Boating on Chatfeild Lake

I think I was an unloved child. They gave me drowning lessons. At least they did yesterday. See the smile on Gary's face? Actually, my favorite thing turned out to be the inner tube at 25 miles an hour! Our friends Vickie and Gary invited us down for an afternoon of boating at Chatfield Lake near our house.

Not being the kind of people who turn down fun, we decided to go. It all started with bratwurst. Then Nancy tried out the tube and what do you know, a couple of times, she actually went airborne! I told her to be careful not to drink the water. You know what fish do in it!

A hot summer sun has it's advantages, you don't have to shovel it. Gary took advantage of the warm weather and rode the wake board. After all, it was his birthday! There's a simple secret for long life Gary, get to be a hundred and then be more careful. Watching Gary was really my favorite thing, because I got to drive the boat!

Vickie had exceptional skills at doing her nails on the tube. This is a skill I made no effort to master.

Grandchildren

The grandchildren are a great joy to us. Nancy of course is wild about them. Watching her brought me to the realization that a grandmother is a woman who's thrilled because her grandchild can recite the Gettysburg Address at five when Lincoln didn't do it until he was much older!

Rockies

Nancy and I went to the ballgame last night. The Rocks cold bats could only manage one run in a 1-6 loss to the Dodgers. In the last 78 games the Rockies are something like 55 wins and only 23 losses. What are the chances we'd witness another loss at home? Now a full three games behind the LA Dodgers, they have their work cut out.

Fishing Wheel

Here is a video of some of the fishing wheels in Alaska. I thought you might like to see them in action.

Life in Alaska

While I was in Alaska recently driving somewhere near Glenallen, I saw Sourdough Joes's Fish and Flies truck by the side of the road about 10:30a in the morning. So, I went over and asked him, "what business are you in?" He said, "I'm in the retail business but I'm late for work." I have the feeling there's a correlation between getting up in the morning and getting up in the world.

Old age

What's older? The building or my father? Well in this case, we have to say it's the building. The way I see it is, the best time for men to have babies is when they're in their 90's. That's when they have to get up ten times a night anyway! I'm growing old myself. My wife hasn't had a birthday in ten years!

Health care "reform?"

Udall's office called me yesterday and wanted to know if I was "not in favor of supporting the President's initiative on health care reform." My reply went something like this...

Let me see if I understand this correctly....

Obama's health care plan will be
written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it,
passed by a Congress that hasn't read it,
signed by a President who smokes,
funded by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes,
overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and
financed by a country that is nearly broke.

And you want to know if I'm NOT in favor of supporting this? Odd way to ask a question, I thought.

Fishing in Alaska

Last weekend I went to the Copper River in Alaska and helped my friends work their fishing wheel and eat salmon. Of course the wheel is legal for locals who have a reserved spot. We caught 84 fish! The basket on the wheel behind me scoops them up as they blindly run up the river and drops them into boxes on either side. All we have to do is scoop them out with a net.

The four and a half hour drive from Wasilla to the Copper River is absolutely jaw dropping. Below is the Matanuska glacier which is only an hour out of town. We took the Glen Highway Northeast along the Matanuska River Valley on our route to Glenallen, the Copper River, and Chitina.

Needless to say, we ate a lot on this trip. There is nothing quite like taking the salmon right out of the river and throwing it onto the grill immediately. There is just nothing like it.

The fishing wheel runs all day. The best time to catch fish though seems to be at night. So, when we would get up in the morning there was a lot of work to do. It was time to fillet the fish and sample them of course. The only fish running this time of year are red sockeye, which locals consider the best eating.

Tennis

I watched the tennis match the other night. Whats with all the screaming and grunting? Tennis isn't a matter of life and death. It must be more important than that! It is so distracting I can't stand it. And tennis champs are getting so young they give autographs in crayon! The way I see it, anybody under 18 who screams and grunts and jumps over a 3 foot net should take up track.

The Russians took up tennis about twenty years ago. They already play a good game at the nyet!

Chinese Food

My grandson is learning how to eat Chinese food at Pei Wei. I just don't get it with these things. They make better drums than anything else. This is crazy. Where do the Chinese go when they want to eat out?

Christ

When God had created the whole world, he looked at it and - behold, it was very good. When Christ died upon the cross, he said - "It is finished."

So S.K. reminded us, "He spared Abraham's firstborn and only tested the patriarch's faith; he spared not his only begotten son."

Dishonesty

These days there is great angst and despair over the amount of dishonesty in trade and business, etc. Wall Street, Congress, and everyone we should be able to trust, seem dishonest. But the real tragedy is that there is so much dishonesty in the most important one, which concerns the soul's salvation, eternal happiness, Christianity. That is where the most honest person of all is somewhat dishonest. And why is he like this? What is the source of this? It comes from the fact that every man is afraid of eternity, afraid of its power, afraid of getting involved authentically with it. And just because we human beings are all afraid, we share a kind of mutual human dishonesty - we all stick together in being dishonest.

Cubs under rock pile as Tulo cycles

The Rockies won last night but in an interesting way. Troy Tulowitzki went 5-for-5, hit a single, double, triple, and a home run. He scored twice, had 7 RBI's, and even had a grand slam called back because it looked foul. They had to review the play on video because it went so high over the foul pole, no one was really sure even after watching the video.

The Rocks are now 62 - 50 and 5 1/2 games behind the Dodgers. There are 50 games left to play and plenty of opportunity.

Daisy

It's great to have a granddaughter. Daisy is a beautiful little girl. I am a little jealous because Nancy is visiting with her later this week in Tucson. I know they'll have a terrific time.

Mountain biking

Nancy and I went mountain biking today up Waterton Canyon to the Colorado Trail. On the way up we stopped at Stontia Springs Reservoir ate a snack and watched the water pour out. The reservoir holds 7,800 acre feet of water. 1 acre foot of water is equivalent to about 326,000 gallons of water. Now they say it needs to be dredged because of the buildup of sediment from the Hayman and Buffalo Creek Fires.

Portland

I was in Portland this week and visited with Theresa and Genaro. We got caught up on everything and enjoyed steaks in the warm weather outside.

Health care and speed reading

One of the complaints about the new health care plan is that the bill is so long and complex. Reading it in such a short period of time is not only impossible, but legislators will vote for it simply because it's a partisan piece of legislation, even though they've never read it, much less had a chance to read it. I like the words of Winston Churchill. When he was given an official document of "stupefying verbosity," he protested, "This paper, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read." I couldn't have said it better myself.

Mt. Bierstadt

Nancy and I climbed Mount Bierstadt today, a Colorado 14,000 ft. peak. Near Guanella Pass close to Mount Evans, we left the car at 7:30a and began hiking the 2,700 feet up these beautiful slopes.

On the way up we enjoyed a perfectly clear day and unparalleled views of central Colorado from Pikes Peak and South Park to Grays and Torreys peaks and of course the Sawtooth, Gray Wolf Mountain, and Mount Spalding.

The final summit prow is about 150 ft. above the ridge line going up. Nancy decided to wait for me on the ridge while I climbed up the final icy, rock strewn slopes. Yes you heard me correctly, ice and snow from the night before covered the way up, on August 1. It was actually rather treacherous. Nancy is in the picture below wearing a green wind breaker. Double click this photo and you see her clearly.

At the summit I took this shot. Faintly, you can see the road going over Kenosha Pass and into South Park. We had a great time, but we're very tired.