A Year of Change

It’s Memorial Day Weekend! Time for friends, fun, sun and bbq. Hope you’re not considering sitting at home locked up in your house! That won’t do your head or body any good. You see it’s like growing up with a dog. Those that had a dog had stronger immunity systems than those that didn’t. You have to expose yourself to a certain amount of what’s out there or when you finally do go out, you’ll catch everything. Don’t live in a bubble.

Yesterday the drive thru cap and gown ceremony was pretty nice. Kids and family’s were lined on the parking lot including Jagger’s kindergarten buddy Brooklyn who made a huge banner for him. She’s so cute. After we went through, Jag stayed with his friends and hung out watching other kids come and go. Then we all went over to Lexi’s house and hung out with her family for a few hours. More to come, Lori has all the pictures on her phone and is still sleeping.

Today we’re going to Melanie and Marty’s for a bbq around 5. The boys are coming along. I have a quick trip to Denver first so I need to get moving. More to write but no time so it’ll have to wait. Until tomorrow, watch your top knot! God Bless.

This afternoon at 2:45 we’re in a group of five family’s that will drive through the school parking lot to pick up Jagger’s cap and gown for graduation. They have families staged in groups of five over a 90 minute period spaced 15 minutes apart. At 2 I think we’re hooking up with other families for a parade in our cars. It’s so sad the kids cannot have a traditional graduation. The official graduation is on the 30th I think. What a cluster.

Lori’s massage helped a little bit. Not sure how she’s feeling today. We’ll hit the gym in a bit for some exercise. I was on Houseparty (an app on your phone like Zoom) with my buddy Eric in New York, Russel in London, Ron in Chicago and later Lauren in New York for a few hours last night. Russel had been up all night as it was like 4:30am when we started in London. We talked about all kinds of things including our situations in our own neighborhoods. In the end, people are people and we’re all pretty much feeling the same no matter where we live. Russel said it was a big day there as Mc Donald’s opened up! He said the cue (line) was over 3 kilometers long at the drive thru, ha. We all can’t wait to get back to normal and all agree that this too will pass. Hope we’re right.

Ty worked his ass off on schoolwork. He thought he was done and found out late last night he was missing two Spanish assignments. Our school is all over the place with this distance learning and it’s hard for the kids to keep everything straight. The Upper School Director apologized and said everyone is frustrated from teachers to students. I think he now has everything in and has one last Spanish assessment today and then I think is done.

Time to get moving. It’s 7:30 and Lori woke up before me and fed the dogs. Jag was at Lexi’s and Emile’s and came home probably around midnight. We were crashed by then. Pictures tomorrow of the mini parade and Jagger. Be well, God Bless.

Ok, this morning we’re driving a white Q8 down and swapping it for a white Q8. One is a loaner vehicle and the other (ours) will be ready to go by 10 am. Then I’m dropping Lori at Tina’s spa for a massage with a mask while I run up and pick a few items up in Longmont. The boys have a couple days left and then that’s it. We’re trying to figure out what summer will look like. Did you see in Washington State where they’re going door to door and covid testing? If you refuse you can’t leave your house. Wow. Talk about unconstitutional. Here more than half of the people who have passed away were over 80 years old. Then of the other half, more than half of those had other health issues leaving a few hundred that actually died from the virus who were not old or already compromised. Compare this to the flu and the numbers are close. Yet States have crushed the economy and many families savings and lives. Up here we’ve had one new case in about 2 weeks and it was in a nursing home. Then we have the masks everyone is now suppose to wear. There’s a debate as to whether or not these do any good. Now they say only wear them when you can’t social distance, like at the spa! Wonder how you’re going to go to a restaurant wearing a mask. Not many people wear them up here anymore but Denver seems to still be using them a bit more. If you go to a park though, no one is wearing them. Soon people will stop wearing them too. Crazy times right?

The house is coming along and we’re about $15K over budget out of a projected cost of $1,220,000. Not bad. Some of that extra is due to things we added like the outside bbq hood and a whole house water treatment or filter which was extra and then Lori’s concrete sink in the main floor powder room and the stone walkway up to the front door. So overall, we essentially are within budget. Pretty remarkable.

James might come up Friday night, sleep in the truck and then load up stuff from our storage unit Saturday morning. Then we’ll start moving stuff from here down to the storage unit staging it to go to the house in about a month. Then we’ll start fixing things up here to sell this place. It’d be good to keep it as a rental but that cost money and in this uncertain time, we’re just going to move it.

That is it. 6:20 now as the dogs woke me at 5:30. We’re trying to figure out how to get out to see Dixie but it’s not as easy as just jumping in the car. We’ll figure it out somehow. God Bless.

