We're coming home.

We will be leaving St Louis today and heading back home. All the training and re-certification has been completed and we're ready to come home.

We'll be flying out of St Louis on Southwest Airlines 1548 and should be arriving back in Pittsburgh sometime this evening around 5:30 before getting in our car and returning home.

As always St Louis was fun (for Michelle) as I was in class for a couple of days. I'm sure she has grabbed a few memorable pictures that we either have or will share with everyone.

We will be home this evening, and we will both be on Vacation tomorrow from our normal jobs, I will be going out tomorrow afternoon to start my quarter off for RTI.

Have a great day.

Off to St Louis

Today Michelle and I will be traveling north to Pittsburgh and then hopping on a airplane and heading to the middle of the country and to St Louis Missouri. This will be my 4th trip and Michelle's 3rd trip to see the city with the arch.

We'll be flying out today on Southwest Airlines flight 224 on a direct flight to St. Louis. Of all the airlines I fly, Southwest in my opinion is above and beyond all other airlines so I'm happy that is who we are flying with.

We'll arrive in St Louis early this afternoon, and we will have most of the day to ourselves as all I have to do is simply check in with RTI and that is my only obligation today. Weather permitting this year and it should be, we're going to buy tickets for the Tram to ride to the top of the Arch.

Have yourselves a great day.

We're Coming Home

This week Michelle and I will be traveling to the West Coast as I attend the ESRI Users Conference in San Diego. This weeks blogs are pre-written and just a bit of information as to where we are and what we are doing for the week.

Our week is over with here in San Diego, now it is time for Michelle and I to head back where we came from. We'll drop our car off at the Airport and then will be leaving San Diego at 7:00 PST (10:00 EST) and flying on United Airlines Flight UA913 to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport at about 1:20 (2:20 EST).  We'll be there for a few hours and then leave Chicago at 3:50 (4:50 EST) on United Airlines UA1476 and arrive back in Pittsburgh at about 6:30 PM our time.

This should get us back into Morgantown about 8:30-9:00 ish by the time we get off the plane, get our luggage, find our car and get back to Morgantown.

This is the last of my pre-written blogs for the week as life should pretty much return to normal tomorrow or the next day. Now I get to teach Michelle about Jet lag.

Have a great day.

Flying to San Diego

This week Michelle and I will be traveling to the West Coast as I attend the ESRI Users Conference in San Diego. This weeks blogs are pre-written and just a bit of information as to where we are and what we are doing for the week.

We will be leaving Pittsburgh International Airport this morning on United Airlines Flight 519 at 8:05. We are making our first stop at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. We shall have a minor layover there and will depart Chicago at 10:15 (11:15 EST) on United Airlines Flight 1590 to sunny San Diego and the San Diego International Airport. We should arrive at 12:30 Pacific Time (or 3:30 EST).

We will be staying at the Four Points by Sheraton San Diego for the week. It's in Little Italy and about a mile from the San Diego Zoo. We will be there a few hours before checkin, so this may be my best time to actually get to see the city a little bit. Michelle will have the week to enjoy the sites.

Have yourselves a great day.

Saturday

Here I sit in a quiet household, it is the final calm before the storm. I'm watching 50 First Dates and collecting my thoughts for the day. I'm up a little early planning out my day and it's going to be a busy one.

My day is going to start out with me and Michelle checking in for our flights tomorrow. You can check in 24 hours ahead of time and we'll do that in preparation of our traveling to the West Coast tomorrow.

I've got to go out this morning and make some rounds for RTI, since I'm going to be unavailable next week I'm going to go out this morning and make an attempt at getting some interviews before heading calling it a week on that job.

After that it is a matter of packing, or finishing packing for the week. We're heading to Pittsburgh this evening to rest and relax a little bit and so we don't have to make that big drive to the Pittsburgh Airport from Morgantown tomorrow morning. We'll just wake up, jump on the Parkway heading to the airport and check into the airport and get through TSA before our flight takes off. It is going to be a busy day to say the least.

I've pre-written blogs for the entire week to let everyone know where we are, what we are doing and the flights we are taking. We'll create an album on Facebook for all to see what it is we see on our trip.

Have yourselves a great day.

