Sunday, June 29, 2008

Maybe I'm just being cynical and paranoid.....

Of the 7 comments I found when I came home, 2 were from Writer and the other 5 had a theme going, see if you can determine it.
  1. From: lotto sweepstakes; "It could widen my imagination towards the things that you are posting. "
  2. From: pcso lotto result; "This is a nice blog. I like it! "
  3. From: phillippine lotto; "It could widen my imagination towards the things that you are posting. "
  4. From: lottery winners; "Whoever owns this blog, I would like to say that he has a great idea of choosing a topic. " and
  5. From: casino gambling; "This blog could be more exciting if you can create another topic that everyone can relate on. "

I could be wrong, but I have a hunch that this is some kind of scam. Yeah, I know, 2 years of working with technology for the school district has hardened my soul. These are probably really nice people that just have same feelings towards my blog, with the same love of gambling. In the exact same not-so-quite-right English. And they didn't all have the word lotto in their names. Maybe someday they'll all come to Utah and we'll have a beer and laugh about my paranoia. Maybe not.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Next Project : Cleaning out the garage.

Yup, it's been about 4 years since the last time the garage got a good cleaning, and now that I have the permanent carport done and I've moved the office back upstairs, I have more room to organize my stuff. It's time, and I'm in a serious thinning out the herd state of mind, so I'm throwing and/or giving away a lot of stuff. (Uh, no, none of the cars). I found some boxes of paperwork from Free Wheeler dating back to 1988, it's entirely possible I don't need to keep those. I already threw away a bunch of switch plates and loose screws I had laying around. All of the boxes of stuff are going into plastic containers and being hauled down to the basement. Boxes of nails and screws, and anything else I can afford to have stolen, are going onto the shelves of the carport. Tools and other valuable stuff will stay in the garage, but with the other stuff out of there it should fit a lot better. I've got literally hundreds of murder mystery books that I think I'm going to donate, so if you have any good ideas where to donate used books, let me know. When I cleaned out the office when Amy moved into that room, I stacked the bookcases 2 deep against the wall (and still could fit both LTDs in there - 24'x24' is a ton better than 20'x20'). When I moved them out to the carport I found some interesting stuff hidden back there, including the license plate you see here. Now, picture that family, cruising around Europe for a full year in a 1970 VW Bus (that was the plate on the VW, we actually bought it in Germany). Mom, dad, 12 year old, 10 year old, 7 year old and a 4 year old. (No, that's not Jackie-O, that's my mom). We even spent 5 months in the French public school system (that's a 10,000 word post in itself). Anyhow, je veux allez couchez maintenant. Yeah, well, may not be perfect, but it has been over 30 years, and I do have to get up early so I think I will sign off.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Pictures from Day 1, 2 & 3

I got the photo gallery for the first leg of my trip alltoghether, if you want to check them out, click here. I'll get the second set as soon as possible. I was wasting a bunch of time messing around with re doing my website (http://www.srossi.net/), and decided it wasn't working too well. I was trying to mesh the new with the old, and it just wasn't looking very cohesive. "So, I'm gonna drop back 5 and punt. I've figured out how to keep everything on the old site intact, in the background, and start from scratch with the site. You won't see any changes until I have it already to launch.

2 hours later : just got done adding captions to the photo gallery. Hopefully that will make the pictures more interesting, knowing what they're all about.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Whoa, mah brane haz esploded!

So, the Thursday class professor decided that holding class on July 3rd might not be the best thing. All the students there agreed, but a few didn't like the alternate date. So, we all decided the thing to do would be to cover extra stuff both tonight and the week we get back to class. Now, you wouldn't think this would be too bad for me, considering we are learning about Macromedia Flash and I've been using it for half a decade. Yeah, maybe you wouldn't, but I did think it. Until he started going over buttons and some other stuff I wasn't familiar with. So, we cruised through it and the hard part was paying enough attention so I knew when he was covering something I didn't know and yet finding other things to do so I wouldn't get totally bored. But the worst, very very worst, most terrible thing is that my two cohorts weren't there, so I'm probably going to have to go over the stuff we learned with them. [Just kidding you two, seriously. We should probably get together to go over the stuff some time, it'll help me get my butt in gear and actually do the assignments before class]. The good thing is that I get next week off completely. And I'll be sitting on my front porch watching everyone trying to get home after the fireworks. Now, that's fun.
And finally, I made that black bean soup again today, and didn't cut myself. Not even a scratch.....

