A Year of Change

Yesterday we had the painters (our house cleaners brother in law) here most of the day painting the master bedroom and kitchen dining room ceilings and the entire mud room. Today they are back for the master bath ceiling, the hall above the stairs, the tv room ceiling and the two front doors. We might have them do all the cabinets in the tv room too but we’ll see. It sure is looking nice around here. We were saying how we should have done this years ago!

Meanwhile the house cleaners arrive at 10:30 to get going on the deep clean. The kids did a really good job on their rooms, much better than I would have thought. At 4:30 we made another trip to the storage unit before Lori made it home around 6. It’s getting pretty exciting as we are realizing just how fast things are happening and how soon we’ll be in a new situation. Hold on!

Now to the real excitement of the day yesterday. Not sure if you noticed but the NY Stock Exchange, United Airlines, the New York Times and other smaller locales like most of Seattle, all lost their internet access and/or power. Now as far as your concerned, this was all a big coincidence with everyone having outages at the same time, according to the govt. All I have to say is if you believe that, I have some beach front property to sell you in Kansas. Do you really believe a major airline, the stock exchange and a major newspaper with computer networks all in different places across the Country, all had simultaneous outages? Come on. In fact, if you want to see just how vulnerable we are to computer hacks, which can shut down life as we know it, click on the link below. This will show you a real time map of hacks going on around the World. Just click here, map.norsecorp.com.

Now with the stock exchange, I think the govt shut it down using a tech glitch as an excuse as all other markets around the World were in free fall (China lost 7 %!) and after a 200 point drop in an hour, they shut it down. Anyhow, now is the time to buy food people. Get it while you can.

Guess I’ll run but click on the link or cut and paste it, pretty interesting. Hope you all are well, God Bless.

Against my better judgement I booked a 3:30 flight out of New York. I always take the first flight out each morning when I travel, especially from New York, as the later in the day, the better chance of delays. Well sure enough, we took off an hour and 20 minutes after scheduled take off. We had to wait on the pilots whose plane from Chicago was late due to weather. On top of that, I was on one of the new Airbus 320’s that has seats that are horrible. They have zero padding. The airlines were thinking with thinner seats they could squeeze in an extra row or two, super.

Anyhow we managed to make up some time by flying at 520 miles per hour which put us in only 20 minutes late. By 7:30, I was home. Now the real work starts. Elvia comes to deep clean at 2 and we’re no where close to being ready for her. So in a few minutes, I’ll get busy.

Everyone is fine but Ty is still trying to kick his cold. Jag and Lori are doing well.

That’s it, time to run, hope all’s well, take care and God Bless.

My flight was ok for a cross country flight and we landed in Boston just before 2pm. I called home and Jagger just woke up 15 minutes earlier meaning 11:45am in Denver. About an hour later we made it to our meeting which lasted about 90 minutes and went great. It was good I made the trip. This morning I have another meeting here in New York at 11am and then will head to the airport.

My room is small but was a pretty good deal at $250. My breakfast just arrived which is two cups of coffee, 2 eggs and bacon at a cost of $43! I think they charged me $3 for cream for my coffee, wow. After my meeting yesterday we drove from Boston to New York arriving around 8pm. I quickly changed and then went downstairs to meet Lorenzo so we could make a 9pm dinner with my good friend Laura. She’s now running the exclusive Mandarin Hotel which has suites that go for $30,000 to $40,000 a night. Most clients are from the Middle East but she also gets Oprah from time to time and other wealthy (or stupid to me as anyone that’s spend that on a room for a night no matter how much money they have is stupid!) people like the owners of the Triple Crown race horse. Anyhow she was going to put me up there but I opted for my little room a block from my meeting. Maybe next time.

It was great to see her as she wanted to have dinner so I could meet her new boyfriend. She introduced me as her big brother and was so cute as I could tell she was looking for my approval all night. He’s a nice guy and I’m happy for her as she hasn’t dated anyone in years as she works too much. She looked good and misses Lori too. Finally a little after a great dinner at 11pm Lorenzo and I had to stop by a bar to meet Eric who is a friend and former business associate who now works for another company. We managed to get out of there in 10 minutes thankfully and I was in bed by midnight.

So that’s it for me from the Big Apple. It was nice being in the city last night as it was sort of deserted as most people are still not back from the long weekend. It was like a movie it was so quiet. Hopefully the traffic to the airport will be quiet too! Lori and the kids sound fine and I’ll be in Denver by 6 with no delays and home before 7. God Bless.

That’s how long I’ll be gone. Wheels up at 8am today and touchdown at 6pm tomorrow. 8 hours will be on a plane, 6 in a car, 8 sleeping and 2 at airports. That leaves 10 hours for 2 meetings and a dinner and getting around the city of New York. Hopefully there will be no delays due to weather.

