Dad’s Weekly Report

Dear Family,

I wrote a short entry to my blog last week describing my job offer. Here is some more details. I got an job offer from a company in Flagstaff, AZ. The company is W.L.Gore, http://www.goremedical.com/. Gore is famous for Gore-Tex, the fabric that sheds water but breathes air. Another common product that they make is Glide dental floss. The company headquarters is Delaware. The facility in Arizona is their medical division. Their products include tubes used to repair blood vessels, patches to repair hernias, and sutures. Besides these main products they also make the devices used to insert them into people. Some of these devices are purchased from suppliers and I will be working with those suppliers to insure quality and on-time delivery.

Wednesday I called them and officially accepted. The job offer is all that I was hoping for and really shows that they value their employees. As I stated in my blog earlier two things surprised me. First they are giving me 5 weeks of paid vacation, matching what I enjoyed at Hewlett Packard the last few years. Second they are offering relocation benefits, including paying real estate fees, moving expenses and up to 3 months temporary housing. We have already been contacted by their moving company, mortgage brokers, and real estate agents. I think that our house will go on the market the week after Thanksgiving. Anyway things are moving along, a big transition.

Last weekend we took a trip to Pullman to visit Brent. We took the trailer with his castle and bed-head-board along with some of his other stuff. This past week we gathered up all of Ruth & Curt’s stuff and Lyle& Emily’s stuff and put into a storage unit. We are trying to get the house in shape so that it will show well and sell faster.

Now I have started a big project to rebuild my little trailer. The wood on it is getting all rotten and there is quite a bit of rust that I need to take care of. Last night I started taking it apart. The wood was worse than I thought and all the screws are pretty rusty. I will also buy a new axle because bearings always rust out. The places on the axles where the seals rub are all worn out so the seals don’t work and water gets into the bearings. I found some places on the web that sell axles for about $100. I thought about buying a new trailer but I haven’t found one that I like better.

This week is Thanksgiving and Brent is coming home Wednesday after work, so there will be four of us home for Thanksgiving dinner.

Yesterday at the fort I spent the time practicing making nails. The hardest part is getting the head right. I am not too good at it but I think I know what I have been doing wrong. I am afraid that I won’t be able to go too much more. A few weeks ago a fellow at the fort told me that I was holding my hammer wrong that that it would make my elbow hurt. Well sure enough my elbow has been hurting me pretty bad the last couple of weeks and it is worse right after I finish hammering. I will really miss the time I have spent learning to blacksmith. I hope that I will be able to do it again sometime.

One bit of good news – we have solved the problem of water in our basement. For many years we have had a little water seeping on the floor in the closet and hall where we keep our food storage. Well we figured where the water is coming from. There is a board right under our front door and the water was running on the front porch under that board down the inside of the concrete wall and onto the floor. It only happens when we get a wind that blows the water against the front door. Well I sealed under the board and the problem is solved. It doesn’t seem like a big deal but it was causing mold in that hallway and may have made it difficult to sell the house. Now we can clean the carpet good and no more mold or musty smell.

Well that is all the news. Sorry no pictures today. Please take care.

Love,

John

Good news, I have received a job offer. I have been reluctant to post about it because this is public, but today I heard details. I will be working for W.L.Gore in Flagstaff, AZ. I will be starting on 4 January. It is a really nice offer both in pay and benefits. Two things that I really wasn’t expecting:

1. They are giving me 5 weeks vacation per year to start. I was expecting to start at just a few days. I was really surprised.
2. They are paying generous relocation benefits, including real estate fees and moving expenses.
So we are happy at our house and anxious to make it all happen. I expect that it will be a stressful holidays, as we work on selling our house and moving.

Dear Family,

First a job update: It has been three weeks since I had my second interview with the company up in Issaquah, WA. I still haven’t heard back from them. That is a great job. I hope that I hear from them soon. Sandy spent a couple of weeks this month visiting family in Utah. During that time I had two interviews with a company right across the river in Portland, also a nice job. Unfortunately for me they choose someone else for the job. Tomorrow I travel to Flagstaff for an interview with a company that makes medical devices. I had a get-to-know-you breakfast meeting with a couple of folks in the company that last time I was in Flagstaff and am happy to be able to meet with them again. So things are picking up but no solid direction yet.

Allen will travel to Nevada a week from today for a job interview. He is pretty excited about the job.

I am happy to have Sandy back this past week. Allen and I did okay but still…

Yesterday was Halloween. I hope that you all had a spooky night. The night before we went to the church for Trunk-or-Treat. The kids circled around the parking lot several times collecting multiple doses of candy. We finally had to hide the treat bucket so that we would have some leftover to distribute yesterday. I tried to encourage the kids to eat all the candy that night. Allen and I carved the two pumpkins that we grew in our garden. Here is a picture of them. Allen carved the big one and he gave me the suggestion for the small one. If we ever grow big pumpkins again we will have to remember to turn the pumpkins stem up when they are little so that they sit upright. We had to carve them on their side.

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week I went to the fort for a class on blacksmithing. A smith from Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia came and taught the class. This year he showed us how to make garden tools and then demonstrated how to make beaver trap parts. I have already made a trap so that wasn’t new to me. The garden tools he made were a hoe, rake, and small garden trowel. I was especially interested in how he made the hoe because of the forged hoes that I saw in South Carolina when we visited there a couple of weeks ago. It is made not too much different than an axe is made except the blade is twisted.

I am happy to see that the NBA season has started. Unfortunately the Blazers have played poorly in their first three games. Hopefully they will get their act together soon.

Well that is all the news for today. I hope that you are doing well. Keep in touch.

Love,

John