Curious !

So I recieved an e-mail today from someone that I am not sure if I know. they described things that they could not have known unless they knew my family. I tried replying to the e-mail but the message got returned as invalid. The person that sent the e-mail needs to give more information so that I can determine who they are ! I apologize if I don't remember who you are, but I need more information.

Orcas Island Yet Again - Labor Day Weekend

I wanted to take a plane over night. I had never done that before. Unfortunately I don't own an airplane.....yet ! Some day, perhaps. So, Regal Air at Paine Field (PAE) like most FBO's have a minimum hourly charge if you take the plane for more than 5 hours. Generally, if you rent an airplane you only pay for the time that the propeller is spinning. So you want to be efficient with your time. Last Sunday (09-03-06) I reserved an airplane starting at 2:00 pm until 6:00 p.m. Regal Air closed at 6:00 p.m. Which meant that I did not have to have the airplane back until noon the next day (Monday). My total flight time was 1.7. This is better than having to pay for a minmum of 3 hours on Sunday and 3 hours on Monday. that wold have cost a fortune.

So... Jason, Julie and I took off at around 2:00 p.m. It was a very nice flight. Although it was extremely hazy. I wasn't sure why. However, there are a few fires in the mountains but they are pretty far away from Seattle and not to big. But I guess it's possible.

I've known Julie since I was very young. She is my friend Greg's younger sister. I have a blog entry from Monday, March 06, 2006 when Julie and I drove up to Orcas, or at least to Anacortes and then took the ferry. I had called her to invite her to fly up to Orcas Island because I had been promising her a flight as well as the fact that her mother Terri has property on Orcas. We had always gone up there as kids. Anyway, Julie originally said no because she did not have anyone to take care of her dog. Especially since we were all going to stay the night on the Island. Jason and I would camp under the airplane and Julie would stay with her mother at the property.

So then she was finally able to get Greg to take her dog up to the island in his truck and he would meet us up there later in the afternoon. Then both Greg and Julie would stay with their mom.

As Kids, Greg and I would always swim at Cascade Lake (Orcas Island). It's a really beautiful lake. Since we had a nice summer the lake was not cold at all. Our tradition was to walk around to the opposite side of the lake from the swimming area and jump off the cliffs and swing on the rope swing. The lake is very deep around the cliffs. I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant at 41 years old to jump off a cliff about 40 feet high. Greg was the smart one. He had shoes on. I was in my bare feet. But Greg looked over the edge for about 10 seconds and stepped back and then simply jumped. I, on the other hand, looked over the edge and waited about 3-4 minutes and then finally jumped. Jason decided to climb down to a lower edge and jump. He was probably smart. I smacked the bottom of my feet. Not to bad...but it still hurt. So we swam back to the tree which is about 20 feet or so above the water and stick out over the water a good 5-6 feet. I got up there and dove. I had not dove from that hight in a very long time.

Anyway....what was cool is that Jason, Julie and I flew up to the Island. Greg met us up there and thier mother only thought that Jason and I were coming up for dinner She did not know that Greg and Julie would also be there. So when Greg picked us up in town and drove us out to Cascade lake, I called Teri (thier mother) and told her that Jason and I had hitched a ride to the lake to go swimming and would meet her there. She had no idea that Greg and Julie were going to be there. When she finally got there and Jason and I told her that we were going swimming she was worried that we would not make our 6:00 pm dinner reservation. Little did she know that Julie had change the reservation to 7:00 p.m. This gave us plenty of time to swim. Jason and I went to change into our swim suits, as we went back to leave our belongings with Teri, Greg and Julie came back with us and suprised Teri. She was completely caught off guard. She was so happy that we were all there and we all able to enjoy the evening.

So after swimming we drove back into East Sound and were fortunate that our timing was good and only had to wait about 15 minutes. After we were sat at our table we were all dying for a margarita. Bilbo's Festivo has great margaritas. And we were all very hungry. So the Chips were devastated. Not to mention they have great salsa. So we all sat there and talked about everything under the sun. I've known Greg, Julie and Terri all my life so they are very much like family to me. It was really great to spend time with them in such a relaxed setting. We had not all been up on the island together in a very long time and in this day and age that is an accomplishment.

