming out here twice. THEN, we leave from Mpls, Trista & Molly stay with Trista's parents for a week, and we do the trip then? Possible???
If that doesn't work, I remain eminently flexible at this point, but I do want to figure out dates sooner as opposed to later so Sharon can put in her schedule requests for the summer. I don't want to take advantage of the fact that she is so cool & flexible about the whole thing.
Final good note about Gibbs. At the end of the conversation, after my Tough Love, he was definitely somewhat more inclined. He agreed to do research to see 1) how swinging that in terms of work time off would be 2) whether the dates conflict with any potential class sessions from an upcoming term of his newfound "pursuit" of an English "degree." It was a very un-Gibbonsy committal, and he deserves a little credit for that.
In the end, whether or not he goes has almost zero bearing on our planning, except that it would be nice if he took on at least a little of the legwork of planning & execution. But the only thing that really changes is how much we pay for the vehicle rental.
I don't think I can make the 3rd work as much as I like the thought of combining the effort.
Allrighty then. That potentially throws Gibbons out of the mix. Though don't feel guilty about it at all-if it does, it's for reasons of his own creation. I can totally see him not wanting to make the trip to the Midwest a second time in June and waffling out for that reason, even though we're asking you to do the same, while traveling twice that distance.
What's the date we're looking at then? I forget all Cory's considerations.
First, thank you for taking that responsibility on! You are amazing! Did you give him a time table to get those answers by? It would be nice to nail down a time to go. I have school until the 14th of June. So, no worries about the 3rd.
No hard, fast (ah-ah-ah-ah-GOOOSH!) table. But, based upon our conversation, I expect him to get right on it. Don't know if he'll resolve anything for sure, but there's no reason he can't get the information he needs (how vacation would work, whether class is in session, how his family feels about the trip) in the couple of weeks.
I can't wait to hear from you in a couple of weeks in regaurds to his findings. Once again thanks for digging at the Gibbons stone.
I really hope that our brother can make it. I applaud him in his endevors in going back to school 100%. Gibbons, squeeze us in!
I wish him all the success in the world, but a part of me; a disturbingly big part of me; feels his recent decision is ill-conceived.
1. (and this is really the biggest one) If you ask him what he plans to accomplish at the end of his schooling, he doesn't really have a concrete answer. It's sort of this vague notion that he will teach or something, but there's no real plan as to how this education will be specifically tailored towards putting him into any sort of employable position. If I was Bespin's Lobot, my neck lights would be flashing.
2. So, his first class: an undergraduate English class. He has not yet researched whether the class fits into a graduate program (almost certainly, it doesn't)-or even what is required to earn a graduate degree-credit & or year-wise.
3. Through B&N and/or being employed at ISU, he would almost certainly get tuition assistance. Most likely 100%. He didn't look into that yet, either. He's paying for this first class out-of-pocket, with yet a third vague notion, this time of some sort of retro-active reimbursement. I don't think it works that way. It doesn't/didn't at Best Buy. Going further into debt is no way to open up your career options.
It kind of bugs me, because I feel I really kept my reservations about the thought that went into his Indiana move to myself, wanting to be supportive, and not wanting to seem like I had any sort of self-interest in the issue. As decent as things are going for him, he definitely looks back at that decision as being ill-conceived.
I think our dear friend has a great capacity for rationalization and a decent capacity for self-delusion. Based on any whim or desire, he can make himself look at just about any situation from a narrow, parochial standpoint, often quite divorced from reality. We've seen it ever since he asked out girls that were way out of his league to now.
Bless me, but I had to get that off my chest.
All valid points.
The man definitely needs to think things through.
If you were a lobot (and although I was certain I knew what you were talking about, I didn't know that's what they were called) lots of things would be different. Your neck lights would have been blinding as we embarked upon the first freeze-off, among many other 'adventures'.
True. And history is positively littered with examples of people who proved the doubters and the skeptics wrong. I wish nothing but success for Gibbs.
For the record, Lobot is a "he" not a "them."
I thought that it was a type of Canadian Beer. :)
You must have just gotten confused after I said I "had" Lobot.
And sucked a Lobot dry.
IS Lobot really a he?
Did you see genitalia, or are you just going by his generally male appearance? I assume that Lobot may be a type of being or creature, like Ugnaught. Wikipedia says Lobot is an individual.
Wikipedia seems pretty clear on the fact that Lobot is a 38-year old male-turned cyborg.
And I sucked him off.
You win this battle.
And for the record, during said 'suck off' his lights didn't flash at all.
As is usually the case, the blowjob caused his higher functions to go into "shutdown mode."
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