Back for a week

I'm back from working claims in SE Mo. The manager I was working for was nice enough to give me a week in between being in the field and going to Blm. I climbed my steepest roofs yet, 9/12, which I thought for sure I'd fall off and die. My friend I was climbing with is lucky I didn't knock him off. I had a blast, long hours, but it was pretty cool to be out talking to the insureds and whipping out estimates and writing checks. I was pretty proud of myself for all the roofs I got on. I would've had my friend take a picture but he was not allowed to get off the roof until I got to the ladder and got down. : ) It was definitely a false sense of protection, he wasn't going to stop me if I fell but I felt better getting down first! Took the picture below of a camel and we also saw donkeys. I was just a little suprised to see a bunch of camels roaming around these farms. I'm super excited to come to Blm next week and see everyone. Jason, Caylea, and I will be at Buffalo Wild Wings Sat, Oct 11th at 4 for anyone who can make it out! I'm sure I'll see a lot of you before then.

Field Work

Hey all, the posts may slow down a bit. I'm heading out to work field claims tomorrow morning. Short notice, just found out today. But claim reps are stretched thin right now with the hurricanes, so I'm heading down to Southern Missouri for at least a week maybe 2. So between all the OT, Jason traveling, and now me traveling things have been a tad hectic. I'll still be in Blm on 10/6 for claims school, so I hope to see most of you then! Jason and Caylea are coming up that weekend so Jas will be sending out an email with info on where we'll be hanging out Sat. night.

Still...

working! I haven't had much of a life except for work. My first day off since Labor Day will be Sunday, Sept. 28th. I pretty much go to work, come home, sleep, get up and do it again. I've been keeping Jason occupied cleaning and doing the grocery shopping. : ) It's raining like crazy here at the moment. Well just wanted to do a quick update, I'm off to bed. Miss everyone!

Hurricanes and Overtime

Hurricanes and overtime pretty much sums up my life right now! I'm working 12 hour days most days of the week and this and next weekend. I think I figured out I'm doing about 73 hrs. of ot in 2 weeks. I'm taking a break Monday and working normal hours though, I'm getting pretty tired! But the overtime will be nice to have to save up for my cruise in November which I will be SO ready for. So I'm off to work in a few minutes and Jason and Caylea are holding down the fort. I'm coming home tonight to pizza and The Office Season 4 marathon. : ) Depending on what Hanna, Ike, and Josephine end up doing, I will either be working a lot of ot here still or a lot of ot in Louisiana if some of the Cat people have to take off for the East Coast. But I guess there's no better way to learn my new job than to jump right into it. I'll be in Blm in a month for claims school so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone!! Jason and Caylea will be visiting one weekend while I'm there so we'll let everyone know where we'll be on Sat. night so hopefully we can see everyone.

School days

Caylea is really enjoying her new school. The first day was a little rough but after awhile she started meeting the kids and now is good friends with a girl named Asia. They do things different here, so this is her last year of elementary school and then she'll go to middle school which is 6th and 7th grade, then Jr. High which is 8th and 9th, then high school. We're not up to too much exciting during the long weekend. I'm working on Labor Day. Waiting to see what this Hurricane does next week, there may be many hours of ot in my near future. Hope you all have a nice long weekend!

Updated Doggie pics

Hello! As requested I'm putting up some new pics of the dogs so you can see how big Jazz is getting. Below are some pics of the park Jason and I have been jogging at. The scenery is so nice here it has gotten hard to just use the treadmill. And the weather has been so nice too. I got on my highest roof yet last week, a 7 pitch, and I was pretty much paralyzed up there. I was able to write some estimates and even hand a check to a policyholder which was very cool though.

Magnus waiting for Jazzmine to make her move.

They fight over bones even though they both have the exact same one.
Jazzie is hiding under the chair, she's good at finding places Magnus can't reach her. She also likes to hide under the bed with things she shouldn't have, like shoes. And she knows none of us can reach her under there.

Looking forward to going to work

So it's been a very long time since I can honestly say I'm excited to go to work every morning. (Sorry Beth!) I am learning so much cool stuff. Yesterday I got to spend 4 hours out evaluating a house fire. It was crazy to see what fire does to different things in a home. What it destroys and what it randomly doesn't destroy is very interesting. It's also pretty interesting to see how other people live. Luckily I worked mostly on the exterior drawing and scoping, because about an hour inside was enough for me with the smell. After diagramming and scoping all the damage we went back to the office to write up a huge estimate. Today I climbed 4 more roofs. Didn't climb roof #5 which I didn't feel bad about since the rep I was with had a lot of trouble on it and had to sit down in areas so she didn't slip. It's funny to me how a roof from the ground doesn't look too steep and then I get on it and am a little surprised. When I went out a couple of weeks ago my focus was just getting on and off the roof without falling. Since I'm now a pro (no, not really, but if I tell myself that often enough I can at least not think about how high up I am) today my focus was actually taking all the pictures and diagramming from the roof. We were in a van today where I was able to go into the "office" in the back of the van and write the estimates there and leave the insured with a check if they were covered. Tomorrow I'm taking off early in the am for a 12 hour day in Northern Mo. And crossing my fingers I get chosen for a Cat rotation duty sometime. This has really made me re-think some of my career goals. I had no idea I'd like Fire Claims this much. All I can say is I'm grateful for the new dress code, I can't imagine being out climbing roofs in business casual!