Flying High at Spy View Acres

New Blog Page...

2011-06-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

I suppose I should have done this a while ago (read...8 months or so) but the new page is

www.reallifeofapilotswife.blogspot.com

See ya there!

"Who Would Jesus Furlough" on Undercover Boss

2010-10-22T21:47:00.000-07:00

So I usually watch this show, but I watched the show this week more closely than normal, after all it was an airline (Republic/Frontier/could go on and on) CEO. It starts as they usually do by showing the CEO, his house, and family. The house in this case was more than "big" and bordered on mansion, indoor basketball court and all. So it turns out he has 8 kids and clearly doesn't believe in birth control.

Another soap box for me to get on but let me climb up. So apparently CEO is very religious (as evidenced by 8 or so kids) this happens to be my problem with religious people and religion in general (not the kid part, but the hypociate part), so here we have Mr. CEO who clearly does not live in the slums and can well afford his 8 kids and indoor basketball court. Meanwhile, he acquires airlines lays off pilots and ground personal of those he acquires, and the ones he doesn't fire have make so many concessions that their pay may or may not put them below the poverty line and qualify them for food stamps, this includes the pilots they don't make as much as you thinkg! That's right I know of many pilots who qualify for food stamps.

This aside he's sitting there going "praise god" and clearly his employers are not reaping any benefits from his views or his managing style. Which leads me to a few things...again not a religious person...so in my book, especially in this case "Religion = Hypocrite" Also I found on one of the pilot forums it begs the question "Who Would Jesus Furlough?" I thought that this was funny as hell!!!

Crazy Busy!!

2010-10-07T20:57:00.000-07:00

The last couple weeks have been crazy busy!! John's been in and out a couple of times, I've been working about 4 days a week, and my parents came for Balloon Fiesta! So between everything going on, and the fact that I had to pry the computer from dad's hands I haven't had time to do much of anything online. I haven't made it to Balloon Fiesta this year, but my mom did, and I went to the "Balloon Glow" last years.

"Everything is Fine"

2010-09-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

Why is it that the last 2 days John has had big tests that the animals have all gotten sick? Last week the day before his systems test Hokus got really sick, I even called the vet! He was out of town and I got everything under control without him, but still, when I talked to John I said "Everything is fine" I figured I didn't need him worrying about anything the night before his test. This time its one of our older dogs, he was acting a little strange when I went out to feed the horses, and when I came in he was floundering on the floor, couldn't get up and his gums were white and cold. Fantastic...of course it was after 6 too so no vet (at least without emergency fee's). So I got him up he went outside on the deck and laid down for a while, I gave him 2 anti-inflammatory and say with him for a while. He looks a little better now, can get up better, gums are a normal color, but he's still going to the vet tomorrow. Too bad I have to work tomorrow since I'll be up all night checking on him! So of course tonight when I talked to John "Everything is fine." Hopefully one of these time's I'll actually be able to say it and believe it! BTW if anyone reads this before tomorrow...don't tell John!

I quit......

2010-09-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

Those are the words I texted John yesterday...since I actually talk to him less than 5minutes a day while he's in training now. Yesterday was just one of those pain in the ass days that nothing really went wrong...but nothing went right. I tried to pick up bag (twice) from the airport but no one was there. Alas my bag did not make it with me when I came back on Monday, which was ok....until I couldn't get it. Johns friend called while I was on my way to work and said "I'm in AZ lets do dinner." Which was great but the house wasn't clean and I had to go (try) and get my bag again...blah blah blah ran around in circles! Then I have John whining for the 2min that I talked to him because we can't go to EZE (buenos aires) flights are oversold and I have to work. If you wanted me to be at your beck and call, you shouldn't have told me to get a job!! So yesterday wasn't awful, but just........

So yesterday decided to continue onto today....I get up and tell Floppy to get off the bed and go outside....(mind you I don't have my glasses or contacts in) Floppy looks kind of lopsided to me and staggers a bit....So of course I call him again..this time (even not being able to see) it looks like he's moving but so is the whole bed....Shit...Floppys collar got stuck on John's foo foo comforter. So there's a few thin threads....and I went and bought a cheapo comforter and we'll just use the nice one when John comes home....But on the plus side I didn't have to work today~!!

