86

Recently, very early one morning, I was traveling through the Tampa airport and stopped at a restaurant for a meal. The plate I wanted came with potatoes which I didn't want. Being groggy, I slipped back many years and told the waitress to "86 the potatoes". She looked at me with some amazement and said "how'd you know that term?". Her question woke me up and I told her I had been a waitress while in college. Her response was "Cool!". And she was very nice and attentive the rest of the time I was there.

It got me to reminiscing about my younger years. I refuse to say the good ole days ... but man ... what a time that was!!! Hanging out for HOURS at the Broadway Drug store drinking coffee and studying and waxing philosophic, solving the problems of the world and debating what it all meant; living on beans and rice, loving waiting tables because I got to eat something besides beans and rice. And the house (duplex actually) on 14th Street. Ah man, it was an ancient house, had an old small stable in the back with a dead and rusting Studebaker and we'd find chunks of coal in the storm cellar under the house where they used to store the coal used to heat it before gas was available. And adopting any cats that came around ... feeding them on a platform made from an Earth, TX city limits sign that someone swiped, the sign suspended on a tree so they could eat without the neighbor's dogs bothering them. We'd ring Mimi's bells and the cats would come running. And ... , I digress...

Anyway, it also caused me to ponder where the term "86" originated. So I googled it and here is the answer from the Urban Dictionary - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=86 the definition and how the term came into being.

Personal space, airplanes and being passive agressive

Anyone who cannot afford to fly First class on an airplane in recent years knows that personal space on airplanes is all but non-existent. About the only true personal space is where your feet are.

This evening on a flight from Austin to Tampa, the man in front of me reclined his seat into what I consider my personal space bubble. The back of his seat was so close to my face that I could literally SMELL his hair ... and believe me, it was not a pleasant smell. Forget using the tray table, forget not bumping his seat when getting out to use the restroom. And truthfully, I may have bumped it a little more than was actually necessary. Especially after I politely asked him to not recline it so far since it was in my face ... he declined to adjust his seat. So every time I reached into the seat back pocket, I exaggeratedly bumped the seat back. I read my newspaper resting it on the top of his seat back and yes, his head.

It was probably not a very nice thing to do ... probably petty ... but it made me feel better none the less ... especially because I asked nicely for my space back.

I hardly ever recline on planes. When I do, I tell the person behind me before I recline and ask them to please let me know if they need more space or to get out of their seat.

On the Road - Denver

So this past week, I was on the road in Denver. The folks I was working with in Denver are the best, nicest I've ever had the opportunity to spend a week with. The Supervisors even had a large fish tank in their office ... a group project. I couldn't resist contributing a little "no fishing" ornament.

Adding to my collection of airport photos. Here are some of Denver. When you first get off of the train from your terminal to baggage claim, there are these neat paper airplane shaped pointers that lead you from the train to the escalator up to the main terminal.

The main terminal looks like a tent. I tried to get a picture from the outside, but it was not good. This one is what it looks like inside. Very airy and open. A nice change from an airplane.

There is a really weird thing about the Denver airport in the train tunnel. The train has these cutesy sounds like a train whistle and clanging, which is ok. But there is some "art" and I use that term loosely inside the tunnels. Some of it was ok, but as you near the station, there are these arms with pick axes jutting out into the tunnel. Each is at a slightly different angle so the effect is that as the train whizzes past, it looks like they are moving to strike down. It was very creepy.

My schedule has been quite hectic the last few weeks. Between work and family trips, out of the last 21 days, I've spent a grand total of 4 nights in my own bed. Brutal. In that same time, I've been on 12 different planes and in 5 different towns. Add that all up and what do I get??? A big whooping summer cold is what! I started coming down with it mid week in Denver and by the time I left, I could hardly talk. I was severely medicated on the planes home. Looks like my big plans for the 3 day Labor Day weekend are hosed. I'm spending them in bed!

Serendipity

Serendipity is my favorite word because it describes something that happens to me when I least expect it.

