What to ask God for...

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

- Marcel Proust

Try asking God to open your eyes to see what he wants you to see, and then wait and see what happens. You might be surprised. The photo below is just a turn in the road somewhere in Oregon, nothing special. But God will have something special for you.

The Rage Against God

I just finished reading The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens. I highly recommend this book to anyone who really wants to think about the objections to faith in God. Hitchens, like his brother Christopher, was an atheist. However, unlike his brother he looked hard at the arguments and found they told a different story. His atheism led to faith in God.

Click below for the Kindle version:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Rage-Against-God-ebook/dp/B003EUGFY8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1379977312&sr=1-1&keywords=The+rage+against+God

Tooth Fairy

Hmmm... "Tooth Fairy"... not very politically correct! But if it means I get money, heh, I'm in. Where do I put this thing?  Really? Under my pillow? Are you kidding me? Okay, well the money better be there.

Life is glorious. And while growing up can be odd and uncomfortable, it's really pretty cool.

Rockies

We went to the Rockies game last night and watched them lose to the DBacks. It was a beautiful evening, perfect weather and a great night to be watching baseball.

One of the motivations for going to the game was to see Todd Helton play one more time. He is retiring at the end of the season. We think he should be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Here are a few stats:

1) 589 doubles (1st in active players)
2) 368 home runs
3) 1,398 RBI's
4) .316 lifetime batting average, with a high of .372 in 2000 and 216 hits
5) .539 lifetime slugging percentage
6)  Three Gold Gloves
7)  .414 On base percentage lifetime
8)  1998 Rookie of the Year
9)  Six MVP's
10) In 17 years he's only had 79 errors, with a fielding percent of .996
11) Four years as a Silver Slugger

Even his current manager Walt Weiss, looks on in amazement. Anyway, Nancy and I had a good time at the ballpark, ate a couple of hotdogs, and watched the Rocks lose. Well, maybe next year.

Ride my bicycle

I got Nancy a new bicycle for her birthday (see her pictured below) and we decided to ride up Waterton Canyon. One the ride ride, we were rewarded with two herds of big horn sheep, maybe a total of 40 animals (see one of the herds picture below, behind Nancy).

The two large males were up on high ground watching over the flock. I suspect they're getting ready to knock heads for the fall ritual.

The South Platte river was running pretty heavy, so we checked out the dam (Strontia Springs reservoir) at the top of the canyon. Water wash gushing out of the bottom and creating a sizable splash. We could only assume it was full after all the rain we've had recently.

Football

Football is a game in which eleven men spend hours trying to move a small object a hundred yards. It's the same as the post office! And, football is supposed to build bodies. Baloney! I watched four games this weekend, and look at my flab!

All kidding aside, we like our Broncos and they're off to a great start this year. Next Monday night we play the Raiders. Most Bronco fans agree. Even if we lose 14 games and still beat the Raiders twice, the season was a success.

Flood photos

Below are some of the latest photos of the flood. They say that over 200 people are missing. We didn't get much rain at our house, comparatively speaking (it has been raining off and on for four days). I suspect we got at least 2 inches, but nothing close to the nine inches in Boulder.

I was in Greeley on Wednesday for a meeting. Now look at it...

This is where a bridge collapsed in Lyons (the little town you pass through on the way up to Estes Park).

This is what's left of Topaz Street in Boulder. Not surprisingly, the CU football game was cancelled yesterday. The school said it wouldn't be right to demand that police and fire personnel be at a football game when they're needed badly elsewhere around the city. Hmmm... people in Boulder exercising good judgement, maybe they need a few more floods to wake them up!

This is the St. Vrain river off Hwy 7 about 12 miles West of Lyons. Many of you have called us to see if we're okay. Nancy is up in the mountains this weekend with her friend Kathy and they may have to find an alternate route home. Other than that, it's life as usual.  I'm going to Church today and then coming home to watch the Broncos beat up on the Giants (hopefully).

Time to go fishing

There are three lakes connected with Rainbow Lake. The large upper lake, the middle lake (where we camped) and the lower lake. Below, we're hiking to the upper lake to go fishing.

I told Nancy not to feel disappointed if she didn't catch any fish. I explained that fishing is a matter of timing. You have to get there yesterday. Of course I expected to catch all the fish. However, the opposite was true. Nancy caught all the fish. I just caught rocks, trees, and other nearby obstacles in the way.

Mark caught these fish, two cutthroat trout and two rainbow. We really enjoyed our dinner that night.

Nancy caught this pan sized rainbow in the lower lake. She called me over to remove the hook. I removed it twice, once from the fish and once from my finger!

It seemed like there were lots of rainbow in the lower lake. Fish are like brain food, because they travel in schools!

Once again, Nancy catches another rainbow in the lower lake. Nancy is a natural and I suppose we'll be doing more fishing in the future. Although I remember the Turner's fishing experience. They were out in a boat at dawn. The air was raw. Bugs were everywhere. Mrs. Turner said to her husband, "Tell me again what  good time I'm having. I keep forgetting!"

Camping out

Yes, we hiked four miles and about 1500 feet up to do this! It's the greatest pleasure trip of all time, next to driving your own kids to summer camp! It was loads of fun, except the sleeping and trips into the forest to read the morning paper. Below is our tent and me rising early, looking for coffee.

Here is Nancy and Teena enjoying coffee in the morning. They're waiting for chef Mark to get the pancakes going. And yes, coffee tastes better out here.

Tammy and Dan are also waiting for pancakes while they enjoy coffee in camp. Hey, who built that fire? Yes, it was me. The ladies seemed concerned about their appearance, since there is really no way to be prepared for all the dirt and messy hair, and so forth. I suggested that the bags under their eyes were Gucci! And that bottle of water? Perrier.

Finally the pancakes were ready to eat. And wow were they good. I was a little wary of Mark's recipe though. It said, "add two heaping tablespoons of anything!" Hmmm... Anyway, for dinner we had freeze-dried Beef Stroganoff. It was pretty good once you tenderized the gravy!

Granddaughters

Granddaughters are unbelievable. As the saying goes, "There is only one beautiful child in the world, and every parent has it!" My daughter's girls are happy as you can see below. What a beautiful world. Of course I find it amazing what our parents sometimes wished for. My mother used to say to me, "I want you to have kids just like you." If she'd only known!

Life is worth living

Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create that fact. Fishing a few times along the way helps too. Below, Nancy caught a nice rainbow trout and I'm helping her get it off the hook.

Now we're up at Rainbow lakes eating fish. These were the ones that didn't get away. Too bad it started to rain at dinner time. We hiked the trail in about four miles over the weekend with friends, camped out and went fishing for four days. More on this later...