Monday, January 30, 2012

Robert's Bday Dinner

We went to Maggiano's last night for Robert's (a little belated) birthday dinner....oh, my goodness....too..much....food.....

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Daffy's!!!

Is it really January 26th??? Gotta love this La NiƱa weather!!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Happy B-day Robert!

Thought I'd share this - it is a card from my co-workers at IBM 23 yrs ago.  It's a list of possible baby names from some kind of office pool....."as of 1:30PM  1/25/89"....so the day after Robert was born.....


We hadn't named Robert - actually, we waited 3 days before we actually did the paperwork....so we were apparently the talk of the "department". We went to the hospital not knowing if he was a girl or a boy, so we really didn't have a name picked out. Plus, we had agreed that Karen would "birth" them and Duane would "name" them. Fair trade, huh?

I think it's neat that this is written on a key-punch card.  We actually were past that phase in the computer world, but there were so many of them around, we used them as scrap paper.  The note on it is from a good friend at the time, Tim.  "O" was my boss, "Overcash".    Ahh, the memories!

Monday, January 23, 2012

Foggggggg

Sorry, I've been remiss in getting anything interesting up on the blog lately....mainly because we've not been doing anything the slightest bit interesting!! And still aren't, for that matter!

Rather dismal weather we've been having - luckily fairly warm....warm and wet equals misty fog! No flights into the airport for several days now - not good for the bottom line!!!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Daffodils???

Can you believe it? January 15th and I've got daffodils budding!!!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Quote

Saw this today:

..................................................................................

You can never make the same mistake twice.

The second time it's not a mistake, it's a choice. 


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Thursday, January 12, 2012

Bananas!!

A very nice pilot this morning brought me these little bunches of bananas....


He said he had stopped at a gas station where they had a few bunches at the counter. He said he'd like one. The attendant said they were $1. So, he paid and reached for a bunch from the counter. He was waved away - "no, no - it's $1 per CASE, they are stacked outside." So, the pilot is giving bananas to anyone who wants them! Yum, I've had this type before. Once they are yellow, they are sweet and yummy!

Sunday, January 08, 2012

McCraw fun at Gatlinburg

This weekend, we flew over to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge Airprot for the annual McCraw family get-together.   We had never flown into this airport before - the route took us over some pretty desolate terrain....no easy emergency landing sites below!!




Past the higher mountains, the terrain around Gatlinburg actually is mostly level.


Very nice, new terminal building at the Sevierville/Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge Airport.  Almost deserted (it's off-off- season there!) but the staff was very helpful. Within moments we were in our rental car and on our way to the "cabin" in Gatlinburg.




The view from the back porch - the "cabin" was a 3 level house with 5 bedrooms....




Lots of easy cooking....


It was close to Carolyn's birthday....so Sharon made sure we had a little celebration.....





And now we know why there are no professional singers in the McCraw household!







Much relaxing and playing with electronic gadgets.


The fog and clouds rolled in Saturday.


About half us us went to the Titanic display....the other half went to the Muscle Car Museum.


And it got foggier and cloudier!!


Sunday, we needed to head home....but the forecast had changed from "partly cloudy" to misty and ice in the upper level clouds (where we need to fly to get back over the Appalachian Mountatins!).....

So, we did the only thing we really could - we flew an hour out of our way to avoid the worst of it!!  Here's a little map that shows what we did (click it to blow it up):



An un-eventful flight - no ice - just some light rain and clouds....


Here was the view for the first 45 minutes....


Then we started breaking out of the clouds over Hazard Kentucky.


I love to see the valleys in this area - you can actually see how the glaciers moved thru this area eons ago...




Getting closer to home - there was a thick overcast cloud layer....but nice and smooth air.  Easy approach and warm weather below for January!


Thursday, January 05, 2012

Another motorcycle

Richard and Robert have acquired another motorcycle. This time, apparently to fix and sell. It wasn't running and the guy that had is wasn't able to fix it....soooo...

Cleaning carburetors and such -


Here it is taken apart a bit. I'll post a better photo when they get it back together. As of this afternoon, they had it running great!

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Last of the little winter vacation

Our last day in DC, we only had until 1PM to tour, because we had to catch a train back to the Manassas airport.

So, we went to the only museum that we paid to enter - the International Spy Museum. I really wasn't that impressed....but it was crowded and we were a bit rushed.






So, back to the hotel for our stuff, and a couple of blocks to Union Station to catch the train.


Union Station - really cool.


The roof inside Union Station, shopping mall, restaurants.  A mini-city unto itself!


We were catching a commuter train that runs on the Amtrak rails.



Here it is!!  Country girl in the big city.



Ours was the first run of the afternoon, so we were the first to enter our car.  It never was crowded, I'm assuming because this was a holiday weekend and no real "commuters"!  Double decks - the view from above was great!



Relaxing on the 1 hr ride




After a chilly and very windy takeoff, we made our way south to Williamsburg/Jamestown.  Flying over the sound on the approach, you can see the Navy "boneyard" - where they anchor some ships.  I don't know if they are just stored there or going to be scraped.




We met some of Dick and Lindy's friends from long ago for a wonderful dinner.  The next day we toured the historic Jamestown site.


Their friend Tom is retired, but one day a week he gives tours at the site.  It wasn't his normal day to tour, but he came out and provided us with a wonderful, insightful tour of the original Jamestown settlement.



What a whirlwind!!!  Here Dick and Lindy and the McCraws parted ways.  They flew on home, we flew to the boat!!


Nothing much going on....beautiful day, though!


I guess it's back to work and the New Year!!!

Monday, January 02, 2012

Another Day in the Big City!

We knew that it was going to rain....so we came prepared.  Luckily, it was not too terribly cold.



You have to get the classic "in front of the Capitol" photos!


And then it was full steam - walking down the Mall to the various Smithsonian museums.

Enjoyed the newer American Indian museum - none of us had seen this one before.

Lots of bead work!  This is a decoration made of what looked like millions of tiny glass beads!



Walking in the rain!



We stopping in the Air and Space Museum for a short visit - it was much to crowded for our tastes, so we cut it short.


And the group gave in and trudged down to the Natural History Museum so I could peek at the Hope Diamond!  The big center diamond itself is too big to be really sparkley....but the rest of the necklace is made of gorgeous little rectangular diamonds.  Really more impressive than this photo!



More walking in the rain!


It was getting close to 5:30PM (when most of the museums close up for the day) and the sun was finally peeking thru - and we spied this full horizon-to-horizon rainbow....unfortunately, my camera wouldn't take a wide enough photo to show it.....but the lighting on the "Castle" was just spectacular!  And it was brightening as we walked...



Probably the brightest rainbow I'd ever seen - a nice way to end the day!