Lorena and Kelly made it to London last night. They had a great flight, saw the Aurora Borealis as they flew past Iceland, landed at Heathrow Airport late morning and made it to their Bed and Breakfast by 1:30 PM London time. That got a little rest, went out and got some dinner, took this photo of a lamppost by a picturesque church and then made their way back to the BnB to make an early night of it having spent the entire previous night on the plane. When they were looking for something to eat, the found a restaurant named Wahaca (Oaxaca) that is part of a chain in England. Even if that was done by Mexicans trying to spell the name phonetically so that Englishmen can pronounce it right, it is just wrong! 🙂 I am never again going to make fun of the way English is spelled improperly on their signs. Never. I do hope they get to try it out though.
Category: Travel Page 2 of 3
It was really nice to get back to Washington this morning (at 11:30) even though we had to drive through a rain storm filled with a couple of bad wrecks and construction on the freeways. We were pretty tired when we got to bed at 1:30 AM, but were, as always, grateful and amazed when we woke up this morning to a spectacular fall view with the leaves changing out into the distance from the deck. I have to turn around and go back to Boston in a week, but even that is getting better. I found out that I have earned “Lifetime Platinum Elite” status at the hotel where I stay, because I spent so much time in a hotel in Prescott, Arizona when we lived in Raleigh. That means they will give me high priority in reserving a room along with a few other perks. In addition to that, I am five flights from that same kind of special status on the airline I currently use to get to Boston. That means that after the first of the year, I will start getting bumped to first class sometimes and I will able to get on the plane before everyone else. Not so bad, but it will be even nicer when I do not have to fly to a far away place every other week.
When we lived in Raleigh and the kids were going to Wake Technical Community College and North Carolina State University, Christian did most of his studying at the bar in the kitchen while Lorena worked there. They loved that. It is really nice for both of them to get the chance to do that again. Lorena absolutely loves to cook and even more so when she can do it for the kids. Now, though, she has to study herself. The Astronomy class she is taking at Centralia College is a lot tougher than we imagined. One thing she has been trying to figure out is how to get the 10 extra credit points given for visiting a big telescope. 
There is one that qualifies not too far from our house in Olympia, but there is an amazing one–one of the best in the world in Arizona, the Lowell Observatory, not too far from Flagstaff. Christian went there and got the postcard to the right. On the back, it explains that Pluto, the ex-planet (we still like to think that it is), was discovered with the aid of that telescope. The timing is not going to work for us to visit there in time for Lorena to get her credits, but we should enjoy the one at Olympia during Thanksgiving week. The Lowell Observatory is definitely on our radar now, too, and we plan to make a special trip there. The Astronomy class may not be an easy one, but it has been very, very interesting for all of us.
For the first time in several years, I did a workout last night that was more rigorous than a brisk walk. I spent just a 1000 meters on a Concept 2 rowing machine and felt pretty pathetic when compared to Lorena’s 12,000 meters in an hour. Working out and eating right while I travel is hard for me. Still, I do not have any excuses. I am within walking distance of a Whole Foods (not my favorite grocery store, but it will have to do) so I can eat OK foods. There is no workout facility at the hotel where I stay, but we have access to a great workout facility with three rowing machines just like the one we have in our workout facility at home.
Now that I am in my sixties, I have already gone through the pain of trying to start out programs too fast, so now I have decided to start at 1000 meters, go at that for a week, then figure out how fast I can add time and meters in subsequent weeks. I am going to try to do five days per week and will modify that as needed. At the same time, I am getting in plenty of steps on my Fitbit, so I am not doing too bad for the amount of calories I am burning. My goal is to see if I can get back up to 7500 meters in 40 minutes, four or five times per week and try to start eating right again. I know I will feel and work better if I do this. Just takes discipline. We will see if I have it.
I ordered a bright red raincoat and had it shipped to the Boston office. Bright red because it gets dark early in the winter and I do not want to get hit by a truck. It is not really a winter coat, but something more than just a windbreaker. The plan is to wear sweaters underneath and get some weatherproof shoes when the snow hits. My decision to take Uber from the airport to the hotel and back seems to still be a fine decision because it forces me to walk the mile and a half to the Whole Foods (not a fan, but it is the only grocery store within shooting distance) and driving in Boston in the winter is, I think, a sport for younger men with faster reactions. The raincoat will join my Boston scale and a large container of skin moisturizer that I keep in the file cabinet at my desk. I am sure that repository will grow.
The trip to Boston last week was fruitful because, for the first time on a trip like this, I actually lost weight. For a sedentary desk worker in his early sixties with a propensity for packing on pounds, that is quite a feat. I did not lose much (a little more than a pound), but I did not follow my normal pattern and add a few pounds. Dedicated use of my Fitbit to walk 8000+ steps per day while eating less than 1200 calories did it. I am not sure how this is going to work in the winter in Boston when the snow is a foot deep, but will try to work it out when I get there.
