Back in Town

Last week I was out of town on business. I got an all expense trip to lovely Sacramento courtesy of the Government. For all that I was subjected to three and a half days of endless PowerPoint presentations. By the second hour of each day my eyes would glaze over as engineer after engineer presented their piece of the puzzle. They did feed us very well so there was that. One dinner included a catered affair at the Aerospace Museum of California, which was really nice. Dinner and drinks among the exhibits. We finally finished up on Thursday and I caught the red eye out of San Francisco. That was not without its own drama. I took a commuter flight from Sacramento to San Francisco. When we got to San Francisco we were told that the gate wasn't available yet as we were a bit early. Several minutes later the pilot informed us that the plane occupying our gate was going no where due to some problem or another. Long story short by the time I was finally able to disembark and get to my gate to catch the flight home, I was told I was too late, the plane door was closed and I would have to get rebooked. With visions of being stuck at the airport overnight, I approached the customer service desk. Turns out United has two red eyes going into Dulles with one leaving about 40 minutes after the flight I was booked on. I made that flight even though I got stuck in a middle seat versus the window I was suppose to have. When I finally landed at Dulles my bag was already there so apparently they let my bag on the first flight. At that point I realized I couldn't find my car keys. While I looked I texted Ann to stand by as she might have to come pick me up at the airport. Always the supportive spouse she first gave me a ration of shit and ended with the loving words of - "Take a taxi". It's all about the love. I did eventually find my car keys although obviously not where I thought they would be. Did I mention after traveling all night, I had an appointment for my annual physical? Well I did. As far as I know everything is working fine although I'm still waiting to hear the results of the lab work. I was expecting to hear the worst about my blood pressure given my traveling all night, but it was surprisingly good for me - 130/70. My weight was another matter. After pigging out all week, I was way heavier then I should be. I told the Doctor that i would be back at my lightweight limit (165 lbs) by the end of July and I should be. That was the bulk of my Friday not including running around doing errands at PetSmart and Target. I also crashed around 8;30.

Saturday was spent recovery from the California trip. I walked the twins in the morning, which is always an adventure. I also restocked the pantry after a trip to Giant. That's my job, going to the grocery store since Ann seems to have a phobia about actually going to the store. The rest of the day I watched the Nationals (wow they're above .500) and the Capitals stage an amazing comeback to beat the Canadians in OT.

Sunday my crew club held its first of three Learn to Row Days. We had 25 people show up to try out the sport of rowing. Given how windy it was, the water was surprisingly calm and we were able to get the visitors out on the water. Pictures and more of LTR to follow.

Big Hearts...Weak Minds

In my last entry I briefly spoke of the web site Petfinder.com. It's a wonderful site for adopting all types of pets. It's also crack for those of us with big hearts and weak minds - like Ann and I. One of Ann's (and Daughter#1 for that matter) favorite activity is surfing Petfinder and looking at various dogs. Periodically she would send me links to certain dogs with the suggestion that we should adopt such and such dog. They all come with such sad stories (owner went into a nursing home, a victim of divorce where neither party wanted the family pet, etc.). Obviously you can't adopt them all and we just did adopt a dog (see last post), but your heart does go out to them. Did that deter us? Of course not! So this past Saturday found us on a road trip to of all places, Follansbee, WVA. Of course Follansbee wouldn't be that part of WVA that is just over an hour away. Oh no Follansbee is located about as far north as you can possibly be and still be in WVA. It's that portion of WVA that is like a spike up between Pennsylvania and Ohio. It's actually WEST of Pittsburgh. Oh man. Not to mention that Pennsylvania was hit by a snowstorm the day before. For that reason we opted for the slightly southern route taking I-68 rather then the Pennsylvania Turnpike. So we rolled through the mountains of western Maryland that looked like this:

We rolled through the town of Cumberland, Maryland:

Finally after 300+ miles and 5 plus hours on the road, we arrived in Follansbee. We were short on gas at that point and we wanted to refill before arriving at out ultimate destination. The first three gas stations we saw in Follansbee were all closed and shuttered up. Their gas pumps long removed. We eventually found an open station and gas up and headed off to the Brooke County Animal Shelter. It had started to snow as we pulled up to the shelter. It was an old building that had seen better days. It has two outside kennels for dogs and additional space inside. After filling out the appropriate paperwork we were now the proud owners of Amy and Emily - miniature schnauzers. That's right - we no own 2 more dogs.

