A Year of Change

Unless you live in a cave, you saw the nationwide flight disruptions yesterday. I was talking with Jagger trying to get a read on the stock market and what it’ll do on Monday. He said things are a little crazy with yesterday’s shutdown, the Microsoft email issues, weather satellites being out a few days earlier, and the whole Nvidia thing. All have believable explanations but Jag looks for patterns beneath the obvious. Hopefully it’s all just one big coincidence but you never know.

The takeaway is once again, the government can’t and won’t help you. You need to be prepared to take care of yourself. This is a warning to take note of. What if all cell phones went down? How about diesel stops flowing meaning zero trucks are transporting goods, most importantly your food? These and other things we depend on, can and will happen at some point. Are you ready? Not sure any of us are for all the things that can happen.

Lori has pilates with Sara this morning so we need to leave in 9 minutes. Ty gets his new tires installed at 11 and I have a few things to do around the house. Lori wants to put some Christmas lights up today! I’m throwing some short ribs in the crock pot too. Big win by CU last night! I turned it off at half time, big mistake! Congrats to them.

Time to go, have a great Saturday, God Bless.

Friday the 13th, or Templer Day. We’ve covered this before so if you don’t know what I mean, look it up. Pink sunrise outside. It’s pretty. Lori and I are headed to the gym as soon as I’m done with the blog.

Yesterday in Glenwood we picked up Lori’s new phone and had everything transferred over. I ordered one up for Ty that will hopefully arrive today so he can get it tomorrow after he gets his new tires on at Costco at 11am. I left my phone home when we left at 7 am so I was off grid until around noon. When I made it home I had 16 missed calls and tons of texts. Some were asking, are you ok? Just goes to show you how attached to phones we all are. Sad if you really think about it. You can’t go five hours without everyone freaking out. I miss the days when we didn’t all have cell phone that were on us 24/7. Those were good days.

Time to get going. Have a great day, God Bless.

This morning we’re going to Glenwood to pick up Lori’s new phone. It came in Monday. We’ll leave here about 7:15 as Lori has a blood draw first before AT&T opens at 9.

Doesn’t look like we’re going to get much snow, if any now. It will be colder outside this weekend. Ty’s about to leave for work as it’s 6:20am.

Yesterday I took lunch to Dr. B and the girls in Lori’s office for Veterans Day. He was very thankful. Next Tuesday in Boulder, at 8am, my new bumper and lights are getting installed on my truck. I’ve been waiting for the bumper to arrive for months and got the call yesterday.

Think I’m quitting cigars. I just don’t enjoy them the way I used too. I’ll smoke one of my pipes every now and then, but cigars now seem like a chore.

Had a nice big buck in the backyard yesterday morning. He was thick with a huge rack. Luckily he survived the hunting season. The elk will be down soon for the winter.

Time to go, have a great day, be well, stay safe and God Bless.

Thank a veteran today. It’s a big deal to serve your Country in the military. Lots of kids out there today would be doing a lot better had they had to spend some time in the military. Dr. Braxton is a veteran and Lori makes a big deal out of it, as she does every year. She said he was all pissy yesterday as she’s making him work today. She told him he’s had too many days off, so he has to work. She gets balloons and brings in lunch and other stuff.

Yesterday I had a few calls and then did some work on the computer. This morning at 9 the alarm guy is coming to change the battery on one of our alarm systems. It’s been out for a couple weeks. That’s fine though as we have two systems!

Looks like maybe a little bit of snow on Saturday but then it warms up again. Ty’s already out the door at 6:21am. Meanwhile Lori is putting the finishing touches on the Christmas tree.

I might head out to the gym after the alarm guy gets here. I’ll see how my morning goes. I think I’ll go through our medical supplies today and rotate and update some stuff that probably needs to be replaced.

That’s about it for the day. Hope all is well. Take care, stay safe and God Bless.

I was in Denver around 9am and by 10:30 when I left, it was 70 degrees! Here at home, it was around 65, nice. The news just said it could be end of November before any snow hits Denver, if they get past next week. So far it looks like another mild winter, which will not bode well for next Spring and Summer. This is the effect of the Super El Nino. Some parts of Colorado are right on the edge, we’ll see how it shakes out.

Ty’s tires are in at Costco and I made an appointment for Saturday at 11:15am as he works every day for the rest of the week. I have a call at 10 and another at 11 this morning and Lori will be working clinic at the hospital.

