Old But Good

DG can't lie about his age, he wouldn't want to be mistaken for a Chinese gymnast.

TR

Older then DG and it still works

DG's first car was an Oldsmobile, not quite as old as this one, but it was a long-long-long time ago. We spend a few minutes talking to the couple who own this one, they went to college the same place that DG did (he was wearing an alumni shirt and this sparked a walk down memory lane.) They said that the local police in their home town have asked them not to drive the "Curved Dash" in their home town, it is street legal but the last time they drove it Dairy Queen three people drove off the street, one of them into a telephone pole watching the old thing go down the street. With DG's advancing age he will be have to be careful in public so that people don't drive off the street.

Special thanks to Kel, WC and Squirrel for the special birthday surprise!

TR

Late summer in the mid south

I overheard a woman today saying that she had made a terrible mistake. On her way home from work yesterday she stopped at a local store in a small town and didn't lock her car. Well you know what happens at this time in the late summer if you leave a car unlocked. She came out to find two bushels of tomatoes in her back seat. Neighbors trying to unload the bounty of the late summer harvest. She said, at least it wasn't Zucchini this time.

TR

Cute little car

Rumor has it that DG's uncle Richard has bought an Edsel, not his first, but the first one in a good number of years. DG can remember washing the first one, a convertible, without putting the top up; hard to beleive that no alchol was involved. Not a good thing, but how much harm can you cause to an Edsel? Richard has a long a storied history with cars, the last Edsel was traded on a 64 1/2 Mustang, a white one. Then there was the pickup truck he filled with diesel one night, that didn't have a diesel engine. On well, I am sure that the latest Edsel will add to the long list of Richard stories.

TR

Comfort

Comfort, this is one of those days when I just want to check into a nice comfy hotel and have people wait on me, call room service and have caviar delivered, 12 more days and I get a couple of nice days in Chicago then another week and we leave on vacation, lots of fresh fish on a cruise.

TR

Good Color for me

Rolling along in style, I thought that this one was a great color for me. It reminded DG of a car Flying Bob restored. Flying Bob was a childhood friend of DG's father. Bob would rebuild any thing, cars, trucks, boats, airplanes. One time the neighbors called to complain about Bob and all of the restoration projects underway around his house. The city official asked the neighbor to look across the street and tell him if a red airplane was being worked on in the driveway of Bob's house. The neighbor returned to the phone and reported that indeed a red airplane was parked on Bob's driveway and appeared to be in the process of having the engine replaced. The city offical said, " thanks for the update, the red one is mine, the blue wings in the dinning room belong to my daughter's plane. Yellow is a good color for me, I wonder if I can get Bob to paint one yellow for me.

TR

France

A year ago today I was leaving Normandy, returning to England by ferry boat. Life is good when you are a traveling pengun. Simply good,

TR

No Cameras in the Court Room

This is as close to taking a picture in the Supreme Court, Court Room as you can get, perched quietly on the railing with the open doors behind me, being very-very quiet.

TR

It is not everyday that one encounters a penguin and a giant wiener.

TR

A visit to the Wizards

While in DC in June I stopped by to see the Wizards in the big stone house. As usually DG went around the left side of the building and came in through the entrance that the lawyers use. The chamber was open and we were able to get in for a tour. The Whizzes were all busy whizzing, trying to finish up so that they could take there summer break that ends the first week of October. Not a bad job if you can get it, lifetime tenure and a three month summer break.

TR

Play it again Johnny

The sidewalks play music in Nashville, now I have heard musical rocks at Disney World, but Johnny Cash songs coming out of a street light control box was a bit of a surprise. The Renaissance Hotel is connected to the convention center, and the hotel is connected to a parking garage by an elevated walkway across what someone thought would be a busy street. Rather then build the typical covered overhead walkway; they built a “Skybridge.” It is huge; glass enclosed and contains a deli and a bar. Here I am on the top of the grand piano in the Skybridge waiting to be discovered by a big time producer.

TR

I'll try not to twang

I was in Nashville the other day, for 25 hours. It was about 101 degrees in the shade, so I walked as far as I could inside the air conditioned convention center and came out the doors on the far end on my way back to the hotel. I pop out and what do I see across the street, the historic home of the Grand Old Opera. You never know what you will bump into when you are trying to stay cool.

TR

Class

THE way I was meant to travel. Comfort, elegance and class.