I’m off in 60 minutes for a quick turnaround to Denver to drop Lori’s car and get a loaner. Should be back around noon. Graduation is coming up on Friday it looks like. We pick up Jag’s cap and gown Thursday. When I get back we’re headed down to the house to fine tune a few more items.

Lot’s of stuff going on needless to say. While we seem to be opening businesses the real threat now is how will the economy recover. I think it’s going to take some time. You need to be prepared for a downturn and figure out how that’ll impact your life. I did get a good start on the garage and talked with James who will come up soon from Denver to get some stuff out of our storage units. I’m going to rent the truck for him and he and Larry will come haul stuff away. Some we’ll try to sell and split the money and other stuff we’ll just donate and he’ll give to people in need. I think Lori is going to continue in the house while I’m gone. The boys need to get on their rooms or else I’ll just be bagging up everything on their floors and throwing it out. Time to go so I can get out of here on time. Time to get some Spring cleaning going! Get on it people. Don’t forget to donate to our bbq fund! God Bless.

In five short days, school is over. I think it’s officially still in session next week but all work is due this Friday. Will be good to get this crappy year out of the way. Things are reopening everywhere. Some States like ours and others are showing no new surge in cases while a few like Texas showed a jump in cases. Once again, the people telling us what to do don’t know anymore than you or I. I did see a post yesterday that said with all the elderly people in Congress, repeatedly meeting in a closed room, it’s a little strange that not one single one of them has the virus, hmmm. That is weird right? No matter what happens, shutting down the entire World and economy I think was the wrong move. People from Europe to Asia to almost every State here aren’t taking it any more. I don’t blame them. In fact I will no longer be calling this the new normal as like someone pointed out, nothing about this is normal. Making everyone stay home is basically forced isolation. And last, as I’ve said before, this is the first time in history when healthy people have been quarantined. We need to quarantine the sick, not the healthy. Don’t believe me? Look at countries like New Zealand or Thailand that have followed this policy and managed to eradicate the virus. Wonder what we’ll find out a few months from now. Last you have Obama trashing the administration for not knowing what’s going on but of course he offered no solutions as he doesn’t know what’s going on either. That’s the point people, none of us know what’s going on, good God.

Well what else, Mojo ate the tv remote last night, Jag and Madi played Guitar Hero, Ty worked on his Spanish project and Lori made a great dinner. We did go for a nice hike and then went to Costco and the house. We’re trying to figure out how to get the hot tub and are officially accepting donations, ha.

The heat is on this week. 80’s today and tomorrow and most of the week. Hope no fires start. Lori is showering and then we’re going to the gym and then she’s going to the office to do some work for Dr. C. That’s it, hope you all are well, make it a great day and find your groove people. Don’t let this thing dictate life to you! Take charge and define your own life, God Bless.

This morning we started the day with me making Lori coffee, cleaning up the front room and feeding the dogs. She wants to go on a hike today so we’ll be going on a hike today. If she changes her mind, we’ll be doing something else, as sometimes she does.

Sonny and Ty had fun last night. Ty accidently called us around 9 so we listened in to the non stop laughing for about 10 minutes. Around 10 or 10:30 Sonny and Ty showed up and Sonny spent the night. Lori found a couple Sprizzeri cans in Ty’s room, ha. We just laughed as they’re super low alcohol and we’d rather have them drinking here if they’re going to drink.

I had a good time at James’s last night. We had rabbit braised with rosemary and olives and fresh focaccia bread, a great salad, baked beans, Italian cheese and salumi and the hit of the night, Lori’s homemade key lime pie. We all know each other and enjoy getting together every week or so. We had the MMA fights on ESPN which were pretty interesting. Talking with Luca and Marty, I found out Luca and his wife are suing VMS! One of their boys was bullied so bad he left the school a year ago which we knew but I had no idea they were suing them. I learned a bunch of other things about the school too. Not good. We’re 99% sure Ty will go somewhere else in the Fall. CU is working on how to handle things too and it looks like Jag will be going to Boulder one way or another.

That’s it, could be 80 degrees here today. Not much snow left except up high. The house is coming along. We were down yesterday afternoon meeting with Tom. We’ve had only 2 or 3 new cases in over a week and they were at a nursing home down near Eagle. We’ve basically stopped the outbreak up here. Hope that continues. God Bless.

Due to the rain, the kids make shift Prom is tonight. While that’s going on I’ll be headed to James for some MMA fight, grilled rabbit that Luca is making and some fun with 7 other guys. I’ll make sure to social distance! I was going down to Denver today but am getting a clear bra put on Lori’s car Tuesday so I’ll wait until then. No point in going twice.

I cleaned out the cupboards yesterday and have a bunch of food boxed by the front door and a few bags for the Salvation Army. I’ll try to drop those today. I’ve also been working on the garage and I’m also getting down in the basement today. No way I’ll finish but I’m starting.

