Just a quick update

I wanted to share a couple of things with y'all.  First, Val and I went to see Val's mom Dorothy at her nursing home for their annual Christmas party.  It was so wonderful to see the group that it almost makes you laugh and cry at the same time.  Here is a video on YouTube of the Christmas Bell Ringers.  Val's mom is in the red sweater second from the right and doing pretty well for 95.  If you look closely, you can see her wink at us about 10-15 seconds into the song.  

Second, here is the newsletter that I sent around to some folks including some of you.

Getting Ready for Christmas

I can't believe it is Christmas already.  There really is something to the belief that the speed of time passing is inversely related to your age.  When you are young Christmas always seems to far away, but when you are old, it seems like it comes every other month.  C'est la vie.

Anyway, we are settled back in Sugar Land.  After returning from California, we stayed here for a couple of weeks and then went to Panama City Beach for our (now) annual trip to check on the condo there.  Although I am partial to the Pacific Coast beaches, there is certainly something to be said for the beautiful sugar-white sand beaches, the beach dunes, and the crystal clear water on the Gulf Coast.  This time of year is perfect there with mild temperatures and almost no tourists.  Our condo building is the large orange high rise in this picture.  We are on the 21st floor and look right down into the water.  Here is a link to some more pictures.

Now back home have a tiny tree and some lights outside.  Val is the decorator and is making the place look festive.  We will be here on Christmas. On Christmas eve we will drive to Beaumont and see Val's "children" and grandchildren. Then on Christmas we probably will go to Lorrie's. This Friday we will go to see Val's mother, who is now 95; there is to be an early Christmas party at her nursing home.

Last weekend we went to Galveston Island to see the annual Dickens on the Strand Christmas festival.  It was fun to see a lot of folks dressed up in old-timey clothes.  Here is a link to a slideshow of the festival.

  

Back in Sugar Land

Well we are finally back in Texas.  We decided to drive home a long way.  We had lunch with Boyd, Helen, Ken and Mo this summer and decided we should go back to our Kansas roots and see the plots of farmland that were left to us by our Dad. He left two plots of 160 acres (1/4 sections) that have been sharecrop farmed in grain.  Both plots have had an oil and gas lease to various companies but nothing had been done about this.  Dad always said that there would be oil there!! Well about a year ago, an oil drilling company decided to use newer techniques to drill on an adjacent plot to one of ours and to extend horizontally into our land.  And they found modest amounts of oil and gas.  We are not going to be like the Beverly Hillbillies, but each of us is now getting a monthly check for our share. So we had to go see what was happening. So the three Nies brothers along with Cory (Ken's son), Boyd Jr., Lorrie and Craig all met in Wichita, KS. There we met with a cousin of ours (Clifford Nies and his wife Joan) who graciously spent an evening and a day touring the area. Clifford is a well-known home builder in the area (Nies Homes!!) who is still very active.  He is about Boyd's age. We also had our farm manager, Tim McKinney showing us the plots.  It was really fun to see everyone and another part of the country. Here are some pics.

Nies Cousins

Nies Bros

All of us with Clifford

One of the plots

Clifford looking at oil stuff

Grandfather Nies

Grandmother Nies

Kansas Cemetery

Busy summer

Well, we are finally back in Carlsbad for the rest of the summer.  Since the last post, we had Val's girls and grand children here for the 4th of July.  Six additional people puts a strain on our little two bedroom condo, but it worked out ok.  The young kids can sleep most anywhere! 

At the end of July we flew to Newark.  I had a meeting in Princeton, NJ and then we spent 4 days in NYC as we have the past couple of years.  There is always something new to do in New York and we really enjoy visiting.  

We flew from NY to Sugar Land and spent several days checking on the condo there and having doctor's appointments.  Val was able to go see her mom, who is now 95.  

A few day after returning to Carlsbad we flew to Seattle where we rented a car and drove around the Olympic peninsula.  It brought back a lot of memories of Sally and my stay in Seattle in the mid 60's.  The beaches and rain forests haven't changed except for more restrictions on things that you can do, like digging for razor clams.  We then drove around to see Jimmy and Teresa Goode (Sally's brother) in Port Ludlow. He sets crab traps there and so we had our fill of Dungeness crabs.  Jimmy introduced us to Pickleball which is a paddle tennis like game played on a small court with a plastic ball like a whiffle ball.  It is becoming very popular with the "mature" set. We plan to followup and learn to play in Carlsbad and Sugar Land.

