My daughter is moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico w/add'l added post 032409 (bottom)

She told us tonight.
She's been talking with the Santa Fe Best Buy for the last week to do a transfer there, plus talking with the GM at the Fullerton Best Buy, and so she and her steady boyfriend Bryan (we call him Bo) will be moving the week of March 27th with just her clothing and bare minimum stuff (like 50 pounds of hair crap and makeup), staying with her steady boyfriend's grandparents just outside of Santa Fe, then in April or May coming back for furniture for an apartment. 1 BR apts run about $500-600 & she'd make ok money, plus Bo does everything and anything-machinery, cars, pools, he's almost a mechanical renaissance man. I think I know of a couple of other men like that (absolutely HER DADU), but Bo's also one of them.
She gave notice today to her hostess job, and told us about her plans tonight. She's really really thought this through, and it doesn't surprise me, because even though sometimes we go at it, I'm always impressed with her intellect and her thinking.
I'm so glad for her, so happy, but sad at the same time. I mean, my last chick is leaving the nest and I have a hunch that she'll be happy, will totally make it and always land on her feet with style. That's the trick in this life-to not only live, but live WITH STYLE. That's my daughter in a nutshell.
She has tons of that, and a lot of class. Ask anybody.

Her 'Dadu' is going to have a LOOOOONNNNGGG talk with her, maybe go out for some dinner and drinks, and I am going to have a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGG talk with her boyfriend Bo. It's an interesting family when you have to watch out for the MOM instead of the DAD when you have a girlfriend. I'm brushing up on my hammerlock technique. Unfortunately, he likes guns as much as our family, so I can't threaten him that way. I have to use other means to terrorize him into fearing me.

You know, it's upsetting when people I love so very much and care about so very much decide to move away or out of my life. It might sometimes be hell or hard to deal with when they're around because of different things, like the stress of waiting for them to come home and thinking the worst, or being depressed when they're not around or available to talk to for you, but in the end, I can only wish them the best and help them as much as possible. Which is the good and right way to go.
But that still doesn't make it hurt any less. Because it does hurt. A LOT.
I feel like I got blindsided tonight, and not just from the kickboxing/boxing class I took. (from that, I just have some scrapes and blisters on my knuckles) I wish that emotional hurt could heal that quickly.
But it will. It will.
I can tell you that THIS Alpha you-know-what can and will bounce back, running up and down in the aisle on the bus saying hi to people, how are you, hanging my head out the window and (no, not SCREAMING) enjoying the air like any good dog (ok, if I'm making noise, it's making a joyful noise unto the Lord), and NOT giving the driver a hard time.
You know, years ago, one of my bosses, who had great faith in my abilities and 'powers', said to others when something almost impossible had to be done, "Lynne, I need you to wave your magic wand and get this done". And I did.
I will always wave my magic wand for those I truly respect, admire, and love.
And that, Jackie, is you. All you.

ADDED 03-24-09, the day she left:

Nobody left to blame a mess on
Because my tiny, TINY baby girl ‘The Mess’ has gone.
She’s off to find a new, gentler way of life
Without as much traffic, noise and strife.
I’ll miss her terribly, terribly so
But I know that eventually my chicks must go.

An interesting ride to Lytle Creek Sunday Feb. 22

I had set up this ride and the weather see-sawed between showers and cloudy, so I decided to take a chance. It kinda worked out ok. ONE of our riders who shall be unnamed was insisting that he 'waren't gonna ride in no rain or no cold'. Well, sorry, but we saw snow on the side of the road on Lytle Creek Road, up on the hill, and when we were going back down Lytle Creek Road and getting onto the 15 south, it started sprinkling. That's ALL IT DID-SPRINKLE. There are NO WUSSES when you ride with AB. (NOW do you understand? Dude, that was a COMPLIMENT, like nobody is a wuss that ride with me, so GMAB)
It was a nice day, kinda cloudy, but no rain in sight-until we came back down Lytle Creek Road and onto the 15 fwy south. I sure wish that maps would TELL YOU that the road turns into nasty gravel about 10 miles down the road!
We stopped for gas and I had NO CLUE what was about to happen.