Recently I've been wanting a piece of blue lace agate but have not had the time to get by Crystal Works in Austin to see if they had some. So, now I'm in my second week in Tampa and I'm reading the newspaper. I notice an ad for a place called Peace Tree Trading (a Native American Art store) and I thought, hm, Christmas is not that far away and I might find something for my brother. I pull into the parking lot and what do you know? Right next door is this really neat rock shop - Wally's Natural Wonders! And Yes! they had some really nice affordable pieces of blue lace agate!

Serendipity!!!

Resistance is futile

For years now, I've resisted becoming one of those people walking through airports seemingly talking to themselves (usually at a very loud volume) until you notice the thing in their ear. Yes, the blue tooth headset. Makes one look like a Borg wannabe. Not wanting that image, I've resisted, stubbornly hanging on to my wired ear piece that I've been holding together with duct tape (seriously).

Resisting that is ... until Monday. My cell phone has been becoming increasingly unreliable and had reached a point where it could be used for less than 30 minutes. Because I'm on the road so much, a working cell is a necessity.

On Monday it was off to the cell store to purchase the phone I'd researched and determined that I wanted. While there, my husband convinced me to go ahead and join the Borg. So now I have this very lightweight device hanging off of my ear. The model I chose had 33 different face plates so a little personalization was possible. Hm, I could even create my own insert ... I'll have to consider that.

My new phone is also lighter than my old phone. It has all of the same features, but is also GPS enabled and I got a navigation package to go with it. I justified the $10 a month for that because I travel to unfamiliar cities. I started to write "strange cities" but most aren't strange (except maybe Toledo) but they are unfamiliar so the GPS navigation package should help.

So, I guess resistance really was futile. I could put it off, but in the end, I was assimilated.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm refering to (Borg, assimilated, resistance is futile), I direct you to the wikipedia entry on Borg.

On the Road - Tampa again

My project in Tampa is ramping up and I'll be spending a lot of time there. I promise to not post too much about Tampa ... but here are a couple of photos that I wanted to share. The first is a shot of the neat mosiacs on the floor of the airport.

The other is a sunset shot of a thunderhead that was building and eventually dropped a bucket load of rain on us.

On the Road - Midland

On the road again ... even though I just got back from vacation! This time, I am in the same time zone as my husband. What a treat! Midland is a really nice, clean town. I took this shot of a herd of bison at a local park.

Some airports keep the planes on the outside,

Midland brings 'em right in over the baggage claim area. Actually, Midland is home to the American Airpower Heritage Museum which houses and preserves authentic World War II artifacts and memorabilia, including uniforms of Allied and Axis countries, armament, photographs, weapons and equipment, and, you guessed it PLANES!

Vacation - Day Seven

From Twin Falls, Idaho, we drove the Thousands Falls scenic loop, which took us by the Hagerman fossil beds, ruts from the Oregon Trail and a thousand falls!
Here is a picture of the ruts. It is amazing that they are still viewable. It really makes me ponder the "foot print" that I (and we as a society) are leaving. What ruts are we making that future generations will be able to see long after we are gone? Did the people on the wagon trains making those ruts know, wonder or even care about the evidence their passing was leaving?













This is a nice scenery shot from an Oregon Trail rut viewpoint.

And finally, the last photo of our vacation … another shot of a waterfall. This is one of the "thousand falls" that pour into the Snake River.

Vacation - Day Six

Day six had us leaving Jackson and on our way to Twin Falls, Idaho. Over a high pass in the mountain and through farmland. Once we got to Twin Falls, we took a detour to see the Shoshone Falls. Shoshone Falls have a longer drop than Niagara Falls. It was beautiful as this picture shows.

Vacation - Day Five

In Jackson, WY. We had planned this to be a rest and relax, down day. My husband had planned to play bridge at the Senior Center. I had planned to go horse back riding and then get a massage. Unfortunately, my husband woke up with a cold. So he stayed in the hotel, reading and generally being quiet while I went about my day. Here’s a picture of me on my rented horse Dolla at Eagle Rock.

Vacation - Day Four

It started snowing while we were having breakfast and continued until we were out of Yellowstone. We stopped and took this picture as we were leaving. There was about 4 inches of snow.







