Lowes Loves Us. Home Depot Too.

Us: "Hey hardware store, want some of our money?"
Lowes: "Uh, duhhhh."

Allison and I are doing our part to stimulate the struggling economy. The most amazing thing to me is how little use I had for Lowes and Home Depot.

Until I became a homeowner.

It all started last Sunday when I finally bought a 20 foot extension ladder. I've had uses for one for ages but had to borrow a friend's truck in order to get it home.

One of my projects involved our rain gutters. The front ones required the taller ladder. While I was at it, I decided to cover our "problem" gutters over the deck. They clog with leaves quite easily. I'm all excited for it to rain again so I can see them in action. Here's some pictures:







Another project we decided to undertake was tinting the small windows around our front door. After a bit of frustration figuring out the best technique, I'm fairly satisfied with the results. Here's a shot a third of the way through. The left window is finished. Note the difference.



I'm beat.

Happy Birthday Ellen! :-)

Doughnut?

Yeah I don't know what I was thinking. We have a stand-alone Krispy Kreme Doughnuts less than 10 miles from our house. For some reason we thought we didn't. Maybe because we don't drive past it regularly. Or maybe it was just an excuse to go get them when we were in Idaho. Either way, I'm glad I checked. We are getting some this morning. :-)

New Blog

Following in my sister's footsteps, I've created a separate, topic-specific blog. I mentioned possibly doing this in our last entry about Idaho.

The title of the blog, Acey Driver, is another way of saying ASA Pilot. Our call-sign when talking on the radio is "Acey." And pilots often use the word "driver" in reference to the type of aircraft they fly. For example, I am a CRJ driver. Or you could be a 737 driver, etc, etc.

Most airlines use their name as a call sign. Here's a few like us that use something different:
U.S. Airways is Cactus
British Airways is Speedbird
China Airlines is Dynasty
AirTran Airways is Citrus

And without further adieu, here's the link to my new blog. Bookmark and enjoy!

http://aceydriver.blogspot.com

Greene 3rd Annual Idaho Ski & Family Trip

This past weekend, Allison and I made our way out to Merdian, Idaho to visit her brother John, wife Michelle and our niece Reganne. It was also our first time to meet our newest niece, Zoe (pronounced Zoe-y). Coincidentally, Allison's parents were also going to be there on the same weekend so it was like 2 visits in one!

We woke up at 4am on Saturday morning to try for the 6:50am flight to Salt Lake City.

Didn't make it. As in, no seats left.

So we went and had Dunkin Donuts and enjoyed each other's company for a while. The next flight, which looked worse, was at 8:10. We casually made our way down to the gate with the attitude of, "hey let's go humor ourselves" because we seriously didn't think we'd make it.

Wrong. The next paragraph is highly detailed in order to help you understand how "fun" it can be sometimes to use your employee travel benefits. Maybe I should start a pilot/travel blog like my sister started a cooking blog. Hmmm.

Anyway, the gate agent lined us (stand bys) up against the wall in priority order and then sent us down the jet-way one by one to find the first available seat. We found overhead bin space for our 2 roller bags at row 10. Allison continued back while I hoisted the bags up. She found the last seat left in the last row. A flight attendant coming forward said to me that there were no more left.

So there I am, standing 48 rows away from Allison with the gate agent and a flight attendant at the aircraft door while they called for the next upgrade to move from coach to the only seat left on the plane in first class.

At this point, I notice Allison and the guy in the seat next to her both standing and looking at me. I interpret this as she explained to the guy the situation. Luckily, the upgrade is in another non-bulkhead aisle seat. I head all the way back to Allison and tell the guy the open seat. He gladly moves way up to the front and we head to Salt Lake.

We made our connection to Boise and arrived around noon. The hotel told us to take a cab and they'd pay for it due to the lack of a van driver on the weekends. Allison's parents arrived around 1:30, got settled, and we all headed over to John and Michelle's.

Allison and I met our new niece, took our "old" niece for a walk and some play time at the park, and headed back for dinner.

The next day, John, Allison and I headed up to Bogus Basin for some skiing. It snowed the whole day up on the mountain, which gave us deep powder conditions and low visibility. Allison said it was her favorite skiing experience ever!

