It's been busy around here. My sister was out for a visit. We had a wonderful time laughed most of the week.

Mom has not been doing so good, I believe she had a small stroke a week ago Saturday. At one point she did not know who I was. She seems to be doing better but there is a difference in her mannerisms. Plus she has had an infection of some kind. The Dr. prescribed some antibiotics and she is doing somewhat better.

The weather was beautiful today and I got some yard work accomplished. I have a full day of yard work planned for tomorrow.

I was chastised in my own backyard this afternoon. I was setting on a bench in the backyard and it seems that two dark eyed junco’s have set up housekeeping in one of my birdhouses. I have to assume that I disturbing their move in. I didn’t think that they would be using the houses this early, but it made me smile. I had two additional birdhouses I had just built and they went up today.

Tomorrow my friend Nate and I are headed to the desert and exercise our Second amendment right. It will be good to get out and burn some powder. Nate, Jim, and I have put in for the muzzle loader deer hunt this year. So I will be taking my muzzle loader out and see if I can remember how to make it go boom.

Some people's kids. Some bonehead went to the airport was in the process of declaring their gun and the weapon discharged injuring a skycap. For Pete's sake why would you not triple check the weapon before you leave the house? Anybody that handles firearms should know what condition the weapon is in at all times. This will give the anti gunners something too chatter about

Things are going well in my little corner of the world. The bride and I are headed down to Salt Lake City to watch a performance of Swan Lake and then to dinner at Benihana’s.

We spent last weekend in Salt Lake City just for a small get away. Had a very dear friend stay with mom, and just had a great time. We ended up buying the droid phone and monthly data package which allows internet access from the phone and so many cool buttons and whistles. It is the very latest in high tech time wasting.

I have spent a lot of time this week out in the shop puttering around. “Puttering “is just such a cool word. It covers so many aspects of life. You can putter in the garden, in the shop, the garage, and even in the house and you don’t have to accomplish anything. I mean how cool is that? The bride has called me from her work to ask what I am doing and I say “puttering” and I am covered. Life just doesn’t get much better then that.

I believe I will get one more cup of coffee and go putter some where. Have a blessed day and take care.

This is a true story only the names will be changed to protect the naïve. The battery in my watch died about a week ago. The bride told me I should go to J.C. Penny’s and get it replaced. So I went to Penny’s and ask the young lady (we will call her Thor the Norse god of thunder and lighting) at the jewelry department of they replaced watch batteries. Thor said it is $9.99 and she would be glad to help me. I handed her my watch which is about 6 years old. And off she went around the corner of the jewelry counter. In just a matter of minutes Thor was back saying that she did not have the correct size battery and recommended a store that might have it. I could see her struggle getting the back of my watch reinstalled. She pushed and pushed to no avail. Again she headed around the corner of the jewelry counter, this time I followed. Penny’s has a little watch press used to install the back plate of watches. I stood by having a conversation with young lady and seeing she was having just rough time of it. I jokingly commented “I would take a hammer to the sucker.” In a matter of seconds I heard a “whump, whump” and I saw Thor smacking my watch with a hammer. I yelled “ I was kidding” and she looked at me with horror in her eyes and stammering “ don’t say that, please don’t say that” By this time I am doubled over laughing as Thor goes on explaining that she does not know what she was thinking and she would have never done this on her own. All this time I am laughing uncontrollable. Thor brings me my watch and the little watch press and together we try and reassemble my watch. I am looking at the tattered inner workings and I realize the old watch has ticked its last tock. I am still laughing when Thor asks if I want a new watch. I tell her sure why not, but I told her I did not want her too get into trouble. . I was asked what I paid for the watch which was $50.00 along time ago. Thor says I can have $47.00 credit and I pick out a $60.00 watch. Her little fingers are flying all over the cash register and she tells me I will owe $3.99. I get the receipt and Thor has given me a bunch of discounts. So I went to the store too buy a $10.00 battery and I walked out with a $4.00 watch.

I changed the fuel filter in my truck yesterday, I deeded it was not too cold. I also did the air filter.

I can tell we are coming out of winter even though they are predicting snow for this weekend. It will be late March or early April until can even think about putting anything in the ground. It will probably be that long until the snow is gone from my yard. Sometimes I wished I lived someplace warm. Anymore I get this way around Febuary. I don’t do the cold like I use too. I could spend hours sitting on a frozen lake trying to pull fish up through a small hole in the ice and not be bothered at all. Or I would take off for the desert and tramp all over Gods frozen land looking for rabbits. Now I get upset if I have forgotten to turn on the heated seats in the bride’s car. Yes it is sad I have become soft and I whine about things, but I do it well.

Tomorrow is a day filled with errands with the bride (she has the day off) , and a surprise birthday party in the evening. Saturday is a gun show here in town. A few friends and I plan to attend. I really don’t need anything but it is fun to hang with some buddies and look at guns and ammo. Who knows I may find something I can not live with out that I just don’t know about yet. Time will tell, take care

Took my truck in to have my transmission, and transfer case serviced along with an oil change, it set me back a little but you do what you have to do. As soon as I determine that it is not to cold I will change the fuel filter.

The owner of the transmission shop showed me the pan off my tranny and pointed out there were more metal shaving then they would have expected. Told me to watch out for slipping or hard shifting, the old tranny seems to run out real strong but I will pay more attention to it. A rebuild on it will run about $2600, which is a lot cheaper then a new truck. The bride and I will put a category in the budget to save for the repair if needed. It is our endeavor to never use credit again. If we don’t have the cash we don’t need it.

