Kathy's blog

Check out my friend Kathy's blog, JustBKath and while you're there, encourage her to keep it going.

The picture of her vehicle after driving back from North Dakota deserves close attention.

Home

I'm working from home this week. I have work area set up in the sun room. Uno and Frankie have taken over the two wingback chairs in the sun room.

Uno and Frankie hanging out while Dad works.

A rare awake time.

Honda Accord

I now know why this car is so popular. I have never driven a Honda that I can recall. This is an extremely well put together car, comfortable to drive and efficient.

The radio controls are some of the most intuitive I've seen. Nothing really outstanding or extraordinary which makes it a perfect rental vehicle. It just works and works extremely well.

I imagine it is very reliable and gets good gas mileage.

Travel plans

As of now, I'm home for two weeks in a row! I hope it stays that way.

Then I'm back to Dallas the last week of October. I'm going to Hawaii for vacation the first week of November and will be leaving from Dallas. I return to Dallas from Hawaii for another week of work then home.

Featured Hybrid

A picture of my Escape Hybrid got chosen for this week's picture on the Ford Escape Hybrid yahoo user group.

http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/hybrid_ford_escape/

My Escape has our two canoes on top parked in front of Baker Lake.

Grassy Knoll

As you've probably figured out, I finally went to the sight of the John F. Kennedy assassination.

My rental car this week happened to have the navigation system. While trying to find the SpeedZone attraction, I noticed that the Grassy Knoll was one the attractions the system had. I couldn't pass up the chance to have the system guide me there.

Venkat, one of my fellow IBMers, went along. It was late in the evening and already dark. The navigation system directed right to a parking lot. We got out and were looking around when a man with some newspapers in plastic bags approached us and offer to show us the highlights of the assassination. He readily admitted he belonged to a conspiracy theory group.

Everything is pretty much the same as it was 40 some years ago. The book depository where Oswald fired from is there and is now called the Six Floor Museum. The window where he allegedly was has a webcam in it. You can see live pictures from the window by going to the JFK site and clicking the Dealey Plaza Cam link.

It is kind of surreal that all the landmarks are still there. There are even white X marks in the road where the motorcade was when the supposedly two different shots were fired.

SpeedZone (Tuesday)

Stacey at Neiman Marcus organized a field trip to SpeedZone, a go-cart race track. It was so much fun. Stacey's dad and sister were also there. Stacey was the only one from Neiman Marcus to go. In addition to me, Luis and Albert from IBM went.

We did time trials of small open-wheeled cars. A very curvy course. I had the worst time but had a blast. I even did a 180 spin on one run.

We then went to a track where you could race against others head to head. These cars have bumpers all around them and you zoom around another very curvy course. You don't start even with others. I was in front so slowed down for others to catch up and make it more fun.

Our last ride was drag racing. This was a huge adrenaline rush and I won 3 out of 6 times. It was all in the start. I used by Stage Management calling experience when watching the light tree count down.

These drag race cars were really fast. You could get up to 70 miles per hour in 3 seconds. Chevy 350 engines that were nitrogen boosted. Way fun.