TR

No Pictures

Ok, Blogger won’t let me upload pictures right now.

During the fire yesterday the police came through DG’s office building telling people to evacuate. DG ran to his office, shut down his computer, grabbed his briefcase and cell phone and headed for the door. About half way down the hall he turned around and went back for his glasses. He then started for the door and realized that the only copy of about 25 hours of work on a major grant proposal was on his office computer. In a panic he decided he should email a copy to his home email address. Of course this involved restarting his computer. He pushed the button and waited, XP takes a minute to boot up. Then there is all of the security software and the synch-programs for the handheld and phone to start up before Outlook will open for mail. He started Outlook to soon causing the blackberry synch program to crash and ask him 50 times if he wanted to send an error message, are you really sure you don’t want to send an error message, it help to improve service for everyone still alive 10 minutes from now. As he is waiting for email to get ready the pyrotechnics in the building across the street start to explode, did I mention that DGs office is on the side of the building facing the fire. He was starting to wonder if he would die in service to his company. He was nearing panic when email finally opened and was wondering out loud, will anyone know that I died trying to safeguard my work, work that could change the destiny of the organization?

Probably not.

TR

The dog ate my homework

DG had to email a friend and ask her to resend to him the dial in number for a conference call this afternoon. His excuse was that the information was in his office and his office had been evacuated because the fireworks warehouse across the street caught fire. The friend's response was that this was the best "the dog ate my homework" excuse that she had ever heard. He sent her this picture that he took just outside his office window as he was fleeing the building. He knew it was probably time to leave when he could hear the exploding shells. A fireworks warehouse is not a good place to hold a wienie roast. The fire was contained to the fireworks building, it burned for over 4 hours and the 100 year old building is likely a total loss. Just another fun day at the office. Makes me want to go out of town!

TR

It is all a matter of scale

It is all a matter of scale and proportions. I am a giant, if the Capital is in a small enough scale. I have found that it is a lot easier to be a major force, in a less competitive field. It is easy to stand out in the shallow end of the gene pool. Of course in DC it is hard to tell the shallow end of gene pool from the shallow end of the ethics pool.

TR

Union Station

Why Amtrak is in trouble. We recently looked into going to Washington DC by train. There is passenger service from Cincinnati. The problem is it only runs a couple of times each week going east and a couple of times a week going west. Now we can cope with the fact that in a couple of years baby squirrel would get there faster riding her big wheel. You can drive there in less then half the time it takes to ride the train. To get there for a conference that starts on Wednesday you have to leave Cincinnati the previous Wednesday and you can't return home until Sunday. If the ticket was free, who would put up with such a poor schedule? Maybe I can swim? How do you get from the Ohio River across to DC?

TR

I have more of these

After nearly 45 years of marriage, a couple was lying in bed
one evening, when the wife felt the husband begin to fondle her
in ways he hadn't done in quite some time. It almost tickled
as his fingers started at her neck, and then began moving down
past the small of her back. He then caressed her shoulders and
neck.
He then proceeded to place his hand on her left inner arm,
working down her side, passed gently over her buttock and down her leg to her calf.

Then suddenly stopped, rolled over and became silent. As she had become quite aroused by this caressing, she asked in a loving voice, "Honey, that was wonderful. Why did you stop?"

"I found the remote," he mumbled.

Flightless

I stopped to talk to the FAA about classifying us as flightless. Engineers claim that there is no way that a bumble bee can fly, but it never stopped them and they were never classified as flightless. Unfortunately the person in charge of such classifications was busy changing airline flight numbers and adjusting flight times by 2 minutes to protect the future, security and safety of American air travel. I will try again the next time I am town.

TR

Bears

DG wants to see a bear in the wild. He has tried in Alaska, he even tried to talk one of the locals in Anchorage into taking him out to the local dump at snack time. But she was afraid of becoming the snack, apparently she had the windows broken out of her car in a parking lot behind the Anchorage Police department a couple of months earlier when she left her lunch on the seat one warm spring day. There is a line in a promo for a TV programing that says "that warm fuzzy bear can rip your head off and eat you when it wants to." For now I am content to visit indoor bears, like this cute little trio in the National Portrait Gallery in DC.

TR
Lions and Tiger and Bears, oh my!

