Christmas Recap

Two of the six states I claimed to travel to at the end of last year / beginning of this year were ND and MN.  I went there for Christmas.  All my immediate family was home except Ananias.  We spent part of the time at the house of BIL-Dan and Muggles, and we spent part of the time at Mom and Pop's.  Here are the main highlights:

1. There is a parking lot shuttle guy who makes it a point to remember customers and their cars.  He remarked to me as I got on the bus how I've had the same car for a long time.  I think that's really cool how he finds a challenge in his day, but it's also slightly creepy.
2. On the way to the airport I heard the song "That Don't Sound Like You."  The song says a girl sounded like truck tires on a gravel road and doing whatever you wanted whenever you wanted.  It got me wondering.  What do I sound like?  I would think you need to define that before you can know if that don't sound like you.  And what do you think you sound like?
3. Saw Cousin Rick at the airport - we were both waiting for our parents to pick us up.
4. Helped teach my two oldest nieces how to ski.  Pizza! French fries!
5. Doing T25 with Muggles.  We did two 25-minute sessions in a row, and then later that evening I played basketball at the gym.  Uffda.  I was sore from that.
6. Many of the conversations between guys where I live now might revolve around hunting or cars.  I was amused when I went back home that young guys in their teens and twenties were talking about buying bulls, AI, and making money by selling "straws" from a bull.  I was amused and enjoyed it.
7. We were also reminded of a lesson one of my cousins was given 30 or 40 years ago when he was a kid:  "Little farm boys who don't say their prayers become veterinarians."  BIL-Dan, do you have any comments?
8. Making lefse with the nieces.
9. Taking a nice hour-long walk in the sun and 2 degree F temperatures on Sunday afternoon.
10. It probably wasn't the craziest airline story for getting home, but it's up near the top.  I check in online on Sunday night for my early morning flight on Monday, and everything is OK.  Monday as we're driving to the airport I check on my flight status, and my itinerary now says I'm leaving at 6:00 PM that day.  With an overnight layover in Chicago.  What?!?  So we go to the airport anyway, and I talk to the people at the counter and show them my e-mail about how United changed my flight at 1:00 AM that morning.  I ask why and if the flight to Chicago is delayed or not because I could just rent a car in Chicago rather than sitting in ND.  She goes back to talk to her manager, and they end up putting me on a Delta flight through Minneapolis instead.  First class on both flights.  I got to my home airport only 1 hour later than planned.  The drive home was not nice at all due to weather, but I survived.

I guess that's it - my bullet points are feeling uninspired, so here are a lot of pictures.

This amused me.

It's a santafier - a pacifier with a Santa mustache.

The new doll house Pops bought from a customer was a big hit.

Pre-Christmas dinner serenade.

Prime rib.  It's what's for Christmas dinner.

Christmas dinner - south end of the table.

Christmas dinner - north end of the table.  Note the serious prime rib inspection going on in the background.

More of the north end.  I like how I caught the one kid looking like she's singing.

Yes, the chair spins.  And it spent a lot of time spinning.  One overheard comment:  "The chair is going to throw up!"  Also, snowsuits are appropriate indoor garb.

The neighbors have a really classy Christmas light display.

 

I like the facial expressions on this one.

Having fun making lefse.

Turning the lefse is serious business.

 

Look at those baby blues!

 

The sink.....another source of entertainment when the spinning chair isn't available.

The Auntie Mel jungle gym.

Pops and Mom with their grand kids.

Awwww......sweet!

The sink is like a magnet!

Me with all my nieces.

When the spinning chair, doll house, and sink don't cut it, try stacking cups.  And yes, the yard stick was used to knock them over.

 

Or go outside and play.

Brudda Jeddles' girls.

 

Celebrating her birthday a couple weeks early.  She was SUPER excited.

Opening presents......everybody wants to help.

Hey summer, wanna play me?

North Dakota landscape.

More of it.

 

Yes, sometimes I get this way.

 That's quite enough I think!

The New Year

Part of the 6 states I mentioned in a post a couple weeks ago was the state of Illinois (and Indiana in the driving route).  My friend KarmX kindly invited me to hang out with her for New Years when I explained I was a little bit at loose ends, so I drove to central Illinois on New Years Eve (after working that day).

My work desk all clean and ready for 2016.  It's already much messier after only one month!

We enjoyed playing some silly games like trying to throw and catch cotton balls, giant dutch blitz, picking up M&Ms with a straw, etc.  I even got to play some 4-on-4 basketball and lightning/knockout, so that was fun.  The next day I hung out with KarmX and her extended family.  Mostly we spent the day playing games including the game Splendor, which was a new game for me.  I didn't know very many people when I arrived, but by the time I left I felt like I knew a lot of those people.

On the way home I stopped at the Museum of Science and Industry in downtown Chicago.  My main purpose in going was to see the robot exhibit they had, but I also thoroughly enjoyed other parts of the museum.  I spent more than an hour in the weather exhibit, and I also toured the inside of the U505 submarine they have on exhibit.  If you ever go to the museum, I recommend taking the U505 tour.  It was as good or maybe even better than the robot exhibit.  I was kind of bummed I didn't find anyone else to go with me to the museum.  There was a bright side though:  I could spend as much time reading the signs and contemplating the science and industry in the museum as I wanted.  So that's exactly what I did.

