Houston TX

Instead of heading home on Thursday, I headed to Houston instead. Yesterday I traveled to car down to Galveston and visited a port facility that is planning on adding a ship loader. I had bid this 2 months ago, and now they area ready to go ahead with this. We talked a bit, but they are not going to actually buy until the end of July. I drive over to th beach, where the temp was 100 F or more. Really hot. People were splasihng in the waves, and sloshing on sun screen. I overnighted in downtown Houston, and visited another customer there this morning who is planning a biomass pellet plant in Alabama, among other locations. I had a good meeting, and then came here to the airport. I'm sitting in the cafeteria area writing call reports and now sending out updates on my blog. I've signed on to the internet here through Boingo. I had a mongthly subscription to this a few years ago, and it was helpful from time to time. Today I am only on for an hour, so I am typing fast. I wanted to send in my call reports while they were fresh on my mind, and so everyone could see them over the weekend, if they were so inclined. I hope you, my readers, are still with me. My intermittent posting probably you are not checking all that often. OK, you can find this later.

June 25 - On the Road

Today is Judy's birthday. I am in an airplane flying to Atlanta for my monthly office trip and not home to treat her well on her special day. Poor timing on my part, I can tell you. Sorry dear. This past weekend was spent with Mark and Anne in Olympia. Judy and I traveled down Friday afternoon, in the terrible Seattle area traffic. It was raining, and this slowed things down a lot. It took 3 hours to get there, when without traffic it takes 90 minutes. That wears a person down a bit. On Saturday Mark and I played golf with Galen Wright and Ken Thompson at Indian Summer Golf Club where Galen and Ken are members. This is a challenging course under good conditions, and we didn't have good conditions. It rained all the damn time, and very hard at some times. We all got soaked. There was a friendly sort of competition organized by Ken, which added to the enjoyment of the day. We played a sort of rolling team structure, so we all got to play with the other guys in a 2 on 2 format. It was fun despite the weather. Judy and Anne toured Olympia, including the Farmer's Market, and found some parks, although they said it was too wet to actually tour the parks. We all met back in the afternoon for a hot shower, and then dinner at Galen and Rondi's house. Very nice. We had a hearty breakfast on Sunday, then a short visit back to the Market where I bought oysters and mushrooms for dinner. Both were excellent. We traveled home in the early afternoon and were able to work in the garden a bit before the end of the day. Shannon came over and shared in the oysters and mushrooms, and did I mention steak for dinner? All her favorite things. This week I'll be in Alpharetta through Thursday, home about midnight. Guests on Friday for dinner with little kids. Should be fun.

Wenatchee Century, or a bit less...

Yesterday was the annual Wenatchee Century ride. It starts at Walla Walla Park in downtown Wenatchee, and now runs up the Wenatchee River valley to Leavenworth, then to Plain, and to Lake Wenatchee and back. It travels on the margins of Highway 2 in just a couple of places, but mostly takes place on back roads, farm roads, and other places high on the sides of the ridges. I rode with 4 others, including Kendall Kreft. My asthma was keeping me from getting full lungs of air, I think, and I was really slow. I am also in great shape for sitting all day in a car, plane, or at my computer, so that may have had something to do with my slow progress. We all met at Leavenworth at 25 miles, but they took off. I rode towards Plain for a while, but eventually turned around and headed back. I did Deadman's Road (huge hill climb) and crossed over the new bridge into Monitor (a first for me) and finished with just over 60 miles overall. KK showed up about an hour behind me, which is tremendous considering he did the full 100 miles. That shows you how different our speeds are. Anyway, it casts a doubt in my mind about the wisdom of trying to do the STP (200 miles) until i get into better shape. Less glf and more cycling? That is what it will take, but I sure do like to play golf...