We then took the ferry to Seattle to see my old friends Len and Alansa Bates.  They have recently moved to a retirement apartment in downtown Seattle.  We had a great time reminiscing and seeing the town again.

We returned to Carlsbad and then turned around for our next adventure. I flew to Colorado to meet John Shinol for a fishing trip.  We spent our time on private waters on the Fraser river and caught some really nice trout.  During this time, Val went back to Sugar Land and baby sat for her younger grandchildren.  

Right after our return we were visited by John Gerber, a long-time friend and colleague from my days at Vanderbilt and Univ. Colorado.  We went to Del Mar races to lose a little money.  I know why I couldn't become a compulsive gambler--I don't like to lose money and the wins are too far apart to compensate.

Tomorrow we will drive up to Orange to see several of my high school classmates for our annual get together.  It is always fun to see them and to look at the old town.

Well that is what I did with my summer.  Perhaps a little too hectic, but we need to do things while we still can.

We're in California

We are finally out in Carlsbad.  We were going to fly out on June 10th but a couple things came up that made us cancel our reservations.  
     Val had been having trouble with one eye with itching, redness and oozing.  She had been on antibiotic eye drops and orally and on steroid eye drops with no improvement.  So her ophthalmologist referred her to a super-specialist who saw her on June 11.  He diagnosed a blocked and infected tear duct that needed surgery.  Fortunately he was able to squeeze her into his schedule the next day.  The procedure was done in the office and took only about 15 minutes.  He cleaned out the tear duct, removed some impacted pus and bacteria and put her on some more eye drops.  She is now much better. 
     I also had a problem that delayed our travel.  While we were in New Jersey at the beginning of June, I lost a crown from a tooth.  I had no idea that it was loose and was eating some cereal at breakfast when I felt something hard in my mouth.  I fished out the crown and I initially thought it had come from the cereal--gross.  But with some inspection, I realized that it was my tooth!  Fortunately I didn't swallow it.  I brought it home and made an appointment with the dentist who re-cemented the crown and now it seems as good as new. 
    With all these things going on, we decided to drive out instead of making more air reservations and so we left on Saturday and arrived in Carlsbad on Monday.  So we have been here about a week and are busy cleaning and replanting.
     Val's girls and their children are going to be visiting us over July 4.  We are going to be crowded, but we have some blowup mattresses and the grandchildren will be sleeping on the floor or couches.  They have never been to Southern CA so it should be fun.

Getting ready to leave again

I know, I know.  I just left a post a short time ago and now here is another one.  Not like me lately.  But I have spent way too much time on Paris photos and wanted to share then with you. I have three types of formats.  One is picasa that you are all familiar with and is probably the best.  You can access it here.  The other is an Apple product and is called a web journal and slideshow.  You can find them here.  Check them out.  See what you like best.

We are getting ready for the next trip, which is to New Jersey.  Barry Gertz, who took my job when I retired, is now retiring after many years at Merck.  We are going back to his party and it should be fun to see a lot of old colleagues.  We will then spend a couple of days exploring New Jersey, where I lived for 10 years.  It is a very beautiful state that has received a bad rap because most people only see it from the turnpike or tollway and that is not so pretty.  But it is the Garden State and it does live up to that as you move west.  And Val has only seen Princeton so we will look around at my other favorite spots.

We're back home

We got back from Paris safely and am now reacclimatized to our time zone.  It takes a while to get back to normal--probably longer than when we were young.  The trip was great.  We were in Paris for 8 days (10 days including travel).  We stayed in a very nice hotel close to the Eiffel Tower.  We saw many of the sites and had some great meals.  The weather was cool and intermittently drizzly.  People were very kind and forgiving.  Our only French was Bonjour and Bonsoir Madame or Monsieur but everyone was helpful.  I have a bunch of pictures but haven't gotten around to looking through them yet.  

We will be home until early June when we need to go to New Jersey for a few days to celebrate the retirement of a friend and then we will be back here.  On about June 10 we will fly out to Carlsbad.

The fires in SD county, specifically the Carlsbad area are frightening.  Our condo has escaped the flames so far, but they have been close--probably within a half mile.  I hear that now the fire has moved east to San Marcos and Escondido and there is another one in Oceanside. Craig has been keeping me up to date.  It looks like it will be a bad fire season this year.  

Well, it has happened!!

Prada Store

As promised, we got married on Sunday, March 30 in Marfa, TX.  Now many of you may not be familiar with the "city" of Marfa, population about 2000, in deep west Texas.  It has become something of an artist destination and a getaway for people wanting to get back to the basics.  In fact it has been featured on NPR and 60 minutes recently.  Check it out, it is pretty interesting.  There is even a Prada store out in the desert outside of town.  Unfortunately, the Playboy Bunny neon sculpture has been moved to Dallas recently and we didn't get a chance to see it.

