Old Stomping Grounds

One thing about being in Lemoore, it makes it harder to get home. It's right at the cusp of being too far to drive and too close to fly. 9 in a half hours makes huge difference in how I schedule thing but when I finally get to the end, it makes it that much sweeter seeing the smiling faces at the end of the journey. In my elder age, I'm not the fly by the wire speeder that I was at 20, now I ponder my moves and am fearful of what tickets can do. When Google maps says something is going to take a certain amount of time to drive, its fairly close to the mark I hit.

We just got back from one of my fly by trips to Arizona, a week isn't much time when you have friends and family scattered across an entire state and considering that I do come by a couple times a year, I don't expect them to drop everything when I'm driving through their town. Never the less, our trip was packed, spent the first couple of days in Chandler staying at my uncle Larry's, he has an apartment at his hanger which he makes available to family such as I when we're in the area and we are really appreciative!

Part of my uncles collection of Things

Where we stayed

While there, got to see my oldest friend in the world, Leslie and her husband Scott. I met Leslie the summer before 6th grade and she was the coolest person on the block because she had a couple of quads and an empty field besides her house that had a track. We went out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings where she met my wife for the first time and seemed delighted with the company. Good people!

The next couple of days were spent hanging out with the pop, my step mom Diane , Uncle Larry, Aunt Michele and Aunt Mary and Uncle Gordo had just flown in from Australia and there was a good night of tale exchanging.

From the left, May, Gordo, Larry, Michele bride at the bottom

Bride, Dad and Diane

Next Prescott where I got to hang out with my bald but beautiful sister who was in good spirits even with the tough times she's going through.

I spent an afternoon updating her computers and setting up her audible.com account (which is my account and has entirely too much money sunk into it). I went over to my second oldest friend Jason's house and passed on my old 30 gig Zune (I had 4 Zunes but only room for 3 on my account). He's a music freak and had yet to own an MP3 player, me giving him the Zune was my coin tossed into the pool of karma. I couldn't think of anybody who would have got better use out of it then him and I just installed a new battery. Hmm, maybe I need to blog about my love of Luddites sometime soon.

While hanging out with my mom, her neighbor came by with a laptop that was made in 2000 that was new still in it's plastic that he picked up at some auction that he wanted to use to track his different jobs and wanted me to make it do that for him. Hmm, a spreadsheet would probably be albe to do that. Excel was out of the question because it cost money so I figured I would plug it into my sisters high speed internet and update everything and find something free. Alas, I get to my sisters and find the laptop only had a phone line. So I went online with my computer, found a great free spreadsheep program called Gnumeric, read the directions and used a little bit of computer savvy and downloaded the program to a disk and installed it on the dinosaur and placed a different file with the names for each month of the year on the desktop, it would track the job, with names, supplies, add the money and miles traveled at the end of the month and his accountant should be happy.

Sunday, I introduced my favorite city girl to some light climbing at the Dells with Larry and Jennifer. At first it was a little spotty, it's hard to introduce someone who's walked of flat ground 99.9 percent of their life to clambering over rocks, by the time we left, she was getting her footing. Both of us being not used to that sort of exercise felt it the next day.

The above picture was taken using the Canon setting Color Accent

Me and Larry

Larry and Jennifer

Finally back to work on Tuesday, it's hard to cram all of the people that I wanted to see in just a week. Hopefully next time I can get a little more time out there.

NorCal Trip

I’m taking a hop down to San Diego to pick up the car from work and then driving over to Phoenix to see my friends and family in that area of the world. The last ten days in Northern California has been wondrous. The first night in the city, I went to a Steam Punk party with the wife and some of her friends, every see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow or the game Bioshock? Well we dressed sort of like that, goggles, brass gadgets, old style clothes, live music, belly dancing, a guy playing a shovel, yeah, it was interesting. A bunch of geeky sort of people hanging out having a good time. Here's some pictures.

My wife wasn't the only person with blue hair.

We made a trip to the San Francisco Zoo and in comparison to the San Diego or Phoenix zoo, it’s much smaller and homier. Of course we had to see the pen where the tiger got out of, there were signs saying to respect the animals but no word of warning that the animal could jump the fence and eat you like a snack. I liked it, it was a chilly misty day, we were bundled warmly and I was in great company. It was the first public place I’ve been where, along with the trash can and recycling, they had a bin for compost. While the zoo was smaller, the animals seemed happier and well cared for.

I used to have a goat that looked just like this one

Someone else with matching hair

I'm sure this one wanted to eat me

During the week we also slipped in a trip to see the new Star Trek movie which being the geeks that we are, enjoyed tremendously. Lots of walks down new paths with the Gatsby, installing a lift in the mother-in-laws garage that could lift a 4X8 HO train track to the ceiling, hanging out with her dad, having a Mother’s Day lunch with the brides mom, grandmother the rest of her family. An altogether great time.

The plan when I land is to stop by the cleaners and pick up a uniform that I forgot there pick up the car and run by my old work to pick up a plaque, then hit the road and probably stay at my dads tonight in Scottsdale. From there, I‘ll probably drive up to Prescott later in the week and other then that, I’ll play it by ear. Hope everyone remembered to call their mom on Mother’s Day and be careful of catching the Swine!

The Mystery Spot

Saturday, the bride and I drove down to Santa Cruz and she said she wanted to bring me to the Mystery Spot. I thought she meant someplace to surprise me but instead, we went to “The Mystery Spot”, touristy place located just inland of Santa Cruz, California. According to legend, it’s a circular area of gravitational anomaly that is 150 feet in diameter. Supposedly, there are changes in gravity, perspective and the direction of magnetic north. I don’t know about the last since I didn’t bring a compass with me, I do remember seeing this place on the travel channel a few years ago. We pulled out of Santa Cruz driving inland on Market Street and there’s a little drive pull off on the left hand side of the road with this sign (the picture is of the back of it)

and a short drive down this spooky little road in the woods


Parking is 5 bucks and 5 dollars per person except if you’re military and it’s totally free (except for the parking, thanks guys)

You get your tickets and get assigned to a group with a form up time and here the guide shows how the height of people change between two places only a couple of feet apart. The tour takes 45 minutes of which the guide spends most of that time trying to confound you. It was fun but I still have trouble believing that there is a spacecraft or magma vortex buried underneath. The wife did feel like she was going to fall over the entire time she was there but in a past life, I was an avid rock climber so sharp slopes are natural. Here are some pictures but you’ll have to make your own judgments over the mystery. It’s fun and easily worth the 5 bucks that they charge and Santa Cruz of "Lost Boys" fame is a beautiful city of which I hope to spend more time of in the future.