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 know my family and some of my friends read this blog to stay updated on me, so here are some things I’m doing and what I will be doing.

FAMILY:  Both of my nieces visited my wife and I (from Massachusetts) over the last month or two.  The 20–year old stayed for one week, but the 18–year old stayed for an additional three weeks.  We loved having them both.  I’m so proud of my sister (who I constantly like to tease) and her husband for raising such wonderful girls.  We love having them.

Also, my parents are visiting next week.  I’m really excited about spending time with both of them.  My dad recently retired.  So we’re glad he can visit us and not have to rush back to work after.

TRIPS:  Last week we went to the US National Whitewater Center.  It’s only 30 minutes from home and we got to do whitewater rafting and a 1,000 foot zip line.

Sandy and I are especially looking forward to spending two weeks in Europe in July/August.  We will be visiting Austria and Greece.

WORK:  Work is going well.  The economy does not seem to be affecting our industry.  Since January I have only been working 4 to 4–1/2 days per week.  It’s been my goal for a long time.  I finally got there.

I woke up this morning to several TXT messages from family telling me that SkyBus went bankrupt.  Real nice! 

Cheap people all around the country have spent their hard-earned $10 for flights and now they are just going to keep it because of a little thing called rising fuel costs?!?

The gas for my car is rising too.  Too bad.  All of us are stuggling with fuel costs.  We can’t just give up.  Why shouldn’t SkyBus have to stick it out too?

Actually I don’t really care because I’m not that cheap.  They can have my 20 bucks.  The date I picked to go back to Massachusetts was not ideal anyway.  I’ll get to pick a better date if I use a “normal” airline.

What is far more interesting is that today is the last day any SkyBus airlines will fly and my co-worker Shannon Miller is in Ohio right now.  He flew out there on SkyBus and was supposed to fly back here to North Carolina tomorrow.

I guess he’ll need to get a cab?  We’ll see.  Stay tuned.

This morning I booked my next flight on Skybus to go up to Massachusetts to visit family.  This time I will be going by myself (without Sandy).

I fly up on Wednesday, August 27 at 3:15 PM and arrive 4:51 PM.

I return on Tuesday, September 2 at 5:16 PM and arrive 6:58 PM.

The tickets cost $35 and $10 each.  I’m checking one bag each way ($10 each) and taxes and fees were $12.  Total cost of traveling from NC to MA is $77. 

(Not bad!)

At 6 AM this morning I got an email from Skybus that they have released more tickets.  Upon further review, it seems as if they released August and some of September.

I got on at 9 AM and the website was DOG slow.  It seems as if they were not prepared to handle the quantity of visitors and buyers that were interested in the ten dollar fares.

Personally, I was able to get a $35 ticket and a $10 ticket to get back and forth to Massachusetts to visit family.

Tonight I did a little work on this blog.  You’ll notice that the look and feel of it is different.  The theme is more colorful and easier to read.

I’m also excited about the widgets on the right side.  In particular, I’m happy to be showing my twitter feed.  This shows what I’m doing (and thinking) on a more regular basis.

Sandy and I flew to Florida on Sunday and today we were babysitting our little nephew.  I have a ton of pictures of him so I’ll be posting them soon.