A Year of Change

Right now it’s really sunny outside but they say around 3 this afternoon, the white stuff is coming back. Should snow until early tomorrow morning before it justs turns cold until Tuesday am. Then the warm up will start reaching the mid 50’s by Wednesday. It doesn’t look like a big storm, just a few inches here or there. Oh well, life in the mountains.

I guess the Oscars are tonight and the movement of the day is Time Up. This is I think related to gun control. Guess they got tired of the Me Too movement as it turned out to be mostly about them, meaning the celebrities. I don’t know how people don’t understand that the recent shooting was a result of failure on dozens of levels that have nothing to do with guns! The police were called and warned no less than 47 times on the guy, the FBI was warned multiple times, he posted on social media what he was going to do and on and on. Yet here we have our poor misguided celebs trying to shift the focus off of their decades long entitled lewd behavior to guns. And of course, the general public is just stupid enough to go along with it. Look I don’t mind universal background checks or raising the age limit to buy a gun but banning guns is against the 2nd Amendment and won’t do anything except take them away from law abiding citizens. If you think I’m wrong, just look at history. It’s easy to lose some rights but almost impossible to get them back. Be careful what you wish for! One thing’s for sure, all this is causing a huge spike in gun sales as the same people that want to ban them are buying one before they can’t, ha.

Oh by the way, last night we heard about four gunshots outside. Apparently there was a mountain lion menacing some neighbors and pets. Lucky the resident had a gun!

We don’t watch awards shows anymore anyhow. It’s just so hypocritical that these celebs pretend to be one of us while sitting in their multi million dollar mansions with their private security who, you guessed it, have guns! Oh well back to our life.

Both boys are still sleeping. Ty was on the mountain all day long while Jag slept for a good 4 hours yesterday afternoon. He must have needed the sleep. I think Lori and I are headed down to the storage units today to reorganize them a bit so we can cram some more stuff in to it. We have lots to throw out but the dump isn’t open today. Ty with Lori’s help, cleaned his room yesterday including his closet. We need to get a handle on this mess so we can get the rest of the stuff out of my Moms house. Not sure when we can put the house on the market but we need to get our stuff out by the end of the month, weather permitting.

April will be here before you know it, then Memorial Day and then summer. Time to get moving, have a great day, GB.

It’s Saturday and it’s sunny! Not sure what’s going on today. I know Jag has a ton of homework and Ty is headed to the mountain. Last night Jag had his first workout with his new trainer. He’ll be going twice a week right now and the plan is to get him much stronger in his upper body and add about 30 pounds of muscle before the Fall. Workouts are an hour and totally different as they focus on total body strength paying special attention to the glutes which are the largest muscle group in your body. Balance and flexibility are also key factors to overall performance. It’ll be good for him but boy was he hangry (hungry and angry) when he was done at 7:30 pm. Food is so important to both kids when it comes to their moods!

The day went fast which happens when you have too much work. A buddy of mine from Texas posted the other day that it’s “Buy your husband a gun month”, whoo hoo! I didn’t know but told Lori right away as I can always use another hunting rifle! Ha.

Most of the laundry is done from our trip and Lori and I are planning on getting it all wrapped up today. The problem is we have more clothes than closet space. We eventually are going to need to move. We’ve been in 1564 square feet now for 2 1/2 years with 2 teenagers and a 100 pound dog which isn’t working. Ever seen that tv show Tiny House? Well that’s us. The problem is up here there’s nothing under $1 Million dollars and then that’s a shack. When you add in $50K a year we spend for school, it’s hard to have any money leftover for a house. Oh well the most important thing is to get the boys the best education possible. We also have basketball and summer camp for both boys. The life of being a parent! Maybe we can turn the blog into a tv show. Let us know if any of you want your name changed.

Time to get moving so I can get Ty to the mountain to meet all his friends. Mojo also wants breakfast. Jag can sleep through anything and Lori is still in bed. Have a nice weekend, be safe and God Bless.

Thank God it’s Friday as we all need a vacation from our vacation! Last night Lori and I went with Jag to his basketball banquet where he received a Varsity Letter for his play this season. Next years team looks pretty darn good.

Today Jag has Ski Friday which is the one day a year where the entire school goes skiing. Jag’s not really looking forward to it as he and the other upperclassmen each take a younger student, (usually 1st, 2nd or 3rd grader) for the day. Ty has a bunch of work to catch up on as does Jag. Both boys will use the weekend to do so although Jag’s supposed to play baseball tomorrow down in Eagle. We think he’s also playing volleyball so he’ll be a busy guy as 3 on 3 basketball starts March 23rd also.