Things are going pretty well in the household. The bride is counting the days until she can retire. As it stands right now it is just under three years, but rumors abound about an early out. I think we can swing it if she pulls the plug. We only have one bill left (it’s a big one) and we are on track to have it paid in two years time. It will be glorious to have no debt at all. I have just been informed that I need to fix the light in my mom’s bathroom. See-ya

My daughter informed us that we will be grandparents again. I am a happy camper

Been awhile since I had anything to say, life has been somewhat emotional lately. It looked like I was going to have to put mom is an assisted living facility. Tension in the house was off the scale. We took mom to a new doctor that specializes in the elderly and she put mom on an additionally medication that has done wonders so far.

I have a lawyer working on making me mom’s guardian, and conservator. This is a necessary step. I have talked with my sister and she thinks this is for the best. Sometimes life is not fun.

I blogged about my son’s in laws losing their son just before Christmas, his daughter, their granddaughter fell off the kitchen counter last night and they had to use life flight to transport her to primary children’s hospital today. She has a concussion, cracked skull, and had internal bleeding in the brain. The last report I had was the child was doing well and the bleeding had stopped. Please keep her in your prayers and thoughts.

Happy New Year.!!! I woke up this morning to find one of the dogs had pooped in the house. Not really the way I wanted to start my year. I am hoping that it only gets better from here.

The bride and I stayed up to see the New Year in last night and now I remember why we don’t stay up any more. It was no big deal and we ate way too many snacks waiting for the stroke of midnight.

I did something I am proud of. I came across a bag of firecrackers laying around the house, and knowing that they are illegal in the Great State of Utah I knew I had to get rid of them. The bride and I love to watch law enforcement type shows. On many of these shows I watch the contraband gathered by the many law enforcement agencies get destroyed by fire, and that is what I did. At midnight last night I put a match to the firecrackers. In less then a minute they were gone and I felt so much better knowing that I had dome the right thing.

The bride has just wandered downstairs and I think I should go spend some time with her, besides my coffee cup is empty. Again Happy New Years to all

I just had to delete my Christmas post. I had a comment that looked like Chinese writing. Interspersed in this post was the word "sex", it also appeared to be a link, and no I
I did not click on it. I figured at best this would infect the computer with a virus and at worst it it was porn. I want nothing to do with either.

On Wednesday Dec 9 my daughter in law's 25 year old brother passed away. We have been busy helping the family any way we can. There will be a "celebration of life" service this evening and a family graveside funeral tomorrow. Please keep the family in your thoughts and prayers.

Home safe and sound after a wonderful week visiting my son and his bride; plus watching as much football as we could in one week. Went on another ride along with Nick (He is a cop) . This was my third ride along and the second time we had a dead body. Nick was calling me the angel of death. Seeing someone dead is never the highlight of my trip but it is interesting to see how the situation is handled.

I did enjoy the Chargers beating the Broncos last week and the seats were the best I have had for any sporting event. We were 14 rows from the field and it was fantastic, the fact that the charges won buy the score of 32 to 3 help a lot.

The Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful and we laughed during the whole meal. My son did the majority of the cooking and is a wonderful cook. The only down side to the trip was having to put down one of Nick’s dogs. It was hard but had to be done. I was able to help share the grief and was glad I was there for my boy and his wife.

I am headed off for Denver in the morning. My youngest son and I will be attending the Chargers vs Broncos game; we will be decked out in our finest San Diego yelling at the top of our lung. I can not wait. I will stay through Thanksgiving and return home the following Saturday. The bride and mom will come out to Denver Tuesday before Thanksgiving should be a good time.

Safety tip.. Do NOT vacuum around the fireplace when you have a fire going. I took the vacuum extension and was cleaning off the hearth, when I was done I could smell something really bad. None of the dogs were around so I could not blame them. With my keen eye I noticed a large amount of smoke coming out of the vacuum. I figure this was not good and I carried it outside opened it up and the vacuum bag was smoldering away. I pulled the bag out and tossed it into the snow. All was good on the home front. I explained what happened to the bride and she still wants me to vacuum, I can’t seem to catch a break.

The brides sister is in town and the girls have been on the go every since her plane touched down. They seem to be having a wonderful time. I have no idea how much this is going to cost, but I would bet it going to be a lot.

The Internet has been going on about Obama plans to sign a world treaty end privet ownership of guns. Even if he signs this piece of crap I doubt it could be ratified by the congress. If they do ratify I would bet it would get real ugly over here.

Not much going on in my life. I did take mom for a pedicure, and manicure today. She loves being pampered.

I have sent my e mail off to Home Depot on my protest for the firing of the gentleman for wearing his “One nation under God” button.
This is a quote from the pledge of allegiance, so is Home depot anti God or anti America, or both? This is one more example of political correctness gone awry. I have spent thousand of dollars at Home Depot and I told them no more. It looks like Lowes gets all my money now.

A week of anniversaries for me, Oct 28th is my wedding anniversary, Oct 30 is my heart attack anniversary, and Oct 31 is my service comp date for the government. I will be married to my bride for 37 years, 8 years since my heart attack, and 36 years since I started with the government. Since I retired at the first of the year my service comp date has lost much of its meaning. The heart attack still means a bunch too me. For those of you that know me well know I have been in the hospital every fall since the heart attack. This year I am hoping to stay out, and not every year has been heart related. There were the two years with blood clots in the lungs, there was the double knee replacement and let’s not forget my ATV rollover and the life flight out of the desert, and to think fall use to be my favorite time of the year.

The bride and I are headed off to Disneyland in the morning. We will be home Monday. I was also invited to go fishing this weekend. Out of the two I know where I would rather be, but will keep that to myself. Just in case the bride happens to read my blog. It will be a good time and she has been wanting to go for a very long time. A little known secret about Disneyland history: I was there the first day it opened. It was pretty short at the time but mom said I had fun. As much fun as a two year old can have in a stroller. Maybe I still look good in mouse ears