bltdonahue

It's been three months. Some things have obviously happened:

-Got to play bachelor while Erika and Molly visited family out east. Missed the little booger way way WAY more than I would have guessed. Although the first several days were extremely nice to sleep without a fidgety wife who grinds her teeth or a child who wants up at 8am (too bad my body these days doesn't let me sleep much past 8 anyhow)

-Drank too much beer while a pseudo-bachelor.

-Now a partial teetotaler (only drinking on holidays, special events)

-Losing weight again (drinking goes hand-in-hand with eating junkfood...since I stopped drinking, guess what?)

-Studying German again with a vengeance in preparation for the vacation there starting 1 Sep. This is especially fun as I read to Molly when we put her to bed. Normally, reading the same damned fairy tail for the 9th time gets mildly annoying, but lately I've been wanting to read my German books, so I read them to Molly. She passes out quickly, and I don't get fidgety with reading them.

-Off to Korea this Friday for business (same essential trip as my late January trip).

-Got a raise

-Got some hella overtime on that new raise payrate thanks to an evil evil evil proposal effort at work. This'll help supplement the German vacation petty cash fund (holy shit is the Euro kicking the Dollar's ass these days...no wonder I'm tripping over Europeans at all the parks around here, it's friggin CHEAP for them to visit!).

-Molly now talks to me on the phone when I call in to check on the girls during lunch. The conversations usually go "HI! Hello! Oh no! WOOOOW!" Then I ask her to dance (and she does) and to kiss her mom (which usually results in her kissing the phone...but that's still awesome).

-MountainCon here in SLC over my 30th birthday weekend. As if Germany isn't going to be awesome enough as a birthday celebration, I'll do so again that weekend.

-Other stuff I can't recall.

Just making a post in the hopes I'll get back into the habit again.

OK, so I was slightly bummed that my Germany assignment got canned at work...

...but I got over it because Molly has been extraordinarily cute lately, and is really starting to hit some major developmental milestones early. Things I'm glad I'm not missing.

That said, I still had my eyes on a week long trip to Germany after my 30th birthday (Sept 24th) to both act like a drunken hooligan at Oktoberfest while officially waving goodbye to my extreme youth and because, well, I just like Germany. It's my favorite destination for any sort of travel, short of -perhaps- the Pacific Northwest. Wait, there are no Autobahns in Washington State or BC, screw that: ( Germany )

Longtime since I've had an update, I know. Several things to talk about, but I'm lazy.

I will talk about my weekend at the Red Bull Air Race held in Monument Valley, Utah, though...

It was worth every friggin mile of the drive. Airshows are cool. Air Races are just badass. Burning dogs over some coals while doing so is ultra badass :)

I about hurled when I was convinced I was going to watch a man die. Follow the KSL link below to see the video (it's near the end of the video and you can drag the video slider to skip ahead). YouTube also has it. I'm quite familiar with daredevil pilots and close calls, but this close call -really- had me ill to my stomach.

Monument Valley is about as friggin remote as it gets, too...and I've been in some remote places. It made for a hell of a backdrop.

The really interesting thing is that the Navajo still speak their native language...a -lot-. I was under the impression it was a dying language, but that's not really the case. ISTR reading somewhere that they were making an effort to get it taught to every Navajo in school again. Either way, very interesting trip.

http://www.redbullairrace.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bltdonahue/

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=1215977&nid=148

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtQljBvYD74

Not too much going on. I'm becoming a power-point engineer at work, which is a little bothersome. Hopefully I'll get to play with some actual hardware before too long.

I also think I'm going to go skiing all day Friday...last attempt for the season. If so, I'll bring my sexy camera and take better pictures.

Not much else going on. Molly dances now, to every damned tune she hears. It's friggin hilarious.

She also turns the TV on if she wants to watch it, and off if she doesn't. She'll also set the volume high so she can hear it over her own squeals, and has started to figure out how to surf.

That is both hilarious and frightening.

So it is wider...

I'm lazy and don't often do the "LJ CUT" which hides much of what I post under a link.

Watch out folks, I am officially back on the skiing roster. I must be, since I bought all my own gear, right?

It was an interesting ski trip...about as opposite as one could get from last weekend's trip. Definitely below freezing, overcast, and snowing.

Then it snowed more, and more, and more. No wind, though...real interesting looking. Skiing through an alpine forest, with a THICK downpour of snow coming straight down was really sweet. One major problem is that the light is very 'flat,' meaning it makes picking out terrain variations on the ground snow difficult. It wasn't a huge deal, but compared to last weekend (when I could see every damned thing out to 30 miles), it was a change.