We arrived to the hotel around 3:30pm, showered, changed and headed back to John & Michelle's. We all headed out to eat at a local brick oven pizza restaurant. After dinner, we ended up back at the hotel for a little swimming at the heated indoor pool. Reganne found herself trying to escape the sea monster (Grandpa Dave) and the shark (Uncle Dave). Reganne spend the night at the hotel with Grandpa Dave and Grandma Pat.

On Monday, we treated ourselves to a little Krispy Kreme. We don't have stand-alone KK's in Atlanta so we thought what the heck. Reganne enjoyed Uncle Dave wearing a KK hat like hers that came with her kid's pack. Then it was off to the airport to head back home.

We made both BOI-SLC and SLC-ATL no problem. That's always nice. :-) And what trip
would be complete without pictures? Enjoy...

Beach Time

Allison and I went to L.A. to spend the weekend with my parents. It was also an excuse to get to the beach, which, in a way, we did for Allison's birthday. Dual purpose trips are the best.

I've been avoiding blogging about it for some reason. I think because I have a hard time typing really short blog entries and my usual ones kinda take a while to do. Plus, the slew of photos I normally have to upload and caption also takes a while.

So here we go...

We attempted to make the 5:30pm flight on Friday. About 4:30pm, Allison was to the gate and I was getting back from the work flying I'd done. Well, the flight looked full AND scheduling sent me on another short round trip to Chattanooga. Rats. The next flight to LA was at 7:05pm and I wouldn't be back in time for it. No matter, we wouldn't have made either of those. I finally met up with Allison around 8:40pm for the last flight to L.A. at 9:15pm. We made it! Poor Allison sat there for about 4 hours.

Saturday, we started with a small breakfast at home, then headed out to Randy's Donuts. This is our second time there so it's now a tradition. Their coconut donut could bring world peace. Yes, it's that good. Then we drove around, went shopping, and Dad showed us a new park he had biked to that had good views of the valley. Lunch at Baja Fresh.

Later, my parents dropped us off at the north end of the Venice boardwalk. We enjoyed all the weirdness that is Venice as we walked south all the way to the Marina del Rey jetty, about 3 miles. My parents picked us up and we headed home for dinner. My Dad's latest kick is cooking. So he prepared a bunch of small dishes, a la tapas style. Everything was excellent.

Sunday, Allison headed back to Atlanta on the 1255pm flight. A short visit. I had Monday and Tuesday off so I stayed a bit longer. After Allison was on her way, my parents and I got ready and headed up the Pacific Coast Highway. Our destination was the Pt. Mugu State Park and the La Jolla Canyon hiking trails. I had my
In N Out fix on the way up. Nothing like a Double-Double for some hiking energy! We hiked about 3 hours and then drove back home.

I came back on the 7:35am flight Monday morning and arrived home in Kennesaw around 3:30pm. Gotta love that 4 hour flight plus 3 hour time change!

I've tried to get in a habit of posting pictures throughout the blog post but I got lazy this time. Click the link below to see the photos from the weekend. Allison, my dad and I are the featured photographers. :-) Enjoy!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE TRIP PHOTOS

Snow Day!

We finally had our "yearly" snow event in Atlanta today. If memory serves me correctly, it has snowed at least once every winter since I've moved to Georgia in 2004.

Last night we tossed in a fire log. I think Vincent enjoyed it more than we did!



I had to go sit at the airport today from 8am-4pm. Another ready-reserve shift. On inclement weather days, the chances of me going flying are actually pretty slim. They cancel a lot of flights and have those crews sitting around. Those crews will get the flying before I will.

It was a mess. The snow started to fall at the airport around 10:30am. Here's the view out the window of ASA Ops at gate C32 at KATL. Sorry for the cell phone cam quality. Didn't have any of my cameras with me. Doh!



The crew lounge, as well as the concourse upstairs, were full of people all dressed up with no where to go.

Scheduling called me at 2:14pm with an assignment. I was deadheading up to Nashville to pick up a stranded airplane. Deadheading means I am a "must-ride" in the passenger cabin like a regular passenger. They will bump paying passengers to give me a seat. Long story short, they canceled the flight. This was around 3:20pm, about 40 minutes before I was originally supposed to go home. Another long story short, I was released from duty at 4:15pm and headed home.

Here's my car when I got to the parking lot. About 3 inches on the windshield.



And of course, when I got home around 5:20pm, I snapped a few shots of the house to commemorate our first time to see snow on it. Allison took a phone pic earlier in the day and it's already melted significantly. The south side of Atlanta saw about 6 inches and our area only about 2.



