A Year of Change

Let’s go to Vegas, 7/11! Just kidding of course, we’re not big Vegas fans, but it has changed a lot. The best thing about Vegas these days is the food.

Today Lori and I are off to Denver. I have some work to do today while driving, mostly all on the phone. Tom and I are continuing to work on Mom’s estate, me mostly on the ranch and Tom on everything else. We are stopping by the house today to make one last pass through the stuff remaining to see what we want, if anything. James finally got the ditch running and is supposed to have all three of his cars out of there by tomorrow at the latest. It looked like a used car lot with his junky cars all there. Hopefully then we can get the place listed and sold. It’s been a huge job. Mom’s remaining clothes will go to Cherry Creek this week too. We still miss her as I know everyone does. So sad.

We’re feeling better, all three of us, Lori, Harley and I. Jag worked at the hospital yesterday and was drilling on a human hip for something, wow. I guess they have a new specimen flying in Friday which is a whole leg from the hip to the toes that they’re doing something with. Quite the job at 16, working with human cadavers. They’re doing a bunch of tests and procedures to come up with new ways to make things better for people. That’s why they’re the best in the Country.

Lori is going to the gym. I told her she looks great and doesn’t need to go but she goes for her head and her spine. Looks like cooler weather is coming. We had good rain yesterday and it’s nice and cool this morning outside. We have the door open now and there’s a nice breeze coming in from the deck. I talked with Dixie yesterday who is doing fine. She’d been tired for a few days but is now feeling better which is good news. Looks like we got all the ants in the garage we found the other day. Not sure where they came from but knock on wood that they’re gone for good.

Time to run, we’re leaving a bit after 8 so Lori can get her hair colored. Have a great day, God Bless.

Jag and I went to Denver yesterday and made it back up in time to pick Harley up around 3 or so. She was excited to say the least. You can’t tell she had surgery as she’s bouncing around like her usual self. We still need to try to keep her calm and not jumping (good luck with that) so her internal stitches don’t tear. Everyone is glad she’s home.

Ty is having fun at camp, so we think, from the pictures. Lori is working away and Jagger is back at the research institute today where I think they’re testing a knee joint in some way. I’m feeling a little better and so is Lori. They both need to leave at 7:30.

Lori’s car is getting some work done tomorrow and I think she’s taking the day off so we’ll be in Denver. That’s about it. The President did announce his pick for Supreme Court Justice. The dems have vowed to stop it no matter what but if I were their leader, I’d think twice as Judge Kavanaugh is about the most liberal of the four he was picking from. If they somehow (which is very unlikely) stop the confirmation, the next man, or woman up, is much more conservative. So game on, get ready for the mudslinging by the dems. By the way, this guy feeds the homeless weekly, coaches his girls basketball team for the past 7 years, was appointed as a professor at Harvard by Elena Keagen (Obama’s pick to the court), written over 300 opinions of which many have become law of the land and more. Hard to find something wrong with him other than he’s not an activist liberal judge. No matter, the dems will make something up, my my words. To put it in perspective, they opposed him before they knew who he was, nice.

Have a great day, God Bless

KODAK Digital Still Camera

KODAK Digital Still Camera

This morning Lori and I are both doing better, a bit. I stuck to bananas, rice and toast yesterday and skipped my daily caffeine intake. Our stomachs are churning a bit but nothing like yesterday. To top it off, we found some ants in the garage this morning. Thankfully I had just cleaned it as there was dog food all over the floor from the boys spilling it when they’d feed the dogs. I think I got them all but there’s a lot of stuff in the garage.

Harley comes home today, yea! Jag wants to go to Denver but I have some work to do on some things, so we’ll see. Today we find out who the next Supreme Court Justice will be. It’s great that Trump gets to nominate him or her. After all, Obama put in the last two. Right now you have the dems saying no one is acceptable when they don’t even know the nominee. How’s that for obstructing? Oh well, as Obama said, “elections have consequences”, how ironic.

Time to get moving, hope everyone is well, have a great day and week, GB.

Man we must have e coli or something as we’re both still ill. I thought I was getting better yesterday and then ate some enchiladas which apparently was a big mistake. Hopefully in the next day or two we’ll kick this bug. Today Lori says we’re on bananas, rice and bread which for me probably means just bananas.

Yesterday we did make it to the gym, tried to find a couch and then hung out at home. Jag was gone from about 1 until 5 at Nicoles. Hopefully Ty is having fun. We saw some pictures and it sure looked like he was!

The weather up here is perfect, in the mid 80’s. The smoke isn’t bad either as the sky is a bright blue right now at 9 am. We were going to go to Denver to look for a cheap sofa but with my stomach, we’ll postpone today.

