I will spend the week of Christmas to New Years Eve largely inactive and peacefully. I had earlier in December agreed to spend the week at my brother's home in Castle Rock to tend to his aged dog Dave while he, his wife, and daughters spend the holiday in MA with relatives. It will not be a time of excitement, but there was no chance my holiday week would be one of any excitement whatsoever had I stayed in Cheyenne. At least the weather has improved, albeit for just a short time. After a typical cold start to the week, Christmas Day and Friday the 26th were nice days, relatively speaking, as temps climbed into the mid to upper 40s with clear to partly cloudy skies and no precip. Two forecasted snow events that were supposed to occur on Tuesday and Friday turned out to be complete no-shows thankfully. The wind has been up at times, particularly overnight into both Thursday and Friday mornings. The ground throughout most places is bare of snow except where it is fully shaded, or where shovels and plows compacted and piled the snow. This is a sharp contrast to the
Christmasses of recent years. 2005 was a warm and dry Xmas as the temperature climbed to 69 degrees. This year was not quite that good, but it was a significant improvement over '06 and '07 when snowfall was noteworthy and temps were quite cold.
After dropping the HBL family off at the airport Wednesday morning, I came back into the city and had a French toast breakfast with grapefruit juice at a Denny's in Aurora off of I-225 and Sixth Avenue. When I returned back to their place in CR, I took a nap for about three hours in the mid to late afternoon. I spent the evening there, opting not to go out. Thursday, Christmas Day was quiet. I went outside and watered about 8 -10 trees in the backyard, and will hit the rest in the next day or so. Around 3pm I went out to get a holiday meal, but there was absolutely nothing open in CR besides the Waffle House. I guess the IHOP in CR has closed up, so I ended up going north to Centennial to the nearest IHOP for a ham steak dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy with the California vegetables blend. For dessert I had a piece of pumpkin pie. I then spent the evening making a couple of phone calls to my sisters to wish them a Merry Christmas and enjoy conversation. I have hooked up my radios so I have been listening to some classic rock music, some jazz, Coast to Coast AM, and some sports talk. I am using my little TV to catch some late evening shows. The Sirius satellite radio is also of help as I will be able to listen to some of the bowl games without having to go out. That just what I did on both Wednesday and Friday nights with the Hawaii Bowl (easily won by Notre Dame over a quite overmatched Hawaii) and the Motor City Bowl (Florida Atlantic over Central Michigan 24-21).
Before calling it a night on Thursday I took out the trash which was quite minimal as the HBL household does an exceptional job in identifying waste for recycling and makes superb choices in purchasing to minimize packaging waste.
Dave the Dog is doing good, but he is largely nonenergetic and spends most of the time sleeping; I guess he sleeps about 18 hours per day at least. He gets his bone and medication in the morning; a bone in mid afternoon; and then his canned dog food mixed with some dry food before his evening medication. He is not very hungry as the dogfood in his bowl is only being partially eaten. The episodes of the medication delivery have gone okay, but one attempt on Thursday night with the pills was unsuccessful as the old boy was able to expel the pills after placement deep in his mouth. Practice will make perfect in this effort, so hopefully this will be a one time failure. When he is awake, he sometimes yearns for greater attention by yelping and whining, but these attempts are short-lived. I believe the old boy is satisfied to have a lot of quiet time with no children around keeping him from his rest.
Friday I went over to the McDonalds off of I-25 and Hwy 85 to get internet access. I was dismayed to see that they are hitting people up for $2.95 for two hours of access -- gouging the public. I have had no access to the internet for the last three days sinced I arrived Wednesday. If there is a network to access based out of my brother's home, I cannot find it and I suspect it is not active. There are a number of networks in his neighborhood that I am finding, but they are secure and cannot be accessed. However, when I returned back to his home Friday evening, I did find an unsecured network that I was able to hop on, and this post is being done utilizing that connection. But as I post at this moment around 10:40 pm MST, I am completely unsure to when this connection will cease as this network was not among the choices for access prior to this evening; it may be an individual that has just set up a new home wireless network or another visitor in the neighborhood like I am.
