I’m sitting in a Barnes & Noble trying to figure out how to kill another few hours before returning to the airport for my trip home. It’s been a short business trip, but not short enough I’m afraid. I finished the bulk of my work yesterday, but had to go back to Lockheed Martin to finish up a few things and to give an account of what I accomplished so that those who work here know what I’ve done with their system. Yesterday’s work went well. I was a bit concerned about what I had to accomplish because frankly it was unclear what I was supposed to do. My boss told me one thing, my coworker offered other things and the client wished a third thing altogether. I accomplished all that I could and finished what *I* had sought to do based on the various requests that came my way. All in all, I think it was successful. The one thing the client wanted is the one thing I couldn’t give them, but that is up to my boss, not me.
    The whole thing turned nearly disastrous this morning when I inadvertently deleted some user directories. Inadvertently is such a funny word; after all, who would intentional screw up something that was working? No, it’s a word that you use to call your self an idiot, but an accidental one. I won’t go into the details too much, except to say that they hadn’t had any backups, and what I deleted was probably of little consequence anyway. They were far kinder than I expected, and I managed to leave the facility on good terms. It was a boneheaded maneuver on my part, and hopefully worth a mental note next time I blaze through a project and decide to type in the delete command.
    They are, I believe only two flights leaving Binghamton heading toward Dulles per day. The second is tonight at 6:46 PM, and I have 4 hours until it takes off. I’ve already driven through what remains of Binghamton, and it’s not pretty. You see, Binghamton was on the cusp of being a larger town of some note. IBM was enjoying great profits and growth and the town sprung up around it. IBM isn’t the company it used to be and what’s left of it has moved out of NY. I’ve been told that NY state milked it one too many times before it pulled up it’s tents and moved out. Striking the right tax burden for an industry can be a tricky thing, and sometimes it’s not enough to keep them when the state acts responsibly with its open hand. Upstate NY has lost a lot of businesses over the last 40 years or so. Eastman Kodak walked out sometime ago, GE is still here, but only barely. The carcasses of abandoned cities litter the hills of upstate NY. Undeveloped land is not nearly as depressing as once developed land that is now boarded up and abandoned. Binghamton is like that. The downtown is depressingly empty and run down. I attempted to take pictures as I drove by of some of the nifty architecture that still stands. We’ll see how that turns out. It doesn’t help that it’s probably the worst time of year to see Binghamton. It’s winter here and thus any bustling foot traffic will be muted by the sub-forty temperature. I’m actually lucky, I get to leave and go back to my fake hills, which are still comforting in their newness and the fact that we can afford to maintain them.
    One positive about being stuck here is that I can attempt to catch up on the diary without neglecting my lovely wife. It’s not a great consolation, but worth taking since none other appears. Tara just celebrated her 20th birthday on Sunday. We celebrated the New Year by traveling to my friend Chris’ mountain home, just like I did last year, but unlike last year, I got to share it with Tara. I called Tara last year and talked with her some from Chris’ house, but it was an uncertain time. We had not yet met and we’re anticipating that trip, but no one was sure what it all meant. She was still deliberating on what she should do. Saturday will be the one year anniversary of the first time we met. It really is crazy to think it was only a year ago that we met in person, and I fall in love with her more every day. When we returned home on Sunday afternoon, we arrived in time to watch the Redskins play their final regular season game. If the Redskins won, they’d make the playoffs for the first time in 6 years. They won, and the town is ecstatic. Tara and I have been watching football together all season. She’s actually enjoying it! If the Redskins beat Tampa Bay on Saturday, the Redskins will play the Seahawks in Seattle. The Seahawks are Tara’s team, as they are both from the Pacific Northwest. I’ve vowed that I won’t allow myself to get angry if the Seahawks play well against the Redskins and beat them. She’s getting a Seahawks jersey for her birthday from her birth-Mom and she’s going to be wearing it during the playoffs. So, hopefully we can good-naturedly root for our teams without getting upset. Actually, I’m the only who needs to be good, I’ve been known to get a little sour when the Redskins do poorly this season. Because of the football schedule and the activities surrounding New Years day, we set aside Monday for her birthday celebration. We got dressed up for a date night and went to Macaroni Grill and then to see the newest Harry Potter movie. We wanted to see Pride & Prejudice but it’s no longer playing at the theatre we go to. It was a wonderfully romantic evening and a special birthday for her.
