Hiking and Friends

(video links are slow because they don't stream, wait for it...)
Went down to Lane Spring Campground in Mark Twain National Forest, near Rolla, MO, to visit with some friends and take a hike. It was a good time. George and Julie were there with there dog Sophie, as were Rachel, and Kim (sans Jonathan) with her daughter Erin.

We all took a little walk down to the spring. Definately a cold spring. We then went back to the camping spot to have a bite to eat and socialize. Very relaxing.

See Julie walking Sophie

Sophie drinking

Martha and I went off and took a hike while others napped or took a trip to WallyWorld for air matresses.
Here are some pics from the hike.

After the hike we went through the booty George and Rachel returned with. Time for more socializing and eating.

Heres a link to George inflating an air mattress
Kim reading to Erin

Kim brought this soup called Taco soup. It was delicious. Nice and spicy and very filling. Mmmm.

On the way home, there was this roadside attraction. Not really sure it was an attraction, but its something you don't see everyday.

Some Pics While riding the Katy Trail

Heres some pics I took while riding the Katy Trail.

The colors have not been altered. It was really that green ;)

Here's some pics from my business trip

I had a business trip to install our manufacturing system at a new client of ours down in Mobile, Al.

The trip went like everyother install. It started out looking good, and by the end, though successfully installed, was approaching cluster F@*!$ status.
Tuesday night, we left and had dinner and just went back to the hotel. Everything is just fine.








Wednesday started out so boring as we were going through the training manual, I was emailing friends asking what they where doing. But then we went todo hands on training, and a few things munged up the works and had me trying to figure out what was going on. (in the end, a bad .psd file and a problem writing to a samba share were ironed out).







Thurday, we figured we needed to be leaving them at 12:30 to catch our flight at 2:30, but that time came and past while fire fighting. We got it all straightened out and was on the road by 1:15. luckly the airport is neither far away, nor big. It has a whole seven gates.

While on the business trip I took some pics. The fog had rolled in Wednesday morning, so I got some great (I think :) shots. Here are the best I think.

Where's My Luggage!!!

So I had this business trip this week. I packed so that I did not need to check my bag. Only two days, the bag was just a small gym bag. I also had my computer/crud bag. On the way down I had to check it plane side do to the smallness of the plane.

So, on the way back, since my boss had to check his luggage (projector and such), I figured I would too. Unfortunately, in Houston, our bags did not get transferred. So they didn't make it back to St. Louis.

In St. Louis, there was a very nice lady at the airline desk that took our info. I felt sorry for her though, the next flight coming in had ALL its luggage swapped with a different plane's. That will be a lot of pissed off people.

Oh, the luggage showed up on my doorstep the next morning. Yea!

Freya is at rest

We lost our fourteen year old kitty Freya to renal failure last night. She was diagnosed with it a while ago, so we had her on the K/D diet food. Unfortunately, last Tuesday she was not looking good, so we took her in for blood work. It came back real bad. So, we started giving her subcutaneous fluids every day at home. On Sunday, it didn't seem to be helping anymore. Yesterday, she could not walk or open her eyes all the way, and in general, was really out of it, so we had no choice but to euthanize her.



She's a Cornish Rex , which are very thin and Siamese looking. And she had a very distinctful and loud voice that could be hear upstairs even when the TV was on.

We had her for four years, her previous owners had to give her up because they had a baby, and at that point Freya started urinating outside the box. She was on the coast, so they actually bought her an airline ticket to fly her to us.

Heres a video of her drinking from the sink.

Our four kitties, (clockwise), Freya, Vashti, Mango, and Kiwi

Blades of Glory,...Really

So we wanted to see a funny movie tonight, and surprisingly, Blades of Glory was getting some good reviews. So, we took the plunge and went and saw it. There were a few scenes at the beginning that were homophobic, but they got those out of their system quickly. After that, it was a parody of the ice skating competition scene, with cut throat antics, skating humor, and fun bickering. There was only one scene that may be gross as it involved eating, but the rest was clean. It's PG, what can you expect.

It was fun, probably more laughs for the buck on DVD rather than the big screen, but I'd still recommend it.

Beef Curry Pie

Mmmm. today we made beef curry pie.

It took over an hour to make, but most of that was either simmering or baking.






How'd it turn out? Pretty good. The flavor was OK but a little bland, could have used a little more curry and garlic. Will have to improvise with it a little next time.

Oh, and it looks better in person than in these pics. The yellow of the curry came out green for some reason.