After we relaxed and ate our dinner, Greg drove Jason and I back to the Airport and got the tent ready to call it a night. It was dark and we basically were very tired. We decided to take a walk. We walked down to the North end of the airport along the taxi way. It was about 10:00 p.m so there was virtually no traffic arriving or departing. We could see clear up into Vancouver, Canada. The stars were out, a great moon and it wasn't too cold. Pretty good combination for being up in the San Jaun Islands.

I had Informed Julie that it would be best to be back to the airport at or before 9:00 a.m. She arrived early and we were off the ground by 9:00 a.m. As we got up to about 1,500 feet we could see that there were low clouds as far as we could see. I had not really planned for this. The FBO at the airport was not open to be able to check the weather. The conditions at the aiport were clear. There was no fog. We had two options at this point. Since we could see Friday Harbor and it was clear we could go over there and have breakfast and wait for the low clouds to dissapate; or we could turn around and land back at East Sound and wait until there for the low clouds to burn off. We decided to head over to Friday Harbor and have breakfast. we had a great landing at Friday Harbor and then walked into town and had a great breakfast. It always seems like the food is better after flying. Don't know what it is !!

After breakfast we walked over to the Sherrif's office / Courthouse since Julie had been a deputy Sherrif in Rosche Harbor for San Jaun County, she knew everyone up there. So she introduced Jason and I to everyone and I was able to talk to one of the 911 Dispatchers who happen to be a pilot and we checked the weather at Paine Field, Bremerton, Boeing Field, and Port Townsend. All Reported Clear below 12,000 feet. This meant that there should not be any problem getting back to Paine Field. It was pretty much a low fog over the water only. Any Land mass was clear. In any event, I had enough fuel on board that if we got to Paine Field and could not land we had enough fuel to turn around and fly all the way back to East Sound. What a shame it would be if we had to spend more time on Orcas Island.

All in all it was a great over night to Orcas Island. I will definitely be doing this again. I can't do it to often since it is fairly expensive.

More Flying - Bremerton- August 2006

My friend Mike and I went flying a few weeks ago. I'm just now making my blog entry. Unfortunately I had forgotten my camera but was lucky that Mike had remebered his. He was able to get some pretty good pictures. The week before Mike and I had made arrangements to go flying the weather had been amazing. Clear, and in the 80's. So when the day came along for our flight the weather had sucked all day. It was overcast and in some areas of Seattle it had rained that day. Imagine, rain in Seattle. Who knew? Anyway...by the end of the day the clouds had broken up and the weather was good enough for VFR flight.

We were only flying from Everett (Pain Field - PAE) to Bremerton (PWT). It's a short 30 minute flight southwest from Paine Field. We departed to the south and turned South EWest and headed over the water. The evening clouds actually made the evening sky very beautiful. Not to mention that Seattle is surrouned by so much water that the flying in the Pacific Northwest is amazing. It always seems different every time I fly. Despite what most people believe, alot of the time, Seattle has amazing summers. It's the winters that suck.

We flew down across the sound near Elliot bay and within sight of Downtown Seattle. It was beautiful against the clouds and the sun shining from the west as it was setting. As we came closer to Bremerton we skirted to the South of Bremerton due to the TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) over the Naval Shipyard. Although the Flight restriction is actually permanent. The inlet from Puget Sound to Bremerton (don't know the name) points directly to Bremerton National Airport but we followed the southern shore line directly to the airport.

Once we arrived at Bremerton we hopped out of the airplane and walked over to the restaurant. They are known in the area for thier Fish & Chips. They are really good. So we ate dinner there and stuffed ourselves. The only thing that would have made it better is a Beer. But can drink and fly !

