Hawaii Part 3

Well, this is the beginning of my final week in Hawaii. Every thing has gone pretty well so far. We sent two of our original four people back to West Virginia today and six more are coming in this weekend. Training is going pretty well, most of the soldiers are happy with the new system. It seems pretty good to me, though I can hardly believe that the Air Force was doing a lot of this 20 years ago and the Army is just catching up. No wonder we (AF) have all the good toys! Tracking maintenance and hours justifies a lot of requirements, but it is getting better now.

We went to see the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor today. The memorial is pretty nice and the museum has a lot of good displays that tell the history very well.


I took this first picture as we were actually leaving the memorial, but it is the best that I have and turned out nicely.











This is me on the Memorial, with part of the Arizona showing in the back ground. There isn't much of the ship showing above the water line and what does show is pretty corroded.











Here is a better view of that gun turret that is showing. I think that is what it is called anyway. It is hard to tell, but more of the ship is visible under the water. Another thing that is happening under water is an oil leak. you can see it every now and then when a drop of oil will pop to the top of the water and then spread out.









This is the USS Missouri, which is the ship where the Japanese signed the surrender documents. It has been turned into a museum. We didn't go over there to look at it, might have if we had gone over last weekend, but that didn't work out, had to study our lesson plans.












We have had a pretty good time here during the last two weeks, we were successful in the classroom, saw some cool stuff, and built some good connections with the other instructors. This last week is going to be more challenging because of a few factors that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say, I have a lot of work to do, so the week should go quickly. I hope so, I miss Billy, a lot.

I haven't mentioned food this trip!! Let's see the first week, we ate sandwiches from our commissary shopping trip, that weekend we went to Hard Rock, then more sandwiches, except for the day we got a home cooked meal at Travis', then this weekend we ate at Bubba Gumps, you know from the movie, that was pretty good. I expect this week will be more sandwiches since we restocked from the commissary, but I want to go out Friday night, there are a few more good restaurants on Waikiki, the Cheesecake Factory makes the top of my list right now.

I better go now. We are going back to the Swap Meet tomorrow morning. They have lots of good stuff, some of it we can get from the row of shops near the hotel, some of it not, but it is interesting.

Hawaii Part 2

Hawaii is a great place to vacation. I know you have heard it before, but it is true. The weather is beautiful for the most part and even when it is raining it is warm. The pictures below are of my first trip around Oahu. We took off driving Friday (17th) morning and just kept the water on the right. It was a lot of fun.

We climbed Diamond Head, which is quite a hike, and got this picture back toward Waikiki.















We stopped at several Overlooks and saw all sorts of rock formations and waves.















We saw lava mountains. that rose WAY above sea level.
















And watched surfers wide waves that came in from all angles on several beaches. If you look there is someone in this wave.















Saturday (18th) we went to the Polynesian Culture Center and enjoyed visiting villages that represented several island countries. There was also a Luau and a show. The picture below is from the show, we got tickets through a friend who is in the Army. The ticket agent really set us up nice, we had front row seats to the show.

We had a really relaxing weekend. Sunday (19th) we went to the Swap Meet and found some good bargains. Next weekend there are some more people coming in for training. We will probably do some more adventures then. Check back later.

Hawaii

What a difference a day makes! On Saturday, 11 February it started snowing in West Virginia. After it piled up for a while I went out and used the "Snowman in a Can" kit that Mom gave me for Christmas last year. Turned out kind of cute I think, though the missing tooth does make it a WV snowman. LOL



The next day, 12 February (ignore the date, I seem to have something confused in the camera) I was on top of a 10 story parking garage taking pictures of a sand castle that two little girls had built on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. Good zoom on the camera too.



Let's show that difference one more time.
Jenny and the boys might recognize this truck, it shows a Georgia 2x4 in an unfamiliar, but classic winter pose, parked with snow piled on top.



And the opposite, a garage top westward view of the sunset off Waikiki.



