Crankiness and Thankfulness

It wasn't that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  I got up on the same old side I always do.  I was actually in a good mood as I walked into work today because I had a good weekend, a decent amount of sleep last night, and the temperature was warm outside.  But for some reason after an hour or two at work I started to feel a case of the crankies moving in, and I'm not exactly sure why.  There were a few things to aggravate me at work today, but that's kind of like any day, and most of the time they don't bother me.    I tried not to let it overtake my day but was only partially successful.  I made the mistake of sending an e-mail to my manager while in this peeved state, which is always a bad idea.  Hopefully there isn't too much fallout tomorrow from that.  As a rule, any e-mail you write while in any kind of emotional state should always sit in your "draft" folder overnight before you send it.  Here's my cranky list.

1. Pointless mandates from management three levels above me.  Not only do I have to take a bunch of online lame training courses due by December 3rd, but he's also mandated a maintenance of redundant schedules for five different projects I'm working on with only a week to get them all up to date before he begins "audits".  Grrrrrrrr.
2. Because of the previously mentioned mandates, I will probably now spend another four hours per week updating schedules and getting less "real" work done.  *sigh*
3. Because of traveling for work, my only option to have my annual performance review with my manager is tomorrow morning, which only gives me about an hour to prepare for that tomorrow morning.
4. We lost all three games of volleyball tonight.
5. I missed my golden opportunity for one last 2010 kayak trip yesterday.  Tomorrow the cold winds of winter will have blown in.

That's enough sourness for the day.  Since this is the week of Thanksgiving, I'll try to improve my mood by listing a few things I'm thankful for.

1. Parents, family, and friends that love me.
2. Adults in my life who cared when I was a child and taught me how to read, sing, ice skate, think for myself, etc.
3. Health.
4. Freedom.
5. A good night's sleep with a fresh perspective in the morning.

OK peeps, I'm off to attempt to get the kayak stowed.

Deja Vu

I had a serious case of deja vu this weekend.  It all seemed a little familiar:  the drive, the radio station playing all Christmas music all the time already, hanging out with some other females near my age, and seeing my brother's family.  I went back and checked, and was almost a year to the day since I made a similar trip.  I could almost copy and paste the same bulleted list and be done with it.  A few of the differences were that I have three nieces now instead of two, and my parents were visiting my brother also.  Maybe I'll post a picture tomorrow, although I didn't take very many so it might be slim pickings there.

Raking Randomness

I think this is the first year that I've raked leaves in the pitch dark.  It wasn't totally pitch dark because I was wearing my head lamp, but I raked for at least an hour tonight after nightfall to finish the 2010 raking business.  The raking occurred after I lost three games of racquetball to some white-haired guy with a bum elbow.  The first half of the lawn that I raked on Saturday looks like it could use another raking, but I'm pretty sure it'll keep until spring.  People say I should make the raking more automated by using a mower, bagger, etc.  Even though it is somewhat of an inconvenience, the truth is, in some perverse way I enjoy it.  Usually it only takes 4 or 5 hours total (once a year), and I enjoy the chance to be outdoors and have time to think and mull over stuff and things.

This week seems like it's taking forever to pass by, but it also feels like it just started.  Now I must go to bed so I can get up early for work in order to make sure I have all my documentation completed for the project review that will happen on two or three of my projects tomorrow.  Take care now, buh bye then.

P.S.  I have a new niece this week.  I'm sure she's very sweet, and I hope to verify that in person soon.

Accomplishments

It only took ten weeks, but I finally won one racquetball game in the B+ league at the Y.  My opponent did have one of those heavy duty knee braces, but he's only in his 40's or 50's, so it does feel like somewhat of an accomplishment.

Plus, lodging and lift tickets for an upcoming snowboarding/ski trip are booked.  Woohoo!  I need to book transportation, and then I'm good to go.  Well, almost.  I need to go to the store and buy my 2010-2011 top-of-the-line snow bunny outfit and then I'll be totally ready to go.  Maybe I need to get my board waxed too.

Volleyball tonight.....that was some kind of an accomplishment, but not necessarily a good one.  Latron gatrons.

Home Made

Do I have a great sister or what?  Last week she sent me home made granola bars, and this week she sent fresh venison jerkey.  This reminds me that I never sent my home made gifts as promised.  Can I push that deadline out from a one-year deadline to a two-year one?

So.....hopefully the weather is good enough to rake leaves so I can check that task off the list.  Thoughts of snow have set in, so snowboarding scoping has begun.  And I really must get on the ball about getting that new phone.  If only I knew what I want.

Milestones

Today is a big day.  Not only is it Veterans Day (thanks to all the veterans for their sacrifices), but it is also the 99th anniversary of the company I work for being in business.  That's another way of saying it's the start of our 100th year in business.  To commemorate it, our CEO rang the closing bell at the NYSE while employees watched the live feed of it over the internet as they ate cookies and drank sparkling grape juice.  It was kind of cheesy, but when you think about it, it's also a very significant accomplishment.  That means the 100th year anniversary will be 11/11/11.  Cool, huh?

A while back I read an article on Yahoo! about how to tell if you're being too picky when dating.  I thought of it again today, so I dug it up.  I found it to be kind of interesting with the most relevant excerpt given below.  Overall, it seems to be a fairly good philosophy even though I've never really tried to implement it, so I can't speak from experience.

So if you’re in need of some too-picky therapy, think of it this way: you’re not lowering your standards; you’re expanding them. Here’s how:

1. Edit your checklist. You are allowed only three essential requirements and none of them can be physical attributes. For example: “Kind to others, intellectually curious, likes animals” — or if you’re not into pets, “wants children” (as far as you can tell on date #1).
2. Go on a second date. Anyone who passes your three-point checklist gets to date #2. Anyone.
3. Broaden your “type” but trust your gut. If after two dates you honestly can’t see it — e.g., you struggle for conversation, you clash on a moral principle — you may let it go without guilt. After all, you’ve got to make time for all the new possibilities you’ve now opened up for yourself.

Changin'

New things when I arrived at work yesterday:
1.  Some of the hallways have a new mint green color on the walls.  I like mint green, but it feels a little too much like a hospital or something.  Supposedly that color is supposed to be soothing.  A long, narrow hallway with 10 or 12 foot walls painted mint green all the way up with the door jambs still a medium blueish-gray color makes be kinda dizzy/sick when I walk down it.
2.  3 cube mates:  2 down, 1 to go.  As I mentioned a few months ago, one of my peers became my project leader.  When he got that job, he moved from our cube quad to the next quad over.  That left 3 of us.  Last week while I was gone one of my other cube mates was walked out the door when he took a job with a competitor.  I knew he was a bit disgruntled and was looking at different jobs internal to the company, but he was also a big talker sometimes, so I wasn't sure if he would ever do anything.  Apparently he did.  It sounded like he was going on to bigger and better things, so that's good for him.  Without him, the cube is really quiet and is starting to feel deserted.  Now we're down two engineers in our group with no reduction in the work load, so that's not so good.

