On The Road with Jim and Pat

Hello from Gunnison, CO

Friday night   February, 24 2011   (First travelogue of this trip).

Hi folks.  As has been the case too much lately, we have not posted to this blog very often.  With rare exception we limit our posts to travel-related dialogue and we have not traveled much in the last few years months.  In a few weeks, our bus travel will begin and then our posting will be more frequent.

This is a very special trip.  I am with my daughter Judy, grandson Thomas and his friend Austin.  Judy refers to Austin as her third son.  Fortunately, they have taken Austin under their wing and will become his legal guardian in the near future.  This trip was to visit two colleges that Thomas has been accepted to. 

Pat is helping with daughter Kelly and the kids while Damon is on a business trip.

We left the Bailey, CO area Thursday morning and traveled to Alamosa to visit Adams State College.  This was mainly a quick visit to get a feeling about the facilities and their program.  It seems like a good school, but it is not Thomas’ first choice.

We left Alamosa late in the afternoon and took a short cut route (CO 114) over to Gunnison.  It turned out to be a very scenic drive and the weather was great, albeit cold.  We would not attempt that route in one of the frequent snow storms, but it worked out great for this trip.

We are staying 2 nights in the Super 8 in Gunnison.  If any of you followed our non-bus travels, you know I really do not care for Super 8 motels.  Their idea of a “Super Starter” breakfast is Fruit Loops and toast.  Well, my usual choice of Holiday Inn Express was over $160 and we were not going to pay that kind of money.  As it turns out, this Super 8 seems to be the exception to the rule.  The rooms are the typical lower level affair, but clean.  But the real surprise was that they had a very good hot breakfast!!  Not even a Fruit Loop in the place {grin}.

Today we went to a formal “Preview Day” at Western State College (http://www.western.edu/).  Both Thomas and Austin have been accepted here and it was the school that they were interested in.  All of the attendees today had preregistered for the all day event.

The day started with a tour, followed by a general presentation by the staff.  Then the parents and students split up.  The parents were treated to some more great informational presentations followed by a question and answer period.

The students rejoined the parents and then the big group split up into academic interest groups.  Our first stop was Natural and Environmental department which includes the Geology curriculum that Thomas is interested in.  It was very informational.  The next session we went to was the athletic department session.  Austin is very good at football and track.  It looks like he might be interested in trying out for the track team.

We were then treated to a great lunch in the student cafeteria.  It is a fantastic buffet offering almost any kind of food that a person would want.  They can eat all the want for that meal.  And it was very tasty food.

The afternoon had more presentations and all of the clubs and societies had booths to show the students what activities are available.

I think I will ring off here and fill in some additional details tomorrow.

Hello from Nashville, TN

Wednesday morning   January 12, 2011   (First travelogue of this trip).

Well, this will be a strange travelogue.  You see, I am writing this from Evergreen, CO, but Pat is in Nashville for a Stampin’ Up! Leadership Convention. 

Yesterday, I drove her to the airport so that she could attempt to get to Nashville.  I use the word “attempt” advisedly, as that part of the country is having terrible weather and Nashville was basically shut down Monday and the airport was closed.  It turns out that her flight was only delayed about an hour.

The snow and ice have played havoc with the area.  Several of the demonstrators came in early with the intent of doing some sightseeing on Monday.  With the weather conditions, that did not happen.

Pat is staying at the Gaylord Hotel (link) in the Opryland complex (map).  Actually she spent last night at a different hotel, as the Gaylord was booked up for another convention.  She is getting ready to move today.

Apparently, the hotel adjoins the conference center so the demonstrators will not have to brave the elements.  That said, she will be attending the Manager’s Dinner tonight and that is off premises.  I think she said that they will have buses.

I have only experienced these kinds of gatherings a few times.  Obviously, there was a lot of similar activities on the cruises.  I did go with Pat to a Stampin’ Up! Convention in Salt Lake city a couple of years ago.  I can not begin to describe to you the energy that is involved with these events.  There are hundreds of demonstrators, all having a huge amount of fun and learning all kinds of neat stuff.

