Trying to Summarize 7 Months...

After an eternity (7 months) without a post.  I figured it was time to write something.  My old BYU Scene Shop friends Dave and Angela tagged my blog two weeks ago.  A few days after I got tagged I got a voice mail from my old roommate Tiatia telling me about his new baby (Congratulations!!).  That week I had the flu and a sinus infection, so I didn't feel like doing anything.  And this last week I spent catching up with work and church stuff.  Today is the first day I've had to write anything.

Since no one has heard from me in so long I'll try to give a short review of the last few months.  A few of you know that I am in a 2 year training program in my company.  I have three 8 month rotations in different departments and at the end of the two years I get to pick where I want to be.  Last July I started in my third rotation (a few months early due to some unavoidable circumstances), which is my rotation with the estimating department. 

It was the rotation that I had dreaded since I started with the company.  Surprisingly it has been the one I have liked the most and I will likely stay there in June once my training period is up (who'd have thought that I would have lasted 2 years in Los Angeles?).  My first project in this department was an 18 story condo building in LA.  We were about to start  construction right before Christmas when the developer's bank pulled the plug on the financing due to the sub-prime crisis.

After that I worked for 6 weeks on a brand new high school.  It was what's called a "hard bid" process.  It's considered the most difficult and most stressful type of bid process.  Everything comes to a head on the day the bid is due. 

I had 6 people working under me on "bid day" and I didn't eat lunch or anything because I was so stressed out.  In a morbid kind of way it was really fun.  If there is a type of initiation into the construction industry, the hard bid is it.  I seem to have gained a bit of respect since I handled it so well.  One particular point I would like to bring up is that I made $1.7 million dollars worth of decisions in the last 20 minutes of the day.  All of them were right.  I hope that sounds impressive to someone.  I haven't been that stressed out since the finals week at BYU when I got 7 hours of sleep from Monday to Saturday.

I'm still in the Spanish family ward and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  I love working with the young men in Boy Scouts.  Sometimes I want to knock some heads together (I'm learning to appreciate how well Ken Bratt, Dave Christensen, my Dad, and my other young men's leaders did with us).  But overall the boys are really great kids and the other young men's leaders are great people to work with.  I'm also working with the bishopric as the clerk.  I'm the only clerk for my ward so my bishop and the stake clerk call me "El Secretario de Todo"...The Clerk for Everything. 

We have a large ward on paper; however, like most hispanic wards, the records haven't been kept very well.  I spent all last year fixing the financial records (they were really bad).  This year my goal is to get all of the membership records up to date.  I found out two weeks ago that the stake wants to get me some help so I have time for "social activities."  It's their way of saying they want me to get married.

Just because I know many of you are curious, no I'm not dating anyone right now.  I was seening someone for a while at the end of last year, but it didn't work out.

Although wordy, I think that's a pretty good summary of my last few months.  I've posted some new pictures.  In November, Ben (my brother) and I went to Minnesota to visit our sister, brother-in-law, and most importantly, our nephews.  I recieved a couple of comments after my 4th of July pictures asking for some photos of my sister.  Since she is the one who usually takes the pictures, she's not in any of the ones that I have.  But I will try to get her to send me a couple to post later.

I mentioned I was tagged, so here it is.  I'm supposed answer the 5 questions about myself.

Five things on my to-do list today (I'll use tomorrow since today is almost over):

1. Call Salt Lake and order tithing evelopes
2. Make lots and lots of phone calls because if I don't, my subcontractors I won't get me what I need.
3. Go to a friends house for dinner and Family Home Evening
4. Beat some of my co-workers at ping pong
5. Do laundry

Things I would do if I became a billionaire:

1. Buy 300(or more) acres in Pennsylvania and move very far away from any big city.
2. Buy season passes to the Canyons, Brighton, and Snowbird (I'm sure there are other great places, but these are the only ones I've been to).
3. Pay off my student loans

3 of my bad habits:

1. Hitting the snooze button way too many times
2. Not writing in my blog as often as people would like
3. Getting mad at all of the stupid drivers here in California.  I don't know if they are worse than Utah drivers, or if there are just more of them.

5 places I've lived:

1. Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania
2. Fairfax, Virginia
3. Provo, Utah
4. Fullerton, California
5. Minatitlan, Veracruz, Mexico

5 Jobs I've had:

1. Trim carpenter for my Dad
2. Assistant Superintendent for Pulte Homes in Virginia
3. Set carpenter for HaleStorm Entertainment (Check the credits at the end of the LDS pop culture film, "The Home Teachers")
4. Early morning custodian for BYU
5. Set carpenter in the BYU Scene shop (Combine #4 with #1 under my bad habits)

Things most people don't know about me:

1. I once ran around a farm, being chased by sheep, while I was wearing electric lime green stretch pants.  Why? For a stake seminary film festival.  The down-side?  All of the girls knew just how skinny and lanky I really was.  The up-side?  At the dance afterwards, all the girls already knew who I was.  The title of the film?  Ammonhood:Men in Tights.  To my knowledge, only one copy of this film exists and my parents currently have it.  It's the kind of thing you don't want a girl to see until after you're married...along with those "cute" pictures when you're 1 year in the bathtub.

I'm supposed to tag 4 people now.  Here you go.

1. Ethan and Heather
2. Drew
3. Ken and Beth
4. Mark and Elizabeth

Here are the rules:

1. Answer these same questions about yourself
2. List 4 people at the end of your post who you want to tag
3. Leave them a comment in their blog letting them know they've been tagged.
4. No tag backs

Comments

[Heather Bratt]

Yeah first to comment on a long anticipated update from our Marc!! Glad to hear that things are going well for you at work. It's so funny the way you sound so surprised by your successes, yet we all expect that you will do really well and are just glad to hear our predictions have once again come to fruition. Sorry to hear things on the dating scene aren't moving super fast. She's around somewhere... and with all the patience you are putting in, she's bound to be pretty dang hot! thanks for the update and the fun tag - I'll work on that one.
We love you!

[Heather Bratt]

Yeah! I'm excited to be the first to post a comment on the long anticipated blog update from our Marc!
Glad to hear that things are going so well for you down there and that you are surviving LA. I think it's funny the way you sound surprised when have big successes because we all already see how great you are and just enjoy seeing our predictions come to fruition. You're awesome! We miss you!!
Love from the Ethan Bratt Clan!

[Jennifer]

Marc! I didn't know you had a blog until just this morning. Thanks for including me on the email list . . . I will be sure to keep reading.

[Jennifer]

Marc! I'm didn't know you had a blog! Thanks for emailing me about it. I'll be sure to check in often. It's great to hear from you.

[Dave]

It's about time to summarize another 7 months :) We live in south Jersey now - where in PA are you from?