They really are miniature. They are 2 years old and barely 12 pounds each. And seem to possess endless energy. Their previous owner was the "had to go into a nursing home" type. As I texted the kids, right now they remind me of the Siamese cats in "Lady and the Tramp". It's going to be interesting.

Busy...Busy...Busy...

I've been really really busy the past few days. The kids have all been home making for a full house what with the two daughters also bringing their spouses and Daughter#2 her dog Gracie. As I mentioned in my previous post, Daughter#1 has to fill the days and has she ever. Lets get a run down:

1. Day After Christmas and the two daughters arrive in the morning from out of town and The Son leaves his cave to join us for a day after Christmas breakfast prepared by yours truly.

2. Next up was opening presents. Here Daughter#1 does the honors while her husband looks on and takes her picture.

3. Then there was Christmas dinner to prepare. Here The Son works on his oyster dressing.

4. The next day (Sunday) we were down at The Son's place painting his living room and hallway of his condo. Here The Son paints around his balcony door.

Guests were not exempt. Here M#1 and Daughter#1 paint a portion of the hallway. Welcome to the family!

5. For Monday we were off to the Air and Space Museum Annex out by Dulles Airport. Here they have some of their larger aircraft/spacecraft that would never fit in the downtown museum. A look down just one third of the exhibit hall.

They have some really famous aircraft there. Like the Concorde. Oh if they could just make supersonic air travel economically feasible.

I think everyones favorite from our group was the SR-71 Blackbird. On its final flight from LA to Washington, the pilots made it in 1 hour 4 minutes. Average speed was over 2,000 mph. Amazing.

Probably the most famous bomber in the world. The Enola Gay. It had been in storage for decades before they finally had the space to display it. It wasn't as big a plane as I had envisioned from seeing pictures of B-29s.

My favorite fighter of all time. The plane that Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards made famous. The F-14 Tomcat. "Talk to me Goose".

All that walking around not to mention two big meals, left me wiped out. Hence no entry yesterday. Just too tired.

6. After sleeping 10 hours, we headed down to southern Maryland today to look at the Naval Air Station and the surrounding area. Daughter#1 and M#1 are considering relocating there. After touring the base, lunch was in order - crab cakes!

After a day of running around touring the base, Saint Mary's College, Solomon's Island, visiting a dear friend that lives down there and a last stop at Leonardtown and Breton Bay in the background, we headed home. Daughter#1 and M#1 pose for a final photo.

Its time for another long winter's nap.

Let It Snow!

Right now we are under a Winter Storm Warning. Predictions range from 10 to 22 inches depending where you live. While people in Buffalo would take such things in stride, here in northern Virginia, its blizzard conditions to us. We're fascinated by snow. Sure we get some every winter, but is usually small amounts which melt within a day or two. This much snow is a novelty to us. We haven't had a big storm in several years now so we're long overdue. The fact that it is coming on a Friday night after rush hour has quelled the panic somewhat. No morning commutes to fret about. Still Virginians have done their usual grocery store rush to buy mass quantities of bread. milk and toilet paper. The three necessities, apparently, if you're going to be cooped up for a day or two. The snow started about 8:00 tonight and is suppose to continue into Sunday morning. It will compliment the feel of Christmas and look dazzling under every one's lights. Not so good for the merchants who were hoping for a big Saturday and Sunday full of Shoppers rushing to finish their shopping. I can hardly wait to see what our world will look like come tomorrow morning under a blanket of white. Maybe the snow will be still around for Christmas.