We rode back into where the three of us remember shooting out in the open years and years ago. Not together, of course, but Barry and I took the kids shooting back in the boonies, and Johney had gone back there with his guns too-this group is freakin' GUN HAPPY, I must say. Hey, WE LIKE GUNS. Anyway...
Bub was wondering if they had paved the road since we had been there...NO THEY HADN'T ...GRAVEL CITY! Shit.
You know, if we had dual-sports, it would'a been Ok. If we had dirt bikes, it still would'a been ok. But cruisers do NOT do well on gravel. Period. Trust me on this.

Some of these shots that Jessica took from riding on the back of Bub's bike are pretty neat-I've never seen what I look like from the rear. Not sure if I like it, but at lease Lambie covers a lot of my butt. Looking back, Barry DOES look like a cop!

Getting back to the 7th spill in 20 months, I went to turn around left, just to duck-walk it around, I was kind of up on a berm or the road was a bit graded up, and the downhill side was on my left, felt the Lambie Special start to tip, tried to hold it up (Johney said he could see that coming) and just could NOT hold it up, so laid it down and be-bopped away. Hmmm, reminds me of the description of what happened to Gary at Champion Motorsports. Neither of the guys could get to me (hey, where are my knights in shining armour? Oh, yeah, parking their 'noble steeds' instead of doing a sympathetic lay-down and coming to a lady's rescue. Nice going guys, I'll remember that.) so I'm waiting there kinda like a turtle on it's side thinking to myself, "Come ON, where's the love, I don't feel the love".
Johney was Johney on the spot (pun intended) to help me up with my bike, and he hollered for Barry to come over and help, but he and I got it up and straight ourselves by the time Bub came over. Since Barry had Jessica on the back, he had to be extra careful in stopping and putting the kickstand down. Jess isn't into really riding yet, so she didn't know that she had to jump off and let Bub park. (Just kidding, Jessica) No real damage, in fact really no damage except a scratch or two on the crash ba...oops, I mean engine guards, but that's what they are for, so just my pride a bit tweaked and a small bruise on the outside of my left knee. I really don't feel badly about it at all. Stuff happens. I'm glad I wore my leathers, though, and I know WHY I wear them-I don't want to mess up my nice jeans!!!
We stopped to figure out what our next plan was, and of course I was the butt of everybody's jokes....'The Alpha bitch went down hard!" which made me laugh so much I almost wet my pants. That was some funny shit, right there. Editor's Note-That was Johney who said that with a big whompin' laugh that you could hear from here to Nascar in Fontana. So you get the credit (or the blame), buddy. Hey, I don't mind, I was laughing as hard as they were, and that makes 7 drops in 20 months, all from a standstill. That's gotta be a record.

"Well, y'see guys, I was up kinda on a berm and trying to come around, walk around, but my legs are just too short for the downhill side and I tried to keep it up but..."

When we were leaving the area to go for some late lunch at Tom's Farms, we noticed some jets passing over for the ceremonies for Nascar in Fontana. Johney suggested that we pull over and watch, so I got the camera out and filmed 'em. You know, this is a really bitchin' little camera. Jessica took some really neat photos while riding behind Barry-there are a few here and there-you can tell because she's behind everybody so she can see EVERYTHING. That'll be handy on Ortega next weekend. She's getting really good at putting her gloves down and taking pics-soon she'll be doing video and THAT'LL be awesome, so I won't need that camera mount-I'll just take her everywhere I go. Problem is, I'll now need to get a sissy bar and pad. Probably a rack on the back too...for our purses...hey, WE ARE GIRLS, GUYS, GET USED TO IT!!! I will be a girl if it KILLS YOU!

This is a pretty cool pic...Jess kinda tried to take her picture in the rear view mirror of Bub's bike. Next time it'll be even better-we really strive for the artistic in our rides. I know I do, humming the 'whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo-hoo, whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo-hoo' song from Kill Bill by that Japanese group "Five, Six, Seven, Eight"...you know, the Japanese girls with the kinda bowed legs...

At Tom's farms for lunch. We met the Patino's there-surprise! Mike Patino took the wishing well picture.

