Oops

Congratulations to Clark

Congratulations to Clark Landon Robinson! Today we attended his graduation ceremony from CMHS.  We are very proud of him and expect he will set the world on fire.   It was a very nice ceremony and there was just about 300 students graduating.

After graduation we all headed out and celebrated at his favorite sushi restaurant.  Once home he changed and was out the door, headed to numerous parties.

Congrats Clark, We Love You!

Welcome Back

Sorry race fans, I have been out of pocket with no updates for the last week.   I started a new diet and workout schedule.   It is starting to pay off and I can tell the difference in how I feel and the new numbers on the scale.  My diet has consisted of mainly fruit and vegetables.  Been eating a salad of some sort each night for dinner and having a cup of fruit for lunch each day.  I haven’t had any sodas, sports drinks, fancy coffees, pretty much just water, with a few fruit smoothies.

I have spent an hour or more on the treadmill for the last 7 days.  Mix up my walking with some running.  Trying to get to a 10 minute mile and a sixty minute duration.   I am up to about 30 minutes of running and 30 walking.  I have been sticking with my diet, it has been tough.  Using the myfitnesspal app to track all my calories consumed and burned.

Had a pretty big day today,  I pulled and old arborvitae up out of the ground that we had planted a couple years ago.  I pulled the other two last year.   The nursery we go them from planted them, and honestly I don’t think they had a clue.   I transplanted another lilac to replace the arborvitae.  Now I have six of them along the back fence.   The ones I planted last year have really taken off, almost 6ft tall now and the even had blooms on them this year.   They were small but at least they bloomed.

We loaded up the dead arborvitae in the truck and headed over to Bott and worked on the yard and flower garden.   Candy worked out front and cleaned out the flower garden.   It was a mess, full of leaves and little aspen tree’s shooting up.  I dug out the weed eater and ran it along the fence and then mowed the front and backyard.   I sprayed ground killer in the rock garden to kill the weeds coming up.   Loaded up all the trash from Bott and headed off to dump it.

Last year I planted a raspberry and blueberry bush.   The blueberry didn’t come back, but the raspberry is looking great.  I didn’t think it would come back, but I am guessing I am going to have a bumper crop of raspberries.

Friday I mowed the yard at the house, it was getting pretty tall in spots.  The yard is a mess and I don’t see it getting better with the water restrictions we are under.   I have some big brown spots, not sure if it’s a bug or fungus.   Today is our water day so I ran the sprinklers.   Looks like I have another leak that I am going to need to dig up and splice in new pipe.   I have some heads that need some re-alignment and a couple that need replaced.

Last couple of days we have been getting the corvette out.   On Wednesday we met up with a friend of mine and his wife, he drives a sixty eight mustang.  We cruised each other up and down Colorado Avenue in old Colorado City, turning heads as we rolled.   Ended up parking at Sonic and sat at the tables and chit chatted while we had dinner.   It is tough to eat at Sonic when you are on a diet.  Friday night we drove it downtown and had dinner at Rasta Pasta.

Big day tomorrow, Clark is graduating from CMHS, “he’s a big boy now”.   The ceremonies are being held at the World Arena at 1:30 PM.   We will make sure to get plenty of pictures.

Happy Hiking!

TGIF

Made it through another day.  Got my time in on the treadmill so I feel good about that.  5/miles in an hour and 10 minutes.   Did pretty good on the diet today, included my log below.

Headed up to Denver tomorrow for the 4A State Diving meet. Go Clark!

At the office by 7:15 AM and already had my coffee.   Since I have been going to the gym for lunch each day, and not walking to and from the office, I have more time.   Today I was able to get up to 5/miles in an hour.   Creeping up, slowly but surely.  I also started using my myfitnesspal.com to track my workouts and my meals.  It's pretty easy to use on the iPhone and on the computer.  I included an image below of my daily log.

I worked over at the shop this evening after dinner.   Got up two more sheets of insulation up.  I had to take down the ADT alarm and two other boxes, that they screwed into the studs when I had it installed.  I was able to take it down and keep it working.   I had called ADT about coming out and moving it, but they wanted $300 to do so, "Aint got time for that".   If I can get over there tomorrow I should be done with the remaining items and will be able to hang the sheet rock.  Drove the vette over to the shop tonight and stopped and got a quart of oil.  Was running about a quart low.

Captain, we need more power!

As the blog heading states, we just actually needed power.   Not sure what happened this morning but when our alarms on the phones went off, I got up and headed for the restroom.  Turned on the light switch and nothing.  Turned and walked to the kitchen and nothing, power was out.  I acted quickly and jumped in the shower to get some hot water.   Left house about 7 AM, Candy called me about 8 AM and let me know the power was back.

Working hard to get on the treadmill everyday.  I am now on day six and up to 4.3/Miles in an hour.   It is starting to pay off as I have already lost a couple of pounds.   Back to tracking my meals and weighing myself each morning.

