Hello From Sumner, WA

Hello from Sumner, WA

Friday Morning,  April 17, 2015   (First post of this travelogue)

First of all, I wanted to let folks know that I (we) are still alive and kicking.  This blog is predominately a travelogue and we have not traveled since November of last year.  We are really anxious to get the bus wheels turning and will do so next month. 

This trip, I have traveled to Washington to teach Mechanical Drives and Shaft Alignment classes at Boeing in Auburn WA.   I am staying at the Holiday Inn Express (map).  From my hotel, I get a beautiful view of Mt. Rainier (see photo).  It is unbelievable how majestic that mountain is!

These classes are debuting new hands-on training units.  They are significant improvements over our old equipment.  That said, we anticipated “teething problems” and we have encountered quite a few.  The manager of my NTT group traveled with me and we have worked together to resolve the mostly minor issues.

I am teaching the second shift (2:30 – 11:00).  I rather enjoy that shift, as it gives me all of the morning and part of the afternoon to catch up on some computer projects.  Probably the only drawback is that I have to travel home on Saturday.

My assignments at NTT have been rather sparse in the past year.  That is a mixed bag.  I have really enjoyed being home and working on my car projects, but the hobby/travel fund has taken a big hit.  I have been offered quite a few classes for the second half of this year, but they are public classes, subject to cancellation if they don’t get the minimum number of registrations.  I was scheduled to do a few the first half of this year and none of them met the minimum registration goal.

As I write this, I have been communicating with Pat and we have over 20 inches of snow at the house and it is still snowing hard (see photo).  The weather here has been a bit chilly and there has been some rain, but that is a whole lot better than what is happening in Evergreen!

That is all for this trip.