By the way, we aren't parking on top of that garage anymore. My rental is a Dodge 1500 Crewcab, the garage has a 6 foot 6 inch clearance. We didn't scrape the top, barely, but 20 hairpin turns going in and out of that 10 story garage were too many for me. We are now using valet parking, they can deal with it. I have enough to worry about while getting up to speed on this system we are fielding. I will have plenty more to share later, so check back when you can.

Between Trips Again

Hello everyone.
Well, I am between trips again and thought I would update you on our part of the planet, which of course you know is located right here in the Flash Earth picture below. I smudged out the neighbor's property and since this is a pretty old satellite picture, (about 1995 I think) I added blocks that show were the garage and Grandma's mobile home are located.

We have been busy since I got back from Louisiana. Mom wanted some lights installed in her living room and since Uncle Harold and Aunt Rose were going to be there for a few days, we hopped in the truck and went down to help. I tried to take pictures of that before and after, but didn't. I did manage to spend all my previoius expense money on new luggage and clothes to fill it up. We had a nice time and came back.

We had guests this last weekend, 3 kids and their parents. My house has never been so busy! LOL We had fun though, made new friends, shot some pool, and ate too much. Hopefully we will be helping them move up here in a couple weeks. Well, Billy might be, did I mention I am going to Hawaii? I would love to help, but I leave on Sunday (12th) and won't be back until March 5th and we really hope they are up here by then.

Well, it is almost 5 and I need to get ready for work. I don't know why I have been waking up so early. Having an exciting job might be part of it. I have enjoyed jobs before, but this one is waaaaay coool. LOL

Talk to you later, I will be checking in from Honolulu in about a week.

Louisiana

Hi again!
Well, I have been to Louisiana for about 5 days since the last time I posted. We went down to continue learning how to teach this system to the Army and we were very successful. We learned a lot and were able to do a little teaching too, so things are looking good. The best part was getting some time on the system and watching the soldiers work on it. The worst part was the hour drive to the post from the hotel, but that did give us one pretty cool adventure.

There was a rodeo in town on Friday night, just about 2 miles from the hotel. That was absolutely the perfect timing. We had been working hard at our studies all week and needed the break before flying home on Saturday. This first picture is of the crew, mostly. I missed Cindy, but I got Greg (left), Ben (Cindy is behind him), and RC.



Here is a picture of the chutes. The bullriders were finishing up some final rides and the crowd had thinned out some.

Earlier in the night this guy had a pretty good ride, hard to tell I know, but at least he is still vertical.


As for the food portion of this trip, we really didn't find anywhere we wanted to go that was special. The other instructor team went out for Cajun Crawfish. We didn't really want the spice, legs, or internal body part mess. Yes, we chickened out, but in our defense, it was an hour ride to hour hotel and we had been staying up late every night all week. So that leaves us with an old classic, you can always find good food at Sonic! Here we have RC, Cindy, and Ben. Greg was hiding from the camera.



That's it for this trip. Next up Hawaii! Can you believe it? WOOHOO! Later all.

Checking In from Home

Hi Everybody,
I know it has been a while since I posted, and this isn't going to be very much. I just wanted to let you know that I should be updating next week sometime, I am supposed to be going to Louisiana. If you notice it is Thursday and I might be leaving Monday, but we don't know yet. Government contracts are a lot of fun, can you tell? HA...

Anyway, to make up for it, I thought I would share this joke with you. It is the funniest blonde joke that I have read in a while. I hope you enjoy. Best Blonde Joke Ever

Texas Part 2

Our second adventure of the Texas trip took us to Waco. We went to see the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame, the surveyor shown in the picture below is in front of the Hall. It was pretty cool, lots of information about how the Rangers developed over time. There was one odd thing, there were guns all over the place in the displays, but I did not see one bullet or even a shell anywhere.



We also saw the suspension bridge, which was the longest single span of its kind west of the Mississippi when it was built in 1870. Why no pictures? Because it is hard to take a picture when you are driving the Wrong Way on a One Way bridge that runs parallel to the historic bridge. It is also hard to get a picture when you are making haste to get out of a place before the local authorities notice what you did. The few locals we saw just shook their heads and laughed. Glad it wasn't busy!