Lori is swamped at work as am I. That’s what happens when you go on vacation. It’s nice up here but a little cold blast is supposed to arrive Sunday. Next week Lori is going to see her Mom, she is really excited to spend some time with her.

Lots to do so time to run, hope all’s well. I’ve been staying away from politics but things these days are like runaway train. Hard to believe we’ve succumbed to letting emotions govern us. And oh wait, there’s a sequel to the successful animated kids Disney movie Frozen coming out and the lead character Elsa now has a lesbian girlfriend. Now that’s a good idea, good God. At least the poll on the news has 75% thinking this is wrong. Have a good weekend. God Bless.

It’s sunny outside right now with the sky a bright blue. We need to all leave in about 50 minutes so the boys need to get moving. Our flights were ok but we’re all tired. We managed to get most of our stuff unpacked and in the washing machine. We cleaned up pretty well before we left so at least it wasn’t a huge mess when we arrived home.

Today we have lots going on. Jag has his basketball end of season dinner at 6 and both boys have lots of school work to catch up on. I won’t even go into Lori’s and my work, ugh.

Mojo is getting groomed today and then we’ll get him late this afternoon. I gained about 6 pounds on vacation so today I’m back on the 8/16 which is no food for 16 hours of the day. Not sure I’ll even eat today. Lori says she gained a few but you can never see it on her. Good news is we’re really tan and everything looks better tan! Ha!

I told Lori this morning that flying back from Hawaii is worse than coming from Europe. It’s the overnight thing where you get zero sleep. We’re definitely all jet lagged. It was a great trip but it’s good to be home. Spring is coming and it looks like it’ll be in the 50’s for a week or so. Hopefully the big snows are done for the year. To put things in perspective, it’s summer and the boys are out of school in 90 days! Then soon it’ll be July and August, and before you know it, Fall and then, wait for it, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas!

So there you have it, hope everyone is well, Lori’s off to see her Mom in a week or so and then I’m in Las Vegas for a night, and then Houston for a night and then I’m supposed to be in Italy but am trying to change my reservation to go later in April. It’s a busy month. Have a great day and God Bless, thank God it’s Thursday as it feels like a Monday! Told you we were jet lagged.

We’re somewhere over Nevada or maybe Utah with about an hour to go before we land in Denver. Man is there a lot of snow 35,000 feet below us. It’s as if there’s a big white blanket covering everything. Our flight from Maui to LA was quick although it’s hard to sleep on planes. This plane though is a bit larger and the seats recline more. Too bad we didn’t have this on the first leg of our journey home.

We should touch down around 9 am and then we’ll drive up the hill. Lori is bundled up as the plane is freezing. The boys are doing well and have been real troopers. We have a lot to do when we get home to get ready for school and work tomorrow. I just told Lori that normally whenever we’d go to Hawaii I’d bring my Mom some chocolate covered macadamia nuts. She really liked them. Every now and then something like that pops into my head with no warning making me think of her. We all still miss her a bunch and I’m sure always will. Take care, GB.

Today, or should I say tonight, we depart Hawaii for Colorado. Our flight leaves a bit after 9 pm and we arrive in Denver a bit before 9 am Colorado time. We first fly to Los Angeles and then take a flight to Denver. Thankfully we’re all flying First Class as that makes things a bit easier on these overnight flights.

Sorry I forgot the post yesterday. Tom reminded me about 4 or 5 in the afternoon so I threw up a quick paragraph to keep the streak alive. It looks nice out today and we’ll be out of our villa by 11. We’re headed down to Kehei to Dr. Corenman’s rental condo where we’ll drop our bags and hang out until later in the afternoon before heading to the airport. Knock on wood that our flight’s on time!

We’re leaving it up to Tom to make sure we have great weather when we get home as it’s been one cold week from what he says. I guess if we were going to pick a week to be gone, it was a good one. After we land we’ll head up the hill stopping at the grocery store on the way. We had another great meal last night at Monkey Pod which is one of our top accounts. We took a picture of the desserts and sent them to our trainer back home saying “help”!

Lori is doing laundry now which is a daily occurance here or at home. Man can we go through the clothes. There’s a good breeze this morning and there’s really nothing like Hawaii that we travel to. We were talking about hitting someplace different like the Carribean next time but they’re still recovering from the hurricanes last year. We’ll probably be back here in June for the Kapalua Wine Festival. We know the island well and have some friends here so it’s a good place to come. Time to get some bacon and eggs going and get out the suitcases. If there’s no post in the morning, check back at noon as I’ll do it when I get home. Take care, God Bless and Aloha!

