Under the Radar.....

Red Sox Day

2007-10-24T07:20:00.000-05:00

Today is Red Sox Day at Raymond's school. He is so excited that hats are allowed in school for the World Series kickoff. He is wearing all Red Sox clothes - shirt, shorts, socks, hat, backpack, and even his underwear!

Cranky has also posted a prayer he found on craiglist. Take a look here!

GO RED SOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heckuva Week

2007-10-08T20:09:00.000-05:00

This weekend, the weather was beautiful about half the time. Unfortunately it was the wrong half.

Friday night was beautiful and clear followed by most of Saturday being nice too. Saturday was a big day for Raymond, as he turned 8 years old! Here he is enjoying his birthday cake:

And on his new bike:

We planned our usual "bon fire" birthday party for Saturday night. Cranky got the fire pit all ready to go -- lights, chairs, music -- while I got the food together. Cranky lit the fire at 5:00 pm (the guests scheduled to arrive at 5:30). Unfortunately it started raining at 5:15! Arghh! We moved everything inside and watched it pour. Luckily Cranky did a bang up job on our porch, so we had a nice place to party. A good time was had by all:

(The porch isn't quite done yet, but we've been spending A LOT of time enjoying it already.)

Naturally, Sunday was a picture-perfect fall day. Clear skies, cool weather, beautiful.

This morning, the rain came back at 4:00 am. I heard the thunder and listened to the rain pounding the roof until I got up at 6:00. Why was I getting up early on a day off? I was heading to Boston to run in the Tufts 10K. My friend Lynn and I drove down and met a few other friends. With fingers crossed, we headed to Boston Common for the race. The rain stopped for awhile and then started up again 5 minutes into the race. It rained for about half the race, and then cleared up. Geez, I was only running for about 50 minutes; you'd think I could've gotten a break on the rain. We still had a great time. Here's the gang after the race:

Last Monday was pretty exciting for me. I was in the middle of a 6-day trip, on a layover in Cincinnati. I put in for this trip since the New England Patriots would be in town for Monday Night Football. After we got in from Frankfurt, I went for a run all around the stadium -- in, out and around the stadium and in and out of tailgate parties, running in my Patriots shirt. I got a lot of looks but nobody threw anything at me or anything. I was hoping some wonderful Patriots fan would offer me a ticket. Nobody did. I went to dinner with the other 2 pilots and had given up on going the game. On the walk back to the hotel, I talked to a ticket scalper right next to our hotel (we stay 3 blocks from the stadium) and ended up buying myself a ticket. I was on the lower deck on the Patriots side. Here's the view from my seat:

There were some Patriots fans at the game, but as expected, I was surrounded by Bengals fans. A few people asked my how I could show up with a Patriots shirt and hat. I said, "I'm a fan! Wouldn't you do the same thing?" Anyway, as New England proceeded to kick some Cincinnati ass, the fans grew quieter. I decided to go down to the field level for the 4th quarter:

And then for the last few minutes of the game, the stadium was nearly cleared out so I walked over to a seat behind the Pats on the 50-yd line:

Final score: Patriots 34, Bengals 17. WOO HOO!!

(Not bad for cell phone pictures, huh?)

In other good news this week, the Boston Red Sox swept the LA Angels and as I type this, the NY Yankees are losing to the Cleveland Indians. Another big WOO HOO!!

Have a great week everybody!

Epic Ride!

2007-09-09T14:27:00.001-05:00

On Labor Day weekend Cranky and I packed up the KLR-650's and went on an epic ride. Well, maybe not totally epic, but we went motorcycle camping. Cranky's bike had all the camping gear, and I had food, beer, a cookstove and my clothes.

We rode up to our favorite hiking/camping area, the White Mountains. We drove about 100 miles (taking the scenic route to avoid highways) and ended up camping near Lincoln NH.

Even the bikes had cover:

This picture isn't very good, but that is our dinner, brats w/peppers & onions, cooking over the fire. It was wicked delicious.

The next day we packed up and drove the Kancamagus Highway to North Conway, then north through Crawford Notch before turning back south towards home, about 200 miles. Here I am near Crawford Notch.

One of the roads we took was Rte 118. It was a beautiful road to ride and there weren't many cars on it. Here's Cranky at a "scenic overlook".

This was our last chance to get away while my mother was in NH (She's the only one we have to watch the kids overnight.) Hopefully next summer we will get to go more often.

Oh My God, Mary is 13!!!!

2007-08-31T16:14:00.000-05:00

This must mean that I am getting old.

To commemorate the occasion, I took her and her friend Samantha to New York City. Here they are waiting to get on the plane in Boston:

After the short flight to NYC, we caught a ride to Times Square. This was right after we were dropped off:

We walked around Times Square, ate lunch and checked into our hotel a few blocks away. After dropping off our backpacks, we took the subway to Chinatown. We shopped on Canal Street (I showed the girls how to haggle for goods.)

Then we ate cannolis in Little Italy:

I wish we had eaten dinner in Little Italy, but we had tickets to the Broadway show, "Spamalot" and we had to get ready. Mary consented to a picture with mom:

This show was hilarious!

The next day, we went to the Museum of Modern Art, commonly referred to as "MoMa". This is my favorite painting by Van Gogh:

After the museum, we walked to Central Park and bought lunch from a street vendor. I figured that was enough for the trip so we headed back to LaGuardia and caught the 4:30 flight back to Boston:

Hopefully Mary will have fond memories of her 13th birthday! Now if only I can survive the next 5 years!

Picnic

2007-08-17T09:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Raymond and I went on a picnic on our dirtbikes. We rode on an 8-mile trail through the woods (and over many bridges), along the Sugar River. It starts in the town next to ours, so we packed the dirtbikes in Cranky's truck and hit the trail. It's very scenic and we saw some people walking dogs, jogging, and riding bicycles. During the winter, this is also used as a snowmobile trail.

There are 2 covered bridges -- this is the first one we drove over:

Here is the second covered bridge where we decided to have our picnic.

Raymond and I took pictures of each other:

Near the end of the trail, it there is some construction work being done on a nearby road. The road is being widened, and they have been digging the tall slopes on the sides of the road. It looks like they have found several discarded cars and put them in this holding area:

On the way back home, Raymond was leading and took quite a spill. He hit a large rock and lost control. He was a little freaked out at first but got over it very quickly. He had ripped his shirt a little bit and scraped his arm, but his helmet, chest protector, gloves and boots took the brunt of the fall. After a few minutes, he hopped back on and continued. Before I knew it, he was zipping right along like nothing had happened.

We had a great time and I hope we go again soon.

Summ, Summ, Summertime....

2007-07-23T22:00:00.000-05:00

I can't believe how fast July is flying by! Cranky bought fireworks a week before the 4th of July and he and the kids were lighting them off all week. In this picture, Mary and Raymond are throwing "pop-its" at each other:

Cranky is the master of the fireworks:

Bob likes sparklers, but decided to touch one that had burned out and managed to burn his fingers a little. I don't think he's too keen on them anymore...

Much to Cranky's chagrin, our town held it's "4th of July" parade on July 6th. (So it can be on a weekend. Cranky's hometown, Bristol RI, holds the mother of all 4th of July parades, and always on the proper day.) Sunapee's parade is very small and the kids like grabbing the candy that is thrown.

Bob didn't like the loud sirens when the firetrucks went by:

Afterwards, there are games for the kids and this year there was one of these bouncy things. That's Raymond in the blue shorts:

Raymond also likes the pie eating contest:

In other news...Cranky has been working hard on the front porch. The deck is done, now for the roof, steps, and railings. It's coming along very well!

Raymond is very excited about getting a bigger dirt bike. It's a Yamaha PW 80. Here he is test riding it when we brought it home:

WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!

Watching him ride makes me smile. He's an excellent driver and has a great time. (Sometimes we can hear him singing.)

This weekend Cranky and I are taking off by ourselves. My mother is watching the kids and we are going hiking for a couple of days!

Can you believe summer is half over?!

Superwoman!!!

2007-06-30T23:59:00.000-05:00

Holding up a well-known tower in Pisa, Italy:

I also bought a couple of really cool low-crawling army men toys for my sons. How long will they have their legs attached? No telling in our house! (Bob is a "disassembler".)

I may take a train to Florence tomorrow. Back home to Sunapee on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend!

New Project

2007-06-08T09:17:00.000-05:00

Our spring project is underway. We are adding a front porch to the house. Bob posed in front for the "before" picture:

Here's Bob after a hard day of site work:

I thought he looked "hollywood dirty" so I had to take a picture. I always laugh when kids are made up to look dirty on tv or in the movies -- smear marks on the cheeks and nose. Nobody actually gets dirty that way! Wait a minute...apparently my son does!

After Cranky dug the holes for the footings, he leveled the tubes for the concrete work. He does amazing site prep with levels and strings. I am just grunt labor -- mixing and shoveling the concrete. He's the brains behind the operation. Here are the finished footings:

After a hard day's work, it's time for a little batting practice for Raymond.

Yesterday the weather was perfect for outdoor work. Cranky and I had the day off and all 3 kids were at school. So what did we do? Went for a nice long ride on our motorcycles of course! We rode about 100 miles, stopping for subs at lunch time. It was my first long ride on my KLR 650 and it was great! I could keep up with Cranky no problem. My confidence on the bigger bike improved also when the back end slid sideways on a dirt road and I reacted properly, countersteering through the slide. My heart was pounding for a bit, but then all I could think was, "bummer Cranky didn't get to see that", since he was in front of me.

Have a great weekend!

Oh no! I have MBS...

2007-05-23T10:11:00.000-05:00

Multiple Bike Syndrome, that is...

I've been busy this spring -- flying, watching baseball, and riding motorcycles. Last month I went to the NH licensing bureau to get my motorcycle permit and was surprised to hear a new law requires a written test. I took the pamphlet to Burger King, studied it, and 1/2 hour later returned to take the test. I passed no problem! Then I had to practice the course used for the driving test. It involves weaving through cones, rapid stops, sharp turns and avoiding an obstacle. It's only administered on Friday mornings and it was rather chilly at the time. Being impatient, I took the test 8 days after getting my permit. I passed, and even had a better score than Cranky! Now I have my motorcycle endorsement. Ahhhh.

While I was doing this with my KLR 250, Cranky found himself a wicked nice 2003 KLR 650, the big version of my bike. Here he is, ready for a ride (in the chilly weather)

Here's the "his and hers" bikes:

Meanwhile, Raymond has been tearing up the yard on his dirtbike.

Unfortunately, the rain has returned and he hasn't been able to ride lately. We can't wait for the yard to dry out!

Watching Raymond made Cranky and I want dirtbikes also. We can take Raymond out on the trails near here if we have registered (for off-road) dirtbikes. So...

We bought these two bikes from a guy in Concord. They are Yamahas, a TTR-125 for me and a TTR-225 for Cranky:

The day we brought the TTRs home, we needed to re-arrange the garage to fit everything in. We backed out the bikes and I took a picture of the "line-up":

And just when it looked like we were all done, I found a 2002 KLR 650 that matches my 2001 KLR 250:

When I go riding with Cranky, my little 250 is maxed out when we're on the open road. (I can get it up to 70 mph, which might be all I need, but we hope to load up the bikes and go camping with them and I wanted a bigger KLR.) I haven't gotten to ride my new one yet, because we need to "lower" it a bit so I can get my feet on the ground when stopped. Cranky says I need to sell the 250, but I am not in any rush to part with it. It's a fun bike that's been very good to me.

In non-motorized news:

Bob is excited that we have put the training wheels back on Raymond's old bike so he can ride it. He has never been a big fan of actually PEDDLING a bike, so we are working on that. In this picture, he is totally psyched that he is riding with his big brother:

He's really concentrating on the peddling here:

Mary thinks we are crazy with the motorcycles ("They're so boring!") But she did model her new mustard yellow Chuck Taylors:

And last but not least...Since I haven't been blogging much lately, I haven't even mentioned how much I enjoyed my first trip to Dublin. I had 2 days to enjoy it, but didn't take many pictures (okay, like only 5 or so). The other first officer on the trip brought his wife and we had a blast together. I love a good Guinness, but Smithwick's was top on my list this time!

Baseball Season!

2007-05-17T22:16:00.000-05:00

Baseball season is underway! Raymond is having a good time and all the kids are improving rapidly. Cranky is an assistant coach and both he and Raymond seem to be enjoying it more than t-ball. Here are some pictures from tonight's game.

The kids are rotated in the positions each inning. The coaches pitch, but Raymond started as "defensive pitcher":

Raymond hustled but didn't throw out the runner. :(

At bat:

Go Raymond Go!

He was the catcher for an inning. I don't think it's his favorite position.

Play ball!

Happy Birthday Bob!

2007-04-03T22:12:00.000-05:00

Bob turned 4 today. He requested a cake with frosting and mini-marshmallows. He's a boy who knows what he wants.

He takes blowing out the candles very seriously.

Raymond picked out these cool trucks for him:

Overall a good day for the little guy!

It Almost Feels Like Spring!

2007-04-02T10:37:00.000-05:00

Okay, maybe not yet, but we are getting excited about motorcycle season anyway. Today it's rainy with temps expected to reach 42 degrees. At least the snow is almost gone...

This weekend Raymond tried out his Honda CR50. It's his first "gas-powered" dirtbike (his others have been electric) and it's got a lot of zip! The yard is too muddy for us to let him ride there yet, so he went up and down the driveway, getting used to the throttle, kick start and gears. He hasn't gotten out of first gear yet, but he doesn't need any more speed right now. The rest of his protective gear should be here soon for the offroad riding.

He's growing like a weed! I guess he needs some longer pants, huh?

Here's my bike (KLR250):

I went up and down our street trying to get used to the clutch. I'm getting some tires this week that will be better for street riding...Hopefully I'll be riding well enough to get my motorcycle license next month!

Bob is sticking to his tricycle for now:

Yay!

2007-03-30T08:38:00.000-05:00

Delta plans to exit bankruptcy in April!

Cool Presents!

2007-03-25T19:43:00.002-05:00

First, I want to apologize for not blogging much lately. I've just been too busy! I read as much as possible but don't always comment. Sorry!

Last night I came home from a 6-day (New York - Paris - Cincinnati -Paris - New York) trip. It felt like I was gone forever...Anyway, when I got home I was "surprised" by a birthday party. Here are the guests:

Before I even got my suitcase out of the car, Bob was telling me there was a birthday cake for me in the basement. He also told me there was only 1 cherry on top and I got to have it because it was my birthday. The other kids were trying to get him to be quiet, but Bob's not very good with keeping secrets. Especially from his mom who's been gone 6 days...

The pictures in this post were taken with my 'most-excellent' birthday present, a new camera. It's a Canon Rebel XTi. (Okay, maybe I hinted a bit that I wanted one.)

This morning we woke up to this winter wonderland:

What the hell! It's March 25th! We are done with winter and ready for spring!

Luckily, it warmed up and most of this new snow is already gone. I took the kids out to lunch and to do some shopping. Bob picked out this cool present for his birthday next week, courtesy of Auntie MaryBeth and Uncle Bill:

Bob and I are both happy with our birthday presents!

I'll be out of town again for the next few days so have a great week!

Winter Break!

2007-03-03T08:26:00.000-05:00

The kids and I had this week off so we took a quick trip to Florida. (Cranky is not a big fan of Florida so he stayed home to work and have a little peace and quiet.) My mother lives in The Villages, a golf/retirement development northwest of Orlando. My sister and brother-in-law also live there so it's a fun family visit.

Here are the kids at the pool near my mom's house:

The primary mode of transportation in the Villages is the golf cart. My brother-in-law (Uncle Bill) lets Mary and Raymond drive occasionally, which is a huge hit!

We got home last night. It was raining on the drive from the Boston airport, until the NH border, when everything was white with snow. When we were within 10 minutes of our house, it was snowing as it had been all day. We ended up with one foot of new snow and here's a couple of pictures from this morning of the 'ole homestead:

You can see the snowmobiles on the right side of the picture. We will definitely be out on those today!

The backyard:

Have a great weekend!

The Red Baron

2007-02-23T15:16:00.000-05:00

I just came home from a 7-day trip to Germany. We fly into the Frankfurt airport,and stay at a hotel in Wiesbaden. While there I went to visit the grave of the most famous air ace of World War I, Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen. He was born on 2 May 1892 in Breslau, which is now part of Poland. He was commissioned in April 1911 and he started out in the cavalry, but transferred to the German Air Force in May 1915.

Richthofen was appointed commander of the Flying Circus in June 1917. This new unit was comprised of Germany's top fighter pilots. It highly mobile and could be quickly sent to any part of the Western Front where it was most needed.

His success in his brightly painted red aircraft, a Fokker DR-1 Dridecker led to his being named der Rote Kampfflieger by the Germans, le petit rouge by the French, and the Red Baron by the British.

After scoring 80 confirmed kills, Richthofen was finally shot down as he flew deep into British lines. Buried in France by the British with full military honours, Richthofen's body was later exhumed and reburied in the Invaliden Friedhof Cemetery in Berlin. After World War II, the Berlin Wall passed directly over this grave site, and the family had the remains moved to the family plot at Südfriedhof cemetery at Wiesbaden.

This is the entrance to the cemetery:

This is the family plot.

The "Red Baron" was here in the front.

Somebody placed a very small airplane on the site:

The cemetery had many interesting and elaborate graves and I found myself browsing as I walked back out. I was surprised this famous ace's grave was so understated.

Budapest

2007-02-15T11:01:00.000-05:00

Well, I've finally managed to write a post about Budapest. I went there 2 times last month. The weather wasn't particularly nice, but I saw quite a bit of this impressive city anyway. Until 1873 Budapest was 2 cities, Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube River.

