Just Plane Jay

Life is good. No, life is real good! I haven't had time to blog my trips lately but it has been a fun experiment. This will likely be the last of the series. While still traveling for work, my role is expanding. Ohio Chapter 2 seems like a logical time to stop; I may return to vacation or event blogging or I might just go back to the Instagram. 

Off to Dallas for work, as usual. The airport smells like Axe body spray and there are orange muscly men everywhere. The Arnold must be over. Winter, however, continues in full force. I'm quite ready for Spring!

It's cold!

A quick weekend home from Dallas where we cleaned out two and a half rooms in my parents house for their pending remodel. It was really too snowy to drive without a legitimate cause but I took it easy and made it without issue. As shown above, it was white out most of the time. 

We found lots of crazy stuff like the VHS camcorder from the 80's, too many books and videos with titles that would make you cringe, and my Grandmother's stereo from the 60's. I am stoked that they let me take it home. I'll post pics when it's all cleaned up. 

For now...back to Dallas for a few days. I sure hope it's warmer than Columbus. Most of the schools and even OSU already cancelled classes for tomorrow. It is supposed to be brutal! 

Year 2013; Flight 1

It's been a busy week! I took my first CoGo Bikeshare ride to the Short North for drinks and shenanigans with friends. We ate at Betty's which was a good thing because Liz is apparently closing this location. I also discovered a hidden gem of a local music venue called Little Rock where we listened to a friend of a friend turn out some tunes! The weekend included a road trip to the country for Family Christmas followed by New Year's Eve with my scooter peeps. I took down the tree on New Year's Day and then had the pre-requisite pork and sauerkraut at Schmidt's with some neighbors. Here's a little documentation of that day:  https://vine.co/v/hVUgAWhp77h/embed

Tim and I road tripped to Kentucky for a family wedding this weekend and I'm boarding a flight for Dallas just in time to miss the big snow storm. The rain and current temperature contradict the forecast but it is Ohio and everything can change within the hour!

Heigh-Ho Heigh-Ho

Most of our holiday shopping is done after two weekends hitting the craft and artisan shows, the CCAD student sale, Amazon, and a few select mainstream stores. The CCAD sale was my favorite and we ended up with three pieces for our own trailer. One was framed, I framed the second, and the third is out being professionally matted and framed for the kitchen. One of our holiday gifts is also there and should be done on the day I leave for home. Fingers crossed! I'm a huge fan of supporting local young artists and even more so when they are students! The art community also lost Timmy's favorite to cancer this weekend. RIP George Rodrigue. 

The family celebrated Dad's 68th birthday with a huge bonfire in the freezing cold temperatures last Friday. My brothers decorated a hay wagon with lights and we took a Winter hay ride to see Wachtel's holiday display. It is still quite impressive, and highly recommended, but not quite as magical at 40 as it was at 10. I do love their classic Disney and nursery rhyme displays from the early days. 

http://youtu.be/whnn9ReUV04

Speaking of Disney, Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, it's off to work I go! This will likely be the busiest Dallas trip I've had in months with all three days booked from early AM to late evening. I really need to extend it to Thursday or Friday, and packed accordingly, but will do whatever it takes to avoid traveling closer to Christmas. I suspect the airports will be a disaster as we approach the weekend. There are only three more flights on my 2013 Itinerary. It's been a busy year!

Wachtel's: https://m.facebook.com/pages/Wachtels-Christmas-Lights/319074091457043

Village Lights

Off to Dallas with an on time departure. I have three iPhone/iPad chargers in my bag but no iPad. In my pre-trip excitement to try the new remote access for work, I used it last night and didn't put it back in my bag. #travelfail

It's been a great week starting with some gold additions to the orange tree to Christmas it up a bit and a successful open house during Village Lights. It was great to see several friends from our jobs, the scooter world, the neighborhood, and long time pals. Everyone truly enjoyed the Makers Mark Mulled Cider recipe, even my Mom with the virgin version! I enjoyed hosting people but since I was the only responsible one, there was no opportunity to take turns hosting and participating in the German Village events. Perhaps next year we'll do a pre-party only or just participate in everyone else's events! 

Travel Hell

Sometimes traveling is easy and other times everything goes wrong. Guess how my Monday turned out?

We had a superb weekend with more people from DC, a birthday celebration, family in town, and a wedding where we re-connected with friends we haven't seen in 9 years. Crazy fun. 

Monday morning I had to print out my boarding pass at the airport because I couldn't log in online. I went through the TSA Pre Check line, as always, but didn't realize my ticket didn't say it today. The agent said my ticket wouldn't come up on her screen with expected codes for regular or pre-check so I got pulled from the line for having a suspicious ticket. A ticket that the airline had just printed for me. It was a sign.  

When I got to the gate, I realized there was no plane and the previous flight hadn't even boarded. That's when I learned there was an incident. Apparently, the previous inbound flight had a threat as described in this article. http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1520724#bmb=1 - I was not ready for this but was happy it wasn't my flight until it was. Concerned about my security situation with the ticket, I went to the gate agent. She suggested putting me on the earlier flight since the schedules were messed up. It wasn't scheduled for a few more hours (yes hours) but I could possibly get to Dallas in time for work. The concept of boarding a plane that had just been searched for a bomb for several hours was not appealing. To top things off, my laptop wouldn't connect with my wireless card so I was stranded with only a phone to access work email. Monday was not productive and I didn't get to my hotel until 6 PM. No office time for me. Fortunately, we arrived safely to DFW. 

Interestingly, after landing, I get another text message from the airline indicating my canceled flight could not be re-booked. I guess they didn't realize I was already here. This hopefully won't impact my return trip! #frustrating

My Weekend Wife & A Kiki Life

I thought it was going to be a boring weekend but as you can see from the above picture, it was Marvelous! We decided to buy a four top table and Meet/Greet passes for Ana Matronic's appearance at Axis on Saturday night. She is the female face of Scissor Sisters. While my boy Jake will always be my favorite, I also love Ana! Let's have a Kiki! 

Rewind: I woke up at 5 AM Saturday to find my friend M on FB. We decided to run together. I ran from OSU to her house then to ours. Six miles total for me and five for her. After a quick shower and breakfast at Skillet, we raked her leaves and went to Easton. She sold her van to CarMax and I went for a ride in a Q5 and the new CLA. Sadly, I think it's time for Gertrude to go. Daddy needs a new sedan! We did some shopping at Michael's for picture frames as we're both working on our trailers. M and I had lunch at Adobe Gilas after our first choice, the Ocean Club, didn't open until 5. It was definitely not the fancy martini lunch we planned but who doesn't love queso and margaritas? We each went home and met up Saturday night for a house party and the aforementioned shenanigans at Axis. To keep the weekend theme, we also met on Sunday for brunch. While I hated that T had to work twelves on Saturday and Sunday, it was fun spending time with my fake weekend wife! 

Now that another amazing weeend has come to an end, I'm off to the big D for work!

Holy Moly Cow Exhausted

That's what my nephew would say after an epic scooter rally weekend! The XYLs and Vulcans (their first rally) sure did sponsor a good time at WKRP13! Timmy rode Ms. V down in the chilly Friday air and rode back in the Sunday rain. I had to borrow a ride from my good friend as Agador is still in the shop. The venues were perfect, we visited friends and family, and fortunately were not involved in either of the unfortunate rally weekend accidents. New riders need to be more careful!

Lets just say I should NOT have booked work travel at 7 AM on the Monday after a rally. I will sleep the moment I board this plane. How will I make it through this day?