Sunny drive up Hood Canal

Wow, could not have gotten any luckier on weather when I drove down from Port Townsend to Olympia along the Canal.  Crisp, sunny day with a beautiful view of the water on my left and the mountains on my right ... a real dose of the natural beauty of home, just what I needed.

Nothing says Christmas like ...

Nuclear submarines.  Caught sight of this Ohio-class boat coming into Admiralty Inlet with all hands on deck and steam constantly streaming from the sail ..... is that a bad thing?  Those sailors standing on deck for the slow cruise into Port Townsend Bay must have been a bit chilly.

Merry Christmas from Port Townsend, WA

Home on the Olympic Peninsula

Home to the mother ship ...

Well it wasn't exactly a 'trouble free' trip home, as Europe's icy weather had flights in chaos and our jet was 2-1/2 hours late arriving at Schiphol (hey, sure would have been handy if the flight status check online had let me know that before leaving for the airport at 8 am, wouldn't it?).  But during the delay the United team upgraded me free to Business Class where I sat next to Jay, a guy whose job is a little similar to mine but he does training on physical security for installations worldwide.  Great seats, good conversation, flight went pretty fast, even got in an hour or two of napping.

Then ... O'Hare ... oh great.  Of course my 3:45 connecting flight to Seattle was gone when I arrived at 4:00 ... they put me on standby for the 5:15 and gave me a boarding pass for the 8:25 flight.  I was "a bit" skeptical that I'd get on the earlier flight but I was at the top of the standby list and despite the desk staff's doubts, the flight actually ended up with empty seats because of other people missing connecting flights, so I not only got a seat but exit row aisle next to a pretty Duke sophomore on her way home from Durham so ... things work out.

Jetlag this morning?  Oh yeah.  And the downtown Courtyard Marriott ... nice location for the office, but siren city if you have an exterior room (and I did).

505 5th Avenue South, WatchGuard HQ

This is partly sunny?

Current weather conditions in Amsterdam, according to my Android phone, says 'partly sunny.'

Does this look partly sunny to you??? KEXP streaming from Seattle in the background.

Weather report

Any questions?

Misaki Yamada at the Van Gogh

Miss Yamada combines painting and piano, in this case performing Chopin pieces to accompany her manga series of over 100 prints depicting Chopin's life. She got a tremendous ovation from the audience (most of whom are behind me) when she finished and when the crowd wouldn't stop its enthusiastic clapping, eventually she cried.

Reason No. 83 to prefer Firefox

Today's weather

Let's see ... the stars were out when I woke up (doesn't get light here until after 8 am now, then it snowed, then there was some rain, walking back from breakfast I got a hail storm .... and now the sun is out with big chunks of blue sky overhead.

What next, tornadoes or hurricanes?

Snow in Amsterdam

Lunch in Birmingham

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's restaurant in Birmingham, co-worker Martin was eager to give it a try.

Big thumb's up on his carbonara and my cockles linguini.

Snow in the U.K.

So far this week we've successfully dodged travel issues related to snow ... no small feat when airports and rail stations across Britain are closed and some freeways are an icy mess.

Today we head down to London from Birmingham ... fingers crossed, light snow falling right now.