As always, pictures tell the story:

Joelle and Aviva spent the first part of the trip at Grandma Sue's in Virginia - had a great time!

Got to ride a train around Burke Lake Park

Went to the AAPA Conference (American Association of Pathologists' Assistants) in Baltimore, where Aviva met some of Joelle's old grad school friends

Spent Labor Day weekend in Potomac with Grandpa Allan, Grandma Barbara, and their new dog, Waldo! Waldo was quite intrigued by Aviva, and the feeling was mutual :)

Smiley time with Grandma Barbara!

Aunt Amanda came in for the weekend to see Aviva; she got to see Aviva's new game of "everything goes in the mouth!"

Took Grandpa Allan and Grandma Barbara out for their anniversary for some very good Lebanese Food

Aviva had a great time at Girls Shopping Day out!

Took a great trip to the National Zoo to see the animals

Had to cover Aviva's eyes for this one!

Just relaxing on vacation!

More relaxing :)

Over this past month, Aviva took her first visit to the East Coast (Baltimore and DC), along with having her first experience swimming, and then also starting “swim lessons” (more like organized play time in the water) at the pool down the street. She’s also become a ton more interactive and talkative. Pictures and videos show this best, of course: (as always, you might need to visit the actual post to see the videos)

Aviva as the talkative one:

Aviva’s first visit into the water, at the hotel pool in Baltimore:

Aviva’s first swim lesson:

And of course, pictures:

Meeting Caleb, Grandma Sue's dog

Hanging out with Eytan

In the pool with mommy, in Baltimore

Always warmer with a hooded towel

Silly Hats with Daddy

Aunt Amanda and me

At the pool at Aunt Elana's new place

Hanging out with Idan

Reaching for the face

Holding Hands

I love tummy time!

Grabbing Molly

Happy Aviva!

Pictures, as usual:

First airplane ride

Quite excited for the trip!

Meeting Dan London

First Muni (tram) ride

A lot of stuff to schlep!

Checking out the fish in Chinatown

Very San Fran

Hanging out with Erica

Up the steps we go

Ferry Terminal Farmer's Market

They sell schmaltz! (treyef, though...)

Cousin Karen

I love picnics

That's a big head

Checking out the Giants game

Sam the cat did not like Aviva

Ready to see the town

First bus ride

Meeting my cousin Rebecca

On the plane ride back home

We stayed in the Ka’anapali region, right on the beach, at the Ka’anapali Beach Hotel. Easy access to the beach (though we only went swimming in the beach there the last day, due to the high winds Maui was experiencing), and adjacent to a great long boardwalk that went from hotel to hotel (with lots of dining and shopping along the way).

Though our trip was short, we saw a lot of Maui – as you’ll see from the pictures, below. We drove the famous "Road to Hana", which I very much enjoyed – as it provided me the ability to go swimming in: (all within a couple of hours)

• Lava Tubes
• Cave
• Waterfall created swimming hole
• Black Sand Beach 

We also took advantage of the warmth to get out into the ocean on boats twice – we took a morning snorkeling cruise, and an evening sunset dinner cruise, both utilizing only compostable cutlery and plates, along with having the boats powered by biodeisel. It is nice to know environmental friendliness doesn’t need to take a back seat while vacationing.

Those of you on Facebook have already seen these pictures, but for those of you who aren’t yet part of that crowd, here’s a couple albums of highlights from our trip: (Click on each of the images to get to the albums – there are two).

1. It is close, only an hour or so away (including ferry time), so it was easy on my back for travel.
2. Our friends Shannon and Damon have an amazing house they built on the Island – and by that, I mean built by hand: “hammer, hammer, saw, saw”. It was great to see them and spend time with them, and their new son, Griffin (and their dog, Ebey). They are great college friends, who we do not spend nearly enough time with.
3. Because we stayed with them, I knew I could rest as much as my back needed to; taking breaks regularly to lay flat, etc… and not feeling obligated to do too much.
4. We happen to just really like Whidbey Island – artsy, beautiful, friendly, and close.
5. And of course, get Molly away from the loud bangs of illegal (and legal) fireworks.
6. In particular, Greg and Clodagh had called out, on a past trip, the wonders of Double Bluff Beach’s off leash dog park on Whidbey – a few mile long open beach for off-leash access. We wanted to get Molly into the water again.
7. I have been cooped up in the house for a while now – I was looking forward to just getting out of here for a weekend as I move back into working more.

It was just what we needed – it fit all of those goals above, and we are really super-appreciative of the Arndt’s for hosting us. Molly had a fantastic time too – she got to run around their property, go swimming, get lots of fun new treats, and just be one happy (and tired!) dog.