Oh, and I meant to post this pic the other day. The bees were going crazy for one of the trees that hugs up against our deck. It has some small flowers blooming on it already. You could literally stand there and listen to the hum there were so many bees attacking it.

The Glamorous Pilot Life...

Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do and couldn't do anything else. But it has it's days. The worst ones are always weather related, either a massive snowstorm or thunderstorms galore. Yesterday, it was a summer-like day in the south with regard to thunderstorms. Wind, rain, lightning, tornado warnings, you name it.

My day started in Des Moines, Iowa. We arrived to the hotel the previous evening around 11pm so I slept in a little until around 9am. We were scheduled to leave the hotel at noon for a 12:55 departure back to Atlanta. I got ready early and went for a stroll around the downtown skywalk. Many of the buildings in downtown Des Moines are connected via a network of enclosed, elevated walkways. Perfect for the wintertime. Here's a view of my hotel on the left and the Capitol building from one of the walkways.



I had an early lunch and headed back to my room. After checking the status of our aircraft, I learned our plane was still taxiing for takeoff in Atlanta. So I called my crew and told them we'd be pushing back our hotel departure by 30 minutes.

Our plane arrived at 1:11pm with a full load. After unloading, swapping crews, getting the plane ready, and boarding back up with a full load, we pushed back at 1:46pm. We arrived to Atlanta at 4:52pm, 46 minutes late. We were scheduled to leave for our next flight at 5:10pm. That works great if we hadn't been late arriving. We also had 4 passengers needing wheelchairs so we had to wait until they were taken care of before we can re-board. As is typical in Atlanta, it took a while.

The First Officer and I grabbed what would be our "dinner" at Atlanta Bread Company and headed back to the gate. 1 passenger was STILL waiting for a wheelchair upon our return. Lovely. It arrived shortly afterwards and we gave the gate clearance to board for Gulfport. On top of all this, there was a storm headed towards the airport so we were trying to get out before it shut everything down. We pushed out at 5:35pm, only 25 minutes late. Not bad all things considered.

Luckily we were only about 5 in line for takeoff and got off the ground before the storm hit. We had storms on both sides of us as we climbed out to the west. Then we played dodge the storm all the way to Gulfport. Here's our flight path including the radar return of the weather. You can see the storm just south of the Atlanta airport in the top right.



And now the real fun begins. We arrived to Gulfport at 6:06pm local, 32 minutes late. There was a Delta MD-88 already there that was supposed to have left at 5pm. The gate agent told us that since it was already supposed to be gone and would potentially leave first, they had transferred all our passengers to that flight and that we would go back empty. Good news for the flight attendant!

3 hours and 9 minutes later, we pushed back empty for Atlanta. The Delta MD-88 pushed back only a minute before us. So they sat for nearly 5 hours.



Delta hogs the jetway that we normally get if they weren't there.



My flight attendant and I "enjoying" our break.

Due to large number of aircraft around the country in the same situation, it takes a while for air traffic control to coordinate a massive plan to get us all back to Atlanta in an orderly fashion once the weather clears. So in order to fit us in to that big plan, we were re-routed from our original, more direct route, to one that would take us northwest, then north, then northeast, then finally towards Atlanta.

This means calling my dispatcher (aka flight planner) in Atlanta with the new route and more importantly, a new fuel load. The Delta flight was given the same route. Since they had passengers and were originally due out before us, they launched and we followed 5 minutes later.

Here's our flight path back to Atlanta. The big deviation over northeast Alabama is essentially a holding pattern without the hold. Air traffic control often does this in lieu of holding. It's more work for them to hold everyone than just give us vectors, as you see here. You've probably done this before on a commercial flight and just didn't know it.



We touched down at 12:01am and pulled into C42 at 12:07am. The airport was still busy with passengers waiting to leave on severely delayed flights. Our plane continued on to Lexington, KY and arrived there at 1:49am, right about the time I pulled into the garage at home, ending my glamorous day as an airline pilot. :-)

Timber!

Our friend Bill brought over his trusty chainsaw and helped us get rid of our dead "V" tree. You can see it on the left side of this photo from this past Fall.




It was one stump with two main trunks splitting off right at the bottom, forming a V. The video below is the second trunk bidding adieu to the world. Thanks Bill!