Something still the same:
1.  The occasional strong tar smell that came in while they worked on the roof yesterday.

That's all I have for today.  Later.

Hodge Podge

This is going to be a bit mumbo-jumboed today.  First, I'll wrap up a few things from Florida that I missed.  See the picture below of the TV in the mirror?  We had those in our hotel rooms.  I'm not kidding when I tell you my fellow nerds were more impressed and excited about that than the 52" flat screen that was in their hotel room.  One lady said she enjoyed "The Price is Right" while getting ready for the day.

See below for a picture of some women engineers.

Whoops - I guess they are men.  They helped us out at the career fair booth.  There is a symbiotic relationship between NSBE and SWE.

Can you see our auras in the picture below?

Just to be clear, the career fair was inside a convention center, so I was able to keep my sun exposure to the bare minimum while I was there.  They had snow at my house while I was gone, but it melted before I returned home, so there is still hope of raking leaves this fall.

Also, to summarize the previous weekend:  my cousin Mowla and her husband Juff and family came to visit me.  We had lots of fun playing hand and foot, foosball, Twister, etc.  I didn't take many pictures, but here are a couple I could scrape up.  The exercise ball was a huge hit with the kids.  I am not complaining about company coming, but I was reminded again how five people can eat in one day what it would take me about a week to consume.  With six of us in the family growing up, I have no idea how mom used to be able to go 4 or 6 weeks without going to the big city to buy groceries.  And we only bought two heaping carts' worth when we went!

It was special to see a husband and wife make their choices at GM today.  They were so ready that they stood up at the beginning of the first verse of the hymn instead of waiting for the 4th verse like Matt had said to do.  They've been coming to GM for about a year and have had some rough lives in the past, so it was very encouraging to see them make a fresh start.

Operation: Mickey Mouse

I returned from the sunshine state today.  I was in Orlando for the annual SWE conference, primarily to help at the career fair booth with screening resumes.  It really felt like a whirlwind trip that I wasn't fully prepared to go on.  I booked my ticket right before I went on vacation to Scotland, so I was kind of in a hurry and not thinking clearly.  I had booked my ticket to arrive Wednesday evening and leave Saturday morning with full days of working activities on Thursday and Friday.  If I had put my thinking cap on, I would have stayed the rest of the weekend and gone to visit some friends who live in Florida.  Alas, my opportunity was lost.  Another reason I felt under-prepared was because of how busy my weeks and weekends have been for the last couple of weeks, and most of that busy-ness did not involve preparing for the SWE conference.

As I was mentioning, I was screening resumes.  I don't feel like a total expert yet, but I do feel like my level of proficiency at that task did increase this year.  There are some of the engineers from my company at the booth who seem to have a much warmer approach to resume screening than I do.  I'm still working on my polish because I feel like I might be a bit abrupt and make some of the candidates feel uncomfortable or portray a bad image of the company.  Some of the people I screened I felt kind of sorry for because when I gave them a couple simple technical electrical circuit questions, they barely had a clue on where to start, which is not very good.  It makes the grade on  your resume drop several notches.  You also see some resumes that need a lot of coaching that you wish you could give to them, but unfortunately you don't have the time because there are other people waiting in line to talk to you.  Anybody who has kids, please be sure you teach your kids the importance of having a good resume - and the knowledge and skills to back up what is listed on that resume.

I also gave a brief ten minute talk at the career fair booth about what I do at my company as an electrical engineer.  I got to highlight the project I worked on for the last two years, so that was kind of fun even though it was nerve-wracking.  Four out of five people in the audience were absolutely riveted!  The fifth lady was just using the chair as a convenient place to eat her lunch.

One interesting topic of conversation that came up one night at supper was how women engineers have an "aura".  True story - some of the other women engineers said they could identify at the airport and on their airline flight which women were on their way to the conference.  Maybe that's why I'm so unique - it's because of the two different auras I have.  At least I sure hope I have one other aura/spirit that's stronger than my woman engineer aura.

A couple other more light-hearted highlights:

• I stayed at the Peabody hotel - did you know they have a special ceremony twice a day for the ducks they put in the central fountain out front?  More on the Peabody later, maybe in a separate post.
• In one way the SWE conference is a bit like 'vention - you see many of the same professional people there every year, and it's good so see them fighting the good woman engineer fight still.
• I saw a fellow UNDer graduate there that I had several classes with.
• Some of the best cheesecake I've ever tasted at Maggiano's.
• Actually, all of the food at Maggiano's was awesome.  Beef tortellini, gnocchi, etc.  Ummmm......
• Filet Mignon and ribs one other night - who can complain about that?  The lunch and breakfast was sometimes a bit sparse though.
• Free stuff!  Pens, pencils, T-shirts, blankets, safety whistles, mugs, water bottles, lunch box, etc.  I barely fit it all in my suitcase.

That's all for now.....don't forget to set your clock back!

Fresh Bullets

I haven't done a bulleted list in a while, so maybe I'll try that.

• Today was one of two days in the year when my cube turns from an ice box into a sauna.  Quite often one of the days is in the fall when it's been cooler and then is suddenly much warmer outside one day.  The reverse usually happens in the spring.
• This was also the second day in the past week when I felt like I was a highway construction worker. They're fixing the roof at work, which apparently involves a whole lot of tar/asphalt, hammering, and drilling.  The resulting fumes then get sucked in by the air handling system (the same one that wasn't working so well today).
• Three cheers - there wasn't a line when I went to vote today at 7:15 AM.
• I turned my ankle a bit when I was warming up to play racquetball today.  The disappointing thing is that it used to be my "good" ankle.  I'll have to start doing some flamingo exercises to help strengthen my ankles now.
• Why is it necessary to reduce the swelling on an injury?  If it's your body's natural response to injury, why shouldn't you just let it do its thing?  Does swelling prevent or accelerate healing?
• News of bad health/luck seems to be the rage lately.  A friend here has a burst appendix, and Ananias misplaced her elbow.  I believe it has been located again.
• Fall seems like it's speeding by at lightning speeds.  August, September, and October all just flew by.  November is also shaping up to be a bit busy as well.  Will this train ever slow down?
• I should do a post for my guests this past weekend, but I haven't downloaded my pictures yet, so I'll hold off on that.
• When I have a time limit on making a purchase, I waffle a lot less and am much quicker at making a decision.  Especially if the deadline is today.
• I didn't mean for this post to be so gloomy, but that's kind of how it turned out.  I'm actually in a pretty good mood today despite feeling stressed because I have a lot of "people" time and a presentation for work coming up this week.
• Today was beautifully sunny - actually, much of the past week has been.

