Mike, Molly, Maddie, and Adrienne

To Blog or Not to Blog

2011-11-22T09:52:00.001-06:00

That is the question. I’m considering starting this back up. Is there anybody out there?

Christmas Preview

2010-12-04T15:25:00.000-06:00

Hopefully we can make it to the picture studio before falling apart!

Trip to the farm

2010-03-07T16:48:00.001-06:00

Yesterday we headed North of Houston to a "farm." It was far from a
working farm. It was more of a petting zoo. Anyway, Maddie and
Adrienne had a blast. Here are some pictures from the outting.

In The Shadow of the Moon (Rocket)

2009-07-22T05:51:00.003-05:00

On July 20, I took Maddie to a gathering in the Saturn V building on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It was a get together for the flight controllers currently working the STS 127/ISS2JA mission. There were quite a few people there, although you wouldn't know it by the pictures I took - Maddie was playing the shy card. She enjoyed checking out the Saturn V rocket that was supposed to be Apollo 18, but the program was cancelled before it was used.

Although Maddie is pretty small, you can still get a sense of how huge the first stage rockets are (5 total).

Maddie paused for a photo op with the Apollo 11 crew (Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin).

And this is where they went... Let's do it again!

Seaworld San Antonio Trip

2009-05-27T21:25:00.003-05:00

We went to San Antonio and Seaworld over Memorial Day weekend. Hereare a bunch of pictures from the event. Maddie got to see Shamu, feeddolphins, look at lots of fish, and go swimming. We had a great time!

Here are some videos as well...

This one is at home tossing Maddie around. You'll see she demands "one more!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpjZDFV1p20

Maddie getting used to the toddler pool at Seaworld:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhL985Uwh2c

Maddie just walking around:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAKCAASNcXE

Maddie watching Shamu perform (kind of a long clip):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmKECQf5qSs

Mike, Molly, and Maddie.

Recent April Pictures

2009-04-24T19:00:00.002-05:00

Here are some recent pictures of the fam. The first two pictures were taken with my 50mm lens, but the rest were taken wtih my new 10-20mm wide angle zoom. Let me know what you think!

Mobile blogging...

2009-04-14T17:18:00.001-05:00

Or blogging at all for that matter. I'm giving mobile blogging a shot.
Maybe the frequency will increase, maybe not. We shall see. Anyway,
anyone monitoring this blog probably gave up a long time ago!

Let's start with a picture of out lovely flower picker. It's now one
of Maddie's favorite activities!

Halloween precursor

2008-10-25T20:48:00.002-05:00

We went to a fall festival today in the subdivision of a friend of ours (Ann). It was a good time, and it gave Maddie a chance to show off her costume for the first time this year. Any guesses on what she is? Although we had a good time, it didn't last but a couple hours becuase the temperature was above 80, and we all got pretty hot before long.

Video Recap

2008-10-19T20:27:00.002-05:00

I thought I'd post a few videos from the last few weeks to catch everyone up...

Here is Maddie getting verbal with the dogs.

Here is a video of Maddie's very first steps!

Here is a video from out trip to the zoo this weekend.

Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-19T20:21:00.001-05:00

In addition to going to the Zoo this weekend, we also visited thePumpkin Patch! Now, it is a little different when it's 80 degrees, but it was a very nice day in it's own right!

Boo Zoo

2008-10-19T20:14:00.002-05:00

We had a full one this weekend! We went to the Houston Zoo and got to see (and yell at) all kinds of new and interesting animals! Maddie had a ball. Here are some pictures from the outting.

September, Ike, etc...

2008-09-20T15:51:00.008-05:00

September was an interesting month, to say the least! We had Maddie's 1 year birthday party, which had a great turnout even though we were threatened by hurricane Gustav. A few family members had to cancel their travel, but that was about the only impact. I'm going to try to do a separate post with some birthday stuff in it.

Here is the track of where Ike was headed when we left town. There is generally a large margin of error this far out, but it was projected to make landfall just to the Southeast of us. Not a good prospect.

This is where Ike actually made landfall. As you can see by the wind field, it was quite a large hurricane! The center of the eye passed just to the East of our house. I believe it was about 10 miles away, which put our place well within the eye itself. Luckily we were on the left side of the eye, which is generally a better place to be than on the right.

Here are a couple pictures from the hotel in San Antonio. Gotta love that La Quinta allows dogs, but it got pretty comfy with two large dogs and a baby! It wasn't a very fun trip, to say the least. The second day we got there, Maddie turned up a double ear infection. After we got that treated, things started improving quite a bit... well, other than the category 2/3 hurricane (Ike) that was bearing down on our house!

Here is Maddie in the tub. The tub was really grimy, so we purchased this blow up tub duck, and I have to say, it worked out really well!

Here is Maddie in her portable crib provided by the hotel. She did OK in it, but not great. It kinda had a musty odor to it anyway, so she ended up in bed with us a lot.

After four nights in the hotel, we drove to Katy, TX, which is just East of Houston, and stayed with Cindy and Dan. They had power and were kind enough to take in a bunch of us refugees from Ike! We had a good time there! Here is Maddie and Mike at the Kings.

Here is Molly, Maddie, and Dan having a grand old time.

Maddie out playing with her Mickey Mouse walker.

We spent one night at Chris and Alene's house in League City since they had power and it was close to home. We got power on Wednesday and were back in our house that night. Here is Maddie having fun at their house.

Back home again! Maddie looks happy, what do you think?

Happy Birthday Maddie!

2008-08-25T07:39:00.002-05:00

Today is Maddie's 1 year birthday! Happy Birthday! I'm planning on posting an update for the last month or so...

July Video Update

2008-07-31T17:39:00.003-05:00

Not much to report really. It's been a long month of July for various reasons. We're looking forward to a fresh start with August... even thought that's kind of the peak of hurricane season on the Gulf Coast.

Here's a video of Maddie and Molly yucking it up over who should be wearing the bib.

Here's a video of Maddie crawling all over Ginger and chatting her up the entire time!

Maddie Practicing Walking

2008-07-19T18:22:00.002-05:00

Video of Maddie practicing to walk using the walker that Aunt Julie bought for her. Thanks, Julie!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou51__QSPVU

Maddie visits Mission Control Houston

2008-07-12T21:06:00.002-05:00

While Molly was getting her hair cut today, Maddie and I swung by the
International Space Station Mission Control Center to kill some time.
I took a couple pictures of her at my console and in the center of the
room. She seemed to enjoy the experience. It was actually her second
trip there, but we didn't have a camera on the first visit. I look
forward to the day when she can look at these pictures and say,
"that's back when only astronauts could go into space!" You'll see
Maddie in front of the Expedition 17 plaque as well. We got to see
the American on this expedition launch on the space shuttle back in
May. So, it's almost like closing the loop for Maddie!

