Friday Flying After a 14 hour day of flying on Thursday, Garrett and I decided that we would do a light Friday morning flight as well. We wound up having to take 413ES over to Lago Vista for it's 100 hour maintenance, and in its place, we picked up 733CP. We hung around over at Lago Vista for awhile while Garrett helped me to work on short field take-offs and landings. It was a little difficult at first, but I quickly got the hang of it. On the way back I accidentally identified us as 413ES. It was a little embarrassing, but I managed to work it out with Austin ATC.

Roadtrip Day Two After waking up at the Holiday Host Hotel in Sonora and visiting the local airport (KSOA), we took back to the road and headed off to Fort Stockton. Once there, we had perhaps the most awful of lunches I've ever had in my entire life courtesy of K-Bob's. It was SO bad that I explained to Tracy there is a higher probability of me having a backyard tea party with her ex-boyfriends and niece than me ever eating at K-Bob's again. Evidently Tracy had some recollection of it being an okay place to dine; she was mistaken. We continued on to El Paso and stopped off to see the Juarez crossing at the toll bridge. We also stopped at the El Paso airport (KELP) and saw the NASA B377 Super Guppy. We eventually crossed the New Mexico border and headed up to Las Cruces where we proceeded to have a nice steak dinner and see a movie.

Venice From Tracy and Katie's blog: Sorry for the lack of updating the past couple of days, but we just could not justify spending €8/hour per person in Venice. That is over $10 an hour just to use the computer! I guess we are getting cheaper as the trip comes to a close, or at least I am. We left Cinque at 9 a.m. (after sleeping through a huge rain storm that brought in some rain through our window) and then proceeded to travel by train for the next ten hours. We didn't realize it would be such a long day of traveling, so once we finally made it in to Venice, we basically found our hotel, ate dinner, and got ready for bed. The hotel was really nice and close to the train station - and the best part was it had a/c!!! I haven't quite adapted to the true European lifestyle cause I definitely slept better with an air conditioned room. Yesterday we explored Venice by foot in less time than we had predicted, so we had several hours to kill before our night train left for Paris. We went to St. Mark's basilica (the biggest in Italy), the main sight in Venice and definitely worth going to.

Dee's 21st Birthday Tracy and I went out for dinner with Dee and a bunch of her friends for her 21st birthday. We met them at the standard collection of bars for drinks afterwards on 6th street but didn't actually stay all night. I'm told that she only finished 13 of her 21 shots.

'The Hottest State' Premiere Since Tracy is part of the Austin Film Society with her friend Roni, the two of them are always getting tickets and invitations to random film shows around town. On this particular occasion, Tracy happened to get us two tickets to see Ethan Hawk's premiere of his novel turned movie 'The Hottest State'. It was kind of cool getting to see the red carpet rolled out in front of the Paramount theater and I enjoyed hearing about the movie from Ethan Hawk, who of course was there to talk about it.

Mueller Photos Just some more photos from out in the Mueller Community. Dreux headed out there with me so that we could see exactly where our respective properties were going to be. As it happens, pretty close to one another. Amy met us out there after she got out of the hospital and took Dreux home for me.

Preston's Mancation 2007 Just like we had done for Brian and Steve with the [album=64]2006 Mancation[/album], we took Preston out to Canyon Lake for his Mancation. The Mancation, to be more specific, is a weekend long party for the guy about to have a baby. In this case, it was in preparation for little Genevieve.

Patio and Pergola After my dad built the Pergola on the side of the house, I immediately started hanging some plants by the rafters. Just wanted to get a few shots to keep up with the look of it.

The Packery Channel Over Christmas 2007, my parents and I went for a stroll down the Packery Channel sea wall with Oscar. We were on a hunt for turtles that evidently had been by both of my parents when it was warmer and the water was lower. We, however, couldn't find any of them still there. There are also two other shots at the end of the roll from my drive back to Austin. I just about ran out of gas on I-37 and had to stop at a little gas station in Nowhere, TX. I think the gas cost me about $0.40 more than it would have 20 miles sooner or later.

Wacky Tacky Sweater Party Katie from our soccer team was having a party with her roommates. Here is the official eVite: The SUZ, Big Mike, Natty-O, Ems, Mere, Leah and Katie have joined forces to celebrate the upcoming holiday season tacky Christmas sweater style....... Join us for kegs, jello shots and sumo suits......(you can ask Big Mike about that one and blame him if he doesn't get them....) Bring anything else you may want to consume that evening....The Suz says to bring your holiday cheer, Katie says bring more alcohol. :) Tacky Christmas Sweaters required.....need I say more? Feel free to bring anyone we forgot..... :) PS: Google Maps and other 'map.coms' don't recognize our address, so use this link and just continue down Sheraton into the 'cookie cutter' neighborhood until you reach 815 Sheraton.....