Farm out, peeps.

Snippet

The house isn't *tinging" - it has more of a dull shine, but I guess it'll have to be good enough since my guests arrive shortly.  I vacuumed up the major spider guts anyway.  I have a few groceries.  The bathrooms, towels, and sheets are clean.  What more do you need?  Hopefully nothing because that's all I got for today.  The next ten days are shaping up to be crazy busy.  Peace out, man.

Matt Matt Could Eat No Fat

Remember a couple weeks ago when I went to a wedding for a co-worker?  Here are a couple pictures from that.  I guess I've probably known him about 6 or 7 years.  Oddly enough, I first met him (and heard of him) in Mexico when we were both there for a project to make sure my circuit board and his harness were going to be built correctly and in a timely manner.  He's an outgoing guy in general and gave me a hard time right away - daring me to eat a pequin "straight up", which I did because I'm a sucker for a dare.  Don't believe what wikipedia says - they're really spicy when eaten by themselves.

After that, I'd hear from him occasionally when he was working on a harness down in Heavensville and had an electronics question or I'd have to call him if I had a harness question on a product I was working on.  He got tired of working contract down in IN and was interested in doing electronics design, so I put in a good word for him with my manager.  After several months of the wheels of hiring grinding slowly like they usually do, he was eventually hired into the group and moved up here.  About a year later his girlfriend followed when she graduated from college, and two years later they finally got married.

Both he and his girlfriend are nice and friendly.  They have me over a fair amount to help eat leftovers, play games, eat popcorn and watch a movie, watch the Super Bowl, go kayaking, etc.  I occasionally dog sit for them, and they say I'm the only person their dog Scooter goes crazy for when I stop by their house.  My meager hospitality attempts pale in comparison and I often feel guilty about mooching off them so much.  He's also the one who got me back into playing racquetball and playing in the racquetball league.  Needless to say he pretty much always beats me soundly, but I have improved enough playing him that I'm in the B+ league now and getting my butt kicked.  He's extremely competitive and a good athlete, so he keeps me humble when it comes to playing sports.

Sorry it wasn't a "top ten" list, but that's my tribute to them.  Here are couple pics from the wedding.
 

In the photo booth they had at the reception.  This was a good and fun idea - I would recommend this to other people who have pending wedding receptions.  The other people besides me are the groom and a couple of his friends from working in IN plus their significant others.

Janelle and Matt.  See that giant building in the background that looks like a school?  That's the church they were married in.  They had soccer fields and everything.

MelBMarvis and Matt

Rewards

This was my reward for working late both Thursday and Friday evening.  We had a couple clear days this past week, so you could see the full moon really well, and it was backlighting the clouds in a very awesome way.  This picture doesn't do it justice, but it's about the best I could get.

Driving to work on Friday morning, the sun hadn't quite come up yet and the full moon was just setting.  It was an awesome moonset - the moon was really red, really full, and looked really close.  If I had been thinking more clearly, I would have stopped by the beach and taken a picture of that too.

Remember how I talked about having difficulty cooking chicken?  Well, either I didn't cook it quite long enough or three days is too long to keep it as leftovers because it sure didn't agree with me yesterday afternoon when I ate it for lunch.  It was probably that - or it could have been the apple cider I drank in the morning that tasted like it might have been on the verge of fermenting.  Adding cranberry juice helps to disguise that taste.  Sometimes when I do things like that I feel like Grandma B.  She was always working on "using up" the worst of the lot before it spoiled instead of eating the freshest stuff and letting a few things go to waste.

Chicken and Stuff

Well, I don't have much to say today.  I don't really know why I'm posting other than the fact that I feel a compulsion to do so.  I may need to see a therapist about  my addiction to this therapy.

Racquetball was played today.  I'm not kidding when I say the guy had snow white hair, a knee brace, an elbow brace, and still beat me all three games.  Two of the games were close and I should have won one of them, but I didn't.  That makes me 0-15 in the league at the moment.  My stellar performance keeps me humble I guess.

I often struggle with cooking chicken.  I tend to overcook meat just to make sure it's done, but chicken doesn't like it when you do that.  The recipe today said it would only take 20 minutes for the breasts to cook, but it took more like 30, and I managed not to dry them out.  I can never remember if glass pans means it takes less or more time for stuff to cook.  The irony is that not only did they kill the chicken, but then I dipped it in egg before putting on the breading.  How weird is that to beat the baby and then soak the parent's meat in the baby's juices?  That could almost make a horror movie.  The saving grace is that it was an unfertilized egg.

Another thorny problem is cropping up at work.  I knew it kind of might because we could see it lurking, but now the issue is getting to the point where it needs to be addressed.  This is some of the most fun you can have in engineering because it's when you get to do "real" engineering work, but at the same time it's the least fun because it's also when managers start breathing down your neck.  Maybe I should wear turtlenecks for the next month to prevent a draft.  Latron.

Random Stuff and Things

To address the anonymous question, I've had the heat on for about four weeks now.  The house temp was 65 degrees, and during the day it was only getting into the 50's, so I broke down and turned the old furnace on.  My house is very shaded, so the furnace has to come on kind of early in the fall, but in the summer I can go for a long time without turning on the AC.  If I didn't sleep in the attic, I could probably go even longer.  This weekend I also switched to my long sleeve pajamas.  I'm still wearing shorts - we'll see how long it is before I have to transition to the long pants too.

Eva, I was on the Ireland/Scotland trip, but I went to Scotland again anyway.  I did not buy a kilt.  To get a "proper" one, you have to pay several hundred dollars.  They have a lot of fabric and are usually hand sewn.

Melanaway, I would like to apologize if I hurt your feelings a few weeks ago when I challenged the assumptions you had made about what I had or had not purchased.  I don't know if I offended you or not, but just in case I am extending this apology.  It was all in good fun, but when I read my reply later I realized it may not have come off that way.  I did in fact go slightly (but not a lot) wild when I made some purchases on that day, so your assumptions were correct.  Don't be afraid to comment again!  I'll try not to get all up in your face.

Does anyone out there know if there is a trick to doing squats?  Like when you're weight lifting?  I think the main thing is your knees aren't supposed to go past your toes, you're supposed to push through your heels, and you're supposed to feel like you're about to sit in a chair.  I try to do that, but I always feel like I'm way off balance and about to go over backwards.  It's supposed to give your quads a workout, but the muscles that always feel the burn for me are the muscles on the outsides of my legs from my hips to my thighs.  Any tips?  Latron.  Gots to go to bed.