I have so much work going on at the office and at home.   Not going to get much done this weekend as we need to be in Denver most of the day for State Diving.   This is Clark's last year in High School, we are getting closer to being empty nester's.  Clark's graduation  is the following weekend, so busy, busy.

Last night we pulled the stakes around our tree in the front yard.  We had planted it about 6 years ago and had it staked with chicken wire around it to keep the Dear from eating the branches.   It is big enough now that they cant get to the branches.   After work tonight I ran by the shop and loaded up three bags of trash and ran them over to the dumpster.

Funny

One of my Faves

Everlast A.K.A Whitey Ford

White Trash Beautiful

Blah, Blah, Blah

Been after it for the last few days.  I have been spending at least an hour on the treadmill, unless we go for a hike.  I am now up to 4.3/Miles in an hour.   I have been trying to work my way up to 6/Miles.

After work this evening I ran over to the shop for an hour.   Going to try to spend an hour a night working to get my projects completed.   Tonight I got two wall studs up and mowed the backyard.   Managed to do all of that in an hour.    I am just about ready to hang my last three sheets of sheet rock.    Once this is done I can tape, mud and paint.   Getting closer!

Funny

Happy Mothers Day

Damn that was fun!  Had a great Mother’s Day Weekend!  On Saturday, Clark called me at 6:30 AM, and let me know I was scheduled to work the door at the CMHS for the dive meet.    I rocked out of bed and hit the shower.   I threw on my Slash T, a pair of jeans and my skull vans.    Got to the school just a little before 7:00 AM.    I worked the door until 9:30 AM and then grabbed a seat in the bleachers to watch the meet.    Clark did OK today, he ended up in sixth place, and he was trying a couple new dives that he wants to do in state.

I did manage to get 4.3/Miles in on the treadmill.   For the last three days, I have spent an hour on the treadmill, walking and running.    I am trying to get some weight off, and running is the fastest way to do it.   This brings my weekly total up to 26/Miles.   Glad to be home and trying to get back in the groove.

I baked up some chicken thighs for dinner and candy made a salad.  After dinner we decided we need to get out of the house, so we went to the movie to see The Great Gatsby, it was pretty decent with some good actors.   Candy was surprised because we rarely go to an evening movie, most of the time we catch a matinee because it’s cheaper.

This morning, Candy and I took the dogs over to the dog park for a walk and to play in the creek.   They both had a great time, and go nut’s when we say the work walk.  Mable starts talking and crying like a baby in the Wal-Mart.

When we got home, Candy made some chicken salad sandwiches and we loaded up a couple of packs with food.   We had the sandwiches, chips, pudding, oranges, raspberry tea.    We drove up to the top of GCR and parked and then hiked to a nice rock out cropping.  We climbed up to the top and found a place to sit down and have a little picnic.    This is what Candy wanted to do for Mother’s Day, and I have to say it was a great way to spend it.   The sun was out, in the 70’s.  We had all taken jackets but opted to leave them in the car. It was nice to have Eric and Clark with us, and I think they enjoyed themselves.  I got this picture of Candy and the boys.

We ran over to HD and got a few plants for the backyard and spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the backyard and planting our new flowers.

Back in the groove

I walked to work and back today so that was an easy 6.2/miles in the log.   Nice to be home so I can get back into my daily routine.  Going to try, really try to get up early and get some miles in before I have to drive up to Denver.   Will most likely be on the treadmill if I do.  Busy at work and I manged to get most of my to do's done today.

Happy Hiking!

The Man's Bathroom

Now here is a nifty idea for a bathroom, just what every man needs.

Sprinkler repair

I didn't get out on the trail today.  It was on my list but I opted to work on the yard.  Turned the sprinkler system on for the first time this spring.   All of the seven zones except for zone one was working. Every year I have to fix something, this year it was a cracked line.   Zone one is the front yard, turned it on and started searching for the bubble.   That's how you find the leak, just look for a bubble in the yard and water seeping up through the grass.

Found the leak in the back yard.  Starting digging and found two lines that feed the front yard.  I had to dig about a 15 ft trench as the bad line had a long crack in it.   Luckily I had all the parts I needed and was able to splice in the new hose.  Manged to replace the hose and not break or cut into the second line in the trench.   Tested it out and all looked good, so I filled in the trench.  With our water restrictions we are only allowed to water on Saturday and Tuesday's.  I went ahead and programmed it for the appropriate days, so that's one item of the list.

I contacted a company to come out and power rake and aerate the yard.   It needs it pretty bad.   I need to get some flags so I can mark the sprinkler heads before they get here.  We have never aerated and I have big dead spots in the back yard.

Just about ready to finish out the shop.  I needed to make some room, so I drove the vette home this evening and then the Avalanche.   This will give me some room to move a few things around so I can wrap up this part of the project.

Home

Got out and did three miles this morning.  Took the dogs over to the park and let them run around.  Will try to get out and log some distance tomorrow.

San Diego

Friday the 3rd of May and I am in the air on my way back home.   It's been a long week, a little

more than a week I guess now.   I arrived in San Diego on April 25th.    We stayed at the Manchester Grand Hyatt for the entire time.   One of the nicest Hyatt's I have been in.

