Our updates for all of you

Yes I forgot while working on the last post. And I've even been listening to the "Scarefest" on XM 27, Cinemagic and sometimes to the Halloween only channel for this 'holiday', GORE 134 also on XM. Interesting, but I've not been a fan of this date for decades. It was Wednesday October 30th, 1973 and I was on my way home from High School on my little 300 dollar Honda 175, my first motorcycle. Around 4 in the afternoon and as I'm going up the hill on the road into the main part of town and towards home in Yucaipa, at the top of the hill is a cross intersection, seventh street. Now it's all widened, has stoplights and everything, back then it was a blind cross way stop. In front of me appears a car, scoots across no problem, but right behind it was a white station wagon. That driver either didn't see me or misjudged my closeness, in any event, it ran the stop and pulled out right on the tail of the front car and I hit the wagon broadside. I hit just ...

First off, even you don't like to ride motorcycles, go out and get the December 2008 issue of "Rider" magazine. Then after you look the magazine over a bit, check out the story that starts on page 46. Titled "To Yaak and Back", it describes the writer and his wife's travels around and through our area. Stacy and I have been on several of the roads he talks about and rode himself. The road that gives the story it's title, the Yaak River road, is as good a motorcycle road as any I rode back in California. And when that road winds down and then follows Lake Koocanusa, a very large lake in Montana, you'll get to see how this truly is some beautiful country around here! Weather wise, well, no snow before Halloween this year for our area. Out in Iowa Laura said they've had some there, and we're expected to have our first dusting by Monday. The long range forecast for this winter is still less snow but colder temps. We'll see!! Back in the '...

Tad was in taking a shower, so I thought I'd read through some of the blogs he had typed. Who would have known I married such a interesting and prolific writer? I enjoyed the time I spent with Laura, Russell and Tyler. Tyler is so fun to play with and talk to. He is such a good boy and tried so hard to entertain Grandma Stacy. Laura is working long hours, and Russell is taking care of Tyler and working on his on-line classes. When I returned home Tad had really surprised me with the work he had done downstairs where we store the dvd's, cd's and video tapes. I should go visit Tyler more often and give Tad a chance to surprise me again!!! Well, it's time to go to bed and start another day tomorrow. Take care all. Love Stacy

Stacy got back from Iowa on last Saturday (10/18). It took her about 5 days to get used to our pacific time zone again from Iowa's central time, but she's pretty well back to normal on her sleep time. It is hard getting up at 6 am when it stays dark till almost 8 am! Dark by 5:20 which will be 4:20 in a little over a week! Just 4 months ago, it was light by 3:30 am and staying that way until almost 10 pm! She had a lot of fun with the grand baby Tyler. We watched all her video on Saturday evening then all over again on Sunday so her father could see it too. This weekend we'll be putting scenes from all the mini-DVD's to a standard DVD, then copy and send them out so all can see how Tyler is progressing at almost three years old. Stacy with Laura and Tyler did drive up to Missouri to visit with my parents. They didn't get to meet brother Daryl and his wife as they were on vacation. It was a spur of the moment trip anyway since it wasn't known if Laura could get t...

I was on the Internet watching with interest about the annual firestorms that have become as normal down in our old area of Southern California, as the leaves turning gold up here. Rewind to November 1981 and I was a new employee of San Bernardino County Animal Control, and just a little over a year before there had been the devastating Little Mountain fire that had taken out most of the homes in the North end of San Bernardino. So most of the people working there then had their stories of all seen and done during those fires. For many it had been the biggest event to be involved with in their entire lives. Back then and for many years, fires happened in the late summer and while most were quick brush fires, seldom did the fires just keep coming with the mass devastation to San Bernardino County that there has been since the summer of 2003. Of course many things have changed to make it to get to where it is now. Whether it is due to global warming or the continued evolving of t...

For me personally, not much going on. I've just been working on the firewood situation with the weather getting colder. And doing what I can on the weekend days without rain in them. Hope to get a lot more done this weekend since it will be a three day one, and other than cool, highs in the 40's, its supposed to stay dry until next week. I'd wanted to go flying on Saturday or Monday and get some new aerial pictures with the trees turning fall colors. I had some running around to do on Wednesday while at work so I stopped by to schedule the plane. BIG disappointment! Their ONLY rental is out of service for who knows how long with the entire engine firewall needing to be replaced. They were doing the required annual inspection and found that an unknown renter pilot had hit so hard with the nose wheel on a landing that it pretty well tweaked a good portion of the the lower firewall where the nose gear mounts. It had to have happened in the past 100 hours of service, but whoeve...

Yup, many of the trees are turning the golds, oranges, and reds of fall. The Canadian Geese are back, the flocks of Turkeys are out and about, the leaves falling and rainy cooler weather is here. Wednesday Stacy is flying out to Iowa and visit with Laura and her husband and grand baby Tyler. She'll be there eight days with two travel days going and coming back. She hasn't been able to see Tyler since last October when Sandy got married. Stacy's looking forward to seeing them. She's just stressing about her job. I keep telling her that just like in the animal control days, everything will still be here when she gets back and the job will still go on with her gone. I know because I'm covering for her while she's off. Sandy is working long days and still teaching her class on Thursdays at USC. Sean says all is well and he can't wait to get out of San Diego. He REALLY doesn't like the crowds and traffic of that area. A few months back, I'd talked about s...