With her birthday so close to Christmas it’s harder to get the momentum up for another spectacular gift give away. People with a birthday close to Christmas know this already, but I feel bad when I can’t give everything to something that is that special. I’m already making plans for next year to make her 21st birthday special.
    Purchasing gifts for Christmas was a lot of fun this year. I don’t think that I’ve ever really had a girlfriend during Christmas time. I had relationships, but never anything so certain or settled that I could just buy instinctively for. Typically, I’ve had to ask myself whether the gifts I was considering were too extravagant for the level of stated commitment. I no longer have that issue and it’s really cool! It was truly a joy to buy stuff for her and to stuff my 1st stocking. I got her lots of chocolate; including some sugar free Godiva chocolate which is her favorite. I got her a wireless router so that she could be online anywhere in the house, some movies and a membership to Netflix. We enjoy cuddling on the couch, and we’ve already rented a few episodes of the new show House on DVD. She bought me some really cool stuff also, including two things that I asked for explicitly; the new Tony Hawk skateboarding game for the Xbox and the Brat Pack movies, which contains The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Weird Science.
    We spent Christmas day at my brother’s house and then we spent the day after at my house watching movies and playing games. I really enjoyed it. It’s wonderful to be able to share it all with her. We get along very easily and I miss her when I’m gone.
A week before Christmas, we were in Portland, Oregon and her hometown of Lincoln City. She really enjoyed going home and I love visiting. It’s going to be wonderful when she feels as comfortable here as she does back home, but a year here is only a fraction of the 19 years that she spent in the same town. I hope that it continues to be a fun homecoming for her. We arrived in Oregon on the 17th and headed directly for Lincoln City. That night we had dinner with the pastor who married us and his wife. They are something special and would be friends that I would choose if they lived near us. Then again, all of Tara’s friends would be friends of mine as we tend to choose the same types of people to pal around with. The next morning we headed to her church. I’ve only been there a couple of times, but I absolutely love it. It feels like a big family and I’m greeted as such. There is a warm spirit and I never leave without feeling that God is a little closer. We then went to the Brew Pub to see one of Tara’s childhood friends who was finally home from Iraq. He hadn’t been around for sometime and Tara wanted him to meet me. After lunch we went over to see her grandparents who have quickly adopted me. It’s really cool how well received I am by her family. We spent a few hours visiting them while we watched the Redskins decimate the (infrequently) hapless Cowboys. As we watched the game we began to worry about the weather in Portland. Freezing rain and snow and traffic was beginning to skid off the roads. Our plans were to drive up to Portland and stay with her birth-Mom on Sunday night so that we could get an early start on the U2 line in Portland. But after looking at the forecast we decided to stay another night in Lincoln City. With the rest of the evening free, we went over to another couple’s house and enjoyed dinner and conversation. This couple used to hire Tara to do construction and deconstruction of beach homes in the area. It’s one of the primary reasons why Tara is far handier with the hammer than I. The other is genetics. I am my father’s child. I console myself with the fact that if it’s electronic then I’m still of use in the house. This couple has an age-difference even greater than ours and they are fun to hang out with. Like I wrote earlier, all of Tara’s friends are easy for me to get along with. That and T even likes my writing! I hope you enjoy this mammoth diary entry T!
We set out for Portland on Monday, December 19th at about 8:30 AM, and the Van Duzen corridor was really slushy and sketchy. I was so glad that we decided to wait to leave, but maybe we left too early. We managed to make it through without sliding off the road, and I was thanking God for protecting us as we made our way toward Portland.