Saturday I plan to go out and perhaps catch a bowl game on television at a watering hole. On Sunday I definitely plan to spend a number of hours watching the last regular season Sunday of games. JDs Baitshop in Centennial is almost certainly my destination. I was a regular denizen there for games in '04, '05, and a couple of times in '06 for NFL Sundays. I get a seat that allows me to watch 4-5 games at once. This upcoming Sunday is one with a full schedule of 15 day games, and the last SNF game which features a winner take all match between the fading Broncos and their rivals, the surging Chargers. The outlook is bleak for Denver as they have collapsed almost to the point of a record breaking extent.
I ended being able to stay in on Saturday as the internet connection that was newly of avail continued. The day was a colder one than Friday but skies were crystal clear although there was an icy north wind. I went outside and finished watering HBL's trees, observing the water from the hose turning to ice in short order upon being released onto the ground. Dave was glad to have someone outside with him for a half-hour as he rolled in the remaining snow along the shaded fence line as the snow continues to rapidly disappear. I thought about going out to get a pizza, but I found some hot dogs in the freezer which will carry me over through the evening. I determined a sports bar nearby here in CR named the Fowl Line is a good bet to go watch NFL. For tonight I will listen to the Redwings / Avalanche game on the radio and finish up keeping track of the final of three college football bowl games also being broadcast.
Sunday was the warmest day in quite some time as the temps climbed into the mid 50s under mostly clear skies with light winds. After a hot shower, I went out around 1:30 pm to the local sportsbar to watch NFL for several hours. The Fowl Line is a rather so-so establishment that leaves much to be desired. It pales significantly in comparison to several other similar joints that I have been to in the Denver area as well as in Cheyenne. Like most Sundays there were some good results and then there were some bad. The good (actually fantastic and utterly marvelous)
was to see the Dallass Cocaineboys got totally undressed, barbecued, and obliterated by the Eagles in an thoroughly enjoyable rout to witness. Other winners that were good to see were the Vikings, Dolphins, and Panthers. The bad was the hapless Detroit Lions who failed to win a single game this season finishing a record worst 0-16. I just do not know how this was possible. The pro game is set up for parity largely and every team should win a few games at worst. The good people of Michigan are having a horrible time beyond imagination with the economic collapse and looming bankrutcy of the automobile industry across the board in The Wolverine State; and to have their football team stink this terribly makes things even worse. Pity the fools -- just kidding -- one has to have feel for those citizens.
And then there was the ugly. And I mean ugly. The Denver Broncos got ran out of the stadium and then some in San Diego as the Chargers obliterated Denver to knock the Broncos out of the playoffs as Denver finished off the worst choke job in NFL history, blowing a three game lead in their division with three games left. At season's start I thought the Broncos would be around .500 and it turned out to be true. But it was an ugly team to watch much of the season, save the road games in OAK, CLE, ATL, and NYJ. They were fortunate early on to beat the Chargers the first time the two teams clashed in September (actually lucky beyond belief); and their wins over NORL, TB, and KC were unimpressive and also largely ones that also had a lot of luck involved.
There were an enormous number of Broncos' stinkers during this season: @ KC, v JAX, @ NENG, v Miami (the one game I attended in person), v OAK, @ CAR, and v BUF. But this finale was the worst and ugliest of them all for the '08 season. This club has a lot of work to do for any improvement to occur in '09. The collapse of the club in losing their final three games means Denver misses the playoffs for a third consecutive season, which is the first time this has happened since the three year absence from '80 to '82. There is little to believe at this moment that this current streak will be broken next season, which would take the club back to the long term ineptitude it had as it missed the playoffs all of the first 17 seasons of its existence ('60-'76).
Monday is forecast to get above 60 degrees but the wind is supposed to blow like the dickens. It supposed to be seasonal the next five to six days after that, but early forecasts are showing another Arctic Front is headed into the region on Monday 6 January to make everyone miserable yet again.