It’s nice this morning and going to get warmer over the next few days. Things are getting green up here which is nice. Both boys are starting on their rooms today too. That’s it, kind of a nothing else to say day. Be well and God Bless.

Tonight Chloe and Zoe are staging some sort of Prom outside of school for a small group of friends. I don’t know much about it but do know that Ty has to have all his school work in before he can go. Jag I think can kind of float for the next week.

Yesterday I headed to Denver to pick up some storage containers so we can pack up some more stuff. I need to tackle the garage first. I also have a management call this morning to determine what pay cuts to put in for June for our people. They’ll be a lot smaller than the first round of cuts but still won’t be fun. I’m looking at somewhere around 5%. Hopefully I’ll be off that call in about two hours.

I need to order the bbq for the house today. It’ll be just the grill part with no bottom cabinet as our builder says he can build something to hold it. Probably going to have to pass on the hot tub. We’re super bummed but just don’t have the $12K in the budget. What a drag. We also changed up some furniture so we’re spending less there. With Lori not working and me giving up about $50K a year of salary, we just can’t do what we wanted to do. Thanks China, nice of you to infect the World. Who would have ever thought something like this could happen that would change so many peoples livcs.

To top things off, Jag’s right rear tire has some sort of cut in it so we need a new tire today which is about $250. Throw in Mojo’s $600 bill yesterday from the vet and it’s been a fun week. Hard to get a break these days.

Time to stop felling sorry for myself and get going and cowboy up! I have a whole day and weekend ahead of me and need to get moving. I joked with one of my Partners and told him, “let’s go buy Porsches”. That’d put the pressure on us to perform for sure. Be well, God Bless.

Do the days seem to run together for you? They do for me. I often think Tuesday is Sunday or Friday is Sunday or something of that sort. I think it’s because of the stay at home routine we’re in that makes it all run together.

Yesterday Jag presented his Senior Project and he was great. He has this quality few possess that’s a mix or maturity, vision and confidence he somehow cultivated over the years. There were about 40 people that watched from other teachers and students to even some parents of students. We were very proud parents.

Ty worked away getting in a bunch of work. Later in the day Ty, Jag and Madi played video games lounging on the couch.

At 5:30 I went to James house for our weekly guy get together and cigar night around the fire. Four of us which are good friends, James, Marty, Luca and me, hang out for 90 minutes talking about life, our families, challenges we face and what we’re thankful for. It’s an amazingly open dialogue where we get things off our chest and is sort of our weekly release. We all know each other well so it’s pretty easy to do. The virus is creating even a stronger bond between us.

Now to the virus. I’ve come to the conclusion that its prudent to now prepare for this to be around for the long haul. I don’t see this ending anytime soon and am sure we’ll be dealing with this for at least another year minimum. Hope I’m wrong but I wouldn’t bet against me. Think about your finances, your potential loss of income, no matter what you do, and the interruption of supplies such as food. Again, hoping I’m wrong but the inability to get a handle on the most basic facts of what were facing is a huge issue. We still don’t know what all is involved with this thing. Tests are now proving to be negative when really positive and vice versa, new forms of transmissions are discovered daily and unknown medical consequences are turning up in patients considered otherwise healthy. All this uncertainty means it’s going to take a while to figure things out. I say a year as by then I think we’ll reach an infection rate of 70% or so nationwide, (even if the tests and govt. don’t know it) which will result in a herd immunity. This means we as a population will have built up a resistance to the virus much like the flu. Anyhow just my take.

Back to the day. Not sure what’s going on today. I might run down to Denver to buy 10 more storage bins for packing stuff up. Today is Thursday and I didn’t even need to look, ha. Be well, safe and God Bless.

Today at noon Jagger has his Senior Project presentation. Then his year is pretty much over. He’s worked super hard and had to adjust the entire project midstream due to the virus. You might recall he was going to intern at the top restaurant in Vail but then that abruptly ended when the virus showed up. I think he ended up writing a cookbook on his own. We’ll see as his presentation is at noon. Can’t wait, super proud of him.

Ty is working away trying to get everything in as after today the boys have 7 school days left in the year. The school awarded us a small grant for next year but for Ty it’d still cost about $20,000. With the scientists coming out yesterday and saying there probably won’t be any school in the Fall, we need to make a decision on this one.

Work is a battle. Everything is a battle. Drastic times call for drastic measures. Lori is thinking of starting her own ice cream company. That’d be fun and probably profitable as people are embracing as many small comforts in their lives as they can and ice cream is a big one. Not sure how she came up with that but I think it’s a great idea. We’ll see.

They poured concrete yesterday down at the house for the back patio. Maybe we’ll run down there today to see what’s going on. Sunny and warm today. That’ll be nice. Guess I’ll go. It’s 7:30 and Tom is probably wondering where the blog is. Be well, be safe and God Bless.