Nuestro Viaje al Ciudad de Nueva York 2009

We finally made it up to NYC to visit Ellen and Steve this past weekend. They've been living there since October 2008. Both fell victim to the economy while in San Diego and had to find new jobs. Doh!

Anyway, for those not familiar with my family history with NYC, here's a brief summary. We lived there back in 1984-1986 on Governor's Island which is located just off the tip of lower Manhattan, near the Statue of Liberty. Click here to learn more about the island and it's history. If you don't feel like it, the key highlight is that from 1966-1996, the United States Coast Guard used the island as a local base of operations. My Dad was in the Coast Guard. So we were stationed there. :-)

Also, right before we moved, President Reagan re-lit the torch of the restored Statue of Liberty from the southwestern tip of Governor's Island during the massive July 4th shindig. Neil Diamond was there as well. Put on a big show and everything. I have yet to see more fireworks at one time again.

Later, after college, my sister Ellen got her first publishing job and lived there for 3 years. She moved on to another job which took her to San Diego until late last year.

So now our trip. I'm not going to bore you with the details. Instead, I'll give you a summary and then show you pictures! Here's a list of some of the things we saw, did, etc.

-Staten Island Ferry ride (takes you right by Governor's Island and the Statue of Liberty and it's free!)
-Katz's Deli
-Central Park
-The Cloisters Museum
-Penn Station/Madison Square Garden
-B&H Photo/Video Megastore
-Various Shopping
-Grimaldi's Pizza under the Brooklyn Bridge
-Brooklyn Heights promenade

We all had an awesome time! Friday evening to Monday afternoon just wasn't enough time. But hey, we can't be on vacation forever!

Click here to view the photos. FYI, I took close to 500 shots but present you with just over 100. I know some of you wouldn't mind looking at all 500 but the amount of time it took to do just 100 was ridiculous. You can thank ASA for giving me an 8-hour ready-reserve shift and not using me to actually fly. I just sit in a recliner at the airport all day waiting to be called to fly. Yes indeed. Look how much fun I'm having:

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park

That's a mouthful to say.

So, over Thanksgiving 2008, Allison and I took my parents on a hike up nearby Kennesaw Mountain while they were here. Unfortunately the weather was foggy that day so they missed out on the good views.

Ever since then, I wanted to head up to the top of Kennesaw Mountain via the quick, hike-avoiding paved road. I didn't want to carry my camera all the way up there via hike.

Well, it's been an unexpected chore. Four things have prevented this until today:

1) My camera had to go back to Canon twice for the same problem they didn't fix the first time. It took a month in total.
2) Once I had the camera back, I rushed over on the first nice day and, what the heck, the road to the top was closed.
3) Then the park and mountain road were closed for the holidays.
4) It's been either foggy or raining for the last week until today.

These were primarily taken to show my parents the view but it'll also give you an idea of where we live if you haven't been here before. FYI Kennesaw Mountain was the location of a big Civil War battle between General Sherman and General Johnston. It's 4.6 miles in a straight line from our house to the top of the mountain. Anyway, here are the photos. Enjoy!

Click here to view the photos.

Happy New Year!

In 2008 people had a lot of hard times and others have had many blessings. We are happy for the people who have good memories and hope that things will improve for those with bad ones.

We hope you have a wonderful 2009!

CRJ 900's

Delta gave us (ASA) a Christmas present of sorts 2 days ago. We found out we will FINALLY be getting 10 CRJ-900s starting in April of 2009. 8 of them will be factory new from Canada.



Skywest CRJ-900. Photo via airliners.net

The 900 is a stretched version of the 700 which is a streched version of the 200. I like to call it a CRJ on steriods. They are seriously long. And they've been flying for over a year so we are excited to finally be getting some. Long overdue.

CRJ 200 -- 50 seats (what I fly currently)
CRJ 700 -- 70 seats
CRJ 900 -- 76 seats (config of 1st/economy varies, don't know what we'll have)

What does this means? Well, growth for one and ASA will finally have planes with a First Class section. We were supposed to get first class this past year but it fell through for reasons too detailed to post here. Nearly all the other Delta Connection (aka DCI) airlines already have some aircraft with 1st class.

The only "gotcha" part of the deal is that ASA has to lose 20 CRJ-200's worth of flying by Spring 2010. But that's an eternity in this industry so ASA will likely find a home for those aircraft somewhere other than Delta and it'll be a net growth transaction. We can fly for anyone b/c Delta no longer owns us.

