Drivers Start Your Engines!

We went to the Berlin Raceway for the company picnic this afternoon/evening. I know it's hard to believe, but Holly is a closet race fan. She loves Demolition Derby's and Stock Car Races and especially School Bus Races, and since there was School Bus racing at the end of the evening, we stayed to the end. Pretty amazing watching them race those big yellow buses. Just as amazing was the 4 cylinder feature event. 34 of those little guys started the 35 lap event, about 22 finished. The boys were sure that my little car would finally find it's home. I am unconvinced that the Focus would be anything more than a funny sideshow. The winner talked about 140 horses under the hood. I'm pretty sure the Focus has a few less than that.

These are a few of the shots that I took.

Ian in his Company T shirt with a "Hot Stuff" sticker on his cheek.

Ian, Spencer and Holly, early in the day. This is where we had dinner and signed up for the simulator experience.

Standing in line for dinner, we came upon the fan area. Don't you love the wind blown look!?

I am hard at in the Number 42 simulator (Fun fact, this was Juan Montoya's car). Pretty cool, I rolled the first time I tried and the second time I got to 16th place before I was rolled again.

Ian taking his turn in the simulator. He got to 2nd place during his try.

One of the cars we were rooting for.

Race Action!

This shot is much later in the evening. I like the shot with Ian checking the action up the track and the cars as blurs on the track.

Have a great day, we did!

Pat

Freaky Friday!

Yesterday I broke my glasses, well, the bow is all. And, it was from fatigue, yeah, yeah, fatigue. I didn't hit a wall or get punched or anything like that. Anyway, I went and saw Dr. B. over lunch and I took my old glasses, my broken glasses and a credit card. While my eyes haven't changed much, my charge account sure did today. I'll be styling pretty soon, though I'll be missing the old frame style. The cool thing was that they were able to take all the parts and make me a pretty decent set of glasses.

Tomorrow we're going to the company picnic at the Berlin Raceway, We have a simulator for the night, dinner at 6 and racing all night as well. Should be a fun night. I'll report out tomorrow.

Meanwhile, back to the Florida trip;

Ian and Holly in line at the Norway attraction. Bob's actually up ahead of Ian.

Me and the Spence Man in the same line

The Pinata Donald getting whooped

The skeleton mariachi band.

More later,

Have a great day!

Pat

Back in Florida we're now on to

Not sleepy

Last night it was pretty tough sleeping as well as I needed to, but I guess they got what they needed, at least that's what Tara said in the morning. I was wired for sound and it was quite the experience. I had 10 to 15 leads coming off me and running to the their stuff. They had audio and video as well. I still managed to sleep. Oh, yeah, they have confirmed that I have apnea and I guess I do actually snore. Who'd a thunk?

For lunch today I took out this year's batch of interns; Beta(IT), Haley Bop(General Office), Andrew (Tool Shop) and Troy Boy (Engineering) (All interns are nick named so that we don't get too attached, they generally leave us after the summer). I guess they wanted to hear my life lessons. As I sat there I thought, right, like I've got life lessons to share. As we talked I pointed out a few things that I have learned and discovered it's been a pretty good ride so far. As I sat there I also realized that I am 30 years older than those interns and so maybe I did have perspective that they could appreciate, who knows. They were probably just glad to stick the old guy with the check.

Our Day at Epcot is going to take a few day to get through the pictures that I really like, so hang in there, eventually, buy fall, I'll move to current events.

At the entrance in front of the big golf ball, the ride/attraction is called Spaceship Earth

In the line to get in to Spaceship Earth


The Boys during the ride

Holly and Bob during the ride

After answering some questions we got our individual futures

Spencer looking at his future self, an animation with his picture put in for the head

This one is my future self, kind a blurry, but you get the idea


It was a cool "attraction" and a great start to the day.

I have a Birthday Shout Out for Holly's Uncle Butch. I don't think he's a regular on this, but you never know. Hey Butch, Hope you have a great birthday!

Have a great day!

Pat

Tuesdays Child is Full of Sleep

I did a presentation with a customer today. Funny how easy that's gotten to be in the years since I got out of college. I did some prep by doing a practice run with a couple of other guys and it went really well when I was with the customer. I remember being in college and having problems getting out a coherent sentence, let alone a 60 minute presentation. With age come many blessings, like not being able to see clearly who's sitting in the audience and not being able to hear very well, so questions don't mess with my timing or delivery. I may not be aging well, but I'm happy.

Tonight I'm going to a sleep study. I have been cramming for this all week, then I finally read the instructions and there's no prep other than no alcohol and I have to bring my own jammies, which must consist of a pair of shorts as a minimum (I think they've had problems in the past). The test is going to once and forever put to rest the theory that I snore or have apnea. Silly Holly seems to think that I do, I'll show her!

Back to our Florida trip, we had a cookout on the Sunday night after we arrived with Jean and Linda. Here's the gang hanging out after an awesome bratwurst dinner.

Linda acting suprised at how many pictures I take

Linda and Holly

Jean just chillin on the couch

Bob having fun

Have a great day!

Pat

Back to work, and juggling again

Before we get going I have a Birthday Shout Out to Larry, my brother in law. Larry's a great guy that my boys love. He's really good with the automotive stuff and one of those crazy entrepreneur types. I really respect those guts. Anyway, here's a few shots from my limited collection.

Teaching Spence to drive the boat

Looking stoic

Larry, I hope your day was all that you wanted.

Work was pretty good, I have to get the projects all moving again, that's the toughest thing about being gone, having to remember all the details that you'd spent the week trying to forget. Oh well, it's a living.

Have a great day!
Pat

Sunday, resting and refreshing

We went to church today and it was good to see our friends. After church and dinner, I went for a ride on the Honda. A friend, Tim, decided it was too hot and humid to ride and so I rode alone, that's OK, it was a great ride. But at the same time, it's hilarious.

You see, last week I rode a Harley for a day, we put over 350 miles on in a single day and the high was about 100 with high humidity.. It was awesome, the motorcycle ride was definitely the highlight of my visit to Florida. We started in Crystal River at the Harley dealership. We is Matt and I, Matt's a friend of Bob's. From Crystal River we rode to Hudson, stopped and had a pop on the coast at a nice little place that was right on the gulf. Next to Dade City then Zeypherhills for lunch. We continued on 50 through Orlando. Not such a good idea to hit the center of Orlando during rush hour. It was near Orlando that the rains came. Not bad and not long, but we did get wet, just as Matt had predicted. We finally cleared out of there and zoomed on to Titusville, for another pop stop, up Hwy 1 to Daytona Beach, we saw some cool bikes on main street, but it was already to dark to stop. We had dinner near Daytona and then back to Ocala on 40, through the Ocala National Forest, lots and lots of deer at 11:30 12:00 PM on that stretch of road.

It was a great trip, lots of miles on the bike, not too much rain, not too much traffic, lots of open rode riding with the stereo cranked and me playing air guitar and there were no freeways used.

Here's a shot of me on the Harley that I rented.

Here's our first stop

Here's Matt on one of our early stops.

Titusville stop

Have a great day!

Pat