One activity that really defies description is what they call swapping.  The demonstrators make up items with the Stampin’ Up! products  and then swap with each other to get new ideas.  Pat typically does 100-200 cards and or decorative items (this year, a neat candy holder).  I witnessed one swapping session that was nothing short of a fish feeding frenzy.  That is not a great picture, but I think you get the idea {grin}.

She is usually very busy and only has a few minutes to talk on the phone.  I will try to pass on some details as I get them.

That is all for now.

Hello from Dillon, CO

Wednesday morning    December 29, 2010  

We are at our daughter and her family’s great townhouse in Dillon, CO (map).  They bought this townhouse as an investment/get away.  The townhouse is currently leased by a company to house one of the working families.  They are between families and Kelly and Damon have been able to enjoy their town house for the holiday season. 

Their town house is wonderfully decorated and very comfortable.  We are so glad that they invited us to stay with them.  We came up Monday afternoon and will leave for home today.  We would like to stay longer, but things have been quite hectic for the past few weeks and we have quite a few things that need to get done in the next couple of days.

Yesterday morning we just plain vegged out.  That was good for all of us.  Our daughter and her family are always on the go and they need to relax a bit.  In the afternoon, we did a bit of driving around and then Kelly and Damon and the two girls went sledding while Pat and I watched from the top of the hill.  They had a ball.  After that we went snowshoeing into the campground where we will have our family vacation around the fourth of July.  We scouted out the campsites that we have reserved and they look great.

The granddaughters (5 and 7) are great at snowshoeing.  The day was beautiful, and the snow was great.  They have had a lot of snow in the area and we were in “virgin” snow.  I was glad that I could keep up with them.

This area has been devastated by the pine bark beetle.  This beetle attacks the lodgepole pine trees.  I was happy to see that there were pine species that have survived and there are also some aspen in the area.

Today we may try to get in a quick snowshoe session and then we will head home this afternoon.  We will take the scenic route home.  That will take us from Dillon to Breckenridge, then to Fairplay and home via US 285.

As our readers have noted, we have not posted in quite some time.  We created this blog as a travelogue and we have not done much traveling lately.  Our travel plans for next year are up in the air.  We have canceled our trip to Quartzsite in January.   We have made the decision that we will not be attending trade shows for the foreseeable future.  The RV market is in the toilet and the trade show attendance is way down.  It just does not make any sense to speed a lot of money getting to the shows and then not selling enough to pay for the trip. 

Instead, we have a few great personal trips lined up.  The first tentative trip is to the California and Nevada area in March to attend a couple of races and “veg out” in our favorite remote area south of Death Valley:  Shoshone

As I have noted in the past, if you want to follow our travels, it might be best to sign up for email notification so that you will know when we post.

That is all for this trip

Hello again from Anaheim, CA

Friday morning   November 12, 2010   (second travelogue of this trip).

If you have been following my posts in the past week or two, you know that Pat and I were not very thrilled with some aspects of the Norwegian cruise ship – mostly design issues.  However, after following the terrible situation on the Carnival ship Splendor, I guess my bitching pales in comparison to what those folks had to endure.  At least we were not served Spam and our toilets worked {grin}.  I  also want to re-emphasize that the overall cruise was quite fun – primarily because we were with some wonderful family and friends.

As we were departing the ship last week, I began to develop all of the symptoms of a cold.  Indeed, it looked like I would be under the weather for this trip (not fun to fly when you are congested).  However, I started my regimen of  Zinc and Vitamin C and it seems that I avoided the worst of the cold symptoms.  I feel pretty good and have only minimal evidence of a cold.

Yesterday was a fun day.  Gary (the person we designed the new system for) is a drag racing fan, so we planned on going to the Thursday qualifying session of the final NHRA  national race of the year.

Before we did that, we went to the location where we will be doing our testing to make sure they were ready for us.  This is a huge facility with probably 100 or more trash truck.  Most are powered with compressed natural gas engines.  When one thinks of a trash truck, the picture is not pretty.  However, these trucks are immaculate and most look like they are brand new.  Each truck is washed each day and the maintenance seems to be top notch (we briefly toured the maintenance area).  They seemed ready for our testing.  We will do quite a bit of the setup this  afternoon and the actual tests will be performed tomorrow (Saturday) when the yard will not be as active.

