The Epic Adventure of Coming Home

Last friday, I took yet another flight to Salt Lake City. I've done this a lot over the last few months. The same lady helped me at the Delta counter, the one that helped me get a last minute flight to Salt Lake to propose to Torrie (I don't think she remembered me.) I know the people at the desks. I know where the gate always is. I've almost memorized the entire flight schedule.

This time, was different, however. It took us 3 times as long to get to the airport, due to a combination of my grandma's slow driving (she's very cautious, which is probably a good thing because....) and the snow storm we were in. Seattle does not do very well with snow storms.

Upon my arrival to the airport, I found out my plane had been delayed yet again. We were now three hours late...but things in Seattle weren't that bad. They told us that things were worse in Salt Lake, which was the cause for the delay. So I pulled a switcheroo and got on a flight that was leaving in a half hour. Nice! Miracle #1.

As the flight continued, I tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I was just too excited to no longer be in a long distance relationship. I looked down from my window perch often to try to figure out where we were and how close we were to Salt Lake.

By the way, I was flying in an MD-80. I pay attention to those things now, which is fun. I like the MD-80 cause of the seat configuration, 3 seats on one side, 2 on the other. Only one seat that's not a window/aisle seat! That's nice. However, I know that it uses a lot more fuel than other more efficient planes and I don't like the engines being on the back (empennage, if you want the technical term).

Anyway, I finally dozed off, and I woke up, looked at my clock, and saw that we should have arrived already! Finally a few minutes later the captain explained that we were circling because an airplane had skidded off the runway (not the 737 continental flight you heard about in denver, but just a turbo-prop) and no one was landing, and that we were probably going to have to go to Boise for more fuel. NO! But then the Captain came on really quickly and said "hey! We got clearance to land, here we go!" We landed safely. Miracle #2.

So I get off the plane and hurry to meet Torrie, who has, on her own, packed all of the items that she owns into a Ford Explorer. Are you kidding me?? This girl is amazing. To show you how fully packed this car was....I present this video:
Well, I wanted to, but my internet isn't working right now. I'll try again later.

Do you see how the person in the passenger seat can't even put their feet down! It's crazy! Miracle #3

So we start driving right then and there. Drive drive drive. We stopped to sleep for a few hours at rest stops twice - once right across the border into Idaho, and one...a few hours later in Idaho. We kept going and going, going right over the Blue Mountains in Idaho. We were hurrying to beat the storm that was coming into Seattle. Torrie was amazing, even taking most of the driving in the last few hours over Snoqualmie Pass. Although it was pretty windy and slightly snowing...nothing was too bad. We stopped at Dairy Queen in Bellevue right below the temple and then the snow began to fall in earnest. Here is a picture of us eating blizzards in a blizzard. :-)
Miracle #4

I drove the rest of the way home.

More stories to come later about the holidays, wedding, honeymoon, and life as a new husband!

I'd also invite you all to look at my lovely wife's blog, thestoryoftorrie.blogspot.com, unless you one of those creepy guys that keep following us, in which case BACK OFF. We are sick of you following us and making our lives so stressful.

Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile

One of my goals as I moved to Seattle and started a new life was to read more.

The whole falling in love, being engaged and planning a wedding derailed that, to a point. However, I was able to read a couple of books that I would like to comment on. The first is the following:

You may recognize the title from the movie starring Tom Hanks and....Glenn Close? I think. Obviously I'm too lazy to do the google search and find out. Anyway...........

I love history. I love war history, especially. I would read books about the Civil War as a kid...World War II documentaries....the problem is, I've learned so much that I never really learn anything new. Maybe one little nuance in an hour-long documentary.

So the idea of reading a book about a war that I really no ZERO about? How cool is that?

I loved it. I actually read through it pretty quickly, I was on travel for business so I had some quality reading time. I really enjoyed getting the behind-the-scenes info on how some very imperfect people used some back doors to fund a war in Afghanistan that was one of the principal reasons behind the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Two issues that I found myself contemplating:
1. I think it's SO crazy how one person, one random senator from Pennsylvania are wherever, can be in charge of appropriating so much money... billions of dollars...often with so little oversight. I don't think that's right. (Yet...in this case it turned out at least fairly nice.)

2. Man, how about those unintended consequences? Our support for the various tribes of Afghans against the Soviets may have brought us Osama Bin Laden and a lot of the problems that we are facing in Afghanistan right now. Going back, would you want to change it all? Would our world be a better place without our pumping billions of dollars of weapons, technology, and training to the various violent factions in Afghanistan? Very possibly.

Anyway, a good read, not that my literary opinion means anything...making myself write a blog entry about it makes me accountable to someone.

Today At Work

So today at work, as part of our staff meeting, we had a brainstorming session about ways to cut costs. I feel like I can tell the world that, it's not proprietary information that Boeing is trying to save money. I'm actually a fan of saving money, and I approve that they are looking for our input in doing that, as workers are usually the ones with the best ideas.

Anyway, as is wont to happen, the brainstorming session eventually degraded into who can come up with the funniest way to cut costs. I was in the zone, and my ideas kept getting funnier and funnier.

I would target ideas that I knew my coworkers would find funny because of their tastes and the things they complained about.

"What about industrial strength toilet paper? Oh wait, we already have that!" ha ha ha
"What about if we have a policy where you only flush every other time? Think about it, 50% savings in water bathroom costs!" ha ha ha. my germophobic coworkers loved that one

I was on a roll. I looked at my manager and took aim. She's a pretty hard-core environmentalist, had a Prius the first year they came out, lives out in the country, has a lot of pets that she really cares about, makes sure we turn off our monitors at the end of the day to save a little bit of energy...really nice lady, I like her. At the perfect time, at a lull in the conversation, I looked up and said,

"Isn't just throwing everything away cheaper than recycling? How about we do that?"

Dead Silence. Finally I added a "Just kidding. Joking. I love recycling."

Nobody laughed. Oh well.