Our flights will Never be late

Then again, we'll never actually be on time either.

When the thrill of being on an airplane matters then we've a flight for you.


Well not exactly a flight....

A retired Airline engineer is selling the 'ride'. With his tickets, you spend a few minutes on an Airbus A-300 jet plane that goes nowhere. It just sits. But people are lining up in droves.

The owner, Captain Bahudar Gupta, makes announcements about take off, landing etc, and his wife and five other crew members go up and own the aisle, serving snacks and drinks.

If any of the ‘passengers’ has to use the facilities, that could be a slight problem because the fuselage has no bathrooms. That is really not a big problem because the "flights" are under an hour each.

So pack you bags, gather the kids and head out on a "STAY CATION" by taking a flight to nowhere.

Kristie and I are finally settling back in after our long "do nothing" vacation at Edisto Island. It is the first non agenda vacation we've taken in a long time. Most of our time there, we set no alarms, used no phone, computers and held ourselves to absolutely no schedule. Other than sitting around, snacking and soaking up the relaxing sights and sounds at the least commercial beach location in the southeast. Most of our vacation trips are spent dashing around, maximizing our time, seeing every thing we can and doing as much as can be squeezed in. Most of the time we NEED a vacation after our vacations. But this trip we truly relaxed. We treated it like our 3rd, 2nd honeymoon. It was great.

This photo was not taken on this trip, but rather at an earlier time. Our condo was next to the lake along side the golf course just left of center of the shot.A ground level view of golfing just behind our apartment.There is not much commercial development at Edisto, but after seeing this I wondered if Gilligan and Skipper lived there.
Edisto is famous for the great shells. Something about the currents

This little lady from Montreal knew where to find the best ones.
Her name is "Hannah" ( she spelled it for me)

Other than lying in the sand ( it's still a bit cool for the water ), playing golf and collecting shells rule the activities in this low key paradise.

When Kristie and I visited California this spring we were able to attend the taping of several television shows.

Tonight and tomorrow night if you are really bored look for us on Jeopardy. 7:30 pm on the U.S. east coast.

"I'll take useless trivia for $600, Alex. "

4-21-2008

Indio California is truly an oasis town in the desert. Kris and I had traveled through the high deserts on our last trip between Barstow and Las Vegas. But other than a visit to Palm Springs she had never seen the low desert. And a true stereo typical desert it is too. Complete with bad lands, dry gulches and even few sand dunes tossed in for good measure.

Indio hosts the massive Riverside County Fair each year in conjunction with the Date Festival. That’s Dates as in food from a palm tree not a social mixer for guys and girls. The festival was an event we never missed both as a family and with our school band.
I thought it would be fun to see the city again, and revisit the festival site. Then have a quick bite of lunch then head out to the Salton Sea. The Salton Sea is a large inland salt water lake. It also boasts one the lowest elevations in the country, second only to Death Valley which is just 5 feet lower.
We wrapped up our visit stopping in Banning, California which is the closest town at the base of the mountain. We met my friend Ron and his wife again for dinner. As before the evening went by too fast.


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4-20-07

The first professional Major league baseball game I ever went to was the California Angels at Angel Stadium in Anaheim California. I was just a kid but I remember it just like it was last week. They played the Oakland A’s and won the game 4 to 3. I remember Brooks Robinson hitting not one but two solo home runs.

I attended a lot more games in the next few years. Even saw Nolan Ryan pitch a no-hitter until ninth. Angel Stadium holds a lot of memories. Our Hotel was only a couple blocks from the ball-park so naturally Kristie and I wanted to attend.

The Braves at Turner Field in Atlanta and the Angels in Anaheim within 15 days.

After the game we were off to Saddleback church again. This time we were not so rushed and had plenty of time to explore the campus and enjoy the whole experience.