I walked all over the city, mainly of the Buda side. Our hotel is on the Pest side, and one way I got to Buda was by crossing the Chain Bridge, which was built between 1839-1849 and rebuilt after WW II, after being blown up by the Germans. The bridgehead is guarded by 2 stone lions sculpted by Janos Marschalko. According to legend, he was heartbroken because he forgot to give them tongues, so he drowned himself in the river. (The lions do have tongues, but they aren't easily visible.)
Here it is at night:

Another beautiful bridge is the Liberty Bridge built between 1894-1899. It was also blown up by the Germans and rebuilt after WW II. On top are the legendary Hungarian turol birds and royal crests. This picture was taken from the entrance to the cave church:

This picture was taken on Liberty Bridge, with a nice view of the statue of St. Gellert:

Near Liberty Bridge is Gellert Hill. In 1046, citizens led by Prince Vata, brother of King Istvan, threw a sealed barrel containing Bishop Gellert from the hill, killing him. He was trying to convert the people to Christianity. In 1904, the Statue of St. Gellert, the patron saint of Budapest, was constructed with a statue of a Hungarian convert at his feet on the site of his death. Here it is from behind, as I climbed down the hill to see it:

And from the road below:

On the side of this hill is the Cave Church. It was built for the Pauline order of monks in 1926. In 1934, 150 years after Joseph II had dissolved the order in Hungary, 15 friars returned to the city from exile in Poland. In the 1950's the Communists suspended activities in the church, accused the monks of treasonable acts and sealed the the entrance. It was reopened in 1989. (The entrance is on the left side of the hill.)

Inside:

I climbed up the hill behind the cave church to the Citadel, where the Liberation Monument stands. The Citadel was built by the Austrians in 1851 to intimidate the population. It had 60 cannons. The Austrians left their barracks there in 1897. During WW II, the Germans built a bunker here. There is a WW II museum in there now, which was very interesting.

The Liberation Monument is a woman holding a palm leaf above her head. It was originally intended to honor the memory of Istvan, son of Hungarian Regent Miklos Horthy, who disappeared in 1943 on the eastern front. But after the liberation of the city by Russian troops, it was reassigned to commemorate the liberation of Budapest by the Russian army in 1945. At the base, 2 statues, one representing progress (on the left) and one representing the battle with evil. After communism fell, a statue of a Russian soldier was removed from the monument and put it in Statue Park. (Statue Park contains 41 communist monuments removed from various parts of the city in the early 1990's. Some had been erected by the communists as late as the 1980's. The park was open to the public in 1993.)

Here are some pictures of the monument. I could not fit the whole thing in one picture without falling down the mountain:

"Progress":

The "battle with evil":

On the Buda side I also saw Fisherman's Bastion. It was designed in 1895 on the site of Buda's old defensive walls. It was never used in a defensive role, but is used as a viewing terrace.

I took this picture from here, looking across the river at the beautiful Parliament Building:

Here is a better picture of the Parliament Building:

Here it is from the front. Note the flat top modern building on the right side of this picture. It is the Hilton hotel, built in 1976, amid much controversy. The historic remains of a medieval church and part of the Jesuit monastery which formerly occupied the site are incorporated into the design of the hotel.

Matyas Church, which was undergoing some renovation, is near here also. It was originally built in 1255 by King Bela IV. Turks converted it to the Great Mosque in 1541. It was destroyed after Buda was liberated in 1686. It was rebuilt by Franciscan Friars from 1874-1896. Inside is the tomb of King Bela III and Annede Chatillon their remains brought here in 1860.

There is also a statue of St. Stephen (Istvan) that was erected in 1906. He was the first crowned king of Hungary and he accepted christianity for his people. (As mentioned above, his brother, Prince Vata, led the group that killed Bishop Gellert.)

Here is a close-up of the base of the statue:

On the Pest side of the river is St. Stephen's Church. It is the prominent building in this picture I took from Fisherman's Bastion at sunset. In the church there is a little room used to describe the history of the church. The is a picture from the turn of the century that shows the same view of the skyline, only there are a lot of smoke stacks all around it. The top of the church collapsed during construction, but it is not known if it was due to poor building materials/workmanship or due to the fact that the architect revised the plans to make it taller, so it would dominate the skyline.

Day:

And at night:

The inside of the church is beautiful.

In the church is a room dedicated to the right hand of St. Stephen, which is somehow preserved here. I refer to it as "the creepy hand":

Here is the hand in its case. Deposit a few coins and the light comes on so you can see it. From this side, the fist is facing you:

This is a picture on a display board describing the hand and the various archaeological tests done on it:

This is the very large front door.

Here is a close-up. I call it "Dudes on a Door". Actually they are the 12 apostles, but they were probably dudes in their day, right?

I also walked 30 minutes out of the city to see Hero's Square. It was built for the Millenium Celebrations of 1896. It was hosted by the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, celebrating modernization, such as gas lighting, and Europe's first underground transport system was opened. On one side of the square is the Museum of Fine Arts, built in 1895.

The Palace of Art is on the other side and was also built in 1895.

The Millenium Monument was actually completed in 1929.

Budapest is a lovely city with many things to see. I'm hoping I will see even more on my next trip!

Happy Valentines Day!

2007-02-14T08:11:00.000-05:00

Apparently my snow dance worked! The kids are home from school today -- it was cancelled yesterday based on the weather forecast. This morning the winter storm warning has been upgraded to a blizzard warning. Yeah!

The boys headed outside bright and early to try to shovel the driveway, but it was already getting too deep for them. And it's only just getting started...:))

Woohoo!

In other news, the boys gave me some sweet surprises this morning.

I hope you all have a terrific Valentines Day!

And, Happy Birthday to you, b-logger!

Almost Enough Snow

2007-02-06T21:14:00.000-05:00

We FINALLY got a little more snow last Friday. Yesterday Cranky and I took out our snowmobiles, joining Raymond's in the front yard:

Father and son sleds:

Here's Raymond having a good time:

Bob also did a little riding. Here he is heading outside:

Bob rode his snowmobile a short distance, but decided he would rather ride with me.

While the kids were in school and Cranky was at work, I went for a ride out on the trails. They were in somewhat bad condition, but I got to HAUL ASS across the pond near our house. I also cruised down to the lake, but it was very windy, resulting in drifting snow and bare ice spots, which is not all that fun. Especially when the temperature is -9 F with the wind chill factor.

In other news: Mary and I went to Atlanta this weekend to bring our guest dog, Toby, back home. Everyone was sad to see him go, but he was so happy to see his family again! We had a nice visit with our friends and got home in plenty of time for the Super Bowl...

This afternoon, Mary and I had a cooking lesson at King Arthur's Flour Company in Norwich Vermont. We made stromboli and apple crisp, as well as a tasty salad to bring home for dinner. The class was a Christmas gift from Cranky. We both had a fun time.

Busy, busy, busy! Now if I could just find a good snow dance...

Skiing!!!

2007-02-01T21:32:00.000-05:00

One of the benefits of living in our town is having an excellent ski area. The other is having an elementary school with a winter program offering ski lessons. For 5 weeks Raymond went skiing on Thursday afternoon, by school bus, and returned home as usual. I was home the last 2 weeks and offered to chaperone (e.g. ski with) him during his lesson. The snow was great today so we stayed after school and skied until the lifts closed. He has really improved this year and we can't wait to go skiing together again soon.

Click here to see a short movie I made!

(Sorry I took so long to post again Jessica. I just came back from Budapest last night and will be writing about that soon too!)

Sad Story

2007-01-12T15:48:00.000-05:00

I am not surprised by this story. When we left Accra a couple of weeks ago, we made sure we kept rolling on our way to the runway for takeoff so nobody could jump in our wheel well (luckily there were not any other airplanes leaving at that time). That part of the airplane is not heated or pressurized.

Out of Africa

2007-01-08T11:18:00.000-05:00

I got home the other day from an exhausting trip to Africa. I went to Accra, Ghana for 2 days and saw many interesting things. I was hoping for amazing pictures of our arrival but the visibility was terrible. There was a lot of haze due to the Sahara sand blowing from the north. Here is a picture of the airport terminal: The colorful word means "welcome" in one of the many dialects spoken here.

Our hotel was pretty nice. I took this picture from my window to show the sandy skies, the hotel pool, and the large empty lot where a new 5-star hotel is going to be built.

I exchanged some dollars for local currency, Cedi, and got quite a pile of bills that looked to be as thick as a George Costanza wallet. The exchange rate was one US dollar = 9,200 Cedis.

The other pilots and I went to a restaurant recommended to us. I had a Senegalese chicken dish and some fried plantains (my favorite!). It was delicious. I took this picture of the men's room door because I thought it was funny:

The next day, we hired a man named Richard to drive us to the rain forest. It was a long 3 hours to get there but there was so much to see along the way. In this picture you can see a man carrying several pieces of cloth on his head. Everybody carries things on their head here. I even saw a woman with a sewing machine this way!
There are a couple of other things to see in this picture as well. Note the construction. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how they built things. I think they didn't have any prefab concrete beams and had to pour the fresh concrete into forms propped up by 2 x 4's.

The other thing in this picture is the name of the store on the awning - "God With Us Carpentry Shop". I saw very few stores that did not have a religious catchphrase. Another example would be "Christ is the Answer Block Shop" or "He is Risen Tile Store".

The rain forest was pretty cool. We signed up for the canopy tour, which basically allowed us to walk across the rope bridges over the rain forest. They are wicked high and those people afraid of heights didn't take time to stop and look over the sides. I did though. I was trying to see wildlife but unfortunately I only saw a few lizards.

Here is a short video I shot while crossing.

When we were getting ready to leave, I saw this sign in front of our car. I did see several people peeing on the side of the road, but this was a tourist spot AND the restrooms were nearby. I wonder how many people had to urinate here to warrant a sign?

Our next stop was a crocodile park-type place. There was a restaurant and a small hotel on the grounds, and you could get as close as you dared to the crocs. I stayed a safe distance from this big fella:

I was a little brave with the smaller one. After this picture was taken he turned toward us with his jaws still open. Then one of his buddies joined him. So we moved on...

After the crocodiles, we went to Elmina Castle, where slaves were traded for two centuries. Elmina was the trade post for the Portugese from 1482 to 1637 and the Dutch from 1637 to 1872. The Dutch handed the castle over to the British in 1872 and they controlled Elmina until 1957 when Ghana became independent.

It's hard to see in this picture, but the sign says "Female Slave Yard".

The sign by the gate reads: "Slave Exit to Waiting Boats"

This is the view from the top of the castle. They use those long boats to drag the fish nets out in the water and then pull the nets in from the shore. The grassy area in the foreground is on the castle grounds and is a archaeological site.

After we got back to the hotel, I showered and went to the market near the hotel. I wanted to get some pictures of the locals. It wasn't easy because a few of them told me I could not do that. I'm not sure why, but they seemed almost superstitious about it. I asked a couple of employees at the hotel, but they had no explanation for me. Anyway, here they are.

Babies and small children were carried on their mothers backs and seemed quite content.

Again, everything was carried on top of their heads. Strong necks, good posture and less lower back problems perhaps?

This is the view of our hotel from the market area. Oh the dusty skies!

Overall, I enjoyed my visit to Ghana, but I was ready to head back home. When we went to the airport to leave, the visibility was very low so the crew flying our plane in from NY could not land. They diverted to an airport in Benin (2 countries to the right) and had a difficult time procuring fuel. They finally got to Accra 7 hours late so our crew was unable to fly all the way to NY (an 11 hour flight) due to crew duty day limitations. The solution was for us to fly to San Juan, Puerto Rico, which was only a 9 hour flight. A fresh crew met us there and flew our airplane and passengers to JFK with us snoozing in the back. We go in at 4:00 am, which was 12 hours late. However, several passengers thanked us for flying them out of Africa.

I wouldn't mind going back, but I'm hoping it will be when the skies are clearer!

Happy Birthday Cranky!

2007-01-06T17:19:00.000-05:00

Cranky's birthday was on December 30th. These 2 pictures are from that day. Mmmm....german chocolate cake!

These pictures were taken today, after he finally received his birthday/Christmas present:

Do you like the action photo? Please note the (blurry) skateboard ramp in the background. That's where he broke his arm in the summer of 2005.

In other news: Mary decided to have short hair, so we went and got it cut off today.

I've been gone all week but I will get caught up with the blogging this weekend. Have a good one!

A Festivus for the Rest of Us!

2006-12-24T21:35:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning the sunrise over Europe was quite beautiful:

Then the sun finally appeared on the horizon, officially kicking off the morning:

Back in the fall, I went to a wine festival here in Weisbaden Germany. But in December, I really enjoy the Christmas festival. The weather was nice the first night I went. I hunted down my favorite greasy treat. I call it a fried potato thingy with applesauce, but it might be called kartoffelpuffer. At least that's what the signs say at the stand. Here's a picture of the guy cooking them:

He said something to me in German when the camera flashed - I almost ran off, but I wanted a kartoffelpuffer! And here it is:

(I had to sneak off into an empty area to take a picture. I was by myself and I didn't want anybody to think I was crazy.)

Another treat I enjoyed here was oven baked pizza. This woman is checking the pizzas in the wood burning oven:

Gluhwein (pronounced glue-vine) is the drink of choice at the festival. It is a mulled wine and many stands have souvenir glasses that you can keep or you turn in for the 2 euro deposit.

Here is the glass I got the other night:

I didn't actually drink all the gluhwein, because I didn't like it very much. Maybe if I could speak a little German I could figure out which type tastes the best...

There were lots of tents with vendors selling their wares. Here is a cookie stand:

This artist welded really cool characters out of pipes, nuts and bolts.

This woman's "fairy" stand gave me the creeps so I didn't get any closer than this:

Candles, candles candles! There were a lot of candle stands. I saw a lot that I liked but only bought a couple bee's wax candles:

Here's a big Christmas tree with a manger display in front of it. There is no war on Christmas here!

The fair also has kiddy rides. I had to take pictures of the creepy carnival statues in front of this one.

Do you like how they "Christmased" them up? A red coat and a green holiday rope lights is all you need!

There was also a very large double-decker merry-go-round.

Here are the treats that the kids were very excited about.

A couple of years ago I brought home a big long box of these, labeled the "Dick-o-meter". Yes, it was about 1 meter long and full of these Dickmann marshmallow treats. Even the Germans were laughing and pointing at the box as I carried it through the airport. Apparently, these are a holiday treat because I found these boxes at a store in the train station, and I have not seen them any other time of year. (Unfortunately no Dick-O-Meter box this year.) They are sold individually at the market, but they don't travel well.

Cranky and I need to go stuff some stockings now. I'm so happy to be home!

I wish everybody and very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Cookie Recipes

2006-12-18T07:49:00.000-05:00

Jessica asked if I would give the recipes for the cookies I posted. Here they are!

Wreath Cookies
1 stick butter

1 pkg marshmallows (I use mini-marshmallows because they melt faster)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

green food coloring

4 cups corn flakes

cinnamon things

Melt butter and marshmallows over medium heat until completely melted. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and food coloring. Mix well. Fold in corn flakes until they are all well-covered. Make wreathes on waxed paper or lightly greased cookie sheets. Decorate with cinnamon things. Allow to firm up. ( I like to put them in the refrigerator so they are less sticky when we eat them.)

Italian Cookies

4 cups flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

4 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/4 sticks margarine

1 tablespoon vanilla

Mix flour, baking powder, and sugar in large bowl. Add eggs, margarine and vanilla and mix with hands. Add more flour if the dough is too sticky. Roll pieces of dough until about the thickness of a pencil and about 7-8 inches long. Twist and place on lightly greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until bottoms start to brown. Frost with sugar cookie icing. (Sometimes I use frosting, but it doesn't firm up as well.)

Peace and Cookies

2006-12-13T21:43:00.000-05:00

Cranky and Mary made a peace wreath for the house. It's not as big as the controversial one in Colorado, but I think it came out great!

Here it is all lit up tonight:

I thought I'd add a picture of the reindeer hanging out in front of the house also.

In other news...I made the Italian cookies today. Here they are before I baked them:

And here are some of them after the kids frosted them. Bob was mixing the red and green frosting, so his are the purple cookies. He was also demanding blue sprinkles. *

My friend Lynn came over to have some of my fancy boxed Sangria (see post below). She brought the munchies and her daughter frosted cookies with my kids. Overall a festive afternoon!

* He didn't get them.

Saturday Night?

2006-12-09T23:04:00.000-05:00

I made Christmas cookies earlier tonight, but now Cranky and I are watching a Muhammed Ali documentary and drinking this box, yes box, of Sangria I bought in Madrid last weekend. It's pretty tasty actually. Best $1.25 I spent all week! We also had some chips and guacomole.

Are we getting old or WHAT?

Looks like we have Mad TV and Saturday Night Live up next. Can you stand the excitement?

I almost didn't get the picture before Cranky took a swig...

Pies = Thanksgiving & Cookies = Christmas

2006-12-09T22:20:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid, my family spent Thanksgiving with our friends, the Mells. They lived in Massachusetts and we spent the entire weekend at their house. We ate, drank, watched football and had a great time. My mother was in charge of bringing the pies, and boy did she bring pies! They are a big part of Thanksgiving for me now too, although I only make a couple, unless we have company. The other tradition I've taken from my childhood is making fried dough Thanksgiving morning. My mother never made it at home, so it was a big treat to eat it at the Mell's house. You wouldn't believe how much Bob ate this year!

Christmas, however is a time for cookies. My mother made lots of great cookies, including "snowballs", which were my father's favorite, made from his mother's recipe. I haven't made them yet -- my mother still sends them to me. I might this year if I find time. So far I've made a few batches of Tollhouse cookies, including a new type this year made with chocolate mint swirled chips. Not bad!

But my all-time favorite cookies are wreath cookies. They are made with corn flakes, marshmallows, butter, vanilla and food coloring. Wicked easy, but very sticky! My mother thought these cookies were ugly and refused to make them, so I had to make them myself. I still use the recipe card that I wrote out when I was like maybe 12 years old. (It's funny to see my "kid" handwriting.)

Here's the batch I made tonight:

The last type of cookie I will need to make this week (before I go fly 9 out of the 10 days before Christmas day) is Italian cookies. When I Cranky and I were first married, his Grammy (who died last month) gave me this recipe. My kids love making these. They are a twisted cookie that we decorate with green and red icing. They will have a special significance this year...