I promised I would put a photo of the JetBlue snack fridge on my trip to Boston today. Pretty handy, but my diet precludes me from having just about anything but coffee and diet sodas. I am grateful for the roast chicken, low calorie sandwiches (one slice of Dave’s Killer bread = 60 calories), and an apple. I am pretty sure I will make it to the hotel before I faint with hunger.
I am a big fan of JetBlue since I took my first flight from Seattle to Boston on them a couple of months ago. I was bragging about them on the way to the airport this morning. We found much better flight times between PDX and Boston than the flights from/to SeaTac so we were pretty pleased. I mentioned this to the gate agent before I got on the plane. He said, “Too bad this is just a seasonal route. Next week is the last flight until next season.” Really too bad because it is a lot easier for us to get to PDX than to SeaTac (same distance, but way less traffic an hassle getting to PDX). Then, after I got on the plane I was going to take a picture of the refrigerator and the baskets with snacks in them that were available on the Seattle based flights. They did not exist on the smaller plane flying to/from Portland. To top it off, it turned out there is no power for laptops at the seats nor even a USB port to charge cell phones. Oh well. The gate agent said they were really considering adding the Portland/Boston flight a permanent one, but it is still a hard choice WITH NO REFRIGERATOR!
I have flown in and out of Portland International Airport more than any other airport for my entire professional life. Honestly, PDX had lost its luster over the years as the Portland culture seemed to coarsen in lockstep with the aging of the quite famous PDX carpet. While the city of Portland and the State of Oregon maintain their unparalleled beauty, (well, that is true for the City of Portland, only if you do not look too close) the coarsening of the culture has not abated. That can not be said about PDX anymore. Most of my travel was pre-remodel and now they have the new carpet installed. It is a joy to fly in and out of here now. It is not really up to the level of our beloved RDU airport, but that is really just a regional airport so might not be a fair comparison and PDX is almost that good anyway.
After taking the first few flights since returning to the Pacific Northwest out of SeaTac airport to China, Boston, and Phoenix–a truly horrible airport situated in an impossible place–we have decided we will fly out of Portland whenever possible and only fly out of SeaTac when we need to see Kelly before or after the flight. The drive down to PDX is really beautiful and not even close to the horror of driving through Olympia/Tacoma/Seattle traffic. It is a whole lot easier to get to PDX from the north rather than the south, so we are grateful for that. too.
Every time Lorena visits Christian in Tempe, she washes all of his unwashed clothes, irons and/or folds them and puts them away, does a deep cleaning of the entire house, but especially the bathroom, buys him more bottled water than he could drink in three months (you need to stay hydrated in Tempe), makes a Costco run because Christian does not have a Costco card, and generally is an organizing/cleaning whirlwind for the entire time she is there. The thing my very sophisticated and world-wise older cousin Merle said about his dear older sister is that “the mothering instinct in that woman has gotten way out of hand.” This, I think, is certainly true of Lorena–in a good way (of course)!
Christian picked Lorena up at the airport for a short visit to Tempe. Lorena loves to be there and Christian loves to have her. She is an insanely neurotic neat freak and the apple did not fall far from the tree with Christian. Christian is in the middle of preparation for his comprehensive exams. Lorena is down there to help him out a little, but more than that, just to hang out together, go to the best taco house in phoenix, drink good coffee, and make it through the incredible Phoenix summer heat. Christian will be up to Washington for a week or two in the late summer before he starts what we hope will be his final year (or two) before he graduates.
I thought this was kind of a cool. A beautiful smallish dog came by with his handler and sniffed all the suitcase, purses, and backpacks in the area where I was sitting at the airport waiting to catch a plane to Boston. TSA rightly gets a bum rap for a lot of the stuff they do, and for going off the rails on what seems like a clockwork-like basis, but this seems to be a good thing. The handler brought along a toy (the blue thing in his mouth) and after the dog had done his work, they played for awhile It was fun to watch.
My last day for my current job is Friday. I work with an absolutely great company, one of the best bosses I ever had and an amazing team of engineers at LMI Technologies in Burnaby, BC, Canada. I will miss them a lot. I was actually not too excited to leave, but got an offer I could not refuse doing very interesting work in the area of medical research equipment. I will be traveling a little more, but to only one location.
I worked with a close-knit team of engineers in China, Europe, Canada, and the US. We accomplished amazing things in the 14 months I have been there adding an amazing amount of new functionality that should bring in a ton of new business fore the foreseeable future. Most importantly, I made good friends with whom I expect to stay in touch over the long haul. I cannot thank them enough.