I also basically got to ski for free. They don't sell the afternoon-only discount tickets until 12:20, and I was there at about 11:50...so I headed in to get some lunch, but a lady heard me try to buy an afternoon ticket, and she gave me her all-day ticket. She was pooped and was done for the day as it was. I had to force $10 on her to at least pay for her lunch (I think the afternoon ticket goes for $20 as it is anyhow).

So, it was a good day. Skiing rocks, and I can't wait to take another trip up. I had to cut today just a hair short as it basically turned into white-out conditions, and I wanted to make sure I could drive out of the canyon (again, very interesting to see such a thick blizzard without wind. It was Christmas-card scenic).

I went skiing on Saturday with John Ringo...a New York Times best selling sci-fi author.

No, really, I did.

It was awesome for a variety of reasons.

( Where to begin? )

I was asked at work if I could spend 3 months in Germany to help a field operation at Ramstein AB (nearish to Frankfurt).

Um.

YES!

I got wife concurrence (she just earned 4,350 marital bliss points) and will hopefully get official confirmation before too long.

I have to get another web-cam so I can VTC with the family while I'm away. Molly does it with her Gramma Donahue, and "gets" it, so I think it'll go a long way to make sure she remembers her daddy after the 3 months.

Now I need to brush up on my German and start planning my free-time activities. Despite what you guys know of me, that free time will -not- be spent getting wrecked on German beer...at least not most of the time :) I'll be making trips all over the place, seeing the sights and going native as much as I can :-D

I'm tired.

There are cool things going on, and I'm sure I could point out some interesting and funny cultural observations, but I'm just tired.

Things are going rather well, work-wise, at least. That helps make me tired, though. Long hours. The good news is I might finish in the next couple days. The bad news is that makes it almost impossible to stick around and go goofing off with two buddies stationed out here.

Long long long ass flight.

I'm here and settled. Tired of course.

The shitter has controls. CONTROLS. Two of them have a graphic representation of the user's ass having what appears to be a mist spraying on it, and a bidet like function. I had to -very- carefully make sure I knew how to flush the damned thing without activating something undesirable. Wow. At least the heated toilet seat was nice...if highly disconcerting at first (at 5am). I thought I was bleeding or something when I sat down and was smothered in a warm sensation.

I was last here in 1986. Things seem cleaner and way more modernized...but I remember Korea through the lense of two decades and the eyes of an 8 year old. People here are shorter now :)

More to follow after sleep and such.

-First, I didn't gain any weight on my trip. In fact, I might have lost some. This, despite some shitty meal choices. I even weighed myself right now, mid afternoon, and not my usual pre-breakfast morning weigh-in. It must have something to do with the fact that I've been skipping breakfast and lunch the past four days, even if I was chowing down on filet o' cow. I didn't want to risk having any issues on the aircraft during my Albuquerque trip.

-Second, I still have plenty of beer left over at the house after the New Year's lushathon. Oh, look, it's beer o'clock

-Third, my A-2 leather flying jacket that I got to KEEP from this trip is still sexy. Maybe I'll strike a pose and post a picture somewhere.

I'm still in Albuquerque, and so Goddamned frustrated I could just puke. I can't wait to get out of here. As little as I'm looking forward to my upcoming trip to Korea, it will almost seem like a vacation...except that Molly is apparently acting ultra-cute and is now -walking-.

I really can't go into the details of why it is so frustrating here. It wouldn't be prudent, and it would take several pages of text to even begin to describe it. Suffice to say that whenever I'm actually in charge of shit, I'm generally in a much better mood, and tend to cut through the non-sense with a nuclear scythe. At least I hope I do. If not, I would hope people would drop obvious hints I wasn't.

However, there is a little bit of fun/cool stuff here. The funniest thing is how Air Force guard and reserve pilots handle the aircraft. These guys are typically airline pilots, and just do their reserve/guard duty flying a -135 (Boeing 707) type aircraft.

Now, airlines pilots perform -every- maneuver under the assumption that there is a 95 year old woman in the restroom. It can't be terribly exciting to execute a course change so slowly and smoothly that the hysterical drunken woman in 15B doesn't even notice.

Then...then they throw on their uniforms once a month and go fly a big aircraft without picky passengers.

These guys are nuts. One of the guys on the project couldn't fly anymore due to violent reactions to the flight...and he claims he does fine on commercial flights.