In the last year or so, we've lost some of our flying to other DCI carriers b/c of our lack of 1st class so we're hoping we might get some of it back, namely the international stuff. Turks and Caicos, Belize City, Monterrey to name a few.

This is good news in light of current economy. Now to decide if I want to stay on the 50-seater or try something new, assuming I can hold it relative to my seniority. We'll see.

Christmas in HD. Sort of.

Allison and I bought each other a new TV for Christmas, taking advantage of the huge discounts on, well, pretty much everything right now. We've been looking at flat screens for I don't even know how long so we're happy we finally got one.

We also decorated the house for our first Xmas here in casa del greene. A little fake garland and a real tree and wreath. I find excuses to use the front door now just for the smell.

Back to the TV. We bought a wall mounting deal from Costco yesterday and I installed it this afternoon. Allison helped me hoist the beast up to the mantle and then up onto the bracket.

I have a 4-day trip starting Tuesday the 23rd so it will be the first time I'm away on Christmas since I've been an airline pilot. :-( I will spend Christmas Eve on the riverfront in Cincinnati and Christmas day in Oklahoma City. I've never been to OKC. Allison has plans to be with Patrick and Lydia in Nashville and then her parents' in Dallas while I'm away.

We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas 08'. We'll see you on the other side!

Click the picture to see more pictures.

Thanksgiving Week 2008

***UPDATE*** Original post updated to include photo link at the end of the post on 12/1/08.

We hosted it in our new house. It was so much fun but boy we are ready for some rest now. (o;

Monday my mom and dad drove into town from Texas around dinner time. We ate at El Nopal a Mexican restaurant down the street from our house and then they met a few of our friends.

Tuesday mom came over and we started our shopping list. We headed to Target to buy just a few items and noticed we could get pretty much everything. So we had a Target Thanksgiving. Also we took a little trip to Trader Joe's for a few more things. Just after we finished shopping Pop and Polly (my grandparents on my mom's side) drove into town from Ohio. We met up with some Georgia relatives and ate at Olive Garden.

Wednesday my Mom, Polly, and I started cooking. We got Mother Cheeker's dressing and the sweet potatoes ready. Then we took them to see our old apartment in Smyrna and my school and then ended up at our local coffee shop Cuppy's. Just as we ordered our coffee Patrick and Lydia text us saying "We're minutes from your house." So they just met us at Cuppy's where Dave met our nephew Adam for the first time! Then Dave rushed to prepare a wonderful BBQ meal but had to run get his parents from the airport. So the rest of us ate his yummy meal.

Thursday Turkey day! In the morning Dave and I tried to start the turkey and realized he was too grossed out by the smell and I was grossed out by the look. So Dave's Dad saved the day and helped us get the bird started. Then everyone came over. We ate appetizers, snapped some pictures of Adam in leaves, and cooked. Almost everything was on time. We ate about a hour later then planned and the turkey had to be microwaved just to make sure it was ready. Otherwise everything tasted great and everything went smoothly. Tom even helped us barbecue the ham and a pumpkin pie because we didn't have enough room to cook everything. :-P Pop, Polly, my mom, and Pat worked very hard on cleaning dishes and putting things away. Everyone pitched in and it was wonderful! That evening we sat around playing with Adam and playing games.

Friday Black Friday Dave and I found some great deals on athletic shoes and some other items. Then we met more Georgia relatives and went to eat at a Chinese restaurant not far from our house. The two girls wanted to play our Wii. So I set them up and they had fun. The Greene's and I went hiking on Kennesaw Mountain to get some of the turkey burned out of our system. That evening we all had leftovers and Patrick and Lydia worked very hard to help set it all up for us.

Saturday For breakfast we went to the Holiday Inn Express where we said good-bye and hugged everyone. After that Dave and I took Tom and Pat to see some more sites in Atlanta in the rain. We ate lunch at one of Dave's favorite places by the airport: Which Wich and then they were headed home.

Now we are just being lazy and quiet. It was fun but a lot of work!! (o; We were sooo happy that so much family made it. We really missed the other family members that didn't come. We'll be vising most of them soon though we hope!

Click here to view the Thanksgiving Photos.

LA Trip Nov 2008

Our last trip out to SoCal was back in April of this year and it's been too long. I had a 4-day weekend so I took advantage. Allison was only able to come out for about 24 hours as she had other things going on.