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...

2006-12-08T08:44:00.000-05:00

Last night it started to snow. It had been a little warm yesterday, so it started out as big, mushy flakes, but as it cooled off, the snow began accumulating. Our guest dog, Toby, seems to like the snow. He is a southern (WAAAAYYY southern, as in Brisbane Australia) dog and we were wondering what he would think of the snow. Cranky took his picture out in it last night:

Do you see how well-trained he is? He's sitting in the snow, posing.

This morning I let him outside and he didn't want to come in right away. I guess he likes it!

Last night was also "decorate the tree" night. The kids put the ornaments on the tree without bickering and nothing was broken!

Bob primarily decorated this part of the tree. How many ornaments can you put on one branch?

Here's the finished product, complete with a couple "presents" under it:

With all 3 kids under it:

I was having a hard time getting a picture of Mary with her eyes open, but here is the third picture of a series of three. Success!

This morning Mary grumbled as I told her she needed to wear boots and gloves (with fingers) to go out to the bus stop. She suggested her brother might want to shovel a path down the driveway so the boots wouldn't be necessary. Yah right! She wore her combat boots with her jeans tucked in the top ("I don't want my pants to get wet!") and followed Raymond's tracks out to the road. She's not as thrilled with the snow as the rest of us.

Peace!

2006-12-01T08:40:00.000-05:00

I think this is a great wreath. I just heard this woman interiewed on Free Speech TV. Her husband thought their wreath this year should be in the form of a peace sign. Her homeowners' association sent her a letter stating that "Loma Linda residents are offended by the Peace Sign displayed on the front of your house." They were instructed to remove it or pay a $25/day fine.

It's not anti-war, it's pro-peace! This is not the first time "Peace" has been wished for during the holidays.

They've received a lot of support and similar wreathes are popping up all over their town. I think it's great.

Cranky wants to put a peace-wreath on our house...

For Heidi

2006-11-14T20:09:00.000-05:00

Today I was driving home and I had to stop for this big fella. When going by this farm, I usually have to stop for the geese to cross. (They go from the yard on the left to a pond on the left.) This is the first time I've seen of of these Scottish Highlanders wondering in the road.

He looked at me for a while (as I was taking his picture with my phone) and then decided to head up the driveway on the left side.

Gotta love the country!

p.s. Sorry about that creepy dude being at the top of my blog for so long!

What's WITH This Guy?

2006-11-06T09:49:00.000-05:00

What would make this guy set wildfires? Is he mentally ill?! I just don't get it.

And why isn't he wearing a shirt in this photo? It seems very odd.

Getting Ready for Winter

2006-11-05T22:38:00.000-05:00

I'm back home after a long stint of flying (10 out of 11 days, the day off being Halloween). While I was on my last trip, it snowed here. Cranky says it was about 3 inches but didn't last long. The kids and our guest dog, Toby, were very excited. Last night as I drove home from Boston, it was flurrying in the last 2 miles to our house. Yippee! It looks like winter is really coming so it was time to get ready.

To augment our heating oil this year, we put in a wood stove. It was installed a couple of weeks ago and Cranky has been busy procuring wood. Here's some of it:

Here's the new stove. It really heats the bedrooms upstairs so we have to keep the doors closed much of the time.

Here's Toby relaxing by the stove with Raymond. Toby will be staying here until sometime in January. So far he seems to like the cold weather.

A little while ago, Cranky took the boys to a snowmobile show and let Raymond sit on a "youth" snowmobile. It is the newer version of the small snowmobile he rode the last 2 years. Cranky thought Raymond would be too big for his old snowmobile (the Kitty Cat) so I got to thinking...

Okay, I started looking for a used 120 cc snowmobile. This morning Cranky showed me an ad for a 2000 Arctic Cat Z120. To make a long story short, here is the new toy in the garage:

This sled is in awesome condition. It has been barely used and meticulously maintained. This will be going nonstop in our yard when we get snow.

Bob is not big enough to drive it this year. He will probably be learning on the smaller one. (50 cc)

This is a very cool snowmobile. I would've KILLED for something like this when I was a kid. It is a 4-stroke, so it's relatively quiet and no mixing oil in the gas! Yeah! Raymond also likes that the headlight is working. (I couldn't find a new bulb for his other snowmobile and he couldn't ride very long after the sun went down.) He won't be able to take this on the snowmobile trails with us, but I told him I would take him to the pond down the road or maybe even out on the lake. We'll see.

Now, bring on the snow!!!

Kyiv, the City Formerly Known as Kiev

2006-11-03T16:30:00.000-05:00

I'm in Kyiv, Ukraine on a 2-day layover. Kyiv was known as Kiev until 1991, when the Ukraine became an independant nation. Kiev was a Russian name and now brings back unpleasant memories for the people here. (Less than a month ago, the U.S. finally changed the spelling formally.)

Kyiv is not far from Chernobyl, but luckily it is on the upwind side. It is however, just down the Dnieper River from there. The city is very beautiful and even has a European flare. The people smile and seem much more relaxed than the people I see in Moscow. I was touring the city with 4 flight attendants from my crew, and none of us had ever been here. It was quite an adventure. The Ukrainians were very helpful whenever we asked for directions.

Last night we went to Independance Square. The statue is of a Woman, the symbol of the protector of Ukraine (Bereginya). It was unveiled in 2001. Here is a picture:

And here is another picture I took today:

We went by the Golden Gate, which was one of 3 gates built in the 11th century. It was partially destroyed in 1240. Only a 10 meter by 10 meter section of this is from the original gate.

Here is another side of it with a statue of Yarislav the Wise, the great Prince from 1019-1054. He was credited with defeating the Pecheneg's horde, ending a 120 yr. war.

As I was looking at this statue, I noticed some upside down beer bottles high up on the gate. Here is a close-up. I'm not sure how they got up there, but I bet drinking was involved! At night, there are many people standing out on the streets drinking large bottles of beer.

This is the Bell Tower of St. Sophia Cathedral. From 1699 to 1706, this tower had only 3 stories. In 1851, the fourth tier was built with a the dome, which is gilded with pure gold.

Outside the Cathedral, this man was playing and singing. It was quite lovely.

These are a couple of pictures I took inside the cathedral. It was built in the 11th century and largely destroyed in 1240 by Baty-khan. In the beginning of the 18th century it was rebuilt. There is however, 300 square meters of the original church and approximately 3000 square meters of the original frescoes.

We went up in the Bell Tower and this was the view looking toward St. Michael's Monastery.

Once back down in the square below, we saw a bride and groom having their picture taken. We saw several wedding parties today -- I guess because we were touring some famous and beautiful churches.

This is St. Michael's Monastery. It was originally built in 1108, but was blown up in 1935. The monastery was rebuilt from 1997-2000, to look as it did in the 18th century.

Here is St. Andrews Church, built in 1749.

This is inside St. Andrews. It is a rather small, but very ornate church, which is now a museum.

At the end of the day, we took the subway to the Lavra Monastery. We went down an incredibly long escalator, which reminded me of the subway in Moscow.

This is the Pecherska Lavra monastery. It was founded in 1051 by 2 monks as an underground cave monastery. Construction of the stone buildings began in the late 11th century. This is a one of the most sacred places of pilgrimmage for the orthodox believers.

From the walls of the monastery grounds, I had a great view of the statue of the Motherland, a Soviet memorial of the Great Patriotic War (World War II). It's huge!

Kyiv is a beautiful (but cold!) city to see.

Another Successful Halloween

2006-11-01T07:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Bob and I went to Raymond's first grade Halloween party. Bob didn't want to leave when it was over.

After dinner, Mary did Raymond's makeup.

This was Bob's first year trick-or-treating. He was the cutest dog in town!

Mary stayed home and gave candy to the 3 groups that came by. She didn't go out last night, but today is "Crazy Day" at school and this is what she wore to school:

Hope you all had a nice Halloween!

It's Pumpkin Carving Day!

2006-10-23T22:16:00.000-05:00

October 23rd is another anniversary date for Cranky and me. In 1992, we were living in Tacoma Washington. I was only days away from being released from active duty (Air Force) and Cranky was leaving the next day on a 2-week military exercise in Las Vegas. That afternoon we decided to carve a pumpkin for Halloween since we wouldn't be together. It was a work of art!

That night we went to a keg party at a friend's house and had a great time. We went back to Cranky's house in his Cadillac, with Frank Sinatra in the tape player. He pulled up in front of the house. We were talking for a bit before getting out of the car and Cranky says, "Hey, would you consider marrying me?". I immediately replied, "Yah, sure!" He gave me a that-was-an-awfully-quick-answer look and I realized he was proposing. He said "CONSIDER"! I thought it was a hypothetical question. We both chuckled and I asked if he was serious.

He was and my answer still stood.

We went into the house, lit the jack-o-lantern, and talked by the light of the flickering candle. The next morning he went off to Vegas and I went home with the pumpkin, wondering if we were really engaged or if it was just a helluva keg party. He told me later that he almost asked when we were in Wayne's garage, getting a beer from the keg!

I'm glad we were in the cadillac. Sinatra was a nice touch too...

Anyway, the rest is pretty much history. Since that night we've tried to carve the pumpkin on October 23rd every year. Cranky does the carving, and I scoop out the guts.

Left to right: Family pumpkin, Bob's pumpkin (face drawn by Mary), Raymond's and Mary's pumpkins.

Skunk Update: Skunk 6, Yankees 0

2006-10-20T15:43:00.000-05:00

Man that skunk got us good! Cranky smelled like skunk at work, the kids smelled like skunk at school and Bob and I smelled like skunk at the supermarket. (One thing you can always count on in NH is an honest evaluation of your scent. It's one of the things I like about it here.) Clearly Sally was not the only loser in the battle!

Mary even changed into her gym clothes and washed her clothes in Home Economics. Luckily it's not really cold today. We have the windows open, vinegar out in bowls around the house, and some wonderful scented candles lit. We brewed coffee and I'm thinking about making Jessica's apple cake or a pumpkin pie.

SKUNKS SUCK!!!!

Skunk 1, Sally 0

2006-10-20T08:51:00.000-05:00

I got home last night from a 6-day work trip. I woke up this morning better rested and ready to start my day. I came downstairs with the boys shortly after 6 am and let Sally outside. I heard her bark, which was unusual so I turned on the outside lights to see what was going on. While looking for her, I was suddenly overcome with skunk smell! You've GOT to be kidding me! I called Sally in to the mudroom and wiped off her face and in particular, her right eye. She was squinting with that eye and I'm assuming she took a direct hit there.

I can't believe how quickly that smell traveled throughout the house, despite containing her in the mudroom. I opened the garage door for fresh air and now that smells too. Cranky woke up and said he could smell it right away, all the way upstairs. By that time I was spraying Febreze on her, hoping to neutralize some of the smell. (I read online that it helps. It didn't.)

This is not how I wanted to start my morning. I hadn't even poured my cup of coffee yet! I got the kids out to the bus stop at 7:15 and gave Sally a bath. I read that hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and a little dish soap is a good way to clean skunk spray. Sally hates getting a bath so I had her hitched to a fence post. She actually put up with it better than she normally does. I don't think she liked the smell much either so she even cooperated when I was scrubbing her face.

Here she is looking humble after being scrubbed:

Tomorrow I am flying to Atlanta to pick up a friend's dog. Toby will be staying with us for 2 months while his family is in Australia. When he meets Sally on Sunday I hope he doesn't think, "Girl, you need to wash now and then!"

It's Greek to Me! Part 1

2006-10-11T21:30:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I was in Athens. I had a 2-day layover, so I did a little sightseeing. It's a beautiful time of year there, still very warm and sunny but not oppressively hot. This is a picture of Mount Lycabettus near our hotel. Surprisingly, it doesn't take very long to climb to the top.

There is a small chapel on top. I was up here around 10 am and this old lady was scrubbing the marble. She was grumbling and periodically yelling in Greek. I quickly decided that I would not want to tangle with her:

Here is the view of the acropolis from the trail on the way up (I was initially pissed off that this tree was blocking an awesome view, but once I got a little bit into the tree, I got a pretty nice shot. Wouldn't you agree?)

The next thing I did was go up to the acropolis. We just started walking toward it since the street signs are difficult to read. We climbed up through this area of houses and eventually found the trail to the acropolis entrance.

The "streets" were narrow between the houses, which were mostly empty.

Here is the Parthenon:

And the Erechtheion:

You can see the porch of the Caryatids on the corner. Here is a better picture:

Here is another picture of Mount Lycabettus from the top of the acropolis.

Here is the Herodion Theater. It is on the hillside below the acropolis.

This is the temple of Hephaestus(also called the Thission) It is in an area called the ancient agora. It was built in 449 BC.

This is temple of Olympian Zeus, built from 124-132 AD. There are not very many columns remaining (I think there were 84 originally), but they are the biggest ones I saw in Athens. This was VERY impressive.

This is Hadrian's Gate, built in 131-132 AD. It divided the old part of Athens from the new part. The inscription on the acropolis side says, "This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus" and on the new side it says, "This is the city of Hadrian and not of Theseus". I wonder if Hadrian was one of those emperors who was height-challenged...

Here is the acropolis with Hadrian's Gate in the foreground. I took this picture while standing near the temple of Zeus. I thought this was one of the best views.

While we were there, a peace march was scheduled to be going by our hotel on the way to the US Embassy. The Greek police had their riot gear on and were gathering in an alcove at the entrance of our hotel. I took my camera out there, but the hotel manager said it would not be a good idea to take a picture of them. He also said I should not go outside during the march because it might be dangerous. I hung around the lobby, hoping to get a picture, but ended up going to the pool instead. I read my book and swam a few laps before heading out to dinner.

After dinner, the evening view of the acropolis was great. In the foreground is an octagonal tower called the Tower of Winds. It is near the entrance of the Roman Agorà. It was built in the first half of the 1st century B.C. by the astronomer Andronicos.

That's a little of what I saw on this trip. I hope you liked it.

Columbus Day Weekend

2006-10-09T21:08:00.000-05:00

It was a busy weekend. We started off in Rhode Island at Great-Grammy's funeral. It was a sad event but she was 90 years old and we know she is now at peace. She was a remarkable and lively woman until very recently and it was difficult to see her in declining health. Here is a picture of her with Mary and Raymond taken last winter at Christmas time.

And having a very deep conversation with Bob:

Cranky and the kids cleaned up nice for the funeral though.

I rounded out the holiday weekend on a happier note. Today I ran in the Tufts 10K race in Boston. It was a beautiful sunny day, maybe a little too warm! I went with my friend Lynn (below, with me before the race) and her sister-in-law, Penny. It was the 30th running of the race and is one of the largest all-women races in the country. We drove to Cambridge early this morning and took the "T" to Boston Common. We had time to pick up our numbers and browse the sponsor booths, where we picked up a lot of goodies. Then we were ready to run!

Here is a picture I took while at the starting line. This is the line of people in front of me.

Here is the group behind me:

I started with the 8 minute/mile pace group. The first mile of the race was slow and crowded. There were a lot of people running slowly that were supposed to start in the back. I used a lot of energy getting past them and lost a lot of time despite the effort. Oh well. I was mostly there for the experience. I'm out of shape so I just wanted to run a good race and have FUN!

My time was 52:39, and I turned out to be 690 overall. There were around 7000 that started the race, but I only saw 6043 names on the results list. I wish I had done better -- maybe next year...

Happy Birthday Raymond!

2006-10-05T22:03:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is Raymond's 7th birthday. We celebrated it today, however, since we need to go to Rhode Island tomorrow.

His first grade class went on a field trip to a local apple orchard today. I went with them and it was a good time. I learned that if you plant apple seeds, you will not necessarily get the same kind of apple, and more likely you will get a tree that doesn't give fruit at all. The trees in the orchard had been grafted. They take a branch of a tree and graft it to the root of another. The root determines the size of the tree and the branch determines the type of apple. These grafted trees will often bear fruit just 2 years after the grafting. Cool huh?

I ate a couple of apples and came home with a 1/2 peck more. I love crunchy apples and there's really nothing like a fresh picked apple. Mmmm....

It was a cool windy day but it was sunny! Here's Raymond:

Tonight we had a bonfire birthday party for him. Pizza, cake and a fire to keep warm. Here are Raymond and his friends eating pizza on a big rock in the yard. We all had a good time.

Great-grammy's funeral is on Saturday. Bob told me he can sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to make everybody feel better. (Actually I think he wanted to make great-grammy feel better, not realizing what death means.) Our hotel has internet access so I'll try to catch up on my blogging.

I'm also running in the Tufts 10K on Monday. Wish me luck!

Busy, Busy, Busy

2006-10-03T22:47:00.000-05:00

I've been so busy lately, I almost didn't notice how the leaves have changed. Here's what our backyard looked like today.

Between working and everyday chores, Cranky and I managed to remodel our front entryway. The door wasn't sealed correctly when the house was built and the floor was rotting out. Even though the front door is rarely used, the carpet there needed to go too. So here is what we did.

I forgot to take a picture before we started the project. In this picture the I had removed the trim and had cut away at the carpet to see how much of the floor was damaged.

We ripped up the rug and removed the heater covers. Cranky removed part of the front porch and the prep work was done.

All in one day, Cranky removed and replaced the front door and the rotted floor. He went to town on this door and had it out in no time.

Then he needed to replace the rotted part of the floor.

Bob likes to "help" with the projects and he is very good with a hammer:

Cranky is the master when it comes to squaring up a door. At this point, he was ready for this to be finished. It had been a long day!

I was only Cranky's helper up until this point, but once the door was in, it was my turn to work. First, I insulated the wall and put up new sheetrock:

After putting down Wonderboard (concrete underlayment board with fiberglass mesh), I started laying the tiles.

I let the mortar cure for a day and then it was time to for grout. I ended up with a couple blisters on my hand from this part.

