Not much going on, I went to the knee doctor this morning and was told I am doing great. I asked what I am allowed to do now and he said I could jump out of airplanes if I wanted. I am not up to that yet but I think I will be using canes more then the walker. The bride is doing very well after her surgery. Life is getting back to normal. I have been cutting back on the pain pills so my thinking is slightly clearer, not that it was all that clear before.

They say we may get snow this weekend. I need to make sure the snow blower is up and running. This early in the year I am not too worried about having a lot o snow staying for a long time. I figure what ever we get I can let melt and I should be strong enough soon to run the snow blower.

I am starting to get restless hanging around the house and this is never a good thing. There is only so many reruns of “I love Lucy” I can watch. I want to get out and do something but this is just a passing thing. I believe we will go out for dinner tonight, that will be nice.

Let me update a little from my adventure with the dog. I am down stairs later that evening with the physical therapist doing my stuff. The bride says she is not feeling very well and heads up stairs, after awhile I ask mom if she could check on the bride. Mom comes back down the stairs telling everybody the bride is in tears and on the phone with 911 and ambulance is on the way. The paramedics are at the door in a matter of minutes. The bride put on a stretcher, and loaded up and heading to the emergency room. I tell mom to hold down the fort as I load the walker in the back of my truck. And I am gone. I get to the emergency room and I am giving directions to her waiting room. The ER is packed. No open beds and a waiting room full walking wounded. The bride is in more pain then I have ever seen with her. Two shots of morphine and one a shot of Demerol before the pain eases. Some very good friends (Terry and Lonnie) show up at the hospital to watch and pray with us, plus the associated pastor wife is two floors up having contractions (they are having a baby) and he comes down the pray. They are finding nothing wrong but they do suspect a thing or two. About 10:30 they have not decided if she is staying or not and my legs are killing me. The ER doctor suggests I head for home and Lonnie says she will stay with the bride. Terry gets me a wheel chair and takes me to the truck. I get home to some much needed pain pills and play the waiting game.
The bride gets home about midnight but has to return to the hospital for some additional test in the morning. Long story short she is having her gall bladder removed as I type this. Nobody will let me drive so mom and I sit here and wait. The bride should be home about 7:00 this evening.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and I do have much to be thankful for. Wonderful friends and family, wonderful medical facilities and skilled doctors to help us through life, but most is a God I can relay on

Any of you folks that have read me for while know that I have two dogs willing to run the neighborhood given half a chance.

Since mom has moved up here one of the things she looks forward to is getting the mail. I have told her that she has to make sure that door clicks when she goes out. If not a breeze will open the door and the dogs are gone.

I was laying on the sofa resting (babying) my knees and I suggest that mom goes to check on the mail. With in a minute the back door moves and I can see the increase in light coming from the front of the house. I know what has happened; Mom did not click the door. I am up on my walker to see if the dogs are in the back yard. I thank God Foxy is safe and sound in the back yard. I am flying towards the front of the house. (flying is relative when you are using a walker). Mom is at the mail box in panic as she sees little Dusty running for his freedom. I had grab a bag of doggie treats and the leash handed them to mom and went back to call the bride and grab my truck keys. Mind you I had to be carried into the house by four grown men just last Thursday. I could not make my legs work that well with the new knees. I called the bride and told her what was happening and to get home. She calls me back and tells me that I can not leave the house much less drive. I was almost to the truck and told her to get home quick. I had to fold the walker to fit it in the cab and was amazed that I could climb into the truck. I was off having not a clue on the direction of my dog, and 86 year old mom had gone . I head up and around the block after a couple of minutes I see mom sitting on the curb with Dusty by her side. I pull up and Dusty takes off, the lease was not on the mutt. I open to door and the little turd locker jumps in happy as he can be. Mom gets in and we are on the way home. The bride pulls up just as mom and dog get in the house.



All and all it was not too bad and I will talk to the physical therapist tonight and see if I have been pampering myself just a little too much. It has been two weeks for one knee and one week for the other. But after today I can much improvement. I got back into the house with very little assistance, and I seem to be no worse for wear after my little adventure.