US Capital

I went looking for the man in the funny hat
No one wearing a funny hat, if you can imangine that

The trip was great fun
But now I have to run

TR

Statuary Hall, US Capital

I am not a statute, despite my temporary installation in the Statuary Hall in the US Capital last week. Each state is allowed to have two statues displayed in the capital and they can only change the statues after two years. Being informed of this, and not wanting to place a state in violation of the law, I was promptly removed.

TR

Shiny boots

DG should take lessons from this guy.

TR

Inside Scoop

For the first time in years we were able to get inside the US Capital. You have to take a guided tour to get into the Capital, I can remember the good old days when you could just walk in through any of the doors. But, in the name of security, yada-yada-yada! At any rate if you go to the south east corner of the Capital property at around 9:00 AM and stand in line you can get tickets for public tours. The tickets have a tour time and you show up and go through security. I thought DG was going to be strip searched because he had replacement batteries for the camera in his pocket. They stopped the line, made five people go back through the metal detector until they had cleared the security risk (2 AA batteries.) An interesting piece of trivia, the original capital dome was made of wood, it was replaced with a massive cast iron dome. What happened to the wood dome? It was burned to produce steam to power the cranes that lifted the cast iron dome into place.

Now you know the inside scoop,

TR

And I left the jacket home!

I was wondering around the US Capital on Tuesday and I came across the special entrance, too bad I left the jacket home. We had to dodge a congressmen from Tennessee driving a Buick Roadmaster, he nearly ran over us three times on the plaza outside the east entrance to the Capital. Perhaps I should run for Congress! I promise a chicken in every pot!

TR

Endless meetings

We survived hours of seemingly endless meetings. I swear one speaker lacked a pulse and was only being held up by the government salary he continues to draw. We had a little free time to enjoy DC and will have more postings over the next couple of weeks.

TR

TR goes to Washington

We are off bright and early Tuesday morning for a conference in DC. It is going to be hot enough to melt members of my species, and DG will be in a long series of mind numbing meetings, but we will make the most of it and try to stop and admire the history along the way. I can smell the power from here, or is that just the tourists steaming in the sun?

TR

Lunch with a view

I just love lunch with a view, fresh grilled seafood is a plus. Meritt's daughter's should try this one on the boyfriend to find out what he is really made of.

TR

Saturday Rambling

We made it to Saturday. Time to relax. No reason to panic. It will all be ok. One way or another we always make it through. I am sure of it. Next week we are in DC Tuesday through Friday, most of it in a series of mind numbing meetings, but with a few hours at the beginning and end to enjoy the wonderful city. It looks like this may be the only visit to DC this year so we will try to make the most of it.

TR

We may have to get out the pulling straps

DG has had a very long and exhausting week. And he has one more very long day to go with 5 hours on two panel presentations for a major statewide convention tomorrow. We may have do like the helpful lady at the dairy farm in northern Indiana and get out the pulling straps to wrench him out of bed in the morning.

TR

Chicago

The building over my shoulder to the right, with the clock on top, is the world headquarters of Boeing. I understand that they have convinced the Pentagon to rebid the refueling tanker contract that they lost. Of course they lost on the second go around; the first one was tossed because of bidding irregularities where Boeing was accused of being unfair.

TR

Hanging out at the Hyatt

Here I am hanging out in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency in Chicago over Memorial Day Weekend, I wonder if that is Mahala's long lost rocker?

TR

Out to sea in the fall

We are headed out to sea in September. WH and DG are taking a cruise to Alaska in September to help DG recover from the sorrow of turning %0 the end of August. The cruise line has been warned to stock up on liquid anesthetics, tasty foods and krill. DG is hoping to see whales, eagles, bears and flightless water fowl. I am hoping to run into a few old friends along the way. Hotel reservations have been made in Seattle for a couple of nights on each end of the trip. I hope the ride is as wonderful as our crossing of the English Chanel last August shown in the picture above.

TR

Contemplating

It is the end of a long week and here I sit contemplating.

Here are some of my pondering:

Have we really survived the week, or is this some sort of unexpected purgatory?

Will we survive next week?

Why me?

Why not?

If I jump, will I know what it feels like to fly before I splat?

Do fish think?

Do fish blink?

Would anyone notice if I had a little sushi snack?

TR

Battling our way through the airports

They may have taken away our manicure scissors, but we still find a way to fend off the airport idiots. You know the kind, the ones who don’t seem to know that you have to empty your pockets and take off your cell phone before you try to go through the metal detector. Just try to get in my way!