Kayaking the Kzoo

Ananias had asked previously about some autumn kayak plans.  See the picture below.  The weather was beautiful with an awesome blue sky on Saturday - perfect for going kayaking and canoeing with some friends.  Afterward I went on my first motorcycle ride and ate some fire grilled cheese and a hobo pie to round off the evening.  The tree colors were a bit past their peak.  There were some good ones left every once in a while.  Not much else got done around the house, but who cares?  OK, my guests who are coming in a couple weeks might if the house is still a pig sty.

This Made Me Laugh

I know it's not the season, but these are amazing!

Scroll down to see the Amish Christmas lights....

You know very well that the Amish don't use electricity.....

It turns out last night I was just being a big whiny baby.  By the time I was done surfing the internet, the water pressure was back to normal and I got my warm shower anyway!

Still Not Impressed

You know that project that has "my" road all dug up?  Well, this evening it looks like they must have hit a water line, causing the water pressure at my house to be almost nil.  This is ironic because they're digging to install a new water line.  Not impressed.  But, I am thankful that 364 days out of the year I have very lovely running water (both hot and cold).  This is unlike certain miners in Chile who have gone without a shower for two months or my cousin Priscilla and other woikas in remote places who often don't get showers or get cold showers as a matter of course.

That's all I got here.  Except this video about an essential ingredient for this song about not fearing the reaper.  A guy at work told me about this one.

Southern IN

You know how you go to some big event like a wedding and hear the mechanical sounds of *click* and then *errrrrnnh  errrrrnnnhh errrrnnnh  errrrnrnnh  errrrrnnhhh* as somebody advances their film?  You know how you wonder who in this day and age is still using a non-digital camera?  Well, that non-digital person was me this past weekend.  I forgot my camera at home, so I had to buy one of those disposable ones to document the weekend.

I went to a wedding down in southern Indiana for one of my co-workers.  It was also a good opportunity to stop and see my former babysitter.  She didn't have many stories to tell on me because apparently herding four kids and cooking meals and cleaning for three weeks (twenty-four years ago) kind of went by in a blur.  It was nice to get reacquainted with her and meet her family.  Since I forgot to take any pictures of her or her family with my new disposable, go here to see an old picture.  I also got to go to the GM where Shawon Wostad spoke.

Plus, I brought my bike and did a very brief ride on some of the hills with the beautiful fall colors there.  It really is some pretty country.  I recommend that you see it.  I did feel a little like I was driving in New England with all the twists and turns in the road.  Sadly, it's difficult to get up any speed under those conditions.

Obviously this trip involved a lot of driving.  I listened to some podcasts and learned that cell phones are the biggest unscientific biological experiment ever conducted.  I think I had some other funny stuff to say, but it escapes me at the moment.  Latron, and maybe a picture or two once the film develops.  Or once I get something scanned in.

Land of Scots and Redcoats

In trying to summarize my trip to Scotland, I'm feeling uninspired.  I just can't figure out what angle to come at this from.  There were only two of us on the trip, so a lot of "people" pictures would get boring.  We saw a lot of scenery from the train or bus, which means we saw some awesome sights but we struggled to get good pictures of them because of the window reflections.  I'll just get started and see how it turns out.

Basic trip background:  I traveled with Sharin'.  She put up with me the whole trip - can you believe that?  We flew into London, went up to Scotland and toured around, then came back to England, saw a few things, and flew out of London.  This was the first overseas trip I took where I actually had to do a lot of my own planning.  That consumes a lot of time.  We had a train pass where we could travel for eight days on the train pretty much without restrictions.  We did not attempt to drive in the U.K.  Many pairs of holey socks and underwear were disposed of on the trip.  This helps to lighten your backpack load and leaves room for souvenirs.  Our journey began the late afternoon of Thursday September 2nd and ended late evening/early morning on Monday September 13th / Tuesday September 14th.

For those who like to skip the details, here are the top 10 best things about the trip, not necessarily in order of importance:

1. Fellowship with God's people.
2. Attempting to play the bagpipes (shockingly, it turns out I'm not a natural at them)
3. Bicycling in the highlands
4. Stonehenge
5. Roman Baths
6. Staying in a hostel  (maybe not the best thing, but definitely memorable)
7. Beating Sharin' at Rook on the train  (sometimes)
8. Fireworks in Edinburgh  (probably the best I've ever seen)
9. Oliver
10. Castles and Palaces

For you detail people, you can see a bunch more pictures if you e-mail me or leave a comment.  I'll send you the link.  Below is the more detailed narration and a few pictures.  I'm sure I haven't been able to include all the details, but that's OK because I still need a few tidbits of conversation starter if I actually see you in person.  I did decide to take the people picture approach because I found there were more people in my pictures than I had originally thought.

Thursday 9/2:  The 'rents of Sharin' dropped us off at the airport.  While waiting for our delayed flight, we booked our hotel for Friday night in Edinburgh.  Almost as soon as we clicked the "purchase" button, they came on the microphone to say our flight was essentially canceled due to mechanical plane problems.  Bummer.  We worked our magic with the customer service person on the phone and she managed to get us on a different airline routing through Chicago instead of Philadelphia, and we got to the U.K. only two hours later than originally scheduled.  There was some confusion about exactly what flight we were on and a tight connection in Chicago, but we made it to London Heathrow without incident, with our checked bags, and lacking some sleep.  Score!

I don't have any pictures from that day, so I'll take this opportunity to showcase one of my best Scotland scenery photos taken near Fort William.

Friday 9/3:  Leaving the airport, we figured out how to get into London on the train.  We arrived at Paddington station, and after asking a few people and wandering around we finally figured out how to get to King's Cross station for the train ride to Edinburgh on the express train.  Being Friday afternoon, we were lucky to find a couple seats that weren't reserved where we could sit for the duration of the trip.  Did you know they have "quiet zone" cars on the train?  Anyway, we arrived in Edinburgh.  We exited the train at the Waverley station and had to ask for directions to our hotel (more than once).  We finally found it after walking a mile or two.  It turns out we could have stayed on the train for one more stop and been a block or two from our hotel.  Supper that night for me was some delicious Aberdeen grown Angus fillet mignon.  The guide book said Aberdeen Angus is the best steak you can get there.  It sure was awfully delicious and tender, and it appears as though Scots like their black pepper, which I don't mind because I do too.

You can look at Sharin' in the foreground if you want, but try to focus on the Upper Crust bakery sign in the background.  Not only did they have great sandwiches in the regular daytime hours, but their breakfast egg and cheese sandwich was to die for.