Sunrises are nice with Daylight Savings time as we’re always awake drinking coffee before the sun comes up. I have a few errands to run after my calls. Before that, I’ll head out to the gym.

Hope everyone is doing well. Have a great day and God Bless.

Fun game yesterday. I wish we’d blitz more as whenever we go into a prevent defense, we give up big plays. This is especially true when we have four defensive backs out. Every time we blitz, we either sack the quarterback, or the other team goes nowhere. Hard to complain too much though, as we’re 7/2. Go Broncos!

Yesterday before the game I ordered up some tires for Ty’s truck and picked up some other stuff at Costco. Lori worked on the Christmas tree most of the day, and Mark came over to watch most of the game.

Lots going on this week. I have a bunch of things to get done with Thanksgiving coming up in a few weeks. Time to get moving, happy Monday. More to come tomorrow, God Bless.

These days going to Denver is like going into a literal war zone. There are shootings every day somewhere in the city. Statistics show this is more common in blue run cities. People down there and in other blue cities must be conditioned to it, otherwise you’d think that’d be enough to vote red alone. We always have our guard up when in Denver.

Yesterday we finally got a couple rifles sighted in. We went to our local range at 9 and there was a turkey shoot going on, so the range was closed until 1. When we went back at 1, they were still going and said they’d be done around 3! We decided to go to the range outside of Minturn instead. After an hour or so there, we had two rifles good to go. Davy shot around 2 boxes through his new rifle and still couldn’t get on paper, so I stepped in and had it dialed in after about 12 shots. Scopes with mil reticles (the reticle is what you see when looking through a scope) and knowing how to adjust it for windage and elevation, is tricky and intimidating. With Marty on the spotting scope watching for my POI (point of impact) and telling me how far off I was on each shot, I was able to dial the scope in. Once you get the scope dialed, you then need to loosen the little allen screws and rotate the turrets to zero and then lock them down. People make it much more complicated than it is. You do need to understand the math behind mil radians to calculate distances. Ranging in mil is what the military uses, most recreational shooters use MOA. Not to pat myself on the back, but I’ve always been a really good shot. Guess I’m just lucky in that way. All good now and the rifle should be right on.

While Marty and I were waiting for the turkey shoot to get over (we didn’t know they would run late) we brought the Christmas tree and set it up for Lori. She and Ty decorated about half of it while I was gone. She has all the garland up on the mantle over the fireplace too. I told her it seems way too early as it’s been so warm up here. Feels more like the first of October rather than a week away from the middle of November. All good though. Christmas comes so fast these days, it’s nice to enjoy it while you can. I even switched on the holiday channel in the truck yesterday.

We’re off to the gym and then I should know if we have an extra buck tag. if so, Marty and I will head down to the ranch in Gunnison and shoot one. I won’t go until after the Bronco game. Might skip it all together as it’s a long drive for a day and we only have one elk tag between all of us. I don’t care about shooting one, I just want some elk steaks and burger.

7:30 now and the football game in Madrid is starting. I’ll watch it on my phone while at the gym. I don’t really want to go, but Lori does. Have a great Sunday and Go Broncos! We need to win this game. God Bless.

Cool outside, but it’s been nice and sunny. No snow for at least the next ten days or so. That puts us past mid-November which is unusual. I’m headed to the range this morning at 9 and then Lori wants to get the Christmas tree in from the garage. That seems way too early as it seems like late September up here. Thanksgiving is two weeks from next Thursday and Jagger gets here a week from next Thursday or Friday. It’ll be 2027 before we know it.

There was a shooting in Lakewood close to where we grew up a couple days ago. A 33-year-old officer was killed by a guy who was on parole, and should have still been locked up. Crazy that the system has turned into one where criminals seem to have more rights than the people. You get what you vote for!

Jag did some big data presentation on where he sees the market going, to a bunch of investment bankers yesterday. I think someone in management was going to do it, but Jagger had put the whole thing together and the President at the last minute said, Jagger, why don’t you just do it! Afterwards, he received a bunch of emails saying great job, from the bankers. He’s on a roll. I think he’s currently training some new hires too.

