A Year of Change

With a bunch of snow, Jag gone and Ty at Sonny’s, Lori had to do everything. From taking the dogs out, to shoveling snow to waiting on me. To be fair, I had no idea it would snow like 2 feet when my surgery was scheduled. She says I timed that right!

I was sore yesterday but skipped the pain pills. I just don’t like the way they make you feel. Ty was on the mountain but knocked off early as there were just too many people. I helped Jag get ready and he left around noon for Denver. His flight leaves at 9 this morning so by tonight he should be on a boat in the Keys. Meanwhile Lori was working.

Today I’m not sure what’s going on. Ty spent the night at Sonny’s and needs to come home and pack for his trip as he’ll leave late tomorrow night or early Monday am. He did get a much needed haircut yesterday.

That’s it, no gym today or for the next 7 days or so, bummer. Be well, stay safe and God Bless.

It’d be interesting to see how many posts where I’ve used the word snow! I’m sure a bunch. Right now I-70 is closed from Vail to about Georgetown which is easily 60 or 70 miles of highway. Jag and his crew need to get down sometime today for their 9 am Saturday morning flight. Not sure when they’ll head out.

My surgery went well or so I’m told. I’m sore like I did a heavy workout but not really in that much pain which is surprising to everyone on my medical team. They gave me all kinds of pills from Celebrex to Oxy but I didn’t take any. We ran into our James (Metallica) when leaving the hospital around noon and we joked about how no way he or I could or would take oxy! Can’t believe they even still give it out. We’ll put ours in a safe and save for our medical supplies for emergencies. I laid on the couch most of the day but probably did too much. I need to lay low. Both boys are going to have to shovel this morning as no way I can do that. Lori, of course has been wonderful. She’s almost perfect, ha.

It’s a snow day for school which almost never happens so that tells you how much we have outside. It’s going to be probably the best powder day we’ve had this year and of course Ty will be hitting the mountain. He has to stay on the main runs as there could be avalanches even at the ski area. We have drifts outside halfway up Jag’s car. Ty and Lori are out there now trying to dig the cars out. I picked a good day to lay low, ha.

Here’s todays virus update,

Here we are, right where we thought we’d be.  It’s Thursday, February 6th. Trump’s market action associated with State of the Union and acquittal overpowered all risk.  After Trump’s press conference today, this ‘victory lap’ trend should begin to close.  Technically, today’s stock action marks a complete retracement back to prior market highs of Dow 29,348 from January 17th.  Apple is back near prior highs.  Even Alibaba is trading into the $220’s.  Trump was able to take a victory lap without any panic days in the market.  Again, right where we thought we’d be.  His political victory is assured by the market scoreboard. What comes next?  China has quarantined more than 60 million people.  Out of nowhere, President Xi voluntarily cut tariffs on U.S. products.  You think he did that because of 566 coronavirus deaths?  566 deaths is far fewer than the seasonal flu.  Yum brands, the owner of Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut just warned that coronavirus will be a significant headwind for 2020 earnings.  Yum operates 6,300 KFC’s and 2,200 Pizza Hut’s in China.  Kate Spade and Coach just closed a majority of its 366 stores in China.  Toyota is hunting for alternative auto part suppliers outside of China.  Adidas is closing 500 of its own stores and 11,500 outlets.  Apple closed all 42 stores.  It’s been two weeks since any AirPods have been manufactured.  Perhaps most importantly, Foxconn has stopped production of iPhones until February 10th and is likely to extend the shutdown into March. Tesla closed its 24 stores. Starbucks is closing stores.  You think the Chinese economy is being brought to its knees because of 566 deaths? Hmmmmm. Get ready and hold on!

Time to wrap it up. Hope you all are well, take care and God Bless.

Thought we were going to get hit hard last night but the snow isn’t here as of yet. That’s good as I go in in about an hour for my procedure and should be home by noon.

The boys have school today and tomorrow before two weeks off. I tried to get as much laundry done as possible and clean the kitchen before I need to lay low for a week or so.

Last night we lost the basketball game. We just couldn’t get shots to drop. Jag should be done unless we’re in the tournament in a few weeks. He’s pretty much over it anyhow. We were talking last night how for his entire high school career we haven’t had a real basketball coach. Too bad but it is what it is. Time to go so we can leave in an hour. Have a great day and God Bless.