Saturday 9/4:  The first order of business was to go to Starbucks to use the internet and reserve our hotel for that night.  Little did we know that there was a festival in Edinburgh that was ending that weekend, so most places were full up.  We reserved a place online, but the place didn't get our reservation.  Luckily they had a last-minute cancellation and were able to accommodate us.  The rest of the day we spent doing a self-guided walking tour of the city.  I had genuine fish and chips for lunch.  I like the breading most places in Scotland seemed to use for their food - it was one of those airy, lighter type of breadings.  We also took a guided tour of the Edinburgh castle, which was the birthplace of the King James who commissioned that one version of the Bible to be translated.  The world duathlon was going on, so we stopped to cheer a couple USA guys on to the finish.  We ate pizza that night.  It was typical European pizza where a 12" pizza usually only feeds one.  We didn't know that, so we ordered one for both of us and had dessert to supplement.  The pizza had really thin crust with sparse toppings and a minimal amount of cheese.  The "American" pizza there has pepperoni and cheese.  That seems ironic, doesn't it?  I always think of pepperoni as Italian.  We also got the meeting arrangements figured out that evening.  The shower?  It was very low water pressure, but at least the water in the shower was cold.

A guy at the Edinburgh castle.  That's not Oliver, in case you were wondering.

Me with the best bagpiper in Scotland (he's not Oliver either), according to Gavin, our castle tour guide.  He said the authentic Scottish instrument is the Celtic harp.

Sunday 9/5:  We got up, packed our backpacks, and started to walk to meeting for about half an hour until we decided we'd be late if we didn't take a taxi, so we hailed one to get to the flat where meeting was.  After meeting, a young girl (Rosie) was graciously pressed into service to take us to the train station.  However, we got sidetracked on the way and ended up eating lunch with her and some other young people at Julie's apartment.  We were sidetracked even further as we hung out there all afternoon, went with Julie to GM, and then came back to Edinburgh to watch the fireworks that marked the end of the festival.  We had planned to leave that day but decided to stay on at the invitation of Julie to do so.  On the walk back from the fireworks to Julie's apartment we stopped to get a "poke of chips" as our supper.  When we arrived back at the apartment/flat we of course had to end the evening with some tea.  I must mention that Sharin' loved the UK for the simple fact that she felt validated in her love of tea.  One very real thought I remember from that GM in paraphase was "if we've really tasted the sweetness of the way, how could we ever leave the way of God?"

Howard (not Oliver), Julie, Rosie, and yours truly.  Paul went with us to GM, but he's not shown here.

Monday 9/6:  After more tea and some cold cereal in the morning, we walked to the train station and embarked on the ride to Inverness.  On the way we saw some great scenery:  a bridge across the firth of Forth, lots of harvested grain fields, straw bales, lush green pastures, sheep, heather, and the edge of the highlands.  Before leaving Edinburgh we had arranged to stay the night with some strangers who lived an hour train ride north of Inverness.  After an hour or so wait in Inverness where we ate a late lunch and saw a small bit of the town, we got on the train again and headed north where the strangers picked us up and took us to their house.  They weren't all that strange since they were friends, and a couple people at the house were visiting sista woikas.  We had a lovely evening complete with fellowship, mutton broth vegetable soup, mutton, beets, potatoes, and attempting to play the bagpipes.  That was the best mutton I've ever tasted.  It didn't have that "muttony" flavor I usually associate with lamb.  We also spent a good amount of time trying to decide whether to try to go way far north in Scotland and see Smoo Cave.  Our hosts had never even heard of Smoo Cave before (we read about it in the guide book), and after looking at the meager transportation options in that sparsely populated area, we finally gave up our dreams of seeing puffins and Smoo Cave.  We decided to head south and west the next day instead.

Our supper hosts for the evening.  We spent the night at their daughter's house in the same yard.  He's John, not Oliver.

Emitting a few squawks and squeaks.

Tuesday 9/7:  We were up bright and early to catch the 7:00 AM train.  Luckily our host only lived a couple miles from the train station.  We arrived in Inverness again, where we caught a bus to Fort William.  The trip to Fort William included a good view of Loch Ness.  I kept my eyes peeled for Nessie, but I didn't see her.  As often happens in Fort William I'm told, it was raining.  Sharin' wasn't keen on bicycling in the rain, so our journey went something like this:  train - Mallaig - ferry - Isle of Skye, Armadale - bus - Broadford - bus - Portree.  In some cases, there was much waiting involved for various kinds of public transportation.  While waiting at one bus stop, we met a college student from Princeton who was on a nine month trip to Europe, northern Africa, and parts of the Middle East while writing his senior thesis related to his major in Latin.  When we arrived at Portree, we found all hotels and BandBs full up.  To the gills.  And, we had neglected to make any kind of reservation.  So, it was the hostel for us.  Thankfully they still had open beds.  As a college student I may have enjoyed a hostel more, but in my old age I found it mildly interesting.  If we look on the bright side, the shower and water pressure at the hostel were better than the one hotel we stayed at in Edinburgh.

The lady in the picture is some random passenger on the train.  In the background is the Glenfinnan Viaduct, which was made extra famous because it's the bridge shown in the Harry Potter movie(s) when they're on their way to Hogwarts.

Pipers and drummers in Portree.  I didn't catch their names, so I'm not sure if any were named Oliver.

Wednesday 9/8:  We left Portree bright and early, which means we barely saw anything of the town, but I was anxious to get back to Fort William to go bicycling.  Our trip to Fort William went something like this:  Portree - bus - Broadford - taxi - Armadale - ferry - Mallaig - bus - Fort William.  During the taxi ride we learned there is some great hiking on the Isle of Skye that we unfortunately didn't get to partake in.  Maybe next time.  In Fort William, we found the bike rental shop, got some bikes and directions/suggestions on where to ride, and we headed out to ride through Glen Nevis.  The entire day resulted in some of the best pictures of the trip.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and I was glad Sharin' had talked me out of biking in the rain the day before.  On the bike trip we even managed to see a waterfall and some highland cows up close.  We returned the bikes, picked up some food for the upcoming train ride, and then embarked on the train for the ride to Glasgow.  Along the way we got several games of makeshift Rook in using playing cards and modified Tennessee for Two rules.  We also saw some awesome scenery with lots of lochs, moors, a nice sunset, etc.  We arrived at Glasgow and headed to our hotel for the night - the Crowne Plaza.  It was a star or two above the accommodations from the previous night.

The biking trail and view - I'm talking about the mountains!

Now that's goofy!  He wouldn't tell me his name, but I don't think it was Oliver.

