Goodbye 2007

As I look back on 2007 it has been a pretty tumultuous year:

spent 80k miles in a plane, and how many in a car?

traveled to New York, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Washington, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Illinois, Toronto, and even to England and Scotland

went back to Knoxville

explored Portland

explored the West coast

got to spend time with Mom and Dad

visited with family

visited with old friends

made new friends

moved

bought a house

started fixing up a house, hey landscaping is traumatic!

kayaked for the first time

had sick puppies

learned to get past some of my phobias

had to say goodbye too many times

learned alot about myself and my limits

I don't usually do new year resolutions, but I think this time I might.

Holidays with the Family

Bucky and Holly came into town from San Diego Friday night. We had a good weekend together. They came up and spent the night Sunday night. We drank some spirits and played some cards. It was really fun. I spent Monday and Tuesday night down at mom and dad's. We always open presents on christmas eve. Jim had to work, so we waited until he came down to begin the festivities.

We lounged around christmas day. I was feeling a bit icky. Dad, Bucky, and Holly went up to Portland to go to Powell's books. I thought it was crazy, but they are open 365 days a week. Mom and I rested up for the big after christmas shopping. Jim came down and we had our official christmas dinner that evening. Bucky and I started to go to Spirit Mountain Casino christmas night, but the roads had been wet all day, and it had turned to ice. We were bummed... nothing like gambling on christmas!

We got up early on Wednesday to join the madness. We concentrated on the outlet mall, which was a good call. We shopped for 3 hours straight and came home with my trunk stuffed to capacity with our purchases. There was a big threat of snow for Thursday, and Bucky and Holly were afraid that they would not be able to get to the airport from McMinnville if it snowed, so I took them up to stay at a hotel by the airport. We had a great visit, and I was so happy they got to come up for christmas.

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone has a great day! I'm just glad to have the week off.

Winter Wonderland

I flew to Skaneateles the 16th (Sunday) to spend the week. I had meetings all week, and I planned to leave Thursday afternoon. There was a ton of snow. They had been dumped on all week, and it continued. I got to the Syracuse airport just fine, but Hertz didn't have any 4 wheel drive cars left. I opted for the trusty Camry. I decided to take the I-90 (NY State Thruway) thinking it would be clearer than I-81. I think I made a pretty good choice there. Snow was coming down really hard, and I was driving pretty darn slow because it was still slick. The salt trucks and scrapers were having a hard time. No matter which way I had taken I eventually had to get off onto small roads to get to Skaneateles. I got off I-90 at Weedsport and freaked out. The streets were bad, and the snow was coming down harder. I creeped along, got honked at, and battled horizontal gusts of snow. I got to the hotel very late. It is a boutique hotel so there is no one there. You just let yourself in. Well I had trouble getting into the drive. I had to ramp up onto the snow bank made by the snow scrapers to get in. I just kept putting it in drive and gunning it, then putting it in reverse and gunning it over and over. Finally I busted through the snow bank and luckily did not hit the side of either of the houses that flanked the driveway. I had a little freak out moment there. I went around back to park and basically slid 360 degrees and left the car where it stopped. Luckily I was the only one there. Overall I think I did pretty good. Hey people.... I'm from Tennessee! I think there was almost 2 feet of snow. You better believe I made poor Paul drive me around all day the next day, but by Tuesday I was fine. Tuesday night I ventured out for dinner. Since the hotel is in "downtown" Skaneateles I could walk to everything. I walked around for a long time. It was so pretty. Wednesday it was sunny for a bit, but of course the snow stayed. It sort of snowed off and on until I left Thursday afternoon.

Today I had hoped to stay home from work, but of course I ended up going in. It was good that I did though. I got to see everyone before christmas.

Sunny New Mexico?

No. Not too Sunny.

Tiffanie and I landed in Albuquerque a little after noon on Thursday. We got settled in and then explored Old Town Albuquerque. It was pretty touristy... and cold. We walked around, got some souvenirs, and headed back to the hotel. The next morning we met up with one of the guys from work who had flown in from NY. We went to a cardiac center to do some observations and interview some people. That night Tiffanie and I went to the Nob Hill district (yes... there is a Nob Hill in San Francisco and in Albuquerque - oh and Tiffanie lives in the Nob Hill neighborhood in Portland) to get dinner and shop. Nob Hill is along Central Avenue, which was once part of Route 66 so there are several crazy old motels in that area.

