Bumpy Ride

I made it safely to Butte yesterday. It sure is nice to have friends that are willing to drive you to the airport. Andy drove me up to St George and I flew up to Salt Lake and then up to Butte. Overall the trip went fine. The flight down into Butte was a little bumpy as they were having very high winds up here. I really appreciate Andy doing that.

It is still very wierd to not have Jennifer traveling with me. However, she would not have enjoyed the last part of that flight. She did not like turbulence, she would have been squeezing my hand to the max and breathing heavy as we bounced our way down into Butte. Butte is pretty famous for being turbulent and last night was no exception.

I had a couple hour layover in Salt Lake City and while I was waiting I just happened to run into Julie Norman. It was nice to have a short visit with here before our flight. Julie was a very important influence in both Jennifer’s and I’s lives and careers. She was our Professor for our graduate program in Industrial Hygiene and we both owe her a great deal for our success in life. Julie was also traveling to Butte to spend Christmas with her mother.

Julie’s dad Floyd Bossard was also a important influence in my career. He was actually the person who started the Industrial Hygiene program at Montana Tech. He was pretty much retired when I started graduate school, but he came back for one semester to teach industrial ventilation during my time at Tech. Floyd passed away a couple of years ago.

Floyd also had me work on collecting some air samples for some consulting projects he was doing. One of those was at St James hospital and it was during the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. I was thinking about Floyd and that project when the recent earthquake happened in Northern California.

My sister Colleen picked me up and then we went over to get my Mom. She was at Dana’s getting her hair cut. Then we came home. It was blowing like hell up in Elk Park so it was slower trip than normal, but we made it fine.

Now it will be busy getting ready for the Christmas holiday and getting the folks into a few Dr appointments while I am here, to help both Colleen and Cindy out.

There is a little snow here in Elk Park, but it is not much. So looks like we will have a white Christmas. Of course there is still six days before the big day so ample time for more white stuff to show up.

Well I better get moving and help get some things done around here.