German U-505 submarine captured by the U.S. during WWII.

Look closely at this picture.  See the bladder looking thing? with a scuba type mouthpiece?  See the googles and nose plug?  Check them out, and then read the detailed explanation in the next picture.  Very fascinating stuff.

Explanation of WWII German "scuba" gear.

Giant dials on the U-505.

U-505 torpedo room and bunks.  They described the conditions on the submarine during the tour, and they sounded pretty miserable.  No showers.  In the submarine for months on end.  Very warm temperatures.  "Hot bunking", which means someone else sleeps in your bunk when you're up and awake.  The upside is they didn't have to wear their uniform because it was so hot, and they were allowed to listen to "contraband" French music.

One of those Da Vinci robots that doctors use to do surgeries.

Robot speak.  Speaking of robots, January is the month the robotics season starts....

Oddly enough, while I was at the museum I ran into another engineer from my group at work.  He was there with his sister and her family.  It's a small world.  All for now.  More later on other states visited.  Happy 2016!

Business and Pleasure in Vegas

About a week and a half ago I "had" to go to Las Vegas to the Consumer Electronics Show. Work sent me.  That was 3 full days of walking around looking at booths on the convention floor.  And meeting vendors and stuff.  Then Uncle Bex flew in on Friday night and the party started.  Cuz Mowla also happened to be in town by coincidence on Sunday, so we saw her for a bit too.  I have lots of pictures, so I'll keep the words short.  Flat MelBMarvis was on the trip, but I didn't let her out of the hotel room because I forgot to bring her along.  The pictures can be my "bullet points."

On the way there, I had 5 hours of flight delays.  Enough to walk around and see all the gates at Midway airport.  And to find (and lightly use) the yoga room there.  It's in Concourse C if you want to go use it.  The delays were due to fog in Vegas and not snow in Chicago if you can believe that.  I made it to my hotel room by 12:30 AM Vegas time, which is 3:30 AM in my home time zone.  Uff-da.

Demos of virtual reality shoot-em-up video games.  You can get your exercise that way too.

Nice slogan.  Hear the spit hit the mic.

I believe they were trying to demonstrate you could take their mini projector anywhere, but they should have thought it through a little bit.  Because everybody goes camping to get in touch with the movies they can watch at home.

iFIT brought some Cirque de Soleil to CES. I was too slow on getting my camera out, but that one lady used that sheet hanging from the ceiling to do some fancy gymnastic moves.

The smart pillbox.  Sorta.  It sends notifications if someone doesn't take their medicine on time.  It can do some basic tracking to make sure you took the right pills.  I was slightly disappointed though.  I would have thought it would actually keep you locked out of your pills until the approved time.  But maybe there would be some failure modes that would need to be thought about if you did that.  What if someone dropped a pill and it rolled under the stove?  How do they get a replacement?

Nice view of the hotel work paid for me to stay at during the week.

One of the best shows to see on the Strip.  It's free, and I got to see it twice.

On Saturday Bex and I went to the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.  I would highly recommend it.  I think these pictures will tell you why.  Luckily we narrowly avoided a sunburn.

Petroglyphs from Native Americans.  I think this one says "Running Bear hearts White Dove" and "Galloping Deer was here".

Bex in an arch.

Finding shade to rest for the day until night falls and I can walk without getting super dehydrated.  Just like in all the Louis L'Amour novels.

Cliff Hanger.  ;-)

 

They charge $1 to use the bathroom there (but only if you poop).  One place had a sign that said they  charged $5.  That's a lot!

 

Cool geological formations.

Part of the hike to/from the Fire Wave Rock.

A cool "spine" in the rock.  Note how the rock is a lighter color along the spine.

Fire Wave Rock.

Silica dome and some very cool sandstone formations.  The white rocks are almost pure silica.  The reddish ones have iron in the silica.

Sunday afternoon and Monday morning we went to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area to do some hiking.  We also went to morning meeting with Mowla and her sisters-in-law.  It's always encouraging to go to a meeting that isn't your "normal" one and have the spirit speak to you.

Cuz Mowla and Mex

Mex and Bex

Don't do it......

Ananias style picture of Red Rock Canyon area and the canyon mouth we hiked toward.

Bex captioned this "Camel in the Desert."  If you do yoga, you'll get that joke.

A couple cool looking rock stacks we saw on Monday morning.

 On our Monday hike I scared up a jackrabbit, and Bex scared up a coyote.  I kind of got a bit off track on the way back to the car, so Bex beat me there and had time to chat with Robert while she waited for me.  When I got back into Midway, winter was in full force.  It was a miserable drive home through the icy and snowy roads, and I made it home at 1:30 AM.  That's better than 3:30 AM I suppose, but it's still brutal when you're supposed to be at work at 8:00 AM.

Quick Update

It seems like it's been forever since I posted.  And maybe 3 weeks is forever.  It sure feels like I did a lot - maybe because I did.  I've been in six states in the last 3 weeks.  That feels like enough for a while.

Until I have more time to type, here are a couple things from last week.

This totally cracked me up, especially the instructions on how to use it.

I saw booths for this several times.  Is this quackery, or does this work?  Or a little bit of both?  Have any of my readers out there done real research on this?