So we departed Bremerton to the East and flew toward Sea-Tac International Airport. I levelled off at 1,500 feet and contacted Seattle Tower on 119.9 and requested the West-East Transition. They assigned us a squawk code and instructed me to fly over the southern end of the airport over the numbers for 34L and 34R. It’s amazing to be able to fly over such a busy airport with all the airliners taking off and landing below. Obviously Sea-Tac is not as busy as many other airports in the U.S. But as we were flying over there were several Alaska and Southwest 737s on approach and a few taking off. We could also see the airplanes parked at the terminals. It gives a very unique perspective to the airport you can’t normally get as a passenger waiting for a flight or even departing or arriving.

Once we completed the Transition, we were over Kent. This placed us directly south of the airspace for both Renton (RNT) and Boeing Field (BFI). During the transition I had tuned in the ATIS for Renton and had the Tower frequency (124.7) ready to switch over. After being released by the Sea-Tac tower and the frequency change was approved, I contacted Renton tower and requested a Touch-and-go departing to the north so that we could continue back to Paine Field to complete our flight for the evening. My request to the Renton Tower was approved. After completing the touch-and-go we departed over Lake Washington and flew up the Each Channel directly over Bellevue.

The flight over Lake Washington was nice and smooth. I received the airport conditions at Paine Field and then contacted the Tower for clearance to land. We were cleared for 34R and landed with out incident.

Flying - Orcas Island - August 5th, 2006

I've been able to do a bit more flying in the past few weeks. I'm sure I'll be paying for it for awhile but decided that since the weather was so nice that I would try to get alot of flying in this summer. My mom wanted to go flying with me so I decided to take her up to Orcas Island to East Sound for lunch. My friend Jason went with my mother and I. We took off from Paine Field out of Regal Air. Paine Field is in Everett, Washington. This is where the Everett Boeing plant is. They manufacture the 777 and the 747 in this facility. I'm not sure which other aircraft they also manufacture here. So this can be a very busy place.

I've also flown out of Boeing Field in Seattle where the Seattle Boeing plant is. Mostly flight testing and the Military Aircraft division (developmental center)is. So I preflighted the 172 and we got under way. The picture to the left is a little old for this airplane. the stripes are now a couple different shades of blue instead of brown.

The weather was flawless, clear and 80 degrees. I requested a North departure and was cleared for take off from runway Three-Four Right (34R). Because of the flight restriction over the Everett naval shipyard I actually departed to the North East until I was over I-5 and north of Everett and then turned to a heading on a direct route into East Sound on Orcas Island.

I maintained a 500 ft per minute ascent up to 5000 feet. Contacted Whidbey approach control at the Naval Air Station and requested Flight Following. I was at 5000 feet and thier Class "C" airspace only goes up to 4000 feet so I did not need a clearance to fly over thier airspace. But requesting flight following let's them track me while I'm flying over thier airspace and at the same time I benefit the safety features of thier radar. Basically they are able to advise me of other aircraft traffic in the area. They inform me of othe heading, altitude and type of other aircraft in close Proximity. Every communcation they make have to I respond with an acknowledgement. After I am beyond thier 20 mile radius airspace they can either hand me off to a different controlling agency or cancel my flight following. I usually cancel when I'm over Anecortes and pitch down for a 300-500 foot per minute decent into East Sound. It is a really nice decent. It increases my airspeed about 15-20 kts. I level off about 1500 feet as we start passing over the island and East Sound and then determine which runway is in use.

On this particular day they were landing Runway one-six (16). This meant that I had to actually cross over the island to the north side and land from the north over the water which is a really fun approach.

What I did not know was that here was an Experimental Aircraft Association Fly-in that weekend. So once I landed, it was very busy. East Sound airport is usually a very quiet relaxed airport and is very fun to fly into. There was a temporary ground frequency so I contacted the volunteers on the ground frequency and they asked if I was staying the night or short term. We were only staying for lunch so they directed me on to the grass and I shut down.

Once we were out of the airplane we walked around a little and looked at some of the airplanes. But we were mainly up there to eat lunch and meet some friends of mine. When we walked up to the small terminal building at the East Sound Airport my friend Greg and His mother, sister and girlfriend were waiting there for us. I've known Greg since I was 5 years old. Not to mention his sister and mother. They are like family to me. Greg's mom, Teri, has property on Orcas Island. She is currently staying on the Island several weeks at a time. As a Kid we use to go up there and camp and stay on thier property in the summer. There are a lot of memories on Orcas Island.