Above right and on the right, Jessica is taking pics of the fountain. (Jeez, Johney, smile once in awhile! I'm telling yer mom on you) I had never seen this side of Tom's Farms so I wanted to walk over there. Asked the guys if they could spare 20 minutes and they said sure. (like they're gonna tell the Alpha Dog NO!!!) Besides, if I ask for 20 minutes, you KNOW it'll be 30. But it was 20. I think. Not sure...

So, everybody decided to leave, and after consulting with each other (especially seeing the state of the 91 going west from the 15), we decided to all go up the 15 to the 60 and enjoy the speed (and I do mean SPEED, if you've ever been behind me) of the carpool lane. Got Jessica back to her house by 4 PM almost on the nose. I think so, anyway. Wish we coulda ridden a little more, but...

FlightDeck F-16 Fighting Falcon Jet Simulator and Lucille's 022109

The crew altogether. We arrive at FlightDeck in Anaheim. Garry and Barry are in the fighter jet equivalent of a Laz-I-Boy recliner. They look 'WAY too comfortable.

Pretty sweet. I can say it was pretty SWEET.
You know, someone asked me, "Don't I do any girly shit?" To which I replied, "Of COURSE I do! I put on makeup and do my hair before doing this stuff!" Got to thinking about it and told them that I have the best of both worlds-I can do girly stuff AND guy-type stuff, and nobody thinks twice. Now if a GUY were to do guy stuff and girly stuff, a lot of people would think he was whipped or something. He'd have to be an extremely secure person in his own right, very sure of himself and comfortable with anything that comes along. Come to think about it, I know a few guys like that, Barry being one. I mean, Barry IS whip....I mean, secure about himself.

Ok, back to the flight simulator.
Here's the website to where we went:
http://www.flightdeck1.com/
I went to their website then of course looked up as MUCH as I could about the F-16, simulators, flight, etc. Learned a bit about pitch, roll, yaw, crap like that. Of COURSE I psyched myself out and got kinda nervous. By the way, Flight Deck got 5 out of 5 recommendations from TripAdvisor. Very very good company. I can attest to that myself now.
There was so much to remember, but then I figured hey, if I can ride a bike without crashing (and I KNOW what you're thinking, Barry, Jessica and Johney, and don't EVEN go there because that's another post), then I could do this simulator thingy.
I wrote a few ideas regarding what I wanted to do, think about and remember of this experience, so I used that paper to write my thoughts for the blog. I always end up forgetting shit.

Hey, Tori, LOOK BEHIND YOU! (Isn't that a COOL picture??!!)
First thing I wanted to do was get there early and take pictures of the place, pictures of people coming, pictures of getting flight suits on, pics of the briefing etc.
Then thoughts of what was going through my mind when we got into the flightsuits, doing the briefing, the simulator, and afterward.
Barry and I, Tori and Gary, and their friend Chuck were the five pilots. We would be involved in a dogfight against each other. Yay. Ok, THIS'll be interesting.
After we paid, we were led into the locker area (yeah, they had lockers for our purses and jackets and stuff). I kept my camera on a long tether around my neck like I usually do whenever we go anywhere. Tori and Bub, below left and Chuck and Gary, below right, suiting up.
Getting into the flight suits was easy for the guys of course, BUT Tori and I were a little hard to fit. The flight suits are usually made for guys with no hips and no ass, whereas Tori and I have 'hips and ass'. We got suits that fit, however. They fit. We couldn't freakin' BREATHE, but they fit.

To the left, Gary and Chuck trying to figure out Chuck's camera. "Hey, I'm law enforcement, not freakin' IT!!"
After we all got into our flight suits, I had us all pose in the 'thumbs up' position (there were some pics on the website so that's where I got the idea). Worked out really well!

Went into the briefing room and had a 15 minute multimedia presentation with our flight instructor Jake. He's 16, will be 17 next month, grew up around Glamis and has been around dirt bikes and dual-sports since he was 6 month old. (Or was it 6 weeks old, Jake?) His call sign that the guys gave him was 'Bobby', like the kid on "King of the Hill" on Fox 11. I called the company back and told them that when Jake turns 18 they should change his call sign. I was kind of disappointed that we weren't given call signs, but that would've taken about another 15 minutes to decide and we were already on minus minutes because of my picture taking.

