Our lap top blew up so we have not been checking our mail until today. We spent a nice time in Tucson, went to the 4th Avenue Street Fair with over 400 vendor booths, live bands, and . We got Eric a power ranger cape.

We spent a day at the Desert Museum which is sort of a cross between a zoo and a nature trail – it is almost all outdoors. Got there is time for an incredible show/display of Harris Hawks.  Harris Hawks are social and hunt as a group.  We got to see 5 of them ‘hunting’ together.  One of the better wildlife exhibits we have seen.

The Hilton is quite resort-ish. Pool is very busy so did not go in, just sat by the edge the fisrt day. We had a very nice diner with the instructor/pro on Sunday night. Yesterday was all about golf. There are only three of us in the class and the instructor/pro is a very down-to-earth, jolly kind of guy who definitely thinks golf is fun and wants you to think so too. We spent 2 hours whacking at the golf ball – well, actually he was trying to teach “the fundamentals” of how to hold the club, how to stand etc. We hit the ball more often than not and was quite surprised to have some fairly good hits. We had some great hits, but a few went off course and near houses. Then we spent another hour doing “chip shots”. Those were somehow harder. We went to the club house and had a nice lunch then went on an actual golf course. It was after 3 when we got back to the room and we just watched televison and read until bedtime. Well, we are a little stiff today but think that will work itself out on the driving range this morning! Temperatures are expected to be in the 80s with serious winds today.

The ride from Charlotte to Phoenix was nice, long, but nice.  Meals are different in 1st class.  We also got to watch the in-flight movie for free.  Good thing Rocky Balboa was free – I found it contrived and heavy handed, but it occupied 90 minutes of the flight.

Phoenix is a big airport with all their rental cars services consolidated in one off-site location. We have a nice rental car – a brand new Suburu Forester – but it took us 90 minutes in line to get it.

We drove an hour south of Phoenix towards Tucson and stayed overnight in a Best Western in Casa Grande.   We watched the end of the UNC/USC NCAA game last night before turning in.

There is a railroad running through Casa Grande with a train every hour.  I didn’t hear it during the night, but this morning as I awoke on eastern standard time I heard every warning whistle.

A little yoga this morning helped stretch out the travel stiffness and now we head to breakfast and Tucson.

Charlotte, NC named after King George III’s wife, Charlotte has a happening airport and a slow WiFi connection. We touched down on time (10:30am) and have a few hours to kill before our connecting flight departs to Phoenix. We split a Quinzo’s sub for brunch, killed time in the Starbucks, walked around the concourse, browsed the bookstore and found a new book for K to read (“The Labyrinth” by Kate Moss) and now we are seated waiting for our flight (about 90 minutes from now).

Did I mention we have 1st Class seating throughout our trip? When I traded in my frequent flyer miles they didn’t have any regular frequent flyer slots open, but they did have 1st class, so I cashed in all 100,000 miles for two round trip tickets SYR – PHO. On the flight down there was marginally more leg room, lots of additional elbow room, some increased attentions from the flight attendant, but no special goodies – unless you count the pre-departure beverage.

It is noticeably warmer in NC – expected to be 81 this afternoon.  K asked if I regretted us leaving NC (Raleigh) as we wouldn’t have to shovel snow.  I don’t miss it at all.

More updates from Phoenix – where it will be 70s today.

It is 6:19am at the Hancock Airport in Syracuse as we await our flights to Tucson, AZ.  Sister Barbara was nice enough to provide 1 week of house/child sitting as a Christmas present, with the provision that it be used before the nice weather comes in April.  Kathyrn & I agreed we would go a) somewhere warm and b) go to golf school.  I have had a goal of learning the basics of golf for the past two summers but didn’t follow through with lessons.  So we are attending the Hilton Golf Academy in Tucson where the temperatures have been in the mid-70s the past week.  After a night of fitful sleep we arose early and crossed our ice-slickened deck to the car and began our journey.

With the warmer weather a man’s thoughts turn to……planning canoe trips!

ADK sponsored trip up the Oswegatchie River with a possible hike to Cat Mtn Apr 27-29

A bushwhack canoe overnight trip down the upper Kunjamuk River in May 19-20.

An overnight trip down the Tioughnioga River in early June.

An overnight trip up the Spy Lake outlet to Spy Lake.

The General Clinton Grand Prix Relay Race on May 27.

A multi-day, multi-portage Lows Lake-Oswegatchie River-Cranberry Lake-Lows Lake Loop around July 28th.

A Cranberry Lake or Susquehanna River fishing trip with Len or my brother.

A ~6 day Spanish River, Ontario trip August 11-19.

 Only 6 months after the course.

Folks

Sorry these diplomas are long overdue, and thanks to all of you for completing the LNT Master Educator course last September. You should have received your LNT Membership materials by now. If not, please contact the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics

At the 1983 NBA All-Star Game, Marvin Gaye stole the show with his singular rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” At the time, singing the anthem was for the most part a straightforward job — shoulders square, sing it straight like the hymn that it is. But for this game, Gaye took the anthem to a new level. Gaye’s one rehersal was bumpy. By this point in his life, Gaye was battling a serious drug addiction. And on game day, the singer was running perilously late. But then the lights dimmed, a syncopated beat machine was turned on and Gaye made history. One year later, Marvin Gaye was dead, shot by his own father. Thanks to NPR for the text and Youtube for the video – this is special. Marvin Gaye sings the National Anthem.

I have a bunch of computer activities on going tonight. I bought a new Western Digital USB drive as my Lacie Drive I use for an off-site backup went on the fritz. I got a 150gb that I am currently copying all my music, digital photos, maps, and personal files onto. I started with my 70gb of music that is not backed up elsewhere. It took 2+ hours to copy those file; I expect the rest to be copied overnight.
After years of using free firewalls (ZoneAlarm), free anti-virus (Grisoft AVG), free ad-aware and spybot software I bought Norton 360 internet security suite. It allows installation on 3 computers, which is perfect for me. The 1st installation was relatively painless as was the 2nd.  I haven’t found any nasty viruses or malware yet. Nonetheless, I’d made sure to mark this particular Boynton Beach computer repair service centre, because the onset of a virus can be quite unpredictable and would send the computer to oblivion. Maybe the old freeware was doing just fine.
Kathryn’s computer is being upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP so I can run Norton 360 on it.

I upgraded my version of WordPress, which runs this blog, to version 2.1.2.  It was easy and painless.

I have used Eudora for email since 1995, starting out on Macintosh and then over on PCs.  After reading the news of Eudora mail to be merged with Mozilla Thunderbird I purchased the last commercial release of Eudora thinking it would tide me over until the merge was complete and we would transition to Thunderbird.  I was further motivated by Eudora’s statement that by the end of March existing licenses were going to be down graded to Eudora lite.   In the past purchasing one licensed copy of Eudora permitted me to perform multiple installations; 3 PCs and 1 Mac.  The latest licensing arrangement allows multiple installations, the additional ones just don’t work (or tell you why).  I could access email via web mail I thought my Norton 360 was causing problems, until I used Thunderbird on one of the computers.

The latest version of Thunderbird looks a lot like Eudora, imports all Eudora settings and works like a dream.