First in a long string of blog entries to follow (A new start, May 9, 2023)

Blog: 09MAY2023 - Travel back from business meeting in Dayton, Ohio (WPAFB)

Sitting here in the Dayton International Airport, waiting for my return flight home. Mostly I am trying to figure out what to say, and what not to say. This was basically a boring trip, with few surprises. 

So with the spare time I had, I was playing around with Chat GPT, developing a storyline for myself and MooiVos, based on the storylines by Jane Austen in the seaside location of Sanditon. It's a PBS Series that my wife and I have been enjoying watching - as she loves to read Jane Austen novels. Her romantic thoughts seem to return there whenever we chat about such things. But the stories will need some serious editing before I would use them anywhere. It was a "cute" exercise, but I can't say that I am overly impressed with the results yet. 

For myself, I am currently very tired from this trip. And I have a long week ahead of me next week as well. I haven't slept well, and will be glad to get back home. I had a bad scare when returning my rental car, as I couldn't find the keys after searching for about 30 minutes - but then finally did. Duh. I left them in the dash - where they were partially hidden. About the only real "fun" I had while here was catching up on some of the YouTube episodes I've missed on the hotel's smartTV, and going to visit the Covered Inverted Bowstring foot bridge in the Germantown suburb of Dayton, Ohio. 

Germantown is a small, small suburb with a couple of pizza/pub joints, a hotel and a couple of city buildings. Sadly, it was clear the area had fallen on tough economic times - with a few closed storefronts, and quite a few abandoned homes. Made me wonder how many were because COVID had been rampant in the household. (?) But the bridge looked in good shape, and the stream below was full of minnows and small fish. I sat and had lunch on it today before driving to the airport, and was glad I did. I appreciated the mental downtime. Also was glad to recall my Dad talking about the bridge years ago. We'd never seen it together, but now I wish I had gone with my mother and father when I was a "stupid" teenager - wanting to stay home and work on other "fun" projects. But, I can appreciate it better now - being older, and recalling the stories that Dad told me about it.

Normally when I travel, I like to find new places to eat - but this time, there were very few good restaurants open. And the few that were, were charging way too much for a single dinner serving. I ended up in my hotel room just eating a inexpensive salad from WalMart (ugh - but it was cheap at $4).

Well, the flight is going to start boarding soon. The skies here are blue and cloudless, so it should be a good flight. And hopefully the blog here will be continued, or at least saved somewhere. I might pull in a lot of my older blog posts and twitter feeds from other sites. Time will tell.

Oh gawd, they're playing "The Neutron Dance" in the terminal... how... 1980-ish.