Sunday we woke up and headed out to pick up the rental car (future rant entry coming on this experience in the next few days) then off to see what the place looks like. We headed out with G&G and went, um...south? then maybe some west? I dont know to be honest, I was all turned around and had quite the time orienting myself, it will be alot easier next time we are in the Grand Canyon state...and yes, we will be back. The area down there is just gorgeous, did the 80°+ temperature help our eyes see things differently? Perhaps.
Cactus, I've been to texas and Nevada before, but never actually seen any of the Giant Cactus which grow down in the Arizona area we were in. Now, sure, everyone has seen these things on T.V. and cartoons and what not, but they are actually pretty cool looking in person. I'm sure anyone who's been living down there, including my dad, would quickly tire of me being in such of these things, but they are pretty damned impressive...for instance, for each arm that the cactus has, its been around for 70 years, thats right, 70. So, first it grows nice and tall, then when its 70, it spits out an arm...then in another 70 years, it spits out another one, we saw one that had 14 arms on it...I'll wait while you start up the calculator, thats 980 years old! I'm sure it was easily over 1000 since none of the arms looked to be small ones, can you think of anything else around you that you can tell how old it is just by looking at it? I cant. For visual reference, heres the type I'm talking about
This one is about 560 years old, impressive, but doesnt hold a flame to 980! Anyway, pretty cool plant, bush, weed, whatever. I dont know who the guy in the picture is, this is just some photo I pulled off the web.
I got to go and spend 2 days working with my dad. Talk about bringing back some memories, right when I graduated from high school I used to install burglar alarms with my dad, I enjoyed working with him then, and now that I'm grown up, it's nice to know I still enjoy working with him, yet again he managed to teach me things...there I thought I knew everything...oh well. The nature of the work is a blast in itself, you go into peoples homes, the one we were in this week was easily in the 800K price range, probably more, gated community, nanny at home to watch the kid, expensive (and most times ugly!!!) furniture everywhere, then you find the ones that the moving company has totally trashed, and you make it look brand new again. I must have been doing an ok job, cause almost right from the get go my dad turned me loose to work on my own, after all, I'm a chip off the old block, I got skillz! :) At one point, I started working on a piece he mentioned had to be done on my own, then later on he came over and said "we still have to do this one", I responded with "I already did it", he started looking in the area he knew a chip was, and wether or not he was just boosting my ego or not, he actually said "where was it?", that felt good. Like I say, he could have been just boosting my ego, and if he was, it worked, but it made me feel good that this would be a profession that I stand the chance to be very good at. I love doing wood work, so this is really right up my alley. All that has to happen now is to get the house sold, and move our butts down there. I think as soon as the plane got close to home and the temperature changed on board the plane, we knew we were ready to go back, having the pilot announce that it was only going to be 52 when we landed, didnt help. I wanted him to just turn the plane around and go back, but apparently my opinion didnt matter much, so we're back. At least he was nice enough to fly over the Grand Canyon on the way north..that was a cool thing to see.
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