A Year of Change

A week from today James, Marty and I are headed for Idaho to go elk hunting! Whoo hoo! Hope the smoke dissipates a bit by then. In the meantime I have a bunch of work to do and need to get to the range at least once to make sure my scopes are zeroed in. I’ll take my 300 Win Mag and 280 Remington. By the way Robi, reloading is where we take our used brass (the leftover part from shooting a bullet) and reload it with a new primer, powder and bullet and then shoot it again. When you load your own you can tweak the amount of powder you use to get more powerful rounds meaning they travel at a faster speed and have higher energy when they hit something. Factory ammo is really good these days but as they say there’s nothing like rolling your own! It’s pretty involved though as you need to have a press, a scale, and a bunch of other tools. In the end though it’s much cheaper than buying factory ammo once you have all the stuff.

Lori made prime rib last night with her famous potato’s from Vincent’s cookbook. Tom and Robi will remember this restaurant in Scottsdale as Mom and Dad would take us there often.

Jag is doing well but they have moved a bunch of covid kids into the building next to his. I think they’re up to something like 800 cases. Tom keeps us up to date as he somehow has an inside source as to what’s going on at CU.

We’re getting lots of showings at the townhome. I think we’re close to getting an offer. Hope so. All the blue jays are outside for breakfast. They can go through 3 feeders full of seed in a day. That’s about $10 a day which is too much to spend so I’m spreading out their food.

The Nuggets lost but it’s only game one. Hopefully they’ll get one tomorrow night. Ty is fine and so is Jag. He thinks he’ll be home soon. Guess I should ask Tom, ha. God Bless.

Hard to believe, time is flying. A word of caution, don’t be lulled into covid sleep. Supplies of items like toilet paper and medicine and certain food items are beginning to dry up will be hard to find soon. Some things have been hard to locate for months. You probably don’t notice it but try finding a chest freezer. For those of us that support the 2nd Amendment, try finding ammo! Then the things you can find have most certainly gone up in price. So, get ready for some shortages on things you normally are able to pick up on a daily basis.

Now to the day. Lori went to Denver to see Libby while I took Ty to the doctor where he had a strep and covid test since he had a fever and stuffy nose for three days. Happy to report both were negative. Still he needs to stay home until he has no fever for 24 hours.

I worked around the house and today after my 10 am call will hit Costco for some supplies of things I mentioned above that will soon be in short supply or gone. Can’t have enough TP right? Marty and I are getting into reloading. It’ll be a fun thing to do this winter. James now wants to too. Jag is doing fine. There are about 500 cases of covid at CU right now. Thankfully he’s ok.

Lori is working from home today. It’s nice as she gets to do that 2 or 3 times a week. We’re cooking a prime rib tonight for the Nuggets game. Hope we win! Time to get moving, God Bless.

Smokey up here but I think it’s worse in Denver. Cool last night. Lori’s off to the dermatologist in Denver this morning and then headed back up. Ty will stay home again today. He’s had a fever for a couple days and is down to 98.9 this morning. He was 99.8 last night. He’ll stay home one more day and probably get tested today. Lori and I are fine.

Our bbq is almost done. We need the electrician to come out and hook up the power and are waiting on the hood. Next up is the firepit. We still have a number of little things to get done in the house. It’s frustrating that builders move so slow to finish things. We’ll hopefully have everything done by 2021, ha.

Jag and the rest of CU are in pseudo quarantine. He says nothing is different. The school sent out a list of things the kids can do like go to class, go shopping for food, exercise, etc. What they should have done is sent out a list of the one thing they can’t do, party.

Crime is up everywhere, duh. That’s what happens when you treat the police like crap and want to defund them. They quit. I would too. Watch your back. You’re basically on your own out there.

Be well, safe and stay healthy. God Bless us all.

Yesterday after a few stops in Denver I made it to Whole Foods in Boulder to work the aisles for food for Jagger. In the end I had about $300 worth of pretty healthy food to hold him over for another week or so. One of the biggest challenges of school with covid is getting him enough food to eat. Also important to get him the right food. The dining hall that is noted for the best food on campus is operating at about 20% of normal due to covid. Without food, kids don’t function well. So dad, that’s me, goes down every couple of weeks and stocks his dorm room with healthy food. He’s super appreciative and it’s always good to see him.

