Although not the nice picture with them in their Class A or B uniforms, here is the class with whom she graduated. FYI, you can only view this picture if you are logged into Facebook and are friends with my wife on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=620055966127&set=t.67700060&type=3
On Tuesday, I flew down to Charlottesville via Philadelphia with US Airways. Both flights arrived early. The second flight was practically empty! Here's the video I took to prove it.
Sadly, we could not have dinner together that night as she had a ceremonial dining in with her classmates and superiors. Instead, I wandered outside and read the book "The Rule of Four" by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Tomason. Before I get to the book, here are two pictures I took wandering campus.
Ok, I can't seem to rotate this picture right now, but if anyone can identify this tree, I would be grateful. There are a handful of them in Charlottesville, but you don't see them in MSP.
Oddly written book. Great ideas using an old mysterious text and decoding it over the course of the book and how that impacts the main character's relationships with his friends and significant other. In the end, I liked the ideas that were in it, but I really did not like how it was put together and how it ended. It stabbed the romantic in me. Without giving away the book, I didn't like how the relationship between the main character and his girlfriend ended. If destiny at any cost was the message, I guess I can get there. If the ability to change oneself was the message, then I say the book failed. The book was also clearly written by two authors who didn't bother to work as a team to blend their sides of the story. It made for a choppy read. It's really too bad, because the ideas and a lot of the events in the book were really good. I probably would read a book written by either one of the authors again, but not written by both of them. If you're really adventurous, the book reads like it's encoded like the text that is the subject of the story. I might get to it. I'll post if I do.
Wednesday, my wife had class for the first half of the day. It was, again, gorgeous outside. Unfortunately, I slept in for most of the morning, so I waited for her to get done with class, and then we met up with her parents who arrived shortly after that. We went shopping first. Her parents purchased us two IPod Touches! We heard rumors that WIFI is more available in Europe than cell phone zones. Our game plan is to use them in lieu of cell phones and "FaceTime" ourselves and acquaintences overseas. This is also a plus for you blogger viewers because I tested it at home today against my cell phone and below are the results. Clearly, I will use it for better resolution pictures and video in the future.
From the LG Octane cell phone...
From the IPod Touch
As an aside, we learned that public WIFI routers can have filters on them for the purpose of restricting bandwidth draw from devices that have high demands. The TJAGLCS has a filter on a LOT of items including FaceTime, so we couldn't get them to work in her room. The Geek Squad guy at Best Buy noted that Best Buy's WIFI puts a filter on Google related accounts. He also noted that some public zones do truly have unlimited access, but it's usually the smaller ones. Good information to know. I also learned that you have to select the WIFI you use before you can use FaceTime. Hopefully, I can figure out how to let the device do it automatically, but for now it will be an extra step.
That evening, we had dinner together at a restaurant on the downtown walking-only street mall at Fellini's Number 9. Really good food and the waitress was awesome and energized. I couldn't help but have two desserts. Sadly, I couldn't completely finish them. Trout, broccoli, asparagus, potatoes, ravioli, cheese cake, carrot cake...and that's just what I had! Highly recommend it for anyone visiting C-ville. Later on that night, we chatted with one of her classmates who will be stationed with us in Germany. It's always good to know there will be a familiar face there, and he will supposedly get stationed in the same office as my wife, so she'll have a classmate/work buddy there which should help too.
Thursday, I did some PT (physical training) with my wife and a friend of hers. We were going to run for several miles, but it was around 40 degrees and raining, so we opted for pushups and situps instead. We then cleaned ourselves up and went to Graduation in the morning. Again, I took pictures, but neglected to take them with my own camera. It was pretty neat! Almost no one was from Charlottesville, there were a few very high ranking officers (one vice admiral from the coast guard, the assistant Judge Advocate General, a full-bird colonel, a first sergeant, and at least one other very highly decorated officer) not to mention all of the students were at least first lieutenants and some of the students were captains and even majors. Afterward, it was, of course, gorgeous and sunny again. We went to lunch at Michie's Tavern just outside of the Thomas Jefferson Monticello. Decent food. We then explored the nearby gift store. There are some really cool trinkets there! It took some will power not to buy one of the pocket watches they had on display.
We then got back, I finished up packing (my flight was scheduled for 8pm) and got a trailer for my wife's car. It had been slowly dying for the past year. Figures at class, when we were going to trade it in for our recently purchased new car, it completely dies. As a side tangent, it might not be completely dead, but we've given up on investing any more into it. It was a bit of a homeric effort to get the trailer rigged up because the lights wouldn't work. Using jumper cables, we figured out it was a grounding problem. We then waited for the owner to come by and wire a different ground to it. Once we started working on moving the car, the battery was not charged enough to start the car, but there was enough to run the power steering. We decided to push the car, which was interesting given the slightly hilly terrain. We encountered problems getting up the trailer ramp when another friendly young man eagerly offered to help. The three of us (me, my father-in-law, and this friendly guy) managed to get it on the trailer after four tries. We thanked him, and after he left my wife woke up from her nap in the truck, saw him walk away, and told us that he is also getting stationed in Germany although in a different region. What a coincidence!
We then had dinner at AppleBee's and I went to the airport. Nope, the visit doesn't end there!
At the airport, we, the passengers, get on the tarmac, close up the plane, and then get an announcement from the pilot. The pilot's computer shut down and he was trying to get it to reboot. Coincidentally, the man sitting next to me was a pilot for the same airline. He said that the situation was not good and would likely result in grounding the plane. This was bad for him because he was starting his vacation today and he was hoping to catch up with his wife, also a pilot, on the east coast and they would catch a flight tomorrow morning for Cambodia. He also told me that this was the last flight out of Charlottesville, so grounding meant no one getting out until tomorrow morning at 5:30am or so.
The flight was grounded, I got to meet a lot of people I ordinarily would not have met (a couple in town for a wake trying to get back to Nashville, three college students trying to get to DC for job interviews, three people also in town from Nashville, the pilot mentioned earlier, a taxi driver who moved to Charlottesville because his wife had triplets, another taxi driver who was an Indianapolis Colts fan, and a couple of crabby women), and I also got to spend another night with my wife! I also only got 4 hours of sleep due to the sudden wave of accomodations the understaffed airport had to handle. During that wait, I entertained myself with TSA regulations...
I finally got back to MSP. On the flight there, I was surrounded by six or seven women who only spoke what I thought was Russian. Even better, they didn't understand English. I felt like I was in Europe :) The other funny thing was that MSP was completely covered in low clouds and 30F with fog...stark contrast from the east coast. I decided to eat at the airport before going to work, as I hadn't eaten in over 12 hours. I asked the information booth about a good restaurant in the airport. He directed me to something really cool! Check it out!
Perhaps I was needlessly entertained, but I thought it was way cool!
I then ate at Ike's restaurant, had the awesomest vanilla malt on the planet, and a great burger too, served by one of the better waitresses I've had in a while, and proceeded to go to work for about four hours. I then had a large dinner with my good friend K-Borg. He chose to take a picture of himself using my new IPod Touch.
I'm not quite sure what he was thinking about at the time he took this picture, but he does seem quite sure of himself.
Today, well, I'm still catching up on packing out. I've got taxes, PCS (Permanent Change of Station), and moving the dog to sort out still. I also have to sing tonight, so my entire afternoon is pretty much shot. Sad news: the military (or the contract mover for the military, don't know which it is) will not transport a canoe longer than 14 feet. I find it funny because I don't know of many canoes short than 16 feet, but I know they do exist. Either way, I guess I'll have to focus and either buying or building a sailboat while I'm there instead :) Could get dangerous. Off to the rest of the day!
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