A Year of Change

Robi commented on yesterday’s post and is was pretty profound so I thought I’d share it. Here it is,

There is a commercial on t.v. – It say’s, in 20 years you won’t regret the things you did, you will regret the things you didn’t do!

Now this makes sense! Sure, we all have a few regrets of stupid things we did when we were kids but I’m sure we all have things we always wanted to do, or even dreamed of doing in our life, that we just didn’t get around to. Well, I’m here to tell you, it’s never too late. There are no rules that says you can’t learn a new language at 80 years old, or take up an instrument, or travel some place you always wanted to go. Of course there are limitations such as health and financial, but outside of that, you can and should do whatever you want! What have you got to lose, except a fun new challenge or experience, no matter what your dream. Think about it, what have you always wanted to do and whay haven’t you done it? Stop making excuses and get off your butt and just do it! Thanks for commenting Robi.

Yesterday morning I-70 (the highway) was closed due to a semi rolling over, so I cancelled my Denver trip. Lori did go down around noon for her doctor appointment and was home by 5:30. Jag’s two baseball games today have been cancelled due to the impending snowstorm. Tomorrow and Saturday it’s supposed to even hit Denver. I do need to go down today but will probably wait until next week. Ty does have a sleepover birthday party at Ben’s tomorrow night so I’m supposed to take him down after school and pick him up Saturday.

It’s now 6am and Lori wanted to go to the gym but she just reached over and turned off the alarm! It’s harder and harder to get up in the morning as we just don’t get enough sleep, ever. Guess I’ll go and get us both some coffee and see if I can get her moving. Tonight is the NFL Draft, whoo hoo. God Bless and Go Bronco’s!

April’s almost gone, another month in the books with May just around the corner. We’re waiting for summer but before you know it, it’ll be here and gone too. Time and life goes fast, don’t waste it! Our goal is to enjoy each and every day. We’re trying to travel a lot, do new things, and spend time together as a family. Even though that’s what we’d like to do, it seems one or more of us always has something going on. Throw in you, brothers, sisters and mothers, and the days are even more occupied. Spontaneity is key otherwise you’ll just  sit around and miss out on a lot. So, get ready for some summer adventures. We’d share our plans with you but we don’t even know what they’ll be yet. All we know is we are going to get out there, somewhere, somehow.

Yesterday I was down and up from the big city in time to pick the boys up from school. Same goes for today, no matter the weather. I’d like to postpone my trip until tomorrow but I have something going on then and Jag has two baseball games, which will probably be cancelled due to rain or snow.

I ended up with a new pair of boots yesterday as the girls at the western shop I’ve been going to for years, took back a pair that had been causing me pain in my left foot. The one girl who likes me, (they all like me!) said she’d just send them back as defective. They have two stores but one is way out east past the airport which I never get to. Anyhow she picked out 5 pair of boots from that store where she works half the week, and brought them over to the store I go to, for me to see what I liked. I ended up with a cool new pair of handmade elephant boots for no charge! I give the girls wine now and then and have been shopping there for years. They pretty much treat me like family which is nice.

Speaking of returning things, the guys at the meat department from Whole Foods where I shop, replaced my bad lamb shanks with 2 huge tenderloins, even though I didn’t have a receipt. I told them that the lamb didn’t cost that much but they said they wanted to take care of me for my trouble. So not a bad day, new boots and a couple of steaks!

Lori is off to Denver around noon and hopefully back up by 5pm. Jag has baseball practice, and Ty I’m sure has homework. The NFL Draft is tomorrow but it starts at 6pm. With the Bronco’s picking at number 20, that means it’ll be 10pm or so before they’re up. I wish they’d start a couple hours earlier. Oh well, it’s football, maybe I’ll cook up a couple of steaks on the grill while wearing my new boots! God Bless.

Yesterday afternoon my back went out, sort of. I could feel it getting sore and of course it was all due to overworking it at the gym. Around 1 in the afternoon, I threw on some cowboy boots and headed to the grocery store. Once I arrived and began to get out of the truck, I knew it was going. I managed to get some groceries, make it home and put them away. As soon as I arrived, I took off my boots and put on some tennis shoes which made me feel much better. Anyhow it’s still a little sore but hopefully I’ve turned the corner although I do have a long drive down by Denver today, ugh.