That’s it, July 8th, wow. Harley comes home tomorrow, whoo hoo, God Bless.

Today is Ali’s birthday, hope it’s a good one and you get lots of presents, ha! Check your email! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

It’s been a week since Ty went to camp and we think he returns from his backpacking trip today for a week of activities around camp. Hope he wasn’t in too much smoke. Jag had his first day athe research institute. I think the performed a stress test on a knee joint or something. Lori had a normal work day and I had four conference calls and managed to clean up a bit around here too. Harley did fine with her surgery and will come home Monday. Mojo is wondering where she is and playing with her toys.

We both still have upset stomachs but are getting better. I was doing fine yesterday until mid afternoon and then had a relapse. Hopefully today we’ll both be better.

I think we’re going to try to find a new couch today. The old furniture we have from Moms is pretty old and torn up plus Mojo peed on two of the three chairs. She also had them for well over 20 years. I had to cut off the material that hangs down on the bottom where he peed. We’re going to try to find an inexpensive one that we can use for about a year until we move. We’ll see though as we don’t want to spend a lot of money. Maybe Costco has a deal.

It looks nice outside and not too smokey. It’s going to be hot down in the city so it’ll be in the 80’s up here for sure. Time to go to the gym. Have a great weekend, GB.

Jag is headed out with Lori to the hospital today to start work at SPRI, the Steadman Phillipon Research Institute. This is a big big deal as researchers and doctors from all over the World vie to get in there. They have such advanced equipment that few other places can claim to be as advanced. Hopefully he enjoys it. He’ll go with Lori and be there at 9 am.

Meanwhile Harley goes in to get “fixed” today. She’ll stay at the vet until Monday so she doesn’t jump and rip her stitches out over the weekend. She can’t have any food this morning so we’re not feeding either dog until she goes at 8. They’re both looking at me like what the heck is going on.

Lori and Jag drove around practicing driving for 3 hours last night. He drove up towards Leadville and then even over the pass to Copper Mountain. A car that passed them going up the pass, had hit a deer a half a mile up the road which they saw when they caught up to them. Lots of deer up here, especially at dusk when they’re coming down from the hills to the river for water.

I have a few calls today and need to get a few emails out and also have some computer work. Hope Ty is having fun. He’s on the last day (and night) of his backpacking trip down by Crested Butte. Hopefully the smoke is not too bad. Tomorrow is Aunt Ali’s birthday, whoo hoo! Get ready! God Bless.

The day started out ok enough with us going to the gym, (although hotel gyms are always lame) and then hitting the pool. We stayed out there from 10 until 12 which was about an hour too much as I’m beet red today. Then we strolled into Cherry Creek for some lunch which was where it all went south. We went to a restaurant called North and sat at the bar and ordered salads. They weren’t very good and we didn’t even finish but as soon as we left we both had stomach aches and knew we made a big mistake. We walked through the mall and bought some socks for about $20 and headed back to get ready for the party.

By 4 we were at the party which was fun. It was good to see lots of friends from all over including as far away as Florida. Finally at 7 we headed out. On the way back to the hotel, knowing we wouldn’t see any fireworks anyhow, we decided to pack up and head home as Lori had to be at the hospital at 8 this morning. We packed in about 3 minutes, literally (we’re good at that) and were on the road by 7:20. An hour and 40 minutes later we were home. As soon as we walked in Jag called and asked if we could pick him up at Nicole’s. Having never met her, even though we know who she is, we jumped at the chance. When we made it to her house, Lori went up to the door and met her. She’s a really cute girl and nice. I stayed in the car as to not make it too wierd. She and Jag had went to Elways for dinner and he had his sport coat and a nice shirt with him on a hanger. What a good kid!

Fires are everywhere up here and Lori and I are eating like little to nothing today, me for sure. I think I’m calling the health department and reporting them for food poisoning, ugh. That’s it, time to go, have a great day and GB. Pictures tomorrow.

Independence Day, hamburgers, hotdogs, baseball and apple pie. That of course is what most people will be doing today, with a few tweaks here and there. Of course the real meaning of the day goes back to 1776 when we gained our independence from the British and became a Country. It’s pretty sad as I was watching tv and they had a tv reporter on the street asking people about the meaning of July 4th and the majority couldn’t tell you the significance of the day. Some said it was the day we kicked out Mexico while others said it was the Japanese. One 20 something said it was the day World War II ended. I don’t know what’s happened to our education system these days. Maybe it’s the kids that just don’t pay attention. One things for sure, our boys know the meaning of the day. God help and bless us.