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

This beats that little remote control car.....

I watched them move one of the I-80 bridges across 13th east tonight. I was out in the convertible around 10 pm and saw that 13th was diverted into the Shopko parking lot, so decided to see what was going on. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera along, because they were moving one of those huge bridge peices. The weird thing is that they were moving it from the west, towards where I thought they go, over to the east side of 13th, where they are building them. Who knows what the reason was, but it was almost like they had grabbed the wrong bridge and had to bring it back to swap it. I could be wrong. Anyway, it is an awesome sight. I'd been watching it from the time is came around behind the Red Lobster, it was cruising it's way north bound when I noticed something really, well, funny, and really wished I had my camera. Now, picture a bridge. The width of 3 freeway lanes and a long as it needs to be to get across a 2 lane city street. Huge, heavy, a shitload of concrete, rebar and I beams. Underneath it are what look like huge legos with wheels. They're at least 10 feet tall, 6 or so feet wide, long enough to span the length of the bridge and there are 3 rows of them. (my stats may not be completely accurate, I wasn't allowed out there to measure, they had us standing a good distance away, and it was an hour and a half ago.) Anyway, massive. And I look at the front of the bridge, down by the wheels, about 10 feet in front. There's a guy with a little remote control box, wired to the wheels, and as I watch I realize he's driving the damn thing. Just like one of those cheapo remote control cars we had as kids, except it's the size of a house.
At least I figured out how they get the bridges across 13th east - up the westbound off ramp and then down the westbound on ramp. I wonder how you'd report a collision between a bridge and the Red Lobster to your insurance company?

Jimmy Carter in 2008?

John McCain just gave me another reason to vote for Barack Obama. Of course McCain thinks it's a reason to vote against Obama, for him it might be, not so for me. Saturday's Tribune included the article: McCain talking point: Obama is new Carter. Republican says his rival is 'dusting off the old, failed' policies of the former president. First of all, 'failed' policies does not mean bad policies, it just means that the powers that be were too beholden to special interests that they would not allow the president to implement them. Think about it, where would we be now if we had listened to Jimmy Carter? The national debt was some 900 billion and he was telling us that we could not leave this debt for our children, that is was our duty to tighten our belts and do something about it. Now it's 9 trillion, and climbing rapidly. (Carter considered a debt that was 35% of our GNP outrageous, while now it's 65% of the GNP). President Carter wanted to inact policies that would wean us from dependence on foreign oil, he understood how detrimental it is to our country. Tax incentives for solar heating, for both conversions and new construction, as with incentives for research into other alternative fuel sources. McCain's boogyman, which is his big argument about Obama, is a tax on windfall profits for big oil. Carter tried it and got shot down (figuratively) and Obama is now proposing it. Frankly, I think it's a good way of increasing tax revenue and driving the American public further away from their dependence on foreign oil.

The 1980 Election was my first presidential election. I'd been interested in politics since watching the Watergate investigations, so I had paid attention during the Carter administration. I remember 3 main themes of Jimmy Carter's domestic policies:

  1. The federal debt was out of control and had to be eliminated.
  2. We needed to wean ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil
  3. It won't be easy, in fact it might hurt, but if we ALL pitch in and do what we can we can fix these problems.

Things weren't perfect, I'm not saying that. Inflation was high, gas prices were high (hmmm, something familiar there?) and we were rebuilding a country that had been ripped apart by Watergate. But we were respected (different from being feared) worldwide and we had a president that was willing to face serious problems head on rather than burying them under "feel good" short term fixes. I hope Obama is the Jimmy Carter of 2008. God bless him if he is, and us if we have the brains to listen to him.

Monday, June 23, 2008

The Trip : The overall view.

Click on the map to get a bigger view, and to activate links.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Friday, June 13th : Day 6

Well, day 6 was so chocked full of stuff to look at that by the time I got to 11 pictures and hadn't even been through the Death Valley set, I decided there was no way I was going to fit them all on here. This gave me the freedom to go overboard, and ended up with 41 photos for today. To see the post and the pictures, we have to go off Blogger and onto my personal page. Just click here, and I'll take you there. And, just like here on Blogger, if you click on any picture, it will give you the full sized one. At the bottom of the post will be a link to bring you right back here. Sorry about the detour, have a great day.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Ok, so does that mean we're going to Michigan tomorrow?

Ya gotta read the comments to the other post to get the title.....

Is it for real, Toto?