June comes to a close

2008-07-02T20:43:00.012-05:00

Here are some pictures to close out June, 2008...

Maddie doing her Stevie Wonder impersonation.

Maddie still loves giving Ginger attention. Thank goodness Ginger still likes all the attention she's getting!

Tupperwear is still the coolest toy that Maddie has.

Nice portrait of Molly and Maddie.

Maddie tries out a new outfit.

We purchased a kiddie pool to battle the Houston Heat. The whole family enjoys it. Here are a couple pictures of it, including one of Maddie catching some air!

June Update

2008-06-15T17:41:00.002-05:00

We started out the end of May and early June with a trip up to Indiana to visit family. Here is Maddie and Grammy.

Here Maddie enjoys some of the super-cool toys that Grammy has acquired...

As you can see, in Indiana you can lounge around in the grass without having to worry about fire ants devouring you in 10 seconds!

My brother Matt with their 7 week old baby girl, Olivia, and Maddie and Mike strike a pose.

Maddie and Granddad Allyn visit.

Maddie and Grandpa Meyer visit.

Maddie and Nana Meyer visit. Maddie's entranced by the lighted fan... it broke... and I haven't been able to find another one since!

These three pictures were taken in Florida on our bus ride out to the Causeway on site at Kennedy Space Center. We were there to view the launch of STS-124.

Counting down to the launch. Maddie doesn't know what's coming, but you can tell she's excited. Waaaay off in the distance, you can see the launch pad.

Maddie catches a quick nap before the launch...

Molly and Maddie strike a quick pose during the launch of STS-124. There's nothing like a space shuttle launch. It's too bad there are only a few launches left... ever.

Another shot of the launch.

Maddie now prefers standing. He's becomming quite good at it too. There are occasional spills and falls, but she's getting the hang of it!

Here is Molly reading one of Maddie's new books to her. Maddie really enjoys a good book... she primarily enjoys chewing on, or destroying them, but once in a while, reading them is a pleasure as well.

Here is Maddie in... well... yeah, her sailer suit.

Maddie and Molly playing with some bubbles... doesn't really need more explanation than that!

Maddie sure has taken a liking to Ginger and Vaska. As you can see, Vaska is no where to be found in these pictures. At six years old, he's just a little to "over-the-hill" to be getting his hair pulled out by a 9 month old baby. Ginger on the other hand, loves it!

Some more pictures of Maddie

2008-05-21T19:12:00.001-05:00

Just another picture update. One would wonder what else is going
on... Here you'll find a unique perspective on Maddie as seen in the
reflection of our aquarium. The lighting was just right. Otherwise
of note is that Maddie gives kisses now! You'll see Molly receiving
one of said sloppy kisses...

Bulk Update

2008-05-15T20:05:00.001-05:00

It's hard not to post lots of pictures because we got a new camera. I
hope these find you well. Included are pictures from our trip to a
Crawfish boil in Galveston and snapshots around the house. You'll see
that Maddie can stand on her own (pretty much) now. She's trying to
pull herself up too. Won't be long and she'll be tearing through the
house!

Madeleine Picture Update

2008-05-03T09:13:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since we put any pictures out there of Maddie. It's
not because we haven't been taking them, we just haven't had time to
post them. So, here is a bulk update!

Mike and Molly

I almost forgot to mention...

2008-04-21T06:45:00.002-05:00

Like the subject says, I almost forgot to mention something. Last week I was on console at the ODIN position… Kevin and I had a long break in communications, so we walked over to the cafeteria. Well, on the way we managed to run into Buzz Aldrin. He was apparently on site doing an interview with one of the current astronauts for something on television. Anyway, we didn't stop him or make a big to-do or anything, but it was pretty darn cool to run into the second person to walk on the moon.

Another step towards green living

2008-02-24T08:36:00.007-06:00

Did you know that you can get 100% of your electricity in Texas (Houston anyway) from renewable sources...?

Due to laziness and a lack of motivation, we had not shopped around for electricity providers.... until now. Aparently this makes me a gullible fool. First off, when I started looking around for alternatives, I was having a hard time finding a provider that was as expensive as the one that we currently had! We had Reliant Energy, which had a variable rate that averaged $0.16 per KW. One can blow this rate out of the water, just by doing some simple looking around. Anyway, instead of just going with the cheapest rate, we decided to go green. We choose as an electricity provider, Green Mountain Energy Company. They provide 100% of their energy by means of renewable resources (wind and water). Oh, and by the way, they do it for a fixed rate of $0.14 per KW. A full 2 cents cheaper than our previous coal and gas based provider.

Here is a great website to compare prices and find a new provider: Power to choose. Good luck!

Ignorance Perfected

2008-02-15T17:30:00.002-06:00

A friend of ours was recently confronted with a very shameful display of ignorance. I find overt displays of intolerance like this extremely disturbing. I'm hopeful that his video surveillance may have caught the culprit in the act... Happy Valentines Day, Tarik.

See it for your self.

Maddie Post Run

2008-02-15T10:34:00.002-06:00

Here is a picture of Maddie after a 2.2 mile run. She really enjoys the jogging stroller. She even slept for a good portion of the run!

Indiana and the Houston Zoo

2008-02-10T09:03:00.001-06:00

Last week, Molly and Madeleine traveled up to Indiana to visit the newest edition to the family - John Logan Meyer. Molly's brother's family had their first baby!

Yesterday, Molly, Madeleine, and I went to the Houston Zoo. It was Maddie's first trip there. The weather was absolutely perfect. Here is Molly and Maddie watching the Sea Lion show. Maddie seemed interested, but probably not any more than she is with Ginger and Vaska!

Here Maddie poses in front of a male baboon.

And on the way home. We like to think Maddie had a good, but Molly and I defintely enjoyed the day out.

Oh, and I have to throw in a video... this one especially because it's a revisit from a popular video I posted quite a long time ago.

Some Videos

2008-02-01T20:31:00.000-06:00

Maddie learns how to pay peek-a-boo.

Maddie and her little piano.

Maddie demonstrates how to insert the nuk...

Getting Maddie rolling

So, what's new?

2008-01-19T07:28:00.000-06:00

For those of you that did not give up on us, this post is for you...

We've been thoroughly enjoying every day with Madeleine. She's growing and changing so fast!