I headed out Thursday night and got back around noon on Monday. It was nice to get away and relax a little. We spent a lot of time watching the news about all the wildfires around the area. Crazy stuff.

We went to a new park my dad found nearby; The Kenneth Hahn Recreation Area just east of Culver City. It is an elevated area that has great views of the city. The Sylmar fires, north of LA in the San Fernando Valley, had just started that day. The fires east of LA in Corona, Yorba Linda, Brea and Anaheim Hills hadn't started yet. So we still had a fairly unobstructed smoke-free view.

There was ash falling at my parents in Marina del Rey and it smelled like smoke outside all day on Sunday. Crazy. After taking Allison to the airport, my dad and I tried to go sailing but decided we didn't want to be out breathing in the smoke.

Click Here for some pictures from the trip.

P.S. My parents have been working on a kitchen renovation for the better part of this year, hence the finished kitchen photos in the album.

Charter Flight to the Drunk Room in Dallas.

3 topics for this cover-all blog: 1) My charter flight 2) Finishing the drunk room paint and 3) Our weekend trip to Dallas for a mini late birthday celebration for Allison's dad. All happened the weekend of the 18th.

Friday, Oct, 17th -- Allison came home from school, packed, watched me tape the edges of the drunk room, and then headed to Dallas for the weekend.

I think by now you are all familiar with why we call one of our rooms "the drunk room." But just in case, when we first looked at the house back in March, the paint in one of the upstairs bedrooms was a little sloppy. Let's call it painting outside the lines. Our realtor made the comment, "It looks like they were drunk when they painted this room." So now you know. It was a dark maroon red and had an incomplete chair rail for some reason. After 2 1/2 coats of primer, it was ready for paint. We went with a medium grey because it will be our office room until it is needed otherwise.

So I painted into the night, finishing the main painting by the time Allison landed in Dallas.

Saturday, Oct. 18th -- The University of Georgia played Vanderbilt at home for homecoming in Athens, Georgia. I got assigned a trip that involved 3 CRJ's flying to Athens to pick up the Vanderbilt football team and fly them back to Nashville after the game. It was fun doing something different than the norm.

Enjoy some pictures:



Oct. 18th later on -- Nashville to Atlanta. I parked our jet at the D concourse at ATL, dumped off my pilot crap at ASA operations, headed out to the main terminal to activate my Dallas ticket, went back through security, grabbed something to eat and got first class on the last flight to Dallas at 9:15pm. Woohoo!

Side note- I pleasure travel in my uniform because I can carry liquids. If I'm NOT in my uniform, I'm subject to the same liquid ban as every one else, despite being a crew member. So just to review, while riding as a passenger, if I'm wearing my uniform, I can have as many gallons of shampoo that I can carry on. Not in uniform? 3 oz bottles only. At this point I will bite my tongue. You really don't want to get me started.

Late Saturday Oct 18th - Monday 20th -- Got to Dallas, Allison picked me up, we socialized a little with Pat and Dave and crashed after a long day.

The next day, Pat and Dave woke up to do their morning church duties before church. Allison and I bummed around for an hour or so. Apparently I was still tired because the next thing I knew, Allison was gone and I was alone on the couch. I'd only had about 5-6 hours of sleep on Friday after staying up so late painting.

Everyone got back from church around 11 or so and we headed right back out. Destination? Freebirds World Burrito! For our Georgia friends, Freebirds is a Texas original. To compare, Chipotle and/or Moes is dog food compared to Freebirds. The last 2 times I've been to big D, a new Freebirds has opened so we go check it out. Last Christmas it was the TCU Freebirds over in Ft. Worth. This time it was Freebirds in Arlington down south.

The purpose for Arlington was 2-fold.

The Dallas Cowboys are getting a new stadium and it is going up in Arlington a block away from the fairly new "Ballpark in Arlington" where the Texas Rangers play. So after lunch (I finished off a Monster with Steak) we drove by to see the construction. Very impressive. A few stats about the new stadium:

Cost to build: 1.1 BILLION dollars. Yes, billion.
# of toilets: 1,733
Concessions: 824
Square Feet: 2.7 million
Capacity: 80K expandable to 100K

Also, it will have the world's largest hi-def LED display hanging over the field that will stretch from 20 yard line to 20 yard line. The arches holding up the roof will measure 1,225 feet, end to end, roughly the length of the Empire State Building. All these stats are credited to the Sept 2008 Wired Magazine.