We then went to Pomona and I had a blast at the races.  I met up with a very good friend (a good Gates customer) and we spent most of the day together.  Steve and my customer hit is off well, so it all fit together nicely. I even got to put on my “blower belt hat” on and worked with Steve in one of the pits of a top Fuel Funny Car.  Steve was delivering a test belt and we got to talk quite a bit to the crew about the operation of the car and the installation of the test belt.  Gary, my customer, had a great time in that pit area.  I also got to say hi to a good friend/racer that I worked with many years ago.  Lou, has terminal cancer and I really wanted to talk to him before it was too late.

My relationship with Steve started out as a customer/vendor when I worked for Gates.  That quickly changed to great personal friendship.  Some folks say we look like twins (he has more hair) and to a degree, I think we both feel like we are twins.  We have kept in touch over the years and this year we  have gotten together twice.  We must act like a couple of old ladies trying to catch up on all of the events of the past few years {big grin}.

We got to see one round of the nitro car qualifications and that was icing on the cake!

That is all for today.

Hello from Anaheim, CA

Wednesday night    November 10, 2010   (First travelogue of this trip).

I am in Anaheim, CA without the bus and Pat.  I flew here today.  More about that in a paragraph or two.

I did not get a chance to finish the last travelogue.  When we left off, we were at sea and running several hours behind.  The problem was that we were not able to leave the pier in Cozumel due to high winds.  About half way from Cozumel to Miami, the captain announced that they would arrive in Miami at 10:00 AM on Saturday (over two hours late).  That caused us considerable concern about making our flight.  I got on the internet and started corresponding with our travel agent.  She did some work with South West Airlines to see what our options were.  As it turns out, we were at the pier by 9:00 AM and easily made our flight.  Everyone noted the much faster speed of the ship on that leg of the trip.  I would hate to pay the fuel bill for that trip!!!

In the last blog I was discussing the fact that this was not our favorite ship.  Indeed, it was not our favorite cruise line.  Pat loves the formal dining format where you have an assigned table in a very fancy dining room.  Everything on the  menu is included and you can order as much as you want.  After dinner you can order a cappuccino – also included.  Dress code is pretty strict.  Most have at least one “formal” night.  I, on the other hand like the Norwegian Cruise Line “Freestyle Cruising” where you go to one of perhaps 10 or more restaurants.  The dress code is informal and you don’t have assigned seats.  It seemed neat to me the last time we were on Norwegian.  Not so this time.  There were 13 restaurants (including the pool bar).  Out of the 13 only 4 were no cost.  The rest cost between $10 and $30.  The beloved room service pizza for the kids is now $5 and the cappuccino is no longer include in the cruise fee.  That just goes against our grain.  A major enjoyable feature of cruises is the fact that the food is great and included in the cost of the cruise.  Perhaps that is a thing of the past.

Now lets talk about this trip.  I am staying at the Embassy Suites hotel in Anaheim (map).  This is a business trip to test a new product that we have developed.  I will also get in one day at the NHRA drag races at Pomona.  That will allow me to see some old friends.

As background, a bit over a year ago, we were approached by a major vendor to the specialized heavy duty vehicle market.  Our fire detection system was very interesting to him and would compliment the gas detection system he markets to the natural gas powered commercial vehicles (mandated by the government).  We did a preliminary design of a very comprehensive gas detection/fire detection system.  The project became very complex and we decided to focus on the fire detection phase.  A couple of months ago we finished developing a rather sophisticated detection system that would function with an new generation fire suppression system developed by the people who manufacture the suppression system that I market to the RV market.  All of our testing was very successful, but the customer wanted to work with one of his customers to do some joint testing.

Our customer has arranged to do some testing at a refuse facility that has a fleet of trash trucks.  These trucks experience fires periodically and it appears to be a good market.

I will try to detail the event of the next few days as time permits.

