GE's global expansion involves Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan made big news in todays local paper!! What is funny is that I just happened to be wearing my Kazakhstan shirt at work today and only had somewhere around 100 people ask me if I saw the article. From work to the bank and my family everyone was calling asking if I read the news on Kazakhstan. It seems strange to me that some countries seem to have a negative view on adoption but here with just one person adopting from that country so many people now know about Kazakhstan and are hearing about the POSITIVES not just what they watched in Borat. Everyday people ask when we will travel (We hear we're near the top of the list). They are hearing so much from me about Kazakhstan and other families that have adopted from Kaz so many people have taken a genuine interest. I can't wait to travel not only to meet our daughter but to see the sights and culture and to meet the people. I traveled all over the world while in the Navy and this is the one thing I enjoy the most. Kazakhstan is so rich in history and natural beauty I really hope to travel soon so we can see Kaz in full bloom come spring time and I'd really love to spend a night in a yurt!! Well here's the article:
GE's global expansion
Kazakhstan company on course to churn out 300 Evolution locomotives

Plans remain on track for Kazakhstan's state-owned railway to begin assembling GE Evolution locomotives by mid-2009.

In September 2006, Erie-based GE Transportation announced a $650 million contract to supply 310 locomotives to the Kazakhstan National Railway known as Temir Zholy. Railroad officials told Reuters news service earlier this week that the deal is moving ahead.

The deal, which at the time represented GE's largest ever order for locomotives delivered outside North America, called for the first 10 locomotives to be built at the Lawrence Park plant.

According to the deal, most of the remaining 300 units would be assembled at a new state-owned plant in Kazakhstan, using engines built in Grove City and numerous key components made in Erie.

According to the Reuters report Tuesday, Temir Zholy will finish construction of a $125 million plant by the middle of 2009 and will invest more than $600 million in production equipment.


Stephan Koller, GE Transportation spokesman, confirmed that information was correct, but said he was caught off guard by the report and its timing.

"There is literally nothing new in the entire piece," Koller said. "I don't know who on the other end issued it and why."

He did stress, however, that the contract represents good news for GE Transportation and its employees in Pennsylvania who will produce many of the vital components.

"The agreement showcases how GE Transportation capitalizes on growth opportunities worldwide," he said.

Now if I can just get a job at GE and have them pay for our travel cost ;-)

"Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises".
Demmosthenes

McWedding Part 2

Ok so Sandy and I got engaged so how did we end up having a McDonalds Wedding??? After being engaged we bought a house and extra money for a wedding was scarce. It was about a month before Valentines day when a local radio station JET 102 had a contest called the McWedding of the Century. (that's were the Jet was a part of our wedding). for the contest you had to tell the story of how you "POPPED THE QUESTION" be it romantic, zany etc..The winner would win a wedding at McDonalds live on the radio, Tux, gown, Flowers, DJ, Photographer,Cake, rings, Honeymoon, food all included. All the storys were read over the air and the listeners could vote on which one they thought was best. Well ours was the last one read on the air and then they had the vote, I didn't have time to tell my family or co-workers to call in and vote and well some other lady won :-(.
It was 1 week before the McWedding was to take place (the winner had 2 weeks to get ready) we came home from a night out and found a message on our answering machine from JET 102 Radio station. We were told to call the station right away it was about the wedding. So at 2 in the morning we called the radio station and found out the couple that won the contest had backed out, it seems the guy was married 6-7 times before and they were fighting over a pre-nup! So they wanted to know if we wanted to get married in 6 days, I took one look at Sandy and we both said lets do it!!
So here we were at 5 in the morning calling our parents to tell them the news, the reply was "your getting married where? When ? What time?" McDonalds at 7:30 in the morning in 6 days I guess came as a big shock. So the next 6 days were a whirlwind phoneing family and friends getting fitted for our tuxs and Sandys gown it was a mad rush to get things done. On the eve of our wedding we didn't get home until midnight (last minute gown work needed to be done) we had over 50 messages on the answering machine. My best man Kevin wanted to take me out for a drink, Mom and Dad calling, friends calling and then finally the flower shop calling to say the flowers were ready for us to pick up and that the shop was open to 7:00 PM well it was midnite by the time we got the message OH NO!!!
Needless to say I got NO sleep that night and had to be at McDonalds at 5:00 AM
Kudos to JET 102 station manager when she found out about the flowers she made a mad dash and just happened to luck out and found an employee in the flower shop and got the flowers to McDonalds on time.
Everything was decorated for our wedding, streamers, bells, our cake everything was just perfect. I was on the radio most of the morning taking phone calls answering questions and having so much fun even a local news crew filmed us and had coverage of our McWedding on the News all day.
Well the phone keeps ringing here so I'll have to stop for now and post more about the McWedding tommorow.
P.S. Yes we had a romantic dinner at McDonald's tonite for Valentines day.