Back to the food subject. The Wurstmarkt in Harker Heights, Texas is worth the trip if you are in the area. They have excellant Jaegerschnitzel, Kroketten, and a wonderful cold salat with red cabbage, sauerkraut, and cucumbers in dill sauce.


I tend to take some odd pictures at times. This could be one of them. It is a picture of some city, somewhere in the USA from the left side of the plane between Houston and Charleston. It was a very clear night. I watched cities go by for a long time.



Overall it was a good trip. We learned a lot about the program that we will be teaching and got to know each other enough so that we can work together. Next trip is Louisiana in January.

Texas

Well, the traveling has begun. I made it to Texas this week and am learning a lot about this program that I will be training people how to use. I don't know how long the traveling will last or where it will take me yet, but I do know that there are a lot of locations on the list, the people I am working with are a fun bunch, and I am doing what I can to be an excellant instructor.

This is an interesting part of Texas that we are in... I am sure it must be. I haven't found the interesting parts yet, it is pretty flat and dry looking, but I will keep looking. Saturday we drove a few hours south to San Antonio and played tourist at the Alamo. Here is the front of the old fortress. Overall there isn't much to look at, but the history is a nice read and looking at the structure is pretty cool. We also went to the Imax theater and watched a show about it. Same scenes from any movie you may have seen elsewhere, but Really Big.



We also did the river walk in San Antonio. It is beautiful and busy with food and shopping opportunities, if you haven't been, you should go sometime. This is a picture I took along the way. The cyclamens were pretty and then the river background made it a very nice picture.



I didn't get a picture of the Coyote Ugly bar that the guys wanted to check out. It lived up to the reputation. I was the DD (and will be on every trip so that I always have a rental car available), which got me free Pepsi's and the guys had a good look and were appropriately embarrassed. HA

These trips will have an unfortunate focus on food. I am alwasy interested in finding a good place to eat and so are the guys. This is a picture of Rudy's Bar B Q. It is located at exit 254 off of I35.



Absolutely delicious brisket and ribs! The cole slaw and creamed corn were good too. The place was packed with people, mostly locals it seemed coming in to get To Go bags. It was really fun too, your food is served on butcher paper in a plastic soda bottle carrier. I should have taken more pictures, it was fun and very tasty. I saw another Rudy's on down the road by San Antonio, so I hope to find the chain again someday.

I might find more things to take pictures of before I get out of here, so consider this part one. We leave next Friday, just in time for Christmas, I have a direct flight so no stops in Chicago or anything. I am so lucky that Billy is willing to take care of the house, of course I cleaned as much as I could before I left, but I only had a few days notice!
Have a nice week every one!

Farm Gourd

Sorry about the long delay in posting. I had been waiting for my new camera and then it was dark everyday when I got home. The sun finally came out so now we have pictures.


Here are the last two gourds I have painted. I used some more DD lessons to do the sunflowers and got freehanded with the farm scene. Folk art, my style. I have another one that I used stain on, but I haven't done anything else with it, so that one will have to wait.

The new camera is pretty cool. It is a Konica Minolta D1mage Z3. Here are some examples of the wild zoom. I can get right on top of stuff. The picture on the left is from the front porch looking toward the birdfeeder that you see in the next picture. A little fuzzy because I wobbled, but what a zoom. That first picture also shows a woodpile on the right hand side by the fence. The last picture is from the other end of the porch and shows a bird sitting on that wood pile. I just think it is fun.


The last couple of pictures are of my holiday decorations, before the tree gets put up in the house. The crazy tomato of summer have been recreated as a Christmas tree in the yard. Ok, crazy, but you have to see it (in person) from the driveway, it looks good, really. grin



Besides that, I have new job news. I happened to be in the right place one day and ended up with an opportunity to teach the Army how to use a program they bought. We will see how that goes, I expect good things. I am off to Texas to learn how to teach it this week. Future postings will very likely include pictures from my adventures. Billy and I are in Charleston tonight, I needed a ride to the airport in the morning and he needed an excuse to go to Olive Garden. We both won on that one. Well, I better get off of here, getting kind of long winded.

