I’ve arrived in Sofia. My big luggage did not — it’s in Vienna and will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. I’m at the hotel, have had a brief shower, got everything plugged in, and I’m ready for bed. Since I arrived well after dark (it’s just after midnight on Monday, August 23nd whereas it’s just after 3 p.m. Pocatello time on Sunday, August 22st). Descriptions and impressions of the city will have to wait until tomorrow. The Radisson Hotel is very nice along with high-speed wireless internet in the room. I’m happy!

We were 45 minutes late leaving London and I made it to the connecting flight (barely), I’m quite sure my luggage did not. Good thing I brought a change of clothes!

I’m waiting for the gate to be put up on the board for my flight to Vienna. There’s some internet terminals here and I bought 1 pound’s worth of time and the British keyboard is driving me nuts!! I’ve got about half of my time left. There are a LOT of people in this terminal where all of the European airlines are located. Most of them are speaking some other language, including a lot of French as there’s a flight to Algiers in about 45 minutes. It’s interesting to see all the different kinds of clothes people are wearing as well. Some are quite outrageous and are generally worn by the young twenty-somethings. The older women tend to wear clothes from their home country. It’s a lot of fun. There are also some folks here who obviously have money and are dressed to the 9’s. I’m down to a few coins left, so I’d better get this signed off before I’m kicked off!

It’s about 2:30 a.m. Pocatello time, which I think is about 8:30 a.m.
London time. We came over the coast of Northern Ireland about 15 minutes
ago which is when the Flight Attendants started serving breakfast. We
should be on the ground in another hour, I think.

The flight has been quite uneventful. We left pretty much on schedule with
a nearly full airplane. Our flight path went just north of Pocatello. I’m
sitting on the right side of the airplane in a window seat and could see
the area where our house is located. I don’t think there are any empty
seats in Economy. I’m in what is called “Premium Economy”, which means:

1. A bigger seat than Economy. There are two seats on each side of the
airplane rather than the three seats in Economy.
2. We get the same service as Economy, but get served first.

I think there are 12 seats in Premium economy — three rows of two seats
each on each side of the airplane with a galley in the middle. Economy has
three seats on the left, four in the middle, and three on the right. The
seats are very close together and it isn’t very comfortable. I tried to
snooze with no luck, so this long day will get even longer.

This is a very British airline. The food, service, and demeanor are all
very British. I don’t think I’ll fly this airline again unless I’m able to
fly in Upper Class. The captain just said over the intercom that we’ll
start our descent into Heathrow in about 5 minutes for an on-time arrival.

The entertainment system on board is pretty good. There is a choicce of 52
movies, more than 30 CD’s of music, a number of radio stations and TV
programs, as well as some 15 video games to choose from. My monitor didn’t
work very well, so I didn’t do much. I bought the book The Da Vinci Code
and read most of the book. It’s a good story and I’ll likely finish the
book today.

I’ve been told that I have to turn this off. Hopefully it’ll send while I’m
making my way through Immigration in London Heathrow Terminal 3. It’s
overcast outside — not much to see. By the way, the airplane ran out of
fresh water sometime during the night!

This is one of those destinations that I could only dream about a few years
ago. In fact my impression of Bulgaria is of a backward, poor 3rd world
country whose culture has been frozen in time for the past 50 years while
the country was under Russian communistic domination. I’m on ther plane in
Pocatello and we’re taxiing out to the runway for departure. This will get
sent once we land in Salt Lake City.

The say didn’t get off to a sterling start. I took the wrong set of pills
before I went to bed last night — rather than the evening set, I took the
morning set whuch includes a water pill. Consequently, I had to get up
three times during the night to go to the bathroom. Not a very restful
night! I did make it to the airport in plenty of time. Delta couldn’t check
my suitcase all the way to Sifia as there were too many coinnections. They
can only put in five connections (and I think the luggage tag can only show
5 connections). So, I’ll have to go through customs and immigration at
London’s Heathrow airport so I can pick up my bag and get it rechecked to
Sofia. On the brigjht side, however, I’ll know if my bag made it as far as
London. I’ve also got a small carryon with me that has my breathing machine
and a change of clothes just in case.

The flight to Salt Lake just crossed the Utah border and we’ve begun the
descent into the valley. The first leg of this 27+ hour trip to Sofia is
almost over.