I will write a little about the new job as I move into my new position. While it is exciting to me, it might be a little dry to most so I will keep it short.
It was great to be in Puerto Vallarta with half of Lorena’s family, but it is great to be home now, too. This was my first real vacation in the last several years. It turned into a time for reflection that I hope Lorena and I can repeat more frequently now. We talked a lot about the fact with the kids grown, on their own and paying there own way for over four years now, we have the freedom and responsibility to set some new goals. The difficulty of giving up control of one’s kids is not diminished by the fact that, if you did your job right as a parent, it is going to happen whether you want it or not.
There is a lot that happened over the week, but one of things that cast a pall over some of the vacation is the looming election of a new president in Mexico who appears to have plans to push the country along a similar path as is currently being followed by Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. That happened the day after we returned to Washington. Everyone is pretty worried, but there is nothing to be done about it other than wait to see what happens and hope for the best.
Kelly has gone to a new schedule where she works only four days every other week. That is a fine thing because she can take trips on her bi-weekly three day weekends. This week she flew to see her friend Sally in Washington D.C. She has sent a few pictures out–not nearly enough–that reminded me that there are some great things to celebrate that brings a tear to the eye for some of us in fly over country. This one is at the Lincoln Memorial. One that I especially appreciated was the Vietnam Memorial–not the wall so much even though I did appreciate it and found a name of a person whose brother I knew who had died, but the one of the soldiers with their combat gear.
It really is a wonderful place. I have never been to the Smithsonian, but I want to go some day. My problem is that every time I have had a chance to go, it was a choice between that and the National Art Gallery and I have always chosen the art.
Here are a few pictures from Lorena’s recent trip to visit Christian in Tempe. Notice all the clothes neatly ironed, folded, and stacked on Christian’s bed through the door. Lorena is genetically incapable of not putting things in order wherever she is. It is one of her superpowers. 
The one on the right shows her dropping Christian off at Cartel Coffee by the Arizona State campus. That and the closest Starbucks are his satellite offices.
The stack of water beside the sofa where Christian is playing the guitar is Lorena’s idea of a half day supply of water for one person in the Arizona summer. That is probably not too far from the truth.Christian continues to take classical guitar lessons from his Spanish instructor. I think it is a good diversion from his studies. He has finished 
all his classes now so all he has left is his comprehensives which he is scheduled to compete early in the fall and his dissertation. That is a lot, but the end is now in sight. A photo montage of Christian would not be complete if it did not include him reviewing some technical paper so that is why I added the last, after breakfast picture at Butters Pancakes. We are normally an IHOP family, but maybe that was too far away.
Hopefully, I will be able to make it down there myself again before too long. It is a really easy and fairly inexpensive trip to make. The airport is less than a half an hour away and right off the light rail line. Phoenix really is a paradise in the winter and it is easy to run up the hill to Flagstaff or Prescott for heat relief in the summer.
Lorena is spending a few days with Christian and showed him to make our new Zucchini noodles, Kung Pao Chicken dish. I was out of town no the east coast a couple of days and am back now, holding down the fort with Kiwi. Kiwi was in a state of extreme high dudgeon. She really does not like to be left at home alone, even for a few hours. Also, it is good to be at home alone for a day or two at a time to help me realize how badly I need Lorena. The household just does not operate at all when she is not here. She is having a great time down with Christian and plans to do that more often–hopefully with me tagging along.
Spent a great weekend with our friends Luis, Susan, Tom, Stacey, and a bunch of kids (using the term loosely) in Gearhart. After meeting we all went to eat in Astoria where this picture was taken. It is an amazing thing. We studied Astoria frequently in school (the oldest town in Oregon) and I even played sports against them in high school, but I had never really been there during the day. It is very, very beautiful with lots of quaint little shops and restaurants. It is less than a two hour drive from our house and we hope to go explore there some more during the summer.
Headed to Canada for part of the week this week. Maybe just a go there one day and get back the next kind of thing. Not sure when we will go, not sure when we will get back. Oh the vagaries of working from home.
Things have not slowed down much now, even though the new floor installations are complete. We have moved my office from the double size room at one end of the upstairs to the other end of the upstairs in a much smaller room. We then moved the guest bedroom furniture and some other pieces into the big room. Actually, we think it will work out quite well. I like it a lot. We put the hide-a-bed in there, so I have a sofa for reading and for Lorena to use while I am working. We will need to get some blinds for the room because of the glare problem in the office and privacy in the now very big guest bedroom.
We had out on a really short trip to Canada tomorrow, but still have some painting to do in the master bedroom before we can move back in there. I actually think we are getting toward the end of what we are going to do on the main floor and the upstairs of the house. The most important new thing will be the blinds. Then we need to move onto the outside and, maybe down to the daylight basement.