Yesterday Lori painted most of the baseboards and all the white parts going up the stairs. She also washed all the walls, hope she’s not too sore today. Jag, Lori and I made it to church by 10 and then he stayed until 1 as he’s going to be a Team Leader for the upcoming Vacation Bible School for younger kids. Ty is going to go to the camp which is a day camp at the church from the 19th to the 23rd.

What else, the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team won the World Cup, Greece said no to the big bankers who are dumbfounded as they might single handily take down the Euro and Hillary put all the reporters covering her in a July 4th celebration in a rope corral but did answer one question from one great reporter who was hand picked to ask just one question which was, “what’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

That’s one way to keep reporters from asking her any questions. Just rope em up! I just can’t understand how these so called reporters would stand for this? Great journalism.

God help us, things do not look good for our Country, especially when Hillary who is a liar, cheat and criminal, that’s right, a criminal, can even run for President. I mean come on, scandal after scandal after scandal and some people still like her. Like I said, God help us.

That’s it, hope all’s well, have a great day and God Bless.

Sunday morning, the day after the big party, time to get ready for church. Yesterday was a rush around here leading up to the big party down at Tom and Ali’s around 3. The celebration was in full swing by 5 with the food, wine and tall tales flowing. It’s always fun to have all four of us kids together as it does lead to some old stories. Finally around 7 or so Shelly went home as did my Mom. The boys and I and Lori went home too and started to shoot off our fireworks. We soon ran out and had to head back to the fireworks stand for some bigger and better fountains. I made a fire in the fire pit and Robin and Robert and Tom and Ali and us then sat around the fire in the front yard. Finally we winded down about 10pm and everyone headed home.

Today we’re off to church at 10 and then we’ll get some more work in on the house. Lori painted a lot of the door jams yesterday while I deep cleaned the kitchen. Tomorrow I’m off to the east coast and then home Tuesday. Robin and Robert also head back to Arizona tomorrow mid morning.

Jagger had a great time at camp. We were thrilled to get him home and he had lots of great stories to tell. He’s also been asked to be a leader at the upcoming Vacation Bible School for younger kids at the church in a few weeks. We’re really proud of him. Ty is feeling a little better, we hope. We finally got him on an antibiotic but he’s still punkish. Hope he gets better today as he hasn’t been this sick in a long time. Too bad about his camp but he couldn’t have gone anyhow.

Time to run as I have lots to do. Hope you all had a good 4th, take care and God Bless.

Today used to be just another holiday, full of hot dogs, fireworks and apple pie. While it’s still full of those things, we need to also recognize that it’s a day to celebrate our independence or freedom. Sadly it seems more and more each day we lose some right that our parents and grandparents took for granted. I’ll leave it at that for the day as lots else to talk about, but don’t be an apathetic citizen that says or does nothing until it’s too late.

Now to the day, today around 1, Jagger gets back, whoo hoo! Then we’ll head up to Grandma’s for some fun with Aunt Robi and Robert. They arrived yesterday afternoon and we saw them for a bit last night. Ty, who was supposed to go to camp tomorrow, is still sick. Last night he couldn’t stop coughing and then threw up. We’re going to try to get him some antibiotics today as our friend Libby was out of town. In any case he’s not going to camp as it turns out we registered him at the Indian Hills Camp in California! Of course there’s no refunds so we have that going for us, and the camp here is $1700 which is out of our price range. We feel bad for him but nothing we can do about it. Vinny’s Mom sent us the link which we followed and didn’t notice was different from the Indian Hills that’s 30 minutes from us. Live and learn.

Now for a little history to put the day in perspective, read on….

Today, we celebrate the birth of our nation.

We honor the courageous patriots who cast off the chains of despotism, abolishing our bond to an unjust government.

And we remember our forefathers who fought and died for the principles of self-governance and self-determination.

As we continue their legacy, let us not forget the number 1 reason that pushed our Founders to take a stand for liberty.

The confiscation of the colonists’ guns…

On September 1, 1774, British soldiers seized hundreds of barrels of gunpowder from the homes of American patriots.

Thousands of American colonists’ homes were violated and rendered defenseless in the wake of the “Powder Alarm.”

But this encroachment sparked the flame of revolution.

Soon after, British troops began warrantless searches of colonists’ homes for arms and ammunition.

Firearms were unlawfully seized and thousands of American colonists laid plans for independence.

Finally, on October 17, 1774, the British ordered the complete disarmament of New England.

Our Founders knew firsthand that without arms, individuals are helpless against oppression.

So on July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress began drafting the document we know today as the Declaration of Independence.

With unanimous consent, the Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776. It boldly declared:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Founders later enshrined the framework necessary to defend these God-given rights from any who dared threaten them, when they drafted the Bill of Rights, including the right to keep and bear arms.