The covenants for the neighborhood where our house is located require that we plant at least two Norway Maple trees on the tree lawn (the median between the sidewalk and the street). Since we live on a corner lot, two trees would look pretty sparse. So, Nina went down to the nursery yesterday and bought six trees. The young fellow from the nursery arrived this morning about 7:30 a.m. to plant the trees for us. Before we arrived, Nina and I went out and kind of judged where we wanted the trees to be planted. He then set each of the trees in about their spot so we could check out the "look" before he started digging holes in the ground. The trees are now planted and it looks great. We’re actually starting to have a yard! In this picture Nina and the tree planter are talking over by his truck and trailer.

I mowed the grass on Monday evening after work. It took a couple of hours to get everything cut. Of course, the weeds are growing faster than the grass right now and already it needs to be cut again. I’m headed to Belgium tomorrow (Saturday) for a two-week business trip, so the yard probably won’t get mowed again until I get back. The big debate is: to buy nor not to buy a riding mower. If we buy one, we can mow whenever we want (or have time) and either Nina or I can do the mowing. If we don’t buy, then we’ll need to hire someone to do it. It’d probably cost about $15 each time to mow the yard. How many times can we pay for the lawn to be mowed before we’ve paid for a small riding mower? About 60 times if we buy a Sears mower or about 87 times if we buy a small Toro mower. That’s about 4 or 5 years! Right now I think we’ll buy the mower as we don’t know anyone to hire…. Decision time will be when I get back from Europe.

The back yard is beginning to look better. Nina has been pulling up morning glory weeds for several days and I’ve put down some fertilizer. The grass has really started to grow wherever I managed to get the fertilizer down. In a month or so I’ll put more fertilizer down along with some weed control. The backyard is now becoming somewhat usable. The hot tub has been put in place and has been getting good use. The only problem is, a new development has started just south of us (this picture is looking south) and they are generating a huge amount of dust. Some of that is seeping into the hot tub and mucking up the water. The dust making should be done by mid-September when I’ll change the water and clean the filters, hopefully ending this problem. The fence guy comes the 2nd week of September to put up the fence around the yard. That’ll be time for another picture!

Nina has become wonderfully domestic this week. She’s made bread a couple of times, made a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies (which I brought into work, much to the delight of the office), canned a bunch of peaches, and has been making raspberry, peach, and strawberry jam. The bread is wonderful — I love toast for breakfast made from homemade bread. I’m sure I’ve gained a significant amount of weight this week. Perhaps it’s a good thing I’m headed out of town for a while (at least from an eating point of view) to let some of this weight go away! The next posts should be from Europe. I’ll be in Sofia, Bulgaria on Monday and Tuesday, in Gent, Belgium for the next week, and then in Antwerp through September 3rd. Lots of picture-taking opportunity. TTFN!

I had an instant-message conversation this morning with a lady who used to
work for me in Colorado Springs. For a time Melissa was my admin (current
politically correct term for a secretary) before moving on to better things
with the company. When her husband took a job in Oregon, we were able to
move her job there so she could continue in gainful employment.

Just before moving to Portland, Melissa discovered photography. She started
with an old 35mm film camera with a pretty standard lens. Her images were
great and it seemed to me that she had some real talent. Once in Portland,
she was able to get a digital camera and then her photography really took
off. She’s now using Nikon’s top-of-the-line digital camera. I learned
today that some of her images have been published in a tourism magazine and
she’s been able to sell some other free-lance photography.

This is very exciting and interesting to me. I’m very pleased that she has
been able to develop a lovely talent and turn a hobby into soimething more.
I really enjoy taking pictures and making images.

A few years ago my wife and I went to Sante Fe to attend a basic
photography class. We had a wonderful time and really learned a lot. After
that we both upgraded our film cameras. We’ve got thousands of pictures
stored in boxes. A few of them have made it onto our fridge for display.
We’ve since both bought digital cameras as well. I’ve struggled with film
versus digital versus video. Using so many different formats making it
difficult to become reasonably proficient with any of them. While I’m not
looking to make money from my photography, I do want them to be more than
images stuck in a box in the basement storage room. It’s time to settle
into one format and get much better at it.

Melissa’s good success is a good motivator to get moving again in
photography. But I still have too many projects in flight:

– the video from the Alaskan cruise needs to get edited, burned to DVD and
deleted from the computer

– the trip to Florence, KY for the twins baptism needs to get loaded to the
website.

– the pictures of the new house needs to get to the website

– the web cam to get the daily / hourly pictures on the web.

And, with all this, the house needs to get finished, shelves installed, the
garage put together, and the office finished. Life is very busy!

Meanwhile, congrats Melissa! It’s very satisfying to hear about your
success with a delightful hobby!