    We got to the Rose Garden at about 11 AM and we were numbers 271st and 272nd in line. By contrast, we were e36 was really slushy and sketchy. I was so glad that we decided to wait to leave, but maybe we left too early. We managed to make it through without sliding off the road, and I was thanking God for protecting us as we made our way toward Portland.
We got to the Rose Garden at about 11 AM and we were numbers 271st and 272nd in line. By contrast, we were 36th and 37th in NYC and we now had no chance of getting a spot on the rail. With the wind blowing we decided that it wasn’t worth waiting so we’d go see Portland and come back later. The next several hours were devoted to Record Shopping and lunch. We found a few items, but little else and so we decided to go see a movie. So while a number of U2 fans were waiting in the cold, we went and saw King Kong! It is a fantastic movie, easily worth the price of admission. It’s a thrilling ride, just what a blockbuster movie is supposed to be. I’m looking forward to what Peter Jackson does next, he and his team are clearly gifted.
    Towards the end of the 3 hour film we got a call from E & R (the Pastor who married us and his wife), they were headed up to see the U2 show and we’re trying to find us. They bought some scalped tickets and were on the floor with us! Because of the length of King Kong and the traffic backed up around the Arena (as well as the requisite wrong turn and decision making by yours truly) we didn’t get into the arena until after Kanye West started his performance. I was predisposed to not like the man after his impolite and out of place comments during a concert for the Katrina victims, but darned if I didn’t like him a little after watching him perform. Unlike most of the rap that I’ve been exposed to, his lyrics hit closer to home about universal themes that affect all of us, and not just the usual misogynistic and gangsta crap that sells so many albums.
    Even though we arrived so late, we still found ourselves only about 20 feet from the tip of the ellipse, and in a mass of people. We stayed there for about 10 songs before fading back toward the back of the arena to enjoy the space. We had a chance to dance to Mysterious Ways and With Or Without You and totally enjoy the freedom from the crowd. (Well we almost enjoyed the freedom thoroughly, but we kept getting spooked by a couple of grungy looking hipsters who were flailing and nearly hitting us with their enthusiasm)
    This was the last show of the US tour and we really expected U2 to do something special, but as we learned, our fantasies about band behavior and reality differ. The show was really good, but not legendary. This is one drawback to seeing U2 multiple times. Once you see them play great, you want it to be topped by an even greater performance. We saw a truly great show in NYC and this one did not vary too much from the shows we saw just a month earlier. Just in case you think we’re nuts for seeing 8 shows in 8 months, consider the woman in the front row who had been to 42. 42 shows! Tara and I both acknowledged that more isn’t always better and you reach your limit of fun. I learned this lesson years ago with U2, but I still maintain that I’d like to see them at least twice on every leg of the tour because it changes enough to surprise me. So, I’ve enjoyed this year of U2 watching, but I’m glad it’s over. It’ll be fun to do it again in a few years.
    After the show we went to Denny’s with E & R and then went off to her birth-Mom’s house to sleep. The next day we got to spend the entire day with the family and have an early Christmas celebration. It was a nice relaxed day of catching up and enjoying our vacation. The only drawback from our trip was that her parents were still in Hawaii, so we’ll have to wait another 5 or 6 months until we see them, but we are investigating the possibility of spending Christmas in Hawaii with them next year. I need to start making calls to make that happen!
    Our next little adventure is to go to Florida. We’re leaving on Friday. I need to go for work and this is my opportunity for Tara to come down and meet my Grandmother in Orlando. I’m going to have to stay for an additional 3 days, but at least Tara will be able to come for the first couple of days. Tara starts school and needs to be back in Virginia, otherwise I’d keep her longer.
Well, I really need to go and get some food and use the restroom. I know, TMI (too much information), well, blame Starbucks!

Binghamton Pictures (I actually took most of these while driving)