So with this war on guns, that our present day government is pushing, it’s a bit ironic that the whole movement to independence for our nation was due to the British doing the same thing our present day govt is trying to do, 239 years ago. There’s an old saying to study history as everything repeats itself. God Bless.

Here we go, the holiday weekend is here. I’ll lay off economics and all the other issues that we face and give you all a holiday too, but do be vigilant this weekend and stay safe.

I need to rush this morning as I need to get to the distributor and back by about 8:30. Then a quick trip to Boulder and back by 10 or so and then some work around here. Lori is shutting things down at work around 1pm, so with a little luck, she’ll be home by 1:30 or 2.

Jagger texted 20 photos yesterday of everything from baby owls to great pictures of the surrounding mountains. Looks like he’s having lots of fun. Ty still has a bad cough. I think the doctor messed up when she didn’t give him any medicine so now I’ve had to resort to texting one of our doctor friends to get him an antibiotic. If he doesn’t get better, we’re afraid they’ll send him home from camp as he just doesn’t sound good. He did go with Vinny and his Mom to a movie last night and was home by 10pm. He no longer sleeps with us which bums Lori out but I’m thrilled. He just decided a while ago that he was through, good for him. Now if I can only get Lori to stop trying to coax him back in!

Have a great holiday weekend. You know our actual Independence Day was July 2nd but Congress decided to make it July 4th when they set the holiday. Just an fyi in my ever ongoing quest to pass on some fun facts.

God Bless.

Don’t look now but signs of fall are peeking through this morning. It’s misty and cool with a slight breeze like an early fall day. I’m sure it won’t last but it’s a nice break.

Robi and Robert come tomorrow and Jagger comes home Saturday, then Ty leaves Sunday and I leave Monday, coming home Tuesday. Wine arrives by air on Wednesday (along with the house cleaners) and the photographer comes Thursday and then I’m sure people looking to buy a house on Friday. So there you have it.

Lots more work today for both of us but I guess tomorrow is supposed to be a holiday. Lori is closing the office around 1pm and then we’ll spend the rest of the day cleaning the house.

Lots of pressure around here these days but I’ll spare you all the details. Whatever you imagine, multiply by 5 and you’ll be close.

Now to the economy, check this out,

The “Smartest Money” Is Liquidating Stocks At A Record Pace: “Selling Everything That’s Not Bolted Down”

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/02/2015 – 06:23

Buyout firms conducted 97 stock offerings in the second quarter, more than in any other three-month period. “It’s clear that we are currently in an environment of frothy valuations,” said Lise Buyer, founder of IPO advisory firm Class V Group. Her disturbing punchline: “The insiders – those with the most knowledge – are finding this a very good time to take some money off the table.” In an echo of Leon Black, Frank Maturo, vice chairman of equity capital markets at UBS AG, said, “Private equity is selling everything that’s not bolted down.”

I hope you don’t think you’re smarter than the top fund managers in the Country. These guys make a living only if they are right more than they are wrong, and ALL of them are selling now! This means stocks, bonds and liquidation of any security that is basically not cash or precious metals. You’ve been warned, time is running out. If you’re still heavily vested in stocks, wake the fuck up! (we’ve all heard that word before, right?)

Guess I’ll run, have a great day, God Bless

Jag texted back and forth with us a bunch last night and is doing great. He’s been gone two days and won’t be home until Saturday after lunch. We all miss him a bunch. I had a bunch of work and so did Lori who made it home around 6:15. Dr. R. is up and down at work with her emotions with Lori leaving. On top of Lori, Brook ( a P.A.) is 9 months pregnant and will soon be off for a few months too which doesn’t help things.

Ty is still fighting a cold which he needs to kick by Sunday if he is going to camp. I need to run downtown today to pick up a sport coat that is being repaired. I am supposed to try to get to Boulder today but don’t think I’ll make it.

I did manage to get through my dresser drawers and closet yesterday but we have lots to do before pictures are taken next Thursday for our house. Then on Friday the 10th, our house will officially be for sale. I guess I should get the cleaners here next Wednesday.

Time to run, have a great day and God Bless.

Jagger made it to camp, finally. I guess the 5 hour drive took 7 as the church van overheated. Lori said, of course it did, as you always here about stories like this.

Lori has a sales meeting at 8am this morning so she needs to get moving. I think she needs to get breakfast or donuts or something also which means she needs to leave even earlier. I need to finish up some programs at work and clean up a couple of rooms so the realtor can take pictures of the house. I’m also supposed to pick up our bike rack and a pair of shoes and a sport coat across town. There goes another $1000!

Ty has a bad cold which we hope gets better before he’s supposed to go to camp this Sunday at 6pm. Lots going on, too much to explain. The only way to get it done is to just do it. So time to run, hope all’s well, take care and God Bless.