Ugh it is to early in the morning to be thinking without a caffeine drip… so here is some planes
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| From Seattle Spotting 2015 |
The Boeing 757 EcoDemonstrator (the thing on its back is a camera)
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| From Seattle Spotting 2015 |
A P-3C Orion doing laps at BFI
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| From Seattle Spotting 2015 |
An Alaska 737-900ER after a Charter flight heading for the Museum of Flight ramp
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| From Seattle Spotting 2015 |
Transavia 737-800
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| From Seattle Spotting 2015 |
China United Airlines 737-800
More later in the week!
It is Saturday morning, you are lying in bed, looking out the window at fog that comes all the way to your window, what do you do? Well on Saturday we had planned to go hiking on Cougar Mountain, but with fog all the way to the window and so thick that you couldn’t see a single thing, that was off. It was a little bit dangerous. It seemed to be fogged in just about everywhere in Seattle. Friday night it was really foggy as well so it looked like it was going to stick around. Heidi & I just had no idea what to do and were bouncing ideas off each other. I didn’t really want to be cooped up inside the apartment all day so suggested about getting out of town. Neither of us wanted to drive our car though, purely because the truck eats so much gas it isn’t funny and Heidi hates putting unnecessary miles on the Mazda (totally agree with that purpose too). But then what do we do? I had a free day from our Honeymoon with National Car Rental (they gave us a freebie for the hell of it and we never applied it). Well thank you National because we used it! We both agreed a free car rental for the day would be fun and grabbing something sporty from the Executive Line would be fun. If it failed, we could just cancel the reservation on my phone and walk away from it, nothing lost.
So Heidi dropped me at the SeaTac Rental Facility and parked just down the Street at the big park and ride (where we could return later that night to grab Heidi’s car back) and after a while of waiting, the National staff were able to bring around a nice Black/Grey Challenger for us. Now back during our Honeymoon Heidi had told me she wanted to drive a Challenger and that is what I tried to get for her. Unfortunately LAX at the time had none at all in attendance, and they checked everywhere. So unfortunately we had to settle with the 300C (which was a fantastic car anyway). But I was able to deliver the Challenger for her and she loved every minute of it. The car was fun to drive and we had a blast in a nice little two door car for the day (be it in the fog and cold for part of it). We headed off down to the coast south of Aberdeen down towards Long Beach and over the border into Oregon (not to Portland).
We spent more time in the car than out of it at times, but it was still fun anyway. We finished off the day back in Seattle at Federal Way for dinner and then doing the grocery shopping with the Challenger. It was a fun day and many laughs were had. We dropped the Ghost back on Sunday morning before doing some of our morning chores (Heidi was happy she got to drive the truck since she wanted me to return the Challenger) and I was sad to see it go. Maybe when I have my Mid Life crisis I can have a Challenger?
<table style=”width:194px;”><tr><td align=”center” style=”height:194px;background:url(https://www.gstatic.com/pwa/s/v/lighthousefe_20150128.00_p0/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left”><a href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/109346098513022744611/SeattleLife2015?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite”><img src=”https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SEpCO1TzWuo/VKnjiC7OY4E/AAAAAAABtNA/RYs_Cp7CZJM/s160-c/SeattleLife2015.jpg” width=”160″ height=”160″ style=”margin:1px 0 0 4px;”></a></td></tr><tr><td style=”text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px”><a href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/109346098513022744611/SeattleLife2015?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite” style=”color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;”>Seattle Life 2015</a></td></tr></table>
Pictures in the Above Folder
2015 will certainly be a different year than 2014. For first I am married now so I guess this year will see me trying to be a better husband as well as a better husband. The hardest part of my life this year will be uncertainty. I want to know what is happening with my life but I am so far away from everything it isn’t funny. Life is pretty much in a holding pattern so I want to make sure whatever goals I set for myself this year are attainable.
One of the biggest things I try to do every year is set some fitness goals. Since Heidi is going to have her own goals (and hopefully she will post them here as well), my goals might be fairly similar. Like for instance I know that Heidi wants to run a 5k this year, something she wants to do to push herself. So I figure I should at least do one myself right? I think my fitness goals for 2015 should be:
* 2 x 5k runs
* 1 x 10k run
I also want to continue getting my weight back down. It is too high in my opinion so will do whatever it takes to get that back down. I know people will say that I don’t need it etc, but I do and I want to fit back into my Hong Kong Suit and prove Heidi wrong after a comment she made about it before the wedding.