Friends don't let friends buddy pass, and other Nonrev hell.

2010-09-09T22:24:00.000-07:00

I swear if one more person says "Oh its great you can fly anywhere you want for free" I'm going deck them, tie them up, AND sentence them to Nonreving (which means non revenue and lowest of low on the standby list though not as low as a buddy pass) and see how they like it. Clearly I am just one of those people who is at odds with universe, at least the non-rev universe. I am also convinced that bars in airports were put there for nonrevs. I often hear stories of people who can nonrev all the time, get where they are going, and hardly ever miss a flight......this is not me. I hear the word nonrev and I start to panic looking frantically for the cheapest ticket I can find and hope that having a real seat justifies the price, for those curious sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. With John being out of work this hasn't been an issue as I have only nonreved a handful of times (with permission) in the last 2 years. The last time I did this, because of the loads here in ABQ I DROVE to Amarillo in order to have any prayer of making it to IAH, which I did because of a wonderfully nice gate agent, who was probably pissed that someone showed up 10min late and after the door had closed. BTW don't kid yourself (at least at John's airline) just because the door is closed doesn't mean you are safe, I have seen them drag the jetway back out and open the door, just to throw someone else on, or yank a nonrevoff.

My first nonreving experience was not bad by my standards of luck, I missed about 5 flights before I finally got on one, which then resulted in me running through IAH to make a connection and meet up with John (boyfriend at the time) where he then had to "burn a vacation pass" to get me on the next flight with him. My next time after this was not quite as good...John (still boyfriend) promised me that I would get on the afternoon flight to IAH (as we were going to a concert that night and I had job interview the next day) after missing 2 flights I headed toward the bar, the next flight that left would get me there way to late to make the concert...What better way to drown my sorrow (especially since I had paid for the tickets) than with a margarita. I am happily drinking my strawberry margarita when John calls I answer the phone and all he says is "Run." Not so helpful to me as I was hesitant to leave my half drank margarita and I still had to pay. I did manage to throw some money at the waitress and I was off. For those of you familiar with ORD its a monster of an airport and CAL and UAL not anywhere near each other (at the time). John had apparently cashed in his miles and got me a seat on a flight that left in 10 min. This was with out a doubt the fastest I have ever run in an airport, also bear in mind this is when there was still a dress code for nonreving read = I had heels on. I run up there as they are doing "last call" fling myself on the plane only to find the guy next to me had sprawled out all over my seat. He looked at me confused and said "They said no one was sitting next to me." Yeah there wasn't till 10min ago!

After that my nonrev experiences got better...though in reality there aren't alot of people going in droves to exciting destinations such as Killeen Texas. And other than Johns folly of taking me to LAS over Superbowl weekend (in which we missed flights and I had to call in sick to work) the few trips I went on, went well.

Then there was BNA (Nashville) I should have never gotten there I only went to the airport to humor John and of course for the Margaritas. I managed to make the flight (miracle of bad weather and missed connections as it was oversold by 5). I make friends with the FA, he's super cool and has no problem with me following them to the hotel as John had been in Nashville since early afternoon. Just as I am about to board the crew van to the hotel the FO looks at me and says "If he was here earlier he is at the long overnight hotel downtown." Fantastic....its close to 7:30pm by this time the terminal is empty and by the looks of it downtown is a ways a way. I call John less than happy, he manages to get me a ride to the hotel...via every other hotel in the city. I make it to the hotel and we all (the whole crew) goes to dinner, which was the highlight of this trip!