The McWedding Story

Ok now that everybody knows that we were married at McDonalds here's the story behind it.
McWedding Part 1
Many Many years ago after dating Sandy few several years I decided I wanted to pop the question, but just how should I go about POPPING IT Humm???. I was working for a vending company and every saturday Sandy would help me tend to my machines. Every weekend the 1st thing Sandy would do was get a cup of hot cocoa (Sandy loves her chocolate). This got me thinking what a surprise it would be to set up the next cup in the machine to have the ring in it, Sandy would get her hot cocoa drink it find the ring and when Sandy found it I would POP the Question. Well I needed to distract Sandy and was away from the machine just long enough for someone else to come along and buy a cup (the cup with the ring in it) without my knowledge. Well Sandy gets her cocoa and is drinking it and well NO RING!!! She finished her cocoa, tosses the cup and wonders why I'm freaking out. After several anxious moments this guy comes back and tells me I don't want to marry you but maybe she will. I guess the surprise was on both of us. As you can see from our wedding picture above the cups of Hot Cocoa in our hands. Now this ring was not the actual diamond ring I gave sandy, I hid her wedding ring in a Easter egg and had Sandy go on a Easter egg hunt Easter morning. So ok now we are engaged how did we come about getting married at McDonalds?
Tune in tommorow for part 2

Daddy Training

So sorry everyone for not posting for 2 days. Thursday our friends took us out to Jr's Comedy club to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversery. We had so much fun and I ran into some good friends I have not seen since 1984-1985. Kurt and Adera?? (I probably butched the spelling of her name) they are good friend of my uncles and used to go camping with us every weekend during my high school days. Sandy was in 7th heaven, as we walked in a local college was having a Chinese auction SANDY'S FAV!! So many nice baskets and gift cards and lots of chocolate valentines candy. She was just a little bummed as Nick, Kurt, Carolyn and I all won something and Sandy didn't win a thing
:-( I spend a faction of what she did on tickets and I won of all things and nice school package. Backpack, pens, pencils, sparkly pens this will be great for some little boy or girl. It was a fun night and winning something a child can use really topped it off.
This weekend I'm getting some daddy training we're watching two tweenagers this weekend. Last night I learned that You-Tube has over 2000 Hanna Montana videos (I think we watched them all) and that Zac Efron is a real Hottie (high school musical). This is important stuff I need to know ;-)

Since I have a few minutes to post between Videos and dressing Zwinkies I can finally update the Guessing Game.
We have a WINNER!!!! SUZANNE'S WAS RIGHT GUESSING WE WERE MARRIED AT McDONALDS
I'm guessing that it was the Ron clue that gave it away as for the other clues:
It was not your traditional wedding!!, you may have been in a McDonalds today, McDonalds is in 121 countries but there isn't 1 in Kazakhstan (Yet)
Kudos to Kim on my over 50,000,000 clue and figuring out Almaty and Apples connection:
This is a fact I found with a McDonalds and Almaty connection:
McDonald's restaurants will buy 54,000,000 pounds of fresh apples this year. Two years ago, McDonald's purchased 0 pounds of apples. This is attributed to the shift to more healthy menu options (the Apple Pie, which has been at McDonald's for years uses processed Apple Pie Filling).
The name "Almaty" means "rich with apple"; the older Soviet-era Russian version of its name, Alma-Ata, originates from a mistake (literally means "Grandfather-apple").
As for my last clue Mayor McCheese wasn't at our wedding but Ronald as you can see was there.
So you now know we were married in McDonalds but how about the JET part. I'll just say again all of this wouldn't have been possible without JET and one more clue about this JET is that JET was both in McDonalds and in the Air.

