A Year of Change

I made it to and from Houston with relatively few issues. A guy in front of me in 1st Class did put his seat back all the way for the whole trip down, but I guess I shouldn’t complain. I did hop on an earlier flight to get home that put me in Denver at 5:10, 2 hours ahead of schedule. By 7:30 I was home in Vail. Of course today, I’m right back down in Denver showing wines to a big account for our annual pre-sell.

Ty went to town yesterday to meet his friend Sonny and they then went to the movies before riding home with Mom and then having Sonny spend the night. Ty’s quite independent these days as he rode his bike to town by himself, no small feat as it’s 5 miles, and then left it at Mom’s office in the hospital to hang out in town with Sonny, who took the bus in on his own! The boys sure are growing up.

Houston was good. I landed and my driver picked me up (nice guy from Nigeria who is a republican and started his own business from scratch and now has 5 cars) and took me to the GrandDuca Hotel. This place is like the Plaza in New York or something, very very luxurious and as they say in Texas, big! Anyhow I had my meeting which went very well and then Samson (my driver) zipped me back to the airport. Due to my status, I managed to get on the earlier flight and even ended up in the Exit Row! There were 12 people on standby but I was number 4 and ended up on the plane which as I said, put me in 2 hours earlier.

It’s cool up here this morning. Lori woke up twice during the night to let Mojo out and when I came down, he had chewed up a sleeping bag while apparently laying on the couch, bad dog! Tonight the Broncos play although we have VIP tickets to the rodeo so not sure what we’re doing, probably the rodeo as it’s only preseason, plus Tommy can keep me updated. Time to run, hope all’s well, GB

It’s 5:30am and I’m at the Marriott by the airport getting ready for my 8:15 flight to Houston Texas for lunch. I land at 11:30 and then take off at 5:30 to come back to Denver. It’s a short expensive trip but should hopefully result in a new long term relationship.

Lori made it home around 5:30 last night and I left about an hour later for Denver. I made it back to Vail around 2 in the afternoon from my morning drive down with Ty who I picked up from Vinny’s. I went to the airport at 9am but even though they said my wine was ready for pickup, it was still in London. What a pain in the ass as it screwed up my whole morning. My meeting after that went well though so all was not lost. Time to run, thankfully I have First Class going down, and the exit row coming back, talk to you tomorrow. GB

I’m off to the airport at 7 as I have some wine being flown in on British Air I need to pick up before my 10am meeting in Highlands Ranch. Then I’ll pick up Ty at Vinny’s and head up the hill. Late tonight I’ll drive back down to the airport and stay at the Marriott for my 8am flight tomorrow to Houston. I have a lunch meeting from 12:30 until 2pm tomorrow and then will get back on a plane and be back in Denver by about 7pm. So lots of travel in the next 36 hours.

Ty wants to stay at Vinny’s until Friday but that’s just too long. Besides Mom picked up some VIP tickets to the rodeo for Thursday night. Plus school starts two weeks from today and it starts with each of the boys heading out on separate trips. Jag is on a 2 or 3 day stand up paddle board camping trip and Ty is on a 2 day camping trip somewhere near Breckenridge. They both need to get their you know what together as Mom and I are leaving it up to them to get themselves organized.

There’s a nice chill in the air in the mornings up here. It still gets into the 80’s during the day but you can tell something’s changing. I’m slammed until a week from Monday myself and then need to organize myself for hunting. I’d better get moving as I need to leave in about an hour. Have a good day, stay cool and drink lots of water! GB

In the morning we took Mojo for an hour hike up Battle Mountain and then cleaned around the house until we headed into town for the movies. The town was packed as the farmers market was still going on. People must drive from all over to come here as there were too many people for them to all be locals.

The movie was good but not as good as the previous ones in the series, they never are. We rushed home to make the 6pm kickoff of the football game but as we turned on the tv, some guy was saying something about it. I wasn’t paying any attention but then Lori said, “they cancelled the game”. We’re still not sure what happened but apparently it was some safety issue with paint on the field or something like that. Glad we were not sitting in the stands as we’d be pissed. The players even looked confused. Oh well, we promptly changed the channel and that was that.

I’m off to Denver by 8 and will hit the gym first. Ty wants to stay one more day at Vinny’s as he’s having fun and since I have a meeting in Highlands Ranch tomorrow at 10, we said ok. Lori is back at work as our week of work again begins. Time to run, GB.

Yesterday, again, I ran down to Denver to drop Ty at Vinny’s, pick up $143 worth of dry cleaning, stop into my gunsmith in Boulder and pick up a 45 Colt revolver that I had tuned, and then my Mom’s to get Jag’s computer. I was back home by 12:45 after a quick stop at the grocery store in Frisco.