So we had a nice lunch, sat outside and just relaxed. There was a lot of airplane activity which was really cool for me. After we finished lunch we walked a bit in town and had a coffee and some dessert at a small coffee shop. My mother had been wanting me to take her flying for several weeks. But the weather had not been cooperating. We were finally able to get a nice day which makes flying all that much more fun. Hopefully the rest of the summer will be liket hat and I'll be able to get up there several more times.

4th of July, 2006 - Provincetown, MA (Cape Cod)

I decided to spend the 4th of July this year in Provincetown, MA. I used to live in Boston and would spend time out there at least 2-3 times during the summer. It's a very quaint town out on the tip of Cape Cod. Let's just say that the culture there is very unique. In the summer time it becomes a Gay Mecca. Especially on the big weekends like Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day. Not to mention all the special themed weeks that are in between all these holiday weekends.

I had not really planned on going to P-Town this summer but I had a Ticket on Alaska Airlines that I had not used and wanted to make a vacation out of it. As it was, the ticket on Alaska Airlines was worth $300. I called Alaska Airlines to change the ticket to Boston and the total cost of the ticket was $ 614. So ended up having to pay an additional $ 314 to fly to Boston. I then had to figure out where I was going to stay. Fortunately I have a friend from Seattle that has lived out in Boston and now has a house in P-town. I e-mailed him and asked if I could sleep on his sofa for the week of the 4th of July. He said "sure". So I spent 7 days in P-town and my last 2 days in Boston. I had looked on the internet for a hotel in Boston and could not find a single room under $ 220 a night. I finally decided to try Priceline.com. I bit $90 a night in the combat zone and they accepted my bid. Ironically, the hotel that I was placed at was the Radisson. I had check all the travel sites before Priceline and the price at the Raddison was $239 a night. So I saved a lot of money using Priceline. I was a little apprehensive but it turned out to be a good experience.

So the time to go to P-town finally came about. I was on a Red-eye from Seattle to Boston, nonstop. I arrived into Boston's Logan International airport at 6:30 a.m. I had checked a bag which I don't normally do. I decided not to hassle with carrying it on board this time. As it turned out, it took 45 minutes for my bag to be unloaded off the airplane. I was in a bit of a time crunch since I had to be at the Commonwealth Pier by 7:45 a.m to catch the Provincetown Ferry which left at 8:00 a.m. So I finally got my bag at 7:15 a.m and hopped in a taxi and was able to get to the ferry on time. As I hopped out of the taxi I was in desparate need of a cup of coffee after flying for nearly 6 hours and having been up all night. I was very relieved to see that there was a Dunkin' Donuts coffee shop right at the Pier. I would much rather have Dunkin' Donuts coffee than Starbucks. Dunkin' Donuts is so much better....not to mention the Donuts ! :) So I was able to enjoy my coffee and Donuts as I got on the ferry and watched the city of Boston from the Harbor.

It was foggy when we left Boston. It was warm, but it was foggy. I was hoping that the weather would improve for the week that I would be in P-town. I wanted maximum sun time. All I wanted to do was lay in the sun everyday, sleep and relax as much as possible. Something that is not all that easy in P-town during the summer and especially during a busy holiday weekend.

The P-town Ferry takes 1 hour and 40 minutes. As the ferry got close to P-town my friend Tom had text messaged me and told me to let him know when I arrived in P-town. As we arrived at the P-town dock I messaged him and did not get a reply so I started walking. He did not live too far from the center of town. Besides, P-town is not that big so you can walk anywhere. As I was in the middle of town Tom messaged me and told me to stay put. He picked me up in front of town hall.

Once I got settled I simply made a B-line to the Boat Slip to lay in the sun. By that time the fog had lifted and it was starting to get warm. I payed my $ 5.00 for a lounge chair and a towel and layed down in the sun to relax. It was so nice to be able to soak up the warm sun. Not to mention the scenery was nice !

