Montana Trip - Spring 09 - Day 1

Recently, I took a trip from sunny and warm San Antonio to Montana to visit my uncle, aunt and two cousins. I was taking this trip alone since my dogs had been fighting lately and Kasey and I did not want to subject anyone to that experience while they watched the pups.

I was looking forward to this trip for a long time and got more excited every day. I knew that I would miss Kasey, but I also knew that I would be having a lot of fun. In truth, if she could have gone, we would have taken a cruise or just gone to Cancun or something with more of a beach theme, but alas, that was not to happen.

Ok, enough of that, on to the trip.

First off, let's talk about flying. I used to have to fly all over the place all of the time for work. There would be days when I would wake up and go to the office only to be told to go home and pack because I had a flight out at noon. I loved it. That all changed after I got married though so that I could spend more time with my wife that I loved more. All of this air travel that I did was pre-9/11 though and back when the airlines were doing well economically. I have traveled since then, but this flight introduced me to some new screws added to the experience. Everything seemed pretty normal, but then I found that the airline now charges for luggage. Any luggage other than one carry on is subject to a $15 charge. The second piece is an additional $25. If it is over sized or over 50 lbs. in weight, that will cost you another $175. I was taking only one bag, but it was large and stuffed with every stitch of warm clothes I owned and gifts for the family. I was worried about the weight, so I stood on my home scale holding the bag and then subtracted my weight. This informed me that my bag weighed 49.8 lbs.

I was sure that by the time I got to the airport it would have mysteriously gained a couple of ounces and I would be charged. I told Kasey that if there was a problem, I would just have her come back to the airport, take the bag and I would spend $200 on clothes in Montana! As it turned out, I took a pair of jeans out and put it in my laptop case to come in just under the weight limit. I paid my $15 and got on the plane.

When I arrived in Denver, I got to see something that I have not seen in a long time: snow. I hate the snow. It is cold, wet and slippery. This was no ordinary snow though, this was blizzard snow. All flights were grounded and I was stuck in Denver for an undetermined amount of time. The trip was not getting off to a good start.

After a couple of hours, I wandered off to find some food. I filled my belly with a $15 sandwich and some chips then proceeded to wait, and wait and wait. This was not all bad though, as it gave me some time to play Final Fantasy on my PSP, something that I do not take enough time for lately, and to read, something else I have been neglecting.

After some more time, my flight had a gate change and was ready to go. I was finally on my way!

From the plane, I got to see some of the most beautiful landscapes that I have ever seen in my life. The Rocky Mountains are truly a sight to behold!

While staring out the window of the plane, I imagined myself hiking through that wilderness and living like Les Stroud in Survivorman. I know that I am not that hardcore, but I like to pretend. J I also got to thinking about the early pioneers and the Louis and Clarke expedition. I also considered the Mormon settlers and got to thinking that this was a really inhospitable environment! I would not have wanted to be a Mormon settler back in the day. I can imagine stopping in the mountains and saying "yeah, this is good. Let's stay here". I suppose that they stopped in the summer, but man, when winter came, I would have been all like "Dude, I am going on to California, or at least somewhere more south. You guys have fun." At least Louis and Clarke kept going!

:) Anyway…

I finally landed and got to see my uncle. I was really stoked to see him and knew then that this was going to be a great week. My joy was quickly deflated when I came to find that while I had arrived, my luggage had not. Yeah, the luggage that I had to pay extra for was not in Montana and would not be there until the next day. The airline said that it would be delivered to my uncle's house the next day, but would not refund my $15.

We left the airport and headed to Hamilton from Missoula.

The evening was spent visiting with the family and catching up.

My uncle lives in what is known as the Bitterroot Valley in Montana. The town is situated in a large valley and obviously has large mountains on either side. This provided for some awesome scenery.

One thing that was really cool is that twilight seems to last for a really long time in the valley. This is because as the sun drops on the horizon, the mountains cast a huge shadow, making it dark, but the sun is still illuminating the clouds. While Texas does have the Hill Country, it has nothing on the Rockies, so this was pretty amazing to me.