It's a long story and I'll try to tell our McDonalds story between Hanna Montana videos.

Wedding Videos

Sandy and I just finished watching some wedding videos we haven't watched in years.
Such great memories seeing the little things we missing going on around us, seeing people who have passed and how much people have grown and changed, such fond memories in these pictures and videos wow 11 years.
I was really hoping to find the tape with the song (or a version there of) that became a big part of our wedding though not of our doing. The song is Breakfast at Tiffany's and it was played several times. I was really hoping to figure out how to upload it and have it play on our blog but the tape is currently M.I.A. If we can find it I'll try get it on our blog. Some more good guesses but my last clue kind of threw everyone off. Kim is on the right track there is more than 1 kind of JET. This isn't really a clue about where we were married but a clue that if figured out could lead you to the right answer. There would not have been a wedding if not for this JET.
A quick recap on the clues and guesses:
Clue number 1: Not your traditional wedding
clue #2: You may have been IN one today.
clue #3 121 but not 1 in Kaz
clue #4 0 one year over 50,000,000 the next
The numbers have something to do with a fact about where we were married and something about Almaty has to do with what the numbers represent.
Clue #5 There wasn't any airplane involved but a JET was a huge part of our wedding.

The guesses so far have been:
Hot Air Balloon
Wal-Mart
Paddle Boat
Skydiving out of a plane
Chinese
Nasa
Baseball/ Football game
Concert
In the Woods
Hot Tub
Airport
the Outback Steakhouse and A Clean Bathroom

Here's todays clue:
The Mayor wasn't but Ron was there

Another Clue

Still no correct guesses as to where Sandy and I were married so here's the next clue.
There wasn't any airplane involved but a JET was a huge part of our wedding.

Coincidence ???

Coincidence?? Ever since we completed our dossier there have been little signs that Adoption is the right choice for us. You know just little things that happen maybe concidence or not. The day we finished our dossier we went out for Chinese and our fortune was "Your about to embark on the most wonderful journey"
Just last week we finally agreed on how we want to spell the name we picked for our daughter (subject to change depending on how things work out on our trip) that same night a contestant on Jeporady had that name with the same speling and her last name was Kelly!!! No E in her last name but WOW.
And now this brings me to my GUESSING GAME, just the timing of everything starting the guessing game, our anniversery and Kim's Wal-Mart guess and sharing her story with us. Guess what was just on the news!! A couple was just married at WAL-MART in Mississippi this weekend! What are the odds in the timing of this.
And one last sign, I've been reading random blogs and found a few China blogs. In China Adoptions the lore is that ladybugs are a sign that travel is near. Yesterday while out shopping I stopped to look at some cute baby shirts and guess what was on the 1st shirt I picked up YES a LadyBug. Travel could be near!!!

So far no one has the right guess as to were Sandy and I were married at so here is the next clue :
0 one year over 50,000,000 the next
The numbers have something to do with where we were married and Almaty

Good Luck

Still A Guessing Game

We had some more good guesses today but sorry Sandy and I didn't get married in Wal-Mart (Kim I'd really love to hear your story) nor were we married on a paddleboat. We live a two minute drive away from the Victorian Princess paddle boat but the lake was a little frozen on our wedding day.
So far the guesses have been:
Skydiving out of an plane
Hot Air Balloon
Wal-Mart
and on a Paddleboat
Keep the guesses coming, here's todays clue.

121 but not 1 in Kaz

Good Luck

Guessing Game Day 2

Day #2 of the guessing game so far the guesses have been jumping out of an airplane, sorry Suzanne I can hardly get Sandy onto a plane let alone jump out of a plane ;-) we took a trip to Atlantic city two years ago, it was the 1st time Sandy ever flew. I offered her the window seat but she didn't want to sit to close to the outside of the plane. So no jumping vows for us.
Kim's guess that we took our vows in a Hot Air Balloon, sounds very romantic but not the right guess either. We have a summer festival "Harborfest" and they have one night where several (50-100) balloons go up and light up at sunset. Very beautiful but I don't see Sandy ever stepping foot of the ground.
Keep the guesses coming, Anyone may guess except for family and friends that already know. I know I'm no fun :-p

Here's clue #2: You may have been IN one today.
GoodLuck

The first and most important step toward success is the feeling that we can succeed.
Nelson Boswell