4-19-2006 (cont)

Near the end of our visit at the Mission, I received a cell call from my God Daughter Hillary. She lives about two hours up the coast from Los Angeles and wanted to get together. Her husband Mando had angled the evening off and so we arranged to meet them half way between San Juan Capistrano where we were and their house. Halfway turned out to be Hollywood. We met on the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Vine St. near the famed Capital Records building. We found a small Thai place to eat nearby and had a nice time. I had spoken to Armando several times on the phone and exchanged e-mail with him a number of times, but this was the first time we'd actually met. It was like we'd been friends forever. He's a great guy.

When I lived in California a bunch of us used to hang out now and then in Hollywood. It was a weird place then and it's a weirder place now.

Loads of fun.

Hillary has a very early morning job at her local airport, so the evening couldn't last too late. We all hated to go our separate ways after a too short visit, but we all agreed to hook-up late this summer when she and Mando come to visit the family near here.

Hillary, I love you. You remind me of your dad so much.

4/19/2008

The Mission San Juan Capistrano is a beautiful place to spend a day. Founded in the same year as our country, 1776 it is the oldest building in California still in use today.

The Mission is also famous for the annual returning of the swallows.

Every spring Cliff Swallows make the 6,000-mile journey north from their winter homes near Goya, Argentina back to the Mission. The birds have made the trip to San Juan Capistrano every summer for centuries. The Mission's location near two rivers make it the ideal location to nest, and there was a constant supply of the insects on which they feed, and the young birds are well-protected inside the ruins of the old stone church

4/18/2008

My best friend from high school still lives in southern California. I had not seen him in years; in fact we had lost contact until sometime last year. Needless to say we have burned-up the web with our e-mail remembrances and the catching-up with each others lives.

Ron and his wife live about 30 miles from our old stomping grounds and about a mile and a half up. He lives just above the mountain resort town of Idywild. When they became “empty nesters“ they moved “up the hill” which was always his dream. Ron was something of a mountain man even back in school. He and Kathy opened a shop in Idywild. Merkeba sells tea, candles, wind chimes, kites, flags and so on. The main business is tea. They process, blend package and sell tea. The store is about two years old and according to Ron has been doing well since the start. Beside the retail store, they also do a booming mail order tea business.

We drove up the mountain to visit them at their shop. We didn’t spend any time in the mountains during our last trip to SoCal. Idywild holds a world of memories for me. Our church camp was there so naturally I remember those times fondly. And I hiked and camped on the peaks many time as a late teen. In fact Ron and I had been snowed in there one time. Idywild is the place where the rattlesnake got me. Idywild is the place where lightning almost finished me off. And as I said Idywild almost froze me and starved me once. It’s a big mountain at almost 11,000 feet. As it has the quickest rise in elevation in the 48 states there are some fantastic vistas.

The drive up was much as I remembered with surprising little change. It was breath taking. The views are amazing when it is one of the rare clear days. On our day the conditions were fairly good.

We arrived at Ron’s store and it was as if time had frozen. Little had changed in all the years. Other than having families, a few gray hairs and a few extra pounds. We picked up on our conversations just were we left them so long ago. The day flew by quickly.

We had such a great time we made plans to meet later in the week in a town below the mountain for dinner and more remembering.

Fifteen Seconds of Fame

That's about the amount of time my lovely image was on the screen. That's accumulated time. The longest single moment was around four seconds. Turns out 15 seconds is about as much as the average person can stand anyway. Isn't it interesting that the taping of the shows lasted almost five hours.

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.-Sir Winston Churchill


To me it is funny how excited we both became at being on television. Especially since we never watch anything. Honestly, though it is in it's twenty-fifth year I never sat down and actually watched a complete episode of Wheel. Until this week. Now I've been in the room when it was on. My In-laws never miss a night. It's on every time I visit yet I never paid much attention to it.

That's the way it is with many church people when it comes to hearing God's voice. It's on. It's there, plain to hear, we just never pay much attention to it.

A few months ago our pastor challenged us to begin a quiet time with God. And for me that's been hard. Not that I don't want to. It's that I'm having to learn to. I have a very active mind, and it seems to dash off in 360 directions at every given moment. Like I said " sometimes the background noise is deafening".

