Headin' to See My Bro for a 50th Birthday Surprise

Written on 10-9-15.

    Well, this is fun!  I am on United Flight 1887 to Dulles to surprise Guy for his 50th birthday.  We will surprise him tonight after he comes home from ShyShay’s baseball game.  Their friend Krystal (not her real name) is picking us up.  Bev and Duncan, Guy’s college roommate from their Mesa days, are on a Southwest flight right now.  They got a head start on my flight, but we should arrive close to the same time.  If the game gets rained out, though, Annmarie will pick us up instead.  Either way, Guy is in for a big shock.  I look forward to seeing the look on his face when he sees all of us and learns what’s in store for him this weekend.  His birthday isn’t officially until the 28th.
    Tomorrow, we are going on a brewery tour.  We have three stops to make.  Dave, one of Guy’s good neighbors and great friends, and I will be “in charge.”  At the final stop, he will be surprised again with a dinner with more family and more friends.
    On Sunday, we will play golf at...

A Cabin Home Fall Day and My First Training

10-3-15

    I am sitting next to my wife up at the cabin home, but we are not alone this time.  Eric is out on his patio, and I can see him through the window directly behind the stove. The stove has flames flowing like bright orange ribbons in the wind, but these ribbons are flowing vertically.  Amanda is sitting by the stove/fireplace.  We just had a delicious breakfast with sausage, french toast, and sliced apples.  Hey, we’re back at the cabin home again! We wanted to see the fall colors because they were just beginning to turn last weekend, and we were right to come back.  The drive up here was spectacular; fall colors have multiplied greatly in one week.
    Okay, it’s about five hours later now, and I just sat down again after running errands in Durango and having lunch at Chavolo’s with the Edgertons.  I wanted to buy three video adapters/dongles for my Time to Teach trainings, but they only had two at Connecting Point for my MacBook Pro.  When I go to present at various schools, I’ll need every type of adapter ready to go to match whatever my clients will have for their projectors or screens.  I bought the VGA and the DGI today, and now I only need the HDMI; they had none of those in stock today. 
    I also stopped at Home Depot to buy stuff for the cabin home.  I picked up mouse traps (old-fashioned, new-fangled with poison, and large ones with glue), defoggers, hanging sticky tape for flies and moths, brackets to hold shelves in the garage, and some other hanging devices with “grabbers” for rakes, shovels, and bikes.  It took a while, but...

St. Francis Watches Over Our Family

    Okay, on to St. Francis.  I just find it remarkable how often this happened and in such different places and with different members of our family.  It happened again tonight.
    The first time was with Belinda and Danielle.  Belinda and I dropped Danielle off at a little coffee shop.  It had knick-knacks, paintings, jewelry, coffee (of course), refrigerator magnets, clothing items, etc.  While waiting for my coffee and breakfast, I walked over to see what the ladies were looking at and we stopped right in front of St. Francis, a statuette of him.  There were some other religious items, too, but of course I noticed him right away, and I mentioned once again that he is my mother’s favorite saint. 
    The second time I was alone.  I went to church in Santa Fe.  I do not remember the church’s name, so I’ll have to research it later.  Belinda and I were there for my technology training, and Belinda was going to pick up James at the airport in Albuquerque the next day, too.  I googled the church, and I got directions, and it worked out that it was in the evening.  I had just enough time to...

Birdie From the Blues and Glacier Gift

Written on 9-26-15.

    B and I are up at the cabin home again.  We “escaped” up here for one night.  The fire is going.  It’s awesome here.  Not bragging, but definitely happy to be here.  I’ll start with that one birdie, and then I’ll add another that came in an unexpected, spectacular, free round. 

Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #2-Birdie #33 of 2015

    Wow!  This birdie took place ten days ago.  I’m a bit behind.  C.J. and I played on a Wednesday.  We discovered that Wednesday mornings are our best times for playing, and we can walk a full eighteen on those mornings; we usually start at 8:30.  He doesn’t swim on those mornings, and Belinda is at work.  I don’t have The First Tee going on on those days either. 
    This was the day that I played from the blues and C.J. from the whites.  I chose my 8-iron from back there, but it was not a great swing.  I’ve been thinning my irons frequently lately, but they’re just barely missing.  I thinned this one out to the right, but it wasn't too bad, and it ended up past the hole and on the hill.  I was in between choosing my A-wedge or my sand wedge.  The sand wedge won out because I wanted to give my ball the best chance of not going too far past the hole.  It was going way too fast, however, after it left my clubface.  It probably would have ended up just off the green if the flagstick had not gotten in the way.  My ball hit the flagstick squarely and fell in, surprising me in the process.  I played the first three holes in one under again, always a great way to start a round.

    I ended up shooting an 85, with a 44 on the front and a 41 on the back.  C.J. and I tied with...

Wedding Day and First Official Day of Fall

Written on 9-19-15.

    I am in the basement of a VRBO in Colorado Springs.  We are here for Daryl and Katie’s wedding, which begins in a little over two hours.  I have so much to write, so I will do a quick summary to help me get it organized in my head. 
    First, I want to recount how St. Francis kept showing up with my family.  It happened three times, once in Albuquerque with Belinda and Danielle, once in Cuba with Belinda and James, and once more in Santa Fe when I went to church alone.  The circumstances for each appearance were serendipitous, in my opinion, and rather amazing, too. 
    Second, I earned three birdies in my last few rounds.  C.J. and I continue to play alone on Wednesdays, but on one Friday morning, we played with and against Mike and Pat for a best ball match play competition.  Anyway, I have two from that round, one on #11 with the sprinklers going full blast and another on #14 that was inches away from an eagle.  The other came more recently when C.J. and I played against each other with stroke play, he from the whites and I from the blues.  I had a pitch-in birdie on #2 in that round to start out even on the first three holes.  That was a close match! 
    Third, I have much to relay about...