Weird Week

The work week is nearly over and I'm relieved. It's been a weird week. I had to go Washington DC and West Virginia this week for a couple of days and let's just say the WV experience was really, um, different.

The oddness started Tuesday morning when I settled into my First Class seat on the flight to DCA (Reagan National Airport). I hadn't seen the flight attendant working First when I boarded. Imagine my shock when I looked up to find Uncle Fester of "The Addams Family" fame asking me if I wanted an orange juice.
Slap a blue polyester uniform and wings on him and he's working the friendly skies!

I kid you not. So for the entire flight I had the snappy "Addams Family" theme song in my head. It was a trip. Anyway, got to DCA sans incident. You can tell that the Congress is on holiday. The airport was an absolute ghost town at 9AM when I arrived. Normally it's a total mob scene. Getting a cab was a snap. Had several hours of board meetings and then I had to head up to Dulles (IAD) for the prop flight of death to Parkersburg, WV. Believe it or not, one of my major vendors has a customer center across the river from Parkersburg and I needed to make a visit. Dulles does a fine job of not using the air conditioning in the commuter terminal so by the time boarding was called, I was a wreck. My state of mind was not soothed knowing I was boarding a hammered Saab 340. There were 12 of us on board and as usual a few of us were asked to sit in the very back for load and balance purposes. Never a comforting thought. Good news was that it was a quick flight. And then the games began.

The Parkersburg airport gets two - count 'em, two - flights a day. Our government has made sure that there is a ridiculous amount of TSA on hand for the walloping average of 24 passengers a day. I think there was one TSA person for every passenger. The airport restaurant pulls an interesting crowd. But the real fun began when I went outside to wait for my ride. (Note - it took my coworkwers an hour to get from the hotel to the airport. Normally a ten minute drive - an hour if you're directionally challenged.) As I was outside, I happened upon a family that brought every West Virginia stereotype to life. Grandma and Grandpa were getting on the flight but were outside for a bit. Grandpa needed to suck down the last of his homemade cigarettes. Grandma was feeling the heat and using the bottom of her shirt as a fan, revealing more than anyone EVER needed to see. Their daughter, her husband, and two kids had come along to see them off. It was more like the teen father was using the time to practice his screaming voice on the children. What did I learn while I was watching this (I got to hear all this since apparently screaming is the only volume known there) - Grandpa didn't wear shoes until he was nine. The daughter then announced that she got her first period during her first trip on an airplane. As I live and breathe, I'm not lying. Upon hearing that, I went back into the terminal, wishing for the sweet relief of death. Instead, I got to see the return flight leave and see the lights turned off in an airport terminal. Never seen that. My coworkers finally got me and it was off to the haunted hotel. Again, I told you it was a weird week. The next day was fairly normal and flew out of Columbus, OH, and got home fine.

Today I once again weirded out while giving blood. There was a blood drive at work and I made sure I had eaten well before my donation time. All was well until just before they were removing the needle. All of the sudden I got wicked hot...and on came the cold compresses and the chair went into full recline mood. No passing out this time but felt just as stupid. I have got to figure out why that's happening.

So no run tonight. CAL has announced she wants to run a race with me in October in Charlotte, NC, so we'll start that training shortly. That's going to be fun.

A few days away

As our children grow older, it's gotten a bit more challenging for the stunningly patient SML and I to find a time when the five of us can get away, even for a couple of days. Knowing that this is probably the last summer where we will all be together for awhile, as Our Lady of BYU will probably spend more time at school next spring/summer, we drew a line in the sand and blocked off a couple of days. Those days came up this past week.

We loaded up the family cruiser on Thursday and started driving. We drove past O'Hare without stopping, much to my chagrin. We had about 400 miles of road ahead of us - the Cleveland, Ohio, area as our final destination, and I was already wishing we'd flown. Fortunately, the drive is pretty much a straight shot from Chicagoland to the Paris of the Midwest, or as it is better known, the Mistake by the Lake. Some insights from the drive - northern Indiana is one huge cornfield and the rest stops in northern Ohio are pretty fancy pants.

We stayed a couple of days in Mentor, OH. Some wonderful friends own a charming, small hotel, the Lawnfield Inn, there and that's where we nested. The hotel was perfectly situated for what we were doing in Mentor. Mentor is next door to Kirtland, OH, and we were visiting several sights of historical importance to our Church. We spent Friday touring historic Kirtland and the surrounding areas. It was a cool and humbling experience to walk in the footsteps of those who literally gave all in order to see the Church established. We had a good time as a family. We capped the evening with dinner with friends at their home in Kirtland. So good to see Jess and A.D. - it was a fantastic summer's night, so we ate outside, pizzas from the grill. Awesome! We are so blessed to have good friends, all over the world.

Saturday we made our way to Cedar Point, northern Ohio's amusement park and thrill ride capital. Several things conspired against us here - nonstop rain, a distinct lack of exposed tattoos in our family, and no exposed muffin tops.
I only had the stomach to show a drawn rendition of the horror that was the crowd there. This image, from a t-shirt, doesn't do what was on display yesterday justice and photos would only serve to harm you, trust me. Why? Because most of the horror on display was accompanied by ill-fitting short shorts. Do these people not have mirrors? Or was there just a big fire sale on fun house mirrors down at the local Big Lots? It really was appalling. And then there was the cavalcade of tats. Each one increasingly worse than the next. Wow.

