Musings of a minor megalomaniac
These should’ve been posted last month, but despite spending an inordinate amount of time sitting at the PC these days, still fail to find enough of it. Looks like things are humming right along on the isthmus, with the exception of Telin’s recent divorce. I still marvel at how far and wide the extended family reaches out all over the world from there.
Just a few favs. The rest here.
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They really got it goin’ on down in the Lone Start State. Speed limit’s 75mph everywhere and appears to be a minimum target rate for most drivers. Phoebe and Tanner were great. A good chunk of family was there and we had the best home-made spread I’ve seen in quite awhile, with all the fixins. Tanner was up all night tending the smoker, ’nuff said – best Xmas dinner ever!
But as usual, I managed to screw some stuff up, not snapping any pictures on the hill the whole time, too busy hiking and taking it in. It’s just big enough for me to get around and over in under an hour. I took Michelle back trying to find where Diesel killed that coon and we did, but didn’t even have the phone with me, and she rolled her ankle. 🙁
Just a few of my favorites below, the rest here.
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Phoebe took us on a little mountain town tour up around Breckenridge yesterday. The weather was perfect, traffic was light and we had a mafia staff car rental (BMW X7) to navigate the rocky road across the continental divide between Breck and Como through the Pike National Forest. We had a great time learning how to put the wheels up and down. That whole area is really beautiful country and we nearly timed the Aspen change just right.
If you’ve ever been up there you know most of these mountain towns are very similar tourist trap-type venues. But they make a great stop for lunch on the way home from a fun drive in the high country. I’ll be heading back in the truck soon to check out some stuff further off the beaten path.
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As one of the last of the Baby Boomers, right on that cusp of having early Boomer parents, I could make my own list. #3 reminded me of a measles medication made by Seagram’s.
RELATED NOTE: Half of baby boomers have no retirement savings.
Now I gotta start buggin’ em’ for more pics. Only got the one. Wasn’t gonna make another post until the 9th, just to prove myself wrong, but some things are more important that than Pootin‘s little war of aggression.
They scooped Francie at DIA this morning. Good thing she wasn’t trying to travel earlier in the week.
Tutu’s. Alrighty then, tutu Tuesday it is… She’s been doing this exercise class for quite some time.
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Probably should have posted this a couple weeks ago when we first heard, but couldn’t get any pics to go along with it. On a related note, One of Tanner’s friends just got married, so we’ll go with that for illustrative purposes. He’s wearing the light-colored hat in the middle back.
Bet that’s a topic you never guessed would crop up here. I never imagined daughter #2 was gonna hook up with a Swedish hockey player, either. I told Michelle sending her to Plymouth State was probably a bad idea. Now she lives in Boston and spends holidays in Sweden with Vic. I hope they don’t have a corresponding looney tunes faction doing the MAGA thing over in Scandinavia at any scale.
I’ll certainly never forget my Mom. Once on the Internet, always on the Internet – even if someone is unwittingly spoofing your email. She got ahold of my Yahoo address about twenty years ago. That is one of the reasons I’m now normally known online as acewiza@gmail.com, rather than the OG ace_wizard@yahoo.com.
It’s pretty incredible, the crap they are selling: Dinner with Trump, 900% match, pure fear mongering on every talking point – even social engineering for more personal details. I check that inbox to clean it out once a month or so nowadays. It’s been mostly spam, now accompanied by an equally large volume of MAGA bullshyt.
I guess they teach the basic stuff first in law school like everywhere else. Seems Francie is learning the “run out the clock” legal tactic. There’s no statute of limitations for the Photo Album, so here they are, just in time for Valentine’s day!
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Looks like the gang down on the isthmus is having another great Xmas!
I’m not exactly familiar with JRR Tolkein’s work. But I can tell from this little snippet of his lesser-known writing, what a genius he must have been. Halfway through this long-forgotten letter, an allegory emerged for me. Our North Polar Bear has been doing much better this season, and the house is getting less broken, despite pandemic stress, long-distances and challenging health issues. Here’s my Letter from Father Christmas, to everybody:
The house at 5712 was turned upside down and seemed lost three years ago. Evil healer elves from Big HMO hurt Father Christmas and refused to admit it. Everybody doubted him, just like they did ever since the before times. Exceptional juvenile misdeeds left him known as a no-good, not to be trusted. He eventually learned the reason for his behavior and got better at dealing with daily challenges over the years.
The evil elves denied what they’d done and tried to hide it after Father Christmas told their bosses what happened. Official records and subsequent surgery eventually cleared that up, but it took a long time to penetrate their secret society. Even Father Time cannot turn that back, and no elves wanted any talk of the past. Now time is on nobody’s side. The good healer elves can no longer stop new sickness because too many people don’t trust them. It will take much longer to get things done correctly now, because liars have time for little else but covering their words.
Father Christmas has not accepted what happened to him, because the worst of the evil healer elves appear to have gotten away with it, so far. Until those truly responsible are held to account, true happiness seems unlikely ever again. Try to accept the suffering and overlook the dishonesty at it’s roots. And Do not attribute to malice, that which is adequately explained by stupidity. North Polar Bear is getting better, and we are a great team!
Everybody changed for some reason after the truth finally came out. Don’t be sad about the truth, regardless of it’s implications. It deters the worst of the wicked, and leads to a better place after they strike. Good healers outnumber the stupid by a wide margin and science always prevails. Let’s just hope the win still includes human beings some years hence.
Happy “whatever-your-irrational-belief-system!”
Francie pretty much disappeared from Colorado when she left for Plymouth State. But there were occasional visits either way over the Plymouth years until the pandemic hit and ruined everything. After 16 months, she finally made it home with Victor this time. It’ll be a short Thanksgiving week visit while they work over the Internet from here. Vic’s looking to get started in the finance industry and Francie has law school acceptance letters coming in. They got a couple hours to climb around on the rocks down in Boulder yesterday.
Got a nice little set of pics from Phoebe ‘n Tanner’s August fishing expedition.
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