Thursday 9/9:  Guess what we did this day?  You guessed it......more train riding.  This time we headed south to England and reached southern England by around noon.  Our original plan was to go to Stratford-upon-Avon to see all the Shakespeare stuff.  After getting maybe halfway there we re-examined the train schedule and our plan and decided to skip seeing The Bard's dwelling place and headed straight to Bath instead.  Well, as straight as the train routes would let us anyway.  We had to change trains in Bristol, and that was interesting.  The train was very crowded from Bristol to Bath with business commuters and some young college aged kids who were heading to a festival wearing their muck boots with a large beer stash - prepared for rain if it came.  The train was full enough that I had to stand for that trip.  Anyway, we arrived at Bath.  Yes, it's called Bath because that's where people went to take a bath in the only hot springs in England.  You can't swim in the original Roman baths, so we went to the modern one and soaked in the spring water there.  It was a three-story building with a roof pool with a great view.  There were also steam rooms and a mineral pool.  The steam rooms were kind of cool (even though they were hot) because they had essential oils mixed with the steam.  One of the steam rooms had a Frankincense scent, which I don't think I had ever smelled before.  Supper was Thai food, and then we took a taxi a few miles out of Bath to a country inn type of place for the night.

Part of the spa roof pool.  You weren't supposed to take pictures, but we snuck one.  Ssshhhhh.  Don't tell them.

A fairly typical train station - can you find Sharin'?

Friday 9/10:  I think this was the only day I had a proper English breakfast complete with hot tomato halves, sausage, eggs, white grapefruit, baked beans, mushrooms, tea, and some other stuff I can't remember.  Several other days for breakfast I had to rely on the stash of granola bars I had in my backpack.  My stash of granola bars and snacks was pretty deep.  Sharin' was amazed that I still had snack supplies right up to the end of the trip.  I did supplement my own snack stash with snacks I bought at the stores there.  Enough about food;  we left the inn and went back to Bath to tour the Roman bath ruins.  It was very interesting with lots of engineering feats to admire.  I would give it a "like" status.  You'll never believe it, but after the baths we got on the train again.  We traveled to Salisbury.  From there we took a tour bus ten miles or so out of town to Stonehenge.  That gets a "like" in my book too.  They don't know why it as built, but it was built thousands of years ago.  We're talking 3000 B.C.  Some of the stones weigh almost 55 tons.  Yet more things for this engineer to gaze upon.  Our entrance fee to Stonehenge included a tour of the original town site of Salisbury called Old Sarum.  After seeing all that goodness, we took the train into London, figured out the subway system, and managed to get to the hotel where we had a reservation for the rest of our stay in London.

The person of interest is that lady in the background dressed in a "period" costume from the era when the Romans occupied England.  At least I think that's when it's from.

Some girl who looked vaguely familiar at Stonehenge.

Saturday 9/11:  We consulted with the hotel concierge and discussed the things we would most like to see while in London.  The result was that we went to Buckingham Palace first.  In August and September, the palace is open to the public (for a fee of course), so we got to tour the state rooms and gardens of Buckingham Palace.  This fulfilled Sharin's request to see a palace while in the U.K.  From there, we headed to the Covent Garden subway stop.  We walked from there to one of the theaters where we saw the musical "Oliver" in a matinee performance.  How fitting is that?  Get it?  Charles Dickens, Oliver, London?  After that, we ate supper, window shopped a bit, and navigated the public transportation back to the hotel.

Please sir, I want some more - Oliver and me!

Sunday 9/12:  We left the hotel at 8:00 because we weren't sure exactly how long it would take us to get to the "tube" station where some other strangers were going to pick us up to go to meeting.  It ended up taking us a little more than an hour and a half.  We found out later that if we had done things right it should have only taken half an hour.  But, the good news was we made it.  Our taxi service so kindly invited us to lunch and offered to give us a ride to GM.  It was an enjoyable afternoon.  We learned about dry English humor and Armenia.  There was also a 92 year old lady who was there for lunch who was originally from Germany during World War II.  She had some very interesting stories from that era.  I don't have enough space to go into all of it here, but that lady definitely had some courage.  The snafus in our navigation of public transportation resulted in me getting a bit of a meager supper that night.

Our taxi service.  Megan and Deb O. from the cowboy state were in their guest book!

Monday 9/13:  The 26 waking hour day.  We left the hotel at 6:00 AM I think it was.  Travel went something like this:  Hotel - bus - underground/tube/subway - train - Gatwick airport - plane - Charleston, NC airport - 5 hours of waiting - plane - MKE airport - car - home.  The 'rents of Sharin' were very nice to bring my car directly to the airport so I could get home as soon as possible.  I arrived home very early on Tuesday morning (1:30 AM) in need of a vacation from my vacation.

For lack of any pictures from this day, here's one from the previous day of the German/English lady.

That's it folks.  If you see Sharin', don't take all her fun away - ask her about the trip too.  She can maybe tell some boring stories about me.

Don't Be Afraid of the Many Questions

I really need a new cell phone, but the problem is I don't know what I want.  Currently I have what one might call the "basic" package.  I have the "free" cell phone from five years ago when I started my contract.  I have 500 minutes, I pay by the text message, and of course I don't have any other kind of data plan.  Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on what would make sense?

If you have a data plan, how many times have you made use of that feature in the last three days?  In what manner did you use it?  If you used it to check e-mail, which e-mail did you check - work or personal?  If work, what kind of business/job do you have?  Do you have regular access to e-mail during the day at work (not through your phone)?  Could you do without your data plan?  What is your thought on the fact that most smart phone are bigger than your basic phone - how do you deal with that?  At what times do you find your smart phone most beneficial?  Would it make just as much sense to get something like an iTouch and then have the basic cell phone plan?

Say I came into some money recently.  It's not enough by any means to buy a car, but I could buy some nice electronics.  It's one of those things where you're supposed to spend it to "treat yourself" - kind of like birthday money.  Any thoughts on what to spend it on?  A new laptop?  Camera?  Cell phone?  iTouch?  Kayak accessories?  Snowboard and gear for said activity?  A 10-hour massage?  Clothes? (yeah, right)  Underwear? (Now that would be a lot of pairs there - one for every day of the year.)    Shoes?  I know....toilet paper!

Acoustic Rimes

I think I might be getting old.  This weekend I saw Leann Rimes live.  It was an acoustic concert at the community college's theater.  It was awesome.  The reason I think I'm getting old is because I almost prefer that venue over the overly loud, rocking concerts I sometimes go to.  It's nice not to wish you had brought your earplugs.  If you're familiar with Leann Rimes at all, whether you love her or hate her I think you'd have to admit she has a great voice.  An acoustic concert is a great way to showcase that voice because it doesn't get drowned out by all the other instruments.  Brother J would have loved this concert because they played steel guitar in every song.  The only other instruments besides her voice were a steel guitar, bass guitar, and a lead guitar.