We get up the next morning get ready to head for the airport, go downstairs to print my boarding pass......the printer eats it...shit...but not the end of the world I can get one at the airport right? WRONG the computers are down! And no one at the counter can do anything because it says I'm already checked in. At this point John is running late and bolts through security to find the rest of the crew. So.....the nice people at the ticket counter write me a ticket. Thats right...in this post 9/11 world they had write me a ticket (everyone at BNA was super helpful!) this was great of them....until I get to security can anyone guess what TSA thought of my hand written ticket?? You guessed correctly if you said "Pull her aside and seach her." So they were not so thrilled with the handwritten ticket. So back to the ticket counter I go WITH the TSA manager, finally he is convinced I am not a terrorist and I get through security in time to find out AA (American airlines) has cancelled a flight to DFW. And while I am going to IAH this may not seem like a problem, until they reroute everyone through IAH to get to DFW, and of course without the computers up this is a nightmare. I mange to see John before he takes off for EWR and with a few choice words for him he's gone. Leaving me at BNA for what turns out to be the better part of 12 hours. I manage to hook up with some other nonrevs and we sit around all day together and eat lunch. At least she was a more experienced nonrev than I (bear in mind all this is before we got married) and knew how to get an illusive (to me) id90 on Southwest, which would at least get us to Houston. We decided to wait until the last flight out in case (by some miracle) we got on. So about 20min before push I wander up to the gate agent, by this time we are good friends (no matter how bad the day ALWAYS be nice to these people!!!) to inquire on my chances of getting on. He looks and me and my new friend and says "Everything is so screwed up with computer being down, here are two tickets get on now." God bless this gate agent as I am sure he helped us out.

This is the reason my blood runs cold when it is suggested I nonrev someplace, though I am much better about it now than I was (I can also look up loads now to which is helpful) I hate the uncertainty that comes with it and the fact that bad luck seems to follow me around. So to those of you who say "fly free anywhere" I will happily give you a buddy pass (which by the way is about as expensive as a ticket now) and meet you in the bar!

So wish me luck this weekend!!

Tropical Storm Hermine......

2010-09-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

So I'm having a wonderful weekend with my hubby being home and today was his last day here before having to leave tomorrow. I get a call from my mom about noon...looks like there's a tropical storm going to hit Texas...What?! I completely missed this! This stinks....it means that John went back to IAH today instead of tomorrow. This blows as it means I got one day less with John than I had planned. Stupid tropical storm!

Video for Hubby!

2010-09-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

I finally got this done!!! Don't know why it says Alaska but...one pic is from Alaska...

Barrel of Monkeys

2010-08-31T23:31:00.000-07:00

Ok so this pic is a little out of focus but I love it! We both look so happy in it.....good thing to remember since John has been gone since Saturday morning and I'm not sure when I'll see him again. He was told he would be positive spaced to and from training, which would make sense as they positive spaced him to IAH to do the drug test and background paperwork. Only to find out TODAY (in an email none the less) that because his base is still IAH they won't positive space him, even though they said they would...and they did last week.

This pretty much sucks, not to mention John is asleep and I can't talk to him about it! We are having 2 get togethers this weekend and John was supposed to be back on Saturday night BUT since they won't positive space him...maybe not...he can jumpseat...so says the girl that apparently didn't know he couldn't be ps. But I know John and he won't want to take the chance of not getting to school so my guess is if he does come home at all it means a) buying a ticket.. ahhh and its last minute now...crap...or b)taking a chance and jumpseating which means he would probably go back Monday night instead of Tuesday night. It also means there is NO WAY he is going to be home the 2 weekends after that! Also he doesn't have to wear the uniform to jumpseat but he usually does (tends to make it easier) and his uniform is (of course) not with him, it is at his cousins house about 1 1/2 away from the training center...... Pretty much this can be summed up with one word..crappy.....So far this whole "going back to school" hasn't been a Barrel of Monkeys....maybe that would be a good name for wine...since clearly I am going to be buying stock in some kind of alcholol before this is over!

Back to Work....