We're Coming Home

See you St Louis it has been fun. Yes Michelle and I are getting ready to blow this pop sickle stand and get on a couple airplanes and head back to Pittsburgh.

We leave St Louis this morning on Delta Flight 6180 to Detroit once again, have about an hour and a half layover in Detroit once again and then hop on Delta Airlines Flight 3577 and get back into Pittsburgh a little after 5:00 this evening.

Then of course it's getting our luggage, jumping in the car and heading back to good ole Morgantown WV a new employee and re-certified to work in 2019 for RTI.

I'll be out in the field tomorrow and my life just got so much busier that it is not even going to be funny. At least this year I don't have to go up any mountains or travel anywhere where the terrain is horrible. Both of my sections are in Morgantown and there shouldn't be much travel time.

Have yourselves a great day today.

We'll be home this evening.

I'm Coming Home

Well all the site seeing and presenting is now over with, now it is time to say goodbye to Las Vegas and remember what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Hopefully I will come back here again some day and hopefully I've shared a picture of two for everyone to see.

I'll be heading out to McCarran International this morning on at a little after 6:00AM Las Vegas time (9:00 EST) on Southwest 2347 and unlike my direct flight out, I will have one layover on my trip back. We're stopping in the Windy City and Midway International for a brief layover before I board a plane to the Burg on Southwest Flight 2175.

I should be back home with my baby by early evening. We land in Pittsburgh at 4:10, so unboarding, grabbing my luggage and calling Charlie Browns to come and pick me up and get my car and heading home, it should be sometime around supper time when I get home. 

Have yourselves a great day as I deal with Jet Lag tomorrow.

I'm Coming Home

As I am off for the next few days traveling to St. Louis, I am pre-writing s number of my blogs to keep it active and going and to let people know what I am doing.

Well training and certification are over with, now it is time for me to return home to see my lovely wife and spend a little bit of time with her.

I will be flying out of St. Louis this morning at 7:00 their time on American Airlines 4733 and I will be heading to a city that I have never been in yet, the city of brotherly love and the home of Rocky Balboa, Philadelphia Pennsylvania and arrive at 10:17 local time. I don't get too much time to enjoy the place as I will be flying out of there at 11:15 on American Airlines 788 and arrive back in Pittsburgh at 12:33 PM. Then it is a matter of getting my luggage and heading down South in Interstate 79 to see my Baby who I am truly missing.

I would say my training mission is about finished, now it's time to get to work once I get home, which means I am probably not going to have much if any time off at all for the month of January,.

Let's get this party started.

We're Coming Home

Well St Louis, it has been a lot of fun but we are leaving today to head back home. Hopefully we will take a peace of you home with us as we have left a peace of us with you. We got to spend an extra night here as to not put us back in Pittsburgh during the middle of the night, so we are leaving this morning.

We will be leaving St Louis at 8:45 St Louis Time (9:45 EST) and flying to Dulles International Airport in Washington DC aboard United Airline Flight 4669 where we should land there at 11:45 (we will cross back over the time zone). From there we will have an hour and ten minute layover as we head towards our next flight to Pittsburgh at 12:55 aboard United Airlines Flight 6191 where we should arrive back in Pittsburgh around 2:00 this afternoon.

It was a direct flight out, but the return flight is a little wacky to say the least. No complaints though, we should be back at the homestead later this afternoon as we drive back from Pittsburgh.

Have a great day, we'll be traveling.

Travel Day

Well it is a travel day today, Michelle and I will be heading to the Pittsburgh Airport this morning and preparing to travel to St. Louis on Southwest Airlines Flight 2978 this morning. We'll be taking off just before noon and heading to St Louis. The flight takes 2 hours but we will also cross a time zone, so it will be 1:00 St Louis time when we land and 2:00 EST.

We will be heading to the hotel via the metro and by foot so to speak. We will be checking into and staying at the Marriott St Louis Grand and will be staying here until Friday morning when we depart to head back home.

This will be Michelle's first flight and the first time she will ever cross a time zone or the Mississippi River, so she is quite excited.

We should be checking into our hotel later today.

Back to Back and Three Time Champions

We did it, we won the KDKA McDonalds Pittsburgh Steelers Trivia show for the third time in our teams history and for the first time in the shows history it has its first back to back Champions. I have to say that honestly none of us studied this year, but something told me going into the tournament that it was ours to lose.