Our meeting on the west coast actually ended on time and I was able to switch flights to catch the red eye home. This time we had a wide body 767 instead of the flying tube of a 757. Still the plane was filled to capacity. Every single seat filled. I managed an aisle seat so that wasn't to bad. It was full enough that they were telling the people that were the last to board to forget about overhead bin space and made them check their bags. They didn't look to happy about that, but frankly it would have been chaos and long waits if they didn't do that. Those people would have been opening every bin looking for a space, blocking the aisles and making a nuisance of themselves. At least United didn't make them pay. When I fly, I like to listen to the ATC calls. I heard our flight transferred to Albuquerque, fell asleep in time to hear us transferred to Washing Control. Somehow listening to the co-pilot tell the Air Traffic Controllers "Ta-Ta" as they were handed off as somewhat amusing. Not something they teach in pilot school, I'm sure. I'm glad I manged to switch flights, otherwise I'm not sure I would have gotten home on time or at all. Probably diverted somewhere else due to the snow or the flight cancelled. What fun that would have been. Instead I can relax, lean back and enjoy the beauty of it all.

One Day to Go

Two days down and one day to got. Sitting through 9 hours of PowerPoint presentations is just pure hell. Make it all about engineering processes and you double the pain. I have no real involvement in the today's or tomorrows presentations. More there as a referee making sure that our side doesn't impose new requirements on the Contractor and not allowing the Contractor to cry foul where none exist. Its a matter of getting from one break to the next. Occasionally looking up to make sure the meeting is still on track. Really the only thing to look forward to was the food. So lets get down to the food rundown:

Breakfast: You basic pastry and muffins. No donuts, Bagels that should be embarrassed to call themselves bagels. Definitely LA could learn a thing or two from NY about making proper bagels. The upside is there is plenty to go around. Coffee is overflowing and kept hot. Frankly I don't care since I'm not a coffee drinker. Water and juice are available, but for those of us who get our caffeine through soft drinks, where are the Cokes? Pepsis? I'd give breakfast a "C".

Lunch: One of the IPT Leads apparently loves a Russian restaurant close by so we had Russian food for lunch. Two different salads, two different meats (lamb and chicken), some sort of meat pastry and bread. Very tasty and very different. Plenty to eat, it was warm and more or less on time. I give it an "A". Definitely something a little different and not the typical working lunch of Italian pastas or sub sandwiches.

Dinner: Oh the obligatory "social" where the Contractor and Government teams are suppose to mingle and bond and its all good for the program. Of course what usually happens is the Government people mingle with the Government people and the Contractor people mingle with the Contractor people. The social was at a Mexican place of some repute or so we were told. We're from the east coast so what do we know? Anyway it was more about drinks and appetizers. I lucked out and sat by a guy who was celebrating the birth of his first two grandchildren and who bought the first two rounds. Score! The appetizers were good and plentiful. Certainly no need for dinner. Two different versions of southwest spring rolls. Chicken pot stickers and steak quesadillas. Overall a pretty good time, even if I got stuck talking to China Lake engineers about their motorcycles. Overall a "A-"

I did manage to change my flight home and will be on the red eye tomorrow night instead of waiting until Friday morning to fly home (and spending a whole day on a frigging plane). Looking forward to going home.

Five Years Ago - Nothing

I'd love to write about something special that happened five years ago, but dang if I remember anything specific from that year. The kids were all out of college by then. The girls weren't married yet. I'm drawing a complete blank. Maybe I can try again next year.

I don't know how road warriors do it. This traveling thing gets old fast. The flights are the pits. The days roll into one meeting to another, eat dinner and roll into bed. Rinse and repeat. You start to learn more about your co-workers then you really want to know. The only upside is trying new places to eat and the snacks provided by the meeting hosts. I could get use to having treat day five days a week. I'd also weigh over 200 lbs. Fat and slow. Trying to rearrange my flight home to get home earlier. Hope I can swing it. Time for bed.

Why I Hate Traveling

This week I'm in LA on business. Looking after the public trust as it were. But frankly I'm over the whole traveling thing. When I was younger, I looked forward to traveling on business. Going to new places, eating out, getting out of the office. It was all great. Now it's just a drag. Flying is a big part of it. Flying these days just sucks the life right out of you. It begins with having to get to the airport ridiculously early to check in. Check in usually involves long lines, the first of many you'll encounter. The next line is getting through security. The endless back and forth to get to the front of the line. It's like waiting for a ride at Disney World without the fun ride at the end of it. Not to mention having to strip down and emptying pockets and trying to sneak that bottle of eye drops through. Next up is the airplane. I flew out on a Boeing 757. Also known as the cattle car. It's not a wide body and features 6 across seating. Maybe its just me, but the seats seem to be getting narrower. Nothing like spending 6 hours on a plane stuffed next to two other guys with no leg room and no elbow room. Every time I fly these days, it seems that the plane is full. I mean really full. Like no empty seats full. An lo they had the heat on for sure. That was one hot airplane. Of course everyone tries to bring as many bags on board as they think they can get away with. The fact that airlines are charging to check bags does nothing to cut down on this practice. It seriously delays both the loading and unloading of the aircraft. Idiots all. I can hardly wait for the flight home. I just hope they have good snacks at my meeting tomorrow.