Yesterday I sealed the grout and today I put up the trim. Here's the final product:

In other news: Raymond will turn 7 on Friday, so we are having a bon fire - birthday party Thursday night. We originally planned it for Friday night, but we received sad news on Monday morning. Cranky's grandmother died and we will be going to Rhode Island on Friday for the services. She was 90 years old and a wonderful lady.

So I'm trying to get set up for Raymond's birthday party and get ready for his Great-Grammy's funeral. A tiring and emotional week.

Bombay baby!

2006-09-17T07:36:00.000-05:00

I just got back from Mumbai India. (formerly known as Bombay) We fly from Paris, overflying several countries including Iran and Pakistan. Iran is very mountainous, so we carry supplemental oxygen as we would not be able to fly below 10000 feet MSL in the event of a loss of pressurization. We also have emergency routes we would fly if an engine failed and we couldn't maintain our altitude. (The routes would keep us clear of the mountains.) Other than that, the flight is typical and the air traffic controllers are nice.

We left Paris midday and arrived in Mumbai after midnight. As we left the terminal building, a man (the same guy every time) approached us and led us through the large group of people crowding the exit. He led us to a bus and loaded our bags. The ride downtown is exciting - the driver ignores the red lights and weaves about. The man who led us from the terminal rides shotgun, blowing a horn to get cars, dogs and people out of the way.

This religious picture is on the wall in the bus. DO NOT TOUCH! I have heard that it is a big problem and the bus will stop immediately if the light on this is not working properly!

This is the Taj Majal hotel, where we stay. It's awesome.

This was the view from my room. That is the Gateway to India.

Hold on, I'll show you another view of that...

Here's a closeup of the inscription because I'm too lazy to type it. This is a Roman numeral test.*

These are some of the many little black taxis in the city.

Here is a fishing bay on the other side of the city. The Indians have been filling in the bay to build new buildings, seen in the distance.

See the fish drying?

We also went to Gandhi's house.

With his bust inside the entrance:

There are many interesting pictures, letters and dioramas of his life:

This is a copy of the letter he wrote Hitler:

With Indira Gandhi, in 1924 (not related, just a family friend):

"Quit India" campaign of 1942:

This is Gandhi's room. There was no description of the items in the room so I'm not sure what round spiky things do. Any ideas?

This is my favorite Gandhi quote. GENTLEMEN PLEASE TAKE NOTE!

This temple was another interesting place to see. We took off our shoes and left them with a woman at the entrance.

Nobody seemed to mind that we were there watching them pray.

I took a video with my camera because it was so difficult to capture this experience in pictures. I've uploaded it to You Tube so click HERE to see it!

This is an Indian laundry:

Click HERE to see a short video of it.

These guys are at the entrance of the hotel. They let me get a picture with them before I left.

Check out the chaise lounges in the airport. I think they have the right idea!

Bombay is quite an experience. Hope you liked the pictures!

*1911

Are You Ready For Some Football?

2006-09-07T19:49:00.000-05:00

The NFL football season just kicked off as I am typing this. I wish it was the Patriots playing, but the Steelers vs the Dolphins will have to do. I thought it was funny when The Bus (Jerome Bettis) came into the stadium in a big school bus. Is he an announcer this year? Anyway...

It was a busy day here. Bob had his first day of preschool. He was very excited to go and I didn't get a very good picture, but here he is:

Cranky and I found ourselves home alone without kids for the first time in a VERY long time. So we celebrated by hiking up Mt. Sunapee. Here is Cranky near the summit with a nice view of Lake Sunapee behind him.

After reaching the summit (2 miles), we hiked down the backside to Lake Solitude (1 mile from the summit). We ate lunch while enjoying the awesome view. We were the only people up there today so it was quiet and peaceful.

In this picture you can see Lake Solitude behind us. We have a very similar picture in our photo album from our honeymoon, 13 years ago.

This is called White Ledges. One of the many big-ass rocks in New Hampshire!

After we got home, we assembled Raymond's birthday present. He will be 7 on October 6th, but we gave him his electric (24 volt) dirt bike today. That way he can ride it for a couple of months before the snow comes. I wish they had these when I was a kid!

He loves it!

Bob had a great time at preschool (he didn't want to leave), Cranky and I had a great time hiking, and Raymond got his birthday present early. Not bad, huh?

Time to go back to work though. I'm leaving for Paris and Mumbai on Saturday. Have a great week.

Nice Saturno Dude

2006-09-06T20:30:00.000-05:00

The Pope was sporting a new hat today at the vatican. What is that all about? Apparently he needed it because it was so sunny. (It is sometimes called a "Saturno" because it resembles the planet Saturn.)

He also wears red Prada shoes:

Doesn't make me want to go to church.

In other news, I did not win the Aerosmith guitar. Some people from freakin' Massachusetts won. Figures...

Wouldn't This Look Good on My Wall?

2006-09-03T09:50:00.000-05:00

Our town is raising money for a new library and this guitar is being raffled. It was donated by Aerosmith and signed by all the band members.

In a previous post I showed a picture of Steve Tyler's house on Lake Sunapee. Here's a few interesting tidbits on his link to Sunapee.

1. Steve Tyler's grandparents ran a music camp called Trowrico. (If anyone saw VH1's Behind the Music of Aerosmith, he is sitting on the grass there for his interview.)

Sunapee has a brick walkway in the harbor with personalized bricks. Here is the brick commemorating the music camp:

2. When the band first started, they played local gigs, including the Sunapee High School prom in 1971. A few years later, my older sisters saw them play a concert at a race track 2 towns over.

3. My sister was out in our boat one summer and managed to get Steve to come out onto his dock to chat.

4. When I was home from college one summer, I babysat for his daughter Mia. She was only about 6 years old at the time and a very sweet girl. I took her out in my boat and she thought I was wonderful! Steve and his wife were separated/divorced or maybe just still fighting at the time so he wasn't around. Cyrinda Tyler didn't pay much attention to Mia and didn't really care who watched her. It was not a typical babsitting gig, I actually just took her with me. Now I wished we had hung out at her house, at least to look around...

4. Steve and his wife also have a brick on this walkway in the harbor. (His name was Tallarico before he got famous.) Cranky and I have one with our names and another for the kids too.

And of course one for the band:

The drawing for the guitar is tomorrow afternoon. Wish me luck!

Weisbaden Wine Festival

2006-08-31T07:30:00.000-05:00

I recently flew a 6-day Frankfurt trip that was a good time. I spent most of my summer in Rome, and it was nice to go to a cooler Germany. We stay in Weisbaden, where I love to go running. A flight attendant showed me a terrific running trail (actually I think it is a bike path), that goes through the woods. You can run as long as you want on it, but I go up to a church on top of a hill and back, a bit longer than 4 miles round-trip. I go in the mornings before we fly and it's a great way to start the day.

The other nice thing about this trip was the wine festival. It was about 10 days long and we went twice, since this was a 6-day trip (back and forth to Frankfurt twice).

This is the big church in the center of town. The wine festival wrapped all the way around it and the other buildings in the area. There was a band playing on each side, which was great.

Here's the other side of it:

I like the balloons hanging between the buildings:

The wine was wonderful and the munchies were great too. These are the biggest pretzels I have ever seen.

We also snacked on this pizza. They each had a thin, chewy crust. For toppings, one had cheese and arugula and the other had cheese, onions and bacon. They were both incredibly delicious!

This kid was doing great pouring and serving wine. I had to take a picture. I wish I had gotten one of him "sampling" it also, but I wasn't quick enough:

This German lady started talking to me in German and I kept saying "Ja, ja", to humor her, even though I couldn't understand a word she said. She ended up talking to several of us on the crew using German, some Russian, a little French and lots of hand signals. She showed me her ID to tell me her age and she is 72! Here we are enjoying wine under my umbrella:

There always seems to be something fun going on in Germany. The next festival I look forward to is in December.

I'm off to Rome. Have a great Labor Day weekend!

First Day of School

2006-08-30T08:24:00.001-05:00

It was great to get the kids off to school today. Mary spent much of yesterday thinking about and putting together her first-day-of-school outfit. She is wearing a pin that says, "What would Jesus Bomb?" that she bought recently.

On the other hand, Raymond and I spent 10 seconds on his outfit.

Bob didn't know what to do with himself and kept getting in the pictures. He starts next week...

Bob and I are off to Home Depot to buy a new front door. It's part of the next home improvement project, the front entryway. It never ends!

Happy Birthday Mary!

2006-08-28T21:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Mary turned 12. Yikes! Where has the time gone?

She had a couple of friends stay over Saturday night and I took them shopping yesterday. A good time had by all. We gave her a digital camera and she has been going nuts taking silly pictures.

It's been awhile since I've posted, but I've been very, very busy. For a mini-vacation,we went to Rhode Island for a couple days to see Cranky's family. We celebrate his mother's and Mary's birthdays and catch up on the family news. Here's Raymond at the beach where Cranky learned to swim when he was a kid:

But besides work, the project occupying most of my time is the mudroom. Each morning before taking the kids to the beach, I "mudded" the walls for a couple of hours. Then I painted. The weather cooled off so I started getting more done when we no longer hung out at the beach. On Thursday, I prepped the floor by putting down the underlayment (1/4 in. plywood) and smoothed the floor (seams and screws) with leveling compound. On Friday, I layed the linoleum. (It was my first attempt at this and it came out pretty good if I do say so myself.) On Saturday, Cranky installed the light fixtures and the outlet. And today I officially finished the room when I put in the floor trim. Here it is (I call it "snake in a mudroom"):

The original room ended at the beam you see in the picture, so we and doubled its size. It's almost ready to get filled with coats and dirty boots and shoes!

Wednesday is the first day of school for Mary and Raymond. I think they are ready to go back and it should free up my time too. Bob will start preschool starting Sep. 7th, going 2 days a week.

Speaking of Bob...You know your kid is ready to be potty-trained when he starts trying to change his own diaper. Today, Bob was yelling to me asking for help. When I got to his room, he was lying on the floor, pants and diaper off. He had a clean diaper unfolded, ready to go, and had even used wipes to clean himself. He did a pretty good job actually. But he needed me to finish up and put his diaper on. We've had MANY discussions on the need to "do his thing" on the toilet, but he says he's not quite ready. He's KILLING me!

That's all for now. I'm working on a couple other posts so I'll try to publish before I go fly again on Thursday...

Back Home Again

2006-08-07T21:47:00.000-05:00

I just returned from an interesting (work) trip. Itinerary: JFK - Brussels - Atlanta - Madrid - JFK.

I've been to Brussels several times, and we now stay at a hotel that is a 15-minute walk from the Grand Place. This is one of the buildings in the square:

The Hotel de Ville (City Hall) was built in the 15th century. It has sculptures between the windows (see next picture). The tower is 96 meters high, topped with a gilded statue of St Michael. It was one of the only buildings in the square to survive the French bombardment in 1695.

"Legend has it that the architect committed suicide by throwing himself of the tower when he noticed that the tower was not in the middle. Like most other legends surrounding the monuments of Brussels, this one also is not true. The tower not being in the middle is simply the result of the fact that the right wing of the town hall could not be made as large as the left wing because the town authorities wanted to preserve the street next to the right wing. "

Okay, so the building isn't symmetrical because they added onto it. But it still bothers me that the door is not in the center of the tower! *

The next picture is of a bronze sculpture that people touch for fertility. You can see the shiny surfaces where it has been touched. I'm not sure of the name of this. There are always a lot of tourists by it and I had to take a VERY quick picture just to keep them out of it!

Brussels is a bilingual city. You can see in this sign both the French and Flemish words. I took this picture on the way to the Manneken-Pis, which is the only location not written in French. Maybe it doesn't translate well...

Here is the famous Manneken-Pis, Belgium's national symbol. Sculpted in bronze in 1619 it replaced the stone version which stood in the same site since the 14th century. The statue is now so well known someone is paid to polish him daily and dress him in costumes sent from around the world. I haven't seen him dressed up yet, but the schedule is posted for those interested.

Here he is closer up. It is a fountain, so he is whizzing.

From Brussels, we flew to Atlanta. It was MUCH hotter! I had Belgian chocolates and I was concerned about them, but they survived.** After checking into the hotel, my good friend and former neighbor, Sybil, picked me up. I stayed at their house and had a wonderful visit. I even went for a run in our old neighborhood and was surprised to see a small subdivision had been built in our veterinarian's field! (There used to be an old horse and a big 'ole bull in that field.) We only moved away 2 years ago!

The day, before dropping me off at the hotel, we ate lunch at the Varsity.*** Six years in Atlanta and I had never eaten there.

Here I am getting our order of greasy food. Quite the experience! The best part was the frozen Varsity orange drink. It was like a creamcicle!

As we left Atlanta, we had the usual evening thunderstorms to avoid. Intimidating, yet beautiful!

Here we are flying into Madrid. It doesn't rain much here and it was obvious before we even landed. (It made for pleasant weather however...)

I went out to eat with the crew. Most of us did not know our way around very well, and a flight attendant from Peru who had never been there before, did a good job asking directions in Spanish. We took the #5 bus to Puerta del Sol to eat.

I took this picture from the bus and I now know that it is the Palacio de Comunicaciones in the Plaza de Cibeles. It was built between 1905 and 1917 by Antonio Palacios as the headquarters of the post office. Inside is the Postal and Telegraphic Museum, which displays the history of the postal system.

The Cibeles Fountain is in front of the Communication Palace. This fountain, named after Cibele (or Ceres), roman goddess of nature, is seen as one of Madrid's most important symbols. It was built between 1777 and 1782.

We stopped for tapas (like heavy horse d'oeuvres) before eating at the restaurant that was recommended to us. I sat facing this incredibly creepy painting. **** My first thought was "Naked Santa?" WTF?! I had to take a picture...

As we left we flew near (but not near enough for me to take this picture without zooming in as much as I could) the Valley of the Fallen. Unfortunately this picture is not a straight-on view of the 490-foot granite cross, but you get the idea, right?

General Francisco Franco built it and is buried there. Last month was the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the civil war. The Spanish government is considering redesignating the monument as a place of healing, rather than a tribute to Franco. Recently, streets bearing Franco's name have been renamed and virtually all his statues taken down. We'll see what happens!

Well, that was my trip. I'm glad to be home!

*Cranky would hate the building's asymmetry. The more I looked at it, the more it bothered me.

**Until Sybil's kids tasted them.

***An Atlanta landmark.

****Do not look at this picture very long if you are prone to nightmares!

She Made Me Do It!

2006-07-29T20:52:00.000-05:00

David Hasselhoff just cracks me up. In this picture he is being driven away at the Heathrow airport on one of those electric carts. Drunk as a skunk. Rumor has it he wet his pants as well. (See in this picture?) His publicist denies it. He also claims his ex-wife made him drink.

Sure, blame it all on her. Or maybe the "bizarre medication" he's taking? Puhleaze!

If you want a good laugh, read what the girls at Snarkywood have to say about him. It'll crack you up!

Little Tough Guy

2006-07-28T20:48:00.000-05:00

Poor Bob. He did this while riding his bike last night.

Today, a friend asked, "Bob, what does the other guy look like?"

The other guy is the tree on the left side:

Bob rode his bike down the hill (like the big kids did) but the tree stopped his progress...

Boys.

I guess he is listening to me because this morning he told someone, "I need to walk my bike down the hill."

Good boy Bob.

Lucky 13!

2006-07-25T17:50:00.000-05:00

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. We are going out to dinner with my 2 sisters, my brother-in-law, and my sister's boyfriend.

Why is Cranky smiling so big? Our 6 yr. old son took this picture. He tried several times but kept saying the camera wasn't working. I was gritting my teeth as I said, "Just take the damn picture!", which of course made everybody laugh. And here's the result.

Ahh, family memories...

The Great Flood of 2006

2006-07-23T12:37:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we had an unexpected HEAVY rainstorm that overwhelmed our yard and drainage system. It started before lunchtime and made the backyard look worse than it did after a long rainy spell, and only in a matter of 2 hours! We had a little leaking in the basement, which we quickly mopped up and continued with our day. The rain picked up again around dinnertime and after we ate, we checked the basement for water. As Cranky and Raymond (age 6) were mopping up a bit, Cranky noticed Raymond's puddle growing faster than he could mop it. Then they checked other corners of the basement and found leaks everywhere! I came down to help and quickly realized we were losing the battle. Water was 2 inches up the basement window, sloshing, resembling the porthole on a boat! All 3 kids were pressed into service. Bob, age 3, was released from duty at 8:00 pm to go to bed. The other 2 kids worked with Cranky and me until 9:45, when we finally got it under control. Ice-cold beer and ginger ale was consumed amid the mess as we evaluated the damage.

Our basement is all torn up, since we had to move everything from the corners. The guest room was also soaked. My sister and brother-in-law are coming for a 3-day visit tomorrow so we are working hard to make it habitable. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my weekend!

Funny tidbit from today: I was working on the mudroom (taping and mudding) when Raymond came in to watch. He was whistling the tune from the Enzyte (natural male enhancement, if you haven't seen it yet) commercials. Besides pondering the fact that those commercials are no longer shown only on late night tv, but on channels that my children watch, I asked (okay, told) him to stop. So he started humming it. "PUHLEZE stop with that tune!" So he sang Row, Row, Row Your Boat. I thought that was better but corrected him on the stanza, "Life is BUT a dream". His reply, "hahaha. Life is BUTT a dream! hahaha!" I just couldn't win today!

Go Italia!

2006-07-10T22:30:00.000-05:00

I'm on a long stretch of flying -- 12 days in a row. Nothing but back and forth to Rome, which I like, but it's a long time to be gone. I will go home at the halfway point, but only to sleep one night at home, change out clothes and leave again.

Last night was an fantastic night to be in Rome! I watched Italy win the World Cup, beating France. Many restaurants were closed or had closed early. I grabbed a slice of pizza and watched the game, cheering on the Italians.

This Italian woman is a big fan...

I watched the match with Lisa, one of the flight attendants who flew in with me from New York:

Walking back to the hotel afterwards, people were going nuts in the streets.

