Travel Weary
February 13, 2009
Whew, what a couple of weeks. Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I have been on travel for my company and what a couple of weeks it was.
The journeys started with a business trip to Hawaii a couple of weekends ago. Yeah, I know, rough place to go on business. It is a long trip to get there, but I have been to worse places. 
Suzanne decided to tag along on this trip. We actually flew out separately last Monday. Our airline tickets didn’t match up because I was on company travel and she took the cheapest flight. Her flight actually got her into Honolulu about 6 hours before more. Suzanne’s parents came to our house to watch the kids so she could go on the trip – awful nice of them!
Since her flight got in early, Suzanne jumped on a local bus and rode it around the island checking out some of the sights. I had meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday so Suzanne had time to herself. She did some shopping, walking on the beach and went snorkeling. I think she had some fun.
We decided to stay a couple of extra days, Thursday and Friday. Thursday, we walked around Waikiki and attended a luau at night. The luau got off to a slow start, but the entertainment was very enjoyable though perhaps a bit short. The food was quite good. On Friday, we just lounged around the beach and pool relaxing.
On Saturday, we returned home, again on different flights. Instead of heading home, I actually headed to Washington DC as I needed to be there Monday AM for a meeting. Going from Honolulu to DC is quite an experience, one I am not sure I would wish on anyone.
It was about a six hour flight to LAX and was uneventful. However, the 6 hour layover in LAX before continuing on to NY was agonizing. My flight arrived into JFK in NY at 5:30 am on Sunday. Toss in another 3 hour layover and I was more tired of layovers than flying. I finally arrived into DC at about 10:00 am on Sunday. Happily, all flights were uneventful.
The rest of Sunday turned out to be fun. I hooked up with my good friend Paul who lives near DC in the afternoon for dinner. We also drove around DC a bit and took in a few sights. We even happened to be driving past the White House just as Obama was landing in Marine One from a weekend at Camp David. We also stopped and got out at two memorials I hadn’t yet seen in DC, the Air Force Memorial and the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial. Both were very nice. I finally turned in for the night very exhausted about 10:30 pm.
We conducted our business on Monday in DC and flew out of DC mid-afternoon for Dayton, Ohio arriving in time for late dinner.
Our business in Dayton was completed in the morning, but we unfortunately couldn’t fly out until the evening. So we took the opportunity to visit the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton. It is worth a visit if you are in the area and never seen before.
We flew out around 7 PM (an hour late) and got into Dallas, TX just as a big series of storms rolled through the area. We had a two hour layover Dallas that turned into a three hour layover due to the weather. We finally landed in Tucson about 1:45 AM on Wednesday morning.
I manage to grab a few hours sleep before heading into work. Luckily, I had Thursday and Friday off this week!
Looks like about a week or so before I head out to DC once again…
My Birthday
January 29, 2009
Well, tomorrow is my birthday. Turning the big 45. I probably shouldn’t mention it, but hey, you are only as old as you think you are.
Luckily, tomorrow is one of our off Fridays at work, so I get to stay home, relax and spend some quality time on the computer. Okay, so I am weird, but it will be fun. Well, actually, I will probably try to whip out the taxes tomorrow too.
Usually I have to cook my own birthday dinner too – well, at least if I want something really tasty. Well, not this year. Savannah is bound and determined to cook me and the rest of the family my birthday dinner. She spent a couple of hours in the kitchen tonight doing some prep work on the meal.
She even put together a whole menu for the dinner where everyone could select their courses. She wanted to do it like a restaurant and have everyone order at dinner time, but she’s not quite ready for that yet. So, we ordered tonight and she could prep.
She has appetizers, soup, salad, entree and dessert on the menu. This is pretty cool! She has really taken a liking to cooking and often assists me in the kitchen and I show her a thing or two. She says cooking is definitely in her future. This is shaping up as one of my favorite birthday presents!
So, who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl this year? Not sure I have decided yet, but my family is definitely on the Arizona Cardinal bandwagon. Living in AZ, its been real easy for them to suddenly become fans. Actually, there has been a lot of fair weather fans coming out of the woodwork around here lately. I can’t just start rooting for a team because they have a good season. At least no one can call me a fair weather fan – not being a die hard Lions fan! We’ll get em next season!
The Hawaii business trip is approaching and Suzanne sure is getting excited. She has been studying guide book after guide book. The whole family was in Hawaii back in 2005, but that was on a cruise. I was in Hawaii on business last October, but this will be Suzanne’s first time staying on one of the islands. The couple of days I will be working, she has mapped out an aggressive site seeing schedule. I think this will be our first vacation in many, many years as a couple. Happy Valentines Day!
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