Even when I am on break, I still seem to be too busy to breath!
OK, I have been home for a little over a week now, though most of the time it has been a case of hoop jumping deluxe!
The meetings in the Rio office on 2 July went reasonably well I guess. I did finally meet the client who had been sending me emails in Portuguese that I could hardly understand. While I was in the office I also built several test jobs without benefit of data to send to the boat for the new project. Even though on the last project, I had proven my contention that it makes more sense to try to remove swell noise from the data prior to doing anything else which will mask the difference between the noise and data, I discovered today that on the boat they are testing parameters putting swell noise attenuation after several other processes that will cause swell noise to have comparable amplitudes to the noise. I am not sure, but I think the order of the processing was established by the office and my opposite the acting chief didn't stand up for what geophysically makes more sense. This morning I sent an email to the boat and copied the onshore supervisor expressing my "strong recommendation that swell noise attenuation be done prior to any other process that will make the swell noise have the similar amplitude to the data." I suppose time will tell as to whether logic (my comments) will win out over "traditional processing sequence"
But that was a bit of a chronological digression. The flights home from Rio though long, were basically uneventful. I managed to get to Tulsa about 10:00 in the morning and then we went to my favorite diner on the way home for a decent breakfast. My wife then dropped me at home and took off to take care of several errands while I tried to recover from the flights home. That afternoon, we met with my daughter and her family and my wife's friends to drive down to Henryetta, OK for dinner at a Mexican restaurant that my wife's friends love. After eating way too much we then set out with my daughter's family in a two car caravan to go to Arkansas to visit my niece, nephew-in-law (some of you may remember my nephew-in-law who had the brain tumor about a year ago) and their family. Though the grandkids, son-in-law and daughter all stayed at Joe-Joe's house, Debra and I got a hotel room in Van Buren so that I could be in a bit more of a restful atmosphere.
The next morning, (American Independence Day, 4th of July, for those keeping score at home) I got up at the butt crack of dawn to go back to my nephew-in-law's house to go with Joe and John to do a little kayaking on what used to be be Shepard Springs Lake but after the removal of the old dam, was now part of the larger Lake Fort Smith. We rented three kayaks (if I had known the kayaking plan was going to be lake kayaking, I would have brought my own and saved Joe $15.00 worth of rental) for 4 hours, though the other guys got tired of it after only 3 hours. We kayaked back to the mouth of the lake and got to enjoy seeing lots of wildlife: a yearling doe, a bunny, and a family of wood ducks. It was a delightful day as the morning was still moderately cool in the Ozarks and the water was still. For those who are "get" the feeling of belonging in nature that such a setting can give, I would not need to explain how peaceful that felt. For those who don't "get it" I doubt I ever could articulate just how great a morning it was.
After the kayaking, Debra and I went back to the hotel so that I could clean up. We then all went over to my brother-in-law's house for a huge barbecue and for the kids to spend the afternoon in the swimming pool. That evening we were all going to watch the kids shoot some of the $100+ of fireworks we had brought along with other member's of Deb's family contributions to a what promised to be a huge family fireworks display. Alas, that was not quite how things worked out. As the sun was setting, wave after wave of thunderstorms with frequent lightning blew through the area. So instead of man-made fireworks, we watched several waves of Mother Nature's fireworks instead. The kids were rather disappointed, but it was definitely a case of being safe rather than sorry.
The drive home on the 5th was no big deal and that evening was just spent relaxing after getting home.
After the previous break's failure at getting the outside of the house painted, we had decided that we would look into vinyl siding instead, especially since the increased insulation value will be tax deductible in a year where mortgage interest has gone. Besides the benefit of not having to paint any more, it will also reduce the cost of my home owner's insurance while increasing the value of the home, so it strikes me as a definite win-win.
Since Debra had last week off for vacation, on Monday we set off to start looking into getting estimates for getting the siding work done for the house. After we had visited four different places (all selected for their listing in the BBB) we had a bit of an oh-shit moment. It seems the blower motor on the air conditioning on my endeavor decided to short out and burn up the wiring under the dashboard. I suppose there were a few bits of good news in the timing. 1) We were not still on the trip to Arkansas. 2) We were not all that far from where we could get it fixed. 3) There was not an actual fire under the dashboard. 4) When it happened the temperature was still in an unseasonably cool spell and the temperature was less than 100 degrees. So from there, I took the endeavor to where I was going to get it fixed and while there have them replace the windshield that my wife had not gotten fixed since it had cracked on her. The first estimate for the work was going to be about $2200, but there was an upgrade available which would allow using a pigtail connection rather than the old wiring harness style to fix the blower motor. So my endeavor spent the rest of the work week waiting for parts and getting repaired, but it turned out to only be $883.55 instead of the original estimate.
The rest of the last week was spent with various contractors coming out to make estimates on the siding and to replace the utility door on my garage. We finally selected a contractor and so tomorrow afternoon will sign a contract to get the work done for just under $5500. Obviously, this is turning into a rather expensive break, but at least some good things will be coming out of the money spent.
And one last bit of stuff to add. The other day I got an email from my son where he attached several pictures of him flying both at Aviona Italy and at the air show in Mildenhall, UK where my daughter-in-law got to spend some time with him a few months ago. My son said many of the pictures were taken by "tail spotters" and a couple by Lisa. He also told me that I would just have to take his word for it, that the action shots were of him. So I guess now you will have to take my word for it too. Anyway, for those who might be interested, the pictures are behind the cut:
My son
and his helmet.
Don't you think my son and daughter-in-law would make beautiful babies?
As my son puts it, when kicking in the afterburners, burning some dinosaurs! He also said that this shows what it is like to have 28,000 pounds of thrust behind your ass!
On a more somber note. This picture was taken at the air show at Mildenhall AFB in the UK. The missing man formation was for George Houghton, who crashed his f-16 in a training mission in Utah last month. As it turns out, George was a friend of my son's who was a First Assignment Insturctor Pilot with Erik when they were both a Laughlin Air Force Base a few years ago. The Houghton family has paid a heavy price lately as my son's friend's brother was in Air Force Special Ops and broke his back in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan in 2007. It also appears that the current Air Force plan for my son has changed and he will not be going to Iraq. However, the latest plan is that this spring Erik will be going to Afghanistan for 6 months.