As for Travel Goals, well that is a different thing this year. Ideally Heidi & I want to go to Australia. That is all we really care about, that is all we really want to do. Nothing else matters, everything else is not required, everything else is just icing on the cake (i do like cake and i do like icing).
I want to work towards changing my job this year as well, finding something that will make me happy. I don’t want to be in this job forever and I don’t want to be stuck in the same job for the rest of my life, so finding something this year will be one of my goals. Now to just work out what I want to do… any ideas?
So that is enough pondering the future for one night. I am looking forward to a new 2015, one that brings in some challenges and some surprises.
2014 was a light year for me for travel. With a changed life and different priorities, I think I spent more time driving than I did flying. Looking back though at the stats, it was a little bit shocking. I only flew a total of 13,090 miles! That is not much at all! Last year I did at least 4 times that, if not more! Without any trips across the ocean either, it was kept at a real minimum. Let’s look at the stats:
My 2014 Flight Map
Total Flights: 14
Total Miles: 13,090
Total Airlines: 4
New Airlines: 0
New Aircraft: 0
Most flown Airline by Segments: Southwest (6)
New Airports: San Diego, Anchorage, Denver, Albuquerque, Dallas Love Field
All of the flights were in Economy, but this year it was a toss up between either award flights, paid flights, non rev tickets and stand by buddy flights. The trip to San Diego was my first experience at Buddy Passes and it was interesting (don’t know if i could handle the whole stand by thing). But my favorite flights of the year where those I was able to spend with Heidi. 3 simple flights and yet they were the most fun. My trip out to Dallas was the most amount of flights in such a short period of time. It was not the most amount I have done in a day (what is it about me and flying to Dallas with 3 segments in each direction?).
Next year doesn’t look as big either unfortunately. We are planning on heading to Australia but other than that, there isn’t much at all. I would like to get on an innagural flight and tick at least one new state off my list, but will see how that works out.
2014 is coming to a close and this year sure has turned out very different compared to the way it began. Who would have thought that this post at the beginning of 2014:
But what about my goals for 2014? Well that is pretty simple, but I am going to break it down to 3 parts this year Personal, Fitness & Travel.
My Travel goals for 2014 are:
* Return to Japan
* Visit Maho Beach
* Singapore Suites
* Lufthansa First ClassMy Fitness Goals for 2014 is just one:
* Half Marathon
My Personal goals for 2014 are where what would normally been mixed into one of the other two categories I want to do this to challenge myself some more I guess. These goals are also something that I think if I put them out there it makes me more accountable. So my personal goals for 2014 are:
* Jump out of a plane
* Go on at least 1 date
* Get my weight back to pre USA levels and keep it there!
Well what I wanted to happen and what did happen are totally different things. Looking at these goals I can tell you right now I completed just two of them. I ran my first ever Half Marathon back in May in Vancouver. It was something I worked so hard to achieve and now looking back I am proud of that effort. The other would have to be that date, because obviously that happened. In fact I went on many dates with Heidi and look at how that turned out 😀 To be honest a lot of people criticized me over putting “one date” however I did point out the at least part. My original goal was really just to get out there, to stop being such a recluse. Well it worked and I can’t thank a few people more for giving me the push.
As for all the other goals. Well none of the travel ones happened. Originally the returning to japan and singapore suites would have happened, but sadly we had to cancel that. I am hoping to tick off Singapore Suites next year but that’s another story. As for LH first class, nope never happened and same with Maho. As for the other goals, well about that jumping out of a plane business….. yeah not gonna happen. The weight, well I did knock off at least 20lb but I didn’t really put any effort into it for at least 6-8 months, so that is to be expected.
My travel this year would have to be my lowest of the last several years. I didn’t fly that much at all but what I did fly was worth it. A few trips with Heidi, one for AirlineReporter and a couple of spotting trips made it fun.
Some of my favourite momentos of 2015 I might look at later in the week or after New Years Eve. I still love writing for the blog, but spending time with Heidi more and more means that I have less time to write as much drivell as I used to. But don’t worry. I can tell you that in 2015, this site will still live on.