Anyway, the wedding was at 6:30 pm in the courthouse dome presided by the Justice of the Peace and now Judge Cinderela Guevera. Everything went without a hitch. Because we "eloped" in this way, we had no family or friends at the ceremony which was quite moving and nice.  We all cried!!

The Judge

After the ceremony, we went on to Cibolo Creek Ranch and then to Big Bend National Park. On the way back we stayed at Davis Mountain State Park and went to the McDonald Observatory.  It was all great!!  We are very happy!!  We will spend a week in Paris beginning a week from Saturday.

McDonald Observatory

Casa Grande at Big Bend

 

 

Judge Roy Bean, Law West of the Pecos

Just 2 more weeks

Well, we have only a little over two weeks until Val and I are to be married.  We are going to have a private ceremony in Marfa, TX.  Marfa is a small town in West Texas in the Big Bend area.  We had planned a trip there a year ago and had to postpone it when I had back surgery.  And when we decided to get married, we thought it would be interesting to combine it with the already planned trip to the Big Bend National Park area.  Marfa is an artsy town of about 2000 which you can read about here.  We will be staying in the Hotel Paisano where the film Giant was filmed.  We plan to have the ceremony in the dome of the old courthouse where we will be married by Judge Cinderella (really) Guevera.

Marfa Courthouse

Hotel Paisano and Courthouse in Marfa

We will then drive down to the Big Bend area. The trip will take about a week.

Then at the end of April we plan to spend a week in Paris.  Val has never been and it has been about 35 years since I was there with Sally and the kids.

My CowGirl

Not much else has happened since the last post except that I ordered and received a Tesla automobile.  Tesla is an all electric vehicle made in California with a range of about 250 miles on a charge.  It is fun trying to figure out all the stuff on this futuristic vehicle and it is fun to drive.  We still need our other car for longer trips that are not in the range of chargers.  For now, the Superchargers are available in parts of Texas in in many parts of California and in some other states.  Within a year or so, there are supposed to be many more scattered across the country.  We can get around in the Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio areas by using the Tesla Superchargers.  Other chargers are available also, but I haven't tried them.  We drove up to Fort Worth to show the car to Craig, who is now working there (although he is setting up an office in Solana Beach south of Carlsbad, CA).  We had no problem on that 700 mile trip.

Everything looking good!

Last Friday I went to see the orthopedic surgeon who had operated on my spine a year ago.  I also wanted to check my chest x-ray to determine whether the pleural effusion that was there a month ago was resorbing.  

First, the spine looks very good and the surgeon does not need to see me again unless I request his help.  The bone grafts in the area of L4-L5 appear to have "taken" and so there is likely a good fusion.  There is no evidence that the titanium screws that hold it all together have loosened.  So should be good for another 76 years or so.

Second, the chest x-ray was perfectly clear and looks normal.  You can still see the crack in the rib but I think everything is progressing fine.  It has been six weeks and there is still some pain in the area of the break, but it is gradually improving.  I can sleep on both sides, at least for a while.  I think for a fracture as bad as this one was, it will probably take another couple of weeks.  But I am happy with the progress.

Happy New Year

It is now well into the new year and much of the nation is coming out of the "polar Vortex".  Yesterday we went and saw the film "Frozen" which was pretty good for a cartoon.  But it was kind of like the cold that has been over much of the nation--even down to Houston where we had the first hard freeze for several years.  I wrapped the pipes outside and hoped for the best.  Fortunately, no disasters occurred here.

Now for some good news!  Val and I are going to get married.  We plan to do this around the end of March while we are on a trip to the Big Bend region of Texas.  We will likely get married at the Cibolo Creek Ranch near Marfa, Texas.  We will have a private ceremony and are not inviting anyone to attend.  We may try and have a party after we return to celebrate with family.  At the end of April we are planning a trip to Paris (France not Texas) as a honeymoon.  We are excited by all this.  

My rib is still healing.  I can now sleep pretty well on my right side, but the left side where the fracture is is still tender.  I am scheduled to see my orthopedic surgeon, who operated on my back, for a 1 year followup and will get some followup films for my rib and chest then.  I suspect the pleural effusion will be less or gone and that everything will look ok.  It was a bad break and may take longer than the classical 6 weeks to get entirely well.  I'll let you know on the blog after I see the doctor on Friday.