Saturday, September 30, 2006

They called in sick, so I worked harder!































On thursday around 1 in the afternoon, I received a call from the automotives factory which am employed at, and working at alot I might add, to be told that if I wanted I was not required to come into work that afternoon. I was curious as to why and as far as I can make out the orders were either to small for the parts I help to manufacture, or that machine, which they had been working on the day before, was still down and they didn't want us simply standing around and being paid.

I was fine with the whole idea! I would have an even longer weekend to accomplish all of the things I had planned! All day Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday free from TRW. I just wish they had called me earlier in the day, so that I could have been at full speed throughout Thursday. Instead, I received the call about 2 hours before I would have been going to work, thus making my sporatic free day a little shorter, but still productive!

I took Miss Juby into Ettrick where we went to TRW, just to get my check, and then proceeded to Hillbilly's Fun Saloon, where I cashed my check. (You see the bank in Ettrick is... how can I say this nicely... well... not somewhere that is very concerned with making anyone happy, nor gaining new customers into their institution. I really have no idea how they stay in business. Thus I do my banking in a town about 12 miles away, or cash my checks in the local bar.) We then attempted to go to the local bank for the sole purpose of buying a money order with the now cash I held from the bars till, however the bank was not interested in my monetary proposition and wouldn't sell me a money order unless I had an account there. The woman at the till instead directed me to the Post office, where we quickly walked. I bought 5 stamps, with cool pictures of old baseball greats on them, and one money order worth $47.50, as well as a postmarked envelope. The money order and the postmarked envelope were promptly mailed off to my beloved Ave Maria College, thus completeing the more than likely, final transaction I will ever have with that institution. Which is of course not to say that I will no longer be talking and associating with all of my wonderful Ave peeps, but that the actual College and myself no longer have any binding between us. That is, other than my own fond rememberence.

Jubilee and I then proceeded to the lumber yard to see my friend Tina. (Tina is basically my only friend in this area of the country, at least within 45 minutes of driving. I happen to have met her when I stopped by the lumber yard in search of chainsaw oil, about a month ago. She is a very chearful, and kind person, has had a good few travelling adventures, and is quite a bit like me. Rough to some and sweeter than sugar to others, an aquired taste. I really like her.) While there I decided that I would buy the drywall for the ceiling in my old room. I called home for the measurements, but was not specific enough in my directions concerning where to find the paper with all of the things written down, so Juby and I drove home to get them ourselves. Only 4 miles, no big deal. I then stole Gelly and the puppy, Addy, and took them as well as Juby and a now more cleaned out truck back to the lumber yard along with the list of all things measured and required.

I spent about $100 on all of the materials my Pop and I would need to repair the ceiling in my old room, and then took it all home in the old red truck with little sisters and the dog making sure that nothing fell out the back! Now, Pop, Juby, Gelly, and I spent roughly 45 minutes just clearing a path for, and then carrying these four 12 ft by 4ft pieces of drywall through the house, up the stairs, and then into my room. It was an adventure filled with laughter screaming, pinched toes and fingers. Good hard fun.

Now after all of this wondeful adventuring with pay checks, money orders to old schools, postage, misplaced building supply lists, little sisters, puppy dogs, careful drives in old trucks, and manuvering huge pieces of drywall and giant buckets of mud up stairs into my old room, I am sure that you are thinking it must have been late enough for me to call it a day, right? Well, you would be wrong there. It was only about 6:30, and there was firewood to be made, stacked and thrown down the hole in our living room floor. (The hole is supposed to be there, Pop cut a trap door a few years ago just for the firewood.)

Like I said before, they called in sick so I worked harder!
















































Saturday, September 09, 2006

Boston , Mes-tes-chaussettes ( put your socks on , in French )

We spent 3 days in Boston , was great , the city is small , you can walk almost everywhere . They have the Freedom Trail which is a red line of 5 miles you can follow on the ground and it circles in the city to show you the interesting things , in one word : exelent.


Boston is diferent of others cities we went , the street are not square , it's more like european cities.









Clam chowder in bread , yummy !
















:)



























Old North Church
















On the ship USS CASSIN YOUNG
















Inside the ship.












Near Faneuil Hall



Great street performer from the Bronx , they were amazing.














Old State House

Built in 1713, this site is where you will find the landmark for the Boston Massacre, which took place March 5, 1770 and where five Patriots were killed.





One of the oldest building in the States.




Old South Meeting House

Built in 1729 as a Congregational Church, it served as Boston's Town Meeting Hall, famous for the fiery meeting that led to the Boston Tea Party incident which caused the port of Boston to be closed and brought the country a step closer to rebellion.


We loved how they kept old buildings in the middle of Skyscrapers.









Granary Burying Ground

Many notable Patriots are buried here including Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams and Robert Treat Paine as well as the five men killed in the Boston Massacre.












Have you ever been to London surburbs? It looks exactly the same style.











The Freedom Trail , very good idea , we followed it all the way long.







The Freedom Trail begins in Common Parc , America's first public park( 1634).

Washington , part 2.

We also went to Holocaust Museum and Indian Museum too , photos were forbiden , the Holocaust museum was really interesting.

We went to the Natural Museum too :









The Entrance


















Nice rock














Some photos of the city ( very clean compare to NYC , Philly or Baltimore )


Statue of Lincoln inside the Lincoln Memorial



The Reflecting Pool


Lincoln Memorial




The Washington Monument , an obelisk of 555ft/169m


The Old Post Office


The White House and a photo of Mr president taken from the fence


Nice shoot !



Not enough choice I guess


Capitol




A piece of the Berlin Wall
























Washington

( Havilah doesn't have anytime to post more photos of our summer journey , so i'm posting some ( JB ))

And then we visited Washington for 3 days ( from David and Bethany's place ) , thx again Bethany and David.


Washington is what we found the perfect city for tourism , the subway system is by far the best we saw on the East Coast , really clean , easy to use, a little bit more expensive .
ALL the museum are free for entrance , we went to :

Air and Space museum ( most visited museum in America ) , you can touch a sample of lunar rock , see SpaceShipOne ( first private plane to flight in space ) , Spirit of St louis piloted by Charles Lindbergh , first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean from New-York to Paris without any stop and alone , 33h00....) , the command module of Apollo 11 in which Neil Armstrong an his mates came back on Earth , the original Wright flyer that made the first controlled , powered
flight in 1903 , the Bell-X1 : first supersonic plane , and a lot of very cool stuff !




Spirit of Saint Louis , first monoplace plane to cross the Atlantic Ocean , from Long Island (NY) to Paris ,France.

The flight last 33h and half , used 450 gallons (1,703 liters) of fuel.









Spirit of Saint Louis , SpaceShipOne and Bell X-1



On the ground , the pink thing is the cockpit of the first world entire trip in a ballon.













SpaceShipOne















Havilah touching a lunar rock sample brought by Apollo 11


















Wright Brother's plane , first motorised plane ever.













Mercury space capsule



















Apollo 11 capsule











Went also went to the Botanic Garden , it's really good.




On the way to my uncle's place , Baltimore highlight : the Aquarium.






On the way to my Uncle's place from Pennsylvania.

Thx David for the flight !































Nice little plane!