Tune in next time for my adventures in altitude and find out what happened in the Legend of the Lost Luggage!

Jack Bauer for President!

I just wanted to share this. I need to make a little bit of time to post some stuff huh?

Blogging

So apparently my blog is more popular than I thought! In the past week I have had at least 4 people that I can think of tell me how they or someone they know has noticed that I have not been blogging so much lately. Well folks, I hate to disappoint my fans, so here I am! J

Actually, the drop in blog posts has been a direct result of me joining Facebook. I have to say that I have been using it more and more. The more I use it, the more I need to use it. It is like NO Xplode (which is like crank). ;)

Anyway, I have been obsessed with updating my status message on there. It is a quick way to let people know what I am up to. Scary thing is that they get to know the patterns of my life. For example, I have been watching the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 series from the beginning on DVD and most every night, my last status update is something like "Scott is watching Star Trek DS9". The scary thing is that I have had people comment on nights that I do NOT watch Star Trek! It's almost expected. I think that people put their kids to sleep by my Star Trek schedule or something.

Anyway, I suppose that the fact that I can update my status and upload pictures straight from my Blackberry gives me the sense that all of my fans know what I have been up to. I was recently reminded though, that this is not the case! I feel so bad that I have neglected you guys!

Oh the stories I have to tell!

I have been so busy. I had an awesome trip to Montana involving snowboarding, mountain climbing, airport fiascos, wearing nothing but shorts in 4 foot snow, and even an encounter with a wild moose!

I have been training my dogs with techniques similar to police dogs and I think that I may start using a training method used by some monks.

I have totally become addicted to playing Mafia Wars on Facebook.

I have found a great park to go hiking at during my lunch hour!

I got to see Tom the other day! Imagine the mischief we were up to… ;)

Our new church building is under construction and popping up very quickly.

Anyway, as you can see, I have a lot of catching up to do on here, but if you want a sneak peek, friend m on Facebook and check out my mobile pictures. Many of the "live" stories of my life get posted up there as they happen. There is a lot about Montana there and some other great stuff too.

You know, I think that blogging is all about the comments. The more comments I get, the more likely I am to post…

Hi Cathy! I am glad that you like this blog. I was surprised to find that you read it!

iMac Update

So, I got one of the broken iMac's that I bought on craigslist working! I am using it now and I have to say that I like it. :) I have never used an iMac g5 before and my first thoughts are: Nice, but LOUD.

Man, this thing has some serious fans. While they are not always running, when they ramp up, they really pack a punch and can even be heard from the back bedroom.

Now I just have to get the other one going. I was told that it had a bad CPU fan, but I am thinking that it is a bad power supply. After learning more about this one I have a better understanding of them and I think that it will be easier to fix.

I was looking on the Apple refurb site and I can get a new 20 inch iMac for like $899, so I think that the plan will be to get these going, sell them both and use the cash to buy a new iMac. I think that I may even get the apple care protection plan for it too. It is an extra $250, but as I get older I am getting tired of fixing broken stuff and I will likely end up paying that much for parts later anyway.

I don't know, I really like these things, but they sometimes seem so fragile.

Well, my iBook has lasted for 4 years with only needing to replace the plug in and battery, Kasey's however has been through the wringer and I think that I have spent about $300 in parts for it. I have become so good at taking that laptop apart, I can completely disassemble it in about 10 minutes.

We will have to see... $250 now, or some adventure later.... Hmmmm....

Anyway, this iMac that I have fixed is a 17 inch 2ghz iMac g5 iSight. I bought it for $200. Spent $65 on a power supply and added a 500 gig hard drive (worth about $60). For $320 it is a great computer! If I knew that I could get 2 years out of it, I would keep it, but I am affraid that since it is the old PowerPC processor, that I will start to run into apps that will not run on it. Besides, you can only upgrade the memory to 2.5 gig and with Photoshop, 20 FireFox tabs, 5 Word documents, Thunderbird and a couple spreadsheets Kasey likes to run at the same time, I am not sure that is enough. ;)