A Somber Prayer Request

Hey Guys,

I am going to keep this one short. I may post more later but with these circumstances it hardly seems appropriate. I ask that you please keep the family of little Lane Massey in your prayers. Lane was the infant son of Tim and Stephanie Massey, friends of mine back in Texarkana. I went to church with them.

Lane was born about 5 or 6 weeks ago very premature. He was very sick from the start, but he was a fighter. He had made a lot of progress in his health. The doctors were pleasantly surprised at his little fighting spirit. Unfortunately, this week he began to have some bad intestinal problems that he simply could not fight any longer. Lane passed away Thursday afternoon. Please keep his family in your prayers as they are understandably devestated.

God Bless,
Greg

Somehow life gets even busier

Whew! Things are definitely getting crazier and busier around here. Just when I finish working on my several weeks long project at work (not including the side trip to Georgia for a week) things have really ramped up. We are getting busier and busier at work and to top it off, the week of the 25th I am going to Nashville, Tennessee for MORE training.

This training was actually voluntary, but it will be beneficial to both me and the facility in the end. I am going to take a class so that I can be a certified driver trainer for our facility. That way when we have a good applicant come in this Christmas, I can train them myself rather than having to send them to another city in the region for training. Plus, fewer than 10% of our managers company wide have this training, so that is just something else that I can put on my resume to make it even more appealing. :-)

I am working an average of 14 hours a day right now. I can't complain though. I am blessed. I can truly say that I love my job. I feel both challenged and fulfilled. Very few people can say that. I am really starting to learn a lot from Nate and Roy. Roy is our manager and Nate is my 'co-worker' but he is really the one who is teaching me a whole lot. He's a good guy and we are forming a pretty good friendship. He's mentioned that he doesn't go to church like he should, and never really has. I am hoping and praying for the right opportunity to come along soon to invite him to come along with me. Please keep that in your prayers...that would be awesome.

Here's a funny story..I know...this particular post is more random than most..but hey, I am a random guy. Anyway, Roy told me last week that Kara (his 2 year old daughter) was VERY upset with me. I asked why and he told me that his wife and daughter came up to the building to see "Daddy, Nate and Gweb" and "Gweb" wasn't there! He said she went to my office and called my name several times and finally asked "Daddy...where is Mistah Gweb"? Hehe...how cute..she is an adorable little girl.

There have been numerous adventures in my family lately. My 16 year old nephew wrecked and totaled his car...as most 16-17 years olds eventually do. Then, my 13 year old niece got a black eye at school. She got told on for passing a note in class, and punched the boy who told on her. He swatted her back, in the arm and she punched him back (again) so he cold-cocked her. Kids! On top of that, my brother in law interviewed for a new job. He has been at his current job for around 20-25 years but the company is in fluxuation right now so he doesn't feel that his job is really secure. I think that the new job, if offered, would be a lot less pressure for more money actually. The main concern is that it appears to be a mostly 'desk job' and he is definitely not an all day desk type. He likes to get up and get around and his current job allows him to do that due to the nature of the work. So please keep that in your prayers.

The last thing I will mention today is a little request for ideas. As you can imagine, FedEx will be incredibly busy from November to the end of December. We have already decided that no one can have the weekend after Thanksgiving off. We have several college students on our crew who have family a ways off. So what I am thinking is since I won't be able to go home for Thanksgiving, maybe I could have a small Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment for those guys especially, but for whoever decides to come over. Now I live in a one bedroom apartment, so the question is...do I have everyone bring something? Maybe go grab a ready made dinner? Make the dinner myself? Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

I hope that you are all doing well. Hope to hear from ya soon!

God Bless!

Interesting Week

So I am sitting there last Monday minding my own business when my boss calls me. There are some major problems in our Marietta, Georgia facility and I was volunteered to go there for the week. It definitely was not in my plans but hey, I am always up for a spur of the moment road trip so I got some directions and went. Tuesday through Friday I went there, helped out with some things, went out and delivered in Marietta and the surrounding area. All in all it was a pretty boring week. Work....go back to the hotel...same routine the next day. Sometimes the life of a FedEx manager is SOOOO boring

I text messaged my friend Diane who lives in Athens, GA which was about 1.5 to 2 hours away from Marietta. Diane is the one that I emailed most of you about that broke her leg in a car accident when she was 8 months pregnant. I have also sent most of you pictures of Kyle, her now (almost) 2 month old son. The premise of the message was that I was staying in Marietta this week. She figured out how close it was and we arranged for me to go meet her. She did volunteer to meet me half way, but (a) there is very little 1/2 way between Marietta and Athens and (b) I would not feel right having her travel with a 2 month old. I know how babies can be to travel with. This turned out to be a wise decision because the after-effects of Tropical Storn Ernesto dumped a ton of rain on the area that afternoon which would have made her travels even more trecherous than before.

Anyway, we met at Logan's Steakhouse in Athens in the midst of a good old fashioned drenching. We talked (and ate of course) for a little over two hours. I had a really good time seeing her, getting to talk with her and of course, holding and admiring Kyle. He is such a little doll. Even more precious than his pictures show. I got to hold him a majority of the time we were there. It was great. He was awake for maybe half an hour. Sleepy boy. He fell asleep in my arms. There is just something about holding and watching a baby that is so special. I held him for so long that I ended up propping my elbow up on the table to keep him (and my arm) steady. Some of the waitresses came by and admired him.

At about 9:45 or so we had to leave so Diane and I (and of course Kyle) said our good-byes and I headed back to Marietta. I had a really nice time getting to see Diane. We talked and talked. We hadn't gotten to do that in a long time. It was great to get to see her. Hopefully soon we'll get to get together again.

I got back to Tuscaloosa about 7 p.m. last night and worked this morning. Things should get back to the normal routine soon. I am still working on a special project here at work that will keep me out of the facility all of this coming week (thankfully a short week due to the holiday) and part of next week. After that, I should be back in the office a big majority of the time.

I hope and pray that everyone has a very safe and happy Labor Day weekend.

God Bless