I forgot to mention that pictures from the Red Feather Lakes trip are up in the gallery.

I had plenty of opportunity to blog last week, but I’ve been reading Anathem.

My first week off reserve in ORD was great. I had to pay for a night in a hotel room because my flight to Sioux Falls went without me. It left several hours late, but I was later because I was stuck in Birmingham, AL. The weather should be better next week.

My passport was going to expire on the 27th, so I had to renew it. For strange reasons, I’m required to have a passport with me at all times while I’m working. This meant I had to schedule an appointment, drive to the passport office in Denver, wait for them to make the passport, and then drive home. That took most of Friday, and $135. Mesa is contractually required to reimburse me, but they haven’t been very forthcoming about how they’re going to go about that so far.

For purely academic reasons, I’ve been researching how one might disable the RFID chips in the new passports. Everyone likes to suggest a hammer, but no one wants to specify where exactly one should aim the hammer. I’m wondering if driving over it with a car would work.

I saw an astonishing moon rise over an undercast last week. Probably the best I’ve ever seen. We were having some trouble figuring out what the light was until it got over the clouds.

Captain: What is that light?
Me: I dunno, Fort Wayne?
Captain: You think?
Me: No, I don’t think Fort Wayne is that bright.
Captain: Maybe aliens are landing on Fort Wayne.

I also got to experience -23° F in Sioux Falls. I’m pretty sure that’s the coldest temperature I’ve ever been exposed to. That’s crazy cold.

It’s been warm here, comparatively, at around 50°. We took the top off the blue car and went driving for a couple hours. That was nice. If it’s warm again tomorrow, maybe we’ll do it again, and/or hike as well.