It's hilarious. The only other times I've ever maneuvered more violently was during a T-37 flight, flying sailplanes, and flying a Citabria (small aerobatic plane).

When you land an aircraft, there are three basic pieces to approaching the airfield. There is the downwind leg, in which you are flying with the wind behind you, above and beside the airfield.

Then there is the base leg. You drop altitude here and approach the line of the airfield at a perpendicular.

Then there is the final...where you're lined up on the airstrip and just touch down.

Well, our mission commander sits in the back with us, and has a window view. I can sorta see out of a window. We have several awesome applications on board which show, among other things, the position of the aircraft over a very detail map. We were flying basically directly over the airfield on our downwind leg. The mission commander is glaring out the window quite nervously and gets on the intercom with a long string of curses.

"$@#& $!$ $!%^-gobbling psychopaths aren't going to do a base leg! Y'all %#@%-ing hang on to something! They're letting Pablo land us today! Christ Almighty!"

I look out the sliver of window I can see, and see a normal looking horizon, and then the plane rapidly dips the right wing, such that I'm looking directly down on cars. Directly down. I can actually see out the cockpit of the aircraft too, which is normally a washed out sky, but in this case I see parking lots, mothers pulling their kids out of the way, rabbits, and then the runway...at a sharp angle. Then "Pablo" yanks the stick back like his life depends on it (it does), and we land.

He he he.

When we get back, the ground crew tells us they thought we were done for. They always watch the landing because it's always interesting, but this one took the cake.

Yes, I like that sort of shit.

Yes, it was the only amusing thing this entire trip.

Until next time...

Dec 15 - 22, 2006: In Albuquerque.

Dec 24 - Jan 1st : Holidays stuff

Jan 2 - 10, 2007: In Albuquerque.

Jan 12 - 21, 2007: Traveling all over the east coast for family stuff.

Jan 22 - Feb ?? (10th ish), 2007: Korea, for work.

Anyone care to guess how my diet and exercise plan is going?

Shit.

And Erika has been pulling way too much Mom duty lately. I really need 2 ultra-boring weeks at the home office.

As an unlikely backup plan, I have purchased several lotto tickets here in New Mexico. Should I win, you can bet the first thing I'll do is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I will sit at home and chill. For WEEKS. Then I'll get around to empire building and bizarre acts of philanthropy.

Oh, and even more snow due in Albuquerque tonight.

xx lbs. I'm still not back down to the 27lbs I'd lost...I've got about 3 more to go. Holidays. Meh.

My brother Mark flew into town last night. We stayed up late and bullshitted and then slept in this morning, thanks to Erika being Hero Mom and taking care of Molly this morning.

We really didn't get our act together until almost noon, and decided to postpone playing at the ski resort until Sunday. So we went to Nevada and almost pissed away a sum of money until we both started to bet "angry" at the end and got much of our money back. Sometimes I think the best gambling strategy (aside from avoiding it) is to throw 100% of your money up front on a single 50/50ish bet (i.e. a hand of blackjack or a spin of the roulette wheel).

We also acquired some quality discount adult beverages (the price difference about made up for the gambling losses), and headed back to town for a nice dinner with Erika and Molly (good gawd the restaurants are busy here tonight...that's my fallback investment plan: restaurant).

Now we're consuming some of the quality discount priced adult beverages and settling in for the night...while trying to take it a bit easy to we can actually hit the slopes tomorrow without hangovers.

Edit: Erika put up a nice picture of Mark, Molly and I hanging at the restaurant bar while we waited for our table to be ready. http://www.flickr.com/photos/elmodonahue

xxlbs. I'm still working off the holiday crap I inhaled. Let's just say I'm finding exercising MUCH easier than getting back on the diet. All in all, that is probably a good thing.

The weather is starting to get shittyish here. There was a huge storm that shut down Denver, but it grazed us and dropped just a couple of inches. Then there's this new horrid storm that will apparently destroy civilization in Denver, and it went south of us on the way to Denver, and nuked southern Utah. But, either way, it was about 32 F here today, raining a bit, snowing a bit, and VERY windy. Ugh.

My brother flies in tomorrow for New Year's skiing, drinking, etc... The weather needs to improve if he is going to actually believe he left Seattle. I'm hoping he'll fall in love with Molly...for a variety of options, not the least of which is I intend to use him as a fallback baby-sitter in a few years as needed. "You get to stay with Crazy Uncle Marcus for a few days while mom and dad go play in Vegas" would be ultra-cool. If he influences her too much, she'll probably turn into a snowboarding hippie. There are worse fates in life, I suppose.