My favorite song of hers is probably "Something's Got To Give".  The acoustic version of it was still good, but that might have been one song that would have benefited from just a tiny amount of drums and electric guitar.  This concert was one that made me a bigger fan.  Sometimes you go to concerts and afterward you wish you wouldn't have gone because they sounded worse in concert than on the radio, but that wasn't the case this time.  I learned by observation that when you hit the high notes, you need to hold the microphone farther away and slightly to the side of your mouth.  I'm guessing otherwise the sound is too piercing.  The last song she did was a cover of the song "He Stopped Loving Her Today".  Now that was outstanding.  One of her new albums coming out has a song on it called "Crazy Women" - I would recommend listening to it when you get the chance.

That's enough gushing about that.  Later - have a nice week.

Wait, I forgot to tell you about playing croquet today.  After potluck lunch after UM, we went out to the backyard and played croquet on the finely manicured lawn specially made for that purpose.  The wickets weren't those flimsy ones everybody used as a kid.  They were major league, sturdy ones, and the mallets were 2 or 3 times as big as those ones you used as a kid.  The really professional ones had a square shape at the end instead of a circular one.  I think it would be considered a gentleman's game, possibly because you can easily play it in your Sunday best.  We looked almost as professional as these guys.  Who knew croquet was such a riveting sport?

Follower

For supper tonight (and several suppers in the future) I made pizza noodle casserole out of the recipe book my parents gave me a few years back.  I'd never made it before, and I was surprised to note that the recipe did not call for any tomato based products.  But, I tried to trust the recipe and followed the instructions to the letter.  I put in only one cup of water even though it didn't seem like enough in my mind.  Well, almost to the letter.  I did add some black olives and parsley, but that only makes sense if you're talking about something with pizza in the name of it.  It turned out OK actually.  A little too heavy on the garlic and salt, but otherwise pretty good.  Next time I might go ahead and add one very small can of tomato sauce to give it a little more flavor.

Not Impressed

As mentioned, getting to my house is a bit of a challenge right now.  See the pictures below.  Look at the long skinny one up close for my editorials.

 

Today was garbage pick-up day, and I wasn't sure they'd make it into the neighborhood to get the trash, but they managed.  So, I didn't get to call into the township and be irate and complain about how they didn't pick up my rubbish because of the mess they had made of my road and how I wanted a discount on my trash bill.  Maybe next time.

Muggles and BIL-Dan, they took the tower down because it had fallen into disrepair and wasn't being used.  The last straw was that they needed to make the view prettier for all the rich tourists coming in who play golf on the new course and buy fancy houses near there.  You know, people like you.

I had a different massage therapist today.  Her name was Kim.  She was a bit chatty, but not too bad.  Her technique was only so-so.  I think I prefer Tina or Holly in terms of technique.  Kim really slathered on the massage lotion stuff.

Demolition and Drippings

Here are a couple different videos of the excitement at work today.  I mean, the excitement outside the window at work today.  The second video is a bunch of my co-workers being productive.  :-)  I arrived at work either right after or right before this happened, but I didn't know what was happening so I didn't walk over to gawk.  Some of the windows across the large area where my cubicle is at work do have a good view.  The one video where they say it came down seamlessly isn't exactly true.  According to one guy at work, the tower actually fell a little bit prematurely when they accidentally cut a cross brace that still had tension on it.  I don't know how he found that out, but that's what he said.

While we're speaking of construction, I must tell you that the road to my house is nearly impassable.  I can still make it to my driveway, but today I had to do a five point turn to get into the tiny temporary gravel bridge they made over the giant cavern that used to be half the road to my house.  Maybe I'll post a picture tomorrow if I take a good one.

Totally unrelated, I forgot to mention about someone at 'vention in ND was mentioning how shy they were as a kid and how it was probably perceived as being stuck up.  This really surprised me because I would not have said that this person was shy at all, and I only grew up about 45 miles from her.  When you're painfully shy yourself, maybe you don't realize that lots of other people are too.

I'm not sure how I feel about spicy lettuce.  I like that it adds a different flavor to the salad, but at the same time I feel like the spiciness might linger on my breath, and I'm not sure I'm psychologically prepared for my salad to be spicy in that way.  Speaking of that, as I was listening to Pandora the other day I heard a hilarious advertisement by zappos.  It was a customer service call where the customer was calling and wanting to return an item because it had arrived so quickly.  She wasn't mentally prepared for the arrival of the package, so she had left it in the garage.  It's way better when you hear it in person.  It vaguely reminded me of someone.....I just can't put my finger on who it is though....

Saturday Singings

That felt good.  I went to bed early on Friday, slept a good ten hours, and didn't have anything scheduled to do today.  All I did was eat, do some yard work, and do stuff on the computer.  I haven't had one of those kind of Saturdays in I can't remember how long.  I think it's been at least eight weeks, maybe more.

Yesterday I went and shot guns as part of team building.  That's a fun thing to do once every couple years.  I shot a bunch of handguns - a .22 (with and without a scope), 38 special revolver, 9mm Glock, and a Smith and Wesson .45.

My appetite is slowly returning.  The last day or so I've finally felt a couple very small hunger pangs.  The sinus stuffiness if finally receding too.

I fear I may have to break down and turn on the furnace tomorrow.  I think I can make it through tonight, but tomorrow isn't projected to be any warmer, and most of the week is looking the same.  In my old age I'm realizing it's not worth the bragging rights or saving a few pennies.  It's better to be comfortable and not get sick provided I can afford it of course.

Racquetball league is in session again.  I decided to move up one skill level in the leagues, so I'm back to being beat by geriatrics again.  At least they have to try a little harder to beat me now.

Too Hasty

A couple more quick comments even though this will be the second post today:

First, I noticed that today is a full moon and it's also the fall equinox/first day of fall, whatever you want to call it.  I can't remember if the fall equinox and first day of fall are always the same day or not - it seems like sometimes they're offset by a day.  Anyway, my real question is:  do the full moon and the equinox thing always coincide, or is this a special case?  I'm thinking they probably don't because one thing is on the lunar cycle and the other is on a solar cycle.  That's just a theory though.  I haven't done any research.

To Melanaway:  Who says I was buying any underwear?  Maybe I was just looking.  And who says I didn't already go wild and crazy?  ;-)  After deep contemplation today at work while in the bathroom, I decided that overall I'm not totally opposed to patterns, etc. because I did love my ice cream cone underwear when I was five.  But, that was definite shapes, not random, uneven stripes or frilly flowers.  If anybody finds adult cartoon underwear in a store, let me know.  I would like to see the selection of superheroes that is available to adults.  Thanks.  Bye.  Best Regards.

Just Cause.....

.....this makes me laugh.