The right knee is gone and I have a bright shinny new one in its place, or so they tell me. It looks like my old knee with a very long scar. The in home therapists should be here in about two hours. I am not sure what this is going to consist of but I don’t think it will be fun. My legs hurt and are very weak. I have not been up stairs since the second knee replacement and have not had good nights sleep in the past three. I can tell things are getting better and I am grateful for that. The day after the surgery the physical therapist came into the room to get me out of bed. I was scheduled to go home Wednesday. They had given me a nerve block to help deal with the pain and it worked great. I felt nothing. Anyway I stood up and nothing worked I went crashing to the floor (the look on the therapist face was priceless) and I was everywhere. This did hurt just a little. Knees seem to work. I looked at them and they were bent one going one-way and one going another. Nurses came running into the room clamoring on the best way to get me off the floor. They went with getting a towel under my butt and a bunch of little hands grabbing corners to lift me up to a stool, a chair and then the bed. I told them I was not leaving the hospital until the next day. I here to tell you that mom and the bride could not handle me if I went down at home, they would have to 911 my butt.

My plans were to take the month of November off but I may just take of to the first of the year.

I have been dabbling in the stock market for about a year now. There has been wheeling and dealing market tumbles and recoveries money lost, money gain. After one year I have lost the grand total of 9 cents. I am going to play with this just a little longer and if I still about even I think the money is going into the bank.

I had my left knee replaced and I was released from the hospital next day. I am doing the physical therapy and it HURTS. I strap my leg into a machine a couple, three times a day and it manipulates my leg. I can control the amount of extension and flex . But you have to push the limits to get any benefit. The Doctor likes his patients to spend 6 hours a day on the machine. I have not worked up to that yet. Some folks sleep with their leg in the machine. I tired that the first night in the hospital and after 1 ½ hours I pushed the snivel whine button and had the staff take the thing out of my bed. I may try it tonight and see how well I do.

I am home from the cruise and all is well. I have to be honest in saying that this is the roughest cruise I have ever been on. The storm Noel played havoc with us. The worst night we were in 20 foot seas. It was hard to walk and it was rough every day. All the activities went on as scheduled. The crew severed dinner every night, the shows were wonderful all and all we had a great time.

I did develop a head cold that still has me down some. Tomorrow I go in for the first of my procedures. They are putting in a screen to catch blood clots. Then Tuesday I get my left knee replaced. As I was unpacking from the trip taking suitcases down stairs I slipped and went down about the last three steps of the stairs. I bent my left leg back as far as it would go. I have to tell you it hurt. It seems to be alright now it hurts a little more then it did before the fall, such is life. I need coffee

I leave very early in the morning for the cruise. I need this vacation and I am looking forward to it. I am not sure when I will blog again it may be a few weeks. Until then take care and God bless

The bride and my daughter are in San Diego packing up my mom’s house. I will be rearranging my basement this weekend to make room for the stuff we are having shipped. My basement is 1000 sq ft so I will have plenty of room. I was looking into a storage unit but the cost and inconvenience did not make sense to me.

Mom and I took off yesterday and headed for Wendover NV. It is on the Stateline between Utah and Nevada. It is where all of Northern Utah goes to gamble. We took the 2 ½ hour drive, parked in the parking lot in Utah and walked through the front door of casino into Nevada. Had a wonderful prime rib buffet and mom helped me go through $70 on the slot machines. It was fun and well worth the money.

The bride and I will leave this coming Friday for our cruise and to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary. My sister will fly in from Georgia and spend the week with mom. It will be nice to get away and relax. As soon as I get back I will have both of my knees replaced. They have giving me fits for a number of years and having gotten so much worse in the past year. I figure if I am going to improve my quality of life I should do it now while I am still young enough to enjoy it. Between the cruise and my surgery I will be out of the office for at least 5 weeks. I am getting a lap top so I can keep up with my work from home. I have been in this particular position for 11 years and I have been one deep the entire time. Now it seems management has figure out that nobody else knows how to do my job and are in a panic. I am in charge of nonnuclear munitions loading for the F-16, and I am the weight and balance authority for the aircraft.

They have assigned fellow to be my alternate this past Thursday. I know him by sight but don’t know where he sits. He works in another building and I don’t think I have spoken to him more then two or three time ever, and that was about fishing. One of my bosses asked if there were classes that teach my job. I explained to him that I learned it through 11 years of on the job training.

Retirement is looking better and better all the time. I believe I have about 129 days until I am eligible. One more cup of coffee while I read the paper and I will tackle the basement. Wish me luck.

