March 2005 Archives

Had to go to Manhattan for the New York Auto Show on Thursday the 24th. I took the Amtrak Train from Washington DC to Penn Station in NYC. Then I walked to the show (it was only about 5 blocks), and after six hours at the auto show, went back to Penn Station, rode a delayed train back to DC, then took the Metro to Vienna.

Stats:

Money spent on train tickets: $240
Money spent on food: $6 (2 slices of pizza and a Diet Dr. Pepper)
Miles walked: hmm... felt like about 10
Hours awake: 20
Pictures taken: 157 (we had photos of most everything at the NYC show already)
Interesting new cars at NYC show: 1

(more photos, just click the link below)

Amy's sister, Kelly came to visit us over the weekend. We did all sorts of fun things, including: A trip to Eureka Springs, a trip to Joplin, ate some good food, and watched some movies. She left on Monday morning and headed back to balmy WI. Too bad it was only about 70F while she was here - it could've been a little nicer... :-)

For more pictures from our trip to Eureka, click on the "continued" link below.

Just sitting in the living room, laptop at my feet, Diet Dr. Pepper by my side, dogs on the couch (zonked out), and a purring kitty (Kramer) on my lap. There's a slight chill in the house (heat is off, and it's 50F outside), but warm-n-purring Kramer is keeping me warm. Ahhh.........

I came home tonight, cracked-open the newspaper and almost died when I read this headline:

Apparently, the county DA issued a subpoena for a "Murphy Smith." Only problem is Murphy Smith is a 5 year old Shih Tzu that belonged to an accused murderer, and may have been with the murderer when he shot (and killed) a resident of Bella Vista back in 1999.

According to the article, deputies at the court house wouldn't let Murphy enter the building, but once the subpoena ordering his presence was displayed, they ran him through the metal detector and let him in.... Apparently the judge dismissed him after about 5-10 minutes.

Isn't this state great?

We gave all of the dogs a bath today (that was an adventure), and Regis decided to sit in the chair with Amy. Apparently, Monica thought it would be fun to sit on the chair, too.

So I'm sitting in exit row seat 9F, taxiing down the runway at about 100 miles per hour on a Northwest Airlines Airbus 319 when I decide to take a peek out the window. Something immediately catches my eye - a large wrench - and it's sticking out from the wing, in the area of the rearmost flaps.

I did a double-take, because I couldn't believe there was a wrench attached to the wing, but sure enough, there it was - the box end of the wrench (the closed end) was sticking almost straight up from the wing, and it appeared to be a rather substantial wrench - I'd guess it was at least a 1". I immediately grabbed for my cell phone - if the plane was going to crash, I wanted evidence that there was a wrench in the wing when we took off. I snapped a picture and turned the phone off.

My mind started to race... Did someone drop the wrench? Was it forgotten after an adjustment was made? Had the adjustment been made properly? How was it able to "hang on" at more than 100mph? The thoughts stopped as soon as we started to lift off the ground, and the wrench was still in place.

(continued next page, click the link below)