Holiday Fun

I went out geocaching this morning and found a couple of caches. This afternoon I found a traveling cache and it was a first for me – it was very clever in its disguise. The day was overcast and dreary and about 38 degrees. Anyway, this is past tense since it is now 1745 and it is dark.

The rest of the clan went to the big city to shop and this is definitely not me. They left while I was caching and therefore, I was not asked to go along. This gives me time to write this and do some other more meaningful things like wash the dishes and do the laundry that the “un-named” did not want to do.

On another subject, I have been looking for a Taylorcraft BC12-D for a while but have not had much luck in locating a bird I would really like to have. I am interested in this model since it was the first airplane I ever owned and it was a dream to fly and the GPH is only 4 or so. If any one hears of a T-Craft for sale give me a jingle.

The “doughnut shop” was pretty quite this morning but Bill, Tom, Ken and all the regulars were there – I am usually only a weekend warrior since I work out of town. I hung around from about 8-10 and decided to do the caches by looking at the PDA data I receive every Friday. We discussed insurance for seniors – there were almost 85% retiree’s in the group today. The verdict is that the rules and data are so complicated that a “senior ” is not able to correctly analyze what is best. It is enough to make your head spin. The other subject was -WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A RETIREE RUNS OUT OF MONEY? – the group was rather somber in saying that (1) You spend all your mony for drugs and doctors, (2) Medicade comes next, then the (3) dreaded nursing home followed 2.5 years later with a mysterious death. I guess this is pretty much how the “boomers” will go out since the families do not have time to take care or the aging parents.

The wealth of the boomers needs to be disipated to keep the economy going and so, in the grand scheme of things, prices and needs will be adjusted to make sure this happens. Somewhere along the line I went from being solid middleclass to lower middleclass – maybe I was flying too much or something. Anyway, as a household we have always saved but it has done no good. It seems like the credit users and losers have an advantage since they seem to be the ones who are buying all those $500-750K houses I see (or saw) from the air. Not just a few either – thousands and thousands – all over the USA and not just localized to East and West Coasts. Who is buying these homes? That is my question!

The day after Christmas – really!

The Indiana Moore’s had their family Christmas yesterday. As tradition dictates we met at my sister Ann’s for the event. The Ohio Moore’s were there and so were the Indiana Armey’s. I took some pictures but they are the 7.2 megapixel ones and far too large to download (at least using my bandwidth). If I can dust off Infranview I will make thumbnails and larger compressed files for the world to enjoy.

We had a good time. As the children get older they get their own lives and are moving away. Kristen is going to NY to finish her training after receiveing her BS a few weeks ago. Erin is going to Chicago to college. Of course Jessica is in her 4th year of what promises to be a 5 year degree in Chemical Engineering and we rarely see her except briefly on holidays such as this.

If you got this far to the blog you also have with out a doubt read our 2005 Christmas letter. I am writing this while I sit in a Grand Rapids hotel. It is a inexpensive hotel that has HSI access and a free breakfast but is only a mile away from work and is in the center of everything. For example, tonight I left work at 1800 hrs and went to Brann’s for dinner ($6.99 Cod dinner w salad and potato plus roll), then down to the library to get a book on tape, on to SAM’s Club for gasoline. While in that direction I stopped by the used book store and then on to Barnes and Nobles. Finally, I arrived back at the hotel and started this literary work – and it is work for me.

I am tired so I will sign off – bfn.

Sunday night in a hotel

Yes, here I am in the hotel of choice on a Sunday night. Why you might ask am I in a hotel on Sunday night? I have a field activity early AM tomorrow and need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow at 0800 hrs. It is punchlist time for the grand Rapids job I have been doing CV on for the past several months. Too bad it was not completed this summer when the temperature was 80 degrees and not the forcast 9 degrees tomorrow. I can tell you from experience that being in a cold hunk of metal just sucks the heat right out of your body no matter how well you are dressed.

After this activity has been completed, which is scheduled for most of tomorrow, I have to drive to Detroit for the ITS Michigan meeting and then after that go up to the Pontiac Silverdome for a vendor demonstration. From there it is on to Indiana for the Wednesday appointment that has been on the books for a few months.

Thursday and Friday are to be in GR to wrap up the short fuse project to add more ITS infrastructure to I-94. And so goes the week in the life of a technical nomad. How little has changed in our basic nature over the past 10,000 years. Go here get a little food (or make money to buy it) and then go there to find a little more of a different kind and then on to a new tent. Thank heavens the tents have a controlled environment now! Have a great week geeks.

Thursday Night in Detroit

Tonight I am in Detroit and as usual at the Country Inns & Suites in Novi. I get a rate of $79.99 so if you are not at this rate or better negotiate. Anywy, I arrived here from home around 0805 on wednesday morning and worked all day in the field along I-94. This is the first real field work since the pain in the neck started and I wondered if I could make the grade. I survived all day and went out to a good dinner with an associate then slept most of the night. Today was pretty good too with the help of two morning asprins and a noon time ibuprophen 200.

Tomorrow promises to be a shorter day but a longer drive, i.e. Detroit to home in addition to the 50 or so miles of the work route. We have to document and inventory the cabinets and equipments along the same route.

I purchased gasoline for $1.979 per gallon and this seems to be the prevailing rate here. I saw prices as low as $1.949 in the downtown Detroit area. Prices in NE Indiana were $2.129 when I left and this leads to the thoughts of how Indiana must not care too much about how the low income of NE IN can afford those prices. FYI-the average Steuben County wage is in the neighborhood of $9/hr with average tops around $12/hr. Maybe there is some kind of price fixing going on and the R’s just look the other way.