Everything outside is covered in a blanket of white. The deck is clear but all the trees and mountains look like they’ve been sprayed with frost like what they do to those white Christmas trees. It’s supposed to be an on and off mixture of rain and snow for the remainder of the week. Life in the mountains, bring it on.

Lori saved the World as usual yesterday. She’ll be in Denver tomorrow afternoon for a doctor’s appointment and today is clinic. Ty had a new sword arrive from Amazon yesterday. On Easter I won a $25 card and he talked his brother out of it somehow and ordered this up. It’s pretty cool and pretty sharp. Boys and their toys, now both boys have swords. I don’t mind as long as safety comes first.

Mojo is doing well. I made Osso Bucco (lamb shanks) yesterday and it turns out the meat was bad. I didn’t smell it but Lori did as soon as she walked in. It really pisses me off when you buy some meat or groceries only to get home and have it be bad, especially after I spend 4 hours cooking it! Anyhow I threw it out for the animals, foxes, bears or mountain lions or something else, not wanting it to go to waste. I’ll stop by the store today and get a refund, don’t worry! It’s 6:10 so I guess I’ll get moving. Everyone is still sleeping and Mojo has had his breakfast. No politics today but boy am I tempted. We have a Country to run and yet some people of power persist in doing nothing except trying to block the President in his every move. They should be thrown out of office, good God, GB.

It’s 6:46 and we’re late! Lori has lots going on after being gone for a week and the boys do too with only 4 or 5 weeks of school left. Now me, I have like 5 days left to get in about $500,000 worth of orders. Looks like we all are busy. By the way, the kids last day is May 26th, the day after I get back from Europe.

Rain and snow is the forecast all week. Ty has a dentist appointment Thursday afternoon right in the middle of Jag’s two baseball games. Jag has practice all week except Thursday when he has two games. Ty has a sleepover birthday party at Ben’s this Friday and Saturday and I’m in Denver probably two days this week. Plus the NFL Draft is Thursday, da da da da! Throw in a doctor appointment for Lori in Denver either today or tomorrow and you see there’s no time to mess around around here.

Yesterday we went to the shooting range for some fun as it was so sunny. It’s always good to get to the range. Jag is a good shot and so is Ty, but Ty didn’t shoot yesterday, just Jag and I. Lori and I are both sore from the gym which we planned on going to this morning but we overslept! Time to get moving. It’s the last week of April so enjoy. April showers bring May flowers! May God Bless and watch over you all.

Tomorrow is Monday, ugh, that means back to work and back to school. The boys have something like 24 or 25 days of school left before summer! That’s a little less than 5 weeks! In that time I’ll log about 15,000 miles in the air, visit 2 States and 3 Countries and hopefully sign a few new brands, one from Austria, the other from Argentina. Of course that’ll then mean a trip to South America.

Today down below it’s going to be in the upper 70’s, so we’re hoping for the lower 70’s up here. Yesterday we hung out and recouped and the boys all then went to a movie at 4pm. Lori and I met them at 6:45 and we all went to dinner. Today we’re going to the shooting range to fire off some rounds. Jag wants to shoot one of our rifles but I sold it and need to get another one. He was shocked asking why I sold it and Lori just replied, cause we needed the money. I have a few guns I’ll never sell but the rest of them are like currency or cash. That’s the great thing about firearms and those of you that know me know it’s a hobby of mine to buy and sell guns. I’m pretty knowledgable (basically an expert if I do say so myself, ha) and tend to do pretty well and usually make money at it, plus like I said, it’s a hobby I enjoy. In the end though, I do need to get another black rifle. The upside is that buying and selling all the time keeps me in the latest, greatest models most of the time. What I really enjoy though is the older, usually used, collectable firearms. Those are the ones that are hard to find and in most demand. So much about my hobby, I got sucked in there for a minute, ha.

Lori and I are headed to the gym once again. She’s really sore from working out while in California. Lori mixed up a day at work and had to reschedule about 20 patients yesterday. She of course managed to get it all done but continually beats herself up over it. Not to stereotype here but it seems like women carry things much longer than men. Just let it go already, it’s over! Ok, girls, let me have it, ha.