Back to Back Trips

Its been a while. I'm finding out it's hard to update when you are traveling and it's also hard to find the motivation to do so. For the past two weeks I've been on the road. Lets see where I've been:

Last week I traveled to Los Angeles for business. We awarded a large contract to a new to us Contractor. Last week we all gathered together to go over the contract, meet our counterparts on the Contractor side and do some touchy feely exercises designed to break the ice. First let me say that traveling by air really sucks these days. Even flying out on a wide body 767 it felt like a cattle car. The plane was overbooked and they were offering free round trip tickets to get people to give up their seats. I was in the middle seat of the middle three seats in the next to last row of the plane. Can we say long flight? Six hours worth due to head winds, Yuck. We stayed at a Hilton, which was very nice, but they charged $10 for Internet. In this day and age who charges for Internet? Even Super 8 doesn't do that. The meetings were held at one of the hotel meeting room so that was convenient. They fed us well for breakfast and lunch. Dinner we were on our own to explore for ourselves. Luckily there was a brew pub next door to the hotel so we didn't have to walk far. The meetings, on the whole, went well. Of course at the beginning of a new contract it's all roses and sunshine. Lets see how things are at this time next year. Our last meeting was on Thursday and my contingent was split with half of us taking the red eye home Thursday night and the rest flying home Friday. Frankly I hate wasting a whole day on an airplane so the red eye appeals to me. I can sleep on the plane and get into Dulles at 6:00 in the morning, drive home, take a nap and be ready and bright eye in time for lunch. Before we left LAX Thursday night, my boss and I did the touristy thing and had drinks out on the Santa Monica Pier as the sun set over the Pacific. As business trips go it was better than most, but in general business trips suck.

Currently I'm sitting in a condo on the beach at Cocoa Beach, Florida. Sounds like fun, right? You would be only half right. Being on the beach anywhere rocks anytime. But right now it's a freezing 35 degrees. In Florida. This is so not right. No walks on the beach today. It is suppose to slowly warm up over the next few days, but still. We'll have to indulge in indoor fun and games before all the kids show up. I'll explain what has brought us down to Florida in the next day or so. We decided to drive down as Daughter#2 and The Son In Law didn't want to fly and we decided to carpool. We picked them up in Richmond around 10:00 PM and started our trip. I drove the first leg. It snowed on and off all the way through North Carolina, which was a bit weird. Around Lumberton , NC I-95 was closed due to a bridge repair and we had to do a detour for about 10 miles. I made it to the Georgia state line before turning the driving over to The Son In Law. Part of the reason for driving down versus flying was so Daughter#2, who is working on an on line Masters Degree form the University of Florida, could stop in Gainesville and meet her Advisor and current Professor and attend a lecture and a lab., We pulled into Gainesville around 9:00 in the morning all of us pretty wiped out after driving all night. We had breakfast at the 43rd Street Deli and dropped Daughter#2 and The Son In Law on campus and headed off to the beach. The plan was for Daughter#2 and The Son In Law to hang on campus to attend the classes and then camp overnight at a nearby national forest before joining Ann and I at the beach. However as the forecast was calling for wind chills in the teens, they decided to ditch the camping idea and they drove down to beach last night. They are currently out hiking at a wildlife management area, Hippies.

Time to get cleaned up for the day. Hopefully I can find time to update a little more regularly. Till next time.

Post Inauguration Post

For someone whose sole day into the office is today, I have very little to write about. Granted I have been working from home, but still. Our city is still in the thralls of its inauguration bliss. All those people. All those smiles. All the cheering. The parade finishing in the dark. The ridiculousness that is Inaugural Balls and the endless chatter about what Michelle would wear. Do people really care that much? Those millions of people are making their way home although US Airways seems not to be helping that much with their massive screw up at National Airport. Their excuse? Too much luggage. Pretty weak.