A flight attendant told me this morning that she saw about 200 people jumping around in Trevi fountain! Other flight attendants told us about watching the game in Circus Maximus with 35,000 other people. They reported that it was awesome!

Tonight the Italian team is scheduled to be back in Italy. We were told the party will be continuing in their honor!

On the homefront: My mother is driving me crazy, even when I am out of town. I can't wait until she goes back to Florida...

Beachin'

2006-07-04T21:27:00.000-05:00

The kids and I stayed at the beach yesterday much longer than we planned. It was the first truly nice day we've had in a while and I just couldn't bring myself to make them leave. Mary was swimming and hanging out with her friends, and even ate lunch with them. I had planned to leave by lunchtime, but I bought hot dogs for the boys in the snack bar and stayed until late afternoon. (The snack bar is just like it was when I was a kid. The swinging screen door brought back memories...)

From my chair on the beach, I decided to take a picture of Steve Tyler's (Aerosmith) house. It's not the most amazing house on the lake anymore, but it was pretty cool in the 70's when he built it:

One of the coolest things our town recreation department did this year was putting some great toy trucks out for all the kids to use. Bob loves "diggers":

And the cement mixer:

Raymond likes all of them, but spent a great deal of time filling this dump truck with mud:

Since we missed Bob's nap time, he had a little "quiet time" on the couch before dinner (this picture was taken 5 minutes after he laid down):

We'll be back there tomorrow. And the next day...

Happy 4th!

2006-07-04T20:58:00.000-05:00

After burgers cooked on the grill, we all got comfortable in the backyard to watch Cranky's fireworks:

Hope you had a good one too!

The Getaway

2006-07-02T13:27:00.000-05:00

Cranky and I managed to get away for a couple of days for some great hiking! My mother is in town, driving me absolutely nuts, but she agreed to take care of the kids so we could go up to the White Mountains. It's only an hour and a half away, and we left Friday morning. When we arrived, we hiked up to Franconia Falls. This was our warmup hike to check out our boots and day-hike gear, as this was an easy trail. Once at the Falls, the sky opened up and we got to try out our ponchos! We sat under some trees that were providing a nice natural canopy and ate our lunch. The rain slowed and we made our way back to the Ranger station, making it 6.8 miles roundtrip. While looking at some maps to decide our next hike, the rain picked up again. We decided to call it a day and went to our hotel.

We stayed at a hotel on Loon Mountain, a ski area. It was a nice place to stay and we made plans for a more challenging hike the next day. Before hiking, I talked Cranky into going up the gondola to check out the view:

This picture was taken on the way back down. Cranky was itching to get on with our hike so of course the gondola stopped and we sat there, roasting for an extra 20 minutes. After finally reaching the bottom, we jumped in the car and headed for Mt. Hancock.

We parked at the Hancock trail head and cranked some tunes while lacing up our boots. We double-checked our gear and headed out. The trail started of rather easy for the first 2.4 miles, then became a little more challenging for the next mile or so, with several river crossings that were a little bit tricky. We headed for the North peak first which was a very steep .7 mile climb. Here's a picture I took of Cranky going up:

In the same spot, Cranky took this of me looking back down the trail:

The North summit was our first official 4000+ ft. peak we've conquered. There are 48 mountains above 4000 feet in NH and we hope to climb all of them. This one was 4400 feet and the South peak is 4274 feet. After a quick lunch with some fellow hikers, we headed to the South peak. It was only 1.5 miles away and not a bad hike, except that is started to rain. Argghh! The weather forecast was for mostly sunny skies! We donned the ponchos and continued. After checking out the South peak, we headed back down the mountain. It was a steep half mile, though not as bad as the trail up the North peak. The whole hike was 9.4 miles, with a total climb of nearly 3000 feet, and we checked off 2 of the 48 peaks on the list. It took us 5 1/2 hours, including lunch and photo stops.

We drove back home to reality, arriving at dinner time.

This morning, Cranky saw this deer walking up our driveway. It's the same color as our silly dog and it caught his eye. I guess we had some delicious leaves on our trees! I took this picture from an upstairs window. At this point the deer was on to us and was looking toward the house.

That's all for now. Time to take the kids to the beach...

Busy Weekend

2006-06-26T13:34:00.000-05:00

On Saturday the girl (Mary) and I headed to NY for a wedding. My sister's step-daughter tied the knot! It was a beautiful ceremony and the food! Oh the food. Delicious and a lot of it!

Here we are:

We came home yesterday and brought my mother with us. She lives in Florida and we thought it would be nice for her to stay up north for a month or so. (She'll be helping with the kids so Cranky and I can have a little time away.)

Here are the cool boys modeling their sunglasses for Grandma:

Here's our dog Sally again. Her insulation bed is being used for it's intended purpose, insulating (our mudroom). She didn't even spend any energy to look at me for this picture -- just raised her ears! She's getting older (see her gray face?) but she's always been quite the coach potato:

Cranky got the "parts" motorcycle (the black one) running this weekend! I'm so excited -- it's for me!

That's all for now. Just too busy to write. Maybe later...

Rome Part 2

2006-06-21T20:04:00.000-05:00

I just got home last night from another 7-day trip to Rome. I carry my camera with me all the time there because you never know what you might see! Here's a few things you won't find in the tourbooks.

This "dog parking" was outside a store on Via Veneto, right up the hill from our hotel. I've walked by this many many times and never noticed it. Just park the pooch and come on in!

Down the hill on the same street is this Lamborghini dealership. I only look in the window here because I'm certain they would laugh if I went in...

I took this picture because I noticed a disturbing trend of men wearing capri pants. Unless the style looks like extra long cargo shorts (this guy's didn't), they look like ladies pants and I don't like it. Just too gay for me.(Not that there's anything wrong with that...)As a bonus, this couple had just come from Trevi fountain, and the woman got her ass little wet. Duh!

When we fly to Rome, we leave the States in the evening and arrive in Rome the next morning. I take a short nap, then go walking (or touring) until it's time to meet for dinner. I needed a little caffeine so I went to this coffee shop near the Pantheon, which is awesome!

After a little coffee, I headed toward Piazza Navona, and saw this "city" horse at work. This picture is for Heidi -- I was thinking of her lucky horses that get to stand on grass and eat it too...

After passing through Piazza Navona, I reach La Botticella, the bar where all the crews meet to go to dinner. This is Giovanni, the owner, an Italian who grew up in Toronto. I have met crews from US Air, Continental and Air Canada here as well as the 3 or 4 other crews from my airline that fly to Rome each day.

I wanted to show you some pictures of Roman transportation. In this picture I want to point out that the scooter on the right is taller and almost as big as the car. (Or maybe the car is as SMALL as the scooter?)

This is a Smart car. They are wicked small.
These are BMW's. The black one is cool but I would just get a Smart car rather than the red covered scooter.

Look at what the cops drive! A Land Rover Defender. I would love to have one of these...

It should be noted that they also drive some little Fiats that aren't near as cool. (I think the younger cops had them)

This cop has a nice BMW...

Here's another picture for Heidi. I took this while we were taxiing out to the runway (in the foreground) They had a pretty good haying operation going here at the airport! (No barn is sight however.)

In other news: Our retarded (we say "retahded") dog kept sneaking into our partially-finished mudroom to lay on the insulation today.

Also, the motorcycles did not breed while I was out of town this time. They did however, get a killer sound system fed through our network from the music-only computer in the basement.

The Girls Go Shopping

2006-06-12T07:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Mary and I went on a shopping spree. It was justified by needing "wedding-wear" for cousin Corry's nuptials at the end of the month. We went to the "big city" as Mary called it, otherwise known as Concord NH. In a moment of weakness, I let Mary get her ears pierced. She has been bugging me for some time, and yesterday I shocked her by saying yes.

On the way home she mentioned future piercings, to which I replied, "I don't THINK so!" I followed up with a casual mention that one of my ears has 2 piercings. She was totally surprised (I don't wear earrings very often), which again shows me that she thinks I'm a very boring mom. What's up with that? After all, I was looking at the Social Distortion t-shirts as a Father's Day present for Cranky, but since they were only in youth sizes, she got one instead! (Interesting side note: We had been listening to Social D all afternoon.)

Today I'm off to Home Depot with Bob. (Heidi, do you like his shirt?)

Like Rabbits

2006-06-10T11:22:00.000-05:00

Last week while I was on a 7-day trip, look what happened in my garage:

It looks like Cranky's '78 Honda CB550 (with the yellow tank) decided to have a couple of friends join him in the garage. He tells me the red one runs great and the black one is for parts....

The two latest toys are a couple of '84 Honda CB650SC Nighthawks. Cranky is hoping to get the black one running so we can each have one. The '78 is getting the boot.

I'm leaving again on another 7-day trip on Wednesday. There really isn't any room in the garage for more. Maybe I need to fly shorter trips...

A Rome Tour Part 1

2006-06-09T20:41:00.000-05:00

I've been neglecting my blog lately, but I was gone 10 of the last 11 days. I just got home from a 7-day Rome trip, which had 4 ocean crossings. This is normally a 6-day trip but since it is an "extra" seasonal flight to Rome, our first layover is 2 days long. Bad deal to be away from my family, but a wonderful opportunity to see more of my favorite European city. I thought I'd share the highlights of this trip with you.

I was flying to Rome on Friday night and saw this beautiful sky.

A USAir pilot was sharing some interesting facts about these clouds on a radio frequency we monitor while crossing the ocean. They are called noctilucent clouds, and are 85km above the earth. We could see them clearly for about 30 minutes. That is the first time I have heard of them and I thought it was pretty neat. More info can be found HERE

In Rome, the bus ride from the airport to the hotel is long, but scenic. There are a lot of cool things to see.

The Coliseum: I toured this on my first visit to Rome. It's amazing the things they did here to entertain.

The Forum: lots of old stuff.

Circus Maximus: I want to run down there some day for a few laps.

If nobody on my crew wants to play tourist, I will go walking by myself unless the weather is crummy. Here are a few of the sights I always see:

Piazza Bernini: I found a large internet cafe in this square. I also asked a fellow tourist to take my picture.

Trevi fountain: In the summer it's always packed with people. I overheard a tourist the other day saying she liked this better than many of the churches.

The Pantheon: If I have my camera, I almost always take a picture of this. It's amazing how big it is!

Vittorio Emmanuelle monument: Nicknamed the wedding cake building.

It's not as old as the other sights (it was built between 1885-1911). It is also the resting place of the unknown soldier and has an eternal flame guarded by soldiers (I took this by zooming in at sunset so it's a little dark):

Piazza Navona: This is very crowded also. There are all sorts of vendors here and a large number of artists selling their work.

This big fountain is in Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.

I took a picture of myself in front of the fountain.

Another fountain in Piazza Navona:

This also seems to be a favorite spot for, shall I say, "stationary posers" . (Fancy beggars?) Here are a couple:

The Spanish Steps:

Not my favorite sight. It's a whole lotta people sitting on steps. The fountain at the bottom is okay and the obelisk at the top is interesting (in this picture it is surrounded by scaffolding for repair work). There are a lot of "mobile" vendors here. They keep their wares on blankets to fold and stuff in their big duffel bag at a moments notice. If you get what I mean...

I also went to the Catacombs of St. Sebastian on this trip. These are outside the city walls and were not very easy to find. I took the tour in some of the 7 miles of tunnels , but I wasn't allowed to take pictures. (I was going to sneak a couple but the young priest in the back of the group made me feel guilty, so I didn't.) Here's the church that's above the catacombs:

Here's a close-up of the ceiling that was carved out of wood by a Dutch artist. The guy in the center is St. Sebastian.

This is St. Sebastian's tomb. He was originally buried in the catacombs below, but was moved into the church when it was built.

You may have noticed St. Sebastian has arrows sticking out of him. In 286, Emperor Diocletian ordered him executed by arrows for preaching Christianity. He survived. He returned to preach to Diocletian so he was tied to a tree again and beaten to death. I don't know if it was the tour guide's accent or choice of words or what, but when I heard this story I questioned St. Sebastian's judgment.

I think that's enough for now. I'll post again soon with some more scoop on Rome...

Memorial Day Weekend

2006-05-27T21:22:00.000-05:00

A three day weekend, beautiful! Cranky and I wanted to go out alone and we decided to go to a veterans dinner in the next town. Great food, a little reminiscing, but we were the only vets that served since Vietnam. The dinner was delicious, no kids, and the bartender served us very cold beer. So why complain? I'm not. We had a good time.

Tomorrow we are getting a family picture taken. It's my mother's day present and I finally made the appointment. I'm trying to get the kids pumped up so they will smile. Bob is 3 and has never had his picture taken in a formal setting, except for the one taken in the hospital the day after he was born. Wish us luck!

We've been very busy lately. That is nothing unusual, but I haven't mentioned our ongoing home improvement projects. We are expanding our mudroom (an invaluable room between our garage and our house where we hang up our coats and kick off our muddy shoes.) Over the past couple of days I shingled the roof while Cranky put up the siding. My six yr. old mentioned to me last night that I should finish it this weekend since I have to go to work on Monday. This morning I went for a run and then got my ass back out on that roof so now it is done!

We also have a basement project underway. It was an unfinished basement when we bought this house 2 years ago. Now we have a guest room and the rest of the area looks almost inviting. Okay, the warm weather is here and in a house without air conditioning, a cool basement is always inviting.... We need some floor covering, a ceiling (Cranky is an awesome drop-ceiling-installer) and bookcases/entertainment center. Soon it will be the parent-hide-away!

We had just fixed our house in Atlanta the way we wanted it, and we moved. Now this house, while perfectly fine, has turned into another big project!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend!

Gross Picture of the Day

2006-05-23T09:15:00.000-05:00

Last night, my 6 yr. old son asked me to look at his back. Something was bothering him and he couldn't remember what had happened.

This is what I saw:

Lovely tick, huh? Just looking at the picture makes me cringe. I had to pull it out with tweezers, which was no easy task! The tick put up quite a fight! Raymond took it like a trooper, no tears shed. We saved it (in case Raymond gets sick later and we need to get it checked) and he wants to bring it to school for show and tell. I don't think so...

It Figures

2006-05-22T21:50:00.000-05:00

I don't know if my info was on this computer, but this is just stupid. I could be listed twice. I was discharged from active duty in 1992 and then married Cranky in 1993, so I could be under "spouse info" as well.

I thought it was funny that they are going to try to send letters to everyone affected. Good luck with that...We'll be waiting.

I'm Easily Amused

2006-05-19T08:29:00.000-05:00

I was painting the walls in the basement yesterday afternoon and I was running out of paint. No big deal, I hadn't finished "mudding" one of the walls anyway. I took what was left on the paint brush and wrote, "HI" in big letters on that wall. My daughter came downstairs and "caught" me in the middle of it. She said incredulously,"MOM, you're doing something fun!"

What is so shocking about this? Am I THAT boring?

A few minutes later my 6-yr. old son came down, saw the wall and said, "MARY! You painted on the wall?!" She said, "No, MOM DID!!! Can you believe it!"

Yesterday, for show-and-tell, my son decided to bring the notebook that the tooth fairy gave him the other night. I didn't think it would be very interesting, but he was very excited to bring it. When he got home from school, he told me the kids in his class liked that it had 70 pages! I asked what they thought of the blue cover. He said, "Nobody mentioned that. Most questions and comments were about the 70 pages." Only in kindergarten could there be a whole discussion about a blank notebook without the color being brought up!

Last night, Bob (age 3), could not get to sleep. I thought maybe his room was a little warm so I opened his window and said, "You can listen to the crickets while you fall asleep. Won't that be neat?" His expression changed immediately to one of concern, and he said, "Crickets?" After a lengthy cricket discussion, he decided the window should be closed. Fifteen minutes later he called to me again and after a little more cricket talk, I re-opened the window. After getting up this morning, he stood at the window and said, "I'm looking for the crickets."

Maybe I need to explain the size of crickets a little better...

USAFA Summer Fun

2006-05-18T12:30:00.000-05:00

During the summer, cadets don't go home and party. Okay, maybe a little bit, but only for 3 weeks and only if no classes were failed (summer school). Luckily, I never failed a class so I would pop home to NH for a quick visit and then back to Colorado for summer programs.

My favorite summer program was freefall (skydiving). It was very demanding physically and we were dirty and tired at the end of each day. We practiced all our maneuvers for the jumps, while laying on our stomachs in the dirt. We ran everywhere -- to get drinks, to change training stations, etc. in the hot, dry Colorado air. But it was WICKED fun! When I finally got to jump, one of the pilots was my Japanese instructor -- he told me I was crazy to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Kneeling in the door was the scariest part, but once out, it was absolutely exhilarating! After exiting the aircraft, we counted to 10 and pulled the ripcord. The instructors were watching everybody through binoculars and we were graded on the whole thing, right down to the landing. My first jump was the most memorable. It went something like this:

(Standing in the door) Wow, that's a long way down.

What? It's time to go? Okay.

(I jump out) I guess I should breathe now. That's better.

Oh shit, I forgot to count! How long have I been falling?

Oh hell, I don't know. I better pull the ripcord.

(I pull and the chute opens up) Ouch, my chin!

What a view!

Where's the dropzone? There it is!

The ground is coming up fast!

CRUNCH!

Woo hoo! What a blast! I want to go again! Woo hoo!

I gathered up my chute and went to get my "grade". My freefall time before pulling ripcord was 6 seconds. I had a small gash on my chin from "opening shock", but otherwise, everything was great! I went back to the dorms at the end of the day and called my mom to tell her what I had done. I loved to freak her out. I ended up with my 5 freefall jumps, enough to earn my jumpwings.

For the last 3 weeks of the summer, I went through SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape). It is the survival program all flightcrew members are required to go through and all Academy cadets do it in the summer between their first 2 years. Rather than send us all to Fairchild AFB, the survival instructors use upperclassmen as assistants, and put us through the program in the Colorado mountains. I won't give all the details of the training, but it involved learning how to survive and evade the enemy after crashing in enemy territory. We "evaded" at night and slept during the day. It was fun.

Here we are with the the rabbit we killed for dinner (I'm second from the left) This was during the survival part of the course.

