Friday, September 30, 2011

Salt Lake City Road Trip

Headed to see the Dawgs take on Utah tomorrow. First road trip with three dogs. So far so good!


Just passed into Idaho.



Later - Jim

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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Delivery of the Boeing 787

Kent was honored to be part of a group that participated in a ceremony this week for the delivery of the 1st. Boeing 787 to ANA. Here are a few pictures of the event.

















Way to go Boeing!




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Saturday, September 24, 2011

Huskies take on the Bears




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Monday, September 19, 2011

Huskies and Cornhuskers

It's bright and early on Monday morning after a great weekend in Omaha/Lincoln. We had to get up at 3:20 am for our flight and will arrive back in Seattle at 9:10 am. I'll head right to the office from the airport while Kent will go pick up Toby and Maggie from the kennel and take them home. It was much less expensive to fly home this morning than yesterday so we tacked on an extra day while Bill flew out and arrived in Seattle yesterday.

We stayed at the downtown Courtyard by Marriott. Just your average Courtyard but great location within walking distance to most Omaha activities including the Market area.

Bill lived in Omaha back in the 80's so he was familiar with the area which was helpful and fun for him to show us around. We saw where he used to work and the house he owned while living in Omaha.




The weather was not the best when we arrived - cool actually. We just happen to hit a pocket of poor weather. The weekend before we arrived it was in the 80's and the day we left was supposed to pop back into the 80's. Friday I'm not sure it made 60 degrees! We made the best of it however as we always do. You sure can feel that fall is in the air.

On our first afternoon after visiting the area Bill lived in we headed over to Council Bluffs, Iowa on a short drive and took in a Railroad museum and a park downtown. Not much going on in Council Bluffs!













We went to a park on the out skirts of town - a Lewis and Clark memorial that overlooked the Missouri river - nice park where we saw a bunch of wild turkeys.




We also took in another museum back over in Omaha that was in the old train station which was beautifully restored. The museum also had several passenger cars on display and other exhibits on local history.







The city of Omaha seems to have a great deal of civic pride. The downtown area was well maintained and there are great parks and public art was abundant.




Did a little shopping - fall is in the air and Halloween is just around the corner!




We ended our first evening by taking in a steak dinner at The Drover - a steakhouse that was recommended by a several people. The steak was amazing! We ran into other Husky fans having dinner and former Husky head coach Jim Lambright.

Dinner was followed by a movie - we saw The Driver, which despite the violence, I really liked.

Saturday was game day! Football is huge in Nebraska! They take their sports very serious and red is everywhere! Kent and I have been to a lot of away games and I have to say that the Nebraska fans were by far the most welcoming nice people we've experienced! Such a contrast to the worst experience of the Oregon fans! It's really to bad because traveling to away games can be a lot of fun. Kent and I go out of our way to welcome and greet fans who travel to Husky Stadium. We heard over and over that Colorado fans are bad too. I hope that not to be the case since they just joined that PAC 12 and we look forward to traveling to Boulder for an away game.

Although we did not get to see much of Lincoln it was a nice college town. We took in the local Farmers Market before the game and took time to walk the campus and visit the college bookstore.






















Despite the fact that the Huskies lost to the Cornhuskers we had an awesome game day experience! Following the game we found a great place for an Italian dinner back in Omaha and then the best sports bar I've ever been in where we took in the last of the Stanford and Utah games. I counted no less than 45 TV screens of all sizes!







Sunday started out with light rain but Kent and I both took in short runs.



I've said this before but I just love running in new locations while traveling. This run was a first in that I ran across state lines during my run!





Here are a few pictures I took while out running. There are great trails in the area for running although many were closed due to recent flood activity.











Bill headed home on Sunday afternoon so following lunch we dropped him off at the airport. Since the weather was still cloudy with rain we took in another movie - Contagion. Kent liked it - I gave it a C.

Our timing was perfect because by the time we got out of the movie the weather finally broke and the temperature actually reached the low 70's! We took a drive recommend by our waitress from the night before on the Old Lincoln Highway.







We capped off our trip with a fine dinner of Mexican food and called it an early evening.




Glad to be headed home. As I finish writing this post we are getting ready to land in Minneapolis - Seattle is just a short time away!

Another reason that I'm excited to get home is because we pick up our new pup Harry tonight! Truth be told we are both nervous about adopting a third dog but could not be more excited and we will make it work.

And yes - we are back to our original name and have settled on Harry. Tell me he does not look like a Harrry! Isn't he adorable?!


Next up I've got fly over to Wenatchee tomorrow for a meeting then we are home for a weekend followed by a weekend driving trip to Utah with all three dogs! That should be interesting!

Have a great week!

Jim

Just landed - Seattle!


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Sunday, September 18, 2011

Nebraska Pics

I will be writing a post soon about our Nebraska trip with our friend Bill but in the mean time wanted to post a few pictures.



Bills old house when he lived in Omaha.


Corn hats!



Warm up party with Husky band!





At the big game!




Sea of red!



Out for a run.





Omaha! More to follow! Great experience great time with our friend Bill!

Later - Jim

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Thursday, September 15, 2011

Nebraska Bound!







The Huskies will travel to Nebraska and do battle with the Corn Huskers this Saturday and Kent and I will there! Both teams are 2-0 so far this season. Nebraska is an 18 point favorite. While math models indicate that the Cornhuskers will win this game 54-36 - we were also predicted to loose in the holiday bowl last year against Nebraska and we all remember how that ended!






Looking forward to attending a game in Lincoln.





There will be a lot of red!

If you did not know better you would think I were a Corn Husker!






This picture was taken a few years ago while we were on a driving trip through Lincoln.

I'll keep you posted!

Later -

Jim

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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Call us crazy.......

I'm not sure why I even go to Pet Finders website or Gingers Pet Rescue but for whatever reason I was looking and there he was!



How could you resist! We did not act right away and assumed he would be adopted right away and low and behold he was listed as adopted. Ginger's Pet Rescue was having an adoption event so we decided to stop in and show everyone Maggie since it's been just about one year since we adopted her. Much to our surprise there he was - he had been adopted and returned! The guy who adopted him was in his 70's and "Bobby Landin" peed on his bed and ended up back for us to consider. We waited until the following Monday and assumed once again that he would be gone. When I called on Monday and found out that indeed he was still looking for a forever home it seemed like it was met to be.


Kent and I picked him up and had him spend the night with us and our other dogs and decided to add him to the family!



Since we are headed to Nebraska this weekend for a Husky away game we asked his current foster mom if she would watch him until Monday and we would pick him up when we return.

We have narrowed his name to a short list of Harry, Buster or Tucker. He's a 6 month old Havanese/Maltese mix.

Wish us luck!

Later -

Jim
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