TR

In Honor of D-Day

Here I am in St. Mere Eglise last summer. This would be a good weekend to watch the movie "The Longest Day."

TR

Savannah Hilton Head International Airport

You would think after all we did in Scotland last summer they would at least reward us with a decent single malt. Oh well, it sure was better then the typical airport offerings. Nice and refreshing after a long days toil in Georgia.

TR

Alive

Sorry, no picture for this one. We made it home just before midnight last night. US-less Air has done a good job of redeeming themselves. Other than a comically surly flight attendant and of course runway departure delays to assure that we were on time instead of early, the trip went well. The guy sitting next to us described the flight attendant as "Barnie Fife" on an airplane (Meritt you aren't missing a police officer are you?)

Then came this morning. Big Red had to be jump started this morning. He was so dead that the mini Panzer couldn't do the job and an expert had to be called in. We started for the dealer and Big Red died on an expressway on-ramp. No power, no starting, no lights, no nothing. We had to be towed to the dealer who is swamped with work. Maybe there is some cosmic confluence that caused a worldwide breakdown of red cars today. No word on the prognosis. It has been a very long day.

TR

Headed South

DG and I are off in the morning for a quick trip south, flying into Savannah Georgia. DG gets to go get paid for talking for a day about things that he talks about in his sleep, you would never believe the things he talks about in his sleep. I am along for the ride. As pretty as Savannah is, we probably will not see any of it. Our destination is about 15 miles northwest of the city with no time in the schedule for anything but work. Such is the life of a flightless traveling fowl.

TR

Speaking of things that are old

Other then the lack of ice filled water ways, the other drawback of nesting in Lexington, Kentucky is a lack of museums. When we get away for a few days, it is always fun to visit a couple of nice collections. You never know when you are going to see something older then Kell, WC, WH and DG all put together, not much older - but older.

TR

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to certain fuzzy woodland creatures, find someplace nice and indulge yourself.

TR

Michigan Avenue

Hundreds of the finest retail merchants in the world and not a single feather grooming shop in the lot!

TR

Deep Dish Love

Deep dish is real pizza, none of the thin cardboard that you have to fold in half to get any traction, but something that is five times as much topping as crust. Last time we were in Chicago we went to Geno's East, this time to Lou Malnati's. One of them Geno's is best, one of them thinks Malnati's is better. I just want to know why they don't put more anchovies on top.

TR

My Kind of Town

This is the view of Chicago from our hotel room. What a city, the things that a bird can get into in that city. I about waddled my feet off exploring the wild and not so wild sides of the city.

TR

American Military Cemetery in Normandy

American Military Cemetery in Normandy

A visit to the American Military Cemetery in Normandy changed me. I will never again view Memorial Day as the start of summer, the first day to wear white shoes, the day after the fastest spectacle in motor sports. I will forever remember the sacrifice paid to secure the freedom of the society that we sometimes take for granted. The wonderful people of Normandy reminded me why France was worth liberating. Every American should make the trip to Normandy to walk among the 14,000 graves in the American Cemetery.
TR

Real City

I am headed to Chicago for a few days in a real city. New pictures and posting inspiration will follow.

TR

Beyond the Magic Curtain

For those of us stuck forever in coach, there is the mystery of what lies beyond the magic curtain. Legend has it that there are ritual sacrifices of the innocent in the front of the plane, seats covered with the hides of newborn lambs. Rumor has it that they might even serve food, krill at 37,000 feet, hard to imagine.

TR

Inspired Color scheme

I was amazed by the wonderful color scheme on this fast little plane in a museum in Florida (yes there were palm trees nearby.) I wonder if they were thinking of the flying skills of the mighty penguin when they picked the paint colors. As I recall the plane has a reputation of flying like a penguin.

TR

Another Day in Paradise

Even in paradise you have to watch out for the falling coconuts blowing out of the trees.

TR

It is Kentucky Derby Day

Time to break out your derby hat!

TR

I wonder what they do

I wonder what they do in a hurricane? The lobby of the Caribe Hilton in San Juan is open to the outside on the side that cars drive up on. There is a glass wall on the other side, facing the water and stopping the ever present wind from blowing through, but the side nearest the reception desk is open to the outside.

TR