San Fran

I'm sitting here in a very nice hotel in San Fran, actually Burlingame, CA overlooking the bay and the airport.  It's 4:30 am local and I've been up for about an hour or so.  It's quiet and pleasant with my cup of coffee.  We don't leave until 12:30, so the Captain and I are going to indulge ourselves with the big breakfast buffet.  The weather has been normal for San Francisco, sunny now and then, but mostly so foggy you can't see 10 feet, and about 50 degrees.  Not exactly walk around weather.  We will be here over 24 hours, and it's funny how much it pains me to sit here instead of spending this time at home.
Jan has been having some recent success with her photography business, so she is psyched up.  Visit her site if you want at http://benaturalphotography.net/ and let her know what you think.  We are both in the waiting mode, marking time until we can retire and move on down the road.  We are making headway with various chores, trying to deal with our storage unit.  We'd like to get rid of it entirely, but it will be awhile, we are whittling away at it, but we still have some furniture, and all those boxes and boxes of "treasures" we can't seem to figure out what to do with.  We want to be sure we have the spare parts and items for the motorhome, but nothing that we don't need.  If all goes according to plan, we won't be back in the Atlanta area until the end of Nov 2012.
Thanksgiving gives us a chance to think of all the things we are thankful for, the wonderful family, good friends, the opportunities and the accomplishments, our health and well being, especially when we see others around us not nearly as fortunate.  If you are the praying sort, say a little prayer for my niece, Vicky who is fighting the ultimate battle with the big C, and her three little kids.

A Wonderful Thanksgiving!

Ray and April left early this morning to return home to Florida.  We're just chilling after driving down to Atlanta yesterday from Louisville.  We had a wonderful T-Day.  It was delicious, entertaining, interesting, and the camaraderie was fantastic.  We missed Kelly and Todd, and the kids, Jason, and all the Thurows, and especially Vern and Viv.  It was bittersweet realizing the huge Thanksgivings of previous years are probably over since everyone is more and more dispersed across the US.  The weather cooperated, we burnt up probably thousands of trees with all the fires going, and the food just kept coming.  Rachel and Kathleen added their own wonderful dishes to our normal repertoire, and, of course, vast quantities of wine were consumed.
Friday, we had excellent turkey sandwiches, perhaps even better than T-Day???  Then Ray and April cooked delicious ribs for dinner Friday.
Yes, the holiday is definitely centered on food!
We decided after we had driven all day to get back to Atlanta, takeout pizza filled the bill last night.
Back now and a bunch of work until we head to Kelly's for Christmas this year.  I'm still trying to play with my schedule for December and even tomorrow! LOL.
There was the biggest 5th wheel we have ever seen here in the campground when we got back.  We asked the owner and they told us it was 46' long!  They have a dedicated tractor to pull it, what a rig, and we thought we were big.

Anticipation

We're gathering at Tom and Karen's for the T-Day holiday.  Jason disappointed us by deciding not to come at the last moment, but Karen surprised us by telling us Rachel, Brian, and Kathleen would be joining us.  In fact, Rachel came in last night so it's been great seeing her again since our summer vacation!
We're going to only be 10 strong this year, perhaps the smallest gathering ever.  The anticipation is building, food is piled up here and there, Jan's making soups for tonight, Tom made his awesome lasagna as usual, and I'm on deck to cook tomorrow's two turkeys.  We've remarked how funny it is how much technology is here, at last count there are 4 iPads, 6 iPhones, 4 MacBook Pros, one iMac, and a token Blackberry!  Times sure have changed, whoops, I'm showing my age.
Weather seems to be cooperating also.  Poured the last two days, but it is brightening and dry today, and supposed to be sunny and beautiful tomorrow and in the high 50's.  Perfect for the fires that are burning in the many fireplaces.
Family and friends at Thanksgiving, my favorite!

Lonely

Bert, our cat was left by himself for the first time since Sadie has been gone.  Jan is in Florida and I was on a 3 day trip.  He was beside himself, he has been meowing and won't leave me alone, and I've been back a couple hours already.  He is just starting to settle down.  It's funny, in that he was always the big male cat, kinda aloof and above all this affection crap.  Well now that his playmate is gone, he's finding it's a lot tougher by himself, after all they were together for over 8 years!
It's gotten colder in Atlanta, below freezing at night now, but still pleasant during the day.  Winter's coming.
This 3 day trip seemed a lot longer than 3 days.  I'm so anxious to retire, it is jading my outlook.  I'm got to get a grip or I'm going to be miserable making it til Feb.  The huge bid process that is going to change almost everyone's life at AirTran is underway.  Lots of turmoil and heartache trying to figure out what's best as the integration takes place with Southwest.  There is talk of little else.  I wish everyone luck going forward.
Well, Jan, Jason, Ray, and April all arrive here tomorrow, then off to Louisville on  Monday for our super T-Day holiday week!  Can't wait!