Things are going well with mom here. She has put on some weight and is enjoying herself. I have gotten most of the items completed that I need to for her to stay. I'll admit that most of these she does not know about. I tell tell her that she was staying. She got upset and told me if she stayed she would just pout. I told her that was fine. She pouted for a couple of hours and now she is just being herself.

It was a fight and a half to get my mom up here. My eldest son and my daughter got the job done. Mom does not know that she is not going home. As I have said before she can not live alone anymore. The comparison of her now and the picture I post a couple of weeks ago is dramatic. She has lost so much weight I would bet she is down between 20 to 30 pounds. She is getting three squares a day now.

I went to an assisted living facility this morning to check the place out. I did not get any warm fuzzies over the place. I think I am going to see how mom does here for a while. Get some weight put back on her and stimulate the old brain matter some. I need prayer

September 9th, 2001 was the first meeting of Alpine church. It was held in a Jr. High school auditorium. The past few years we have had services in the terrace playhouse. This morning just a little over six years from when we started we held our first meeting in our own church building.

It was exciting to walk through the facility, the smell of fresh paint, walls yet to be marred by kids in the children’s church, the nervousness of making sure I was not the first one to spill coffee in the new sanctuary. You could feel the excitement of the congregation. Some of the detail work has yet to be completed and the church offices are not finished but the important stuff is done.

We attended the early service but I did not get there early enough to get the back row, I had to sit one row up from the back. But even that did not dampen my mood, Bryan (senior pastor) and Steve (associate pastor) gave a wonderful sermon on something. I am just not sure what, but it was good.


The bride and I have not been real faithful in our attendance for the past year or so. A lot of it has been health related and some has been laziness. I do believe that after my upcoming procedures and recovery I will be a little more faithful. At least that is what the bride tells me. Okay I am just kidding on that one. I do what to be a little more faithful in my attendance. But it is a very nice Sunday and San Diego just scored on their opening drive.


The couple in the picture is Bryan and his bride Tracy.

This has been a some what stressful day. I won’t go into all the details or how much time I have spent on the phone. It seems that it is time to bring mom up for San Diego for good. Mom will be 87 this coming March and she has lived alone for 35 years. She has been in the same house for 50 years this coming November. But we all (Me, the bride, my sister, my kids) believe that it is time. I was ready to head down to California in the morning, but it seems that I can wait until the 15th of November when she comes up for Thanksgiving. Mom will be able to help me mend from up coming surgeries. I am having three procedures scheduled between 5 Nov and 13 Nov.
(This is another blog)

Mom always has a great time while she is up here. When she is relocated she will be surrounded by family, one of her two kids (me) two of her three grandkids, and all three of her great grandkids. Mom is very resistant to the move as of today. But I believe that she will warm up to it as time moves on. I know for a fact that she will be very happy once she is settled in. The basement will be made in to her living quarters, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. She will spend the evenings with the bride and I. Until the basement is finished she will have one of the spare bedrooms and the guest bath. I told my sister that mom will not have to worry about all the stuff she worries about: house insurance, groceries, utilities, water, nothing. There are still some road blocks in the future so I will pray this works out for the best.

I am back

Headed for the airport. I'll be gone most of the week. See ya

I had four trees taken out of the backyard yesterday. The tree’s roots were starting to cause some damage and the trees put down an unbelievable amount of leaves every fall.

I called Ernesto’s tree service, good choice. Ernesto and his brother showed up early yesterday morning. It appears they were one man short of a full crew. Ernesto explained one guy did not show up and he offered me a job right then and there. I rushed in and told the bride I had found my calling and I knew what I was going to do after I retired. Those dreams went up in flames in just seconds.

I managed to stay almost out of the way for the rest of the day. I would pull a couple of branches toward the chipper shedder and watched these guys attack my trees with what can only described a work ethic that would wake me up from a dead sleep in a cold sweat. I really believe I could have never hung with these guys even in my younger days. I had made some plans in my head on how I would have taken down the trees. It could have been summed up as renting cherry picker and whacking away with a chain saw. Not these guys, They showed a great deal experience and knowledge, one climbed each tree and took each branch off as he went up. I watched as he would grab the branches swing them behind his back to make sure each one landed in my backyard. The other would line them up to feed into the shredder. There were ropes and pulleys and things hooked to the trunk of one of trees to help do something. Man it was great. It was non stop from the time they got there until they left. Other the wood I requested they leave there was nothing left except foot prints. They wood they left was cut up into bite size chucks that I can split and use in the fire place next year. Well worth the money.