As we were turning onto the Jenny Lake Scenic byway, we saw vehicles on both sides of the road. Slowing down, we asked what was happening and were told that there was a brown bear mother and her three cubs in the meadow. So naturally, I pulled over too (ever the tourist). This is the best shot I could get because the bears were a little far away for my camera. But I saw them with my own eyes and you will just have to trust me that the brown blobs in this picture are bears!

Jenny Lake












Just past Jenny Lake, we saw this gray wolf. The day was gray, the sage brush was gray and the wolf was gray. I cropped it and enhanced the color so the wolf stands out a little better.











Again working with the panorama on my camera. Here is a panorama of the Tetons.

Vacation - Day Three

We spent the night at the Lake Yellowstone Lodge. Built in 1891, it is the oldest standing lodge in the park and has been added on to a couple of times. Our large room that faced the lake was in the original portion of the lodge. The floor creaked and slopped. The bathroom was huge and had wonderful original tile. The glass in the windows in both the bedroom and the bath was original and had a few visual flaws and drips. I tried taking a picture, but it did not show up very well.

It turns out our visit to the park was just 3 days after it opened. Everyone was nice, but very new and therefore not everyone was very knowledgeable. We decided the best way to see the park was to let someone else do the driving.

Since we visited so early in the season, not all attractions, excursions and areas were fully open. We took the only tour available, the Circle of Fire tour. Our tour bus departed early in the morning and made a circle around the major geothermal features as well as by the falls. My husband sometimes opted to sit on the bus instead of walking around as his knees were hurting (turns out he was also coming down with a cold, but I digress and there will be more about that later). The weather was cool but not bad when we started out or when we ended. In between, there was snow. Cold, blowing snow. He sat the coldest, blowingest, snowyest one out, but I was a trooper and braved the weather to get some shots of the geysers. Here are the photo highlights of the tour.

Lake Yellowstone lodge – from the lobby looking out at the lake













Bluebell pool – One of the first of the thermal pools we saw. The color was bright blue.

Cooking pool – Actually in the lake. There are written accounts of settlers in the area fishing in the lake and cooking their catch in this pool. Our guide said that it probably was not a good idea as the pool has been tested and has large amounts of arsenic and mercury.













Here is a shot of our tour bus at the continental divide. Yep! that's snow!!

Cute little chipmunk watching for Old Faithful to blow. It was actually facing the geyser and looked like it was waiting.

What trip to Yellowstone would be complete without a visit to Old Faithful. I took several shots of the geyser, but this one is shows the gush at the highest point. Note the beautiful clear blue sky.

Here is a shot just an hour later of a geyser. I cannot remember the name, but the story is that this geyser was unpredictable until a few years ago when it blew really big. Since then, it has been a constant geyser, going off every few minutes. Not large like Old Faithful because it does not have time to build up as much pressure. If you look closely, you can see the snow falling in the picture. The little white dots of snow were really much bigger and the wind was blowing so it was very, very cold.

Down the road, we took a break and walked out in a meadow to see some wildlife. This shot is actually a three-fer, although you might be hard pressed to see the third animal. The bison mom and calf was my focal point. The geese and the ground squirrel (lower left hand corner) rounded out the triad. There was a large (30+) herd of bison and a large flock of geese. This photo only shows the mom and calf because I cropped it to get the "madonna" shot.

Water falls – I took way too many photos of water falls. Here are just a few.

Lower Falls

Upper falls

Little falls

Artist Falls Close up

Artist Falls panorama – I tried my hand at using the panorama feature on my camera.

Other wildlife shots

Here is a shot of a raven. Notice the ruts? Those are wagon ruts from the Oregon trail, still visible after over a hundred years. Between 1841 and 1869, the Oregon Trail was used by settlers migrating to the Pacific Northwest

Another ... much smaller, bison herd. These were right by the road and fearless. They were aware of us, but ignored us.