Last night my wife and I ate our supper quickly, stacked the dishes, closed the drapes ( sorry window treatments) , turned off all other distractions, and got comfortable in our chairs to intently watch and hear what Pat, Vanna and the others said and did.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men. -Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza

I learned another lesson about how to connect with what God is saying. Pick a time, stack the days 'chores ' and put them aside for a moment. Remove yourself from the distractions of daily life, your job, the phone and kids. Get comfortable, tune in and then you can truly hear what God is saying.

Oh BTW even after seeing the game in person, I still couldn't solve the puzzles. I never was good at Hangman either.

4/17/2008

Wheel of Fortune

Day four was Kristie’s first full day off without classes. Several weeks before the trip, I sent away for Tickets to the filming (taping) of a few TV shows. Today we had tickets to see Wheel of Fortune. Sony pictures studios are in Culver City near Los Angeles. We had to arrive early to ensure our seats. It seems the tickets only get you in the gate. And limited seating rewards those who turn out early. After we got in we were seated in the back corner. (luck of the draw ) But shortly before filming an usher came over and motioned to us to follow him. He led us right down front row center. I think they try to balance the audience out and pick happy smiling faces for the front row.

They record a weeks worth of shows each filming day. The hosts (Pat and Vanna) changing clothing between each show. During that time the producer and announcer comes up to the audience and tells stories, jokes around and gives away silly little prizes. Hat’s and T-shirts were the best.

The announcer, Charlie O'Donnell, noticed Kristie’s shirt said Anderson University and struck-up a conversation with us. He told us all about his 40 something year history in TV. How he started with Dick Clark on American Bandstand and so on. Then he had us tell him about South Carolina saying he’d only been there once in his life. And that was several years ago when Wheel was on the road in Charleston. And he said all he saw was the hotel and the attached convention center where they filmed.

Pat and Vanna also came out and spoke once or twice for a moment or two. BTW no camera's or cell phones were allowed inside, so we didn't get any pictures.

It was a lot of fun, but our arms got tired from 21/2 hours of solid clapping. I am sure we were on camera several times in each episode. Our airdates are coming soon. ** UPDATE It's tonight **

Now that we are STARS, we’ll gladly sign autographs.

4/16/2008

Day three alone saw me driving to the Long Beach Airport. There is a great pilot shop there and I needed a new check list for my plane and what ever other trinkets caught my eye. While I was there a young man came in and asked the proprietor if he knew where the so and so school was located. The owner did not. But as I was driving out of the airport I looked up and saw a large modern building, with 6 feet high lighted letters that proclaimed it to be the school. Not 50 yards from the airport entrance. How could this guy NOT see that every day? It is less than a quarter of a mile from his store on the ONLY road. Talk about being caught-up in your own world.

I had forgotten the Long Beach Grand Prix was that week. It’s an sports car race held on the city streets. As I headed towards town I noticed the signs closing many of the roads. After a couple detours I gave-up on downtown Long Beach for that day.

Long Beach is about 25 minutes from Anaheim so I went straight back. Pausing at the hotel for a bottle of water from the suite’s fridge, I then headed to Riverside where I spent my teen years. March Air Force base near Riverside is about 40 minutes away but because of my early start I arrived at their fantastic Air Museum just an hour after they opened.

I spent my third day in a row looking at old airplanes. For me this is a form of paradise.

Back in Anaheim I joined my bride and her A.U. class mates for a 7 pm dinner reservation at Morton’s steak house. That deserves a whole blog just by itself. But I won’t. I will say it was a massive steak and near perfect. I was not paying, we were guests of a vendor, but I saw the bill. My steak, baked potato, salad and water cost $ 117 just by itself. It was good. Not quiet the Kobe beef I ate in Japan, but compared to $19.99 at Sizzler back home,it was great, well not six times better. Anyway now I can say I ate a hundred dollar steak

There has been slight confusion between my vacation blogs and my current event blogs. Sorry!

