Boeing

We decided to go see where Boeing builds all these big planes. It was a longer drive up to Everett, but we have time and it was something that Doug had not done in Seattle yet. I have to say that I like the HOV lanes they have in Seattle, it saved us a lot of time going through the city on the way there.

Boeing has some strange rules. You are not allowed to bring in your purse, cell phone or camera. I can understand the cell phone or camera, but not why I can't bring my purse. We got everything securely locked up and went on the tour. It was very impressive to me. The halls, that the planes are build in, are huge; everything is moved via overhead cranes or moving platforms. It truly is an assembly line that moves forward slowly. The engineering team has their workstations directly on the working floor, there is a lot of inventory stations for the different stages and parts of the planes and it seemed very well organized. I would not mind working for a company like that. It was the Thursday afternoon before the long holiday weekend, so there really was not that much work going on, unless there was a shift change while we were touring the plant. Here are some pictures that I was able to take outside from the Boeing museum.



Here are a couple of pictures from inside the museum.


4th of July came around so fast. I can't believe we have been here for nine days already. We were going to watch the fireworks on TV, but around 9 pm we started hearing the loud booms of firework outside. They sell them here on about every street corner. So we sat outside for about 30 minutes and watched the fireworks from the various neighborhoods all around us. It was amazing. You sure can't tell around here that there is a recession going on. They kept blowing up fireworks until almost midnight, but we decided not to stay outside the whole time.