behind the a-pillar: August 2008

31 August, 2008

dog tired and tired dog

after our workout, we decided to take a walk around como. it kinda wiped out the troops. well, b has an excuse, she had a sleepover last night. it's funny that they're called sleepovers when it seems thas sleeping has nothing to do with it... where was i? ah yes, tired people and tired dog.

i just love this view

the stepping stone will be installed in this garden with all the other stones my mom has made (or inspired, our girls made a couple of their own after making them with grandma a couple of years back).

i-i-i-i've got your steppin' stone

yesterday, the pauls stopped by with the stepping stone mom gave us when we were in alabama. it's a beautiful piece of work, just not the kind of thing you want as carry-on luggage on a plane. heh, and thinking back on our airline fiasco on that trip home, i'm extra glad i wasn't toting this along with me. anyway, thank goodness my sister's family was able to haul it home for us without having to stick it on someone's lap.

30 August, 2008

budding tennis star

em schooled me on the court. those lessons were worth the money!

playin' in the garage again

had a battery and an air cleaner to install in the deere, but the hardest part was fixing the motor mount. sheesh, it's as if it's all designed for you to actually have the engine out to install a motor mount.

new neice

a fresh 'un born this mornin' to my sister-in-law.

29 August, 2008

long shadows in the morning call for...

a nice concrete barrier. as I was riding into work, i looked over and noticed one heckuva shadow riding along with me, but the sun angle was too low and i didn't think the camera could catch enough of it to be recognizable. when i came to this secction of bridge, i found my way to deal with that low sun angle. so, I grabbed my camera and made a few passes at this section of road (luckily traffic was light). here's my mountain bike on its commute to work.

28 August, 2008

a freakin full cup

awesome! don't try to drink it too fast.

27 August, 2008

just before middle school orientation

i caught e in the car just before we took off. i'm so proud of her. i hope this year goes well. judging by the teachers we met tonight, i think it'll be a fun year.

pairing the right bevvie to your activity

while i recommend summit extra pale for wrenching on bicycles, i'd have to say that oil changes call for primo...

bike maintenance in the morning...

er... cycle-commuter's warning??? ugh, slept in because of the storm (and because i was up late working) only to remember that my bike with fenders needed some work. heh then i couldn't find the tool i needed...

one of those days?

time to make the doughnuts?

26 August, 2008

a keeper

yeah, i get it, now! i understand why my two-year-old great-nephew is so interested in his shadow. shadows are cool and sometimes when you look at 'em, you wanna show everyone else how cool it looks...

25 August, 2008

rolling home

experimenting with rolling photos. i realized after viewing these rolling attempts that i might have more success capturing my shadow (did I forget to mention that was my point) if i held the camera in my same-side hand.

24 August, 2008

a t-shirt for my man, eric d

here's an awesome t-shirt i saw in gulf shores.

mr. dantec, look behind you, mr. norris is watching.

oh the humanity

yikes, we had quite an ordeal getting home. anyone watching my tweets from the airport on twitter has an idea, but those of you who aren't on that bus don't know.

anyway, the ordeal started with us getting to the pensacola airport at 2pm (trying to beat the arrival of TS fay) to find out that our 4:30 flight was canceled. northwest, however, rebooked us on an american airlines flight. they got us out of pensacola at 2:55 and sent us to dallas. we were supposed to catch a connecting flight to msp at 7:55 pm. well, we spent our extended layover time in dfw looking for something to eat. some of us wanted good food and some of us wanted pizza hut. we split our meals. anyway, we arrived at our gate, c31 a little early and settled in. about 40 minutes before bording, a storm rolled through. about 20 minutes before bording it was announced that our flight was moved to a different gate, a23. we gathered up our stuff and went to the monorail transporter because the a and c concourses were a ways apart.

heh... the transporter was shut down because of the severe weather, so we hoofed it to the a gate. we made it on time, but there was a huge line at the checkin desk. after a few minutes of standing around, i discovered those people were there because their denver flight was cancelled and they were trying to get reticketed, phew... had nothing to do with us. anyway, right before bording time, we found out there would be a delay.

and delays there were... things truly bounced around for another hour, we needed a new plane, they couldn't find our flight crew, the new plane had brake problems. we wondered if we'd ever get home. finally, we were boarding. when we handed our boarding passes to the gate agent, he said, "oh, you're the tombs, stand over here. he'll (points to the other gate agent) take care of you." the other guy pounded away on the keyboard for a few minutes and said that someone else needed our seats as a family was accompanying a passenger who needed wheelchair assistance and they needed our "row 8" seats.

by this time, i was about to allow them to seat us (we were two adults traveling with two children) in four totally different seats if that would get us home that night. then, mr. keyboard walked over to me and handed us the boarding passes with a smirk and he said, "merry Christmas." as we walked down to the plane we looked at the tickets and we had 3a&b and 4a&b. could it be? yup, we got bumped to first class for this leg. the perfect end to a darned great week.

Steppin' out in gulf shores

e's foot in the parking lot of souvenir city

(this was supposed to be posted on friday night, but something got very very screwy between gmail and blogger.)