Cookies & Cream

Such a healthy breakfast. Blue Bell Ice Cream. I'm thinking of pioneering the ice cream/pizza diet. Oh wait. That already exists. Add beer to that list and you have the College Diet. Oh well.

I've been busy lately. I've been home to my own apartment for about 12 hours in the last week or so. Maybe even longer. I'm not quite sure. Between work, the conference with Allison and more work, I literally spend all my time in airplanes. Not that I'm complaining, it's just amazing how much your life can change.

I could make a really long entry and tell you details about all the excitement but instead, I'll relate one particular trip I did in the last several weeks that was fairly memorable:

It's May 2005, Friday the 13th. I wander into operations around 6:45pm to duty in for work. My trip tonight is one leg to Naples, the Beverly Hills of southwest Florida. I look at the screens and see that the aircraft has arrived and I'm going to have to make the haul over to D concourse from C, where I am now.

After powering up the plane and doing my walk around inspection, the rest of my crew arrives. I quickly learn that the Captain and flight attendant are romantically involved. I also learn they are planning to rent a car once we get to Naples so they can go get pizza at this local Chicago-style place right on the beach. Apparently the Captain is originally from Chicago and his parents now reside in Naples which is why he knows the area.

After landing, the Captain jumps off the airplane, even before the passengers, to go procure us a car. He says the pizza joint stops making pizzas after like 9:30pm or something so it's in his interest to hurry. After everyone is off, we do our normal securing of the aircraft, change clothes, and jump into our blazingly sleek grayish Ford Focus. I just love the pleasantness of riding in the back seat of a car while 2 smokers puff away in the front seat.

The pizza is outstanding. And the walk on the beach under a full moon afterwards is equally incredible. All except for the fact that I am the 3rd wheel. "Where is Allison?!?!" One day soon she'll be able to come along.

The next day, they go out and do their thing while I sit in the Hampton Inn. Those are my favorite, by the way. If you are in the market for a hotel stay, I highly recommend Hampton. Around lunch time, the Captain calls me and asks what I'm up to. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing," I reply. "That sucks! Wanna go with us to Vanderbilt beach for lunch?" How could I say no?

Picture this: Warm sunny skies, outdoor patio-style restaurant, broken-shell-infested white Florida sand 10 feet away, key lime pie, lemonade and most of all, overly-tan 50-somethings who really shouldn't be wearing what they're wearing. After lunch, we decide to splash around in the Gulf of M and enjoy the water. Follow that by about 10 minutes of natural drying by the big orange star in the sky.

Now it's back to the hotel, shower, pack, dress and head to the airport. It's 4:30pm and I'm back on the airplane. Load up, punch out and it's back to Atlanta to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again some where else.

Store Wars?

This is very funny for Star Wars and organic food fans! hehe

Two Weeks Left of School

My class had Field Trip to the Zoo last week, a Spelling Bee, and we are working on plays. The plays I'm directing will be May 19th - Little Red Riding Hood and then on May 25th - Little Red Hen. As for the remaining weeks: Friday the 20th is Field Day however I have Jury Duty. (fun,fun) Mom has jury duty that day too, so we are going to get to sit around together to find out if we are picked or not. :-P

This coming Sunday is the first shower. This one is for most of my co-workers from last year and my mom's friends. Monday is my school's shower for us. I heard there will be cake! hehe. At the end of school I'll be doing a lot of moving and boxing up my school stuff. It will be interesting how we will get all this STUFF from my school to my parent's house without a truck. I might be asking a friend for some help.

After May it's less then TWO MONTHS till the BIG DAY! (o: I can't wait!

Wedding update

Well the invitations have been ordered and to my mom and my surprise they will be here in about 10 days! That will be nice because it will give us plenty of time to procrastinate addressing them.

I'm talking to the florist Tuesday and looking at the engagement pictures the following Tuesday. (He's hard to schedule with so I just decided to plan a day for me to see them and look for another date where Dave can see them too) That way if they are all icky pictures then we can re-take them soon. Hopefully they will be wonderful like we think they will be.