2010-08-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

Whoo hooo...who thought this day would never come? Be honest......ok me.....I wasn't so sure John would ever go back to work after all the surgeries and therapy BUT he starts training on Monday!! A big part of that is in thanks to one of my (new) good friends whose husband works for the same company as John and is also coming off ltd and starting...Monday! I found out about the class from her, and John just kept asking (nicely) that he be put in that class, and the background check came through this morning so it worked perfectly! But now it will be weird...John's been off (this time) since July 2007.....and was off for a 6 months before that. I'll have to get used to being on my own again, of course this means I won't have to make the bed every morning, and I will go around frantically cleaning the day he comes home :)

His training schedule is actually quite good though, he will be gone 7 days now (and it wouldn't even be that many if he wasn't driving to IAH). Then he will be home for 3 1/2 and after that he has school for 4 off for 2 or 3 until the end of October he'll do his final check so he should hit the line Nov 1!!!

Back to IAH

2010-08-23T09:23:00.001-07:00

One word (Fail) sums up John's first attempt to get to IAH, via positive spacing. There is nothing better than getting up at 3am for a 6:30am flight and NOT making it because its oversold. Clearly the word Fail is the word of the day. By the time I came back from dropping John off at ABQ (5:30ish) one would have thought that at least McDonald's would be open for breakfast....but no such luck...then I almost had a jackass hit me in the McDonald's parking lot (later when they were open) because he blew a stop sign...he was in such a hurry to get to the gas station and wait...Then I go through the drive thru and this dumbass....different than the jackass... places her order...drives around...stops her car at the window....gets out...gets her purse out of the backseat...(up to this point I would have forgiven her) WALKS up to the window.....then (my favorite part) tries to use McDonald's like an ATM. She asks the guy if she can get cash back if she uses her debit card.....WTF?! I don't think I'm going outside again until I have to pick up John tonight....

Airline Death

2010-08-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

The dates on this are wrong, as this headstone was originally for branded flying BUT I thought that given the current situation..............Anyways not too much on the merger front other than a few of us have discovered that ASA health insurance SUCKS! This sucks for us, given how much we have used it over the last 3-4 years. John is going back to work on Monday to do paperwork and background check, once that clears he will get a schedule, so the sooner the better :)

Mergers...Airlines...and where to live....

2010-08-10T00:40:00.000-07:00

I found this picture and thought it was hilarious!

So of course now that John is almost (he still has to get released from his neurosurgeon) ready to go back to work...SURPRISE it's merger time with XJT and ASA (in all fairness not a super big surprise to those in the know). Since I had, thankfully, convinced John to based trade to ORD (promising him he could get an Ipad as a reward) he will at least be able to hold a line and hopefully fly ALOT before they merger the seniority lists.

Since he's going to fly as much as possible once he goes back, this begs the question of...(since both our parents live there) should I go back with him for a while...about 8 months or so. At first it would seem like a good idea, I would actually get to see him, though with as much as he's going to be flying..it still wouldn't be a lot. I would be closer to my parents and a few of my friends that still live there.......However our entire herd cannot stay at my parents (they have an apartment) and while we could probably stay at John's in the basement..fully furnished walk out basement...I'm not sure that would be the best choice either.....and with either choice we would have to board the horse....thats some money...boarding 3 horses in Chicago area...eeek. Plus I would have to try and find at least a part time job, well I wouldn't have to but I would want to.

So then that bring us to me staying here.....well I won't see John much maybe twice a month, which sucks! But I also am pretty sure I could have a part time job here, and I have quite a few friends here as well. Plus we wouldn't have to pay to board the horses because they live here! I am hopeful that my mom will come stay out here with me for a few weeks that would be fun, plus she could animal sit so I could go see John!

Either way it's a crappy deal. Stay here and don't see him, but have job and friends and horses or go to ORD and not see him alot, no job, but family and friends and pay for horses. It's going to stink for a while no matter how you spin it....

Welcome to the wonderful world of airline mergers....and this one hasn't hardly started yet!!!

Expressjet and Skywest

2010-08-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

So its official, we are now going to be part of the Skywest family, via ASA since they are ALPA and we aren't. We are just praying that dh stays a CA until he can get his 1000 hours and get out. Also it seems ASA's insurance isn't as good as XJT's, so there is another potential pitfall. And now dh's company will be based in ATL which is a long ass ways away from here! So I guess we will just wait and see......