I don't actually get into the city very much considering I live than 25 miles away and have a variety of options to get there - car, train and bus. Tomorrow, however I will be going downtown to see my Dermatologist for my annual exam. For those of us that are fair skinned and who use to let themselves routinely get sunburned, sometimes badly, on an annual basis growing up, such exams are a necessity. I have had a few suspicious looking spots surgically removed, but on the whole I've done pretty well. Daughter#1 had some removed right before the holidays so I know she's regretting those Sumner vacations at Cocoa Beach where she fried herself in the name of a good tan.

Next week I will be leaving the cold of the mid-Atlantic and heading to sunny California for a week. It's a business trip and most of my time will be spent cooped up in a conference room listening to endless Power Point presentations. Lets hope they have donuts.

Speaking of the cold, our temperatures have been averaging below normal for weeks now. Not only that, but we've received no snow. Zero. Zippy. Nada. Raleigh got 6 inches this week for heavens sake. Where is the justice? Our intrepid weatherman here showed a satellite picture recently and our area is surrounded by snow cover. North, West and South and we're in the middle - this big ugly brown spot. It will probably snow when I'm on the west coast and be melted by the time I return.

The soap opera that is The Son's condo continues. The "leak" complaint is back from his downstairs neighbor. I suppose the complaint is real enough, but the leak isn't on The Son's living level, rather it's somewhere between the floors. The way the Condo Association's by-laws are written, who is responsible for the leak is depending on where the leak is. Right now The Son is dealing with the neighbor and the Condo Association on the matter. His position and rightfully so I think, is until the downstairs neighbor opens up their ceiling to see where the leak is coming from, The Son is not responsible. He was suppose to talk to the Condo Association on how this has been handled in the past. If it's not one thing, it's another.

Trip to the Valley

On Saturday Ann and I packed up the car and our faux mini schnauzer, Rosie, and hit the road to visit Daughter#2 who lives in Harrisonburg nestled in the Shenandoah Valley. It's a beautiful drive heading west on I-66 and then south on I-81. The mountains are all around. The main reason for the trip was to transport Daughter's#2's bridesmaid dress for the upcoming marriage of her older sister, Daughter#1. We also returned a few odds and ends that she had left during her visit home for Christmas.

We arrived just before lunchtime so we sat down to chat and enjoy a cup of tea before we set off to Clementine's for lunch. I had a portobello mushroom sandwich with goat cheese and marinated roma tomatoes. Here Daughter#2 munches on her black bean burger. She is still recovering from gum surgery so her lunch choices were somewhat limited. I also enjoyed a bottle of two of some fine Belhaven Scottish Ale.

After lunch, we walked across the street to drop into Harrisonburg's tourist information center to locate the address of a winery that is nearby. The nicest old woman asked if we needed help and then talked our ears off for a good 15 minutes or so. In a good way though. She was full of information and ideas as our elders often are if we take the time to listen. The winery we were looking for was Crosskeys Vineyards. It's fairly new from what I understand and close to Harrisonburg. It took us less than 15 minutes to get there from downtown. Here Daughter#2 and I stand out front of their main building. The wine tasting room is to the right in this picture. It was a gorgeous place, but did I mention it was freezing out?

Same view but a little closer shot of Ann and Daughter#2 before we headed inside.

We didn't take the tour because of the temperature outside. We noticed when we pulled up that the tour included a trip outside to see the grape vines and it was just too cold. We did do the wine tasting and sampled five of their wines. We all thought their Chardonnay was excellent as well as the Cabernet Franc. Enough so that we decided to get stay and enjoy a glass or two as seen below.

After the wine tasting, we returned to Daughter#2's home and the dogs, who were ready for dinner and a run in the fenced yard. As we were getting ready to drive home, The Son In Law got home from his band practice/recording session. We missed having him along, but there are other weekends plus we have a trip planned with them in the near future.

For anyone who might be interested in seeing more about the aftermath of the Air Florida crash that I discussed in my past post, particularly the rescue part, check out Daughter#2's comment on how to view additional footage. There are four links but I only linked to the first.