The next morning we left early to go to Santa Fe. We were staying until Sunday afternoon so we could spend the weekend in Santa Fe. We drive up the Turquoise Trail in search of jewelry. It is called a scenic byway, and that it is. The hills were beautiful. We drove through several mining towns, saw some old churches and "ruins". We drove through alternating rain and sun. We went to some of the shops in Midrid, and used the cleanest port-a-pot I have ever seen in my life. That is all we saw that day... port-a-pots. And let me tell you... they varied widely in quality! Our next stop was Cerrillos. I was all excited about the petting zoo-rock shop-museum combo. Their port-a-pot was permanent... just a cold deep deep deep hole in the ground with a port-a-pot sitting on top. I won't even go into detail about the general store. There was a cool church there. Wow... Cerrillos was SCARY. Their claim to fame is that Young Guns was filmed in the area. We also stopped at a place called "Tiny Town" which was uber creepy. I don't know how to describe it - click on the link. I made poor Tiffanie turn around to go back to it. Holy cow!!! When we got to the end of the Turquoise Trail I was cold and sniffly, had a heightened toilette phobia, and was covered in a variety of cactus spines.

When we got to Santa Fe late in the afternoon, and we checked into our Hotel which was located in the historic Santa Fe Plaza. We went over to Canyon Road, which is the arts district. We had an late lunch at a tapas restaurant that was recommended to us. We went back to the plaza and walked around until most things were closed. It was very cold, rainy and then snowy. We walked to dinner in the snow. The next morning we woke up to a sunny day and shopped some more in Santa Fe. Then we went north of town to a flea market. There was light snow on the mountains - it was beautiful. The flea market was pretty sparse. It was the next to last weekend they were open. We still found some good stuff. Afterwards we drove straight to the airport to fly home. We ended up getting in pretty late, but it was worth it.

Santa Fe was pretty cool. Because it was the christmas season there were luminaries on almost all of the buildings. It really was pretty. There were some neat historic buildings, and they really did a good job of keeping the adobe feel to all of the newer buildings.

I left my heart in San Francisco

I had a meeting in Palo Alto CA Tuesday, and I had to be in Albuquerque NM today. So I planned to fly into San Francisco and spend some time with Heather and the Bald's on Monday. My plans changed when I found out there was a Pineapple Express coming to the West coast Sunday and Monday. It was slated to bring very high winds which would make flying difficult, scary, and maybe even impossible. So I "took one for the team" and went to San Francisco on Saturday. I don't know how Heather and the fam felt about me just inviting myself for such a long time, but I was happy to be there!

I got to spend some time with Corey, Susan and Bryn, the kids, Ron and WIllie, and Brian. It was fun. I flew into SFO in the morning, and Heather and I explored the Sutro Baths and then had breakfast at Cliff House. We messed around in downtown San Francisco for the day and went shopping in Japantown. Awesome! We met Corey at Canteen, which was a tiny diner turned snazzy restaurant in Nob Hill, and then we went on to the Tunnel Top for drinks. The next day I went on a hike with Susan, Bryn, Willie, Ron, and the kids in the Stanford Foothills to the Dish - a radio telescope built in the 60's by the Stanford Research Institute. The views were amazing, and the kids were so cute! I spent some time in Sunnyvale/Santa Clara with the Bald's, and that evening had dinner and hung out with Brian. He is hysterical!

I then had some work meetings in Palo Alto Monday (I got to drive the old ciivic - it was like riding a bicycle!) and Tuesday. I hung out with Heather while she worked. Her work is a long story, but it is something analogous to pole counting. It was great to just drive all over the place and talk and giggle. I was so happy to get to spend time with the kids too. They are so cute and growing so fast.

The time flew while I was there, and Thursday came too quickly. Thursday morning (insanely early) Heather took me to the airport to go to Albuquerque NM. I flew to Denver where I met up with Tiffanie and we flew on to Albuquerque together. I was soooo sad to leave Heather. I have been spoiled seeing her so often the past 6 months.