Starbucks

We are sitting in Starbucks right now to escape from the sick house RV.  My cold is hanging on, for over a week now, and of course Jan has it as well, sounds like a TB ward.  The wifi at the campground, while most of the time adequate, is slow, especially when you are trying to download software upgrades.  So we're sipping nice warm mochas as we download.  We have been using Apple's Mobile Me for several years, but they are replacing it with the iCloud.  It is a system where our email, contacts, and calendars sync automatically with our two iPhones and two computers.  It also will enable us to move photos, music, and documents among all the devices as well.  Pretty magical, in my estimation.  As we get closer to retirement our internet access is one of the many items we're trying to address.  The campgrounds' wifis that we use along the way vary a lot from excellent and free to terrible and expensive.  We will probably get a WiFi Ranger at some point.  It is an amplifier connected to an exterior antenna to boost either the available wifi signal or can interface with a 3G/4G card or MiFi for when there is no available wifi.  We also found a company, Millenicom that offers data service without a contract.  And, of course the way things work in the tech world, by the time I retire in a few months, there will probably be new choices available!
Jan is planning to go to Florida this week for a show, and I'm hoping to go to work(not really) on Thurs, then up to Louisville for the T-Day holiday!!

And then there was only one.

For the non-pet folks out there, you can just ignore this post.  This morning we had to say farewell to a wonderful little kitty.  One that slept on my foot most of the night, but always knew the moment I awoke and would greet me with a wet purring nudge of her nose so she could go down under the covers with me for a few minutes each morning.  One that thought she was at least part dog and would come when she was called and would lie down when told to.  She would come running to greet us when we returned to the motorhome, she didn't know cats weren't supposed to do that, and even got Bert to do it as well :) She would talk right back to Jan and I whenever we would talk to her, it was as if she understood our every word. She loved everybody, especially the people that didn't like cats!  One who was so malnourished when Jan picked her up at the shelter that we wondered if we could ever get her filled up. She so appreciated the home we gave her, that she never had a mean streak in her and would just lick you to death, even if Jan was cutting her nails, something she really hated; but man, was she was hell on stuffed mice!  She even purred to say good bye to Jan this morning.  She will be missed.  Good bye Sadie.

Sadie's home

We picked up Sadie this morning from the vet.  She's not doing as well as we all had hoped.  She has to eat special dry food, take some medicine, and Jan has to give her fluids each day.  We are hoping, but we'll see.  Those of you that either have pets or have had pets know what it's like to go through this.  They become part of your family.
My cold is trying my patience.  It is hanging on a bit more than I think it should.  I go to work tomorrow on a 3 day, Milwaukee and Denver, so it better be gone by morning.  It's gotten a lot cooler here, frost warning for tonight and tomorrow morning.
Doesn't look like the bike is going to sell, no more calls.  We'll wait til spring, that way we'll get a chance to ride it some more.

Sad

One of our two cats, Sadie, hasn't been feeling good lately so we took her to the vet on Sat.  She has chronic kidney failure.  The vet said they have some success with rehydrating them intravenously for a couple days, about a 70% chance.  We find out on Weds.  Bert, our other cat is missing her already, and it feels funny without her.  They have been with us the whole time we have been full-timing.  They both were shelter cats so we're not totally sure how old they are but we think Sadie is about 9-10 years old.  We have our fingers crossed.  This is Sadie.

Had quite a trip Saturday.  Got to the plane, went through all the preflighting, programming the route, etc and so on, and an agent comes on and says we are taking a different plane to Dallas!  So we had to pack up and move to a new plane and do it all again.  Then on Sunday, I was supposed to fly to Atlanta, then on to Las Vegas.  When we got to Atlanta, I ran up the concourse to get a sandwich and I hear my name being paged, seems they pulled me off my plane for Vegas and put me on a plane to LA, and of course, the plane to LA is all loaded, ready to go when I show up.  Well, every cloud has a silver lining. I find out that when I get to LA I'm supposed to stay overnight and deadhead (ride in the back) back to Atlanta Monday.  On the way to LA, with a really interesting Captain who has an RV as well, I see that the plane I'm flying to LA  is coming right back to Atlanta.  Soooooooo when I get to LA I see if there is room on the flight, there is, call crew scheduling to see if they will let me go back, they do, so I ride back to Atlanta, making for a long, long day, about 12 1/2 hours in the air!  But, unfortunately for whatever reason, I am sick as a dog by the time we get back, lost my voice completely, and clogged up with a bad cold.  So took it real easy yesterday, and am getting over it now.  The winter cold we all seem to have to deal with.
Jan has been working hard getting ready for a craft show in Florida.  She has a photography business with our daughter, Kelly.  She has been making photographic cards, numerous prints on matting in various sizes, and several other types of photos.  The show is a week from Saturday, hoping it will be busy.
Well, the seniority list between AirTran and Southwest was approved yesterday, so they will now be able to move on and combine the airlines.  Going to be many, many changes for the AirTran pilots and employees.  I wish them luck.

The market

Is anyone besides me getting seasick with the market whipsawing back and forth on a daily basis?  I know I look too often, but it's hard not to as I get closer and closer to retirement.  I go fly a charter today, then a 3 day trip on Saturday with Sunday night in Vegas.  Maybe I'll win enough to not worry about it, yeah right.  Funny just like the lotteries, you've got to play if you're gonna win :)  Have a good weekend everyone!

Good news!

We just found out Ray and April will be able to come with us for Thanksgivng!  We are very happy that April got it worked out with her surgery.  The gathering of family and friends in Louisville is very important to us.  It's going to be a bit smaller this year, but just as special.
We had lunch with Tom today, had a nice visit, glad he's back from Vietnam.
We've had a quiet few days, thought I'd be flying, but nothing has popped up.  I've gotten a couple calls on the bike, but it's looking like we'll have to wait til spring to get it sold, that's okay, not like it's urgent.  The campground is busy with the snowbirds all heading south, too bad we can't join them until March.