We bought a new (to us) piano. It's a 1910 Ludwig and Company upright grand piano. It's made out of mahogany and is very good looking. It definitely needs restored, but it sounds really good considering it's age! We bought it from a guy on Craigslist. We also paid to have it moved since it weighs around 850 pounds! That's a little too much to call in favors for!

Madeleine got Baptised. We had some family down for it and had a small reception afterwards. It was a good day.

I worked on Christmas Day this year. It was my first Christmas to work in my 11th year as a flight controller, so I guess I can't complain much. A couple days after Christmas, we headed up to Indiana to visit family.

Maddie got to go on her first plane ride. She flew really well! We were really nervous, but as it turns out, we shouldn't have been. Then again, we really did a lot of preparations for the trip, so perhaps our nervousness did pay off in the long run.

While we were in Culver, we got about a foot of snow and the temperature dropped to about 0 degrees F, so we had to bundle up Maddie a bit. It cracked us all up...!

Back in Houston, we've been experimenting with feeding Maddie some solid foods. Right now it's just single grain rice and a little apple sauce. It's mostly to get her used to it and practice swallowing a bit. She doesn't totally hate it, which is good. And we think she may even be swallowing some of it!

This weekend Molly set up a picnic for her group (ADCO) and their training counterparts (MCG). It started out wet and cold, but warmed up and actually became a good day for it. Here are some pictures from the day.

I found a very cool music website called Pandora that I have to mention. Actually, I believe that Christina told me about it. Anyway, you put in an artist that you like (or song), and the site builds a continuous playlist of similar artists and songs. It's all free too. Very cool!

So, we're going to try to be better about putting these together. Keep us honest on this one!

Madeleine Update

2007-11-10T23:24:00.000-06:00

Posting a couple updated pictures of Maddie. The first one Molly snapped at a particularly opportune moment! The second picture is Maddie and I on my John Deere tractor that I got for my 4th or 5th birthday. My parents had it redone, and it's better than ever!

Sleep-o-saurous

2007-11-03T19:06:00.000-05:00

Here's a recent video of Maddie. She's definitely a morning person... at least for now. You can certainly tell by the video!

Carving Pumpkins

2007-10-28T09:10:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of the season Mike and I did some pumpkin carving. It was a lot of fun -- it'd been at least 10 years since we'd last carved one up!

Maddie's Greatest Hits

2007-10-27T07:47:00.000-05:00

Since I've been way behind in posting to the blog, I figured I'd post some highlights of Maddie's first two months on this earth.

- 10/01
We're able to get consistent smiles out of Maddie now. It started around the end of September. Here is one of my favorite pictures of Maddie. Molly's sister, Lainie took it during her visit.

- 10/02
In order to document Maddie's growth for our family up North, I'm periodically taking a picture of Maddie with these two stuffed animals. This should give them a good point of reference for her growth!

- 10/03
The dogs have been great with Maddie. The trick is keeping Ginger from licking her. Luckily Ginger listens well, and only manages to get a quick one in once in a while.

- 10/03
Vaska is, of course, the good dog. He likes to keep an eye on Maddie. He gets stressed out if he can't get to her - e.g. if we have Maddie behind closed doors for whatever reason.

We had visits from all of Molly's siblings - Lainie, Renee (Andy's wife), Andy, and Ali.

- 10/21
Maddie enjoyed wearing her "first Purdue shirt" from Uncle Matt.

- 10/22
Maddie got to meet the bulk of the ADCO group at lunch at Don Pico's. It was great for Molly to get together with everyone too. We had a good time.

- 10/25
Getting close to Halloween in this one. As you can see, it's Daddy's Little Pumpkin.

- 10/26
We made it out to a Pumpkin Patch. Well, as much of a Pumpkin Patch as you can have in the city anyway. We were looking to get some cute pictures with some pumpkins... We did get these two pictures...

- 10/26
Tremayne and Abi came to visit us yesterday. They were out enjoying the perfect weather. We had a great visit! Abi is an absolute sweetheart!!

- 10/26
And the last picture of the post. It's just Molly and Maddie hanging out on the bed. The late afternoon lighting is just so great in that room for picture taking. Not to mention two fantastic girls in the picture!

Arrival of Madeleine Claire Allyn

2007-09-10T18:55:00.000-05:00

So, we have been pretty darn busy for the last several weeks. At 9:05 AM on August 25th, Madeleine Claire Allyn was born! She weighed in at 6 lbs. 7.7 oz. and was 19.5 inches long.

Here are some pictures over the last 3 weeks.

So, who would have thought you would be so busy just hanging around the house taking care of a newborn? Ha! Well, we can attest to the fact that you do stay quite busy. It's been absolutely fabulous so far! Madeleine (Maddie) is quite an easy baby to manage... so far anyway.

Of course I was on console for the night shift when Maddie decided to get started on the labor process. I got the call from Molly about an hour after I arrived at work, so about midnight. Molly wasn't very far into labor, so she was able to drive herself to work. I know that sounds horrible, but she insisted that she was fine to drive! Plus, it really does need to be an emergency to leave a national asset untended. I had to work on getting the on call personnel (3 of them) in to replace me. Remarkably all three of them showed up pretty quickly (thanks Jude, Todd, and Roger!). I showed up in the hospital room only about 10 or 15 minutes after Molly at about 12:45 AM. Just over 8 hours later, Maddie joined us in this world!

Here is a one-of-a-kind birth announcement and congratulations from the International Space Station Expedition 15 Flight Engineer, Clay Anderson.

Clay has been stationed on the ISS for right at 100 days now - he'll be returning soon, but I can't remember when exactly.

I (Mike) have taken off 4 weeks from work. Alas, I'll have to go back soon. Molly will be back in a few more weeks. I have enjoyed getting to know Maddie so much that I am absolutely not looking forward to going back to work.

As you can see from the pictures, we had visits from both sets of grandparents. It was great having them down to visit. It's hard to put a value on all the help they provided. In fact, Molly and I can now get both of our cars into the garage because my dad and I cleaned and organized the garage! Check it out:

That's about all there is to report for now. I'll try to post regular updates now that we're settled in.

Unexpected Visitor

2007-07-31T20:34:00.000-05:00

Usually when you lead in with the phrase "unexpected visitor" one automatically assumes it's an unwelcome visitor. Not the case this time! On Sunday, my brother Robert called us and said that he was in Dallas and wanted to come down to Houston to visit. He hadn't been here yet, so we told him to come on down! So, he got here Monday evening and Molly and I went out to dinner with him and his friend, Kim. Robert and I stayed up late catching up, then I took them around NASA today for a nickle tour. It was a nice surprise, and I'm glad he finally got to visit us in Houston. Here are a few pictures:

From Robert's Visit Album

Astros Win!