I made it to Denver around noon and had a few stops before checking in to our hotel. They upgraded us to a Junior Suite so I dropped my bags and soon it was time to go get Lori at the airport. Around 4:40 I picked her up and then it took us like an hour to go the 17 miles back to Cherry Creek. She was starving so we went downstairs to a great italian restaurant that had some of our wines on the list and had dinner. It was really good but too much food for us both. Upstairs we went to our room to hang out and fall asleep.

Today we’re hitting the gym and then the rooftop pool before going to Jeff and Tina’s for their big party. It starts around 3 or so but not sure when we’ll show up. It’s literally about 2 miles from here. We’re staying here again tonight so maybe we’ll make it back and head to the roof in time to watch fireworks. It is supposed to rain tonight though so we’ll see. Normally we’re in Aspen for the 4th so this is a nice switch. Time to run, Happy 4th. Do something special today that our freedom allows you to do, just because you can!

That’s right, today around 4, Lori lands in Denver. I’m heading down mid-morning for some work and then will check into the Halcyon Hotel, (that has a rooftop pool!) in Cherry Creek before picking her up at DIA. Jag will stay home and keep an eye on the house. Harley is going to daycare and then spending the night with the owner of the daycare place. Moose, 0ur friends dog, is also staying with them and Harley and Moose are great friends. Meanwhile Mojo is going to stay with his friends at his daycare. So everyone is hanging out with friends for the next few days.

We had our new water heater in and up and running a little after noon. It sure was nice to take a shower. Jag and I then went and did some shopping before getting home around 4. Tomorrow Lori and I are going to Jeff and Tina’s for a party and Jag is going in to town for the parade. I have a lot of work to do before heading out this morning plus I need to go to the gym so time to go. Lori and Dixie had a good time and I think accomplished a lot. I know she did some planting, which probably wasn’t good for her neck but needed to be done. Have a good day, be safe and Happy 4th. GB.

Yesterday morning we were rushing around to get Ty off to camp. I woke up early and went to the gym to squeeze in a workout before the long drive to camp. Ty had most of his stuff laid out all over his room the night before but threw everything in his bags before going to bed. The only thing we were missing was a sleeping pad for his backpacking trip. After searching his closet and not finding it, I thought I’d check the mechanical room. That’s when everything started to go south.

I opened the door to find water everywhere! Our water heater had obviously died. I turned the water off at the valves going into the water heater and began to clean up. Of course cleaning up meant cleaning everything out of the room and sweeping all the water towards the drain. Of course we had 90 minutes to leave and I still needed to shower and find the sleeping pad. The pad turned up soon enough but then came the shower. I went upstairs and turned on the shower and voila, no water! Seems I need even the cold water going through the water heater to get water from the shower. So back down to the basement to turn on the water so it could leak some more so I could take a shower. I took about a 90 second shower that felt like the polar plunge and then ran back downstairs to turn off the water. Then of course this meant more cleaning up. Once I had soaked up as much water as I could with towels, sheets and whatever else I could find, I had to take Ty to camp.

We headed out well enough and decided to take the road over to Fairplay to avoid the heavy traffic on I-70 going back to Denver. As soon as we came over the Continental Divide we saw the smoke plume. Seems as there was a new fire that looked like some mushroom cloud from those nuclear tests we saw on tv when we were kids. It was southwest of us so we were ok but boy was it huge. 2 hours later we were at camp. Ty knew the drill as he was there last year. I checked him in, gave him a hug and headed for home. He did forget his pillow again just like last year! With the fire I decided to head towards Evergreen and catch I-70 heading back to Vail as there couldn’t be any traffic going up to the mountains on a Sunday, wrong!

After an hour I managed to hit I-70 just east of Idaho Springs. Traffic was stopped. There was every kind of camper, RV and vehicle you could imagine heading out of Denver like some mass exodus from a natural disaster. Most had firewood strapped on their cars too even though there’s a Statewide burn ban, nice. 2 hours later I was home. Jag had been with the dogs all day and was starving as he always is. We ordered him wings and I went to pick them up only to get home and find they gave him the wrong ones. So back to the bar I went to get him the right wings. Then I had to wash all the dishes with soap and cold water. The water works if you have a faucet with separate handles. If it has only one handle, like the showers, nothing comes out.

I did call the plumber yesterday and they’re supposed to call me first thing this morning. They think it’ll be between $2000 and $3000 dollars to fix. I’m just hoping they can fix it today as I’m off to Denver tomorrow to pick up Lori. Jag and I are thinking of checking into a hotel so we can shower today. We’ll see as we might just wash our hair in the kitchen sink.

Mojo woke me at 5:40 so I’m up waiting to call the plumbers at 7 to make sure I’m at the top of the list. I’ll take Harley to daycare to get her out of here for the day. There’s about 8 large black trash bags full of stuff from the flood outside. Hope all goes well today, Happy July, have a great day, GB.