Ty’s season is over while Jag has a game tonight. Jag has another this Saturday but he’ll be gone on his trip. They lost last night after being tied at the end of the first half. Hopefully they’ll win tonight. Poor coaching once again by our side.

Seems it was a great State of the Union speech last night. Nancy Pelosi in an unbelievable act of disrespect tore up the President’s speech right behind him as soon as it was over. Guess she’s not happy that they (the Dems) wasted 3 years chasing him and he now has the highest approval ratings of his Presidency and will be acquitted later today in their unfounded impeachment trial . Oh well, guess we shouldn’t expect any bipartisan support these days. So sad that they all care about hating each other rather than actually trying to help us, the people. I say kick them all out!

Snow tomorrow night and surgery in the morning. Lori is off to the gym in a few minutes. I need to check the oil in Jagger’s car and somehow get it changed. I think he also needs a few things before his trip Saturday morning.

Time to go, hope everyone is well, GB.

Tonight at 5:30 the boys have a game and we do have a little snow. Looks like Denver has a lot more though. It’s going to start clearing up mid-afternoon.

I worked out yesterday and probably shouldn’t have as I was a bit sore. Ty came home at 4 while Jag stayed for practice and arrived home at 7:30. Practice was delayed as the girls had a game. Yesterday at Lori’s work it was a sad day. Dr. Shiffrin, the dad of Mikaela the best alpine skier in the World, fell off his roof removing snow and died! Dr. Shiffrin was a doctor at the hospital. How sad. I guess he died on impact according to Lori. I won’t go into the details so we’ll leave it at that.

Looks like the Dems screwed it up in Iowa. They switched over to a new app (ha ha) that former Clinton staffers came up with. That didn’t work very well. Oh well, typical. Bernie was supposed to win but the Democratic National Committee doesn’t want him to be the nominee, just as they didn’t want him to 4 years ago. They even changed their rules to let Bloomberg in the debates after he wrote a huge check to them. Bet Kamala Harris and Cory Booker are pissed off as they kicked them out based on the rule they changed, ha.

Turns out the virus is growing and is now confirmed as a bio-engineered weapon created in a lab. This is known as the Chinese bought a gene from a commercial company called AddGene. If you’re interested I can share more (Tommy) but here’s a small exert to help clue you in.

The novel coronavirus has an identical protein coat as a PLA registered bioweapon: That Bat-SARS-Like coronavirus was issued Reference ID: AVP 70833.1 by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the U.S. Library of Medicine.

The ONLY way to modify a virus and insert genes without changing the protein coat, is bioengineering.  They actually found HOW and reported it today: A commerical product from AddGene, called pShuttle, which leaves a fingerprint (as an audit trail)  is the ONLY way to get this virus to affect humans and it was from the 2 AIDS gene insertions, specifically: spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag. So what they did was attach the AIDS virus, or a derivative there of, to the virus. They are using AIDS tests to confirm infection.

Good news for non Chinese is that we have 5x less of the endothelial cells which are what primarily gets infected.

In English this means they can track the modification of this to the lab where they created it and it will hit Asians harder that Caucasians. Also contrary to what the mainstream media is telling you, this in no way came from a fish market. Now there’s all kinds of theories as to why this was created from being a weapon to controlling (reducing) the World’s population and more. I’ll leave that all alone as “why” doesn’t matter as much as how and now what can we do about it. I could go on but you get the point. There are, according to medical professionals in Hong Kong (not the Chinese govt.), over 200,000 cases there alone! 3M is sold out of masks and allocating them as they produce them Worldwide. Lucky for us we have hundreds in storage including the N95 disposable masks to full face respirators. If anyone needs some N95 masks, let me know.

If you aren’t worried and think this will all easily pass and you trust the government and think this is all an overreaction, then sorry for wasting your time. Personally I always think it’s better to be prepared and not need something than need something and not be prepared.

Back to our World. We finalized the flooring and things are coming along well. The game is at 5:30 tonight at Vail Christian and tomorrow at VMS. Zoe is doing fine in Israel and they are all going to spend a night in Jerusalem. She and Ty are texting and/or talking almost daily.

Think I’ll hit Costco today to top off some reserves of consumables. This means toilet paper, toiletries, non-perishable food essentials, batteries, etc. Always a boy scout, ha, God Bless.

