Houston, Day 1

Sorry for the long posts, but I love taking pictures and can never chose which ones to use. Since the post was getting long, I'm breaking it down into a few of them. I’m finally getting around to posting about our vacation back in April. We put off our trip, because I was going to the M’s Home Opener on March 31st. We flew south on April 1st hoping for nicer weather. Although it wasn’t that great of weather at least it was warmer than home. Our first stop was Houston. We stayed with Mom’s cousin Sue and her husband John. It had been many years since we had seen them, so it was great to catch up with them. We were only there for two and a half days, so we had to pack a lot of sightseeing into that time. Mom and I had never been there, so we wanted to see as much as we could.

We had an early flight, but weren’t sure if we were going to get out with all the fog. There was hope since we could see a little of the sun:


We had an awesome view of Mt. St. Helen’s on the flight down:




We got to Houston in the late afternoon and hung out at Sue and John’s all evening. We were able to jump in the hot tub too. The weather wasn’t warm enough to go in the swimming pool, but the hot tub was great.

NASA

Our first full day in Houston was spent at NASA Space Center Houston. When we got there, John, Mom, and I went on the Tram Tour of the Johnson Space Center (JSC), which took us out to some of the NASA training buildings. Sue decided to stay in the main building (she’s been on the tour before) and scout out our plan of action after the tour. John and Sue have been there before and they did say that before 9/11 the tour went to more of the buildings, including the training pool (world’s deepest pool). Had to take a picture of Mom and John before our Tram Tour left:



Since I can’t remember where all of these pictures were taken, I’m not going to try to describe everything. Here’s some of the flags of the different shuttles:



These pictures are taken in the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at the JSC. This is where the astronauts, engineers, and other space flight professionals learn and practice their skills. There are some shuttle orbital trainers, International Space Station trainer, and more:







This is the grove of trees that are planted in honor of all of the Astronauts that have perished in flight, such as those on the Challenger:



These are some older rockets and shuttles that were around the Center grounds:





This was some kind of rocket that I think might be called the Saturn V and there are only two or three left in the US:



As we were riding around, I came across an awesome car, so I had to take a picture. I’ve narrowed my car choices to two and here is the Mustang convertible in the same color that I’d love to have:



If you want to learn more about the Johnson Space Center, visit their website which is pretty cool: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/home/index.html.

To learn more about Space Center Houston go to: www.spacecenter.org.

After the outside tour we headed inside to find Sue. She had planned out the rest of our visit, so we were able to see the most stuff.

Our first stop was the Starship Gallery, where we watched a movie about the space flight program in the US and then traced the progress of the space program with artifacts and exhibits. Mom and I were even able to touch a moon rock:



This picture is for my Uncle Jim (we saw him later in Florida). He worked for HP for many years, so thought he’d like this one:



We watched an IMAX movie on life inside the Space Station. I remember seeing another Space Shuttle movie at the Seattle Science Center IMAX theater, when I was young, but I can’t remember what it was about. We were able to feel the sensation of a Blast Off, before we learned about the current shuttle mission. We also got to learn about the challenges of living and working in space. Here’s some pictures from that demonstration:





John and I took our turns on the Flight Simulators. I’m not sure how well John did, but I crashed once and went “where no one has gone before” (probably back into space).

John:



Me:



Mom and I went up into a “Shuttle” and were able to look into the controls area:



This is the shuttle. Either I’m short or the shuttle is just very tall:



DYNAMO

You probably don’t know what this is about, but the Dynamo is the Major League Soccer (MLS) team in Houston. Sue, John, and their kids and grandkids are into soccer. Two of their sons have season tickets to the Dynamo. Their oldest son, Eric and his wife, Kristie, are in the front row right near one of the goals. It also happens to be on the Dynamo sidelines, so we had great views of the guys warming up right in front of us. Their youngest son (Mark) has season tickets in the row behind his brother. The Dynamo were playing in an international tournament and had a home game on Wednesday night, so Eric and Kristie got an extra ticket so that I could join them (they assumed that I’d like to go and they guessed correctly--I would have gone anyways, just because it was in the front row seats to a major leage team). Mark was in Europe, so he wasn’t able to join us. We had John, Eric, Kristie, Susan (Mark’s girlfriend), and myself, while Sue and Mom took care of the grandkids.