Both kids had a snotty side to them yesterday morning when we came home from the gym. Jag came up mouthing off and then later in the day, Ty used his exact words to throw a couple zingers our way too! We’re chalking it up to them being tired or just being teenagers, which means mouthing off just comes with the territory. You don’t want to know the crap that comes out of their mouths though, thankfully they’re polite and well mannered when in public but sometimes it’s like Jekyll and Hyde around here, that’s the reality of life.

Guess I’ll run and get moving so we can get to the gym. Happy Sunday, only about a week until May, ugh. Take care and God Bless.

After leaving Vail early in the morning in the middle of a snow storm, I arrived in Denver by about noon. I had to wait for the alarm company to come and hook our system back up after our previous provider improperly shut us down due to our expired credit card. Many of you know this story but if you don’t, I’ll be brief. When in California, I received a call from a collection company which made no sense. Turns out, our old company disconnected us as our card on file expired and they sent a letter and called our old address and phone number in Lakewood, which they knew was invalid as that’s where we switched service from! So we were dinged for 3 months of monitoring and early termination of our contract due to their incompetence. Of course this cost us $500 but worse, we had no alarm while in California. I was not happy and thankfully a guy at ADT, managed to figure out how to service us through their system. They were really nice and apologetic as the old company was a third party ADT monitoring company for places out of their service area. The kid that drove up from Aurora was great and called a friend in the monitoring system to get us working again. He and the person I talked to from California used Vail’s zip code so the main system would accept our address and they could service us directly. If we would have out in our so called “right” zip code, it wouldn’t have worked. So in the end, our alarm works, we’re with ADT (who we’ve been with for over 30 years!) and all is good. The only bummer is we’re out $500!

I ran a bunch of errands once I arrived in Denver yesterday and finished up around 4 when I went to see my Mom for an hour. I picked up 3 sport coats and 5 pair of pants that were altered due to me losing weight. The store didn’t charge me a dime which was a nice surprise. Then I had one more stop before getting Lori around 7:30 at the airport. We made it home by 9:30 thinking we would hit snow but once we were out of Idaho Springs, the sky was clear and the roads were dry.

Lori is dealing with a scheduling issue as she thought Dr C was coming back a day earlier than he is. She beats herself up so bad over any mistake but again, if you won’t remember it in 6 months, it’s not that big of a deal! Both boys are sleeping and we’ll be going to the gym soon. Outside the sky is blue without a cloud in sight. In Denver, on the news, it’s still cloudy.

Lori had a good two days with her Mom. I guess Grandma Dixie can travel which is good news as she loves it so much. Thankfully it’s Saturday and we have two days to recoup before the week starts again. It’s now 7am so time to go, have a great day and God Bless.

Looks like I’m back into my routine. I woke up this morning around 5am which is pretty much the norm for me. Today will be a long day as after the alarm company gets here, I’m off to Denver to run some errands and then get Lori this evening. It’ll be a bit cloudy and rainy in Denver today with some snow on the passes in the mountains. It’s Springtime in the Rockies so you never know what you’ll get. They say 4 to 8 inches up high but I hope they’re wrong this time so I can get down and up without any issues. I’d better pack a bag in case we get stuck in the city.

Lori and her Mom ran errands yesterday and we hope had a good visit without us boys. I know we’re the life of the party so it was probably pretty boring without us, ha. Thankfully today is Friday so we have the weekend to recuperate a bit. Mojo is glad to be home. He came running out, with his leash in his mouth, to me yesterday and went straight for the back of the car. They say he has a good time at the groomers where he stays and they all play with him a bunch, plus he has some doggie friends there too.

I managed to clean the kitchen about halfway and have about 4 loads of laundry folded on the dinning room table. We have to get Jag a dresser for the basement. Maybe we’ll look at the consignment stores this weekend. It’s now 5:38 and I think I’ll start cleaning up our room a bit.

Lots of crap going on out there in the World, don’t get complacent. There’s still just as much crime and instability in our financial system as well as in the World itself. In fact, the powers that be, or those that advocate a one World government, are even more determined to push their agenda to benefit themselves. The new administration scares them as it should as it’s shaking things up, all for the better. No matter who you voted for, you can’t argue with the fact that we are beginning to be taken seriously, and once again respected by the bad actors in the World. Our President has made it clear he’s not going to idly stand by and allow us to be overrun with criminals or be taken advantage of by unfair policies put in by the previous administration that pushed us towards a one World government. Funny how things are working out for the best. Time to run, God Bless.