Penny Pinching

People are funny creatures, aren't they?  A guy in my cube was a case in point today.  For all intents and purposes, this guy lives with his wife and son less than a mile from where we work.  But, his official residence is Texas.  His parents live there, he files his taxes there, and his driver's license and license plate are from Texas.  From what he says, this saves him money in car insurance, taxes, etc.  He's done this routine for years, and it's not just this state he doesn't like - he thumbed his nose at Iowa when he lived there.

The second part of this story is that our work department outing at work is this Friday.  One of the activity options is to go fishing with some of your co-workers.  To go fishing, you must have a fishing license.  If you are a resident of this state, you can get a really cheap fishing license for like a dollar.  If you are not an official resident, you must pay $7 for the privilege to fish for one day.  Not a big deal, right?  I mean, he could skip lunch one day to pay for it if he really had to.  As an added bonus, the department at work is paying for lunch on Friday.

However, this guy probably spent almost an hour at work today trying to figure out how to get around the system.  He talked to several people to get their opinions on whether he should try to find a way around the system or if he HAD to pay the $7.  He was even talking about not fishing because the steep fishing license price was getting in the way.  I know maybe he was being stubborn because of the principal of the thing, but come on.....you're not paying your income tax to the state, why should you expect the benefits that come with paying your state income tax?  He wasn't getting any sympathy from anyone else in the office either.  You would think with all that money he's saving on insurance and taxes that he could spring for a seven dollar fishing license.  I'm a penny pincher myself, but this is getting ridiculous.

On a different topic, did you know it's surprisingly difficult to find a large pack of plain jane underwear?  You know, some plain white Fruit-of-the-Looms or Hanes.  Maybe my Target was really picked over.  I'm sure I could have bought a pack of about 50 at Sam's Club if I had checked there, but I don't have a membership.  Companies insist on putting fancy patterns and stripes and stuff on a lot of their underwear.  I don't mind stuff like that going on with my socks, but I'm not sure if I like that in underwear or not.  I'll have to contemplate that one for a while.  How did I not know of this underwear trend before?  Is it because it's been a nearly unmentionable amount of time since I went to buy any of those unmentionables?

With that gem, I'm outta here.

Home again, home again, jiggity jog

I'm back home again for the very near future.  I was in ND for 'vention.  Of course I could never regret going back for that, but I wasn't really a fan of the gastroenteritis that reached nearly pandemic proportions there.  I fell victim to it on Sunday morning, so I missed all of Sunday.  Convention didn't really feel complete without sitting in that last meeting.  The gastroenteritis was violent, but at least it was short-lived.  I haven't felt hungry at any point over the last two days, so I'm hoping by tomorrow my appetite will have returned.  I didn't go in there, but rumor has it that there were lots of people in the bunks laying there with buckets next to their bed.  My sick bay was a bit nicer - it almost felt like home.  Wait, it was home - at least the home of my parents.  The other excitement was a guy passing out during prayer one meeting and being carried out on a stretcher to the ambulance.  He turned out to be OK.  It was mostly a case a dehydration.

The flights were fine.  The stroganoff was excellent.  We didn't sit close enough to the woikas to observe any testimonial behavior.  There was one complete Ananias fake-out.  One brother woika thought Ananias was forgetful, but it turned out it was just me instead.  They've had enough rain in ND that there's a blue heron hanging out in my parents' back yard, which is unusual for that part of the country.  While I was exiting one of the planes today, there was a young kid riding piggyback on his dad's rolling suitcase.  That's an interesting way to make good time walking through the airport.

If you've never flown with stuffy sinuses, I would not recommend beginning the practice of flying with stuffy sinuses.  I didn't even think my sinuses were plugged that badly today, but losing altitude in the plane sure told me a different story.  If I were trying to imagine what the pain of an aneurysm or a stroke might feel like, that's what I would imagine.  Actually, I don't even know if there is pain associated with an aneurysm.  It was a pain so intense and sharp in my brain that it brought tears to my eyes and made me feel like I might pass out.  One ear still hasn't fully "popped" like it should.

Back From UK

Whewfda!  I'm back!  I took a little jaunt over to the Scotland/England area.  It was a very nice vacation.  It wasn't a relaxing-on-the-beach type of vacation, but it was still excellent.  As you may have noticed, I don't really know how to take many of those relaxing vacations.  I traveled with my friend Sharin', and luckily we didn't come to fisticuffs or get into any cat fights after ten days of lots of togetherness.  I don't want to spoil my "real" summary, so I'll let this suffice as a summary for now.  It may take a week or two for me to fully summarize, bulletize, and organize my thoughts and pictures enough to do the official post.

While you wait for that, check out this airline related link and this interesting rental car concept.  For the airplane one, I don't think it would be all that bad.  Three hours in that saddle might get a bit long, but an hour for a short commuter flight would be fine.  I don't like the current airplane seats anyway - they don't have enough lumbar support and they make your head tilt too far forward.  On the car thing, a guy at work has had a brainchild of a similar concept, but more related to it being a co-op instead of a for-profit business.

Fall sure arrived here while I was gone.  It's getting downright chilly at night now.  Plus, the sun sets by like 8:00 in the evening now.

To answer a few questions from previous posts:

1. Eva, I think part of the egg salad secret is to put all the eggs and meat (bacon, sausage, whatever they had at breakfast) through the meat grinder attachment of a KitchenAid stand mixer.  It gives it an excellent texture.  I haven't observed the whole process, so I don't know if there are other key ingredients or actions that I have missed.
2. This was the holey socks and underwear trip.  It's a great method to lighten your suitcase load and make way for any souvenirs you might want to take back.  Now I guess I'll have to go and shop for new ones.
3. Esther, I did see Dex and Jan at C-ville.  I only saw them in passing though.
4. Eva, I didn't see your e-mail about the Scottish drink IRN BRU until after I was home, but I did happen to taste some IRN BRU while I was in Scotland.  It's an orange fizzy "pop" that has an aftertaste kind of like Bazooka bubble gum.  Apparently it's very popular there, and they tried to sell it in the U.S., but rumor has it that they wouldn't reveal a couple of their secret ingredients, so the FDA won't let them in.  That part about the FDA is hearsay from a great Scottish story-teller, so you may want to verify that "fact" using another method too.

Tidbits

• There's a guy at work who is from somewhere down south.  In a new weekly project meeting invitation that he sent out this week, this is what it said:  "This entire program schedule is tighter than a 5th string on a 3 inch banjo and it would be easy to lose track of something."  He was stating the reason why a weekly meeting was needed.  He has all kinds of those expressions.  I'll have to try to keep my ears open for more.
• I'm sorting through the chair-closet picking out my holey underwear and socks, and you know what that means....
• To address Esther:  No, I won't be at Alma this weekend.  See previous bullet.....
• Later peeps - I got bigger fish to fry.