Over thirty years ago when I was working at JPL, I had met a wonderful couple fresh out of grad school. After I moved to Alaska, we gradually lost touch but through the wonders of the Internet, I heard back from him. He had run into this blog and I discovered that they were now in rural PA. I had gone out to visit my father in-law and take him out to dinner when he mentioned the shopping mall in Lancaster. This sort of poked my memory and brought up Jay and his family as they lived in the same area. We met up, talked and had lunch at a local restaurant.
We went out for lunch and I had the Pennsylvania Dutch version of chicken pot pie for lunch which bears absolutely no resemblence to the picture on the right. It is more a chicken stew with thick, homemade noodles. Maybe closer to homemade chicken and dumplings but the noodles are better than dumplings. It was a wonderful treat to see Jay again and hear what has been going on for the last thirty some odd years. Unfortunately, his wife was out of town. Maybe next time...
I made it back to PHL just a few minutes under the 24 hours of my car rental but easily made my 6:00pm flight. It took hours to get our of Philadelphia yesterday evening due to the heavy traffic with over three hours travel time to go only 80 miles. I had rented a compact but the rental agency was out and just had me take a GMC Terrain SUV. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the 34mpg average for my 200 mile trip. The evening flight to Seattle had a wonderful view of sunset which lasted about three hours since we were heading west.
They seemed to get better and better as the flight wore on. Right now, I'm sitting in the Sea-Tac airport waiting for my next flight back home to Fairbanks. I hear that it has been raining but no snow. The weather forcast is for sleet and snow for the next couple of days so I guess it may be time to park the bike.
By the way, the new Logitech keyboard combined with Blogsy and Verizon connectivity make this iPad a wonderful blogging tool. Even with the photo uploads, email and browsing, I have only used about a third of the monthly allowance that I purchased for the month. And all of the locations I've been on this trip have had the new LTE service which is as fast and in many cases faster than the hotel wi-fi. It is simple to upload and format photos though I still need to manually mess with the html if I want the text to wrap around the pictures.
Posted with Blogsy
Isn't it great to meet up with old friends?
ReplyDeleteI found your comments re the IPAD being a viable blogging tool very interesting, though I fear I remain a laptop guy. I have found the MAC screen's much better than regular laptops...
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It really is wonderful to meet old friends, especially ones that you've lost touch with.
DeleteI am also a fan of Apple laptops as I've had plenty of them over the years. The new one with the "retina" screen is wonderful especially looking at text. Though it still weighs over double what the iPad and Logitech keyboard weigh. One of the missing capabilities which you would appreciate is the lack of a serial port. Can't console into routers...
Richard, I think the addition of a keyboard to the Ipad would make it a wonderful blogging tool(unless you come from the touch screen generation then it doesn't seem to matter.)
ReplyDeleteLove the high altitude sunsets. Isn't it great travelling west ... like getting bonus hours in the day ... and terrific to reconnect with old friends too.
I really do like this keyboard/cover especially since it uses strong magnets to attach to the iPad. It's a great cover and fits easily into a Markel Insurance case that I picked up from a motorcycle rally.
DeleteBonus hours are fine until I arrived home at 2:00 am which is 6:00am EDT. So I was essentially up all night...
Meeting old friends is just as fun as meeting and making new friends. :). I'm glad that you were able to reconnect.
ReplyDeleteLove the high altitude sunset images. Great color.
Even the work related meetings are a great chance to meet people who have become friends over the years. The Internet really does make it easier to meet and reconnect with old friends.
DeleteThese iPhone snapshots don't really show the spectacular view of the sunset. Not enough dynamic range.
That is pretty cool that you were able to catch up with an old friend. The internet sure makes for a small world.
ReplyDeleteI was astonished when I found out that the initial connection came from this blog. The Internet really does contribute to shrinking the world.
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