We named the rabbit "Chestnut" because he would soon be roasting over an open fire...Okay, that doesn't sound very nice but we were hungry!

Here's a picture of my friend Tracy and me after coming back from the week in the woods (I'm on the right):

We were so excited to be back and within 10 minutes of being in a shower. We were quite ripe!

After returning, we were grabbed up on short notice and taken to an "enemy camp", where we were interrogated. I spent a lot of time alone in small boxes. Luckily I'm not claustrophobic so I managed to get some sleep. I also had a bag over my head whenever outside of my cell. Party time!

The following summer, as an upperclassmen, I got to work with the AF Survival instructors. I was an "aggressor". I got to hunt for evading cadets from the class of '89. Here I am at our camp:

Once again, I had a hard time looking tough. Camping was fun, but trying to sleep during the day was kind of difficult. Probably the funniest thing that happened to me was the time I caught an evading group by accident. It was dark and I was climbing down a rock. When I put my hand down for support, my hand fell squarely on top of someone's head! It scared the shit out of me! I gave them kudos for hiding so well and we all had a good laugh. Then back to business...

Each summer was something different, and most programs were a good time. Most were designed to motivate us toward a lifelong career in the Air Force, while learning valuable leadership skills. Others, such as the SERE course mentioned above, satisfied a future AF training requirement. Overall summers were very busy, but a welcome relief from the stresses of the schoolyear!

No End in Sight

2006-05-16T08:52:00.000-05:00

There's no sun in the forecast and it's making me crazy.

Yesterday the boys decided to play in the big puddles in the backyard. They had a blast so it was all good, until I had to peel the wet, muddy clothes off them! They went directly to the bathtub where more splashing and screaming ensued...

(Yes, it was cold enough for Bob to need a hat.)

Hope you are drier than we are...

It's Wicked Wet Here!

2006-05-15T08:20:00.000-05:00

It's been raining since I got home from my trip on Thursday. Luckily we don't live too close to the many overflowing rivers in the area, but our yard is very soggy and we are monitoring our basement, which leaked a little bit last fall. Floods are north, west and south of us.

Everybody is tired of being cooped up in the house. Maybe today I'll take Bob outside to jump in the puddles...

Notsocranky and Cars

2006-05-12T09:16:00.000-05:00

Last week when I arrived in Boston after 6 days on the road (Frankfurt trip), my '94 Honda Civic had a flat tire. I knew something was up with it before leaving home (I found it VERY low on air one morning). As many cars do, the Honda has one of those little "suicide" spares that, *ahem*, aren't supposed to be driven over 50 mph. There's no way I was going to drive 50 or less from Boston to NH, so I put an extra wheel (one of the 2 snow tires we have for it), properly inflated, in the trunk. I double-checked the jack and threw in the metal pipe I use as a breaker-bar. I was ready for it to be flat when I got back.

Sure enough, the tire was completely flat when I reached the employee parking lot. After a quick call to Cranky to let him know I'd be a little late, I went to work changing the tire, even noting the time to see how fast I could do it. Five minutes later it was jacked up with the lug nuts removed. But the wheel did not come off! WTF?! Apparently it was rusted on. I tried everything I could to get that wheel off, but I finally ended up calling a repair service. The guy needed a sledge hammer to knock it loose! So after 2 hours in a rainy parking lot, I finally headed home, greasy hands and all.

That car does not have air conditioning, and I had already decided I wasn't going to drive in Boston rush hour traffic any more, especially with summer weather coming. The flat tire ordeal was the last straw! Last weekend, I bought my neighbor's '99 Toyota Camry. The following day, I sold the Civic. Ahhh...

It's just the latest chapter in my history with cars. This is how it all began.

On a nice day* in March of 1966 my father took my 3 sisters to go buy a new car. He bought a '66 Chevrolet convertible, that we called "THE convertible". My mother was not with them that day, because she was in the hospital giving birth to me! How would I know what was going on the day I was born? Whenever my birthday came up in discussion, my sisters would say, "oh yah, you were born the day we bought the convertible."

(Ours was light blue, like this picture from this '66 Chevy ad.)

I guess from that day forward, I was hooked on cars.

When I was a kid, I used to go looking at cars with my father. My 3 older sisters liked to go shopping with my mother, but I was not interested. I came across this picture of me recently but I don't know where it was taken or even what kind of car it is:

When I was almost old enough to drive, my father thought it would be a good idea for me to buy my own car. My sisters had shared a car, but I was the only kid left at home at the time. My father paid for half of it, so he had a lot of influence in the selection. He thought I should have a Volkswagen because they were easy to fix and the parts were cheap. So I bought a '72 Super Beetle just before I turned 16. My dad gave me a couple of shop manuals** for it and I was now a proud car owner. I even rebuilt the carburetor! Here it is:

My friends called it the "pumpkin". :))

But the car I liked to drive most was my father's '64 Corvette. I'd been washing it for my dad for many years. I loved riding in it when I was young. He would let me drive it occasionally while I was in high school and when I came home in the summer from college, it was mine to use. (My mother had given away my VW when I left home.) He used to say he let me drive it so I would come home to visit.*** My friend Alexandra ("Alex") and I liked to take it to the CT shore:

After my father died, my mother couldn't bring herself to sell the Corvette so she called me. Since I couldn't afford to buy it from her outright, we came up with a payment plan and the car stayed in my mother's garage in Connecticut. Shortly before Cranky and I were married, we drove it from CT to Tacoma, Washington, where we were living at the time. It was a really fun road trip.

Now it sits under a cover in our garage in New Hampshire. I used to drive it when our daughter was young (and the only kid), but I haven't had time to get it running again. Maybe soon....

* I assume it was a nice day. Why else would my father take his 3 little girls, ages 4, 6 & 7, to go buy a new convertible?

** The official Volkswagen manual and a Chilton's manual. I could fix anything with all that information.

*** Alex told me this. She saw him washing the Corvette one day and he told her he was getting it ready so I would come home to visit. Of course, that certainly was not the reason I came home. I hope he realized that.

Cranky's New Toy

2006-05-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

This is what Cranky bought while I was out of town. He calls it his "starter" bike since he only rode dirt bikes in his younger days. His next bike has already been found, and may also be in the garage by the end of the weekend.

If not, I'm flying again on Tuesday...

Notsocranky's First Set of Wheels

2006-04-29T23:34:00.000-05:00

Last week I scanned all the pictures I have of me and my 3 sisters. I put them together to some music and made a Mother's Day video for my mom. My sister Karla also brought me some of her photos, some of which I had never seen. I had fun putting this project together and I think my mother will be happy when she watches it in 2 weeks!

Here is a picture of me and my tricycle.

Isn't it beautiful?

Not long after this picture was taken, my father backed over it with his cadillac. Just one of those lessons I learned early on: just because something I like was ruined, doesn't mean it will be replaced!

I quickly learned how to ride an old hand-me-down, 2-wheel bike. I fondly remember my father teaching me to ride it.

Our creative daughter

2006-04-23T08:10:00.000-05:00

Our daughter's latest creative outlet is her website. She is only 11, so I don't want to link to it. Her writing is expressive and emotional. Here is an excerpt from the "thoughts" page:

What is my mind??
My mind is an enigma (Stupid? don't know that big word? click here). It is a twisting, turning place. My mind is a home to memories, good and bad. I live in those memories. Some are locked, and not to be shared, others, much more open. I am my mind. The mind is me. Without my mind I am nothing. My mind is confusing. My mind is a brain. My mind is all in my head. My mind contains feelings, controls thoughts and rules the body. My mind is everything that makes me well, me. My mind is a mystery. My mind is a government of myself, without it, who would help me live? Don't mess with my mind.

Did I mention she is 11 years old? I was not writing like this at her age.

Here is a funny list she pasted under "joke of the day".

I really do love this country, but...

1. Only in America... can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

2. Only in America... are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.

3. Only in America... do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

4. Only in America... do people order double cheese burgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

5. Only in America... do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

6. Only in America... do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

7. Only in America... do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place.

8. Only in America... do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

9. Only in America... do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'.

10. Only in America... do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille.

We are using the website as a learning tool for internet safety. Here is an example of what she has learned. She was asking for stories, comments or otherwise from her friends to publish and this was the fine print at the bottom:

Hand them to me on paper in school. Please tell me if you want your name on the internet, and please note that I will take out any personal info that may be harmful to have on the internet. Make sure that all articles posted are clean and of good content. If I find anything inappropriate, I will take it off immediately/ not post it. Each story must be written by the author you state on the paper, or if it was written by someone else, note who that is on the paper. Do not use your real name on the paper, instead use a nickname, screen name, etc.

Not One of the "Boys"

2006-04-20T08:20:00.000-05:00

I'm off to a Parade!

Do you like the white gloves?

Sorry it's been so long since I've written on this topic. Been rather busy lately....

I often get asked if I experienced any sexual harassment at the Air Force Academy, especially in light of the recent scandal there. I had one incident, where I caught a peeping Tom.

That first year my day started pretty early. I needed to shower and clean my room before the upperclassmen got up so I could get out in the hall to "call minutes". (Some guys used that as their wake-up call.) Anyway, this one morning I was walking down the hall to the ladies bathroom, on the right side, towel properly draped over my left arm, shampoo and soapdish in my bathrobe pockets. As I approached the doorway, I noticed the door was propped open (it was an inward swinging door). My roommate had gotten to the bathroom first and I could hear the water running. I was still a little groggy and after entering (still wondering why the door was open), I saw a guy laying face down on the floor. My first thought was "why is someone doing push-ups in our bathroom?" Then I realized he was inching forward to watch my roommate shower. We had typical military showers for that time, (no curtains) so he had quite a show until I interrupted. I'd like to say I clocked him with my shampoo bottle but I didn't. Wearing only underwear under my bathrobe, I didn't want to give him any more of a "show" anyway. But mostly I was caught very off-guard! Anyway, I must have let out a yelp or something because he jumped up and ran out the other (propped open) door of the bathroom. Breaking the rules (speaking), I told my roommate what had happened. We reported it to the squadron commander and were told it would be investigated and punishment would follow. Later, I found out that the peeper was a General's son, and therefore didn't get punished.

That's when I realized the Air Force has a good 'ole boy system.

Interestingly, I flew my last trip with a captain who graduated in the class of '79. They have proudly labeled themselves LCWB, which stands for Last Class With Balls. (The class of '80 was the first class to have women.) He is a nice guy, and we had some interesting discussions on the topic of women at the Academy. I mentioned that I didn't remember it being very bad when I was there, except for the peeping Tom. He had read an article that claimed the sexual harassment was initiated by his class, and we both felt that was ludicrous. While I never was too "keen" on his class's nickname (the had a banner in the parking lot of football games to attract classmates to their tailgate party), I don't think it led to any harassment. It was more of a historical thing. The last class of morons... Anyway, we both concluded that one of the biggest problems with the Academy is that the goal is to train future AF Generals and some guys get a little "power-happy" right from the start. Academy graduates have a bad reputation *of being jerks to put it mildly, when they get into the "real" Air Force. It was a compliment to me when someone would say, "Wow, you're one of them?! You don't ACT like an Academy grad!" Music to my ears.

With sexual harassment finally being addressed, the next troubling issue I've heard about is the religious bias. But that's not something I want to get into right now. It makes me crazy!

*There was one other group of officers with a bad reputation. The prior-enlisted officers were often known to be particular asshats to the still-enlisted troops, like they were better than them or something.

Spring Break?

2006-04-10T21:10:00.000-05:00

I leave tomorrow on a 6-day trip to Frankfurt. Things are getting a little crazy at work -- management is trying very hard to cut our wages again. I never thought it would get this bad and I think the pilot group has finally decided to raise the bullshit flag. The results of the strike ballot:

96.4% of eligible pilots voted
94.7% of those pilots voted in favor of a strike

I get home on April 16th and the strike may be called anytime after April 17th. I will be off that week because it's the kids' Spring Break.

Hmmm.

We probably won't be flying anywhere then...

Here's a good example of our incredibly lame management team. (Copied from a Union email I received):

In what can only be assumed to be another attempt to rebuild sagging employee morale, on April 5, Delta executives announced another forward-thinking campaign. Dubbed "Delta After Dark," management will kick off its first "Clean Day" volunteer effort on April 19. In essence, Delta employees are being asked to volunteer to come in on their own time and without pay and clean aircraft remaining overnight. While we applaud the Delta spirit of those who choose to volunteer, it is ironic that a senior management that has spent millions on $1000/hour consultants to lower employee costs now attempts to reach out by asking employees to work for free.

What next?

WTF!

2006-04-05T06:23:00.000-05:00

I can't believe this dickhead is in public office! No wait a minute....yes I can but...but the deputy press secretary for the department of homeland security soliciting children?

I can't wait to hear the spin on this -- he was doing research, he knew it was an undercover agent, blah blah blah!

A plea to dirty old men: "Please buy viagra and DO someone your own age!" For Christ's sake!

Bob is 3!

2006-04-03T20:35:00.000-05:00

Bob turned 3 today -- he's such a big boy now! He asked Dad if he would be picking up a cake at the store for him (another spark plug run?) Actually, I baked him a cake while he took his afternoon nap.

It was a beautiful day today and we played outside before lunch.
Here's the birthday boy:

Bob and I also put away the snow shovels, sleds, and other winter apparatus and swept out the garage. I guess I put the "whammy" on us because there is now a winter storm warning for tomorrow night, with a possibility of 6 or more inches of snow!

Bonjour!

2006-03-30T10:45:00.000-05:00

I've been on the road since Sunday and since I have my laptop thought I'd pop out a quick post.

We arrived in Paris Monday morning. After a quick nap, I headed out for a run. I ran from the hotel to Notre Dame, which is about 4 miles away when running along the Seine river. I sat for a bit on a bench there, then ran back to the hotel. As I reached the Eiffel tower, the wind shifted to a headwind, and my heartrate shot up for the last half mile or so. My throat was bothering me when I finished and I felt progressively worse throughout the night.

Since then I have been to Bombay and back, all with a miserable cold. It sucks flying like this! Today was my turn to fly so I had hot tea for my throat, drank 3 liters of water for hydration and used a whole box of tissues blowing my nose, all during an uneventful 9 hour flight. We arrived in Paris this morning and I took this picture from the bus as we were pulling up to the hotel:

I realize this is not the best picture, but you can see the buds on the trees (pink) in the foreground. I think Paris will be in full springtime bloom in just a couple of weeks!

Since I'm not feeling well and I need to rest for the flight home tomorrow, I am not going out to dinner. Instead, I am having my favorite standby: fresh mozzarella cheese and cherry tomatoes with vinaigrette salad dressing (caprese salad by Notsocranky) along with une baguette and some pineapple juice.

I love to go to European supermarkets and pick up treats to bring home for Cranky and the kids. Here's what I'm bringing home tomorrow:

As we say in our house, it's tasty deliciousness!

When I drive into the garage tomorrow night, it will go something like this:

**door to house flies open, 3 grinning kids squeezing in the doorway, waiting for me to turn off the car**

Raymond, age 6: "What did you bring me Mom?!"

Cranky (standing behind kids): "RAYMOND, I told you not to ask that!"

Mary, age 11: "How was India mom?" (being 11, she's knows better than to inquire about treats)

Bob, almost 3: "Dad moved the skateboard ramps!" or some other exciting event I missed while flying.

**hugs, kisses, walk in house**

I open my backpack and give everyone a treat....

I can't wait to get home!

C4C Notsocranky goes Mach 1

2006-03-26T08:35:00.000-05:00

(CS-01 squadron patch)

After finishing BCT I was put in cadet squadron 1 (CS-01), nicknamed Mach 1. This would be my squadron for my "freshman" year. Freshmen are not called freshmen there -- my official title was C4C (cadet 4th class) Notsocranky, but I was called a 4 degree, a doolie, or just hey you! Doolies were not supposed to talk anywhere except the gym & it's surrounding fields, the academic building (Fairchild Hall) and in your dorm room. We walked on the sides of the halls, "greeting" upperclassmen, by name if they were in our squadron. (e.g. "Good Morning, Cadet Dickhead!") Outside, we greeted generically, "Good Morning Sir! First Takes Care of its own!" Again, if it was someone in our squadron, we used their name. The second part of the greeting was squadron specific and changed periodically to keep it interesting.

We had to walk on the smaller white tiled lines on the terrazzo, unless we were in formation.

In the squadron, we had many jobs. We were in charge of "calling minutes", which was a countdown of sorts to each formation. (There were at least two formations each day during the week.) We stood in the hallway, at attention, loudly announcing, "Mach 1, there are 10 minutes until the noon meal formation. The menu is: hamburgers, fries, pie. The uniform is: athletic jackets. There are 10 minutes until the noon meal formation." In between announcements, we would read something (studying) by holding it up in front of our face, still at attention. What did we study you ask? Typically, it would be our "Contrails" book that was issued during basic training.

I carried this book in my pocket at all times so the writing is worn off the cover and spine. I was responsible for knowing everything in it -- aircraft and missile inventory of the US and Soviet Union, quotes from famous generals and presidents, the Code of Conduct, poems, names of everybody in our chain of command, and many more fascinating facts! It also held many slips of paper with my required daily knowledge such as the menus of the day, or anything else I was currently being told to know. I memorized all the cadets in the squadron who held a position, or job -- e.g. Squadron Commander C1C Thomas B. Dickhead. (Yes, middle initials were required.) Looking at my Contrails book, I see I memorized 40-50 names and positions each semester. Gee, I wonder why my first year grades sucked?

Classes were mostly typical freshman courses I guess -- English, Math, P.E., History, Computer Science, Behavioral Science, and a language (I took Japanese*) Another class I took was PMS. I didn't even realize how funny this sounded until I called home:

Mom: "How are your classes?"

Me: "Not bad, but I don't like PMS"

---a brief silence ---

Mom: "What?"

Me: "PMS, I don't like the instructor."

Mom: "Is that a class dear?"

---lightbulb comes on in Notsocranky's head ---

Me: "Oh! I should say Professional Military Studies!"