This week we have two basketball games, Jag leaves on Friday, I’m scheduled for surgery Thursday and we have a bunch of house stuff too. I need to be down at the house to review the floors at 10:30 this morning. Lori is back at work after getting up early, (we were both up at 4;30 am yesterday!) and we’re expecting snow.

The game was so so. Up until the 4th Quarter San Fran led but there were a bunch of bad or non calls as usual. We obviously weren’t happy with the outcome. On top of that the commercials were not very good this year and halftime was horrible. it was a pseudo strip club show with the girls lip synching. No one in our group liked it.

The cases of the virus are still growing but like I said, in two weeks we’ll know the real gravity of the situation. How are you all liking the endless stream of Bloomberg ads on tv? As they say, you ain’t seen nothing yet. 54 Billion is a lot of money so expect a bunch as this guy thinks he can buy the election. Who knows, maybe he can, hope not. The ad he ran yesterday in the game was so misleading as the mom who lost her son forgot to mention he was in a gang and took a gun to a gang fight to shoot other kids, hmmm. He was also 20 years old, not her sweet little “child” as she said in the ad. She also didn’t tell you she was flown by private jet to the Super Bowl and given tickets by Mike! Nothing new here though, just typical bending of the truth to fit the narrative. We have about 9 months of election ads which is going to be really painful.

Time to get the kids up and get going. Snow around noon they say. I have a phone interview this morning with a new hire too. That’s it, next thing to look forward to for football is the draft at the end of April. Be safe, wash your hands often and God Bless.

I’m headed out at 7:30 to get Lori in Denver. Then we’ll head up the hill. We’re going to Melanie and Marty’s for the Super Bowl around 3 or so. First I’m going to try to clean the garage. Snow is coming tomorrow and Tuesday they say.

Ty made it home around 7:30 last night. He lobbied all the way home via text to stay at his friends house. Our answer was no as he had to clean his room and do some schoolwork. Jag and Madi went to the school dance.

I’m also going to try to go to Costco to get a few things we need. That’s about it, remember to wash your hands often and keep some hand sanitizer in your car. Every time you touch a key pad in a store or at a gas station, use it. Just in case. More to come in a week or so if the virus keeps growing. For now just use common sense as you would if trying to avoid the flu.

That’s it, God Bless and go 49r’s!

February 1st, 2020, wow. Still sounds surreal. Hard to believe us kids, Tommy, Robin and I, were born in the 1950’s and 196o. Even harder to believe Jagger was born in 2001 and Ty in 2004! Time flies.

I was playing bachelor last night. Jag left around 6 or so and spent the night at Andrea’s as some of his friends were too drunk to move their cars at 2 am when he texted me. No problem as he’s a good kid and he did text. The point is I was hanging out with the dogs from 6 pm on and was kind of bored. Lori comes home tomorrow and Ty gets home tonight around 8. Jag is going to the school dance tonight but Ty is just coming home.

I’m working out at 8 this morning and then might run down to Denver to do some work on one of my rifles. I am watching the coronavirus closely. Things are not good and apparently this is a bioengineered weapon that was developed in Wuhan after the original product was stolen from a Canadian lab. The Chinese mutated it to make it more potent, nice. Don’t believe any of the propaganda from over there such as it was found in a fish market or the reported number of cases as they have a track record of not telling the World the truth. I follow a John Hopkins University daily report which is pretty credible if you cross check it with the World Health Organization data. Point is this thing is spreading fast and gaining traction right now. I’m scheduled to go to Italy at the end of the month which is plenty of lead time to see where this goes. We’ll all know by the middle of the month or so if this thing is out of control. The U.S. did bar all non-citizens or foreign nationals from China yesterday from entering the Country. This is a huge deal as we’ve never done this before. I’m glad they took this step but they need to stay vigilant. Spain and Sweden confirmed their first cases while you slept and Italy declared a national emergency while many countries around the World barred all travel from China too. Of course the Chinese govt. said we are all overreacting, ha. All U.S. airlines and most of those in the World have stopped service to China. It’s essentially been cut off from the World but the problem is already out there as there are hundreds of cases around the World. Now don’t panic but be aware. Some people I know are already in lockdown mode meaning they’re stocking up on last minute supplies and not venturing too far from home. Our family trigger point will be multiple cases of human to human transmission from cases that are not closely related. There are some disturbing facts such as this thing already has the same number of cases in one month as did SARS in 3 months! Once it looks like we achieved the tipping point, then it’s game on. Let’s just all pray this is not the pandemic those in the know have been warning about for years. I remember Bill Gates saying years ago that we need to prepare for a pandemic like we prepare for war. Of course we (meaning the government) didn’t take that seriously and didn’t prepare for it. So there you have it. If anyone wants suggestions or a list of supplies to have on hand, let me know as I’d be happy to send you an email.