Bird Feeder

Mom let me know that she has been checking this site everyday... and that I haven't updated anything. SO since I have an audience of at least one, I thought I better add the latest project. This is a pretty good size gourd that I got from Mom, which seemed to be better suited for a feeder than a house. It is supposed to be flowers and ladybugs in the grass. There are butterflies on the otherside. I don't think the birds are using it, but there are a few "normal" feeders in the yard too. I need to get some more started, Christmas is coming you know.

It is Thanksgiving and I have nothing to do. Kinda nice this year, but I sort of miss the mess. HA We are on our way to Bill's sister's house for dinner, so I better get going.
Updated 26 Nov
Turns out I was wrong on two parts, Dave chimed in to let me know I have at least two viewers and the birds ARE using the feeder. They actually sit inside to snack. Once I get my Christmas present (camera with 12/4 zoom) I can take some pictures of the birds.

Bill Joins Up

This week was pretty uneventful until Thursday. A normal day for me is pretty much work and sleep. This Thursday started with a dental appointment, then my supervisor came down from Fairmont to complete my annual eval... only 6 months late, last year was 11 months, but next year looks promising for on time delivery. I will miss the back checks though. HA After lunching with him and talking about the past year and the future, my day was pretty well shot.

Then I had to get to a hair cut and make it to Concord by 6pm for Bill's induction ceremony. He was asked to join Kappa Delta Pi, an international honor society for education. The man is so smart. The ceremony was kind of odd, the chapter chancellor read us a story. We were all inspired to make a difference. Bill's sister joined too, she is in graduate school now, heading for an administration position, which she said "No Way" to a few years ago and Bill is repeating now. She brought their Mom along to see the ceremony. Good thing, she had a camera. I'll add a picture when they get developed. I really need to pick out a good digital camera. After the ceremony we went to eat dinner at the local eatery.

That was my busy day. Today, I baked bread and fed the dog. More my speed. Hey it was a holiday!

Surviving It

Well, I survived an unplanned 5K. Back on Wednesday M. reminded me about the Pipestem Pumpkin Run and said that A. was considering doing the 5k walk. I haven't been walking at all lately, but I usually do hills when I am active. A. has been walking on a treadmill quite a bit, but not hills. I figured we would be a great pair out there on the course. Well, I am not sure if I was much help to her, but I know she helped me keep moving. We kept up pretty well with a couple of other women on the course, a man passed us, but he had a young German Shepherd towing him along, I told him I needed a sled dog too. HA We finished in 47 minutes and 19 seconds. Good enough for 6th and 7th place trophies for the walk division. Not horrible or in last place.



High points: We made it to the halfway turn around before the 10k runners caught us and the finish line before M. finished his 10k, only 70 seconds later and 2nd in this age group. Their kids ran in the fun run too, so everyone went home with a prize.
Low points: I was totally wiped out when I got home. More preparation is definately an asset to competition. I sat on the porch with the dogs for a little while and thought about curling up to take a nap right there, but figured Billy would think I had fainted and freak out, so I went in the house and landed on the couch for a while.
It was all worth the effort though and I hope to keep moving. Half of my closet is waiting for me to drop a few pounds.

Visit to the Vet

Jake had some sort of run in with something on Monday, probably very early in the morning. That night we discovered he had a 4 inch cut in his shoulder, just below his coller. I got him to the vet in the morning and they shaved his shoulder and stitched him up with a drainage tube dangling out. It would have been better if we got him there earlier, but the cut was under his hair and he wasn't even acting hurt, he even ran with the four wheeler to feed the cows. This picture is after the drain tube was removed on Saturday.



We gave him a bath to see if there was any more damage and didn't see any, but I knew he was hurting some when he didn't do the normal after bath shake, he started to a couple of times and then stopped. Well, he is home after a day with the vet, he took over Bill's chair, and looks like he is staying there for the night. He does Pitiful pretty well, don't you think?


