Zach is awesome.

24. May 2010 by [JP].

I spent most of the day on saturday sore, tossing and turning on the stupid couch, not sleeping well at all, and just generally feeling cranky and crappy.
At some point in the morning, i had finished the powerade i had, so it was sitting there empty on the table.
I vaguely remember Zach coming into the room.
Apparently, he picked up the empty bottle, threw it away, and then brought me a new cold one from the fridge for me when I woke up.
How awesome is that?

Later on, i was feeling a little better, and wanted to go somewhere, and he wanted to go to the airport, so we went. Since it was saturday, there werent many planes to watch, so we drove around it a bit, and got out of the car and got close to some of the gates, then parked in short term parking, and went inside to see the models.

His favorite plane, however, wasnt outside. Its the only Super Guppy still in service, owned by NASA. Its based out of the Johnson space center in TX, but frequently parked in El Paso.

Its HUGE. And shiny.

Weirdest airplane i’ve ever seen, its amazing that something that big can actually fly.

Its awesome taking him to the airport. We can literally sit there for a couple of hours, as he watches the planes taxi, take off, and land. We found the perfect spot to sit, where we can see the main taxiway, and part of the biggest runway. Also, he can see the smaller planes as they refuel and park at the private aviation yard. I need to video tape him when he jumps up and down when he sees his two favorite airliners (Southwest and american) pass by.

I love how he notices the most random things.
And how he likes the coolest stuff.
Like tonight, I needed powerade, and he wanted to sit in the car while i moved the cars around so that the jeep wasnt blocking my dad for the morning… then he buckled himself in and wanted to go get powerade with me. So, when we were driving away, he said “I want to see the sign that blink blink blinks”
Theres a new street sign they installed by my parents house, by a curve that everyone speeds thru, it has radar and tells you your speed, and it blinks if you’re going above the limit.
He wanted to go see that sign, so i drove that way, and as we approached it, he was reading off the speed. He said “Dad, you’re going 3 7.”

Then trains, he loves to go watch trains. We can sit by a crossing and watch the train pass by, and he’ll wave to the crew, and then try to count the cars (of course, he generally cant count high enough, or has a long enough attention span to count them all, but he’ll remember how many engines they had)
And i’m seeing cabooses on trains more and more lately, i thought they didnt use them any more, but apparently they do.

One of the cool things about being a ham radio operator, is I can use one of the radios in the truck like a scanner, and I know the frequencies for the airport tower, and the trains, so he can listen to them as we’re watching them. And he understands them too, like he’ll hear the tower telling a southwest jet that they’er clear to taxi or take off, and he’ll tell me whats happening, and then he’ll watch for it.

Or, if I have the radio on scan and it locks on a fire channel, he knows the tones mean that a fire department is getting dispatched to a call.

The word he learned sunday was “windsock”. He had asked me why the NASA hanger has a weird orange flag, and I explained it was a windsock. Then he saw the one on top of the control tower, and told me it was a windsock too.
I think i’m going to get a windsock and put it in the backyard for him.

Back in the day, long ago, Tomi and I would get these ranch bacon burgers at Carls Jr. Little burger, swiss, ranch sauce, bacon, and an onion ring.
Well, I got two the other day, and gave him half of it, and he totally loved it. No big surprise there.

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