2007-07-27T14:30:00.000-05:00

Molly and I attended NASA Night at Minute Maid Park to watch the Astros open a can of whoop ass on the Los Angeles Dodgers. We went with a bunch of people from the ADCO group. Here is a picture of some of the motley crew.

From Astros vs. Dodgers

We got to see Craig Biggio hit a grand slam on the same day he announced his retirement - that was pretty cool. The crowd went wild! Well, that's about it.

Ginger's New Trick

2007-07-15T19:24:00.001-05:00

OK, so it's not a real fancy trick, or even that entertaining..., but in the recent few weeks I taught Ginger to jump up into my arms. It's kind of funny to see a 65 lb. Lab do that. The REAL trick now is to make sure she only does it when you're ready and want her to!

Here's another video I took recently. It's Molly receiving her award at the 13A event at Space Center Houston

13A Wrapup

2007-06-30T17:13:00.000-05:00

To wrap-up the 13A mission, a bunch of people on the 13A team went to Boondoggles for a couple drinks after the Plaque Hanging Ceremony. It's quite an honor to hang the mission plaque in the NASA circle. It goes to the team that stuck out during the mission as contributing the most towards achieving the mission objectives. Turns out, the ADCO team was selected and Molly hung the ISS plaque as the mission lead! Here you'll see a picture of the ADCO's that were present at Boondoggles.

Cory, Erin, Ann, Kevin, Todd, Molly, and Christina.

Here are our shift team pictures:

Molly's shift

Mike's shift

13A Complete

2007-06-21T00:08:00.000-05:00

With ISS Flight 13A now complete, Molly and I are working on getting back into our routine. Molly was the flight lead for her group (ADCO), and I was just filling in for the ODIN team in the MPSR (supporting position). Of course we were on different shifts, so that was challenging. Also, as you may or may not know, we ran into some significant problems during the mission. But we came out of it and we're back into a good configuration... with the addition of two more solar arrays to boot! Here are some pictures:

In other news, a week before the flight my brother Joe, his wife Lisa, and their two boys Zach and Addyson came to visit. We had a great time!

Like I said, we all had fun, and if I don't say so myself, they had a killer tour of NASA!

Goin' Green

2007-05-31T16:18:00.000-05:00

Well, Molly and I decided it was time we take energy and environment conservation more seriously. I wouldn't say that we were exceedingly wasteful - at least not compared to other Americans, but that's just not good enough. This isn't about saving money either. We just want to see what we can do to make our impact a little less. Here are some of the things we've done, and maybe some others we're going to do.

Replace Incandescent Light Bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) Bulbs.
I went through the house and replaced 54 Incandescent Light Bulbs with CFL Bulbs. What a pain in the rear! A CFL uses approximately one-fourth the wattage of an incandescent bulb producing a similar level of illumination, and they last 8,000 to 10,000 hours. This equates to a definite non-zero reduction of energy. I can't find a reference, but I had read once that lighting makes up about 10% of the overall bill. So, we perhaps shaved that 10% down by 75%. It was a decent initial cost to replace them all, but it was not too bad. We picked up the CFL bulbs at Sam's Club for about $10.50 for a package of 8 bulbs.

Reusable Grocery/Shopping Bags
We were looking into reusable bags that we could purchase, and we were about to narrow it down. Well, I was working and the conversation came up with a friend and colleague of ours, Christina. She just recently made the same purchase. So, we decided to go with the brand that they just purchased and raved about. ACME Bags EarthTote™ - Heavy Duty Reusable Shopping Bag

Turn down the temperature on the water heater.
This one was triggered by the pending arrival of the little peanut (Sept. 1), but it makes good energy sense too. Our house has two water heaters, of which we hardly tax one of them with two of us here. There really is no need for the water to be so hot that it can scald you. We're going to be playing with this one for a while until we can find the right temperature. Perhaps we could turn it up when company comes in to visit. According to the US Department of Energy, For each 10ºF reduction in water temperature, you can save between 3%–5% in energy costs.

Wash and Rinse Clothes in Cold Water
"Most of us are unaware of the full extent of energy required to wash our clothes. A staggering 85-90% of this energy is used by the water heater. Only 10-15% actually goes to running the washing machine." From TerraBlog. We actually wash most of our clothes in cold water, but this will be a reminder.

Unplug Unused Electronics
According to the DOE, Many appliances continue to draw a small amount of power when they are switched off. These "phantom" loads occur in most appliances that use electricity, such as VCRs, televisions, stereos, computers, and kitchen appliances. In the average home, 75% of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. This can be avoided by unplugging the appliance or using a power strip and using the switch on the power strip to cut all power to the appliance. Oh, and this includes little things like cell phone chargers, etc...

Possible Future Endeavour. Still researching this one.
Addition of Radiant Barrier in Attic
Radiant barriers are materials that are installed in buildings to reduce summer heat gain and winter heat loss, and hence to reduce building heating and cooling energy usage. The potential benefit of attic radiant barriers is primarily in reducing air-conditioning cooling loads in warm or hot climates. Radiant barriers usually consist of a thin sheet or coating of a highly reflective material, usually aluminum, applied to one or both sides of a number of substrate materials. These substrates include Craft paper, plastic films, cardboard, plywood sheathing, and air infiltration barrier material. Some products are fiber reinforced to increase the durability and ease of handling.

DOE Fact Sheet

Wikipedia Entry

So, any suggestions to further reduce our footprint? What are you going to do? Let us know!

Follow up Spoiler Post

2007-05-23T04:25:00.000-05:00

Links to Wikipedia entries for the sources of all the spoilers.

Luke's Father - Star Wars

It was Earth All Along - Planet of the Apes

Verbal is Keyser Soze - The Usual Suspects

The Villagers Sacrifice the Policeman - The Wicker Man

Dil is Actually a Man - The Crying Game

Snape Kills Dumbledore - Harry Potter

The Kid's Therapist is a Ghost - The Sixth Sense

Kristin (gun) JR - Dallas

Tyler Durden isn't Real - Fight Club

299 Die - 300

Neo is the One - The Matrix

Rosebud was the name of his sled - Citizen Kane

The protagonists are the Others - The Others

The Killer's mother is a part of his split personality - Psycho

Soylent Green is People - Soylent Green

The Village is part of a modern nature reserve - The Village

Donnie Dies - Donnie Darko

His friends are all a part of his beautiful mind - A Beautiful Mind

Spoiler T-Shirt

2007-05-22T02:02:00.000-05:00

I ran across this tonight and couldn't resist posting it. I find this t-shirt hilarious... I am on the night shift, so that could have some influence on my sense of humor. I'm curious if others will find it funny (or if I will when I'm not sleep deprived).