Updated 5 Nov 05

Bird Houses

Well, it is has finally warmed up again, for a couple of days anyway. Billy and his brother are working on the final bits of siding for Grandma's building, I am going out to clean up the garden when I get done here, and then I might do some more painting.

I started on the gourds last night. I think they turned out all right, Billy asked who came in and painted them while he was dozing in his recliner. Glad I am not aiming for perfection, LOL. Here are a couple of pictures of what I did, the sun is out so I took them outside. I might add a bee or butterfly in a bare spot.



I got 5 gourds from Mom: these two painted blue, one painted green, and two that are still natural. I have a couple dozen more gourds that I grew a few years ago out in Billy's building so I have lots of supplies. These that I am working on still need to be sprayed with a sealant, have hangers installed, and drains and entrance holes drilled for the birds.

Some people might recognize the pictures that I painted as from a Donna Dewberry book, I found a Plaid craft outlet store in Georgia and picked up some ideas and supplies from there. I watched a DVD of her painting and know that what I am doing is not perfect, but that is why I define my brand of Folk Art as "art done with not a lot of talent". I am still planning on using stain and engraving or cutting to make some designs, but I bought all this paint stuff and even cleaned up an old tool box and painted it to have a place to keep all of my supplies, so I figured I would start with the paint. Well, I better get outside before this nice weather disappears again, have a great day and keep smiling!

Back to Work

Well, vacation is over. I have been traveling and loafing around for the last couple of weeks. Mom and I joined Kim and Kathy and a bunch of other ladies in Arkansas at a multi-location craft fair. We had a great time. We saw a lot of crafts and got lots of ideas, most of us didn't buy much though. I saw a lot of gourds decorated in just about every possible way, but I also noticed that I didn't see to many people carrying them around. Mom said the prices were pretty high, $50 for some of them. I suspect they didn't sell to well. My thought is that the crafters looked at those gourds and said "I can do that for less". Of course they won't, but they also won't buy any either. I got a welded trellis for my Trumpet vine and a couple of light switch covers, one with an eagle on it for the living room and one with a comical frog on it for the kitchen, and some packaged food mixes. Oh, and Mom's Christmas present, but she might read this so I better leave that one out of this story.

I have a few pictures to get developed yet, yes, developed. I am hoping to find a good price on a decent digital camera after Thanksgiving. Until that I still have this cheapo to use and some pictures to share of stuff that Bill has been working on. He has built a couple of trailers in the last year or so. This first one started life as a pop-up camper. We stripped it down to the frame in the first picture and extended it just enough to be 8 feet long to its finished size in the second picture. There is enough room for his four wheeler between those fenders, barely. It looks pretty good, tows well too. We have taken it to Mom's a couple of times with no problems at all. It is a little different now, he added 2x6 rails and some tall orange markers so he can see it in the truck mirrors.



This is Bill's latest project, that is him and Jake on the four wheeler. This one also started out as a pop-up camper, but was a lot lighter weight, we actually thought it was a boat trailer it was so different from the first one. I mean, compared to that picture above of the stripped frame, this one was narrower and had only a rectangle frame with a couple of cross pieces. Anyway, Billy added some extra bed supports and an extruded metal bed so that he and his brother can use it with the four wheeler to take hay out to the cows. That should work a lot better than driving the truck out there when it is wet, or making several trips with the four wheeler.



I will have some other project pictures soon. Mom and I got started on my idea for kid size Tipis, it has been challenging, but looks promising. I also discovered One Stroke painting during the trip and picked up some supplies to get me started on that. But I suppose I better just focus on getting to work on time in the morning. At least my schedule is only 4 days this week!

Cool Find

Do Not look at the image below until you are ready to time yourself.
Ready? Now... Find the Man in the Beans.

The man is really there.

Doctors have concluded that if you find the man in 3 seconds that the right half of your brain is better developed than most people.

If you find the man between three seconds and one minute, then the right half of your brain is developed normally.

If you find the man between one minute and three minutes, then the right half of your brain is functioning slowly and you need to eat more protein.