After the stadium, we drove to Ft. Worth and wandered around the Stockyards, always an enjoyable Texas thing to do. Then it was home to watch the Cowboys game. They lost. Then Allison, Pat and I went to Southlake town square to wander around before meeting Dave at Pei Wei for some dinner.

We headed back to Atlanta the next day and got back home with just enough time for Allison to get ready for Tuesday. It was a very enjoyable weekend all around.

And of course...

1. Drunk Room Photos from start to finish
2. Dallas Trip Photos


Some other albums not mentioned in the blog but recently taken.
1. Burt's Pumpkin Patch in North Georgia Oct. 5th
2. Allison's soccer game at the pro field Oct. 26th.

Gas Fairy!

That's right, I am a gas fairy.

Hurricane Ike made Houston refineries shut down. Apparently that affects us here in Georgia and Tennessee.

Until yesterday, gas was hard to come by. Unless you waited in long lines out onto the main roads. Luckily for me, I've only had to make my 80 mile trip to the airport twice since the middle of September. Also, Allison only drives 30 miles a week total so that helps too.

From what I understand, regular 9-5 commuters had quite an experience these past few weeks. We feel lucky for sure.

So the gas fairy thing... The couple times we DID need gas, I provided services for Allison's car while she was at work. That amounted to her coming out after work and "magically" having a full tank of gas. Hence, the gas fairy.

This was to avoid the long gas lines at peak hours. I think we kind of had fun with it since it wasn't a stress point for us. It was like, "Who's going to have gas today?" One station would have gas one day and none the next and vice versa. Many stations haven't had gas since they first ran out 2 weeks ago.

Fun stuff.

Priming Day

We began priming. So far we have done two coats.

It's starting to look like we might need to do three.

These are pictures of the first coat of paint.

It's fun to get messy with primer. (o:

More pictures to come...

House Work! Painting Prep...

Dave is showing you the many colors our room used to have.

I am peeling away a the paint.Here is what we ended up with in that spot... so Dave thought he would dress the spot up a bit. (o;

Here is Dave hacking away at the chair rail.

I am impressed with all of our hard work... look a lialac stripe around our room! :-P
There it is... now can we sand stuff down, spackle, and prime... then paint.... hmm might be awhile.

Happenings...

Howdy folks, how goes it? A few blog-worthy items to report.

Allison's friend Laura came to town with her husband for Dragon Con. It's kinda like Comic Con in San Diego but more nerdy from what I understand. Here were are at Spondivit's having lunch:





Allison's bulletproof, "last forever" 2001 Honda Accord has been in the shop for over a week awaiting a new transmission. Apparently Honda dropped the ball on several different year models and car types with this particular faulty transmission. It took a class action law suit for them to extend the warranty to 7.5 years or 109,000 miles (random #), whichever first. Well, Allison's is at 121K so we are feeling the sting. Just called the shop and they were just about to test drive it with the new tranny. So she will be excited to get that back.

I've been doing a lot of sitting on my duff. I changed my preferences at work so as to not be at the top of the list when it comes to scheduling assigning trips. This is for a few reasons, one being too complicated to explain not to mention you probably wouldn't care. The main reason I will explain. For July and August, we had both mortgage and apartment rent to take care of. So there wasn't a lot of extra money. Now that we got rid of the apartment, we can start putting some money into the house for paint, decoration, etc.

Well, that was before the transmission decided to take all the extra money and then some. So I haven't had much of anything to do. No, I can't change my preference at work because it will change it for the entire month.

So I've been getting up, taking Allison to work, and coming home and sleeping for another hour. I've been watching a lot of movies lately so that's fun. But you can only take so much of that.

We went to Allison's "soccer practice" last night. That was interesting. She starts another season of women's soccer soon. Well, no one from her team really showed up but there were some people there from other teams. So this extremely pushy lady comes over and essentially bullies Allison and her former co-worker Holly into playing in a scrimage game. Holly hasn't played in about 8 years so it was a little overwhelming. Her boyfriend, Adam, and I had fun watching. The girls ended up quiting mid-game because the other players were being, uh, a little too serious. So the 4 of us went over to another field and kicked around on our own. It was fun.

Last week when I actually went flying, I got a nice shot of some post-Gustav storms with the light of the setting sun.





Ok. Have to get back to nothing.