Still at the air museum

At the museum of flight

For Alan's birthday we have brought him to the museum of flight.

On another trip

Here I am at SeaTac airport leaving on yet another quick turn around
business trip. This time it is back to Boston again. The only
difference this time is that I have to fly through Portland, OR.

Fun-fun-fun!

It's foggy here!

At church

At our Wednesday night church class. The kids are in their youth
groups. I am in the adult class which is about comparing world
religions. It has been really good. Cindy is at home still not feeling
well.

Grandpa Ben

The other Grandpa Alan

Rainbows and roads

On my way home tonight I got to see this great rainbow. Certainly
raises my spirits.

Trans-Siberian orchestra

We are at Key Arena about to experience the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Cindy and I are here with our friends Bruce & Karen. Cindy & I have
never experienced this before. Should be good!

Pizza and a movie night

Friday night, so pizza and a movie night. My job is to get the pizza.
We got burned out on Pizza Time so now we tend to really like Garlic
Jims. The movie tonight is going to be the new Indiana Jones movie (on
Blu-Ray of course).

Jack O Lanterns

We just finished carving them for the boys. Scary, huh!

And we are done

We are going in

I love the fall

On-off-up-down-slow-fast

What other controls could any man actually ask for? This is a screen
capture of Commando Cody's rocket pack controls from the old movie
serials. We watched the entire 12 episode sequence this last Saturday
with our friends Bruce and Karen and laughed a lot! The serial was
Radar Men from the Moon (I think I have that right).

Thanks go to Bruce for taking the time to get this shot. It is now the
wallpaper on my iPhone.

Alan playing with worms

Still on the walk. Alan overutned a rock and found a worm. Boys will
be boys.

Mushrooms

Out on a walk with the boys in the woods and saw these shrooms. In
dash point state park.

Heading home

What a day. In a horribly boring meeting for more than eight
continuous hours. No breaks. Finally heading home.

The only positive is that I get to see this kind of thing pretty
regularly. I love airplanes.

Alan and I out to dinner

Grammy took Ben out to Red Lobster, so I brought Alan out to his
favorite place: IHOP. Cindy and I spent all day working on replacing
the front porch floor boards, with a lot of help from Ben, but she
really wanted the evening to herself (and she really doesn't like
eating at IHOP) so Alan and I headed out for some fun. Alan likes this
particular IHOP because it has a view of the landing pattern for
SeaTac airport so he can watch planes landing while we eat.

At the laundromat

The plumbers showed up at our place yesterday to do the plumbing for
the addition. I have no idea why they had to work on a Saturday, but
they showed up a little before 9am. Luckily we were getting ready to
head over to our friend's place to help their daughter move - or very
well may have still been asleep! We sure weren't expecting workers on
the weekend, and it was the boy's weekend at their bio-mom.

Anyway, the plumbers had to move the clothes washer and drier to make
room for Becky's shower. We knew this was coming, but didn't know
when. So today we are at the laundromat getting the laundery done to
start the week.

Hopefully the construction crew and electricians can get the new
laundry area outfitted with power real soon.

Ben is riding

Still out at our friend's place. Ben and Alan already got to ride the
tractor. Now it's horse riding time. Ben is discovering it can be a
bit painful bouncing in the saddle.

Tractor time

Today we are out at Stephen and Becka's place for a visit and bbq.
Alan gets to drive the tractor (with a little help from Stephen).

More party Picts

The boys are out on the trampoline with Maria's friend Kelsey. She is
trying to teach them a few moves.

At our friends

We are at our friend's house having a bit of a party. This is Pam and
Becky (Becky is Cindy's mom, of course). Having fun.

Pagoda?

Not exactly sure what you would call this thing. It is in a park in
Kent, WA. I happened to be walking around exploring while Cindy was
getting her hair cut and styled the other day. I think it looks really
cool.

Art at the airport

It's a big mural made entirely out of reflectors. I had noticed it any
number of times near the baggage claim, bit never really gave it a
thought. Today I ended up actually walking right by it for the first
time, and I noticed what it was made of. Cool!

On the way home

All went well with our meeting this morning. Now I'm on my way home.
That is a picture of my plane. We are just about to board here at
Boston Logon airport. I'll land at Seatac at about 9:30 pm. I'm really
looking forward to seeing my wife and kids again tonight when they
come to pick me up.

On the ground

Just landed in Boston. More later.

- Tim A.

I'm on the flight!

A middle seat, but better than nothing!

Another trip

I'm back at Seatac airport again. Another trip to Boston, MA, but this
time it is only for one night. I have a presentation to a potential
Air Force customer tomorrow.

The only trick may be getting onto my flight. When I checked in I was
told that the plane is overbooked and asked if I would consider a
later flight. And I don't have a seat assignment yet - I'm at the gate
waiting for the gate agent to show up. I would hate to get bumped to a
later flight! I try to always book straight through flights - no plane
changes, fewer chances to lose my lugage, and shorter flight times. If
I get bumped I seriously doubt I will get a straight through flight.

Well, I'll let you know how it goes as I get closer to flight time.

Dinner Time

It's still way too hot up here in the Seattle area, so we decided to
eat out. Cindy LOVES Long John Silver's (or is it just the hot grease
she loves so much?), but I'm not a fan of the place. I am, however,
fond of KFC. Lucky for us, there is a combo place not too far away. So
Cindy gets her greasy fish (with hushpuppies), and I get greasy
chicken (with biscuits - yummy).

Funny movie

Okay, right off you need to know that if you go to Tropic Thunder you
will be offended. I can promise you something in this movie will
offend you. But it is REALLY FUNNY! This movie made me laugh out loud
more than any movie I can remember.

I'm not that old!