Meanwhile Lori and Jagger were busy cleaning away. Both boy’s rooms are now spotless with clean sheets and the space under each bed, cleaned out! I don’t know if you know, but teenage boys tend to stuff just about any and everything under their beds! I guess this is pretty common. I managed to clean my closet and Lori also cleaned our bathroom which is a day long chore in itself!

Today we’re going on a hike and then to the movies at 3pm to see the new Jason Bourne movie. Our movie theater up here is pretty luxurious as the chairs are all big recliners, they serve food and drinks and you have to reserve your seats. The three of us will go as Ty is in Denver until I pick him up tomorrow after my 10am meeting at Applejack.

We’ve been trying to eat food in the freezer as I’ll be elk hunting in about 25 days and will hopefully need the room. We had some frozen green chile yesterday that was great. Lori took some fresh Olathe corn and mixed it in and it sure was good.

I have a busy two weeks as we’re in the middle of our annual pre-sell and I have to go to Houston this Wednesday for a lunch meeting. The airfare was $750! They sure hit the business travelers hard on fares. Meanwhile my Partners (2 of them) will be at a fishing lodge in Alaska with  bunch of our distributors (I was going to go but am too busy) and then they’ll go to South America in 2 weeks as we’re launching South American wines this fall. So we’re all super busy.

No snow yesterday but Fall is in the air. School starts two weeks from Tuesday and as I said, football officially today! I did watch Brett Farve give his speech at the the Hall of Fame induction ceremony last night. It was heavily centered on family and faith which just reinforces what a good, humble guy he is. I won’t go into it but suffice it to say, he’s the kind of guy you’d like as a friend or a neighbor, just a good man. Nowadays lots of players are all about themselves but he was always about the team.

Guess I’ll run, Mojo woke me at 3 as he threw up. I cleaned it up and opened the sliding door so he could go in and out on the deck. I managed to go back to sleep until about 6. Lots of bad stuff on the news in Denver. We can’t (well we really can) believe all the shootings and crimes. Things seem to be getting worse everywhere, everyday. I’ll abstain from politics today as it just gets my blood boiling but we have to have a change, and we don’t mean Hillary! Hope all’s well, it’ll be winter before you know it. Time to prepare, God Bless.

Now that would be something else, snow in August. Anyhow I just heard today’s title on the news, we’ll see. I’m off again this morning to the Big D as Ty has the birthday party at Vinny’s. I’m also in the middle of our annual pre-sell which explains all the trips up and down the hill.

We made it through the week and it was a tough one. We’re still a little jet lagged and hopefully, with a little luck, we can sleep in tomorrow for the first time since we arrived home. Jag has his sports physical at school this morning with all the other high school freshmen at 9am. So Lori will need to take him as I should be arriving in Boulder right around then.

Hopefully I’ll be back up by noon and then we can rest, or clean, for the remainder of the day. It is raining right now which is sort of nice as it’s been hot this summer here and in Italy. Guess I’ll run so I can get on the road, hope all is well, time to start thinking about getting ready for Fall and yes, Winter. Have a great weekend, GB

Well I was up so early (4am) getting ready for the day and my trip to Denver, that I totally forgot the blog. Tommy texted me and I still thought I had done it, sort of. You see, we’re still jet lagged!

Anyhow I was off by 6:45am for the big city. I was in Longmont by 9 and at my Mom’s (after a few stops) by just before noon. She had her friend Patrick from Kansas visiting so I didn’t stay long. I called Lori to do the blog, but here we are at 3 in the afternoon and she’s been too busy to get to it.

Tomorrow I’m back in Big D dropping Ty at Vinny’s for the sleepover birthday party. I also am running up to Boulder for a quick stop and then will hit my Mom’s as we didn’t visit and I need to pick up Jag’s computer which we left at her house when we went to Italy.

It was raining really hard, like movie rain (so hard it’s like from a movie) when I came out of the tunnel an hour ago. I love Fall so of course the weather is just fine for me. But fear not, we still have a lot of hot weather ahead, I’m sure. So, sorry for the late post, have a great weekend, football starts! GB

It’s 5am and Mojo and I will be on the road in 45 minutes. Jag woke up at 3 or so and is having some toast with some of Bocelli honey we lugged home on it right now. I too woke up at 2:30 but did manage to get back to sleep. I knew Jag was jet lagged as he was asleep by 9pm last night which is unusual.

I managed to get a lot done yesterday which was pretty easy as I had so much to do. Ty had Sonny spend the night and they were still up at 2am! So, it’s like a hotel around here with people up and down at all hours.