A lone male elk

Vacation - Day Two

Leaving Logan, we traveled up Logan Canyon National Scenic Byway. Mile-high limestone cliffs tower above dense forest and the winding Logan River as you travel the scenic 40-mile route between Logan and Bear Lake. This was an awesome experience. There really are no words for how beautiful this drive was.

Here is a shot of Ricks Spring Cavern.

The cold spring water that gushes forth from the rock.

A shot of a waterfall in Logan Canyon

Cherry blossoms. These trees lined the canyon and scented it with a sweet floral smell.

Here is a hazy picture of Bear Lake. You are driving along in a canyon that comes up to the edge of the road and then you turn a corner and suddenly you see this massive lake. My husband first drove this canyon and saw the lake in 1962 in the middle of the night as he and other friends were traveling to the World’s fair in Seattle. Imagine coming upon this with moonlight reflecting off the lake.

Next we traveled down the Pioneer Scenic Trail. Here is a shot of Oxford Peak.
From there we drove into Yellowstone National Park. It rained on us almost the entire way after reaching the park. I concentrated on driving while my husband watched the scenery but didn’t take any pictures. He saw a moose, but I didn’t. But I did avoid running over a gray wolf. One of two that we saw on the trip.

Vacation - Day One

One of the perks … maybe the ONLY perk of being a road warrior is the frequent whatever points that I accumulate. This week my husband and I took advantage of those points to take a vacation. Two free airline tickets took us to Salt Lake City via Las Vegas. The Las Vegas airport has slot machines in the gate area. Hard core.

Picked up a rental car and headed for Logan, Utah for our first free night. Here is a shot of the Latter Day Saints Logan Temple on the hill in Logan. It was a very imposing sight.

We asked a local for directions to a restaurant with local flavor. Unfortunately for us, it was a Mexican food restaurant. Call us Mexican food snobs if you want, but we didn’t’ travel to Utah to eat Mexican food!!! It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t terrific either.

On the Road - Lubbock airport art

Passing through the Lubbock airport this weekend, I saw this wall sized picture of cotton. When you fly over the Texas Panhandle in the fall, fields are white with snow ... if it is a good year!

A few months ago, when I was going through security, I dropped a glass bottle of patchouli oil perfume. Maybe it was my imagination, but I think I smelled patchouli as I went through security this time! oopps!

On the road - Tampa

Traveling again. This time to Tampa. Easy direct flight on Southwest. A little choppy because of the storms.

The Tampa airport has something I've never seen in an airport before. An aquarium. Neat. This picture is a little blurry but it does show the nice coral formation in the middle. I think the coral is fake (resin). The fish did not seem to mind though.

The air, when I got outside the airport, seemed rather hazy. The evening news was full of information about wild fires around Florida and how the smoke was clogging the air. Lovely. People in cars commuting with masks on.

Aaarrgghh!!!

I, yi, yi ... I'm starting a new project and already I feel like I'm being set up for failure. Maybe it's because I don't work as fast as others. Or maybe it's because I bill for the amount of time that I actually work and possibly others don't. Either way, once again I'm on a project that seems as though it doesn't have enough hours in it.

I value my non-working time and try really hard to keep the balance between work and home. But now, I'm feeling pushed to the edge ... forced to either not record the actual number of hours I spend on the project and so take the hours out of my home time or else I'll be over budget.

Arrgh!! I guess I'll just have to suck it up. Most of the time I like my job, but this is one of those instances where I'm feeling like I don't know what I'm doing and that I'm a failure at the job and at life in general.

So ends the pity party.

About 32 hours to get home

Into every road warrior's (and other travelers) life delays must come. My number came up for a monumental delay. I arrived at the Palm Springs airport at 12:30 pm on Thursday for my flight home. Thankfully, I had upgraded to first class. First my flight was delayed an hour waiting for the plane. Then once everyone was boarded, I noticed that there wasn't the usual movement of the flight attendants up and down the aisle. Instead, they were talking to the captain.

Nice man, Captain Veser, kept us informed for the next 3 hours as we sat at the gate. He let us know that there was severe weather in Dallas and did not close the cabin door and push back. Now to some who read this blog, this doesn't mean much, but for those who travel extensively, it was significant. It meant that he thought it would be a long delay and did not want us shut up getting antsy. An open door means fresh air and for those that are a little anxious in closed spaces, it means less anxiety. Finally, he told us that they were cancelling all flights to Dallas for the day.

The station manager told us to deplane, collect our bags from baggage claim and go to the ticket counter to get rebooked. Here's a tip, when they tell you to get your bags and THEN go to the ticket counter, ignore them, go to the ticket counter first. The baggage people have to unload the bags from the plane and load them on the conveyor belt ... that takes time and if you are waiting for your bags ... someone else is getting your seat. Fortunately for us, the airline decided to move our flight in toto to 8:00 am the next morning. Unfortunately, whoever put the new flight in the system neglected to put that it was already full. It just showed up as another flight. So on Friday, 50 people from San Diego who thought they had confirmed seats on the plane showed up only to be told they would have to fly standby!

Because I'm an elite member of several hotel frequent sleeper clubs, I was able to get a room without any difficulty in a hotel very near where I was staying before and very near the airport. As I walked to downtown, I remember that a local person had told me it was too bad that I wasn't going to be in town on Thursday because every Thursday they have a street fair. What luck! So my extended stay in Palm Springs was actually not so bad as people watching is a favorite pass time of mine. Jugglers, musicians, artists, and people with their dogs. Simply wonderful.

On Friday I was up at 5:30 and at the airport early because I knew there would be a long line to check bags and to get through security. I really feel for those poor TSA workers sometimes. I wonder how many times a day they have to tell people they cannot carry liquids in more than 3.4 oz through security?

On the plane. Again delays. The storms are still moving through Dallas. Finally 2 hours late, we are wheels up! About an hour out of Dallas, I notice that we have gone into a holding pattern. Subtle, but after the 3rd right turn, that's a holding pattern. We landed an hour late ... not bad.

My flight from Dallas to Austin was also delayed but DFW kept me busy by first sending me to one gate, then another, then back to gate 1, then to the gate that we finally used. Here is a photo of a really neat artsy thing in terminal C. You stand in the middle and there are instructions on how to move around the maze and then end up back in the middle and it will play a melody for you. Very cool.

Wheels up 3 hours late. Finally landing in Austin, I knew I was home when I saw the bluebonnets and other wild flowers in the green area along the runway. Palm Springs was nice, but there is no place like home.

Palm Springs Update (after the fact)

I started this blog entry while in Palm Springs, but never got around to posting it. I'm a bad blogger!

Palm Springs is a really neat place. The down town is alive and thriving. So many people! The view from my hotel is amazing. Mountains and palm trees and in the morning I can see the wind farm in the distance.
Until Tuesday, I thought Palm Springs would be a wonderful place to live ... at least in the fall, winter and spring (temps in the summer can reach 127!). This is a picture taken outside a restaurant. The bougainvilleas was in full bloom. Walking to the downtown area from my hotel took about 15 minutes, but was along a very nice flower lined street. I often saw hummingbirds feeding as I walked. Alas, no good pictures of those flitty little birds.

Then, on Tuesday, a cold front moved through and I got a taste of the legendary Santa Anna winds. Three of us were walking back from dinner and it was relatively calm. Then, I hear this sound that is kind of hard to describe, but I knew it was the wind whipping up. I told the other two to brace themselves because the wind was coming. It hit with such force that one of the women with me was pushed out into the street. Here is a picture I took from my balcony on Wednesday after the cold front blew through. There is snow on the mountain that wasn't there the weekend before.

On the Road again - Palm Springs

On the road again. This time to Palm Springs. Palm Springs is a beautiful place. This is my first visit. The first clue that this is someplace different and special is when you step off the plane and walk toward the terminal. The "concourse" is an open air mall like area that is covered by heavy canvas tent like. Very pleasant. Very beautiful. Like an oasis ... go figure! It is an Oasis!!!

I finally got home and could upload pictures. Here is one of the Palm Springs airport Sonny Bono Terminal.