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100804-712443.html

2010-07-05T10:24:00.001-07:00

2010-07-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

Happy Hokus or "Spy Vs Spy"

2010-06-02T17:42:00.000-07:00

So we made it back home from Houston to ABQ last week, then I spent a few days in Denver with my grandparents. Today I decided to hop on Hokus and ride a little, he was such a good trooper :) Got some fantastic pictures, thanks to Johns new camera.

Food makes a good bed....

2010-02-10T09:31:00.000-08:00

Well we are back in Houston...this time for John, something about a bulging disk in his back, which is great fun for me, as he is kind of a baby about pain. But there are some really good things about Texas, no one here seems to much (at all) care about the horses, its great! Also best food around! Lots of good restraunts and such. As you can see from the picture the horses are quite happy, Hokus decided that the remaining roundbale would make a nice bed for a while :)

New Year!

2010-01-08T08:00:00.001-08:00

Since I am truly horrible and keeping up this blog, and apparently haven't posted anything since August. I figured I'd recap a little. In October we went to Oktoberfest in Ruidoso NM. Nothing like the real one in Germany I am assuming but still a lot of fun!
Then it was off the Las Vegas for the U2 concert which was great! So much fun and U2 was fantastic! This was the stage in Vegas for the concert.
We went on a wonderful transatlantic cruise that started in Barcelona and ended in San Juan. With many stops in Spain, we even got to go to Agadir (Morocco) and the Canary Islands! (Picture is above...I'm not good enough to actually place the pic's where I want them!)

We have decided to rent our old "apartment" in Texas (near Houston) as Dh is going to have to have surgery again sometime this spring and if he ever goes back to work it is a perfect crash pad. I also have 2 jobs there so it works out well.

Airplanes and houses

2009-08-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

Here is a pic of our subdivision (and house) from the air. I really like living here (with the exception of a few people) its pretty, rural, and sunny most of the time. John doesn't like the weather but its really not too bad, if it does snow it is usually melted by noon... the benefits of living in the high desert!

Mindy's Wedding

2009-07-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

So these last couple of months have been a blur! Between Alaska, Mindy's Wedding, and surgery, I can't believe it's almost August! This is one of the few pics that turned out well from John's sisters wedding. This is John's cousin and I playing bartender before the wedding. Too bad there was no booze back there at the time :)

2009-07-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

So these are a few from our cruise in May to Alaska. We cruised the inside passage, took a float plane, and got to go into the Yukon Territory!

2009-05-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

So this is Polly. Polly was our pinata at our Cinco de Mayo party at our neighbors. Polly was stuffed with alcohol, those little bottles, but we had to make sure we got the plastic ones, spilt booze is definitely a party foul! So the bat actually left with a friend who had to go fix a water heater, so we literally used a big stick. We let all the old people take cracks a Polly, and this is what was left of Polly, mostly there just missing feet!

Jack Vs Flop....Winner is Jack!

2009-04-17T17:01:00.001-07:00

It's Monday I've just gotten home from work and am frantically looking for a package to Las Vegas to go see the Fei World Cup (which I never did find). Our sliding doors are open and I hear dogs barking...a little odd because ours have bark collars but the neighbors don't....So after about 2 min of this I get up to go look...at this point our neighbors are shouting at us that our dogs are fighting...GREAT...Why not?...but on my frantic run down there I'm thinking what about the collars.? I reach them only to discover that they had bitten/ripped them off each other....great...so I go about breaking them up, the fun part. So I grab Floppy first, really because he was the closest, pry his jaws off Jack then start to drag him away and to my surprise Jack turns around and bites Flop again! At this point I could have killed him! So I am screaming for John to come and get Jack...some neighbor who has a dog that I haven't managed to place yet is trying to talk to me through the fence..why? I haven't figured out yet..I think I heard something like they were barking at her dog and then turned on each other? Anyway John comes down and picks Jack up and we drag them into their separate cages. Spend about 10min looking for the clippers hold Jack and Flop down to see what war wounds they each had. Jack not so bad, some scrapes on the neck (Flop had these to, probably from the collars being dragged off each other) a small puncture wound on his leg and a scape on his chest overall not bad...Scrubbed it with betadine threw some hydrogen peroxide on it and entederm and called it good. On to the Flop, Flop did not fair so well (he's fine but definitely got the short end of the stick!) Puncture wound on the top of his head, puncture would on his ear (at first I thought it went threw but it didn't) and a puncture wound on his neck along with the scratches...Same as with Jack, betadine, hydrogen peroxide, entederm, both got anti-biotics and Rimadyl. Flop got the added fun of the ice pack, my biggest concern was that his head and ear would swell before the anti-inflammatory would kick in so that's what these pics are Flop with ice pack wrapped to his head:) He was relatively good about it and we did it twice Monday night and have cleaned the punctures everyday since then, and he knows when we are going to do it, he looks really sad and tries to run!