Dog Day Afternoon

2007-05-19T23:14:00.000-05:00

Nothing like the Movie Dog Day Afternoon staring Al Pacino... On Friday I took the dogs out to Challenger Seven Memorial Park to walk the nature trails. We had a great time. It was nice to kind of "get away" from Houston without having to go very far away. It kind of reminded me of Kolomenskoye in Moscow (without the 16th century churches). For those that haven't been, it's like a country get-away on the edge of Moscow - a must visit if you're ever there. Here are the dogs taking a break in the shade.

Here they are taking yet another break in the shade.

Here is a short video clip from the day.

San Antonio Fiesta

2007-04-29T20:09:00.000-05:00

Molly and I needed a break from Houston, so we went to San Antonio this weekend. It was really just about the only weekend we had available, and coincidentally it was "Fiesta" in San Antonio. We had never heard of it, but it's a big ol', well, Fiesta that they have every year. To be honest, every time I heard "Fiesta," I thought of "Festivus" (read Seinfeld)... It's just the way my mind works... Anyway, we stayed in the Ogé House Bed and Breakfast. It was really nice. Here is a picture we took one of the nights.

It's a mansion that was built in 1857 and is one of the 3 oldest buildings in San Antonio. It's in the King William District and for Fiesta they had the King William Fair. Here is a short video of the space shuttle and some flamingos we saw at the parade...

Oh, we did stop the the ol' trusty rusty Alamo. You always hear people say how they expected the Alamo to be bigger, but I find it quite impressive. Especially since it was built in the 18th century originally as a Spanish mission.

Professor Stephen Hawking

2007-04-23T02:08:00.000-05:00

Today I had the honor of meeting British theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking. Professor Hawking's book A Brief History of Time is what made him most famous to the general public. He has also done a cameo appearance on The Simpsons! Professor Hawking was getting a tour of the NASA Mission Control by Flight Director, Dr. Bob Dempsey. I arrived after they had completed their tour of the ISS Flight Control Room (FCR-1), but I went downstairs to see him off. I missed out on the photo op, but was fortunate enough to get to see him. I have to say, and a couple other people that were here feel the same way, it was pretty darn inspiring to be in the same room as someone with such an awesome intellect. Working in Mission Control we get random celebrities and professional athletes come through quite often. Unlike the times I have been here for them, this is the first time I felt a little, well, intimidated. I mean, this guy's been compared to Einstein! He has also done so much to further humanity in spite of his fight with Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Tour 18

2007-04-14T10:46:00.000-05:00

Last weekend Molly's father John and I golfed at Houston's Tour 18 course - also known as "America's Greatest Eighteen Holes." Basically it's a course that every hole is a replica of one from a famous US golf course. For example, we just so happened to play on the opening day of the Masters, and there were 3 holes that were modeled after the Augusta National (11-12-13). So, we got to see how the pros did on the same holes we played. Admitingly they did slightly better than John and I, but playing this course really gives you a good feel about how hard those famous courses really are.

Here is our scorecard for the day. Like I said, it was quite the difficult course. I felt good to walk away from a hole with a bogey! Not to mention I only play about once a year anymore. It's also a pretty expensive round, but I'd say it's worth it once in a while.

ADCO's, Russians, and Outriggers

2007-04-14T08:10:00.000-05:00

A group of ADCO's took their Russian counterpart to Outriggers. To any ADCO's that may read this that didn't make it, you were missed. Here are a couple pictures...

Group Shot

Moose sighting

Sick day - ha! not really

2007-03-29T16:04:00.000-05:00

Today I loaded Vaska and Ginger into the truck for a little road trip to Galveston to hit the beach. Both the dogs absolutely love riding in the truck. It doesn't matter how far or where we're going. You'd think it was about the best thing that could ever happen by how excited they get. Once I pull out their travel bag (for leashes, Frisbees, balls, water, etc.), it's on and they go nuts. Today was no exception.

Ginger and Vaska lovin' it.
Vaska takes a (muddy) break.
Ginger wiped out on the ride home.
Here is a little video clip during our walk on the beach.

Catch up Post

2007-03-17T13:57:00.000-05:00

Really isn't much to talk about, but there have been some things going on. We have a big topic of discussion lately, but I'm not going to blog about that. You either know about it, or you don't!

We did get some new furniture items. The first is this table and chairs. We think it goes quite nicely in the breakfast area.

We got this chair as well because we came across a great deal!

That's about it really!

My first YouTube Video

2007-02-23T16:18:00.000-06:00

This is a video taken the day after we got our Yellow Lab Ginger. You'll see Vaska, our Golden Retriever hamming it up on his back as well. This was taken a couple years ago.

Matt and Lisa visit Mission Control

2007-02-13T10:42:00.000-06:00

From Allyn MCC Tour

My brother Matt and his wife Lisa were in town visiting, so they got the obligatory tour of Mission Control and some of the surrounding facilities.

We didn't do a whole lot else because they were only in town for a short time.

Minute Maid Park Tour

2007-01-28T22:14:00.000-06:00

Molly and I had the pleasure of taking a behind-the-scenes Twilight Tour of Houston's Minute Maid Park(where the Astros play). Here we are in left field on the warning track.

From Astros Tour

We got to see just about every aspect of the park... luxury suites, a broadcasting booth, the Diamond Club, the manual scoreboard, Tal's Hill, the Astros Bullpen, the Astros dugout, and Houston's historic Grand Central Station (it's incorporated into the ballpark)!

I learned something new. The seats just behind home plate are only sold as season tickets, and they have to be sold in pairs... at $35,000 each!

Here was the reason for going. It was Mike's (below) birthday celebration. Here he is greeting the crowd.

Are you jealous, Josh?

Happy Birthday Melissa!

2007-01-14T20:00:00.000-06:00

Last night was Melissa's birthday, and we went over for a little surprise party. I was late because I was working the day shift this weekend -- Somebody has to keep the International Space Station's Expedition 14 crew safe while all the ADCO's are partying down! Molly got to surprise her though. Here is a picture of Molly and I that our friend Josh snapped last night. You can see Moose just beyond me there too.

Amber Waves of Grain...

2006-12-30T09:12:00.000-06:00

That used to be the state of Indiana's slogan. Before that it was There's more than corn in Indiana. I'm not sure what it is nowadays... Anyway, the weather has been very mild up here this Christmas. Two years ago we got 2 feet of snow the day after we arrived, but no snow this year. I was up bright-and-early today with the sunrise. I've seen better, but this one wasn't so bad. I snapped a picture of it even. Nothing much else to report. We'll be home soon.

