A Great Day to Be a Roofer!

It's freaking hot! Today's high is supposed to be 95, tomorrow will be 97, with heat indices both days around 110. I suppose you could call it training for the Philippines, though the temperature in Manila yesterday was lower the temperature in Salisbury. Listening to Art Bell when driving back from Washington Sunday night, he said that he's been staying up all night and sleeping all day in the 115 degree heat in the southwest. Seems like a great solution here. Wonder if my boss would go for that?

At least I have my summer haircut to keep my head comfortable.

Note: This photo was supposed to be up before Shelly got back from her recent trip to the Philippines and Japan, to prove I had gotten a haircut, but it never made it, at least not with any comments. As such, it doesn't serve much of a purpose, other than to complain about the heat. Looking at a weather map of the United States, I'm not expecting much sympathy.

Unexpected Road Trip

Quick. How long does it take to drive from Detroit to Washington, D.C.?

Shelly and I spent the weekend near Ann Arbor, Michigan, to celebrate Brad and Laura's marriage and meet Laura's ultra-fun family. (Thanks, Larry & Linda, Heather & Mike, Julie & Ben and Rob & Lilly ... you all made it a very memorable weekend, and thanks, Brad and Laura, for the excellent dinner on Friday evening!) On Saturday morning, Shell and I hit the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair, where the crowds became more and more Tokyo-like as the day wore on, and we saw loads of cool -- and not so cool -- things. Need a big, glass fish to hang from your ceiling? (Pretty cool.) A sculpture made out of old brass instruments? (Very cool, especially the one based on the baritone horn.) How about a photo collage of outhouses? (Not my style, though that's not to say it wouldn't have been appealing to me in my bachelor days.)

The coolest, though, was a banner screaming "Cold Pop," proving I was back in the Midwest and prompting a good ol' pop vs. soda discussion later that day. I'm actually not sure how I became a "soda" person when Iowa is so heavily "pop," but Brad and I both are, and we have converted Mom, as well.

Saturday night Larry and Linda threw a great dinner party for 40 people, which gave me a chance to catch up with Mom and Jerry.

Now, here's where the fun begins. Being cheap, I had spied -- and purchased -- two cheap tickets from Washington National Airport to Detroit, saving us something like 400 bucks over flying out of Salisbury, and getting us to DTW non-stop, to boot. We're used to driving two or three hours to save some serious money on flights -- four airports within a three hour drive all have one or more discount airlines, which means we can almost always fly for less from Washington, Baltimore or Philadelphia than we can from Salisbury, even when we're not flying one of the discounters. The only downside is landing late in the evening and knowing you still have to drive two-and-a-half hours to get home.

We arrived at DTW around noon on Sunday and headed to the check-in kiosk. I swiped my credit card, confirmed our names and destination, and was rewarded with a screen indicating our flight would take off at 10:25 a.m. .... Monday morning. With nothing, nothing available to Washington or Baltimore or Philadelphia or anywhere significantly closer to home.

"Wait," the Northwest agent said. "I might have something here. Let me call Delta."

Things were looking up. Maybe we'd make it home after all. It wouldn't be ideal, but flying home via almost any route would be a better option than spending all afternoon and evening in a Best Western by the airport with no transportation to anywhere but the airport.

"Sorry," the agent said. "I can get you to JFK, but can't get you from there to Washington, so how about that hotel voucher?"

We took the voucher, he checked us in for our flight on Monday and we headed downstairs to ponder our next move. Shelly had been away from the office for almost three weeks. I had deadlines on Monday. The motel voucher did not promise an entertaining Sunday in Detroit. And I thought I had the perfect solution.

"I bet we could drive it in six or seven hours," I said. After all, my Northwest itinerary says it's only 391 miles between Detroit and Washington, at least as the jet flies.

We found a car that needed to be driven back to the DC area, so Avis cut us a little break on the rental price and, by 1:45 Sunday afternoon, we were heading south on I-75, bound for Toledo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and, eventually, Maryland.

Most of our trip was uneventful -- driving as quickly as possible without getting a ticket, taking extremely brief rest breaks and trying to find something other than the Indians game to listen to in northern Ohio. But, in Breezewood, Pennsylvania, where Interstate 70 leaves the Pennsylvania Turnpike and heads south to Washington, I saw something I had never seen before: an Interstate highway running on local surface roads, complete with stop lights. This short strip of I-70 is choked with gas stations and fast food joints and is, as far as I know, the only place in the country this situation occurs.