Hello from somewhere in the Caribbean

Friday afternoon    November 5, 2010   (Fourth travelogue of this trip).

I will spend most of this post talking about the ship.  However, there is one item that I forgot to mention.  Pat got very sick late Tuesday night.  Acted like the flu.  She was pretty puny most of Wednesday, but felt reasonably good on Thursday for the wedding.  No one else got sick, so I doubt it was the flu.  We all ate about the same things, so that was probably not the problem.  The doctors have to really minimize her immunity system because of the RA and it could have been a very benign bug that got her.

We are having a kind of exciting day.  The captain announced last night that we could not leave the dock due to high winds.  They did not seem all that high to me, but what do I know.  Well, this morning  I woke up early and we were still at the dock!  We finally departed at 8:00 AM Miami time and that gave us 24 hours to travel 6-700 miles.  We were supposed to leave Thursday at 5:30 central time.  After we had been at sea for a couple of hours, the captain announced that we would arrive in Miami at 10:00 AM Saturday.  That really puts us in a bind to make our flight.  I have acted as the group correspondent with the travel agent to establish contingency plans.  She seems to think we can make our flight.  I think that is optimistic, as just about everything would have to go perfect (including clearing customs which can take quite a while).  We will keep you posted.

Up until today the seas have been like glass.  However, this storm really has us rocking.  The waves are said to be at least 15 feet.  I am surprised that a ship of this size with all of the latest stability technology is rocking as bad as it is.  Most everybody is feeling OK, but the ship is handing out sea sickness pills to anyone that wants them.

Now to the ship.  Before I start in with that discussion, which will be a bit negative, I need to be clear that we have enjoyed this cruise.  This has not been our favorite ship for several reasons.  First, the rooms seem to be designed by someone who does not have a clue.  The theme is curved surfaces/walls and that resulted in separate toilet and shower areas -both of which are frosted glass enclosed and just plain uncomfortable from a privacy standpoint.  The sink is very shallow and tends to splash. Indeed, they changed our faucet (without our asking) with the stated reason being to minimize splash.   The sink is at the foot of the bed.  There is almost no room to walk around the bed. 

As a side note:  I often talk about the book “A Corporate Tragedy”.  It is a story of the terrible mistakes that IHC made many years ago that took them from a company much larger than John Deere to a shell of itself.  One of the major stories in the book was how they told the engineers to go to hell and had the marketing folks “design” a tractor.  It was a terrible failure that caused the farmers huge amount of problems and they ultimately were courted by John Deere and many made the switch.  This ship looks like it was designed by the marketing folks.

Next issue is a personal one with me.  I have very sensitive hearing that is easily overloaded.  The public areas have blaring music and then everyone tries to talk over the music making it even more obnoxious.  The most annoying noise issue is in the spa.   The thermal pool is quite noisy by its nature.  The problem is that they have it in the same room as the supposedly relaxing heated ceramic lounges.  That problem gets worse when people try to shout over the water sounds.  At times I have had my iPod cranked and still could hardly hear the music.  On other ships, the pool is in its own room as it should be.

Now let’s talk about the crowds.  I have told the story many times that mom and dad took me on several cruises before I was 16.  All but one were on freighters that had accommodations for about 100 passengers.  This was because my dad hated crowds.  I guess I take after him to a degree.  We have been on ships that had almost as many passengers and it did not seem to bother me as much as this cruise.  As I think about it, it might the the demographics.  The other cruises were with Stampin’ Up! folks.   Indeed they even chartered the entire ship for some of the cruises.  These are pretty conservative folks who do not drink a lot and who are not out to impress everybody.  Many of the passengers on this boat seem to drink heavily.  That results in very loud discussion and some pretty obnoxious behavior.  I am not a prude, but it just seems to grate on my for this trip.

Ok having said all of the negative things, I need to make sure that folks understand that this has been a wonderful cruise.  We are part of a group of 26 great folks and we had a lot of fun together.

Maybe my bitching is based on the fact that we had to pay for this trip {grin}.

I have attached a group photo at the wedding.  Looks pretty neat huh?

That is all for now.