Now back to the day. Tomorrow is the Super Bowl. We’re cheering for the 49r’s for Lori and her dad plus there are lots of ties to the Bronco’s. I do like the K.C. coach though and it should be a good game. It’s warming up the next few days but then more snow Monday afternoon and Tuesday.

That’s about it. It’s almost 7 am and I’m leaving in about an hour so I have time to start some laundry and clean up a bit. Hope you all are well. Take care and be safe and God Bless.

Today’s mom’s birthday. I think she was born in 1933 so that’d make her 87 today. Right Tommy, Robin? Anyhow we all miss her and think of her often. Hope she’s doing well and has a great day.

Lori is in Sacramento with Dixie. She comes home Sunday. Ty, I think is leaving on an overnight basketball trip today although I think he should stay home and get caught up on some school work, but it’s up to him. Jag is not going as he has some scholarship essays to get in by end of day tomorrow. Tomorrow is also the Winter Formal. Jag is taking Madi but Ty is skipping it with Zoe in Israel. They talk almost every day on What’s App which is thankfully free.

I worked out hard yesterday and know I have a hernia but it isn’t bothering me at all. I’m sort of second guessing the surgery but should probably just get it out of the way.

We’re going to have 3 or4 warm days before snow on Tuesday they say. I need to clean the garage, or at least part of it as the electric company is adding a light outside of our door. That’s going to take some work. Time to get moving as Ty isn’t moving at all. GB.

We’re getting there. Yesterday we finalized a bunch of things on the house. The plumbing fixtures, some closet configurations, and the big decision, the hardwood floors are now all locked in. Our floors are the same as Jennifer’s as after seeing what she chose and taking a sample to the house, they looked the best. They come from just north of Venice Italy so we had to make a decision yesterday to get them here in time. The guy (Brian) we’re getting them from is sort of a distributor for this line of flooring nationwide but does local work with them too. He hunts a lot so we hit it off. We feel comfortable as Jennifer just ordered hers and had her whole house installed and things went fine. So she was sort of our test run with this Company.

After that around 4:30 I had to pick Ty up and get his boots molded to his feet for his tele skis. It’s always something. He and I and Jag all made it home about the same time. It’s 5:25 now and we need to leave in about 45 minutes to get Lori to the airport.

We’re on a big lockdown as far as any spending goes. No dinners out, no new clothes, no nothing right now with the house being built. The downside to building a new house is things always come up and you have to make choices to stay in budget. Right now we’re within $1000 of budget and have about 75 days to go. They started putting the roof on yesterday and there were a bunch of guys there doing other stuff too. What gets you is the out of budget things. The big one here is the basement at about $45K but we have to get it finished. Then there’s the whole house water filtration system at $5K, the bbq and the linear fire pit out back and finally the hot tub. We might need to wait on the hot tub as it’s a luxury and at the bottom of the list. Good news is two homes (not new construction) just went under contract for $1.7 and $1.8 Million in Eagle Ranch! This is huge news as that right there means we should be above $1.5 easy when we’re done and we’ll be less than that for sure all in when we’re done. Finally prices are going up down there, good news.

Time to get moving as I hear the blow dryer going upstairs meaning I can get in the shower. Hope everyone is well, we’re all feeling better around here but the flu is still hanging around and is nasty everywhere. A guy who works at the hospital just lost his 60 year old dad to the flu! 8000 people have died so far in the U.S. with 15 Million having had it. You don’t think of the flu as a big threat but right now it’s more of one than the virus from China. Doesn’t mean the coronavirus isn’t scary, it is and we need to watch it closely as China never tells the truth about their numbers. Best prevention is to wash your hands, a lot, eat well, get good sleep and stay away from sick people. There you have it, your tip of the day! Now go make it a good day, God Bless.