Our prizes for winning this tourny once again, $100.00 at the Steelers Store, 2 Field passes each and 2 tickets each for the Pittsburgh Steelers vs Oakland Raiders game later this year and I seem to remember a Grand total of like $80.00 in McDonalds Gift Certificates (that we gave to Hayley).

Thank you all for watching and cheering us on to yet another win. That is a grand total of three trophies that this team now possesses.

We will grab group pictures this November of the three of us and all three trophies. Those pictures will be posted at a later date.

Big Ole Hairy Hump Day

Well for the rest of you it's hump day, that day of the week when you go up and over the hump looking at another weekend. For my wonderful wife Michelle and I it is the start of a four day weekend for us.

Yes my work week will be over this evening and it'll be time for us to start cleaning and organizing tomorrows Tailgate.

Jimmy Buffett will once again be coming to Pittsburgh, even though that we thought he was just going to completely bypass the city this year for the first time in I don't know when. To tell you the truth, I'm glad he waited as when he was going to schedule was the rainy season and tomorrows weather forecast for Burgettstown looks quite awesome with a high at a very manageable 84° and no rain.

Bobby and Val and a couple they went with last year as well as Trish and a couple of her friends as well as the group of people we are going with could make this a tailgate of potentially about 15 people, not including the people who tend to stop by as they pass by as we have met a number of great people in neighboring tailgates through the years.

Have yourselves a wonderful day.

Hi ho hi ho

Pittsburgh Bound

It's another road trip for us this weekend, we're heading off to Pittsburgh to tape the McDonalds KDKA Pittsburgh Steelers Trivia Show this weekend at KDKA studios.

This will be the fourth time we have competed in the tournament and have won it twice including being the defending Champions. We came in third two years ago, but Chris wanted to go to training camp and we stumbled out of the blocks that year.

Who knows what this year contains for us, but we will be taping our first round game this afternoon against only one other team so far and that will be Porter's Posse. If we advance then we will be taping again tomorrow morning but we are staying in Pittsburgh regardless this evening. We'll actually be staying in Greentree at our hotel, so that will be easy access on and off the parkway so to speak. It's a new hotel and we are getting a free room with my IHG annual rewards as I get one free night a year and they resets some time in early September before our cruise.

Have a great day.

It's a Pittsburgh Kind of Day

Here I am up early in the AM, the I have finally recovered from that dreaded loss to the Sandman last night and I'm up early watching Hoosiers on Cinemax.

This is the night that I think we are supposed to be on the Steelers Trivia show, it should be our first round game and it should be on KDKA after the 11:00 news. I've set my DVR up to record it but it's not showing up as the show. I hope I don;t have my dates messed up..lol

Tonight Michelle and I are traveling to Pittsburgh to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play the San Diego Padres and their Second Baseman and Morgantown native Jedd Gyorko. This will be the first time I will have watched Jedd play professionally and I have watched him play in High School and a number of times in College. There will be fireworks after the game tonight, so it will be a late night for us before we return to Morgantown later tonight or early tomorrow morning.

The weather should be nice today, so I hope everyone has a great day.

Monday

All good things must come to an end, and that includes those fun filled and this weekend travel filled weekends. It's time to sit back and reflect upon the weekend a little as we prepare to look to the week ahead.

We did manage to tape all of the Steelers trivia show(s) this weekend. I can tell you our first show will be in week 5 of the challenge. There are six weeks of preliminary games and those six winners advance to the second day for the semifinals and possibly finals. The winner of our first round game moves on to the semi-finals in week 8 for a chance to earn a spot in the Super Bowl of Steelers Trivia, aha Week 9. You'll just have to tune in to see how we did. We won it all in 2008 as Poised to Strike and advanced to the Finals last year as the Pudgy Polamalus (even though no one studied) but finished third.

Now the week ahead I have a couple of Graduation Ceremonies to attend. Calvin is graduating from Vo-Tech on Wed at 7:00 at the WVU Creative Arts Center and at 7:00 on Friday at Clay Battelle High School. That should be a great way to start a 3 day (Unofficial Start of Summer) weekend.

