Barry’s Daily Web News

One Day Left

Just one more day until Cortney and the kids arrive home. I spent most of the day getting the house ready for their arrival.

A Thunderstorm

Today, we had an actual thunderstorm. We had about three hours of threatening clouds, a couple of rumbles of thunder, and about 60 seconds of rain, which all dried up within a half hour. Such is life in the desert.

Two days until Cortney and the kids come home! I can’t wait.

Tired

I slept well last night, and woke up at a decent time this morning, but after a full day of work, I’m fairly tired. Cortney and the kids come home Monday, so I will be busy for the next two days getting the house ready for their return.

Back to Phoenix

I survived the ten hour flight home from London. The entire trip was fairly uneventful. I waited longer than I wanted to pick up my checked bag, but that caused me to miss the peak rush hour traffic. The first thing I did after checking on the cats was to put on my bathing suit and hop in the pool. Although the water was warmer than I would have liked, it was nice and refreshing after the long plane ride.

I have to take Floppy to the vet before I go into work tomorrow, so that’s a great excuse to sleep in tomorrow.

Wrapping up Yeovil

My trip to Yeovil is nearing an end. I have just finished the debrief presentation for the work I have done the last few days. I have to stick around the office to attend a couple of phone conferences back to the states, or else I would be done.

Last night, I had a bit of a scare. I was locked into the facility, with my car just outside the locked gate. After walking from one end to the other and then back, a distance of at least a mile, I found a gate that did have security on duty. The gentleman there gave me a ride back to my car, which was nice. I was close to calling some of the higher level managers back in the States in order to get some home phone numbers of the people I have been working with, but it turns out I did not have to do that.

I have really enjoyed this trip. Other than the rain Monday morning, the weather has been mostly sunny. I have managed to find company for most of the meals I have had, so I don’t really notice that I am traveling alone. In fact, I’m more looking forward to when Cortney and the kids get home than I am to getting home myself.

Florida Pictures

It’s been hard to post pictures lately, as I have been traveling, and Cortney and the kids are in Florida. But, Cortney recently sent some nice pictures, so I have no excuse now.

The two midgets:

Ethan, future pro bowler:

Sean plays on the beach:

Back to Yeovil

I drove from London to where I am working in Yeovil this morning. I used the navigation unit in my car to help get out of London, but then I knew where I was going after that. I hit some light rain on the drive, but otherwise the drive wasn’t too bad.

Except some confusion about when I would start working today (I have two people in the States that are working on England time, and they got up a bit too early this morning), I had a good day.

I just checked into my hotel, and I will be trying the dinner there shortly. I’m staying in what would be called a Bed and Breakfast in the states, and I have a cute little room with hand-made wooden furniture.

London

My flight to England was uneventful, except for one thing. After being cramped into a narrow space for 9 hours, my legs became were really sore. I guess I learned two weeks ago not to go running the day after a stationary bike workeout, and today I learned not to take a cross-Atlantic flight after a morning run. However, I was quite proud of myself for successfully navigation’s from Heathrow Airport to my hotel in downtown London.

I had some free time this afternoon, so I took a tour of the London Science Museum. This museum could easily rival anything the Smithsonian has to offer, and I had a great time looking at all of the models and engines (all types),

I had a nice pub dinner this evening. I happened to meet three girls who were taking a break from roller-blading. One was French, one was German, and one was Czech. They all took a job in London to better learn to speak English. London is quite a cultural melting pot.

Apparently, there is this big event going on this evening, called the World Soccer Cup Finals. While walking down the streets of London, I could tell if an establishment had the game televised by the line outside the door. Even my own hotel bar was packed full of people. I hate to think what would be happening if England was in the finals.

Packing Day

I spent most of the day getting ready for my trip to England. I did the laundry first thing this morning, then did some light yard work, and then some house cleaning. I have done enough trips this year that the packing part is the easiest in getting ready for the trip. The tough part is to leave the house looking like I will want to come back.

My flight leaves after 7:00 this evening, and I will be arriving in London around 1:00 in the afternoon tomorrow. My plan is to get as much sleep as I can on the plane. Otherwise, tomorrow will be a rough day.

Miscellaneous News

Today was back to the normal work commute, at least after I took Floppy to the vet for her fluids. This evening, I traded a swim in the pool for a trip to Wal-Mart. Not a good trade, but I needed to pick up a few things, including an umbrella for my upcoming trip to England.

Cortney reports lots of rain in Florida. Even though they did not go out today, Cortney and her parents seem to do a good job of keeping the kids occupied.

Back in Phoenix

I’m back home in Phoenix, at least for a little while. The worst part of the trip to Albuquerque was driving home from the airport in rush hour traffic. I actually liked the cooler weather in Albuquerque, but taking a refreshing dip in the pool here in Phoenix was just as nice.

Unusual Weather

We had a big storm last night, and I woke up when things started blowing over on the back porch. Nothing broken though.

On the way to the airport this morning, we had morning showers, which is very unusual. I was surprised to see that the high temperature was in double digits, which is even more unusual.

It was cooler still here in Albuquerque, where I am spending the evening. The high here was only in the low eighties. Much cooler weather than I’m used to.

The trip here was very easy, and the meeting here today was successful. I have another meeting tomorrow morning, then I fly back to Phoenix.

Happy 4th of July

Today is the Independence Day, but I did not do much to celebrate. I mainly worked on my projects.

Cortney reports that the kids were a bit run down today, and they weren’t even up to lighting sparklers.

A Good Day

I had a good day today. Got some exercise, cooked a good dinner, finished some projects, started a couple more projects. It’s a shame that now I am working at home efficiently, it won’t be too much longer before the Cortney and the kids get home, and I’ll have to put most of the unfinished projects on the back burner. Cortney and the kids won’t be back for a couple of weeks, but I will be doing some business travel in the interim.

Heavy Yard Work Day

Even though I did some heavy yard work yesterday, I still did not finish everything I wanted to do. Today, I tackled the bougainvilleas. I cleared out all of the undergrowth and raked out all of the leaf and flower debris underneath. This may not seem like a big job, but my biggest bougainvillea is ten feet in diameter, and over 8 feet tall, and I have four total to worry about. I ended up with 5 yard bags full of the debris.

This job really wore me out, so I just took it easy the rest of the day. I still have two more days left of work holiday to get stuff done.