I'm also back to Albuquerque on the evening of the 2nd. I can't wait to be done with that place and that project. This will hopefully be it. Actually, it will be. I'll explain to my boss in great detail about how this little side project is wasting my talents, and how I'm a glorified furniture mover and how the travel is harshing my diet and exercise and how blah blah blah.

I'm a little tipsy and thus verbose. Y'all have a happy new year!

27lbs...although to be fair, I'm using old data from Friday :) Since then, I've done a fair amount of drinking and eating bad things. I'll be getting back on the wagon, so to speak, tomorrow.

Christmas has been good. Molly is excited by wrapping paper and boxes...and torturing her new life-like doll from gramma Donahue. If this child gets a sibling, she'll have to learn that picking him up by the ears, gnawing on his head, and throwing him over her shoulder while looking at something else shiny is a bad thing.

My loot haul is a sweet cowboy hat, a micro-sized R/C helicopter (not a full function one, but it is still awesome, and way more controllable that those little counter-torque UFOs, and the battery lasts much longer), a stash of gift cards to my usual places, and season 1 of The Unit on DVD...among other nice things. Oh, like the collection of pub coasters for the basement bar!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bltdonahue has me being a bounty-hunter poser :)

I stumbled across this link while looking up some sheet music for Beethoven's "Fur Elise."

http://www.intellectualwhores.com

Actual, I first found http://www.intellectualwhores.com/beethoventheory.html and then checked out the root page.

The layout and web-craft of the site blows, but is full of quality cynicism and some great truths. Be sure especially to check out the "The Ladder Theory" link on the right.

Fundamentally, I'm enjoying this site because, beyond the obvious attitude is a core truth: Most people have problems (esp. between the sexes) because of the inability to communicate truthfully.

We got done early, and were basically overmanned for people to sit around waiting for crap to break.

So I got to head home early!

The only problem was I'd bought food for the week. I gave away what I could, but was left with 3 Fat Tires, 3 1-pint auto-draught Guinness, and 6 Negra Modelos.

Hmmm...what to do?

I'd scheduled a flight at 10:40 the next morning, and was minutes from the airport. So I just drank it all last night. Sheesh. I'm not young anymore, that much is obvious.

Good thing I also had a bunch of "Propel Fitness Water" to get rid of. Awesome hangover preventative (and really good stuff in its own right).

So now I'm in Albuquerque again...which might be a nice place, if:
-I had control of the rental car
-I wasn't working 12 hour days, and on Saturday

I really hate this project down here. I'm an overpaid furniture mover and IT guy when I'm down here, and I'm not kidding.

At least this time I have a -real- suite with a kitchenette, fridge, stove, microwave, etc... That will help a ton. The fitness room here is actually pretty sweet, too.

Now I just need some distractions from the mind-numbing drudgery of it all. The suite has standard cable, no pay-per-view movies. Maybe I'll have to find a Blockbuster and go stock up on some rentals. A bit lame, but it's something. Hopefully this internet connection is good enough to run World of Warcraft, so I can catch up on my nerdin'

Sheesh. At least I get to avoid all the Christmas hoopla for the next bit. It's also nice to have a room to myself with no wife hogging the bed and no kid waking me up. That's usually nice for about 48 hours, then I miss 'em horribly.

*SIGH*

23 lbs. The first 20 went quick, now we're into the tough part. Pants are definitely baggy, and I'm digging out the stuff from a few years ago to wear. SWEET.

We had our department holiday lunch at the Macaroni Grill today.

Guess what happens when you subsist on rice, yogurt and grilled chicken for weeks on end...and then go splurge at an Americanized Italian restaurant?

Ugh.

But, I still managed to get myself to the gym tonight, and had the most vigorous cardio session yet...and the most amazing thing was I never felt fatigued or winded. I'm about at the point where I'm going to really ratchet it up. My goal by month's end is to run at 7.5 mph at a 15 degree incline for an hour. I think I can get there, with the only likely weak-point being shin-splints and slightly gimpy knees.

OK, enough meathead gym stuff.

Work is slow this week, which is mostly fine given the thrashing of the whole fall. The hotel I'll be staying at in Albuquerque was built a month ago, and has full kitchenettes in each room, plus a nice gym. So I shouldn't be forced to grub on crap and slouch about. That still leaves me with free time, no immediately accessible rental car, and only one good book for a week. Maybe I'll just get crazy and take my German textbooks with me.