After laying in the sun until 3:30 p.m. I walked back to the house and Tom had gone to work and there was no one in the house. I used this opportunity to lay down and relax a little more. The next then I knew, it was 8:30 pm. I showered and walked over to the Red Inn. I was fortunate it was not too busy and there was space for me at the bar. I sat down ordered a drink and talked to Tom for a bit. I ordered a great dinner and had a few more drinks. I also had a great bread pudding for dessert. It had a vanilla custard sauce with it that was unbelievable. After dinner I walked home and slept like a baby. The next day I got up and basically did the same thing; layed in the sun at the Boat Slip, came home and took a nap and had another great meal at the Red Inn. After a couple of days in P-Town I finally ventured out to the bars and took in the "sights". It was pretty fun.

On the 4th of July I stuck to my routine of laying in the sun and napping. Although Tom's boyfriend Joey was back in P-Town and he and I decided to grill some burgers for dinner instead of going out. After we ate the burgers we went over to the Red Inn and had drinks and sat out on the deck over the water and waited for the fireworks to start over the P-town pier. After awhile Sean, one of the owners of the Red Inn and a few of his friends were also out on the deck. Then some of thier other friends shows up, Larry and Paul. I found Larry to be a pretty interesting guy. Handsome...etc. Although a big smart ass....I guess that is why we got alot so well.

After the fireworks I took off and went into town to the bars. They were packed with lots of guys. I ended up having a few too many drinks and payed for it the next day. But nothing a few aspirin and lots of water and a lounge chair in the sun could not cure.

The week was nice. Ironically low key in the busy little "mecca" of P-Town. I left Friday July 7th and had two more days in Boston before returning to Seattle. I had booked a relatively inexpensive room at the Radisson hotel on Stuart street in the old Combat zone of Boston. It was a perfect location. I was able to walk around the South end in Back Bay and see the old neighborhood that I used to live in. I ate at some great reastaurants and was able to walk all over Boston after not having been there in nearly 7 years.

Sunday July 9th it was back to Reality. I was on an American Airlines flight to Chicago and then an Alaska Airlines flight back to Seattle. All was pretty smooth. Was hoping to get bumped to maybe get a free ticket, but no such luck this trip.

Riverside, CA - Visiting My Aunt

I have not updated my blog in quite some time. I figured it was time to do so. I've taken a few trips in the last few months and it's been a pretty good summer so far. Even though it really has not felt alot like summer at all. I was talking with some friends recently and we were talking about how our perspective on "Summer" has changed as we've become older. When you're younger, like when you're in High School, College, etc., your perspective on summer is quite different. We tend to think about Summer as 3-4 months from late May to Early September. But when you get older, out of college and working for a living, Summer simply blends into the rest of the year and if you don't plan any type of "summer vacation", you really don't get a "summer". So hopefully I've been able to have a "Summer" this year.

I started out my "Summer" by making a trip down to Souther California to visit my Aunt. She lives in Riverside, CA., about an hour east of Los Angeles. I try to make it down there at least once a year or more to spend some time with her. We have alot of fun just hanging out. We go shoping, out to eat and on this past trip we went to Knott's Berry farm. She likes some of the rollercoasters but I love all of them.

On this particular trip it was close to my birthday so she took me to the Mission Inn, in downtown Riverside. It's an old Mission which is a hotel and it has a great buffet brunch. We sat outside and had Champagne and OJ, and ate until we were full. We enjoyed ourselves ! :)

I'm hoping to get down to visit here again before the end of the summer !

I went hiking on Sunday (April 10) up near Snoqualmie pass. A friend of mine and I went up to try to go hiking into Snow lake. The trail head starts at Alpentall Ski Area and is a fairly short hike. But there is still too much snow to try to hike it without snowshoes. So we drove back down from the pass to the Lower Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River. The drive to the Trailhead was somewhat lengthy. We drove along the valley and followed the middle fork for quite awhile on a logging road to the trailhead.