That short detour aside, traffic was quick, and nine hours after leaving Detroit Metropolitan Airport,* we pulled into the rental car lot at Washington National Airport, swapped cars and headed home, unlocking the back door at just a few minutes past two o'clock.

Is it any wonder I'm sleepy today?

* Gee, only 50 percent more than my guess of six hours which, as I think about it now, was absurdly low.

Welcome to Our Blog

I'm here. Finally.

I've been working feverishly lately to get this blog (web + log = weblog = blog) up and running. I finally have a reason to blog.

Shelly and I are moving to the Philippines.

It's a work thing (hers) and we cannot wait to get there, though it's probably going to be another six weeks before Shelly leaves and another 10 weeks before I leave, which will just about give us time to get everything done before we go, I hope.

The plan is to take Mister Tanaka with us, and we'll probably be there for a year. Shell will be working in poultry, and I'll be ... well, I'm not sure what yet. I'm looking forward to writing about whatever I want to write about, but I don't have any plans beyond that yet. (I have a few irons in the fire, but nothing to announce just yet.)

So, what's online now is an update of what we've been up to for the last six or seven months. I'll be honest: I haven't really been blogging since February. All of these posts have been created in the past two week. I have blogspot to thank for letting me change the posting date to reflect any date I want, to make each post reflect approximately when the event actually happened. From here on, though, I will be honest, (date-wise, at least).

This site replaces our old Web site, as it's much easier for me to update, and much easier to write on. It's photo-heavy now, and photos will continue to be an important part of our blog, but as we go through the whole overseas moving experience -- and then through the whole expat experience -- you can expect to find more and more of my words. Of course, this is bad news for you if you don't like to read, but it's really bad news for me if you simply don't like to read me.

Scroll down and see what we've been up to, then bookmark our blog and check back from time to time for updates. Feel free to leave your comments when you think I'm full of something, or when you just want to say hi.

Naughty Tanaka

Mister Tanaka has resisted our numerous attempts to keep him off the counter. His will is definitely stronger than mine and, more surprisingly, even stronger than Shelly's. The thing is, his *knows* he's being bad.

But what can you do? If the cat wants on the counter, the cat will eventually get on the counter...

Weekend in New England

We're back from a quick trip to New Hampshire -- no point in being anywhere near the beach over the Fouth of July weekend.

We've now seen organic yogurt being made at the Stonyfield Farms Dairy, non-organic beer being made at the Anheuser-Busch brewery, and The Flume in Franconia Notch State Park, all in New Hampshire, spent two nights in Hartford, Conn., (coming and going), and drove through Manhattan on our way back.

Here we are at the top of The Flume. On the way up, there were tons of historical photos showing tourists visiting The Flume back in the 1920s and 1930s. Needless to say, we were quite underdressed compared to the tourists of old.

On the mile-long hike back to the visitor's center, I spied George Washington lying in state in the distance. It's up to you whether you agree or not, but signs posted along the trail indicated that I'm not the only one who can see his profile here!

And finally, here's our standard shot of Shelly dipping her toes in a stream. With less shreiking on her part than when she dipped her toes in Colorado, I have concluded that the water was much less cold than in Frisco.

Congratulations, Brad & Laura!

Yay! Brother Brad and now-sister-in-law Laura tied the knot on the floor of the Grand Canyon today, after flying in from Las Vegas on their own private helicopter flight.

All family members -- including mothers -- were banished from the ceremony, unless they wanted to hike down into the canyon. The 'copter was a four-seater, one for the bride, one for the groom, one for the minister and one for the pilot, who doubled as the witness.

Congratulations you guys, and welcome to the family, Laura!

Meet the Parents, Vol. 2

Daredevil Kathy and Nick spent a short week with us, finding time to hit Vivian up for use of her Harley. Why did they come out to see us so soon after everyone meeting in Colorado? Stay tuned for the answer to that question.

But, this photo might give you an idea of why. We're celebrating -- or, rather, Shelly and Kathy are celebrating -- a big change in our lives with two big, stinky cigars. I suspect it was all a big plan on their part to get out of doing the dishes. (Which, I might add, worked. Nick and I barricaded ourselves inside the house, with the door shut tight, to escape the noxious fumes coming out of these mouths!)

He *Does* Wear a Tie!

Well, sometimes, at least.

But you know, my wife frequently complains that I don't wear a tie to work. And she's right: I don't wear a tie unless I have to.

A night at the Atlantic General Hospital Anniversary fundraiser was one of those tie occasions. If you look closely, you'll see it's a funky tie from China that Shelly brought back from her trip to Shanghai. Bruce, Vivian and I convinced the fotog that we needed a group shot, which turned out really well, I think.

Meet the Parents, Vol. 1

What a weekend we just had...it was Shelly's first weekend at home in more than a month, so Mom, who was visiting from Iowa, and I headed up to Lewes, Del., to meet Brad and Laura and take the Cape May-Lewes Ferry across the Delaware Bay to Cape May, N.J. This trip gave Mom a chance to see Brad, me a chance to ride on a big boat, and Shelly a chance to spend a few hours alone in her own house. No hotels, no foreign languages, just Shelly, Mister Tanaka and her tasks!



It was a nice, cool day, so we wandered along the beach, saw a bunch of Victorian houses (Cape May is famous for that, we learned), lost Mom's sunglasses and bought some expensive film at CVS. The ferry was larger than we expected -- and more expensive than Mom expected!



These photos are the first taken with our new digital camera. Thanks, Jerry, for winning it, and thanks, everyone else in Jerry and Carol's families, for already having a digital camera!

Holy Kum & Go!

Guess what we found?

Shelly and I took off on Saturday afternoon and headed up to 11,000 feet where, despite the fact that it was June, we found snowy Leadville, Colorado.

(We didn't really find it...we were looking for it.)

What we were not looking for was this.....remnants of Greg's youth. It's Kum & Go, all the way from West Des Moines, Iowa.

So, I dragged Shelly inside where I could chat up the clerks and get some physical evidence of my visit to Kum & Go number 915.

"So," says I, "I suppose Bill doesn't make it all the way out here very often."

"Mr. Krause?" one of the clerks replied, looking at me as if she knew I should not be calling the kingpin of the Krause-Gentle empire Bill.

"Actually, his son was just out here last week," the other clerk said, clearly unimpressed that I knew so much about the K&G power structure.

So, I bought some Certs and left.


(Useless bit of trivia: The K&G I worked at was number 533. How I remember that some 12 years after my last shift, I do not know. I can assure you, though, that I could be using that space to remember something more important...)

Training the Next Generation of Strong Women

Just back from beautiful, cool Frisco, Colorado, where we celebrated Shelly's mom's birthday with the whole family.

Unfortunately, this shot does nothing to capture the beauty of the Rockies.

Making sure Kayla grows up to be a strong, independent woman is one of Shelly's primary goals in life. (Who would have thought that?)

Maybe it's because I'm lacking that crucial second X chromosome, but I do not understand how dipping your feet in water that was very recently snow ties in with the whole strong independent thing.

But there are probably many things I'm not supposed to understand.

The Bane of Greg's Work Existence, Finally Done

That's not entirely true ... a good Web site is organic, always evolving and changing, and never really "done." But Atlantic General's old Web site is gone forever, replaced by a brand new one. I can't take credit for doing the programming -- that's a skill beyond my ability -- but I can take credit for creating most of the site's content and structure. I'm so glad to have most of this project behind me!

Meet the Grandparents, Vol. 2

GEOceanCity
Originally uploaded by Mister Tanaka.

George and Esther blew into town a week after Florence left, giving me lots of trips to BWI ... which is never bad, since I can then look at the airplanes!

As you can see, the weather had not warmed up much between Florence's visit and George and Esther's visit! The only difference? This cold visit was to Ocean City, Md.

Meet the Grandparents, Vol. 1

FlorenceRehoboth
Originally uploaded by Mister Tanaka.

Florence came out to visit Greg and Shelly, and then up to visit Brad and Laura. We had a good time, saw lots of the Eastern Shore, and even hit the Rehoboth Beach, Del., on a chilly late April afternoon.