Face Time

2006-12-16T17:54:00.000-06:00

Yet another picture of Molly on console during the space shuttle assembly flight to the International Space Station. Why don't you ever see pictures of me on console? Because I work too many weekends and nights!

Flight Controller Extraordinaire

2006-12-15T15:14:00.001-06:00

STS-116/ISS 12A.1 is on Flight Day 7. The original plan was to undock the space shuttle from the space station on Monday, but considering some problems that have come up, there is talk of adding an additional docked day and space walk.
Here is a picture of Molly from a few days ago in Mission Control. Her OJT (On the Job Training) is Cory. Molly's shift is from 5am to 2pm... so, I've been getting into work a few hours before everyone else! You would be amazed how much more productive you can be between 5 and 7 am! Below is a screenshot I took from the NASA channel. Molly is in the front on the left. You can see the troublesome Solar Array on the left screen. If I haven't mentioned it before, or if you are curious as to what Molly does in Mission Control, here is the Wikipedia entry for her position, ADCO. My position isn't listed in Wikipedia, but we're mentioned in this article by James Oberg.

New Purchase

2006-12-10T14:07:00.000-06:00

Molly and I couldn't resist some of the after Thanksgiving sales, we we broke down and went High Def. We had plenty of spare room, so we went with the Sony Grand WEGA 55", 1080 pixel, Rear-Projection, HDTV.

So far we're really happy with it. We still don't have any sort of cable television, and we do not intend on getting it. There are actually quite a few broadcast HD channels that we get - and that's not even including all the religious and Spanish channels!

In other news, the Space Shuttle Discovery (mission STS 116/ISS 12A.1) launched last night. It was quite an impressive night launch. Molly will be working the mission, and if I come across any snapshots of her on console, I'll post them.

Bring on the shuttle

2006-12-06T17:42:00.000-06:00

Today's Launch minus 1 (day) Mission Management Team gave the Space Shuttle Discovery a Go for launch which is scheduled for tomorrow, December 7 at 8:35 PM Central Time. This will arguably be one of the most complex assembly missions of the International Space Station yet, and Molly's going to be right in the middle of it! Also, today NASA announced plans to build a permanent moon base. Exciting day!

Here is an Op. Ed. in USA Today from the NASA Administrator:

Opposing view: 15 cents a day - That’s what the space program costs each person in the USA.

USA Today (Opinion Page)
By Michael Griffin

America is a frontier nation. Two hundred years ago, the frontier was whatever Lewis & Clark would see the next day. One hundred years ago, it was in Alaska, labeled as "Seward's Folly" when it was purchased in 1867. Today, the human frontier is space, with the Apollo missions to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s, the development of the International Space Station today, or future missions to build an outpost on the moon.

Our great-great-grandparents accepted the challenge of their frontier. Will today's generation do less? And if so, why? To save 15 cents per day? To save six-tenths of 1% of the federal budget? Because that is the cost to the average citizen of our nation's space program. Whether we wish to explore space or not, to say that we cannot afford space exploration is ridiculous.Almost four years ago, our nation faced some of the darkest days known to our space program with the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its crew.

In the months that followed, there was an extensive discourse concerning the lack of clear, coherent and compelling goals for the nation's human spaceflight program. We now have those goals. Congress has charged NASA to go beyond the International Space Station, to return to the moon.

Today's investments in space exploration are, like the Louisiana Purchase, a down payment on our future. We are focusing NASA's investments on key technologies that will enable our nation to bring the solar system into our economic sphere and for scientific discovery. The geography of our solar system dictates that our first, halting steps will be to the moon — three days journey away from Earth. A lunar outpost might follow soon afterward, allowing us to exploit the resources and vantage point of the moon.In the coming century, we must make important but careful investments of time, energy and resources when it comes to the exploration of space. Make no mistake: America is still a frontier nation. And space is today's frontier.

Michael Griffin is the NASA administrator.

Natasha's Birthday

2006-11-02T20:38:00.000-06:00

Molly and I hosted a birthday party and general get-together last night with some members of her group and some of our Russian counterparts. The birthday girl was Natasha. She works in the Math Modeling Group in the Russian Mission Control Center - she's on the left in this picture. Also in the picture is Molly, Moose, and Lera. It was a fun night. The wine and beer was flowing, and the night ended with an impromptu singing around a circle.
Here is Alexander (Math Modeling Group) jamming out on his guitar. He is self-taught, and I don't think he even reads music. He's really good! Other people in this shot are Yuri (Russian Flight Director) in the back, Lera, and Galina (Power Specialist) on the left.
Tatiana, Moose, Melissa, and Lisa (with Ginger getting WAY too much attention). They are all in Molly's group. Oh, and that's Vaska's butt on the right...
This is Christina and Paul. Christina is in Molly's group, and Paul is a THOR (Thermal Control System) on Space Station. I just couldn't resist posting this one with that look Christina is giving.

Another Fish Tank Pic

2006-10-10T16:51:00.000-05:00

This one shows the whole wall.

New Fish Tank

2006-10-08T17:44:00.000-05:00

We added a 52 gallon fish tank to our repertoire this weekend. It's an acrylic bow-front tank. We decided to go with an Egyptian theme on the decor. The first six fish are two different varieties of Molliensia (Mollies). One variety is the Dalmatian Lyretail Molly Sphenops (black and white like a Dalmatian) and the other variety is Poecilia Sphenops (some black and some white).

Here is a picture of the whole tank.

Here is Molly introducing the dogs to the new residents.

A closer shot of the Sphinx and one of the white mollies.

Of course, there was some time for roughhousing!

Visitors this weekend

2006-10-01T08:41:00.000-05:00

We got a visit from Andy (Molly's brother) and Renee (Andy's wife) this weekend. We had a good time. We gave them a little tour of the Johnson Space Center. Here is Molly detailing the operation of the space shuttle.

Here is Andy and Renee in front of the access doors to Mission Control.

We also went to the Laff Stop to see the comedian Kevin Brennan who was the headliner. He was really funny, but we all liked Bob Biggerstaff better.

Ground Control to Major Tom (or Molly in this case)

2006-09-23T02:25:00.000-05:00

I'm on the night shift, so I have some free time to post some random stuff. I nearly forgot about this picture of Molly in Mission Control. Isn't she awesome?!?!

