Long Time No Blog

Hey everybody! Well, my apologies for not blogging in about 3 weeks. It has been a completely insane whirlwind to say the least. On August 1st, Alex passed away. He lived a remarkable life, and I will certainly carry memories of him with me for the rest of my life. I was scheduled to fly home on August 5th, but had to scramble my flights to get home by Saturday. After 3 flight changes and a missed flight Saturday morning, I finally got into the air on my long adventure home. I was pretty sure the entire day that Alex was watching over me, making sure that I a) made all my connections that were exceptionally tight and b) putting on quite a weather show along the way. Flying south through the Southeast Alaska panhandle, there was a beautiful marine layer in place, which made for an amazing under-cast with mountains poking through:

After my flight from Juneau arriving in Seattle 45 minutes early and my flight to Chicago being delayed by an hour, my 12 minute layover became a bit easier :-) On the flights over to Chicago, I was treated to yet another thunderstorm, but forgot to take my polarizing lens for most of them, so the pictures weren't so great. But it was still a cool storm:

My flights in Chicago got delayed enough to allow a 30 minute layover, which equated to 2 of 3 bags getting left there, but it was cool because the bag that arrived in Baltimore with me was the one full of clean clothes :-) Also, when arriving in Baltimore, we were skirting along the edge of another thunderstorm, which made for quite the light show.

The night that I arrived in Baltimore, we promptly drove to Virginia, and then down to Columbia, SC the next morning. The services for Alex were quite beautiful, and then we spent a few days down there hanging around with all his extended family and friends. On Tuesday we drove back home, and then on Thursday we drove up to Cape Cod. The drive up was AWESOME because we got run over by a bunch of thunderstorms over Connecticut, and I was very happy. I also (naturally) took way to many pictures...but here are some of the highlights:

T-Storm over NYC Skyline

Cape Cod was very nice...lots of time on the beach, playing tennis, playing golf, and hanging out with my extended family.
After some nice R & R, we returned home. In short, it was several thousand miles of travel in one week...but all well worth it.

A call for Prayer

I haven't really done this before with my blog, but I would like to take this time to ask all of you to please pray for my best friend Alex.

He has been battling cancer for nearly 3 years, and has fought an inspirational fight. However, as cancer so cruelly does, it is beginning to win and Alex is approaching what may be the sunset of his life. As of recent days it has become quite a struggle, and I ask if you could all pray that he is able to push forward in peace and free of pain, and take whatever path is best for his spirit. He has lead an inspirational life for all of us, and he has been an integral part of my life since I was 3. He has been like a brother to me, and I can't even imagine a life without him in my life.

Again, even if you don't know him, please pray or send positive thought for him in these difficult times, and also for his parents (Julie and Tom), his sister (Maggie), and all his family as they push through this tough situation.

Thank you