The bride and I, plus another couple went out for a wonderful dinner last night. We took the gondola to the top of Snow Basin (local ski resort) for a fine dinning buffet. It is a 20 minute gondola ride to the top of the mountain and on top is the Needles lodge. The views are just great and I almost took some pictures. We were seated by a window, the bride and I took the seats where our backs were more towards the window. We had been up just last week and our friends had not been there before. After we were seated the feeding frenzy soon began. First trip I took started me off with Mussels on the half shell, shrimp with cocktail sauce, prime rib, lamb, white Sea bass, And some other stuff. The sea bass is cooked for you as you wait, Fantastic. Last week they had sword fish which was equally as good. My second trip involved more sea bass and lobster ravioli, very good stuff. I really wanted a third trip to the buffet line but I had to save some room for the dessert table. Okay I had no more room but I was not going to let that stop me. The young lady that was waiting our table clearing the used plates and keeping the drinks filled told me “make me proud” as I advanced on the desserts. Strawberries and pineapple dipped in chocolate, cinnamon dough balls covered with caramel sauce, key lime custard in individual curst, baked apples, and chocolate everywhere. I forget if I only went up once or twice. I did not want to look like oinker so I sat at the table and picked off the brides plate. Kellie (the other lady with us) and I finished off dinner with a glass of wine. A pleasant trip back done the mountain and the evening was all but done. At the bottom of the lift Kellie picked up a job application for the up coming ski season. She retired from government work a few years ago and a little extra income is always nice.

We are having a small dinner party this evening, Kellie her husband Allan, Kellie’s sister Lonnie and her husband Terry, John and Adrianna, and Debbie and Dave. The bride has turkey in the oven and baked an angel food cake this morning. The other lady’s are bringing the side dishes. I am looking forward to the fellowship. We always seem to have a good time and laugh until it hurts.

Don't this make you feel safer on the streets of Utah. Utah is one of seven states that makes it easy for illegal immigrants to drive but really does not require that we know who they are. You will see in the article that the ‘privilege card” allows the illegal to drive but can not be used for identification. I would bet that none of the 62 applicants ( number from artical)for the privilege cards that used the same address will have insurance. This is wrong on so many levels

I have so much I have wanted to blog about. Things that are going on in the government that makes me just shake my head and wonder why. But I have had blogger’s block. I will try to break out this weekend and pour my wit and wisdom into my blog. I will admit that I have never before but there is always a first time.

I went fishing yesterday with Nate. We went to Willard bay and had set there about and hour. Had a couple of bites and I had landed a catfish worthy of eating. Then Nate started to snivel about not being able to listen to “car talk” (funny talk radio show), and it being slow fishing. So we packed it in and went to catch carp on the Bear River. The carp we had caught last week were in the smoker so I decided not to keep any I caught this time until I determined if they were any good. We fished a couple of places on the river and caught a number of carp. Plus we could listen to car talk so Nate was happy.

Dropped Nate off at his place and headed home. Dumped all my stuff went out to check on the fish. I figured they had a couple hours more until they were done. I was wrong. They were done and looking and tasting pretty good. I love to pick at the fish as I take them out of the smoker, the dogs like it also. I was pulling the racks out putting the fish on a plate nibbling on some fish and giving small tid bits to the dogs. I though I had only put in three racks of fish put I pulled the top rack (number four) out and it was full of fish. It was dry and brittle. That is weird because the top rack is the furthest away from the heat and always the moistest. I picked at some, and it being so brittle it broke off chucks and hit the ground. The dogs were on it. I turned the rack and saw the skin of the fish and it was trout. The rack had been in the smoker since I had done my last batch of fish. I was spitting fish out of and pushing the dogs away from the fish on the ground. I figure it was not going to hurt me but why take a chance. Smoking fish s a way to preserver the meat, the smoker had sat in the basement which is a cool and it would have been fine. Just drier then most
The bride and I are heading out the door for church so I will talk with you all at a later date.

MS Coulter says it all (maybe a lot of it) on her blog. Worth the read