Space Pics

2006-09-22T10:01:00.000-05:00

I have run across a couple cool space pictures that I wanted to post. Here they are:

This is a picture of the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Atlantis not long after the space shuttle undocked from the space station. The picture is silhouette of the spacecraft in front of the Sun. Click on the image to open a window with a larger picture an explanation.
Space Shuttle Discovery approaches the ISS. This picture was taken during the STS-121 mission to the space station.

Back in the Game

2006-09-21T13:56:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since there has been a blog update. I assumed that no one would notice, but, much to my surprise, we've actually logged some complaints (you know who you are). What has been up with us?

In no particular order...

My brother Matt got married.

Way to go, Matt!!!

Welcome to the family, Lisa!!

We sold our old house

Woo Hoo!!! What a load off.

Successfully returned to Space Station Assembly by adding a new power module

35,000 lbs. on Earth

Each solar wing is 115 feet by 38 feet

The two new wings are capable of generating enough power to meet the needs of 30 average homes

We've gotten through the hurricane season unscathed - so far. There is still just over a month left in the season, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel!
The dogs are still as nutty as can be...

Any questions??? Then I'll end with a quote...

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
- Samuel Butler

It's Hurricane Time

2006-08-02T17:45:00.000-05:00

Granted, hurricane season officially started on June 1st, but we're starting to near the meat of the season. If you extend the predicted path of Chris, it'll roll right over Houston. Well, it's way to early to tell where it's going to actually land, but I absolutely hate to even have to think about it.

To recap last year's hurricane Rita fiasco, we spent 18 hours on the road in traffic driving to Round Rock, Texas. That's normally a 3.5 hour drive... We nearly ran out of gas, and we spent the bulk of those 18 hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic (with two large dogs). We finally made it, then after a nap we got to start working. We were a part of the remote Mission Support team dubbed "BAT." Backup Control Center (BCC) Advisory Team (BAT). NASA loves those acronym.

Boy do I love this place. I hope we don't have to go through any of that this year.

- Mike

Welcome to Our World

2006-07-17T19:52:00.000-05:00

I'm glad to see that the rest of the country is getting a feel for what it is like living in Houston. With temperatures bumping the 100 degree mark, you can finally see why we complain so much about the weather down here! Granted, not everyone is getting 100% humidity like us, but you can't have everything...

In other news, we went to the Butler, TN last week to meet up with Molly's family for a week of R&R. We stayed at The Iron Mountain Inn which sits on top of a mountain (maybe Iron Mountain?). It wasn't fall when we went, but here is a picture of the inn.

Settling In

2006-06-24T17:51:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since the last post. It's been quite busy around the new house. Molly's parents visited last weekend, I worked the weekend before, Molly's sister is here this weekend, my parents are coming next weekend, we're out of town the next two weekends after than, then I work the weekend again. Hopefully after all that we'll have a weekend to just sit around and vegetate!

We did get a new set of chairs for our "library." Here is a picture of it with the lovely Ginger modeling in front of them. We have some more work to do with the walls, but it's coming together.

The old house is still being shown to potential buyers. We just haven't had that person come by yet that wants to take the next step! Hopefully soon. We haven't lost hope yet.

We went to the Laff Stop last night. Jimmy Pardo was the main act, and I have to say, he was pretty darn funny. A lot of his stuff was improv and just quick whit. We had a good time. We also ate at a great Moroccan place called Saffron.

Today we also went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to see Body Worlds 3. It was friggin' cool! It was a bit expensive and crowded, but it was worth it. If you're not familiar with it, they plasticize human bodies and display them for science and for what appears to be general amusement.

Space Shuttle Discovery is on the pad and poised for a July 1st launch of STS-121 to the ISS. We're all hoping for good weather!

- Mike

Moving Fiasco

2006-05-31T19:58:00.000-05:00

Well, we're getting settled into the new house. The move is done, but of course it didn't go as smooth as we had planned. It's a good thing that Molly and I are crisis management specialists!

The Move

We had scheduled movers for Sunday, but they were short staffed, so they cancelled on us. They came the next morning (Memorial Day). Everything started out fine; we got several things loaded. Then, just on queue, it started raining. And I don't mean a light rain, I mean a good ol' Texas Gulf Coast torrential downpour. This kept up for several hours - long enough that we released the movers after we got the stuff that was already in the truck unloaded into the garage at the new house. Now 30 minutes after they left, the skies opened up, and the sun came out. Molly, the eternal optimist, said, "let's rent a U-Haul and get it done." Turns out we found a U-Haul place with a truck, and we moved the rest of the stuff ourselves - probably about 2/3 of everything.

It got done, and we had a feeling of accomplishment considering we did it with just the two of us.

Now we're plowing through the unpacking. It's more fun than packing!

- Mike

OK, OK, Discovery Rolls to the Pad

2006-05-19T17:47:00.000-05:00

OK, so we can't be the only NASA nerds in Houston not to post something about Space Shuttle Discovery rolling to launch pad 39B today. It's a very exciting time indeed with the launch to the International Space Station scheduled for July 1st.

Here's a piece of trivia for you. Each crawler has 458 tread "shoes" and each one of them weighs 2100 pounds! The entire crawler weighs (minus the shuttle) 5.5 million pounds. Read more about it here (PDF).

- Mike

James Blunt Concert

2006-05-09T15:02:00.000-05:00

Molly and I went to see James Blunt in concert Saturday night. It was a really great show! The opening act was Toby Lightman, and she was fantastic as well! To the left is a picture of Toby Lightman that our friend Josh took with his cell phone. The show was at the Verizon Wireless Theater downtown Houston. We could only get general admission tickets, so we didn't have seats. It was kind of not fun on the legs standing the whole time, but we were only about 5 rows back from the stage. I guess you have to give-and-take in this life.

We had dinner before the concert at a mom-and-pop Italian place called Perbacco. I had the Gnocchi. It was the second time I had ever had it - the first time was at Chez Dr. Bob (which was also very good).

Here is my quote of the day: "When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it."
-- Henry Ford

- Mike

SARQuest Training

2006-04-30T14:10:00.000-05:00

Today Molly and I took Vaska and Ginger to personality evaluation day with the team from SARQuest. SARQuest is a Texas Gulf Coast search and rescue team. We're going to get them involved with Search and Rescue training. Both of them performed extremely well on the testing. We thought that Ginger would score better, but Vaska nailed it. Basically they are both very well suited for training. I guess it's on us now to learn how to do said training! At first it was a little touchy because they both take a little time to warm up to other dogs. Between working weekends and moving soon, it's going to be tough, but we'll get there. Stand by for future updates on training.