From that point on, my parents and sisters liked to joke with me about PMS. I had that subject every year!

I had some trouble staying awake in class. All classed were considered military formations and therefore subject to punishment. Being late or sleeping in class could result in an academic penalty as well as a military punishment (at the instructor's discretion). We were "encouraged" to stand up in the back of the classroom if we couldn't stay awake. Math made me particularly sleepy that first year, so my grades suffered. But my favorite course that year was Engineering 110, a basic civil engineering class. After deciding to major in C.E., I needed to start "applying" myself in Math, which meant staying awake and taking notes. Somehow I pulled it off.

Computer Science also gave me some trouble.** Halfway through the semester, I was failing. Wow, I had never failed a class in my life! I was given an academic advisor who told me I should voluntarily sign up for the "How to Study" class. It would help me if I was considered for academic disenrollment later on. Yikes! As it turned out, the "study" class helped me quite a bit. One of the most useful things I learned was how to take a multiple choice test. After reading and discussing the techniques, I took an actual multiple choice test from a junior-level course I knew nothing about. I scored an above-average grade on the test! With my new study techniques and after many nights in the computer lab, I squeaked out a "C" in the class.

I learned an lot in that first semester and still had a long way to go...

*When receiving the "strategic language" briefing, the Japanese spiel mentioned a field trip downtown to a restaurant. Apparently was hungry when I signed up.

** It wasn't until many years later when I met Cranky that I started to enjoy computers.

On Top of the Hill?

2006-03-24T14:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had a very relaxing birthday. I managed to avoid almost all household chores and Cranky took Bob and me out to one of my favorite restaurants for lunch.

After dinner, we had this:

It was supposed to be an after-dinner surprise, but my 2 little boys just can't keep a secret. Not that Cranky was very sneaky either. After school, my 6-yr. old asks, "Did you have a good day Mom, it IS your birthday..." As I am saying yes, Cranky says, "Oh yah, that reminds me. I need to go get spark plugs." He and Raymond go "to the auto parts store". Later on, during dinner, Bob says, "I'm going to have cake!" So I ask Raymond, "Hey, does that cake have spark plugs on it?" He looks at me, very confused, and says "No, but Dad and I got you a birthday cake!"

The boys just crack me up.

One of my birthday cards said, "Don't worry, you're not over the hill yet..." then inside "At the very Tippy-Top of the hill, looking down, maybe, but not over the hill!!"

Does that mean I've peaked? I hope not.

I really don't feel any different today. Hmmm....

Big Bucking Chicken!

2006-03-23T15:00:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in front of the tv with my laptop, reading a little bit and the new burger king commercial comes on. It's an ad for their chicken sandwich. I hear the guy singing but I'm not watching the tv, and I HEAR: "big F**ing chicken". I thought for sure it was a comedy skit (Comedy Central is on our tv a lot), but when I look up, I see a cowboy riding a BIG BUCKING CHICKEN! I ask Cranky, "what are we watching?" and he tells me it's a commercial, a real one! Wow, they got me good.

I will say, however, it doesn't make me want to run out to eat at Burger King. Even this creepy big-plastic-headed-guy makes me feel more like eating a whopper...

If anyone can find a link for this commercial, I would appreciate it. I haven't had any luck...

Bring Me Men (and Notsocranky), Part 1

2006-03-20T14:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, so maybe it's because I'm about to turn 40, but I though it would be fun to write about my USAF Academy experience.

Ever since I was about 12 years old, I wanted to be a pilot.* My mother recalls my 7th grade proclamation, "I am not going to college, I'm going to be a pilot!" I soon discovered that I needed to go to college to be an Air Force pilot. My aunt who lived in Colorado Springs told my mother about the Air Force Academy located there. Mom sent for the catalog and I read it cover to cover. It sounded like a great place.**

I am the youngest of four daughters. For the first 18 years of my life I was "following in my sisters' footsteps". My mother knew everything about everything that came up -- "when your sister was in school..." etc. I was tired of hearing that so decided I wouldn't go to any college my 3 sisters had attended. The Air Force Academy (USAFA) sounded better and better. It was far away from home (NH), it was a great school and probably most important, offered a way for me to become a pilot. I managed to get an appointment*** and off to Colorado I went in the summer of 1984 for Basic Cadet Training (BCT, or "beast" as it was called).

Wow, what an adventure! Kids from all over the country, beautiful Colorado scenery and of course, the military stuff. **** I quickly learned how to march, but always had a hard time keeping a straight face while being "trained" (translation: being yelled at) by the upperclass cadets. The only "down time" I managed to get during BCT was to skip chapel. No problem. I'd been dragged to Catholic mass my whole life by my mother and was happy to be free of that as well. I had 45 minutes or so of peace and quiet in my room, which was probably the best thing for me.

That first summer was rather busy. There was early morning PT, marching, memorizing, and many other activities, but probably the hardest training event was the Assault Course. We low-crawled under barbed-wire fence, climbed over/through/around obstacles, all while being yelled at for added stress. We also learned how to fight with a bayonet on our rifle.

At the end we had pugil stick fighting. Here are the guys going at it:

We had a squadron pugil stick competition to see who would be the "Big Bad Basic". I was in "A" flight and I managed to beat the other girls in "A" and "B" flights. So for the title, I had to go up against the winner of the "C" and "D" flights, who happened to be a big, tall volleyball recruit named Andrea.***** I knew at only 5'4", 105 lbs., I was going to be pummeled. I put up a good fight, but had a hard time overcoming her tremendous "reach" advantage. I lost but enjoyed the competition anyway.

(This post has been amended to add this picture of me. I didn't know whether to look tough or smile.)

In the middle of the summer, I got word from home that my grandmother had died. She had been one of only 2 grandparents alive during my life and it was a huge loss. A lifelong smoker, she had succumbed to emphysema after a lengthy hospital stay. My parents and I decided I should stay in Colorado and continue with my training. I'm sure it helped me to be so busy during that difficult time.

When the summer ended, I was no longer a Basic Cadet, I was a Cadet Fourth Class. The school year brought still more challenges for this small town girl.

* I had not ever been in an airplane and would not have the opportunity until I was 17 years old.

** I wanted to do the skydiving. I knew it would be fun and would also freak out my mother.

*** I also had an appointment to West Point, but wanted to fly. I was the first person from my town to go to one of the Military Academies.

**** Other than my uncle Jim, nobody in my family had been in the military. My grandfather had been a translator in WWII, but as a civilian.

*****Andrea is now a Northwest Airlines pilot.

Trunk Monkeys

2006-03-14T21:45:00.000-05:00

This is wicked funny. My friend Maureen sent me 3 versions of it. There are several, all great.

Enjoy!

Milosevic Checks Out

2006-03-11T14:35:00.000-05:00

Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic was found dead Saturday in his prison cell. He was 64. Milosevic, who suffered chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure, apparently died of natural causes and was found in his bed, the U.N. tribunal said.

Wow. I've seen him on trial a couple of times. When we fly to Amsterdam, we stay in The Hague and our hotel shares a driveway circle with the world court. I've gone over to watch when Milosevic was "in". The trial takes place in a glass-walled courtroom and we sat in some chairs behind the witness stand. It's all translated into English and you can wear headphones to hear it in other languages if you want.

Apparently Milosevic was pretty wild in the early years of the trial. Another pilot told me he was watching the trial one day when things got a little out of control. The curtains were quickly closed and the spectators were ushered out. When I saw Milosevic he just looked like a retired businessman, as in the picture above.

There seems to be mixed feelings about his untimely death.

Milosevic's death will be a crushing blow to the tribunal and those looking to establish an authoritative historical record of the Balkan wars.

"Justice was late," said Hashim Thaci, the leader of ethnic Albanian insurgents against Milosevic's forces in 1998-1999 in Kosovo's capital, Pristina. "God took him."

Though the witness testimony is on public record, history will be denied the judgment of a panel of legal experts weighing the evidence of his personal guilt and the story of his regime.

"It is a pity he didn't live to the end of the trial to get the sentence he deserved," Croatian President Stipe Mesic said.

I think a nearly 5-year trial was enough. Even if it had ended in a conviction, there is no penalty severe enough for the atrocities he committed. I'm glad I got to witness this interesting bit of history.

My Frankfurt Trip

2006-03-11T11:55:00.000-05:00

I'm back from 6 days of flying. We flew from NY to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Cincinnati, back to Frankfurt and yesterday, Frankfurt to NY. It's good to be back! We had awesome tailwinds going east so the 2 flights to Frankfurt were relatively quick.

This is what my instruments read:

The groundspeed is in the upper left corner -- 616 knots, or 709 mph. The tailwind was 179 kts (lower left corner). Excellent!

We don't stay in Frankfurt for the layover, we go to a hotel in Weisbaden. It was my first time staying at the hotel there and this is the key they gave me. This is the front:

And this is the back.... (or vice versa)

What?! No magnetic strip, words, arrows -- a blank card? (She says while scratching her head) Is this a joke?

So I got to my room and here's how the lock worked:

Pretty cool huh? The green light shows that my door is now unlocked. I felt like a secret agent.

Then, once inside the room I had to put my key in this holder to make the lights work.

Many of the hotels we stay in use these. If you take the room key out of the holder, the room will go dark in a couple of minutes. This is handy when you leave the room, because you don't need to turn of lights or the tv, and then when you return everything comes on again. The hardest thing is remembering to take the key when you leave.

Weisbaden is a nice city. I was surprised, however, to see a Walmart. I didn't go in because I refuse to shop there. I can't believe the Germans would tolerate such a thing! There are many wonderful shops in Weisbaden -- Walmart seemed out of place. What is this world coming to?

It was raining lightly when we left Frankfurt yesterday morning, but a beautiful day once we climbed up to cruise altitude. (It generally is.) To avoid the strong headwinds, we flew a northerly route which took us over the southern tip of Greenland.

I think all the ice floating in the water in the foreground is really cool. (No pun intended.)

I told myself I would not mention puke in this post, but last night Bob woke up and puked in his bed. Welcome home Mom!

Too Much Puke!

2006-03-04T09:10:00.000-05:00

Caution: If you have a weak stomach, stop reading now.

Early Wednesday morning my 6 yr old woke up crying. I ran to his room and he said "I threw up", just as I stepped in something slimy. Yuk! I took him downstairs and gave him a puke bowl*. He puked every 15 minutes for the next 2 hrs, when the interval stretched to every 1/2 hour. At 6:30 am, he says, "I'm feeling better. Did you clean the puke in my room yet? And could you bring my clothes down for school?" (Of course I hadn't done any cleaning since he wouldn't let me leave him alone up to that point.) So I went upstairs to clean and disinfect his room. Meanwhile, he upchucks again so he's definately not going to school.

Thursday afternoon I started feeling a little funny. As I started making dinner, I had to make a dash for the bathroom. Uggh! Cranky finished cooking dinner but I didn't eat a thing. I suffered through the evening and at 10:30 I went to bed hoping I would get some sleep. Just as I put my head on the pillow, Bob, age 2, starts crying. I went to his room and as I picked him up, he hurled all over me! Gross! I didn't realize how much ziti he had eaten for dinner! I carried him to the bathroom to clean up and change clothes. I decided Bob and I would go downstairs to get through the night together.

As we got settled on the couch, I contemplated what I would do when I felt sick if Bob fell asleep. That was not an issue since Bob and I each threw up a couple of times during the next hour or so. Just before midnight, I heard someone upstairs in the bathroom. Shortly after that, my 11 yr. old daughter came downstairs saying she had gotten sick. I put her on a different couch and found her a puke bowl. (Bob and I each had one already.**) Every 15 minutes she would yell, "Puking!", which was my cue to bring her a tissue and empty her bowl. Both kids got to see Mom's puking technique (sit up and lean over the bowl) and I coached them as best I could under the circumstances.

Needless to say, it was a long night.***

Last night, Cranky woke up and was, you guessed it, puking! He's the last one in the family to get it and hopefully that's the end of it.

Have a great weekend...

*When I was a kid, we had a bowl designated the "spit-up" bowl that my mother would give us when we were sick. As far as I know, that was the only use for that bowl, because whenever anyone would see it, a funny look would come across their face and the bowl was immediately tucked away.

**Bob is not a big fan of the puke bowl. When he would start to get sick, I would grab the bowl to put under him and he would scream bloody murder! I brought him into the kitchen (linoleum floors) and had to catch the puke since he wouldn't put his head over the bowl, despite my impressive demos.

***Luckily, the little guy got over the bug the quickest, and by morning he eating again.

Bode is Great!

2006-02-26T14:55:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit tired of the Bode-bashing by the press.

He was getting all kinds of good press before the Olympics, but how the tune has changed! From a CBS article dated Jan. 8, 2006 (titled Golden Boy Bode Miller):

Right now, the 28-year-old is the reigning world champion because, last March, he won the World Cup title, the world series of skiing. He is the first American to do that in 22 years.

Bode Miller falls more than any other world champion. Last year, in the process of winning the World Cup, he fell or just didn’t finish a third of his races. And many of the falls are just blood curdling. But when he begins to lose it, don’t count him out. His recoveries can be beyond belief.

But now that he didn't win any medals they are calling him the biggest bust in Olympic history. The reporters seem bothered that Bode is not upset that he didn't win any medals. So what?! He is showing people that it isn't about the winning, it's about being a competitor.

From an article today in the San Francisco Chronicle:

"The expectations were other people's," the biggest bust in U.S. Olympic history said. "I'm comfortable with what I've accomplished, including at the Olympics. I came in here to race as hard as I could. That was my obligation to myself."

I like Bode's attitude, but I don't like the label the reporter gave him. He's been busting his butt in skiing for most of his life, why shouldn't he have a good time at the Olympics?

I was browsing the Bode Miller family pictures on the NBS website and look at the picture I found of him with his parents when he was a kid! Can you guess where this picture was taken?

They are on top of Bald Mountain overlooking Cannon Ski Area, just like Cranky and me in this picture:

Oh, you gotta love New Hampshire!

We're Back!

2006-02-25T22:32:00.000-05:00

Bob on Wednesday, Feb 22nd:

Playing at my sister's house in Florida.

Bob today:

Back at home. A bit colder but we love the snow!

We're back from Florida and everyone had a great time. In fact, we were originally going to come home on Thursday but we decided to stay one more day. We didn't hit any of the tourist attractions this time. We just hung out, enjoyed the warm weather, went swimming and visited with my family.

We stayed at my mom's house in the Villages, a huge retirement community NW of Orlando. My sister and her husband have a house there also, although they are not really retired, they just love to golf.

As a bonus, I got to see my Aunt Jane and Uncle Jim. They live in CT but my aunt rents a condo in Daytona Beach every winter. Uncle Jim flies back and forth to visit, since he's not much of a Florida person. He's got to be one of the most understanding husbands I know in our family. My Aunt Jane is scared to fly, so he DRIVES her down to FL at the beginning of the winter and goes back down to get her at the end!

We had a cookout at my sister's house on Wednesday night. After dinner they gave me an early birthday cake since we will not see each other before next month when I turn the big 4-0. I had been trying not to think about that!

Today it started to snow just before lunchtime. Yippee! The forecast called for 3-7 inches but we had at least 8 inches by dinnertime and it's still snowing now at 10:30 pm! I hope it doesn't all melt before the next snowstorm!

Off to Florida!

2006-02-19T15:43:00.000-05:00

We lost power Friday afternoon until late last night. What a pain in the ass!

The temperature this morning was 1 and with the wind chill factor it was -20. Uggh!

Tomorrow I am taking the kids to Florida for a few days. It's winter break and there is no snow. What's the point of being here? That's right, time to go swimming and hang out in shorts.

Grandma is excited we are coming.

Time to go pack!

Notsocranky+Hydocodone=Play Dough*

2006-02-17T13:45:00.000-05:00

I surrendered to my cold and went to the doctor yesterday. I've had a nasty cough w/sore throat for over 2 weeks and I just couldn't take it anymore. No strep throat, but I have a sinus infection and the post-nasal drip has been making me cough. Anyway....the doctor prescribed antibiotics for the infection, and more importantly, an antihistimine with hydrocodone for the cough.

Ahhhhhh.....no coughing....peace at last....

The label on the bottle says:
may cause drowsiness (Yay, sleep!)
alcohol may intensify this effect (Aw, no beer with dinner)
use care when operating a car or dangerous machinery (No problem!)

Flashback #1**:

It's 1996 and we are living in Charleston SC. We have one kid, affectionately referred to as "the girl", formally known as Mary. She is spending most mornings at the daycare on Charleston Air Force Base while mom and dad work. I'm picking up Mary one day and the teacher tells me she loves the play dough they just made. What? You MAKE play dough? Cool! Can I have the recipe?

For those of you who have kids, are expecting kids, or if you ARE a kid, here is the recipe:

1 cup flour
1 cup cold water
1/2 cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 tablespoon oil
food coloring

Mix ingredients in medium saucepan. Cook over med-high heat until it is too thick to stir. Remove from pan and knead dough while cooling.

Flashback #2:

It's 2002 and we live in Atlanta. We have 2 kids, "the girl" and "the boy", formally known as Raymond. Cranky and I are now free and clear of the military, working civilian jobs. Raymond goes to a preschool*** 2 mornings a week to play with other kids his age. The preschool teacher has instructed the parents to make the play dough for the class. The recipe is different than mine, and I hear some people are having trouble with it. I give them my recipe and voila! Play dough for all!

Today:

It's 2006 and we live in NH. We have 3 kids, "the girl", "the boy" and "the baby", formally known as Bob. I'm home sick from work and taking some good medicine. It's raining outside and the snow is almost gone. Bob has left the play doh (the store-bought kind) out to dry and the small amount left is an awful brown color. Seems like good time to make play dough.

This stuff is great. Unless you are into the Play-doh smell for nostalgic reasons, you will like this because it is pretty much odorless. It's also more pliable and long lasting. While it is edible, I'm sure your kids (or you) will not like the saltiness.**** Conveniently, one batch fits perfectly in one of those reusable ziplock containers (see picture above). I'm not sure of the official size, but the bottom says 1.75 cup or 14 oz.

