Me, Backwards

Well, here we are and I’ve gone over a week without blogging.  That week includes two days at the dropzone (Labor Day Monday, and the following Saturday) several days of work (yawn) and one day of being pretty darn lazy (Sunday).  Last Saturday’s weather was nutty; with forecast blue skies but what turned out to be quite a weird front moving through bringing with it clouds, rain, and crazy winds for about the first half of the day.  Still got in three jumps, and did my first coach jump work, when I briefed and supervised a student doing her first hop & pop.  I put her out at 5,500 feet and continued to full altitude to jump with my group. Labor Day was especially fun as we were getting extra altitude (15K) all day; took advantage of that for five fun jumps of varying size. (more…)

The above is what the JetBlue pilot called Beantown as we were getting ready to leave last night.  It certainly felt tropical with temps in the high 80s and high humidity to boot!  We were a bit north of Boston in Pepperell, MA, near the border with New Hampshire (we even stayed in Nashua, NH).

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Since I got back and posted about Daisy, I’ve been trying to keep up some semblance of normalcy in my life.  The fact that I have a job and workout schedule has helped, but in working from home Monday and Tuesday I found myself being a bit of a recluse and dwelling on the bad stuff in my life.  I needed to be in the office today and have had more interaction than I usually do (mid-year review with my boss, and lunch with my team).  I think that the walk to work (sunshine!) and being around others have helped a lot. (more…)

Was so overwhelmed by coming home to a dead kitty that I didn’t reflect much on the rest of the weekend.  It really wasn’t my weekend.  Bad weather, witnessing an incident on the DZ, and breaking my computer. Fun, huh? (more…)

Came home from our weekend in Shelton/Seattle last night, after midnight, tired, cranky, and just ready to go to bed. It took a bit longer than usual, but Franklin came trotting out to greet me in the foyer, and I expected Daisy to be not far behind.

She wasn’t. (more…)

• Days at Lost Prairie: 4 - Wednesday afternoon through Sunday morning
• Jumps: 10
• Travel time to Lost Prairie: <12 hours… left home in Oakland around 5 a.m., arrived DZ by 4 p.m. Montana time.
• Travel time home from Lost Prairie: much >12 hours… left DZ just before noon Montana time on Sunday, arrived home at 10:30 a.m. on Monday … thanks to a delayed flight out of Kalispell which caused us to miss our connection in Seattle and spend the night at a hotel (paid for by Horizon Airlines, of course). (more…)

Yesterday Sean and I ventured out to Marin County to the Point Reyes National Seashore for a day of hiking.  We picked a beautiful day - temps were warm but not stifling and the sun was out all day, giving us wonderful views when we made it to vista points. More photos here. (more…)

It’s been a busy weekend with Mom and Dad in town - I’ve hardly had time to sit down and write. Today’s a bit quieter so I’ll share what we’ve done so far. The photos here are from Castle Air Museum, a couple hours away from Oakland on the former Castle Air Force Base. We’d passed by there on the way back from our rafting trip a few weeks ago and I’d mentioned it might be fun to visit with the ‘rents.  Turns out yesterday was Open Cockpit Day, where many of the planes are open for visitors to climb in and poke around.  Although it was (understandably) crowded, the displays sprawl over several acres, so it never felt claustrophobic with all those people there.  We did have to wait for access to a few planes, but never more than a few minutes. (more…)

We do clean up nice, don’t we?

Last weekend was our friends Laura & John’s wedding in Tennessee, so we got up at the ass-crack of dawn on Friday to head down to Oakland airport to fly out.  Flights to Nashville were largely uneventful and mostly on-time, so we were able to make the drive from there to Knoxville in time to meet friends for dinner.  Thanks to an overly-generous pair of bartenders who comped us a lot of drinks, we had even more fun at the restaurant’s bar afterward (it was adjacent to our hotel so no one had to drive). (more…)

Sean and I spent the weekend on a little getaway to Sonoma. Both of us had passed through there before but not spent any real time there. It’s cool to be able to drive just over an hour and really feel like you’re somewhere very different from the city. (more…)