- Mike

Busy Week

2006-04-29T12:52:00.000-05:00

It was a busy week at the Allyn-Meyer household. I was at the Canadian Space Agency in Montreal performing some remote command testing to the space station. Molly was at home taking care of the dogs and acting for the group lead at work (both tasks should take more than one person!). Montreal is a pretty cool town. I was only there from Monday to Friday, so I didn't get to explore a whole lot other than dinner and walking around. It reminded me quite a bit of Europe, but with everything that we have here. French is the predominate language, but one can get by on English. They are quite as repulsed to speak English as the French are.

We're getting closer to closing on our new house, and we keep showing this one. We're getting a pretty consistent turnout for viewings, so hopefully we'll sell it soon.

- Mike

Today is a day of thought.

2006-04-16T18:01:00.000-05:00

1. "Much smoking kills live men and cures dead swine." George Dennison Prentice
I agree.

2. "Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood." - HL Mencken
This is the the beauty and the curse of "perception is reality." And I truly believe that is what life is - perception. So be ready.

3. "Suffering is defined as clinging to our narrow view – we are addicted to me”. Pema Chödrön
I think it’s ego that fears change or fears pain. It’s ego that resists the flow and ebb of this thing called life. Our suffering is so grounded in our fear of impermanence.

- Molly

The Show Goes On

2006-04-15T07:33:00.000-05:00

Well, we continue to show our house. There seems to be a fair amount of interest, which is good. It's a pain in the rear, but we are interested in selling after all! Every time someone is scheduled to come by, we pack up the dogs and get out to do something to kill a couple hours. Here are some less then recent pictures of the dogs. Ginger (Yellow Lab) is on the top and Vaska (Golden Retriever) is on the bottom. They do a good job of keeping us on our toes! We'll add more pictures (and more recent) soon.

We're on the market!

2006-04-01T12:00:00.000-06:00

Our house officially hit the market at the end of the week. We had a bit of a scramble there at the end to get it in place before the weekend, but we made it. We are also getting the tile guy in today to repair some of the tile that he screwed up the first time around. A couple tiles didn't adhere well enough, so the grout started cracking. You could see the tile moving when pressed, so that is way unacceptable! It should (we hope) be resolved this weekend.

If anyone is looking for a place in Houston, click here!

We got an inspection complete on the house we're trying to buy. We sent back a couple minor things that we're asking the sellers to fix. Nothing major, just a few odds-and-ends. We hope to have that finalized soon.

Work Continues

2006-03-28T16:50:00.000-06:00

Who would have thought selling a house would be so much work?! We continue to work to tidy up, pack up, clean up, etc. We also have a re-tiling effort ongoing in the master bathroom. It should turn out pretty nice. It's a wonder we didn't do it sooner so that we could enjoy it!

In other news, we had a contract (offer) accepted on a house that we would like to purchase. We actually found a house much sooner than we expected. Such is life - hopefully it won't take us long to sell this house. Here is a picture of our future (hopefully) home. Click the picture to see more pictures of it.

Z Machine Sets Unexpected Earth Temperature Record

2006-03-26T07:28:00.000-06:00

I found this on the web and thougth it was absolutely amazing (text from APOD). The Z Machine running at Sandia National Laboratories created a plasma that was unexpectedly hot. The plasma reached a temperature in excess of two billion Kelvin, making it arguably the hottest human made thing ever in the history of the Earth and, for a brief time, hotter than the interiors of stars. The Z Machine experiment, pictured above, purposely creates high temperatures by focusing 20 million amps of electricity into a small region further confined by a magnetic field. Vertical wires give the Z Machine its name. During the unexpected powerful contained explosion, the Z machine released about 80 times the world's entire electrical power usage for a brief fraction of a second. Experiments with the Z Machine are helping to explain the physics of Solar flares, design more efficient nuclear fusion plants, test materials under extreme heat, and gather data for the computer modeling of nuclear explosions.

House For Sale

2006-03-25T16:41:00.000-06:00

So, Molly and I are putting the house on the market. We figured it was a good starter house, but it's time for us to move on. Right now we're finishing up those projects we've let linger and generally getting the place into it's top condition. It doesn't seem like that long ago that I bought it (March, 2001), but that was 5 years ago! Hopefully we'll find something that matches all or most of our criteria. We definitely learned a lot owning this one, and we're looking forward to applying it to this time around!

Central America

2006-03-10T23:55:00.000-06:00

My first near-real-time blog post...

At the end of February, Molly and I went on a cruise to Central America with our friends Josh and Lisa. Our port of call was LaPorte, Texas (Spanish for The Port) and we spent days in Cozumel, Mexico; Roatan, Honduras; and Belize City, Belize.

This picture is of Molly and I in front of El Castillo at the Mayan ruin of Xunantunich. El Castillo is a pyramid that stands 130 feet. Xunantunich is in Western Belize about 500 meters from Guatemala.

Josh and Lisa wrote extensively about the cruise. Read more in their blog.

Honeymoon in the Mediterranean

2006-03-06T19:00:00.000-06:00

In May of 2004, for our Honeymoon, we took a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea. Our port of call was Rome, Italy and we visited Naples, Italy; Santorini, Greece; Mykonos, Greece; Valletta, Malta; Barcelona, Spain; and Nice, France. To the left is a random sampling of pictures. You'll see, from left: St. Peter's Basilica (outside and inside), The Pantheon at night (we were having dinner right there), Mt. Vesuvius' crater, Mike and Molly in front of Mt. Vesuvius (this link is a live webcam), Mykonos, the inside of St John’s Cathedral in Valletta, Malta, Temple of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, and Molly in Nice, France.

Engagement Trip to Scandinavia

2006-03-06T18:44:00.000-06:00

In April of 2003, Molly and I took a two week trip to Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. This is where I proposed to her. The image to the right is the one we used for our engagement notice. It is chocked full of pictures from our trip. All 3 of the countries are represented. One of our favorite stops was the Vasa Mueseum in Stockholm. It's centerpiece is a 17th century warship that sank on the maiden voyage. It was raised in the 1950's. Check out the Museum site to learn more; it's facinating! While in Stockholm we stayed in the Gustav Vasa Hotel, which was right across the street from the Gustav Vasa Church.

Man fears Time, yet Time fears the Pyramids (Arab proverb)

2006-03-05T12:29:00.000-06:00

The Great Pyramid is 451 feet tall. There are approximately 2 million blocks of stone, each weighing over 2 tons. This is the only one of the seven ancient wonders to still stand. You can see Molly at the base of the pyramid. This gives a good perspective as to how big the thing really is. This is from our trip to Egypt in April of 2005.

Below is a collage of a few other pictures from the trip.