There was a throttle on the table in the briefing room with buttons on it-the only one we needed to worry about was the mic button. The OTHER control, the stick, however, had 4 buttons+ that we needed to push all sorts of different ways. THAT one was gonna be a little hard to figure out. Below right, Jake explaining the aerodynamics of steering one of these suckers.

Jake also said that the thing to avoid was crashing into the ground on our own. Crashing like that would cause everyone to laugh at that person. (later on, guess who crashed into the ground? I went into too much of a dive and couldn't pull out in time-boy, THAT sounded weird...)
In the briefing room we had an overview of what each control did to make the jet go forward, up, down, curve/turn, and especially shoot. We had 8 rear heat=seeking missles plus 500 rounds ammo. Jake explained how the radar, missle lock and tone worked. He didn't really explain that when we hear a high pitched bunch of beeps, that meant WE WERE LOCKED ONTO BY SOMEONE ELSE and had to get the hell outta Dodge.
Went into the simulator room (left) which was kinda dark but you could make out the simulators which looked like a cross between eggs and a fighter jet cockpit. Mine was #301 and had to climb a ladder to get in. Saw the throttle and the stick and had to put on a mic'd headset. The headset was how we talked to Control and could also talk trash between each other. Quite frankly we were too busy flying the damn things to even talk to each other.

Each instructor fitted us into our sims and fitted our headsets. We were then instructed on how to take off and had 10 minutes to 'fool around' and figure out how to manipulate the controls and the aircraft simulator. I kinda did, but went too slow, kinda curvy, and the instructor said, "Don't go slow, you're not piloting a Cessna or a commercial aircraft, you're piloting a fighter, so mix it up and make some quick moves! otherwise, you will be shot down quicker than anything". Below right, Chuck's sim. Below left, my sim.

Take off was throttle full forward, reach 172 knots then pull back on the stick to pitch the nose up. Taking off was a piece of cake. The Control Instructor said, "301, you are cleared for take off" so I gave it full throttle then eased the stick back to raise my nose. VERY cool. Wish I could just fly around and do stuff, but we were in battle mode so I had to watch my ass. There was a radar screen on the lower left of the head's up view and I could see the others and where they were. Obviously, BEHIND ME was not a good thing, so I had to be-bop around and get behind THEM.

To the left, Joe "I got first place" Gary. Below, Tori exiting her sim.

Gary on the right exiting the cockpit.

I could see the other two sims next to me-Chuck to my immediate left and Barry to my far left. I could also see their screens but really I was trying to pay attention to mine.

I kinda forgot this, but I DIDN'T have to have my throttle at full all the time, so I was going about 650 knots all the time-no wonder I banked really fast and hard, and ended up upside down a lot! Which helped shake people off my tail, but didn't help me find anybody to shoot down.

The simulator itself doesn't move, and I had no feelings of nausea or inner ear imbalance or any of that. If there's no motion, there can't really be any motion sickness, right? RIGHT? Right. At least there wasn't with any of us.

We're about to get our score sheets all printed out. You can see who did what and how well.

Gary came in first place, which was expected considering he used to work on them in the Army.
Chuck and I tied for second place-if I hadn't crashed my jet, I would've been second. Surprisingly, Tori WASN'T last-BARRY WAS.
Go figure. But he DID do the harder landings perfectly-the night landing and carrier landing. None of us landed correctly on all three. I did crash all three.

You know what? It was almost worth the price just to put on the freakin' flight suit and have my pic taken in it!

Now, on to Lucille's for a farewell/we did the Simulator great dinner BBQ. Tori's having some sort of shrimp sandwich and Gary, of course, is contemplating 'Q.

Below that, Chuck and Audrey, Mindy's friend.

Week of Feb. 14-20 2009 was a busy one!

My sister Tori and her husband Gary were in town from Vermont, so we hung out with them sometimes. Usually for dinner.
Saturday was Super Mex: Wednesday was Outback with Tori, Gary and I (see video on how Tori could NOT figure out how to use the paper towel dispenser!), then Thursday night they came over to Portillo's to join in with our FOS Bike Night.

Just the usual gang of idiots at Portillos.