My wife got quite a chuckle out of this, but I don't really think it
is all that funny. I am not old enough to be in the AARP! I'm in my
mid fourties, but I'm not close enough to 50 to start getting AARP spam.

Soon, I know, but not yet.

I guess they can't read

Geeze this just frosts me. I really hate it when people blatantly
ignore the law. Like these women. That sign clearly says that smoking
is prohibited, yet somehow they all three think it is okay to sit
right under the sign and have a puff.

Ugh.

On the ground again

Back on the ground at SeaTac airport again. Nothing interesting to
talk about on the flight. It was quick and painless. Just called Cindy
and she is the way to pick me up.

I really liked the village of Carmel. It is a really unusual place,
but seems like a great place to go to relax and get away from it all.

In the Hog's Breath

This is the inside of the Hog's Breath Inn where we ate dinner last
night. This part isn't really "inside" of course, it is more of a
courtyard. The restaurant part is to the left in the picture and the
bar part is to the right. It is a very nice place! A little loud when
a large business group showed up, but otherwise very nice. My only
real complaint was that they didn't have any interesting beers.

Dinner last night

My boss and I ate at the Hog's Breath last night in Carmel. This is
Clint Eastwood's place (I am told). It was a very interesting place
with good food. I had the Hog Chops and enjoyed them.

At the hotel

Whew. Finally at the hotel. The room is very nice, and up on the third
floor with a little balconey (overlooking the parking lot). The drive
actually wasn't bad and only took me about an hour. Mapquest
directions were perfectly accurate (as usual).

Weather here is cloudy/overcast with a damp breeze that is familiar to
anyone who has been to an ocean shore. I guess the shorts I packed
were a little off, but on the plus side it shouldn't be too hot for
the suit that I have to wear all day tomorrow!

On the ground

It has been lots of years since I was in an airport so small that they
let you exit both the front and back of the plane. And exit right onto
the tarmac! Ihad just walked down those stairs.

On the ground, time to find my bag and rental car, then a drive down
to Monterey.

On the plane

Just boarded the plane to San Jose. Can you show me the way to San
Jose? Only a two hour flight, and doesn't appear to be too full. More
later- they are going to tell me to turn my iPhone off in just a minute.

Time for another trip

At SeaTac airport getting going on another work related trip. I'm
heading down to Monterey, CA this time. Another tech expo where I get
to sit at a table and demo our software from my laptop and tell people
how amazingly cool it is. And it really is a great system we have
built - it's just boring sitting waiting for potential customers to
walk up then repeating a nearly identical schpeal.

Anyway, I am at the airport on a Wednesday morning. I got through
security in record time! I think I was in line for about two minutes.
I barely had enough time to snap off that picture!

Picking up pizza

Picking up pizza for dinner tonight. I cut down some tree limbs this
morning, Alan and I got our hair cut, our friends Bruce & Karen
stopped by for a short visit ( they just got back from vacation and
had some funny gifts for us ), then Cindy and I worked on clearing out
more of the downstairs. All in all, a pretty busy day!

Cindy and the boys are watching "iCarly" while I'm out getting dinner.

Heading home now...

Getting a drink

Actually Cindy and I are stopping to get green tea fraps after just
getting out of the movies. We just watched Dark Knight. Wow! What a
great movie! And Heath Ledger deserves some kind of award doe that
performance. It was outstanding.

Now to go shopping for the makings for dinner.

Checking out the construction

We are checking out the work this week. The boys like it.

Still at the camp

The boys are showing us around their camp. They both had a great time,
and the go carts were a big thrill foe them both.

Picking up the boys

The boys have been at camp this last week. Ben stayed all week while
Alan was just a day camper until Friday when he got to stay the night
as well.

This picture is in the chapel where they are having a final worship
time. They have a rock band providing the music, which the kids just
love of course.

Picking up dinner

This BBQ place near my work is great, so I'm stopping to grab some to
take home for dinner tonight.

I'm still not feeling very good. The drugs are working well enough for
me to get through a day of work, but only just barely. I am very glad
to be heading home.

I'm in pain

My back has been hurting for over a week now, but it got really bad on
Saturday while we were at the air show. Sunday I tried to rest my back
as much as I could, but Monday at work was a really uncomfortable day.

By Tuesday morning, after getting up and taking my shower I knew there
was no way I could go to work. I rested all day, trying to keep my
back from straining, and visited the chiropractor. That gave me some
relieve for a few hours, but by the evening I was right back into the
pain.

During last night I ended up waking up with cold-sweats and had to run
to the bathroom and retch. It wasn't pleasent! I do think it was just
the pain though.

Today I visited the chiropractor again, as well as getting a 50 minute
message. One of those deep tissue-works out all the knots type
messages. The kind that hurts in all the right ways! But now, a few
hours later, I am right back into the pain.

I have a regular Dr appointment tomorrow. Until then I am going to try
some leftover pain pills my wife has... Hydrocodone. Hopefully it will
help.

I feel horrible. I have little appetite and can rarely even get
comfortable.

At the mall

Killing a Sunday afternoon at the local mall. Had to go shopping for
Bibles for the boys. They are going to camp this week and had to have
them. They only had children's Bibles, so we got them something a bit
more mature.

We also picked up a book called "The Uncensored Bible". It describes
all the naughty parts. It is really funny and eye opening. Just
couldn't resist buying it.

Air show at McChord

We are at the air show on McChord AirForce Base. Still just walking
around and enjoying all the "static" displays.

More photos to follow, I'm sure.

Heading home

Just leaving work. Can you see the mountain in the distance? That's
Mt. Rainier. Another reason I love living here - I get to regularly
see visions like this.

After a long day at work it helps clear the head to beautiful vistas
like this.