If you have not found the man after three minutes the right half of your brain needs exercises like this to make it stronger.

The man is really there. I thought this was pretty cool. Okay, I didn't make it, but I did use SnagIt to get the picture.

Finding Blogs

Dave asked about how people find blogs. A general search on a subject might find you one, but I know of a places to find them on purpose.

Google has a new search engine to help find blogs it is at http://blogsearch.google.com/ it seems to find just about any kind of comment though, I got book reviews on my search.

Another one is at http://local.blogdigger.com/index.html it gives you blogs from your area, if there are any. There were none for Athens, here or in Georgia, which seems odd, so that link may not be real useful. I did KC too and found some old links, which would be another problem, lots of old blogs are sitting around not being read.

The link with the best connections seems to be http://www.blogwise.com/ which has lists of recently updated blogs. Once you find one that interests you they sometimes have links to other bloggers with the same interests.

The last one I use more often than the others http://blogdex.net/ It has links to what is currently Hot in the news or blogs that is getting attention. Some of the links are really well put together and informative and some are not worth looking at. Ever. It depends on your perspective and morales at times. So be careful and realize that all "news" should be verified, one person's opinion might be just that and not really news.

Well, that is my list of where I find things when I am looking. Have fun and Be Careful out there. Later.

Needs Work

Hello, I hope everyone is doing good today. This post is things that need to be done. This picture is of a bunch of birdhouse goards I grew a few years ago. They are all in a bin in that red building. I really need to get them out of there and do something with them.



Well darn, I was just thinking that now everybody has a yard, I could make Christmas presents, but that isn't true any more. By the way, based on the idea that everything happens for a reason, aren't we all glad that Steve decided to get back into coaching? I am only guessing that he would be working recovery in N.O.L.A. if they were still in Arkansas.

The following is a picture of the cats. Brandy is the white one and Slinky is the grey one. This is another project that we need to get to work on. I would really like the extra dirt dug out, concrete poured, and a new raised cat feeder. Some of that might happen this year yet, we will see.



Well, that's All Folks!

Test Post

Hello, I am testing this to see if posting from an email really works.

Is anyone else gotten hooked on Martha Vision lately? Her shows are on TLC at 6 and then the prime time show on Wednesday. I can hardly believe I have been watching it, Bill can't either. LOL Well that sort of fits with my current craft attack.

 

Today's Making It is a recipe, and I will even stick with my Chocolate Cherry theme of the last posting.

Except that was cows and this is cake. HA

 

Chocolate Cherry Angel Food

 

1 Angel Food Cake Mix

1 can of cherries packed in water

Some Water

1 measuring cup of at least 20 ounces

Put the entire can of cherries in the measuring cup and then add enough water to have 20 ounces in the cup

Add this to the cake mix in an extra large bowl and follow baking instructions from box

 

Frosting

1 container Cool Whip

1 small package of instant chocolate pudding

1 cup of milk

Mix the pudding and milk until thickened and then add the cool whip mix well

Frost the cake

 

Refrigerate until serving and if there is any left.

That is it. I hope you like it.

The Cows

While I am here tonight I will add a couple more pictures. First is the yard and yes I like to point out the features. It actually turned out pretty cool because if you notice the shade and sun areas split the frame and the marigolds fill a gap. You might not realize it, but I removed the light pole from the picture, it would have split the end of the house off.



Next are my cows. I like red angus because they are different, I can tell them from Bill's and Rob's cattle very easily. The red cow on the left is Cherry and standing next to the black bull is her bull calf, Chocolate. The red heifer on the right is Q, her name comes from the question mark on her head. She had horns, so hopefully her calf won't, but we will see.

What is cool about this picture? There were two black cows in the picture between the red ones and the bulls were nowhere near this location when I took the pictures. I removed the black cows and inserted the bulls. I almost messed up because I had trimmed the cow picture before I thought of inserting the bulls, no I didn't save the original. SO when I put the bulls in I had to pull them all the way to the front, it worked. OK enough of this for the day.