Jim's Guts

San Diego Pictures...

So much happened in San Diego that I'm not sure I'm going to be able to write it up. I will say that being down there for 10 days made it seem like home again. So in lieu of a full travelogue how about some pictures?

Old Town San Diego


Looking north towards Scrips Pier and La Jolla from the top of Mt. Soladad


The L&T snapped this just a little early , what she missed was a semi-dyno move to hit the button at the top


The L&T flips out at SeaWorld

One of the coolest things we did during our trip was SeaWorld's Dolphin Interaction Program. After a brief classroom session you get suited up and into the pool with dolphins...

Here we are with trainer Hailey and Grace, a Pacific Bottle Nose Dolphin


A great picture of the L&T and Gracie


Splash time - Hailey is evil (she did this to us several times)


The L&T takes a walk with Tobbie


Tobbie (foreground) and Gracie say goodbye

New York, New York…

Greetings and random notes from 38,000 feet* aboard an Alaska 737-800 and making the slow slog back to Seattle – Do to prevailing winds this time of year, it's a 4 hour trip from Settle to NYC but a 5 hour 41 minute grind going back. Ouch.

Anyway I've in New York for Get Your Guts In Gear, office work (Thursday), a strategic planning workshop (Friday) and annual in-person board meeting (Saturday). Both meetings were hosted by the fantastic folks at cementworks, who also helped us by facilitating the strategic planning session. I'm very excited about all of the things that we came up with and look forward to a very exciting time for the Ride.

cementworks is based in Manhattan and I was staying in Brooklyn, courteously of our Ride Director (which meant I also got to spend time with Molly the beagle, which was great). Anyway, staying in one and working in the other means a morning commute and a trip on the subway. There's crowded, and then there's New York crowded. I've worked at Disneyland on the only day that we closed the Park due to guest capacity (July 4^th 1989), so I know what it means to pack people in, but getting on a subway car during "rush hour" in NYC is wild. You literally can't move, and it's not worth hanging on to the hand rail, because you couldn't fall if you wanted to.

To catch my flight home I took a town car from Brooklyn to Newark Airport which was kind of fun because I got to see some of the city (something you can't do from the subway). We took the Brooklyn Bridge out of the neighborhood, with the Manhattan Bridge to one side and on the other was the Grand Lady herself, the Statue of Liberty. Even though it was through a car window, and even though it a ways off in the distance, it still gave me chills and a sense of pride.

As for the flight home, I'm hoping it's quick (well at least not delayed), quiet, and calm. After finishing this post it's probably DVD time as my brain is pretty much fried. When I land I'll try to make a quick stop at the send off party for Coach Tammy as she gets ready to leave for Ironman South Africa. Then it's home to the L&T, the Boys, and my own bed…

* - Probably obvious but I feel compelled to say it anyway, while I wrote this onboard the plane home, it didn't get posted till after I had landed. Alaska Air still doesn't have in flight internet.

A brand new Disneyland…

The lovely and talented Mrs. Smith and I don’t have children of our own. Never had an overwhelming desire to have them and it seemed like bad idea just to do it for the sake of society or relatives (this is its own post at some point). In any event, just because we don’t have our own doesn’t mean we don’t like kids, instead we try to be active in the lives of our friends’ children (I have no idea how many “nieces” and “nephews” we have), and so it was that we were invited to go down to Disneyland with our friends Kris & Sandi, and Sarah & Jerry, and their two children Mike (9) and Em (7).

Having worked at the Park for a year (and Kirsten for 2 summers), I guess you could say that we know the place pretty well. We’ve ridden every attraction at least once (and some cases WAY more than that). We’ve seen countless parades, shows, fireworks, and pretty much anything else produced by the company. We can pretty much navigate Disneyland blindfolded.

That said, acting as a sort of tour guide for our little group, allowed me to see our “second home” with completely different eyes. I’m sure I’ll get deeper into the trip in future posts, but I did want to take a minute to thank our group for giving us an opportunity to share someplace that is so important to Kirsten and I with them. Thanks for listen to our endless stories (and actually pretending to enjoy them), for fantastic food, and amazing new memories of a place we both love…