The problem with getting a picture from a cell phone, is that you get no explaination along with it. Danny sent me this. It looks like the production version of the Dodge Challenger concept car. On the street, in real life. If it is, I may be trading in the Subaru a little early. Anyway, Danny, is it production or just a show car going around? Wanna go to the Dodge dealership with me tomorrow?

Jalapeno in an open wound, OUCH!

It may take me a little longer to get the last two chapters of my trip documented here, right now typing is a little cumbersome. While I was cutting up some peppers for my home made black bean soup, I lobbed of a chunk of my index finger. No, it was not just a cut, I actually a chunk of finger tip. You know, the part of the finger that has a gazillion nerve endings per square inch. Nothing like hot pepper juice in an open wound to make you swear. Not having an index finger has considerably slowed down my typing, and increased my errors, so I may have to wait for a little more healing before I continue the saga. Good thing is this will give me the time to assemble the photos for the photo gallery. All point & click, very little typing.....

Thursday, June 12th : Day 5

We left Salt Lake sometime around 10 or 11, and headed out to Wendover. Nothing too exciting there, it was the usual I-80 drive, except I did find out that they had fenced in the "Tree of Utah" so you couldn't get to ti to pee on it anymore. Another tradition bites the dust.
At Wendover, which is directly over the Nevada/Utah border, we got off the freeway and headed down SR93, a 2 lane highway typical of American travel before the advent of the divided freeway. Thanks to the freeway, these types of roads are free of idiots and quite enjoyable to drive. We headed down 93 to Ely then took 6 all the way to Tonopah. [I was reading it right off the map Alex, that's the only reason I got it right]. One thing we discovered on our drive across Nevada is that it consists of several rows of mountains, or hills, seperated by logn, long, long stretches of incredible flat lands. Hence, the roads are long, long, long stretches of perfectly straight road broken up by the occasional 2 mile curvy ride through the hills.
About 12 miles before Ely, we hit the town of McGill, NV. Not a very big town, and it looked like it was on it's way to becoming a ghost town, or maybe was recovering from being one. Either way, they had a bunch of cool stores for sale, with the old time look to them. Alex and I decided we could probably get one for a song, so our latest plan is to buy a store and set up shop. We haven't decided what we're going to sell, Alex thought of T-Shirts that say "I bought this store in McGill and all I got was this stupid T-Shirt". I pictured the episode of "Dharma & Greg" where she opens up a shop but doesn't sell anything. The store is full of people just sitting, chatting and drinking coffee, and when people come in and ask what she's selling and her response is "What do you need?" When they answer she'd just yell out to the crowd "Anyone got ...?" Guess you had to be there. But I just pictured us fixing up the place and then spending my summers sitting on the front stoop, watching people go by and chatting. {Keep in mind we were driving through Nevada at the time. You thought there was a whole lot of nothing in my picture of Southern Utah, Nevada's got 2 or 3 times as much nothing.}
Anyway, after that there was Ely, which seems to get an amazing amount of press for such a small town. After Ely we got onto route 6 and headed down toward route 95 which would bring us to Death Valley. We had planned on staying at a campground between Saulsbury and McKinney summits down by the town of Tonopah. On the way down we saw a few dust devils (see picture), a huge lava flow, and smoke from a big fire (see picture). Now, at first the smoke didn’t look too ominous, but after a few minutes took on a very mushroom cloud look to it. Which made me think that the last thing I want to see is a mushroom cloud when I’m driving through the Nevada desert. Well, it wasn’t nuclear (or is that nucular?), but it did seem oddly surrealistic to me.
Oh, and then there was the sand flats. Called “Lunar Crater” on the map, it was what seems to be the bottom of a dry lake bed. In class I told someone that I thought it was about 30 miles long and 10 miles wide, but I checked it out on Google Maps and found I was just a tad off. By like a factor of 10. It really is only about 3 ½ miles long and a mile and a half wide, but driving on it it seemed to go on forever. We got the car going up to about 100 MPH, and did some really cool sideways slides, at a much lower speed of course. We got a ton of good pictures, that I put into a sort of video. As Alex brought the car back from the first round of dust running, I was taking the pictures, the first thing we said was “Danny’s gonna love this” (that’s our little brother, the 3 of us have been hanging around together for, well, most of our lives). So, we’re hoping to get together a long weekend with all of us out there for some playing. No speed limit, nobody to bug us, and as long as we don’t blow anything up or harass the cattle we’ll be left alone. After we decided we were wasting too much gas (forgot to fill up in Ely) we headed out to the camp ground. Which was totally underwhelming (see picture). Nothing but gravel and a couple little trees, right off the highway. Uh, thanks, but no. We headed down to Tonopah, got a hotel room, had some dinner, checked out the town and bunkered down for the night.

Oh, and Alex, feel free to comment on anything I miss. I want to get everything on here, and I'm bound to forget something.....

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Wednesday, June 11th, Day 4

My day between the Souther Utah and California trips.

I did laundry,

took a shower,
and slept.
That's about it. Everything was already packed for the second trip from the first trip, and all the clothes I washed just went back into the duffel bag for round two........

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Tuesday, June 10th : Day 3

Well, I culled the 3,645 pictures I took down to a mere 11. I have no idea what my memory limit is on blogger, but I don't want this to be the photo gallery. Here, they're supposed to enhance the story, not be it. So, you'll have to wait until I cull through the 356,950 pictures from the two trips and get the photo galleries up.

Anyway, today was the ghost town day. Sego and Thompson, and as it turns out Thompson Springs too. The day started out much as usual, with the hotel's continental breakfast. Writer had to have twice the English Muffin as she meant to, because one, in a fit of suicidal despair, jumped out of the bag and fell to it's death on the floor. Right in front of her (musta been traumatic). Most Jr. High teacher's firmly believe in the 5 second rule, so rather than throw the muffin away, she killed any germs on it by toasting it and ate it.

Despite the post-trauma stress of the muffin incident, we headed up towards I-70 and Sego, Thompson and Thompson Springs. Sego and Thompson are true ghost towns, nobody lives there and nobody has for several decades. Thompson Springs is right off the freeway, and is not a full fledged ghost town, we didn't even realize it was a ghost town until on our way back

First we went to Thompson, which is up about 4 miles of dirt road. We had several petroglyph sitings on the way up, some of them were really cool, some had been defaced. Some were defaced by autograph carvings and pictures dating from the 1910's and 20's, which sparked a conversation about the difference between ancient writings and graffiti. After all, petroglyphs really are just ancient graffiti, and looking at the "Joe was here" from the 1920's was cool, but the same thing from the 70's was annoying. Not that I am in any way condoning the destruction of petroglyphs, but the truth is that if I had written "Max wuz hear, 2008" alongside the others (and no, I did not), a couple hundred years from now someone would look at it and think "Wow, 2008. Who was Max and what the hell was he trying to say?" We also saw a really cool old trestle on the way there, most likely used to carry the ore down the canyon.

Thompson itself was set in quite an idyllic setting. At a bend in the canyon, up against the hill shaded by huge colttonwood (I think) trees that were right along the bank of a obviously not always dry river, it was beautiful and calm. There were three houses in different levels of decay, but the coolest thing was the oven that looked like it was still in functioning condition. (see picture at top).

Next stop was Sego. We passed their little cemetery on the way there, a lot of the graves were unmarked, and on one it was obvious some $%^9*% stole the headstone. But it was pretty interesting nonetheless. Sego is on a small incline hillside in the center of the canyon. We found three structures that were still standing, ahem, well, sort of. The house, a wood construction building, fared the worst of the three, the other two are what I would consider salvageable, this one not so much. Most of the plaster was gone, you could see the lathe on the remaining walls. The front outside wall was all but gone. (In the picture you are looking at the back of the house, the best preserved part). Neither Writer or I dared go inside the building, don't know if the floor would have held us or if our movement on it would have brought more walls down. From what was left, though, it must have been a nice house. Two floors, many rooms. On Writer's blog she has a picture of Sego from the 1920's, you can see what the house looked like when it was in use. There was also two stone buildings, or shells of buildings left, that I think was a store and some sort of office. The insides are completely gone, floors and all, but the outside walls look strong enough that if Sego ever came alive again, you could build inside them and have original looking buildings.


After Sego we headed back towards Moab, and decided to stop in Thompson Springs to look at, well, ok, I saw a 1970 Ford XL Fastback sitting out in a field rusting and just had to check it out. You'll see the picture later, because even more interesting was the old Cadillac camper we found in the same field. Yeah, looks like someone took an old 4 door Cadillac and cut the roof to custom fit the camper to it. Must have been a sight to see cruising down the highway. We ended up spending an hour or so in Thompson Springs, because despite it being an inhabited (sort of) town, it had several abandoned buildings. One of them was a Cafe, looked like the left in the middle of a shift, there was still syrup sitting on the counter. The other buildings I'm not sure about, one looked like a residence, maybe for the Cafe owners. That too looked like it had been left in the middle of the night. A small office of some sort, a stable. Not exactly sure, but they were all clustered around what looked like it used to be the center of town. Right across the street from the abandoned Motel. Creepy, horror movie motel. There was only one room that still had a front door that closed, the rest were wide open, despite signs of recent (6 months maybe) inhabitance. That wasn't the creepy part. I felt like I walked into the middle of a teen slasher movie at the 3rd room, where someone had put paint on their hands and left smeared hand prints on the wall, along with the writing "This is my home, forever" and "Go home". But that wasn't the eeriest of it, that came back at the office. Hand prints all over the place. A typewriter with a beer bottle next to it, on a desk in the middle of the room. Writings on the wall about death and hauntings. A half empty (or is it half full?) can of peanut butter and almost empty jar of strawberry preserves on top of the refrigerator. The one thing that actually made me laugh was the word "Yum" painted on the fridge door. Other than that, creepy, creepy, creepy. After the motel we pretty much left the wonderful town of Thompson Springs. Once out of town we started talking and realized that even though we heard sounds of inhabitants (vehicles running, dogs tied up outside houses, water, etc..) we didn't see a single person the whole time we were there - which was at least an hour. Maybe it was because of the motel, or maybe it just added to it, but now we were really creeped out. Not nightmares for the rest of the week creeped out, but just "that was really freakin' weird" creeped out.

Next stop was a return to Canyonlands Visitor Center, for two reasons. We had to get some pictures of the Shafer Trail from up on the ridge and we had to tell Ranger Nate that we made it down the trail with the Subaru. Ranger Nate was really busy with some lady, trying to get her credit or gift card or whatever to work, so we just left a message for him with the other ranger. She seemed pretty impressed that we took a Subaru down the Shafer Trail and assured us that she would let Ranger Nate know we survived.

Thus endeth the Moab trip. We went back to the hotel, packed up and headed home, mostly on accounta there was a storm coming in the next day since we had the time left I'd rather drive home in the evening than get up early and drive home the next day. Fortunately Writer, who would have preferred it the other way around, agreed to my plan.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Monday, June 9th : Day 2

Day 2 started out with a wonderful, complimentary, Continental breakfast. Which means something different wherever you go. This one wasn't bad, English muffins, coffee, fresh fruit even. Not worth the $90 I paid for it, but then again, they did throw in a nice place to sleep for the night. Anyhoo, today was Shafer Trail day. Going down the Shafer Trail you start out in Canyonlands National Park and end up coming out somewhere right outside of Moab. It's all dirt road and descends, or rises, some 2000 feet and is 19 miles long*. Writer knows the history of the trail better so I'll let her tell it, click HERE to scoot over to her post. We started out by going out to Dead Horse Point, which overlooks part of the Shafer Trail. The picture at the top shows the view of part of the Shafer Trail from Dead Horse Point. From there we went to ?Canyonlands National Park and went over to the Visitors Center. We were talking to Ranger Jaime and we asked her about the trail, how it was and if my Subaru could take it. She consulted with Ranger Nate and the response we got was "We wouldn't advise it". Ok, there was a lot more chatting back and forth, but that was the basic gist of the conversation. Basically what they were saying is that, if done carefully, my Subaru would make it through alive, but they won't say that just in case something happens and I feel like suing. Shafer Trail starts out as a nice smooth dirt road across a mesa, turns into a relatively smooth road that's cut into the side of a cliff then turns into some pretty rough switchbacks. It makes at least half, if not 3/4, of the 2000 ft drop (or rise) in a matter of about 3 or 4 miles. Hairy driving, but exciting. Writer was extremely calm when she was on the up side of the road, not so much when she was on the down side. But it seems that she trusts my driving, because she never showed it. I could just tell by her not looking out her window when she was on the down side. She didn't complain, didn't yell for me to slow down and didn't jump out of the car and walk down the hill. (I won't admit it, but I'm a little nervous when I'm looking out the window at a thousand foot drop off. did I say that out loud?) After the switchbacks, it's relatively level for the rest of the trip, but there were some rough spots on the road. I scraped a total of 4 times, but made sure they were all on the outside of the bottom of the car where there were no vital organs. At one really nasty spot there was an orange cone marking it. It seemed somewhat out of place on a dirt road miles out into nowhere. But alas, it was there, as was a 15 MPH sign, which frankly made me laugh because the chances of running into a UHP out here were about the same as GW having an intelligent thought, and Rangers were almost as sparse, but also because for the most part, going over 15 MPH is not physically possible, except for during the 1000 foot fall off the cliff. Eventually the trail meets up with the Potash Road, which is paved and leads you right back to the highway into Moab. It took us the better part of the day, if you've driven dirt roads, you know how long it can take to drive 19 miles, plus you add to that all the times to take pictures, we pretty much got back into town just in time to get dinner. Which, if I remember correctly, was Mexican night, where I had the M.O.A.B. (Mother Of All Burritos) . This is not your 99 cent Taco Time burrito that you can eat 4 or 5 or 6 or even 7 of if you are really hungry. Oh, no. It was huge, I swear they stuffed a whole lamb in there, hoofs and all. (see picture here) Writer has the picture of it, so you'll have to scoot over there to check it out. Well, it was gooooood! And I actually ate the whole thing, although I felt like I usually do after Thanksgiving Dinner, nothing left to do but to go back to the hotel and lay in bed. Thus endeth day 2.

*4WD Trails of Southeast Utah, Peter Massey & Jeanne Wilson, Swagman Publishing, 2001

Happy Birthday Kinley!


Monday, June 16, 2008

Sunday, June 8th : Day 1

As I've alluded to in a few of the recent posts, I just got back from a driving trip around the Western USA. Utah, north and south, all the way through Nevada and skirted up the side of California. Well, because I know you won't read the whole thing if I write about the entire week in one post, I'm going to take it day by day.

Today (according to the title), I picked up Writer, whom most of you know I taught with at a Jr. High for 4 years. She had spent a lot of time down in the Moab area, and knew of a couple nice ghost towns and offered to show them to me. So, off we went. I picked her up around noon and we headed down. We were making really good time by the time we made it to SR191, so when we saw the upside down airplane at the Moab airport we decided to pull over and get a few pictures. Great in theory, not so much in practice. Now, I've gotten in the habit of not locking the car using the little button on the door, it's got me into trouble before. Unlocking it with the button is safe, unless you mistake 'lock' for 'unlock' and leave the keys in the ignition. I knew the second the door clicked shut. Good thing my brother has a set of keys to my cars. Oh, wait. He's 233 miles away. And my cell phone is in the car. So Writer and I trek down to the Moab "International" Airport looking for a pay phone and a wire clothes hanger. We get the hanger, and the phone number for Gary's Locksmith in Moab. I figure I'll call and see how much it's going to cost to have him come out and open my car, before wrecking it with the hanger. $50, and unlike the joke, it's not the same as in town ($40). So, rather than fight with the hanger, shred the weatherstripping on the door and scratching the panel, I ask him to come out. He doesn't even flinch when I tell him I'm 300 yards or so north of the Airport, pulled out on the side of the road. Makes me feel better, obviously I'm not the only idiot to lock his keys in the car out in the middle of nowhere on the side of the highway. 45 minutes he says, and to his credit it was just over an hour. Good thing I found a chair stuck on the fence on the way back to the car, gave us something to sit on. (see picture way up there) I tell ya, we got a lot of looks from the cars passing us on the highway. Well, it took him 34.65 seconds to get the car open and cost me $50. The rest of the evening was enjoyable, but uneventful. Well, except for when Writer spilled water all over the table at dinner. I think she did it to make me feel better about locking the keys in the car. At least that's what she said.

Understanding Engineers, encore

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?

Mechanical Engineers build weapons --

Civil Engineers build targets.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Saturday, June 14, 2008

2483 miles in 7 days.

Yup, that's what I just got back from. 2483 miles starting on Sunday, June 8th to today (Saturday, June 14th). [That averages 354.71 miles per day.] It's midnight, I woke up just outside of Yosemite Park in California this morning and got home less than an hour ago. Saw 3 ghost towns, a 1973 Ford LTD for sale somewhere in Nevada and got a speeding ticket in California from Dougie Howser just 6 miles from the border. (We passed several officers in Nevada going even faster and they didn't even flinch. Alex came to the conclusion that we could do whatever we wanted to, as long as it didn't involve cattle or explosives, and the Nevada Highway Patrol wouldn't care.) Anyway, I'm going to shower (first in 3 days) and then go to bed. You'll get details later..... PS - the whole week was a blast.

Writer, you'll see your comment has been posted, my bloganoia is information that lets people know my house is going to be empty. I know I've got enough information on here to figure out where my house is, so I never post about vacations and such until after I get back.