I guess it is best to just start from the beginning to tell the story.   Candy and I flew in on the evening of the 25th and tried to much as we could do with the time that we had together.   We started off by going to the San Diego Zoo.  This has to be one of the nicest zoos that I have been to.   The weather was spectacular and it wasn't too crowded for a Friday.  One of the things I think we both enjoyed the most was all flora that grows in this area and plus what they had at the zoo.   Everything was in bloom and green, very different from our Colorado vegetation.    It would be nice to be able to grow the types of plants, cactus, trees, flowers that they have.   The zoo is nicely laced out and we spent most of our time walking looking at all the animals.   One of our favorites had to be the baby Panda.   So cute you just want to take him home.  We all know how that ends though.   You find yourself on one of the shows, like when animals attack or worlds dumbest.   They sure are cute though. See the zoo pictures

After finishing our tout through the zoo we were headed back to the hotel and saw a sign for Coronado Island.   We decided since it was still early enough would drive across the bridge and check it out.   We ended up on Silver Strand State Beach and decided to walk.   Took off our shoes, socks and rolled our pants up and away we went.    We had a blast looking for sea shells, there were so many.   I can only name one and that is a sand dollar.   We managed to find 8 or 9 that were complete and not broke.   We also found a variety of other shells as we strolled along.   Later that evening we looked up the name for the beach and found out that it ranks third in regards to the best beaches to find sea shells.   There were several people who were kite surfing.  Now this looks like it should be a lot of fun, once you figured out how to maneuver and turn.   If we had more time I would have like to try it myself, might need a bigger sail to get my fat ass up and going. 

We packed up our collection of sea shells and continued our drive and made our way back to the hotel.   We then headed out to seaport village and found a place for dinner.  We both ate too much but it was so good.  From here it was back to the hotel and we both crashed after our big day.

On Saturday we headed out around 10 AM and drove up to Torrey Pines State Park.  We were looking to get some hiking in and from the research we did this looked like a nice place to do so. We parked along the coast and made our way up the road to catch the trail head.  The first trail was about a mile loop with some great views of the ocean down below.  The second trail we took was the Beach trail.   This trail took you through the hills and then ended down on the beach.  From here you can walk back to the parking area.   It was a great day to be out and again we really enjoyed the change in scenery, all together we managed to get about 5 miles logged.   See Torrey Pines Sate Park pictures

On our way back we headed to Old Town.  This is an area in old down town with lots of shops and restaurants.   Our first stop was to find something to eat as neither of us had any breakfast.  We ended up at Casa Guadalajara and the food was great.  I had seafood enchiladas and Candy had enchiladas but three different kinds.  Good Food!

After finding parking we made our way to old town and walked up and down the street looking at the various shops and goods.   I am not much of a shopper but it was fun to look at all the different stuff they had and the Mexican art.   I think the only thing we bought was a wooden bowl with a parrot painted on the inside.   Candy thinks it will make a good candy bowl.   We did stop and buy a tortilla from one of the vendors.   They would make them up for you and then had butter and other seasonings to add, very tasty.

Made our way back to the hotel and cleaned up after being out all day.  Headed back down and found a place for dinner.

Sunday, Candy had to fly back; she had a 2 PM flight.  We spent the morning getting her packed and me as we'll as I had to change rooms for the conference I was attending.    Once packed, we headed down for a coffee and did some walking around the seaport village area.   I think we left about 11:30 and I drove Candy over to the airport for her flight.   It was a great weekend and we had a great time.

It worked out well as I dropped off Candy; I was able to pick up a co-worker who was also flying in for the conference.  Headed back to the hotel and got all checked in again.   We headed down to the pool and hung out for an hour.   I left and went and found out where our booth was located and checked in.  That evening we had one of our clients in town, who was also here for the conference.   We met up with them and headed out for dinner.  We found ourselves in a sushi restaurant.   I don't know the name of the platter that was order but on it in the middle were shrimp heads and they were still moving, that was a little intense as I had not seen that before.   Once you finish the platter then they deep fry the shrimp heads and bring them back out to you.  We ate them.

Starting on Monday we were working the booth and talking with prospects, made for long days, standing all day.  Made for long night as well as we had customers to entertain.   On Tuesday night we held a little party at the top of the Hyatt bar.   I panicked as it almost didn't happen, but that is another story. it did though and we had about 5 new prospects join us in addition to our current customers.  I guess about 20 people all together.   The party ended at 7:30 PM and then we were headed out to dinner again.

On Wednesday afternoon we had a break so I headed over the check out the Midway Museum.  This was actually pretty cool!  I am glad I took the time to visit.  I did a couple of the tours and learned a bit about the ship and the various operations that it had been involved in.   They had numerous airplanes and displays from some of the various battles it had been in. See Midway Pictures

Even with all the fun, I am so ready to get back home and get back into my routine.   I am behind with work and have a lot of catch up to do.

Happy Hiking