Have a great day,

Back to the Burgh

Here I sit yet once again in a quiet household (but not for long), I just woke up and am collecting my thought s for the day and watching something or another on TV.

I'll be getting Michelle up soon and we will be heading out early this morning and heading back to Pittsburgh and KDKA studios once again for day two of taping the Steelers trivia show. I'm not going to say how we did in our first round game, but we will probably be back there by people wake up again if that is any indication.

Yes this has or will be a weekend of running, but in between all the running we did manage to get our menu planned, our shopping done and the majority of the laundry done as well as well as my prescription pills sorted.

Hopefully we can return today with a little bit of hardware.

Have a great day.

Burgh Kind of Day

Here I sit in a quiet household, even though I slept in this morning (could be a long day) I'm still the first one to recover from a losing battle with the Sandman. I'm up watching Joe Dirt and catching my thoughts for the day before I resume studying.

We'll be traveling to Pittsburgh today and will be at the KDKA studios filming the first round of Steelers Trivia. This is our third try doing this, winning the 18 team tournament in 2008 and finishing third last year although no one studied due to other things going on in all of our lives. Hopefully we can bring home another Championship Trophy this year.

If we are successful today, we'll be heading back up tomorrow morning but have no idea what time yet if that happens. In 2008 we had to be at the studio at 6:30 AM and last year it was much later.

Last year Michelle couldn't make the trip due to a Hospital stay, this year she is and I will be traveling together. Didn't have our good luck charm last year, but we do this year.

Have a great day.

Burgh Day

Here I sit on a quiet Saturday Morning, I'm the first one to recover from that losing battle with the dreaded Sandman. I'm up early watching the ending to Austin Powers and collecting my thoughts and surfing the net.

Before I forget, make sure that you set your clocks an hour ahead tonight as it is Daylight Savings Time. We lose an hour of sleep tonight, but that's OK with me it just means it stays light later in the evening. Spring is just right around the corner.

Did anyone see the traffic around Morgantown yesterday? Wow can you say it was total gridlock like nothing else. All over the city and it took Michelle about 45 to get home on what is usually a 10-15 minute commute. It was ridiculous to say the very least and we could not figure out why all the gridlock was all over Morgantown. We figured it out later last night, it was the last day for students and they are starting Spring Break. It was just a mad chaotic exodus of students that was the cause of all the gridlock. I guess that means traffic will actually be bearable for the next week.

Today's plans, heading up North to South Hills Village to get Hayley's iPhone repaired. Been there a few times before, I do actually love that store. Hopefully they won't be too crowded as we already have an appointment scheduled for this morning, so it's not like we'll be waiting in any lines.

Have a great day.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend, and a Big Ole Hairy Friday.

The weather is nice and I believe Michelle and I will be taking a nice road trip tomorrow. We'll be heading to Pittsburgh and the Apple Store to get Hayley's iPhone repaired for her. The one she has has a cracked screen and they are going to replace the screen for us. I am the one who told her she didn't need an otter box, so I guess this is partially my screw up, so now we'll finally get it fixed.

How do you like this weather? It's actually supposed to get close to 60° on Monday, a big change from what we saw last week when we were hit with snowmageddon again. I'm really ready for the spring time.

Don't forget to spring your clocks ahead an hour tomorrow night or you'll be a little late for work.

Hi ho hi ho

Sunday Morning Ramblings from the Burgh

I sit here in the hotel room up for the day as Michelle is still sawing logs from last night. I'm sitting in a quiet hotel room here in Moon Township collecting my thoughts.

I think Michelle had a great time last night, we sat with her friend Holly who just had her book published earlier this year. Michelle brought her copy of it to the reunion and Holly personalized it for her. She told Michelle not to read it until she got back to the hotel so she didn't cry. Both of them are widows and I think that has brought them closer as friends as it is something very few their age can relate to.

Our agenda for the day is to simply go home and all we have to do is some laundry and actually decorate the Christmas Tree. We set it up a couple of days ago and have everything ready, it's just a matter of putting the decorations on the tree.

It's back to work tomorrow after being off most of last week. We have four more weekends until Christmas, one will be spent for our annual trip to Ohio for Michelle's family Christmas, one will be spent baking cookies, and one will be spent baking cookies. Killing two birds with one stone this weekend really helped.

Have a great day.