Pictures – click for larger ones as usual:

People:

Dogs:

Arndt House:

Videos – might need to visit the actual blog post to view:

Here’s the US States that I have had people read www.averbuch.net (at least, since I switched from Spaces) from – darker is more readers:

And while we are at it – here’s Europe (there’s a few visitors from other continents as well, but not enough to warrant discussion):

First, however, the full album is up at: picasaweb.google.com/joelle1117/IsraelAndParis2008

As a preview, here are a few of my favorite pics:

Jerusalem:

Paris:

Things I always need to catch up on when I come back into town:

• Microsoft Money – Balance the checkbook/credit cards/etc… (DONE!)
• Personal Email – we checked some while we were gone, so only 125 emails to read through, though must are junk (DONE!) (note: this does not include sending any to people, just reading)
• Work Email – monday. not going to get to until then.
• Blogs (Google Reader): 5000 articles to read through. A quick scan of things I don’t care about got me down to 200 or so to actually read. Will do that in the morning.
• Miles (MileTracker): Most useful program ever to track frequent flyer mileage. Our first flights came through already (SEA->EWR->TLV), but not the others yet.
• TV: Lots to watch. The DVR awaits!
• Sleep. Time to do just that!

• Book: How to Be Good, Nick Hornby
• Book: Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
• Magazine: Conde Nast Traveler
• Magazine: MSDN the Magazine (yep, I am a geek, but it will be a quick flip-through)
• Magazine: Money
• Magazine: The Economist, February 9th edition
• Magazine: The Economist, February 16th edition
• Magazine: The Economist, February 23rd edition
• Magazine: Sporting News (not sure which date – I ripped the address label off and it took it away!)
• Magazine: Sporting News (not sure which date – I ripped the address label off and it took it away!)
• Newspaper: Seattle JTNews, February 22nd
• Newspaper: Seattle JTNews, February 8th
• Newspaper: Washington University in St. Louis Record
• Catalog: Crate and Barrel

As usual, you make the case of what this means about me!

• Alvin and the Chipmunks F/D
• Becoming Jane F/D
• Elizabeth: The Golden Age F/D
• Lions for Lambs F/D
• Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium F/D
• No Country for Old Men F/D
• Why Did I Get Married? E

www.united.com/movie/listingpage/0,6752,8_3,00.html

Chicago to Seattle portion, which is our final routing, is back to one of the movies we may have already seen on El-Al. Oh well:

• Enchanted

www.united.com/movie/listingpage/0,6752,1_3,00.html

Our second part of trip is from Tel Aviv to Paris. I can’t tell for sure which movie we’ll see, but it’s some combination of the following, judging by our airline type:

• Enchanted
• Juno
• Life Or Something Like It
• T.V. series & Sport (whatever that means)
• Martian Child

www.elal.co.il/ELAL/English/AllAboutYourFlight/InFlight/InflightEntertainment/Movies/, and then select March (from Tel Aviv)

Our first flight: a red-eye, is Dan In Real Life

www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/entertainment/films/co_grid_200802.pdf

The longer flight has more options, including Follow That Bird (one of my favorites from growing up) and Bee Movie.

www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/entertainment/films/mca_grid_200802.pdf

Sitting in the middle seat on my flight back (we got to the airport early so we took middle seats through standby in exchange for getting home an hour early), I realized quite a few things bother me about flying these days, so might as well enumerate them:

1. Coach seats (at least on Alaska Airlines) has absolutely zero room for laptops. Seriously, it is so crowded to be typing on these things – the keyboard area is pushing into my stomach, the screen is folded over to be even able to fit, and the tray is at a very unergonomic height, so my arms don’t feel so comfortable. If I were a common business traveler, perhaps a smaller laptop would help – I’ll have to try bringing the work mac-book with me next time, as it’s much smaller.
2. Whatever happened to dinner on planes? Especially when they fly from that key 6-9 pm hours. When exactly are you supposed to eat dinner if you need to board at 5:15 or so?
3. No two TSA people say the same thing – one says to put your boarding pass away, the other says “reminder: we need to see your boarding pass”, the video playing says both at the same time! Plus, people take way, way too long taking their shoes on and off.
4. Middle seats suck!
5. Why don’t all planes have that movable headrest so you can make your own personal sleeping area? It can’t cost the airline more than 50 cents extra per seat once at airplane purchase time to put those in. Makes me want to fly Continental, the only airline I know of that has those.
6. The food in airports is just not good. Granted they have a captive audience, but couldn’t someone come up with a decent, ubiquitous eating venue? Especially for vegetarians. McDonald’s and/or an awful caesar’s salad just don’t cut it.
7. Finally, airlines – stop seating me next to talkers. Really. I am all about striking up random conversations with people in most situations. But there are two I want people to just shut up – airplanes and barbers (cut my hair, in and out, no need to find out my or your lifestory).