Mr. Neeks!

2009-04-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

Ok so I've been a little slack on blogging, but here are some pics of Mr. Neeks aka Fallen Leaf. We had our first (and so far only because of weather and the FEI show in Vegas) lesson with Jose Luis and he was great! He has a great system, he has 2 battery packs with head phones on one and a mic on the other so I clipped the pack to my sweater and put the earphones in and it was great! No yelling across the arena, or to those of you who know the wind, plus since it was a nice day the planes landing at ABQ Sunport were right over head. Mr. Neeks being the trooper he is didn't flinch though :) Although it might help that he has smaller planes go right by his paddock. Jose Luis gave me some good things to work on so I have actually been riding almost every day. I also found a great little tack store in Santa Fe that had consignment saddles, so I found a great dressage saddle for pretty cheap! So I tried cantering Mr. Neeks this week before John leaves and he was of course great, I think someone did a little more work with him than we anticipated since he got off the track. Anyways no riding today its snowing so hard I can't see across the runway!! And yes I know my position isn't that great...

2009-03-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

I figured this was a fitting picture to put up in honor of our friend Randy who died Monday in an airplane crash.

Not Fun

2009-02-25T20:52:00.000-08:00

My poor mother was commandeered into watching our "herd" while I had surgery in Houston. Knock on wood so far she hasn't had too many problems. So we are heading back to see her tomorrow, she has been there for almost three weeks, and it seems that our recently acquired dog (Floppy) has fallen in love with her. Floppy also happens to like Mommy Sue's other dogs, so I think it is fine if she takes him home. She keeps insisting that doesn't want him, but I think this is just an act. So I ended up having two surgeries. One on my nose (since apparently, unknown to me) I broke it a few years ago when I fell off (not sure which horse). And I ended up having a cyst on my ovary. The worst thing about surgeries is waking up from them and leaving. Honestly an hour after I wake up, they are kicking you out. John is a good husband and is faithfully waiting in the chair next to my bed when the nurse comes in and says, "She can get dressed and leave now, BUT she has to stay in bed while she gets dressed." Huh? apparently this is some new thing they instituted, no doubt because of lawyers and people falling and such. But seriously has anyone ever tried this? I would rate this up there with climbing Mt. Everest, without a sherpa! John did his best mind you I'm only half awake, and I have gauze pads taped (yes taped) to my face under my nose, AND I have two incisions in my stomach to try and avoid. I did mange to get dressed and then of course they have to take you out in a wheel chair (another lawyer thing I'm sure). It kind of reminded me of being at the dentist when he's trying to talk to you...Nurse "Which one is your car?" Me in wheelchair with thing taped on face "Thhad oonnn." So anyways I'm excited to be heading home tomorrow, though our friend has been great about letting us crash in his spare bedroom, plus he just had his first baby (well his girlfriend did) so it was super great of him to let us stay here with all that going on! So its Adios Houston for now!

Starfish Cat

2009-02-07T14:16:00.000-08:00

This is Fat Ass. She is a Manx the largest of our "Cat Herd."

2009-02-03T20:26:00.000-08:00

Ok it's offical now we have a new pony to put in the barn! He's 5 and off the track so we will see how he does, we won't know for a while since I won't be doing anything with him for the next month while we are gone, so he gets a month vacation!