I was going to title this the second half of the Honeymoon Avgeek photos, but it is Christmas Eve so it is appropriate to celebrate.
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
A New Livery Southwest 737-700
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
A Fiji Airways A330 heading to the parking spaces after a long flight from the South Pacific
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
A MasAir Cargo 767 (never seen this before)
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
A JAL 777-300ER
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
A Mesa Airways CRJ, flying for US Airways Express, painted in the American Eagle Livery (confused yet?)
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
A United 737-800 with Scimitar Winglets
Merry Christmas to you all!!! May you Christmas Day be full of Avgeekiness
Since it is a Sunday night, time to share some avgeek porn. Lots of planes from the trip with some spotting in Vegas, Tucson and also LA.
I managed to get some avgeek time at the PIMA Air & Space Museum (and you can read about it here) but the first half of the trip the most spotting I got to do (apart from some while we waited for our helicopter flights) was in Las Vegas. My shots during our helicopter flight were pretty crap (Bernie can you teach me your tricks?) so all I have from Vegas is from when I first arrived where I had about 45 minutes or so getting some arrivals as the sun set.
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
Other than that, the best I got was in Tucson while parking the car at our hotel (which was right by the airport mind you) we managed to score a flight of Arizona Air National Guard F-16s doing circuits. But this is about the best of that set
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| From Honeymoon Spotting |
More later in the week!!
So, it has been about 2 weeks now since Heidi & I got back from Honeymoon and with all the craziness of Thanksgiving, then Heidi’s birthday, I finally get a chance to plonk myself in front of the computer to work on some photos. So up first today are some of my shots from the Grand Canyon… just a couple
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| From Honeymoon |
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| From Honeymoon |
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| From Honeymoon |
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| From Honeymoon |
Just a quick piece to say that my honeymoon photos are up (Heidi’s are probably going to end up on Facebook) but there are still a good lot of ones that I need to work on. With plenty of photos taken as usual, but not as many as in the past, there is still plenty of good stuff.
The Spotting photos still need to be worked on and there are a number of artistic ones I want to work on. But enjoy!
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| Honeymoon |
Tucson was fun, much better than I thought it would be. Our time there was Heidi’s idea from the start and to be honest she handled it like a trooper. She treated her avgeek husband like you would expect in this situation. You let him go and say yes dear a lot.
We spent the last two nights in Tucson at the Country Inn & Suites by the airport. Why that one? Well we were using the mountain of Club Carlson points I have and the card offers the 2nd night free on a stay, so for very little we could get a free stay. It wasn’t bad but our check in was comically bad. 3 rooms till we got one that was acceptable. It was like Goldilocks, the first room had a broken shower curtain rod, the 2nd reeked of cigarettes (non smoking hotel as well) the third was just right (and by just right I mean we could live with it). Breakfast at the hotel was basic (but they couldn’t make oatmeal to save their lives) but tasty enough. Nothing really to complain about for the price we paid.
The main reason we went to Tucson was to visit The Boneyard. I will cover more in the airlinereporter pieces about them specifically but we had fun, PIMA was great and they had way more planes than I expected. It was heaps of fun and Heidi wasn’t totally bored. Great spotting as A-10s were always climbing out of Davis Montham (even managed to see a couple of F-16s doing touch & go’s at the main Tucson airport).
Tucson was a good break for us. We could settle in for 2 nights and relax. The weather was nice (70s during the day) and we thawed out after the Canyon & Sedona. We also caught up with some friends of Heidi’s (well her best friends in laws) for dinner. It was apparently the birth place of the Chimichanga although I was to scared to try one (who deep frys a burrito… Seriously!). We even found a really cool ice cream shop that had old school sundaes (although as usual I chose wrong & ended up with something smaller than I wanted… Typical).
We rolled out of Tucson early this morning as the sun rose. A lot of highway ahead of us as we cruise along I-10 heading to Anaheim. Tucson was a great stop & one that I enjoyed. We will probably go back some time, there is more I want to see around that area, a good way to escape I guess.
Current Location: I-10W, Mile Marker 70, La Paz County Arizona.
States Visited: 3
Miles Driven: 1369m
Slim Jims Eaten by Heidi: 5
Cookies eaten by Mal: 35