And I'd like to point out that this visual assault started at the parking lot and never let up. Just like the rain. It was raining the entire time, which was a drag because it shut down almost all the roller coasters. We rode two - Raptor and Blue Streak. The lines were wicked long as they were the only ones working and once we realized there was not going to be a let up in the rain, we headed home. Fairly painless drive home. It was good to be together. And now it's Sunday and I've been up since 430AM. Nice.

"Fasten Your Seatbelts"

I spend entirely too much time on planes and as a result, there's a lot I really don't care about anymore while on board. If the video is broken on a short flight, it's no big deal. Just get me there as close to on time as possible and in one piece, it's all good. I do, however, pay attention to what it takes to get me there in one piece. I count the rows of seats from my seat to the exit rows. I watch the "safety ballet" whether it's live or on video from the flight attendants. And the thing I always do...I keep my seat belt fastened at all times. Why? Because I don't need my head making a wicked indentation on a ceiling panel in a Boeing or Airbus. I give you Exhibit A:
Scene inside Continental Airlines #128

This is what happens when you don't keep your seat belt fastened and you mow through some clear air turbulence. You and everything that isn't nailed down becomes a projectile. And not a soft, Nerf-like projectile. You get hurt and you hurt people around you. So then your plane gets to make a costly diversion and you get to ride off the plane on a stretcher. I give you Exhibit B (more fun from inside Continental #128):

I've had more than one run-in with clear air turbulence. Seeing a flight attendant tossed from the galley to the other side of the galley stays with you. So, keep your seat belt fastened. I really don't want you crashing down on me.

Had a decent longer run this afternoon. Five miles. It was a little warm and I had four water bottles on my fuel belt and that was too many. I need to figure out what's appropriate to carry on these longer runs. It wasn't a humid run, but it was great to have the sun pouring down on me. It was just good to be outside. August is already here, which given the last three seasons here in Chicagoland, can only mean that winter is around the corner. I kid (kind of), but I know I need to enjoy the outdoor runs for as long as I can!

Sunday Mash-up

Sunday is winding down. How this is a day of rest is beyond me...well, at least it's a respite from work and all the temporal stuff. But, let's not fool anyone, this is no day of rest. It has been a good day though. Plenty of good religion and fellowship with a lot of really good people at church today. I like days like that.

It's been a good couple of days as well. After work on Thursday, I drove north up into Wisconsin, through a charming thunderstorm, on my way to meet the Boy at Scout Camp. By the time I got there, the storm had passed and I set up my tent, inflated my air mattress and made my own little "Four Seasons" in the woods. OK, that's a bit delusional, but it's what I had to keep telling myself so as not to go insane. It was really good to see the Boy as he'd been gone for five days at this point. He and buddies had had a really good time and for that I was glad. He's a much better camper at 13 than I was (I hated, HATED, HATED Scout Camp). He's just a much different kid than I was and that's good. Have to admit I slept surprisingly well and the boys were off early Friday to clinics. The Boy's Scoutmaster and I decided to go out for a run. This was not a wise pairing. He's an amazing athlete and I am a train-wreck runner. But off we went anyway. I kept up with him for our first mile and then, as I told him, we went our own directions. Well, we went the same direction, I just went a lot slower. Anyway, it was a hilly run through the Wisconsin cornfields. I did about 6.5 miles and found that I really dug a good long run. It was slow, but it was good. The weather was just about perfect. Warm, but not hot, and no stifling humidity. I found running by the farms to be very centering and calming.

I also liked the challenge of getting through a long run. I did a lot of talking to myself. The cows must have thought I was a maniac. My one mistake was not bringing my new "Fuel Belt" with me. I brought no water and that was kind of stupid. It was really stupid. I need to call a spade a spade here. Anyway, after the run, a shower, even a scout camp one, was in order. I have to give props to whoever designed these showers though - hot water instantly and open to the sky. It was very cool. The afternoon was quiet as the boys wrapped up the last of their classes. Closed the night at the agonizing closing event, which included the usual array of lamer than anything skits and songs. Again, it all reminded me why I could never get behind the whole Scout thing as a kid. At this point, the boys were ready to go home so it wasn't too tough to convince them to get some rest so we could leave early Saturday. Which is precisely what we did.

We got home by noon on Saturday. The stunningly patient SML had been in the City for the day in the Mexican area called Little Village. She bought a lot of outstanding pork and chorizo and corn tortillas. We had a veritable feast when she got home. Sadly, I nearly lost it all when she and I and the Boy went to see the "Transformers" sequel. It was hideous. 30 minutes in, I was begging to leave. I spent the last two hours of the film crafting a class action lawsuit against Michael Bay, the director, in my head. I want justice.

And now, it's Sunday night. I get to fill out school registration forms now. What a way to close the weekend. Nice.