From I-90 the road goes past a few small housing developments. There are some nice houses back there. But . . . a little to far out of town for me. We drove several miles on the dirt road. I wish I had a 4x4. My car is not exactly set up for country road driving. I had to make sure I was going very slow so that I did not hit any unexpected pot holes. The trail begins at a bridge that crosses the river. You can either take the trail down stream along the Snoqualmie river or start hiking up river. We chose to go up river. We though that we might get ambitious and make it up to Snoqualmie lake but we decided not to.

The trail does not gain much altitude. So it is quite an easy hike. Although we found that there were a lot of tries and snags blocking the trail. So we had to find ways around them. Not too big of a deal !

After winding along the river for a while we found a bridge and over a small water fall. We decided this was as good a place as any to eat our pathetic Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, filter some water and rest for a bit. After that we turned around and it felt like it took us half the time to make it back to the car.


I normally prefer to have a destination when I go hiking. Usually a lake. It's very early in the spring so there is still a lot of snow. Especially since we had a very heavy snow fall this year.

San Francisco - March 29 - April 3 2006

Well...I took a few days off and went down to San Francisco to visit a friend. I was a lot of fun ! Although, it never fails, I had tried to prepare all my work ahead of time and the day I went to leave (Wednesday) I was given some work to do for Wednesday night. Fortunately, I was able to work from my friend's computer down there in SF. All went well in that respect.

Thursday was a very relaxing day. We just hung out, ate and walked around Fisherman's Wharf. I had not been down to San Francisco in nearly 5 years. Once place I had never been was the Coit Tower on Telegraph hill. We hopped a bus that seemed like it was having transmission problems. At one point I thought we almost could have walked faster. But we finally got to the top of the hill and took in the view. I have to admit that it was probably one of the best views of the city I had ever seen. Although, not much else has changed in with respect to the tourist traps.


We made it down to the Italian district walked around for ever trying to find a good place to eat. We finally decided on a nice little place and had a relaxing dinner. The food was pretty good ! Afterward we enjoyed a huge bowl of Gelato !! I can't believe I ate the whole thing. We then walked back to Dave's apartment. I needed that exercise after that meal. I'm going to have to work out an extra few times for that one too

Friday we rented a car and drove up to Sonoma to do some wine tasting. The hills and the grass were so green. There has been a ton of rain in the Bay areaa and in the wine country. I'm use to seeing the brown dry grassy hills. But this time it was quite beautiful.

I know/knew absolutely nothing really about wine. I basically knew the difference between sweet and dry wines. Reds seem to be mostly dry. The smell....oh wait...that Aroma of the wines are supposed to be able to have the character of the barrell(sp?) they were stored in. I was able to smell some of those characteristics, but not all. I guess I have to train my snoz to know better.

We tasted at the following Wineries:

Buena Vista

Kenwood

Ledson

It was quite fun. I had never really tasted at the wineries themselves. My friend Dave knows quite a bit about wines and enjoys them very much. After a day around the wineries we ended up in Guerneville for the night. There had been alot of flooding of the Russian River and you could tell it was off season. alot of businesses were closed.

The next day we were up fairly early and drove out to the coast and drove north along Highway 1. There was one area of the road that had a mud slide over from too much rain. Fortunately we did not have to wait that long for it to be cleared. We travelled about 150 miles north of San Francisco up to a light house called the Point Arena Lighthouse. It was a nice size light house. We were going to go up in it but then decided not to.

Point Arena Lighthouse

After stopping to take in the view from the light house we decided to head inland on a really cool highway that curved thoough a good size forest of Redwoods. We ended up in Healdsburg and had lunch and did a little more wine tasting and then made it back into San Francisco by early evening.

Picture I took out the window of the little shop at the light house

On Sunday we decided to do the Tourist thing again. We got on a boat and took one of the San Francisco Bay tours. It takes you out under the Golden gate bridge and then back via the north side of Alcatraz. I had never seen Alcatraz that close up. It was great to see the city from the bay insteaed of some of the ordinary views.

Under the Golden Gate Bridge:

My Friend Dave and the Golden Gate Bridge: