Return From Our Most Recent Road Trip

This last Monday, Veronica had a business trip to Herndon, VA. I went with her just to get away for a bit.
It was about a 5-6 hour drive from our house to the hotel...a Crowne Plaza near Dulles Airport.
The hotel was not bad at all except that I had to change rooms as soon as we got to our assigned room. Unfortunately the a/c was not working, so after a maintenance worker came to check it out, he made one hone call and we were assigned the room right next door.
I did not do too much the first day in the hotel.
After looking out of our room window, I noticed that there was a school and a bunch of soccer fields behind the hotel. I also noticed that there was an asphalt walkway between many of the fields and along the outside edges of the fields.
The next morning I headed out to what turned out to be some sort of "park" where all of these soccer fields were at.
I easily put together a walking route that would have me walk everywhere that this asphalt walkway went.
The walkway must have been close to 6-7/10ths of a mile long. I decided to do 10 laps which included double legs on most portions of each lap. This made it to be almost 20 times around most portions of this walking route that I had figured out.
After doing my walk, I tried out the hotels gym, which had a couple of weight lifting benches and several sized and weighted dumb bells.
I ended up getting a really good workout in and best of all...I did not hurt myself like I did when we were in Orlando.
On our last night in Herndon, Veronica and I went to the Reston Towne Center which is a really nice area full of shops and restaurants.
We walked around and enjoyed each others company and then got something to eat and finished up with a little shopping.
We decided not to stay out too late because we had to get up early the next morning so that we could beat the morning rush hour DC and vicinity traffic.
4AM came awful early the following morning.
We ended up stopping a a Walmart that was on our way home and packed the car up with items that we needed and could save money by buying them away from our home area, which is probably about 20% higher than what we pay for away from the area.
We finally made it home pretty well wiped out and tired from our early morning trip. After putting everything away and starting some wash, we took it easy for a bit before laying down for a nap.
Between the travel and shopping it sure made for a long day.
This upcoming Sunday Veronica is throwing a party for all of her associates and management personnel. We will be having it at the clubhouse in our neighborhood...actually the clubhouse and pool are about a 45 second walk from our place.
There will be some people coming to the clubhouse for the party but those that have to work will have their party at the store.
Unfortunately they are talking about an 80% chance of thunderstorms on Sunday.
I was going to roll our grill to the clubhouse but because of the layout of the outside area, with little protection from driving wind and rain, I will be doing all of the grilling in our open garage area.
We will be having kabobs, hamburgers and hotdogs.
I will the food for both the clubhouse group and the store party. The cooked food for the store party will be driven to the store that way everyone will be able to have some cooked food and other goodies.
It should make for another full day.

Veronica's Birthday

Yesterday was Veronica's birthday.
She turned 32............again???!!!!
Not sure how she does that but who am I to question how a person can stay the same age year after year. Then again...who am I to want to be living in the doghouse for several months for asking such questions.
My doghouse is not air conditioned and in this heat, not a place I want to be for any length of time.
For her birthday I got Veronica some new clothes and an Apple Ipad with protective case and an extended service warranty.
Happy Birthday dear.
I hope that you enjoy wearing those new clothes and playing with your new toy.
With that Ipad off of the wish list, I have no idea what to get her for Christmas.
I know what I want.......
An air conditioner for my doghouse!!!!!

It's A Bird - It's A Plane- No It's A Blimp

Early yesterday evening I was laying in bed watching some television when something caught my eye that was outside of our bedroom sliding windows. There was a fairly decent sized white blimp floating up in the sky. I scurried downstairs to grab my new Sony camera so that I could take a couple of photos and a video of this blimp slowly moving across the sky. In my excitement to get outside and take the photos and video, I forgot something important. After taking the photos and video and seeing the blimp leave the area, I looked down at the camera and noticed that the lens was all fogged up. We keep this camera in a case in our first floor computer room.It is fairly cool down there. At least compared to the heat and humidity that is outside. I did not even think about the change in temperature and the effect that would have on the glass camera lens. Although the photos and video are far from perfect, they are much better than what I thought they would be, especially with all of the condensation on the lens. I will have to be more careful next time.

If you look real close you can see the little wheels that are underneath the blimp and a small flag in the back. There is also a long tethering rope hanging down from the front of the blimp. You can click on each photo to enlarge them.

I decided to play with the photo a bit. I went into my Corel Paint Shop Pro and changed a few aspects of each photo.
If you enlarge the photo below, you should be able to see the long tether line hanging down from the front of the blimp.

If you look closely you will be able to see the flag blowing on the back end of this blimp.