I just flew home from a wonderful week in Massachusetts with my family.  My wife and I flew out last Wednesday, November 11, 2009 and came back yesterday (the Wednesday after).

The flight up went smooth and although we stayed at my sister’s house, we needed to be very careful to not mention the surprise anniversary party we had planned for her that Saturday.

My nieces, my mother, and others worked very hard to make the party a huge success.  About 100 attended from all over the country and we surprised them pretty good.  My sister and her husband expected to have a dinner with family and friends.  So, they were in for quite a shock.

After a full dinner, we showed a slide show with video that my niece put together showing their 25 years of marriage.  She did a great job with it and I made comments while we showed it.  Then, the band that played at their wedding (25 years ago) played their wedding song again.  It was very nice.  My sister definitely got a little teary-eyed.

During the trip, I got to spend some time with my parents, my nieces, and my sister & her husband.  They are all good people and I’m thankful to have such a close family.

I also got together with my best friend and visited the Patriots Place for an afternoon.  That was fun.  (Even if they did lose by one point the previous Sunday.)

The weather in New England is straight up cold.  I don’t know why it feels so cold there compared to NC.  The temperature is only 10–15 degrees colder, but it always seems to feel a lot colder to me.  The sun goes down about an hour earlier there too.

Lastly, we got stuck on our plane for several hours while they “diagnosed a mechanical problem”.  At first, I had nothing to read & my wife was using the ipod touch.  But, once we finally got off the plane, I ran to buy a book and a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte.  I read about 150 pages by the time we landed.  Much better.  (I don’t do well with boredom.)

I love my family and friends, but it’s good to be home.

My wife and I just got back this week from two weeks in Europe.  We spent one week in Vienna Austria and one week in Athens Greece.

There were nine other friends of ours in our group, and we were with a tour group of about 80 people in two buses.  I did not take barely any pictures, but I did take almost 200 videos.  I’m currently trying to go through them all and post the stuff that is good.

We absolutely loved Vienna.  What a beautiful city.  The architecture and culture there is just amazing.  Our trip included plenty of time walking around the city, visiting the cafes and restaurants, and attending to the Vienna Symphony Orchestra one evening.

Athens was not quite as beautiful.  However, the history and sights were amazing.  We visited the Acropolis, the Areopagus (Mars hill), ancient Corinth, and other amazing locations.  We especially enjoyed the brand new Acropolis Museum.  It is the most amazing museum I have ever seen.  We also spent an entire day cruising a few Greek islands.

I’m going to do my best to go through my videos as soon as possible to share with you the highlights.  However, right now my body is still getting used to the 7–hour time difference.  Therefore, my evenings are not that productive.

I just noticed that my last blog post for my business blog – www.TheJungleMap.com was #501.  I started that blog back in October of 2006 and have been posting to it several times each and every month since.

I don’t think I actually have 500 posts, but I am surprised about how long I’ve been doing this for.

How appropriate that post #501 should be about “How to hire an SEO”.  You’d think I’d have that figured out by now.  HA!

In case you have not seen it, make sure you go watch my initial video report on the snow in Davidson on January 20, 2009.  Funny thing is, we actually did get a bunch of snow 15 days later on Wednesday, February 4, 2009.

I’m sorry I did not do a full video journalistic report like the first one.  But here are some pictures of the snow we actually did get.

You can see that it melted off the sidewalk by daybreak.

But there was a couple inches on the grill, etc.

Grass had a couple inches or so.

So did the steps

My car had ice under the snow.
Had to run it for 10 minutes because I don’t have a scraper.

Sandy and I had a snowball fight the night before,
that’s why the the front of the car is cleaned off.

My neighbors houses had snow on the roof.

Nothing on the roads.

Not a big deal.  No danger here.

Here’s Davidson Pointe.  There’s a little ice on the road.

Sandy and I had a wonderful week in a beautiful cabin in Tennessee this week.  I just got back today.

Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge are really not our cup of tea.  But it sure was nice to spend so much time together and relax.  I did not realize we would have no Internet until I got there.  But I survived.

Below are my comments I made via TXT messages on Twitter while away.

I’ve been working for about three years toward working 4 or 4 1/2 days per week instead of five.  (Actually, it’s been quite a bit more than five normally.)

So I wake up this morning with big plans to do some things I wanted to do.  But it’s pouring rain.  In fact, the weather says it is going to rain all day.

So I can’t quite do exactly everything I wanted to.  In fact, I have a meeting over in Asheville this afternoon with a client and then with the friends who are renting our house.

But there are some things I can do to get caught up around the house.  And the Boston Celtics are playing in Charlotte tonight. 

I’m sure I can turn this rainy day into something enjoyable after all.