I guess cases at CU are going up and they’d like all kids to self quarantine in their dorm rooms for 2 weeks. Now I don’t know if you remember your college days but that’s not going to happen. Hence, they’ll probably get sent home sometime soon. At least that’s what Jag thinks.

The Nuggets won last night! This is a big freakin deal. We were down 3 games to 1 for the second time in the playoffs and we’re now the first team in history to come back and win both of those series. Doesn’t mean much to you if you’re not a basketball fan but it’s really cool and a welcome distraction.

Today I need to get dog food and more bird seed. Then I’ll do some work around here. Lori is in Frisco today so she needs to get moving. So do I. That’s it. Make it a great day. God Bless.

Ok, today is the day estimated taxes are due yet we’re still waiting over 3 years to have the estate settled. Like yesterday, I call bullshit. I’m just in general sick of the government and what’s going on in the Country as a whole this entire year. Can’t wait for 2021.

Today I’m in Boulder to see Jag. He has a sore chest we think from volleyball. Meanwhile Ty was home yesterday with a slight fever and will be home today as he needs to be fever free for 24 hours before going anywhere. We have him isolated upstairs. I’m fine except for a sore foot from working out. I also need to stop at Dave’s to review the rest of the coins and get Laura another check. Then it’s no more driving for the rest of the week.

We’ve had someone from Boulder look at the townhome three times! Hopefully they’ll make an offer. It will sell, we just need it to sell sooner rather than later. Once again, time to go. It’s in the 30’s up here! Nice. Hope you all are well, God Bless.

5am, leaving in 45. Great fun last night for Marty’s bday. Food wasn’t good at all. Had it catered, big mistake. I’m picking up Max, Marty and Mel’s youngest, at 6:15 and dropping him at Summit High School on my way to Denver. Then it’s off to meet my gold guy and Laura Williamson and her sister to go through $300K worth of gold coins. I’ve known Laura 20 years and she needed some help liquidating her dad’s gold as he passed away a few years ago. Her sister drove it up from Arkansas and Laura drove in from California. Hope to be out of there by 11. No time to waste, God Bless.

I was late getting on the road as I dropped a glass container right when I was supposed to leave to pick up Lori. That took 15 minutes to clean up so I had to make up some time. I managed to get their on time, Lord knows how. We then headed to Whole Foods in Cherry Creek as they have the best fish in town before heading west. In Frisco we stopped at Target for a new vacuum before heading home.

Later in the day we headed out to look for a cheap coffee table for my office. We finally found one! Then we stopped at James’s as he smoked up some ribs and we had a bite to eat with him before going home at 7.

Today is Marty’s 50th birthday! Whoo hoo! We’re all going over for dinner at 4. We decided to have it catered by a guy James knows. He basically just does the cooking for the 5 of us and kids.

Lori is worried about her mom as she’s moving a little bit slower. Then again she had a big week with little to show for it. Hope she feels better today.

ADT, our alarm company, is on the way. They were supposed to be here Friday but had a few guys out sick. I think our tech left Denver at 6:30 so he should be getting close.

That’s it. Nice up here, about 75, perfect. Football is on but for some reason I’m not really into it. Maybe it’s all the athletes trying to tell me how I should act and feel. Also what’s with the black national anthem? Didn’t know there even was one. In fact, I don’t think there officially is but rather a song they’re now calling one. As Morgan Freeman said, stop this crap now. And he was talking to black people. All that’s happening is things are getting worse. Apparently every white person is a racist (I call bullshit) and we all owe all black people something for slavery 150 years ago. Meanwhile black and some white people are destroying black businesses and killing black cops. 13 black people have been killed by police while 133 police have been killed by protestors or whatever you call them. Things are fucked up and by the way, Biden and the Democrats are supporting all this turmoil as they think it’ll hurt Trump. He of course is now trying to backtrack as the public isn’t putting up with it. By the way, he uses a teleprompter to answer ALL questions. And he wants to be President. If he wins, Kamala Harris who is a nightmare will become President. They (the Dems) think it’s ok to sacrifice a life or two of good people or burn and destroy countless businesses to get rid of Trump. Wow. Hope everyone sees through this bullshit. One college professor even said it’s ok to kill fascists’ which is anyone who supports Trump. A college professor? Are you kidding me? God help us.

