Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The Spirit of Journalspace

Yesterday, Elin from Denmark, decided to set up a new JOURNALSPACE group at Facebook. We already had one there, but it has been neglected (shame on me, I was admin oooops).

Anyway, within only a few hours there were already 100 former JS'ers in it! Comments were running wild, everyone trying to remember and note their former handle.

This morning I woke up and there were 200 sign-ups! And oh, so many people I have missed!

Only JS could cause that kind of reunion.

And, as fate would have it, my own homepage and forum is down for maintenance now.......

So, if you have an account at facebook, and used to be a JS'er and haven't yet received an invitation to join, just tell me and I'll send you an invite.... or just join on your own. It is awesome!!

Dorrie aka Westy

Friday, October 15, 2010

The Air Show

Sorry I haven't been posting... after going back to work I have been too busy, then too tired, to even bother to blog anything. I haven't even worked on most of my pictures from my trip yet! I know, I know..... shame on me!

But I did want to finally share with y'all some pictures from the Miramar Air Show! I'm sure you are ALL familiar with the movie "Top Gun", well Miramar IS top gun and when I heard that their air show was on during the one weekend I was in San Diego, I decided it was a must do event (most of you may know that, because of my job, a sort of hate air shows... but here I made an exception). My son arrived also and of course he wasn't going to miss it either.

This is one of HIS pictures of the Blue Angels!




Of course the military had to demonstrate their equipment....(these are all MY pictures):




And of course the flying..... Canadian Snow Birds and Blue Angels plus lots more!





I also took some films but they are finished and uploaded yet. I've just had other priorities the past days.

On Wednesday Tamara celebrated her 7th birthday (pictures coming... some day)!

At the office we got new furniture delivered... what a mess! Luckily jet lag didn't bother me too much... I've been sleeping through the nights as if I'd never been away (yay me!).

This weekend it's supposed to rain, I'll be babysitting on Saturday, but other then that... lots of house work and pictures to work on! Plus a power point presentation for work...

Dorrie

P.S. more pictures can be viewed here

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Vacation is over *pout*

As most of you know, I was back home in San Diego to see my mom and dad. It was a sad, but good visit. Both are doing as good as can be expected.... dad may come home next week. I had a chance to talk to my brother about all the arrangements and all that has been going on. That's why I flew over now so that I could get the laydown first hand! Originally I had planned to fly over next January.

For those who don't know, my mom has advanced Alzheimers and is in a care home since last year. A few weeks ago she fell and hurt her hip and was operated on (she's 91!). My dad just had a by-pass and had a new heart valve put in... he's 87. To top things off, they had a huge water leak in their home some weeks ago....you can imagine mess ..... all the flooring had to be renewed. Luckily my younger brother, who lives with his lovely wife in the same house as my folks and he's quite the handy man.

My son, Carsten (36), flew over as well and we had some nice mother/son quality time. That was nice.

I just got back today and have to go back to work tomorrow.... there's a 9 hour time difference... hello jet lag! *yawn*

So, now back to my unpacking!

Dorrie

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Time for an Update

As you can imagine, things are pretty hectic.

Both parents are doing pretty well under the circumstances. My son, Carsten, arrived safely and together we visit them daily. My mom is having a good week... talking a lot (though it's nearly impossible to understand her) and dad isn't doing too bad either, but not enough to come home.

When we're not visiting, we are filling up our days with favorite activities. Y'all know how I love air shows (not)... well, the one weekend we're here, the local air base at Miramar (Top Gun fame) had it's big air show and Casten and I decided on Saturday to go. You don't get to visit that air base often AND get to see such great performances like the Blue Angels and Snow Birds of Canada. Fantastic! Yes, we took tons of pictures but I can't post any until I get home and on my own computer.

On Sunday we went to Balboa Park to see if my old dance group is still there.... they are! But... the group is getting older and smaller. It was nice to see them and I even danced a few dances with them.

Afterward we went down to the ocean.... another of our MUST stops when in San Diego.

The weather was nice on the weekend but lousy since! It's cold and rainy and not what it should be! grrrrrrr

The rest of the time we've spent shopping, visiting, and other odd stuff. Carsten leaves Thursday evening, I leave coming Saturday.

Now I'm about to drive off and meet up with a couple of former high school class mates!

More next week when I get home....

Dorrie

Friday, October 1, 2010

Arrived "home"

I arrived in San Diego Wednesday after a LONG flight. I was 9 hours to JFK, with a 5 hour layover (tried to see if Niceflyer could meet me, but he couldn't), then another hour flight to San Diego where my brother and his wife picked me up.

I managed to sleep though the night, waking at 7 a.m.

I'm using my sister-in-laws laptop and having some problems adjusting to it.... the American keyboard is different then the German one (for example, the z and y are switched) and some of the keys seem to stick a bit.

This is San Diego, where it rarely rains.... today it is not only raining, but we are having THUNDER STORMS!!!

I picked up my rent-a-car this morning, which is a cute little Chevy with Colorado licence plates!

We also visited my mom this morning. I could still recognize her as mom, though she has lost so much weight! She is now skinnier then me, and that's skinny! The gals told us that this morning she had been talking up a storm, which is a good sign, and being "feisty", like throwing her shit on the ground and laughing about it. I was having a bit of trouble understanding her since she doesn't have her teeth in and she kept falling asleep. But the care place she's in seems to be great and all the workers there are just marvelous.

We'll visit my dad later today.

My son flies in tomorrow to L.A. and will arrive down here on Saturday.

I guess that's all for now.... have a few things to take care of here and won't be online too often. But I'll keep y'all informed.

Dorrie

P.S. dad is doing good...lost lots of weight, too. He's bored to death at the health care (rehab) center he's at but it's good and he finally realizes he must do what the doc says! lol