Ty is off today and we should go get him some new tires today. He wants larger tires, but I’m hesitant on getting any larger ones, we’ll see. Lori is working on setting up her new physician consulting business. She’ll be opting doctors out of Medicare. Doctors can’t afford to take it anymore with the reimbursement from the government being cut even more starting next year. They get something like .11 cents on the dollar! She did it on her own for Dr. Braxton two years ago now, and doctors have been coming to him and her asking how they can do it. Hence, my smart little wife, is starting her own business to do this on the side. This could be really lucrative as there’s a huge demand and no one is doing it.

I did make it to Costco yesterday to fill up five 20lb tanks with propane. It only costs $65 for 100lbs of propane! Wish my truck ran on that instead of diesel. That’s it, time to go, have a great Saturday, be well, stay safe and God Bless.

I think we’re off to Gunnison tomorrow to go hunting. It’s Marty, Davy, me and Castor, James son. Looks like we’ll have good weather. Davy and I were going to the range yesterday but I was jammed up at work, so we’re going at 10 this morning.

Five of us made it for cigars yesterday. Mark has been filling in at the local middle school as a substitute teacher for a couple weeks now. They asked him as some teacher is out for a month. He doesn’t really teach, but is more of a babysitter to the kids. It’s wearing him out as he’s my age and has been the volunteer wrestling coach for a few years, but never did this. He says a lot of kids don’t care much and try to skip out so he writes them up for detention. He had three girls go to their lockers to get some permission form from their parents (they said it was in their lockers) and they never came back until the end of class. He has two more weeks or so of this. A few of us told him not to do this, but he wouldn’t listen, ha.

The knives are out in the Republican party as they try to make sense of the shellacking the other night. The whole government needs to be purged, on both sides. Looks like we’ll be paying double in taxes here in Colorado as the graduated income tax (disguised socialism) passed. Super.

Ty has almost all his stuff in for his trip. He’s waiting on a Visa from Brazil for some island they stop at on the trip. We need to start buying the gear on the list. I’ll send everyone a few things to get him for Christmas!

6:17am now, time to get moving. I need to go fill up five 20lb propane containers today at Costco. I’ll do that after we go to the range. Have a great Friday, God Bless.

I made it to Denver West by 8:45am to drop Melanie’s passport off with Marty. He then drove it back to her at the airport so she could make her 11:40 flight to Canada. Next up I was headed to South Broadway, then out to County Line Road down south, then back to Denver West, Edwards Meat Market, Old Time Pickin Parlor (to pick up a guitar from Glen that he repaired) and then back down to Colorado Blvd. and I-25 to get my hair trimmed. By 12:45 I was all done and headed up the hill. Lots of errands accomplished. Traffic was fine and I was home by 2:30.

Once home the weather rolled in and it became cloudy and cooler. Think today and tomorrow are going to be much nicer. Davy and I are going shooting around 10 this morning and then the guys are getting together for cigars around 3. Ty works today and Lori will be working from home.

Not a good day for the Republicans or Country the other day. To put things into perspective though, in the midterms, Obama lost 53 seats, Clinton 45 and Trump somewhere between 25 and 40. What makes this different is the type of people that were elected and where. Texas is now blue. This is flat out Trump’s fault. The things he says along with the failure of the GOP to properly explain how the economy is doing better, sunk the Republicans. Throw in the war and high gas prices and that was the death nail. People voted blue right down the line as they are tired of high prices, and fuel is the number one place we all feel it almost daily. Many Democrats were swept into office on a vote against high prices and Trumps rhetoric rather than liberal ideas. The Dems feel empowered now and will shoot themselves in the foot over the next two years trying to bring back things the people don’t want. Get ready for DEI again, socialism and open borders. Trump will try to work with them on some things but veto others. In short, get ready for two years of gridlock. The Republicans deserve all of this. They had control of the House, Senate and Executive Branch, yet didn’t pass anything that they ran on. They couldn’t even agree on getting rid of Daylight Savings Time. This shows how dysfunctional the government is these days. Too many elected people have their own agenda. Sadly, this will continue until there are term limits. That’ll be tough to pass as what politician wants to vote to eliminate their own personal gravy train of elite benefits and free flowing cash. I suspect not many. In the end, we’ll all be ok. Washington is so messed up that they can’t get out of their own way. Things are going to get more expensive though. Taxes will go up, prices will not go down, and we’ll all have more useless laws and regulations restricting our rights. Not good, but it is what it is. There’s an old saying, you get what you vote for. Well, here we are and that’s what’s headed our way. Good luck.

6:11am now, time to get moving. Have a great day and stay safe, God Bless.