Tom, my brother, just texted I forgot the blog! I had a 5:30 am Hawaii time conference call and then the day got away from me. Sorry, all good here, leaving tomorrow (Tuesday) night and home Wednesday morning. Hope all’s well, God Bless.

In the morning, the sun was out, and we took full advantage of it. In fact, we took a in a little too much of it as I’m a bit red this morning. Lori was already red from the day before and the boys, of course, are just perfect. Later in the day, after the boys went paddle boarding in the ocean, we headed back to the music store to pick up Ty’s guitar. Turns out Jag too wants to learn so here we go, we’re getting the band back together! (that’s an old saying) Both boys agreed to give up computer games for guitar lessons which is a trade we’ll gladly make any day. So get ready for the boys to become rock stars. We told them we’re ready to retire so start writing songs.

By the time we made it back we had an hour or so to get ready to go to Pulehu, a top Italian restaurant that pours about 5 of our wines. We took over a bunch more bottles to leave with them, met the owner and then decided to eat. The food was great and I had risotto crusted fresh pesce (Italian for fish). The owner bought our drinks and apps and we tipped the bartender generously as he sells lots of our wine. By 8 we were done and back in our home away from home. It’s funny as we wind down early here but are up before 6 every morning.

Today I’m not sure what we’re doing, probably just enjoying the warmth before heading back to the cold in about 60 hours. I can’t believe the snow Tommy keeps emailing about. It was a good time to come to Hawaii. Have a great day, GB.

Yesterday Ty and I took off around 9:30 to head to Kahului for my meeting with my distributor and then to hook up with my buddy Jeff at Bounty Music. I’ve known Jeffrey for about 40 years and he’s one of the best guitar players anywhere. On the way we picked up an old Martin acoustic from Dr. Corenman that needs the neck reset. Jeff is also one of the best guitar techs around.

We made it to the distributor around 11 and my meeting lasted a bit over an hour. It was a really good meeting as I accomplished everything I wanted. Then we headed to the music store to see Jeff. We dropped Dr. C’s guitar and a box of wine for Mick Fleetwood. Then it was time to get serious for Mr. Ty. You see he’s been playing guitar in music class (and has an A) and wanted an electric guitar instead of continuing to play my acoustic. Jeff is about the only guy I know anywhere that I trust to pick out the right guitar. So Ty played around for a while with Jeff’s help and ended up getting a Fender Strat that Jeff said is a great one. We also snatched the coolest little amplifier that we can carry back on the plane. Jeff said Steven Tyler freaked over it and bought a couple and that he just used it recording an album the day before in the studio. It was also only $300 after a big discount. We left the guitar as Jeff was restringing it and setting it up for Ty. We’ll grab it this afternoon.

By the time we made it back to the villa it was about 2. We grabbed Lori and Jag and headed to the grocery store. Then we were back by 3 and the boys went swimming until 5 when we headed out to our favorite restaurant, Star Noodle. We were so hungry we ate in about 45 minutes.

Today we’ll try to catch some sun in between the clouds. Lori is a little (or a lot) burned though from sitting out yesterday. We might head down the island a bit too, we’ll see. That’s it for today, take care and GB.

Yesterday afternoon we jumped in our car to head down to Dr. C’s house. About 5 minutes down the road, the traffic stopped. An hour and 15 minutes later we had traveled about 2 miles maximum. Finally we turned around and headed back into Lahaina. We called Dr. C and told him we just couldn’t get there. We think there must have been an accident or road closure as this was unusually bad, even for Lahaina. We know they were disappointed we couldn’t make it but we had to drop some wine at Frieda’s at 7:30 where we were having dinner. We’re not sure if we’ll be able to connect with them or not in the next 4 or 5 days.

It was cloudy but still 80 degrees which is a lot better than back home as Tom is keeping us updated on the weather. I guess it’s all cold and snow. Today I have a meeting with our distributor and then will stop by my to see my life long buddy Jeffrey to drop some wine that he’s giving to Mick Fleetwood for me. He plays with Mick and is going to get some of our wines in Fleetwoods, which is a popular restaurant.

Lori and I are sitting on our balcony right now having some coffee. It looks like the sun is trying to peek through the clouds over the mountains which is a good sign. Guess I’ll run and get another coffee. Hope everyone is well, take care and GB.