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01/01/08

Happy 2008 to all!
First off, happy anniversary to Mike and Brenda. New Years anniversary, guess that can't be forgotten! Thanks to Dan G. for the call! Hope you had a great couple of days off before you went back to the grindstone. Even got a surprise call from Dan R. out in Missouri. Mike had failed to mention that Dan had been involved in a motorcycle versus dog accident last summer. Broken ribs and shoulder, wrecked Gold Wing, five days in the hospital and three months missed work, ouch! With his Christmas Card had been a note that he'd been looking at a newer motorcycle for sometime in 2008. We thought that was nice, then with his call we knew why!
New slideshow for blog is just a few photos taken just before and on Christmas day.

I Spent most of today getting a slightly older computer of Stacy's up and running with all the updates and new Norton anti-virus. It took almost all day for that task! It is a two year old H.P. that has stuff like all her sewing programs for her Programmable Embroidery Machine, things like that. We're going to be moving it down to her sewing area, closer to her Embroidery.
A couple of weeks ago I was talking with uncle Dennis, we were talking about the computers we have. Well, Stacy has two, one H.P. in the bedroom and now the older H.P. down with the sewing. I have two desktops and a laptop, My Sony Viao here at the desk and an older Compaq in the kitchen and then the H.P. laptop as the roving computer we share around the house and in the living room sometimes. We still have several of the kids old computers out in our storage building in back. It's funny about that. All through the years we've had computers the one constant has been that they've all cost about $1,400. Our first one with Windows 95, two floppy drives back then, no CD yet. To the newest one of Stacy's that has two DVD/CD drives and no floppy drive! And from a few hundred megabyte hard drive to hers with a 320 gigabyte drive. We ran cable to her computer and took her new computer back to its initial start up configuration to help eliminate some problems she'd been having with it. So far so good and now she also has the high speed connection at hers. This Hughes Net Satellite Internet is so nice compared to all we had to deal with before with dial up. It is a little on the expensive side compared with some DSL/cable packages, but it's all we could get out here in the country for high speed. So far in our opinion we can echo reviews I read before we got it. If you get it you'll NEVER go back to dial up if you don't have to.

We've been watching the Harry Potter series the past few days. I got the newest one for Stacy for Christmas. We both really like them all. I love those moving photos and paintings in those movies. And movies must be in WIDE SCREEN. I guess that's a hold over from my days at the movie theatres we had when I was 14 to 22 years old. Stacy puts up with me on that one, just as she does with so many things like that.

In looking back at '07, there were some losses we had. Friends that had great importance in my life as well as for Stacy. In all three very old friends, and it was too bad that their leaving was unexpected to the point that we didn't hear of their passing for several months in one case.
Fred and Dorothy Davis were very special to us. My first job was working at Redlands Airport for Fred Davis in 1972. My Grandmother Opal Hinds, through her connections of her long lasting friendship with the San Bernardino County Sheriff of that time Frank Bland, got me the introduction to work with Fred Davis and Denny Haskins the co-owners of the Redlands Aviation maintenance hanger. It started out as after school and on Saturdays for free, just to be around airplanes. To actually working there with them for over eight years. I'd get to go with Fred often when he'd go flying on Saturdays after the shop closed at noon. He then owned a Cessna 182. I'd also get to go anytime he had to fly someplace for parts or twice to check out planes for salvage. Working there I was able to get hands on experience in maintenance. I really enjoyed it. Denny was funny but Fred was the closest to a father I had during that era. In 1977 Fred retired for the second time and he and his wife moved to Weaverville in Northern California. They wanted to be near their only daughter and her family. I was there to visit only a few times back then in the late 70's and early 80's. But Stacy and our family were able to visit with them quite a few times in the past decade. They really cared about our kids and enjoyed any visits with them we had. Our visits with them was how I got to know his wife Dorothy. In the airport days she was often talked about but seldom came out to the airport. Stacy and I really enjoyed her country wisdom and perceptions. They are both missed. Fred died last February and Dorothy last May.
The third person was Carol Dunkerley. I'd known her and her husband Mike since about 1977. We were all motorcycle friends and went on hundreds of rides and trips together over the years. We'd stayed pretty well in touch with each other over the years. When Stacy and I were in Animal Control, Carol was even working for another Department at a desk just across from our Supervisors, so we got to see Carol every time we were there, sometimes several times a week. Carol had often suffered from bad allergies for all the time I'd known her. What I didn't know was that her allergies had become asthma. She died last June and in October when Mike was able to locate our Idaho phone number to tell us, he said she hadn't been feeling well and had had an asthma attack that had killed her. I'd always thought of her as much older than me. She was only four years older at 54.
All Stacy and I can say about that is please, please keep contact info current and make sure everybody knows where it is!!!! It was very sad to hear of these passings. It made it worse by the time it took for us to hear about them!
***Tad had to take a break, and as I sat down to read what he had written, I got that feeling I always get around Tad, he is the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't know what I'd do with out Tad, my best friend in this entire world! Opps, he's back with "a little more to add!" Type to you later..Stacy
One last thing from me for this 'book' as Stacy calls my 'notes'. I know that for all the Goodwins, there is about a 48 year gap in knowing me. So this seems like a good place to tell you all stories about........... well, me! Okay my kids if they're reading this now can groan and be ready to start skipping these!!!
Until next update, Tad

Comments

mike said…
Tad,
Thanks for the URL for this site again. I have now placed it in my favorites so I can come back to it from time to time and read your short stories...LOL... I hope you can join us on the "Wild Hog" road trip. It is scheduled for Aug 8th thru the 31st. We will be camping it for the most part with a motel stay from time to time to do laundry and a good shower. It should prove to be rather fun and interesting with lots of country covered. Washington to Florida and back. I'm getting together with Dave this weekend to go over the maps and do some pre planning of the route. I'll keep you informed as thing progress along on this so you can figure out if your up for it.

Your little brother,
Mike
mike said…
BTW..Congrats Stacy on your new Job. From the look of things today should have been your first day at work. I hope it was everything you were expecting and more. And you thought you were done raising kids...LOL...

Mike

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