Friday, September 14, 2007

More memory lane

In honor of coming to the close of building, here's a taste of the photo progression I am putting together...some stills from over the 18 months we have been at this.

Gene




The house site with stakes laying it all out.



The house site in the snow...this is a good photo to compare to the hill we built around the basement.



The house framed on September 1st 2006--just twelve months ago. It seems such a long and such a short time ago.



The backfill and landscaping almost finished.




The most recent photo of Thistle House. You can't see the dozen or so Monarch butterly cocoons on the house, but the day we finished the last inspection we got to watch one of the butterflies take his first flight to the hanging basket to load up on nectar. I bet he was as hungry as we were excited.

Peace.

Where in the wide world of sports are we?

Well, that's a good question. I am on a one week deployment/temporary duty to Camp Smith, Hawaii for an exercise. Sigh...sadly I have not gone swimming once and I only went to the beach for about a half hour the other night. It's not all fun and games in the US Air Force campers.

Meanwhile, back at the Thistle House we are ALMOST DONE!!!!! The lovely wife and hardworking three kids are painting and sealing floors. Well, they aren't actually painting the floors, but are just shellacing them. When last we left Thistle House we had just passed the final inspection. Well, here we are two weeks later and it's a frantic 'finish everything so we can move in' frenetic frenzy. That was a beautiful bit of alliteration if I say so myself.

Being back in Hawaii has reminded me of many things--when I was last here my father was on active duty and stationed at the Pacific Air Command. We lived at Hickam Air Force base and I drove past my first elementary school yesterday. Wow has this place changed in the last 31 years. I have had a pseudo resentment against Hawaii because it is the place where I spent four sunburned years and where the damage to my skin started that led to my two skin cancers. But walking around has stirred up the place where my first memories came from. I remember being a kid and laying at the foot of the stone water tower, watching the clouds fly over the tower and how it looked like the tower was falling. And then, yesterday, we took a different road back to the hotel and drove under the freeway and I remember being a kid and driving that same route with my Mom. This is also the first place I had a run-in with the police. I was throwing rocks onto the perimeter road on base and the Security Police picked me up and took me to my parents house. That was the first of several times I have been on the wrong end of Air Force Security Police's ire as I have this bad habit of opening alarmed doors and getting the whole building patted down to make sure that nothing is going on.

It's kinda cool how this whole trip down memory lane was brought about by the US Air Force both times--for my Father and Mother and us four kids and now, three decades later for me to return. Hmm...deep thoughts.

Now, off to pack for the flight home tomorrow.