2009-01-12T21:53:00.000-08:00

Ok this is a little better picture of the barn and of course all the scrap wood in front of it!

Barn!!

2009-01-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

Ok I finally got the barn pictures!!! The barn is now being used for hay storage, though we did ride in there once...glad we have it up now though since it is cold and snowy...You can't tell from the pic but there is a little bit of trim work that still needs to be done, but close enough for now!

Greetings from the airport lobby.

2008-12-19T01:53:00.000-08:00

Hello All

This was a message heard over the PA system in the lobby of the DAL airport......

Greetings John and Christy from the Dallas-Love field international airport lobby PA system. Current time is 1209am. Your flight may leave at 615am. Please be advised that there is nothing here to eat or drink or do. Your chances of successfully completing your mission without killing anyone or starving are 30%. If you do arrive, you will not have had a shower or sleep before having dinner with the family. Chances of Christy killing parents and husband are 80%. A bottle of wine may reduce odds, but not by more than 10%....+/- 20% margin of error. If you (Christy) manage to return on Sunday chances of truck being done and parked at airport 0%. Chances of friends picking up Christy from airport and going out to dinner...hopefully close to 100%. The PA system feels very bad for this inconvience...

PS>.....Please Send Help Soon!

Signing off...

The Dallas Love Field Lobby PA system...

1956

2008-11-14T10:51:00.000-08:00

Everything in this picture is from 1956. It is a 1956 V-Tail Bonanza, a 56 Thunderbird, and a 56 Lincoln. I think it is one of Johns favorite pictures!

Dumbo's

2008-11-14T10:49:00.001-08:00

This is Jumbo Jet aka "Dumbo" as you can see he his helping me.....

Ponies New House

2008-11-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

Well I finally got the pics loaded into the

computer! This is where the barn is going and what its going to look like...This was taken about a week ago. So now we have walls on the back and the right side! Its really coming along well (and of course the neighbors hate it!) The only problems we have really had are the winds!! It is soooo Windy here I wish someone would have told us that before we moved! Hopefully we will finish up this weekend and I can get a completed pic up!!

Balloon Fiesta!!

2008-10-14T21:32:00.000-07:00

Balloon Fiesta this year was almost a bust. The weather both weekends was really bad and the mass ascensions were cancelled 3 of the 4 times. This one we went to was on Wednesday though technically not a "mass ascension" (those are only on Saturdays and Sundays) it was called the Mass ascension of Nations. There were still alot of balloons!!!

"Flop"

2008-10-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

Well we have a "foster" dog now named "Flop"......We found a dog running loose around our subdivision on Thursday, so of course he ended up at our house. He seems to be a very sweet (although scared) puppish dog. We called animal control (mostly so we could beat our neighbors to it since they love to call them on us!) to come and see if he had a microchip or anything, and of course he doesn't, so we are "fostering" him until he finds a home, unless of course his home ends up being here. One of our neighbors might take him because their dog just passed away, so we will see if they actually take him. Flop is pictured here with one of the clowns (our black lab brother/sister set) this clown is Jilly.
John finally called the Dr's today to see what was going on, because in May they said the average time to find a knee was 6 weeks.....we are looking a little more like 6 months right now and just wanted to make sure that he was still in the system. The Dr actually called him back and said he must be unlucky because this is the longest they have ever waited for a knee! The only good thing is that at least he will be home for Christmas!!!

A Wing Weekend

2008-09-28T09:51:00.001-07:00

So hubby bought a "new to us" Goldwing (which I will hopefully get a pic of up here) the other week and we rode up to Santa Fe yesterday. It was really a nice ride, not alot of people on the road, and we went through the town of Madrid. This was the town where they filmed some of Wild Hogs. We got to see "Maggies Dinner" although this is not a real restaurant and you can't go in it but you can take a pic! All in all it was a nice day and a nice ride....
Only to come back and find that the old mean people who live here haven't died yet! And they are going door to door...well selective doors...to try and get a petition to get rid of our horses! I swear do these people have anything else do to besides wait for the Grim Reaper?! We found this out because one of the old mean people went door to door to the wrong door, and the nice people told us about this... Hubby said he was going to go talk to them, but that hasn't panned out yet.... In the background is our 3 legged wonder dog named Suka!!