Try it out, I think you will like it.

Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Presidents Day!*****

*I don't want the Play Doh people on my ass.
**One of my favorite pictures. I like it in B&W.
***In Atlanta it's called "Mother's morning out", but I thought of it as "Raymond's morning out" since I was flying quite a bit at the time
****Oops, Bob is eating the play dough! Maybe not as bad as I thought?
*****Did you know it is still officially known as Washington's Birthday?

You're My Best Friend

2006-02-14T16:00:00.000-05:00

(On Bald Mtn overlooking Cannon Ski Area, Franconia Notch NH)

It's been awhile since I posted. I've been sick as a dog with a terrible cough, sore throat, and congested head. I'm supposed to be at work today but I was in no condition to leave on a 6-day trip this weekend. I didn't even leave the house for the last 3 days. But I got to be home for Valentines Day, which is a nice bonus.

My husband has never been a big fan of Valentines Day. He even boycotted it for a few years. Yes, I agree it's just a commercial ploy to get people to spend their hard-earned money. And since I'm not into diamonds or even jewelry for that matter, the ads on tv telling men to spend-spend-spend annoy me also.

But I still enjoy a nice card. Okay, maybe some candy too.

Today everybody in the family found some delicious treats on the kitchen table. The kids desperately wanted to eat them, but I stuck to my "not before lunch" rule. I found some chocolates, swedish fish, and those necco conversation hearts. Yippee!

The best thing though, was inside my V-day card - a CD with no writing on it. Intriguing.

Cranky put it into the DVD player and up popped the coolest Valentine ever. He had scanned a bunch of pictures from the past 13 years (those that were prior to our digital transformation) and along with some more current pix, put them to the song, "You're My Best Friend" by Queen. Here are the lyrics to that song:

Ooo. you make me live
whatever this world can give to me
It's you, you're all I see
Ooo, you make me live now honey
Ooo, you make me live
You're the best friend
that I ever had
I've been with you such a long time
You're my sunshine
And I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
I've been wandering round
But I still come back to you
In rain or shine
You've stood by me girl
I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend.
You're the first one
When things turn out bad
You know I'll never be lonely
You're my only one
And I love
The things that you do
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live.
I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
You, you're my best friend.

It was absolutely great! It's hard to believe how much we've been through during our marriage and he captured it very well in a mere 3 minutes.

I give Cranky an A+!

Have a great day!

100th Day of Kindergarten!

2006-02-09T21:37:00.000-05:00

Today was Raymond's 100th day of kindergarten.

Guess how many stickers are on his picture. Did you say 100? You're correct!

He had a great day at school today. They decorated 100 cupcakes to enjoy and share with some other students. They even sang a little song to the elementary school secretary, Mrs. Chandler.

Mrs. Chandler is a wonderful lady. She has been at that school for many many years -- she was there 30 years ago when I was a student! Last year my daughter's 5th grade teacher was Mrs. Duke. Mrs. Duke was my 6th grade teacher in 1978. Pretty cool, huh?

We moved back to my hometown primarily for the school. It's one of the few small towns that isn't part of a regional school district. Everybody knows everybody, which is generally a good thing. Sometimes it's difficult to live in a "fishbowl" as my mother used to say, but the education is awesome. Athletics are big in this town, and everybody can play if they want. I like that.

I'm happy my kids are growing up here.

Momma's little "fweety" pie

2006-02-01T10:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was stressed on all fronts -- personally, professionally, and financially.

Today is not much better. And I'm tired.

Luckily, I am hanging out with Bob. For an almost 3 yr.old, he is doing a great job making me smile. He is tickling me and playing belly button peek-a-boo.

He wants to go to the bank so he can get a sticker.

We only need to go to the post office.

He won't mind because he is my little sweety pie.

Post 9/11 Flying

2006-01-29T21:10:00.000-05:00

I took this picture yesterday during our approach to runway 31L at JFK.

Don't worry, it was the captain's leg - he won the coin toss in Paris - so he was flying.

What a great day to fly into New York! The weather was beautiful and there wasn't a lot of traffic. We didn't get many vectors and were cleared the visual approach to this runway, which is close to our gates. Anyway...

I had a request from Jessica to write about post 9/11 flying.

Most things are not that different.

In the first few weeks, the TSA broke the nail file out of my nail clippers and took away my leatherman tool that I had carried since my Air Force days. I almost had an ice cream scoop confiscated that I had purchased for my mother (for Christmas) because the metal under the plastic handle looked like a weapon on the x-ray.

Just recently I was in Boston (commuting to work, but not wearing my uniform) and got in the wrong security line -- all people in that line had to go through the "puffer" machine that detects explosives. While showing my Delta ID I asked if employees were exempt. The TSA agent said it would be considered a "refusal to test". I didn't want to learn about that process so I went into the machine. If you haven't seen it, it's a glass doored machine that blows puffs of air all over your body. (Most people let out a little yelp like they are being tickled -- I was too pissed off for that.) Then you stand in there for a minute while the machine deciphers the air sample. When the agent opened the door, he told me I had failed -- I tested positive to TNT! I had to wait for a supervisor while other agents thoroughly checked all my luggage. The supervisor told me that sometimes fertilizer can give a positive result (although I hadn't been doing any gardening that morning). She wrote my name on a list and sent me on my way. I almost missed my flight!

By comparison, I used to live and fly out of Atlanta. Our employee bus brought us directly to the A-concourse where our pilot lounge is located. We did not go through security. I think this is fantastic. After 9/11, they tried to bring all the employees through security. During normal shift change times, they could not get everyone through fast enough and it was stopped in about 2 days. So I guess if it is logistically difficult, security is not necessary. (Please excuse my sarcasm, but this drives me nuts.) Please note that I am not complaining about ATL. I wish all airports worked this way.

Enough about airport security!

There are only a few differences inflight.

On international flights bound for the US, we make an announcement from the cockpit before departure about TSA-implemented procedures. In summary, we tell passengers not to congregate in any area of the airplane and to stay in their respective cabin -- Business (First) Class or Coach Class.

I also find that if we miss a radio call from Air Traffic Control, there seems to be a greater effort to re-establish communications. Other airplanes will be asked to relay a message or the company is notified and they contact us by datalink.

But the most annoying change is the new cockpit exit/entry procedure. If we need to come out for any reason (like to use the bathroom for instance), we need to coordinate with the flight attendants so they can clear the door and bathroom of any passengers. It's a real hassle and with all the procedures, we are only alerting the passengers when the cockpit door will be open.

I honestly don't believe that any terrorist is going to use a commercial airliner again in an attack.

It's been done.

They caught us off guard.

We assumed hijackers want to land.

We have learned.

When my neighbors in Atlanta used to ask me if I was concerned about the safety of flying, I would ask, "Do you drive on the highways around here? That is the most dangerous part of my workday!"

Ahhh, Sunrise

2006-01-24T16:53:00.000-05:00

This is not the best picture, but it was an unusually clear as we coasted in over France this morning. This is the Golf De St. Malo and some French cities include, Brest, Marlaix and St. Brieuc. Sunrise made the end of the flight pass more quickly especially as we were vectored along the French coast.

It had been a long night of flying after a stressful drive to work on Monday.

It was snowing yesterday in NH, but nothing shocking. I managed to misread the school cancellations online and thought my kids were staying home. Later as I drove to work, my husband called to say that he drove them to school late. The elementary school called to see how Raymond was feeling since he hadn't come to school. OOPS!!!

Anyway, I thought the road conditions would improve as I drove south. Wrong! The roads got steadily worse and I saw several cars off the road. I even saw a big state snow plow truck/sander overturned on the side of the highway! As I reached the Massachusetts border, I called Cranky and asked him to check the NY flights for me. Everything was getting cancelled! Traffic came to a complete stop and I watched a tractor trailer slide off the road behind me and jack-knife into the ditch. Why was I still driving to Boston?!

I finally got to Logan airport (a three and a half hour drive!) and managed to be one of the last people to board the 12:30 shuttle to LGA. We got to NY at 3:00 pm and I took a car over to JFK. Thank goodness I didn't need to be there until 6:00!

The flight to Paris was uneventful and tomorrow we head to Bombay.

I'll be glad when I get home -- hopefully the weather will cooperate!

The Wealthy Industrialist

2006-01-20T16:15:00.000-05:00

According to Wikipedia:

An industrialist is a person who operates or controls a substantial industrial business over a period of time, usually amassing substantial fortunes or political power in the process, and who tends to become widely known within society in connection with their industry, or through other pursuits such as philanthropy.

So what does this have to do with me? Unfortunately, absolutely nothing.

Last night I was making dinner for my family. I had been thinking about making chili ever since I read Balloon Pirate's recipe the other day. Unfortunately I'm very "time-challenged" right now, so I went to my old standby, McCormick's Chili Mix. It only requires 3 ingredients: hamburger, red beans and tomato sauce. (I use an extra can of red beans -- it feeds one more person and makes it thicker) Then I mixed up some Jiffy Corn Muffin mix and threw it in an 8" round pan.

Anyway.....Since I was cooking dinner it was time for a beer. We were out of Sam Adams, my preferred winter beer, so I grabbed a Molson Canadian. After everything was underway - chili simmering, corn bread baking - I noticed the label on the back of my beer said "wealthy industrialist". What the hell does this have to do with my beer? Those crazy Canadians...

After grabbing another beer I decided to take a picture. (My husband thought I was crazy.)

There was fine print around the edge of the label that said,

Some said it wasn't possible to put another label on the back of the bottle. We said, "Huh, what did you say?" because it was really loud in that bar. Molsontwinlabel.com

So today I went to that website and and read this:

Using Molson Twin Label Technology, we've applied a second, or "twin" label to the back of each bottle of Molson Canadian and Canadian Light. This label can say anything, and usually does. So now, instead of letting your mouth do the talking, you can let your Molson do the talking.

I guess it's supposed to help out the drunks in bars to start up conversation. There are a lot of different messages, none that I would ever use or want to use.

I prefer the bottle caps found on some classic beers like Heffenreffer, Lucky or Narragansett that had the "concentration" puzzles. Does anybody remember those?

Have a great weekend and please don't "let your Molson do the talking"!

This Hill Sucks!

2006-01-18T14:25:00.000-05:00

This hill is about halfway through my usual run. It is nicknamed the "Great Divide" and while it is great, it divides nothing. It is near the border between our town of Sunapee and neighboring town, Croydon, but runs perpendicular to the line. Anyway, according to my new handy dandy Garmin Forerunner 301,

I know that the top of the hill has an elevation of 1315 feet and the other side is 1300 feet. The bottom of the hill is at the 2.5 mile point in the run and has an elevation of 1151 feet. I realize with this information and a couple of distances I could calculate the gradient of the hills but I won't. Suffice it to say that I go down the hill VERY fast and up the other side much more slowly! I can give some more nifty numbers from my Garmin:

Heart rate downhill: 150 bpm
Heart rate uphill: 178 bpm
Pace downhill: 6:30 min./mile
Pace uphill: > 10:00 min/mile
Stops during run uphill to keep heartrate below 180 bpm: priceless

Sorry, couldn't resist that last one.

I've discovered something since I began running with this great gadget: No matter how much data I have available to me, I still find numbers to contemplate while running. Maybe the calculating is as therapeutic as the running.

Music is essential for these runs. Not all the songs on my MP3 player have a fast beat, but each puts me in a certain state of mind. Current running playlist:

Aerosmith No More No More - gets me started
Red Hot Chili Peppers My Friends - sounds great through headphones & good for warmup
Pearl Jam In Hiding - reminds me of moving back to NH
Boston More Than a Feeling - first album I ever owned
Foreigner Feels Like the First Time - helped me get running again 3 weeks after my c-section
Jack Johnson Sitting, Waiting, Wishing - I'm not sure why, but it works
Counting Crows Long December & Train Calling All Angels - reminds me of Rome for some reason
Paul McCartney Band on the Run - before I had an MP3 player, I ran with a CD player and this album was good for running (before I had a CD burner)
U2 One - This song was on my MP3 player for almost 2 years in Atlanta - reminds me of my daily runs there (Sybil: this reminds me of Penhurst subdivision)
Allanis Morrisette You Learn, Thank U, Uninvited, Hand in my Pocket - angry chick music that helps me think
No Doubt Don't Speak - alright, this just has a great beat
Sarah McLachlan Adia - reminds me of being a new-hire at Delta & moving to Atlanta from Charleston SC
Dido White Flag - a song courtesy of my daughter that I find I can also sleep through on airplanes
Neil Young Old Man - I've been finishing up to this and it's great for my final hill - by this point my head is totally clear and I'm ready to start my day!

Snowmobiling has its own (somewhat headbanging) playlist on my MP3 player, but that's another story for perhaps another time...

A Day of Extremes

2006-01-15T14:52:00.000-05:00

When I left New York yesterday morning at 7:30 am, it was warm and rainy. I didn't even wear a coat when completing my "walkaround" (kicking the tires etc.) of my beloved B-757. We were flying Song flight 2041 to Aruba. I hadn't flown a 757 in almost 2 years and couldn't wait to fly what I consider, the "sport" model of my category. Smaller (and cooler looking) than the B-767ER we fly to Europe, it's a fun airplane to fly.

It took a little over 4 hours to get to Aruba, where it was partly cloudy and 82 degrees. It is a small island and a non-radar environment where we tell the controller our location and he clears us accordingly. We called the island in sight and were told to descend into the pattern at 1500 feet. He then cleared us for a visual approach to runway 11, which brings us in over the resort end of the island. I had a great landing, remembering to pull the power at 30 feet instead of 10, and keeping the nose from dropping.

I wish I could say we went and sipped margaritas on the beach, but instead went through security and customs (preclearing to the states, which is nice) and back to the airplane. Because the flight time round trip is longer than 8 hours, we carry 2 pilots for each leg, and I was done for the day. Since I commute back home through Boston, I went over to another gate and hopped on an American Airlines flight to Boston. Luckily the Captain agreed to give me a ride so plopped down in an open seat in first class. What a deal! I couldn't take a picture while I was flying in, so I took these on departure:

This picture has most of the island in it. Aruba is smaller than I expected!

(Not much happening on this end of the island... )

So I made it to Boston ahead of the winter storm. The front was passing over Providence RI as we flew over and it was rainy in Boston. I ran over to the Delta terminal and caught the employee bus to my car. After nearly 2 hours of miserable driving, I was almost home. The rain had turned to snow at this point, so I was happy to be home!

The wind was howling and the temperature had dropped dramatically. Around 11:00 pm we heard a loud crack! A large pine tree had fallen in our driveway and it fell the only way it could without doing damage. It fell at an angle between the house and the barn and only scraped the barn a bit as it fell. If it had fallen backwards, it would have taken out power lines so we were very lucky! Here are some pictures I took this morning:

Here's the tree trunk that snapped!

This tree fell across my husband's normal parking spot. Fortunately he puts his truck in the garage in the winter.

(The boys were out playing in the snow as I shoveled and cleared branches)

What a day!

6:30 am -- rainy, 45 degrees
12:30 pm -- sunny, 82 degrees
9:30 pm -- snowy, windy, 20 degrees

Thoughts on Alito

2006-01-11T17:22:00.000-05:00

I was reading the Alito transcripts from today here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/11/AR2006011101148.html?nav=rss_nation/special

I think it is difficult to figure out how any judge will rule in the future by asking him/her questions. But I was troubled by his convenient loss of memory regarding his membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (a group that opposed admission of increased numbers of women and minorities).

Here is a little snippet of Senator Durbin's questioning:

Durbin: Let me just go to the Concerned Alumni of Princeton. I didn't understand your answer.

Your answer said something about ROTC being discontinued at Princeton University. I know you were involved in ROTC. I'm told that by the time you filled out this application ROTC had been restored. I don't believe you were suggesting that bringing more women and minorities to Princeton would somehow jeopardize the future of ROTC. I don't know that that's the case.

ALITO: I've said what I can say about what I can recall about this group, Senator, which is virtually nothing. I put it down on the '85 form as a group in which I was a member. I didn't say I was anything more than a member. And since I put it down, I'm sure that I was a member at the time. But I'm also sure -- and I have wracked my memory on this, that if I had participated in the group in any active way, if I had attended meetings or done anything else substantial in connection with this group, I would remember it.

ALITO: So that's the best I can reconstruct as to what happened with this group. I mentioned in wracking my memory about this, I said, "What would it have been, what could it have been about the administration of Princeton that would have caused me to sign up to be a member of this group around the time of this application?" And I don't have a specific recollection, but I do know that the issue of ROTC has bothered me for a long period of time. The expulsion during the time of the units, at the time when I was a student there, struck me as a very bad thing for Princeton to do.

DURBIN: Did women and minorities have anything to do with that?

ALITO: No. And I did not join this group, I'm quite confident, because of any attitude toward women or minorities. What has bothered me about -- what bothered me about the Princeton administration over a period of time was the treatment of ROTC. And after the unit was brought back, I know there's been a continuing controversy over a period of years about whether it would be kept on campus, whether in any way this was demeaning to the university to have an ROTC unit on campus, whether students who were enrolled in ROTC could receive credit for the courses, whether the ROTC instructors could be considered in any way a part of the faculty. All of this bothered me, and it is my recollection that it continued over a period of time.

*end of snippet*

How can someone join an organization, list it on a Justice Dept. job application and not know why they joined? What does working in the Reagan Administration do to people'e memories?

I think a better answer would have been "I don't know much about the organization -- my wife signed me up for it".

I realize this is a very small point with so many more important issues regarding a Supreme Court Justice appointment but I prefer honesty above (almost) all else. The "I don't recall" excuse irritates me!

That's all --

p.s. Mo, I flew with a very Texan captain (you know the type) but found out 4 days into a 6 day trip that he was Democrat and hated Bush. We agreed on several issues and I was totally shocked! (After that discovery I almost didn't mind his whisting in the cockpit.) I don't know how you live there....