November 3, 2004 - Lake Sawyer, WA

Whew!  The elections are over, and now the TV ads will return to normal.  Pretty exciting for us, and we hope your people won too.

Been a while since I've been able to update this website, and I suppose some kind of explanation is in order.  It all relates to health issues, and I'm almost tempted to put together a separate page for the "organ recital."  Briefly, one of the reasons we came to this area of the world was to visit doctors we used when we had a house on a foundation.  As you may realize, there are good doctors all over the country, and we use them as needed, but for "routine" stuff we tend to drift back to this area.  Among the normal annual, semi-annual, every 5 years kind of checkups (all came out pretty well), I knew I needed some work done on a knee and that my prostate gland was needing another roto-rooter procedure (TURP).  Well, the knee stuff went off without a hitch and the improvements were quick and obvious.  The prostate stuff was sort of a mixed bag.  Went into the hospital for the one night stand on the 6th of October and things were about as expected until the 10th when I had a mild heart attack.  Mild meaning that no damage to the heart muscle itself occurred.  Still an eye-popping experience.  Kinda nice that this type-A personality guy survived his first one, eh?  Bad news was that the prostate surgery reacted adversely to the blood thinners administered.  Good news was that the thinners did dissolve the clot.  The decision was made to wait until the prostate healed up (and the catheter removed) and then implant a stent.  Pretty routine stuff, actually.  Until I was back in the emergency room two days after removing the catheter with a wild urinary tract infection.  What a pain in the.......well, let's just  say I wasn't having fun anymore.  The dang infection/medications/artery blockage just sort of took the wind out of my sails and all I could do was lay around taking lots of naps and drinking gallons of water rather than updating the webpage.  Tomorrow the stent will be implanted, and I'm taking anti-biotic meds for the infection and making improvements.  What a hassle, eh?  But fortunately, with this lifestyle, being flexible about schedules, where we're parking for how long, and all that is totally within our control.  Pretty cool, eh?  And the best part of all this is that we KNOW that God is in control.  And that if I croak tomorrow, I'll be in heaven with Him.  What more could a guy ask for than to be happy living here and still happy about spending eternity in heaven.

These are a couple of pictures of the club house, putting green, and other buildings at a park called Latitude 49 in Birch Bay, WA.  Friend John bought a lot here, and we were inspecting it.  And using the metal detector again for finding lot line markers.  We found them both, too!

Didn't have the wide-angle lens with me, so had to take two shots of his lot.  One boundary is that bald spot in the grass extending to just past that utility box, and then from where John and Barb are standing back the same distance.  That motorhome and car are parked there as the park rents the lots for sale on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, and at this time the sales transaction hadn't closed.  Pretty special place, and we liked it a lot.  Just not for us......yet.  Lots of our friends are buying lots like this or already have them in different parts of the country, but we're not done running around just yet, we don't think.

The last Concorde to fly came from Britain to Boeing Field, and this is it.  Happily on display at the Museum of Flight here in Seattle.  Interesting aircraft.  Those square looking things are the engine intakes on the right side, with the landing gear alongside.

Barb's standing there to give us a bit of a perspective of its size.  Not as big as we'd imagined.  The wing shape is more like that of a rocket, eh?  I'm standing at the top of the ladder located toward the back of the plane, getting ready to walk forward through the plane and down the forward ladder.

Once in the plane, I took this quick shot through the Plexiglas, and then made a hasty exit back down the ladder I'd come up.  WAY too confining for me to spend any time in here with anybody between me and the door.  And then there's Barb coming back down the forward ladder wondering where I'd gone, but suspecting I'd bailed out.

Barb was a good sport, didn't harass me too much for being a wimp, and went back through the plane to get some pictures.  Sorry about that dark shadow at the bottom of these next few shots.  Learned to take the sunshade off the camera when using the flash.  Maybe you can get some feel for the close quarters walking forward, eh?

There were lots of little factoids on these signs.

  Impressive looking flight deck, even through the Plexiglas.

Then "we" toured the retired Air Force One.  Date on the Saturday Evening Post is October 7, 1961.  Barb used to use a typewriter just like that one at the Secretary Station, a loooooong time ago.

Lots of Plexiglas used to keep us from sitting in the President's seat and elsewhere.  Or maybe the plane was built this way so there would be visibility but privacy.  I was MUCH more comfortable in this plane than the Concorde.

Not sure what Barb was hunkered down for, but she was obviously on the other side of the Plexiglas.  The little signs say: "Cup Holder" -- DUH! And "President Kennedy's Pipe Rack".  I didn't know he even smoked a pipe.

Looks like everybody was well taken care of.  Special treatment for special people.

We felt privileged to be able to see this plane.  Someday one of the current 747's will be retired and hopefully we'll be able see it too.

The red building is where it all started many years ago.  The Boeing Company sure has come a long way, baby.

So, what's Barb pointing at?

Yeah, we're in the Pacific Northwest......where it rains a lot.....and mushrooms grow all over the place.  Even in well groomed landscape!  Then inside to see some really old planes.

Wars, both I and II, contributed to all kinds of advances in aircraft technology, including balloon technology.  And there's Barb trying to take off and land that plane.  Her progress is on the screen, and we were both glad she was well "grounded" while this was going on.  She's a lot better motorhome and Jeep driver than she is a pilot!

Some really amazing planes here.  The one Barb is looking at is in original condition, and from WWI.

Was fun to compare the unrestored with the meticulously restored.

Fun names.  At least they're fun sitting here.  Sure makes us appreciate what the early pilots went through to give us our freedom.

And then even more fun.  After spending money on a new toy, it's a good idea to learn how to use it, eh?  So there we are at a class on using our Whites DFX metal detector.  Actually got a pretty good deal on it.  Bought it new-used-reconditioned-cosmetically-damaged.  The White's company is located in Sweet Home, OR, and takes used ones, reconditions them, gives them a new warrantee, and resells them.  Once in a while they have grade "B" units that have some cosmetic damage.  In this case, there were some scratches on the shaft.  Fun things.  Like that little canvas apron with pockets.  In our case, the pockets were not sized appropriately.  The "Trash" side needs to be a lot bigger and the "Treasure" side needs to be smaller.

They even threw in the hat with the deal.  The guy with the blue cap and blue knee pads is our instructor.  He had a bunch of good stories about metal detector finds (and the jewelry to prove them) as well as a ton of knowledge about all the different detectors that were represented.

You've heard of gophers or "go-for's"?  Well, I've got my own personal digger!  At least I did while the knee was hurting and healing.  The deal is that when you get a strong signal, you cut a "U" shape in the turf, fold it back, and then put the dirt you dig up on a rag or cloth.  Then when you're done, you put the dirt back and fold the turf over, stomp on it and nobody knows you were there.  In this case we found a great big hunk of iron/steel -- that we left right there!  Did find a penny though.  Looking forward to doing this on a beach someplace in our shorts and sandals!