I was excited for the game, because there happened to be several players from Seattle. The Dynamo’s color is Orange, but I don’t understand the reasoning behind that color. There are a lot better color choices and no one looks good in orange. I would have chosen another color, but......Here’s the two teams on the field at the University of Houston just before the start of the game (Houston in orange and Deportivo Saprissa of Costa Rica in Blue):



The goalie, Pat Onstad:



Some action shots:







Craig Waibel, from Seattle, warming up (no telephoto was used):



My tradition for the Mariners games is to get a picture of the final score, so for the Dynamo, here it is after 90 minutes of play:



Yes....the final score was 0-0 and there was no shootout either.

Where did Spring go?

I think Spring missed Washington this year. Hopefully summer won’t. April showers did bring some May flowers, but not a lot of them. We did get more rain again last week, but this weekend was beautiful with sunny skies and highs right around 70. Around Washington we do say that summer doesn’t start until July 5th, so we still have some time. Below are some of my favorite photos of the flowers in our yard.

Some of the first flowers of the season taken at the end of February:





I love surprising Mom with flowers throughout the year, so around Easter I got some tulips for her, which is our favorite flower. Here’s a few pictures of the one that I had sitting on the counter in my bathroom (there is only one flower, so you also see the reflection of it in the mirror:





A few days after I took these pictures, we had a surprise:



About a week later (first week in April) Mom and I flew to Houston and Florida (more about that later) and we thought that when we got home we’d have spring weather. Boy were we wrong,

Here’s a few pictures from our surprise on April 19, which if I remember correctly is the latest that we’ve had snow.

Backyard:



Front yard, with the snow still falling:



Front yard and neighbors with the falling snow:



Although it wasn’t too much, it still coated the grass and rooftops:



After all that late snow, the tulips finally did come up in our yard:









One of my favorite snow pictures was one that I took on Christmas Day. We were hanging out opening gifts when we realized that there was snow falling. I grabbed my camera and ran outside. You may recognize this tree as the one in some earlier snow pictures:



Hopefully we are done with snow until wintertime. Last week we did get snow again, but this time it was only in the mountains. It did get pretty cold around here though. Now we're waiting for our strawberries to ripen.

Back in the Game!!

During our vacation I had part of my computer crash (internet, e-mail, and presentation program). After a week of trying to fix it myself, I ended up taking it in to the shop. They had it for over a week and now I thought I was back in the game. I'm typing this with a bum left hand. Last night our Bible Study group played basketball. I blocked a pass and ended up with a sprained, swollen, and hurting thumb. Thankfully the x-rays didn't show any breaks.

Now, my reason for posting. On March 31st I heard two of my favorite words again, “Play Ball.” Just in case you don’t know, I was up at beautiful Safeco Field for the start of another Mariner Season. This season we have some new seats just inside 1st base (we were behind homeplate last season), but we are about 6 rows closer to the field. This is a shot without telephoto:



Now for its closeup:



If you’ve never gone to Opening Day, I highly recommend it. It is so much fun and everyone has great expectations for the season. One of the traditions is announcing all the players as they run in from the outfield. This picture was taken just as they started:



Here’s the lineup just before the National Anthem:



After that, they give out some awards, but don’t worry I won’t bore you with the pictures or names.......Next came the Ceremonial 1st pitch. They honored one of the greatest guys, Dave Niehaus, who’s been the Mariners announcer since they started. He is being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown this summer by being the 2008 Ford C Frick Award Winner given to a broadcaster. My understanding is that this is the only way a broadcaster can be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Here’s a photo of him getting ready to throw the pitch:



Now, here’s the awesome car that he road in on (I couldn’t get a great picture of the car when he was in front of our section, because there were too many people):



Now for some action shots. Can’t remember what he did during this at bat, but here’s Adrian Beltre swinging for the fences:



Coming in to close the game is J.J. Putz:



Here’s my final picture:



Final Score: Mariners 5 Texas 2!!!!