Vieques #1 The Ababor Suites

We are back from Vieques!  We had a wonderful time and we have some great pictures and stories to share.  I'm not sure how many posts there will be, but we will make sure to cover all the really good stuff!

I'll start with where we stayed.  It is called the Ababor Suites and it was perfect for us.

We had the entire top floor to ourselves.  It stayed right around 85 degrees, day and night, so we were grateful for the relief of the air conditioner inside.  From the suite, it was a short walk to the beach.  This is our view, as taken from our deck:

I'd love to be able to say that we had a private beach.  We didn't.  But, that is actually one of the neatest things we found about Vieques.  All beaches are public (except for the ones with unexploded ordinances), but every beach we found, was essentially deserted.  We could go anywhere on the island and enjoy a "private beach".  Our beach was a nice little cove, protected by a reef about 50 feet out.  The water was very calm and never deeper than waist height.  There was some great snorkeling in relatively calm water outside the reef.

The Suites had kayaks available for our use.  Josh and I had a great time trying (and failing) to surf the waves in our kayaks.  Josh may have had a better run if his kayak didn't leak.

The Cabana was phenomenal.  It was easily my favorite thing about where we stayed.  Every morning Josh and I enjoyed fruit and coffee out in the Cabana. 

 Life doesn't get much better than that!

THANK YOU!

After way too long, Josh and I have finished our Thank You cards from the wedding. All of the wedding magazines say that you have one year after the wedding to get all the Thank You cards out. We really didn't think we would be anywhere close to that.

We wanted to make sure we had the time to express our heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you. Thank you so much for being a part of our wedding day and helping Josh and I celebrate our Love.

Love,
Josh and Kristina

Killer Work Day!

I just had a great work day.

I think just about everyone knows that work has been difficult for me lately, which is why I feel like today's awesomeness is worth sharing.

As soon as I arrived this morning I got word that a HazMat shipment that needed to be in California this morning, was stuck in Idaho - it didn't get shipped, rendering the sample expired and therefore useless and forcing us to repeat thousands of dollars in testing at our expense.

I call the shipping office (I won't say which company but they have a clever arrow worked in their logo); they admit the responsibility for the failed shipment is entirely theirs.  The manager of the store apologizes profusely, and gives me an account number for all future expenses related to this project.  When was the last time you had a corporate entity admit responsibility and then give you an open expense account to fix it?

After hours of coordinating how to make this retest work, I call our analytical lab and see if there is a possible back up plan.  As it turns out, I didn't have all the information, only part of the sample is expired (and even then it is still usable), the rest of it is still good.  This means that if I can get the client and the local agency to be ok with less than perfect data on a portion of the test (which is only locally, not federally required, meaning the local agency has the authority to waive it), then we don't have to retest.

I call the client and we decide we want it in writing from the local agency.  I can do that.  So, I track down the agency contact on his cell phone and get in writing that they are ok with us submitting the locally required data as expired but usable so long as the federally required data is in perfect condition - which it is.

BOOM!

I just saved the company thousands of dollars by researching federal regulations and coordinating across four states between six different interested parties, meanwhile getting an open account from a major shipping company.

All that is going through my head right now is this song.  And how they wrote it about me.

FAIR WARNING:  Swearing is an integral part of this song


Every now and then it is good to toot your own horn.  Right?