God Bless.

It’s 6:04 am and in about 40 minutes I’ll leave for the airport in Denver to pick up Lori! It feels like she’s been gone for months! I managed to clean up and put a lot of stuff away. Today is trash day as it was delayed a day due to the holiday last Monday.

Yesterday I picked up my truck in Grand Junction as I had a cover put on the back and some night time driving lights and a bumper that was ordered months ago. James had some work done on his truck by these guys and turned me on to them. It looks nice but most importantly I can now really see well at night. Some of the lights are not street legal meaning they should only be used off road.

I then cleaned up as I said while Ty went skating for a few hours. I hung with James for an hour as we both needed a break from our day. He’s smoking some ribs and salmon today so I’ll stop and grab some.

Jag is doing well. I hoped he’d make it up this weekend but he’s busy with a project. Dogs are fine and so is Ty. Time to move so I can get on the road. Can’t wait to see Lori! I’m sure Dixie will miss her. God Bless.

Remember it? I do well. What a day it was 19 years ago today. Just a reminder so you don’t forget. Never forget!

Today I need to finish cleaning up around here before Lori gets home tomorrow. Jag is working away doing the work of three as his two partners in a project are worthless. Ty has a math session today in the afternoon.

It’s supposed to warm up a bit over the next few days. We’ll take all the moisture we can get. We had a showing yesterday but haven’t heard anything yet.

Dixie is fine. A bit tired from the whole ordeal. Seems like Lori has been gone a month! I miss her.

Time to run. Lots to do. God Bless.

This morning, hopefully early, ADT is showing up to install our alarm system. Then I have a lot of running around to do here locally. Yesterday I drove a bit over 500 miles! First off at 6 am I was off to Grand Junction and then after making it back home by 10 I headed to Denver. I was back in Vail at 5 to hang with James and Marty for our weekly Wednesday hang. Then I picked Ty up at the skate park at 6:30 before heading home. The dogs were glad to see me.

It’s warm here this morning. Mid 40’s. It’ll be in the 80’s by the weekend. As most of you know by now, Dixie is back to square one with Lori trying to figure out what to do. I think she’s bringing Dixie out here in October after I get back from hunting.

When we arrived at James’s last night he said “hey, I have something for you guys”. Marty and I looked at each other not knowing what he meant and he then gave us each these handmade shot shell holders and a tooled belt for bird hunting. He had them made in Texas and they’re beautiful. The kicker was mine had a brass plaque on it that says “I Shot It”. Now this is a longer story but it’s basically because I’m a pretty good shot and most birds that go down, I shot. I looked at Marty’s and it said “My Dog Humped My Hat”! Now this is really funny as a few years ago Marty had this hat made in Fairplay by this old guy who is quite famous and booked up. Marty finally got his hat and took it home and laid it on the couch and a few minutes later he turned around and saw Milton his dog, humping his hat! He grabbed it and the next day took it back to the hat maker who actually yelled at Marty saying “what did you do? these hats take a lot of time and you need to take care of them”. In the end he fixed the hat but Marty told us this story a while ago so that’s why James put that on his shot shell holder. It was funny.

I added to the blog yesterday that it was the anniversary of Mom passing. I have some old voice mails from her saved on my computer and was listening to her voice a few days ago. I miss her a lot. She was everything to me and a lot of people.

That’s it. Time to get Ty moving so I can get back here for the alarm company. Hope everyone is safe and well. Denver was eerie while Grand Junction was normal. I saw a graph and article yesterday saying that the pandemic is almost over. It says herd immunity is spreading fast. The numbers support this but we’ll see. Let’s hope so! Go get your flu shot! God Bless.

Here are our shot shell holder and a picture of the peaks with the first snow!