I need to be at the dry cleaner in Denver by 7am sharp as Mojo will be dropped off at 7:20, then to the car dealer at 7:30 and so on until about 2 this afternoon. My travels will take me from Highlands Ranch (way down south) to Boulder to Longmont, way up north, before picking Mojo up at the groomer and then heading up the hill around 2. I have it all mapped out and am on a strict schedule.

I’d better run, it’s cool up here and believe it or not, you can feel Fall in the air. Lori had a good day and is back in the saddle and was sorely missed as she too had a few messes to straighten out. I guess it’s good most people are not as bright as us or we wouldn’t have jobs! Ha ha, God Bless

Yesterday I must have done 10 loads of laundry. It just kept coming and coming. Finally around 6pm I was done. It’s all piled up on the back of the couch right now behind my head as I type. Today we’ll need to get it upstairs and into drawers and closets. I have the suitcases in the garage so Mojo doesn’t freak out as he knows what they are.

He’s glad to be home. When we picked him up we got him a new collar as his was a bit chewed up. He now has a pretty black one with white crosses so it looks like he’s from Switzerland! He was glad to go on a walk up the mountain but turned around before Jagger did as he was tired. Meanwhile I dropped Lori at work and then went straight to the grocery store. By 9am I was home with groceries. Next up was trips to the bank, to get Mojo, and then to the Eagle Airport to pick up our missing bag. That of course meant more laundry! Then it was back out to pick up some prescriptions and get two weeks worth of mail.

Today I might need to head down to Denver for a quick meeting. I know I have to go tomorrow and then on Saturday to drop off Ty at Vinny’s for his birthday sleepover party. We need to figure out our schedule for the rest of the week, but now, I need to get to the gym. Ty fell asleep at 5pm last night and is still sleeping. I did receive a call from the firefighters up at the ranch yesterday afternoon asking me if I wanted them to try to save the old barn down by the river, which of course I said yes. They’ll need to use a bulldozer and cut a circle around the barn to try to save it. The plan is they’re trying to herd the fire down to the river. Hope it works. We have lots of rain in the forecast so hopefully it’ll help. Time to run as Lori just came down, have a great day and God Bless.

After 25 hours of travel, we finally pulled into Vail at 9:55pm. Just about everything that could go wrong, went wrong. As I said yesterday, our outbound flight was a cluster and then when we arrived in Newark, we barely made our connecting flight. They gave our seats away as we were late, we sat on the tarmac and were delayed 2 more hours after running through the airport like in a tv commercial, and then they lost our big bag. By the time we drove to Vail, we were all really tired. In fact, I pulled over on top of Vail Pass and let Lori drive the last 20 minutes. Anyhow, it’s good to be home.

I woke up about 4:15 this morning and Ty was already up. He says he woke up 15 minutes before me which I understand as it’s noon in Italy. It’ll take us all a few days to readjust to the time change.

I’ve started the laundry and begun unpacking by cleaning out the 2 smaller bags and a few carry ons. It’s kind of good our big bag won’t be here until later today as I have plenty to do. I can’t even begin to think of all the things we need to do around here. I’ll have to make a list which for me, means it’ll be long as I usually do everything from memory. First up, Lori has to work, (clinic day, uggh), we have to get Mojo, buy groceries, go to the bank, pay some bills and then sit down and make the list of all the work things I need to do. Throw in all the laundry, a trip to Costco and a thorough house cleaning and we’re busy.

Apparently not much has changed here in the Country. Politics are still stupid, Hillary is still lying, Trump is still putting his foot in his mouth and black people are still shooting cops. We don’t miss any of that but do miss our little bit of heaven in the bubble that we call home here in Minturn.

The kids have to get ready for school as it starts 3 weeks from today. Ty has to start working on his part in the school theater program (Ferris Buller’s Day Off), as they take it quite seriously up here even though the performances are next May. Jag has been reading a few books he needs to get through before school and we haven’t even thought about school shopping. Oh yea, Ty needs a new computer for school, that’s $1000 we need to come up with!

So, overall it was a great trip with many memorable experiences for all of us but I think we’ll stick to the good ol U.S.A. for our next vacation. We loved the island of Elba and swimming off the boat. Lori kept saying how great it’d be to have a place when we retire to hang out in over there. She’s a beach girl at heart though so any water will make her happy. We are in Hawaii this December and that’ll be here before you know it. Time to get to work on my second cup of coffee and the house. Lori and Jagger are still sleeping and we’ll let Lori sleep until 6am or so. I’m sure we’ll talk to you all soon, take care, stay safe and God Bless.