On a random note, I did run into the condo upstair’s neighbor randomly at the airport. It has been a good week for my goal of running into people I know at places – 3 or 4 different people at the Seahawks game on Sunday (including Pure‘s CEO), and now this. Also found out 2 or 3 more people from high school have moved to Seattle, and I didn’t even know about it – weird; I usually know these things.

Two stories about my car recently and interactions with AAA. They must think I am crazy.

1. My car is about 5 years old, and a few weeks ago, the car wouldn’t start, though it was sitting at home. As neither Joelle nor I had jumper cables (we do now), I called AAA over. An hour later they show up, and car still wouldn’t start. We waited another minute, and tried again – boom, it started. WHAAAT? Oh well, the AAA guy left on his merry way. (he did run a test and tell me I should probably replace the battery at some point soon, as it was at the end of it’s lifetime, and CCA or something like that was getting very low).
2. So I replace the battery (myself even, though I did have the Parts Plus guy standing over my shoulder telling me what to do :) ), and all was fine until late last week, when the car wouldn’t start again. Waiting until the weekend when I had time, Joelle and I couldn’t get the car started ourselves, so off I go to call AAA over. He gets there, and tries quite a few diagnostic attempts, failing each time (though the lights did turn on, as did the air, there was no starting). Finally, he decides we’ll need to tow it to the nearest service station. As he pulls out the towing gear, the guy gets in the car to get the car ready to push forward manually.

He immediately is able to start the car, as he yells – “Your car was still in drive. It won’t start unless it’s in park!” AAAHHH! – a) Why does my car let me pull the key out while it’s in drive? I feel like that is just a little dangerous… and b) I feel really stupid.

Probably the same reason caused the magical healing for #1. Oh well. At least I know what the issue is. And I am sure AAA thinks I am crazy!

Taking another business trip this morning (I am writing this at about 40,000 feet, but will upload later), and failing to fall asleep on the ride down, I spent some time looking around at how and what people read while sitting on the plane (and trying not to be invasive).

It’s fairly interesting; there are some sleepers, lots of fiction books (though none I have ever heard of, save the ubiquitius Harry Potter readers – I mean seriously, haven’t you read them all yet?), a few people on their PCs, and surprisingly, no magazine or newspaper readers. I wonder how this would change for a flight at a different time of day – our flight did take off at 6:40 AM, after all. I’ll have to look around again later this evening when we return back (and yes, this makes a very, very long day).

That last fact shocks me; especially, as I love to utilize flights as a good opportunitiy to catch up on periodicals that I then leave behind in the airport in hopes that it gives someone else to read.

What I’ve read so far on the plane (and granted we’ve only been flying for an hour or so – I do read fast, after all):

1. Alaska Airlines In-Flight Magazine
2. Finished my copy of the Economist from this week (I usually read this as a back-and-forth over a couple of bus rides to and from work, but still had 15 or so pages to go)
3. A few sections of the Seattle Times (that someone had left on their seat on the airport – THANKS!)
   1. Article that makes me happiest: Yeah for Northwest Airlines starting Seattle-London service; more traffic on the straight to Europe route should make us booking flights for going to Israel next year easier.
4. Money Magazine (just came yesterday – it’s part of a series of magazines that Joelle and I signed up for since she had a pretty small amount of Delta Airlines miles that were going to expire unless we used them – not enough to get a flight, might as well get something for them)
   1. Hints to self – they mention looking at the Treasury Departments website to see if there are outstanding savings bonds in your name; I have never done this – I wonder if there are some that have been lost along the way.
   2. Hint #2 – look up charity’s and their financial statements online. I’ve never spent time investigating these, since I usually just go with organizations I am involved with.
5. Seattle Jewish Transcript (and the Happy Hannukah insert) – By the way, the last issue and this one have had the first 2 of a 3-part series on Christian Evangelical movements and Jews (mostly focused on the so-called “Jews for Jesus”) – a couple of thoughts:
   1. It is sort of surprising there hasn’t been a letters to the editor backlash against the newspaper giving these organizations any press.
   2. I find it hilarious (and scary) to the effort that these groups go through to try and woo just one Jew. Seriously – why do they care so much?
   3. The articles are, in the end, quite fascinating. It’s probably the most interesting read they’ve had in there in a long time, so I, for one, am glad they are printing them.

My other reading material for the ride back (though I may need to pick up another reading material as well) is a book the President of Kavana recommended, but I haven’t gotten around to… hopefully it will take up the time it states, and thus, half of the flight: “The Ultimate Board Member’s Book: A 1-hour Guide”

I wonder what my reading list says about me?