House Pics!

2008-09-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

Since everyone has been asking about pics of the house here they are...well at least one pic at any rate. Those big tall things in front of the house are sunflowers, at least they were two weeks ago when I took these pics, now they are pretty much dead....along with a couple of our trees that I am trying to keep alive!

State Fair!

2008-09-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

So hubby and I and some friends went to the New Mexico State Fair yesterday. It was really actually quite nice, we watched the horse show for a while, which was pretty pathetic because for some reason the Wild West here isn't know for Saddlebreds, Morgans, or Arabians... So we walked around for a while and got a great fan with a pic of dolphins on it I'll try and put a pic up here of it soon. So we get to the best part Carnival Rides!!! Who can't resist paying 5 or 6 dollars a pop to go on a rusty rickety ride, run by someone who's not "all there." Well neither dh or I could resist this temptation, though in the interest of saving money we went on only one ride..the Zipper... This is possible the best "old style" carnival ride ever. It turned out it was our lucky day! The ride operator wasn't "all there" and was waayyy more concerned with pissing off the kids who tried to rock the cars. So we got done with our ride.....still sitting in the cage watching the sun set on the mountains which was quite nice...and bam here we went again, he didn't take us off so we got another ride! Though in all fairness this may have had something to do with him not being "all there." The second ride however was not quite as good as the first because he would randomly slam on the brakes to try and keep the kids from rocking the cars...Our friends who didn't feel like dying yesterday were standing on the ground laughing!

Animal Control and No Job

2008-09-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

So we get back from vacation and while we were gone our very good friends watched our animals at our house. They have dogs, used to have horses, overall very good for our "zoo." But some old mean people in our subdivision (we have alot of old people here and in my experince most of them are mean) called animal control saying that our horses were not being taken care of. The history on this is that when we moved into the subdivision the covenants allow 3 horses per lot (we only have 2 at this time) BUT we were the first people here to have horses so this made some of these old people mad (even though some of them were the ones that wrote the covenants). So they are trying anything to get the horses out and one of them actually yelled at us and told us their property values were going to go down because of the horses, never mind the really expensive house we built or the barn... So anyway animal control comes to visit us, which little do the old mean people know, we know the people at animal control rather well because for their fundraisers we go to and take our dogs, last time we had the Clowns microchiped, we had dog food they wouldn't eat so we donated it to them, the animal control guy knows us and likes us. So it was not big deal he came out and we visited for a while and he said he got the feeling it was a group of people, but legally couldn't tell us who, he also said if it wasn't illegal to not check out every report he wouldn't have come at all because he knows us. I have a pretty good idea of who was behind this, but its annoying because for the last 6 months or so everything has been pretty quiet but someone thought since we were gone maybe they could get rid of the horses...

The next great piece of new I got was that the job offer that I took was no longer "available." They actually offered me the job, I accept it , turned down another job, then they called the other day and said that the girl they had was working out fine instead, But that they would keep my name and number like I would go back and work for them now.....So I'm back at square one with no job!!!!!

Aloha!

2008-09-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

Dh and I just got back from our great week in Hawaii! We went to a great luau where it was all you can eat, and drink, they had 2 huge bowls of mai tais and then they would put and extra shot in each one it was great, another bonus was that it was at the hotel we stayed so we didn't have to drive anywhere. We went snorkling twice and the second time we got to swim with two sea turtles it was an awsome experience. We also went to Volcanoes National Park, but the crater road was closed because of Kilauea that was spouting out sulpher dioxide gas, but it turned out to be a great picture. We also went to Mauna Kea which is where alot of the worlds telescopes are (besides Chile) it is great stargazing at night since you are near the equator and the skies are clear. Of course all good things must come to an end and we arrived yesterday back here to the zoo! Of course everyone was thrilled to see us and Beast (our malamutt) even decided to grace us with his presence and come in the house for a while.