Other then that... the wedding rings are picked out. Now all we have to do is find a good place to buy them for a good price. :-P

The first shower seems to be well planned by my mom, and many of my mom's friends. By the way Dave and I are fully registered at William-Sanoma, Dillards, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Target (although I'm sure there are more things we would love to have). We are excited about all the items we have registered for but since I'll be moving from Texas to Georgia it means that hauling MORE STUFF will be interesting... so if you are sitting there thinking to yourself.... "gee I want to get Dave and Allison something GREAT"... just know that a gift card would be PERFECT. All gifts are welcome but, cards are much smaller and lighter to move to another state. (o;

That's all for now folks.

iPod photo & CRJ's

I recently made the decision to purchase an iPod photo through my sister's Mac hook-up. And now I'm in "sit-in-front-of-the-computer-for-hours-playing" world. These little boxes are amazing. I have yet to mess with my photos. There will be plenty of time for that later. But isn't it cool to think I can carry ALL my digital and scanned photos AND music with me WHEREVER I go?!? I thought so. I opted for the A/V cable as well so I can connect it to a TV to show pictures a little bigger.

Also, my dad stopped through Atlanta a couple days ago on his way to Ft. Lauderdale for work. I had a flight that night so I went in to work early to keep him company at ATL. Well, with a little luck, I was able to get him onto a CRJ so he could see my office finally. It was quite ironic because the aircraft we happened to tour was N876AS, the FIRST CRJ I ever flew back in Nov. '04. Cool! So enjoy the photos below. Comments are always appreciated. :-)

Me in my office.

Dad's private CRJ charter.

"Thanks for flying with us! Watch your step!"

Hurry up and take the picture!

Longshot. Who's the funny guy?

CRJ silhouette by TCG

I am POSTING! - A Super Sized Post

So I haven't really posted much. Dave has more opportunity to blog then I do since he gets stuck in hotels often. (Well that is my excuse anyway)

Dave and I watched "Super Size Me" and holy cow I will never eat fast food again! Okay well that is an over statement but, after watching that movie... I dunno. Dave was avoiding fast food after watching this and I agree with him. The movie really brings the reality of the fast food JUNK that we put in our bodies. It's amazing how terrible the guy's health was after 30 days of McDonalds. WOW it was crazy! Heart, liver, energy issues, and depression.

I couldn't believe it... if you are still regularly eating fast food, check this movie out and tell me what you think after watching it.

Continental vs. Delta

Since it's late, I'm going to keep this short. My body still thinks it's 9:50pm due to being in LA for 4 days but I'm tired none the less. Quick recap: I went to LA on Friday morning after getting back from Charleston, WV at about 0715. Got first class out there, arriving around noon LA time. Allison joined me later that day around 9pm or so, via Salt Lake due to Delta's unfortunate closure of Dallas. Have to go through SLC, CVG or ATL if you want to get anywhere else on Delta out of DFW.

Flights were so bad for Allison to get home on Sunday via buddy pass that she didn't even make it. Problem was getting her to SLC. Once she got there (in theory), the flights looked fine to DFW. But it wasn't meant to be. We ended up using my mom's frequent flier miles on Continental Monday morning, sending her back via Houston to Dallas. I think maybe Denver's awful snow might have had something to do with it. Who knows.

Either way, we had a good weekend of adventure. Saturday we drove north out of LA toward Owens Valley and Lone Pine, CA. It's up along highway 395 south of Mammoth and Yosemite if you're looking at a map. Gorgeous country. I mentioned it here in a recent previous entry, as you may recall. We did some hiking and enjoyed the majesty of it all. Very nice. Sunday morning we went sailing with my dad on one of his club's 26.5' Hunter sailboats. Not a ton of wind but enough to make it enjoyable as we went uh-crashing through the 3-4 foot ocean swell. Then we headed for the airport and hung around for almost 4 hours because we both just love sitting in airports for no reason. At least we had each other to keep, uh, each other company.

Okay, I'm tired now. I'd write more about it but those who read this will probably hear more details from each of us individually anyway. So I leave you with a few photos to enjoy. Click on them to make them bigger n stuff. Uh huh huhuhuh.

Allison stands along Whitney Portal road in front of Mt. Whitney. It's not visible, though, due to the clouds. Be advised I say this again for the next photo because I posted these in reverse order due to how the picasa program works. Sorry for the redundancy.

Here we are in front of Mt. Whitney which is unfortunately obscured by cloud to the right of our heads.

A herd of cows crosses the road and Allison captures the moment in a series of 6 photos.

Allison in front of the CLOSED Frosty Chalet in Lone Pine, CA. Where have you readers seen a similar photo before? Hmmmm...

Allison takes the helm of a sailboat for the first time inside the MdR harbor. She was a little nervous with such a big responsibility.

Allison watches Dave play Jack "I'm the king of the world" at the bow of the mighty ship.

Allison at the helm again out in the open waters of the Pacific. Marina del Rey along with the Santa Monica Mountains in the background.