I'll go back and attach the actual date to the vacation blogs at the top in BOLD red. Maybe this will help.

I plan to continue blogging about my recent vacation due to popular demand. (mom!)

But I expect to continue mixing it up blogging current thoughts as well. So now you'll know the the time line.

4/15/2008

There is not one but two great Air Museums at the Chino airport. The Yanks museum is located just up the ramp from the Planes of Fame museum. So on my second day alone I was right back in the car heading that way again. Yanks is a nice museum but no where near as large as Planes of Fame. However the planes were just as nicely done and the building and grounds were great. I spent almost 6 hours there.

I had lunch at a Café right on the airport property. Flo’s diner was just what the names implies. An old time 40's-50’s style diner complete with pinkish vinyl covered booths and stools at the counter. Dining alone I chose the counter. Everything was stereo-typical greasy spoon, but that’s not to say it was dirty. In fact there seemed to be five employees who spent every spare second scrubbing or wiping something down.

The waitress working the counter like the others wore a uniform that would have been at home in Mel’s dinner on the old TV show Alice. In fact she even had a plastic engraved name tag that read Flo. She was THE Flo, owner and namesake of the place. As I sat down the first thing she said between chomps on her gum was to ask me. “Wadda ya have, hon? “ I ordered a cheese burger feeling this would be easy. Well the burger plate comes with a salad, fries and a drink. Oh my. The salad was big enough to feed you and me. A heaping bowl about the size of a punch bowl and swimming in the Blue Cheese dressing I ordered on a hunch. Good guess, it was homemade and very good. By the time I started to see a small dent in the salad, the burger and fries arrived. “Here you go sugar” Said Flo. What can I say? The burger was about the size of a boat trailer tire. Maybe 10 inches no kidding. And it was so thick I had to lean my entire weight on it to mash it down enough to bite. Saying it comes with an order fries would be a massive understatement. I bet there was near a pound of fries. Enough that if placed end to end they may well have exceeded the length of the runway outside.

It was all so good. Old fashion fast food made to order. But after I quit eating, and notice I did not say I finished, I had to just quit. When I was done, stuffed full, Flo brings over a” hunk” of homemade peach pie. A “hunk” is her word for a serving. A serving large enough for a Mongol hoard that is. I suspect the piece of pie alone contained enough nourishment and energy for an entire family of circus acrobats. I had to try. It was so good. I just could not eat it all. No worries, Flo insisted in putting the remainder in a box for me. I ate the rest that night. You know the whole spread only cost me 6 dollars.

It’s a good thing Flo’s is 2300 miles away from my house. Eating there I would be bigger that the door quickly

4/14/2008
Our Hotel, the Desert Sands Hotel and Suites in Anaheim is literally in the back yard of Disneyland. From the balcony of our suite we could see some of Mickey’s best attractions. And each night we had a perfect view of the fireworks and laser show they present at closing time.

Kristie’s classes were being held at the convention center site which was just across the street and down maybe 100 yards. There was a shuttle but walking was faster, the weather was perfect and being right front of Disney on streets filled with moms and children it was safe.

That left me the entire nine hours to fill. Luckily I had the car. My first day was spent where else. The Chino Air Museum which was about 25 minutes northeast. The Planes of Fame is one of the best in the world and is made extra special in that so many of their vintage and rare planes are flyable. And they are flown on a regular basis. Their collection is above 150 aircraft now not to mention the countless other exhibits works of aviation art and thousands of scale models. I visited there several times as a teen and my patient wife and I spent 5 hours there in 2003. But today I was a free agent. Having the whole day and no clocks to watch, I spent the day. I was there when the doors opened at 9 am and they had to kick me out when they closed at 5 pm. It’s the 50th anniversary of their founding so they had several events going on as well. The visit was made extra special because I had a chance to talk with famed pilot Steve Hinton. He is the president of the museum now and arrived in a sparkling new LearJet 45 directly to the museum grounds while I was there