On Vacation

I'm currently warming these old bones on the sands of Cocoa Beach. I had dragged along one of The Son's old laptops in order to stay connected to the Internet world. Unfortunately, either the laptop doesn't like dial up, which I don't think is the case, or AOL is just screwing us (more likely). So until our return to the real world of work and schedules, my ability to post is severely limited.

As far as we can remember, this is Ann and I's first vacation without the kids. That's a good thing/bad thing type of situation. My father's and his gf Lee's (whose condo we are currently occupying) hospitality has been second to none. I'm also visiting my sister and using her computer to post this. For now the sun has been warm and the beer cold and the seafood tasty. I couldn't ask for more. Well ok I could ask for Internet, but I don't want to seem greedy. I'll post again upon my return or when I can in the interim.

England or Bust

Daughter#2 and her Hubby are now in England having left a day late. Although US Airways didn't make it easy. Their 3:ooPM flight to Philly was two hours late taking off and their flight from Philly to Manchester left 90 minutes late. I'm sure they were totally worn out given all the delays.

It was nice having them spend the night although I know they were disappointed that their travel plans had been delayed. Saturday morning, I got up early and helped Ann walk our two dogs plus Gracie. Usually I'll take our two dogs (Winnie and Rosie) and Ann will walk Gracie. Gracie is much younger than our two old lady dogs so she covers about twice as much distance running back and forth and side to side while our two try to keep up. Daughter#2 did make us a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, which was about all the food we had in the house since we hadn't gone to the grocery store in a while. Since we had missed out on Daughter#2's Lebanese restaurant the evening before, we planned to go there for lunch. From the restaurant, the airport is about a mile away so it's convenient. Lunch was nice. The restaurant has a nice atmosphere and the food is tasty although I have to admit I'm not that adventuresome. I had lamp chops. After we finished lunch we dropped the pair off at National Airport around 2:00 and headed home. We use a flight tracker program to watch the progress of their flight. We kept waiting and waiting for their flight to get airborne and finally it did over two hours late. We tracked them for a bit before we had to head off to Saturday evening Mass. Upon our return from Mass, I started to watch the Radford vs. Liberty basketball game when The Son arrived. The Son has a Computer Science degree from Radford and we called him to straighten out our home wireless network. Our Comcast Gateway (combination cable modem/router) had gone bad so we went and swapped it for a new one on Friday. I got it up and running or at least for the computer that we hard wire into the Gateway. None of our other computers, using the wireless network, would connect though. I called Comcast tech support and got a woman who was totally clueless. I don't think she ever grasped what I was asking her for help on. After about 30 minutes it became obvious she was beyond being able to help us. Her final gasp was for us to call the Gateway vendor. I told her fine just to get off the phone. I placed a call to The Son who promised to come over to get us fixed up. I'm glad all our dollars for his education are producing some benefits. He did some preliminary checks and our thought was that the Gateway wasn't broadcasting a wireless signal since we didn't recognize any of the wireless networks that our computers were picking up. Speaking of which, they could pick up like five different networks, which is kind of crazy. Anyway a call to Comcast and he had the problem solved and all our computers on line in no time.

Sunday was a typical Sunday. Up early and walk the dogs. Get the laundry started, the earlier the better since I hate doing it. Just get it over with. Head out to the gym for the 11:00 erg class. I did 10,250 meters in a lot of low rate steady state rowing. Come home and shower. Log my meters. Ann and I then headed out to lunch where I had a steak and cheese sub. Then to Giant to grocery shop. Once we were home and everything was out away, we watched a movie. Yesterday it was Glory Road, the story of the 1966 NCAA basketball champion Texas Western (now Texas - El Paso) and their big upset of Kentucky and their Adolph Rupp. One of the players for Kentucky was Pat Riley interestingly enough. It was an enjoyable movie in typical Disney fashion. A movie that i would recommend and did to The Son. We also had The Son and his gf over for dinner, which was nice and a pay back for helping us get the computers up and running. After dinner The Son left and Ann and I watched the MD vs Clemson game. What a debacle. Up by 20 with 11 minutes left, Maryland managed to lose. That could cost them a trip to the tournament. They need a good run in the ACC tournament, I suspect.