It’s 5:15 again this morning, however today I’m home which is really 4:15am in California. Yesterday the boys and I made it to SFO Airport by 9:15 and were in the terminal by 10. We managed to catch an earlier flight due to my status putting us at the front of the standby list and at 10:30, boarded a new 787 Dreamliner. This plane is the only plane that is all carbon fiber while all others are made of aluminum. It is remarkable, like something out of the future. The air circulation system alone is so clean you feel like you’re breathing fresh air from the top of a mountain, plus it’s so quiet you hardly know you’re on a plane. It was really cool to fly on it. We landed around 2:30 and were home 3 hours later due to Denver traffic and a stop for groceries.

Tomorrow Lori gets in about 7:30pm. I’ll run some errands in Denver prior to picking her up. We have a lot of cleaning to do around here in the next day or so. But first, I need to get back to the gym. It’s hard to travel and not gain a few pounds. I think I am skipping my Miami trip next week which would be welcome news. I have enough flights coming up in the next 6 weeks. We need to pick up Mojo today who I’m sure will be glad to come home. I’ll probably get him around noon or so. Guess I’ll run so I can get to the gym, time to get back on that horse! Hope Lori and Dixie have a nice two days together.  God Bless.

We’re up early as the boys and I are off to the airport in San Fran in about 90 minutes. We’ll land in Denver around a little after 4. Then we have the drive up to the mountains.

Yesterday we were here and there with the day wrapping up at a nice restaurant in Granite Bay in Folsom. We celebrated Grandma Dixie’s birthday, even though it was 10 days late. The food was great and they had Bocelli Prosecco on the list which was nice to see.

Lori is staying until Friday so it’ll be us boys hanging out for about 51 hours on our own. I think she’ss staying so we can get the house cleaned up before she gets home, ha. That’s it, time to get moving as I have a bit more packing to do before we get the boys up. Lori is making us coffee right now and Dix just came in to say goodbye. Have a great day and God Bless.

Yesterday a friend of mine arranged for us to go visit his Company that makes, well, we can’t really say what they make so let’s try this, dr_n_s for other countries military’s. It’s a highly classified place as they manufacture and sell to places like France, Sweden, Australia, Saudi Arabia and more. These high tech flying machines are all carbon fiber and cost between $1 Million and $3 Million dollars each and fly faster than the speed of sound. My friend was in Texas but he had his Vice President give us the royal tour. We had to provide our names before we arrived for a security check, lock up our cell phones upon arrival and wear badges with our names printed on them that were made up before we arrived. It was really interesting to see the place and understand this industry nobody even knows about. We saw dr_ne_ and mi_sl_s with logos of the countries they were going to along with jet and rocket engines. It’s so secret that they even make their own tools to build the things that they build. We were there for about 90 minutes and learned a lot. The boys had lots of really good questions as well and we’ll always remember it.

After lunch Harry came by as did Grandma Annette and Aunt Jean. They all visited with us until about 4 when we prepared to go to dinner. We headed over to Jeff and Debbies who are Lori’s cousins that are our age. Jeff is in insurance for big companies and has a bunch of toys. His main hobbies are old guitars, of which he has some really rare one worth tens of thousands of dollars that his dad bought 50 years ago, and sports cars. In his garage he had an old Jaguar XKE convertible, a Ferrari 328, a Porsche 914-6 GT which is a really rare car that used to race in the 24 Hours of LeMans, and a 2006 Ford GT which is about a half a million dollar car! He’s a really nice guy and he and I hit it off and Debbie is great too. Donnie and Amy, from Colfax where Harry lives, came down for dinner too. Donnie is Debbie’s brother so all 4 are technically our cousins. It was a really fun time at an Italian just restaurant like Dino’s in Denver but with really good food. These four are our favorite cousins of all we met.

Today I’m not sure what we’re doing but tomorrow morning early, the boys and I will head to San Francisco for our flight home. It’s like a rain forest here as they’ve had a ton of rain and everything is really green. Hope it’s warming up at home. That’s it, time for coffee, GB.