I took advantage of the nice weather (near 60 degrees and sunny with little wind) on Monday to do some things outside briefly. I watered some of HBL's trees that I had not yet tended to. I then had a sub sandwich at Subway before driving into Denver. I made a pitstop at Microcenter to look at some computers briefly before going over to the Colorado City Center off of Evans and Colorado to go to the movies. I watched the film "Marley and Me". It was quite superb and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a real tearjerker at times and the ending is rather difficult from an emotional viewpoint. I heartily recommend the picture to everyone, but be prepared to both laugh and cry. After the movie ended I returned back to CR and stopped at a local pizza joint "Stumpy's", to get a pie for my dinner. The rest of the evening was spent surfing the 'net; listening to the last two periods of the Predators / Avalanche game; catching the end of the Alamo Bowl on the Sirius radio; and watching a little TV on my mini set. Its kind of unsettling to know the mini set will not be able to be used any longer after mid February with the digital changeover unless I hook it up to a translator box. This will make the point of using the mini set somewhat impractical at times as I will have carry the set, the box, and an antenna and have access to electricity always to be able to have everything function. Quite the hassle which will reduce the few times I already use the mini set.
Tuesday I have to do some straightening up of this place as it will be less than a day before the HBL family returns home and I subsequently depart for home myself. I need to pick some various stuff up, wash dishes, sweep the floor, maybe do a load of laundry, and generally make the place presentable for he and his family to slide right back into after their travels.
Tuesday 30 December, the penultimate day of 2009, was largely a day of lethargy as I did next to nothing. I did not go anywhere at all, but did step out on a couple occasions as I walked over to the park a block away with Dave and turned back right away as so as not to get the old boy fatigued. It was a bright sunny day around 60 degrees again as the powerful windstorm that swept through the region overnight Monday well into late Tuesday morning virtually totally abated by 3;30 pm. The vent in the laundry room in the HBL family home always shakes and sounds like an eternally beating loud drum whenever the wind blows in CR. I also watered a few more of HBL's trees. I heard about the NFL Denver Broncos' firing of Mike Shanahan so I tuned into some talk radio from 4:30 until 6pm. I then listened to the Holiday Bowl from San Diego between Oregon and Oklahoma St which turned out to be an entertaining and competitive game, won by the Ducks 42-31 in a mild upset. While listening I got the kitchen floor thoroughly swept (no easy task with all the dog hair) and washed about ten or so dishes and utensils in the sink that had accumulated over the past several days. Supper consisted of some hot dogs and a can of beans.
I see gasoline is down to $1.17 per gallon in Wheatland; unfortunately it is at an evil Exxon station !
I was eager to listen to Coast to Coast AM starting at 11pm as Art Bell is back
for a rare appearance in the first of two year ending shows that will focus on predictions and projections for the coming year (no predictions of assassinations, political wishes, or statements emanating out of drunken foolishness are allowed) as well as reflect back on what happened in '08 and how the predictions and forecasts mad last late December went for this year. It is rather amazing to think I have been at least a somewhat regular listener of this radio program for going on a decade now. I think my loyalty to this program has now been greater than when I used to listen to Larry King on the radio overnight in the early to mid 1980s.
Here are some of the predictions (!?!) for 2009 being made: (feel free to laugh, howl, or flatulate)
1) Aliens will land in spaceships at the Memphis TN airport.
2) A nuclear weapon being detonated will occur in the US.
3) New monarch on the throne of England.
4) Major earthquake in a West Coast city, possibly Seattle.
5) Rings for teleportation currently in Palmdale, CA will be used in '09.
6) Economic downturn will result in martial law being ordered in some cities.
7) The lack of solar activity (sunspots, solar wind) will become a serious growing concern.
It sounds as if I need to be at DIA around noon to get the credit for the pickup. I understand DL has to work WED night into THR morning overnight which will be challenging enough, let alone after a cross country flight with two feisty youngsters following a week dealing with inlaws and sleeping in a different bed at a lower elevation and in a different kind of climate. I expect the three who don't have to pull the graveyard to fall asleep dead tired into bed before the evening hits its midpoint on Wednesday. Dave will have some additional friendly company again after a weeks respite.
Wednesday arrived with news from HBL their flight was cancelled necessitating a delay and a rerouting. Thus I did not have to be at DIA until around 2:30pm. Sleep overnight into morning this day was unsatifactory as I failed to get much deep sleep and struggled through the day hoping things would go okay. But hopes for things remaining as scheduled quickly ended as their flight was nearly an hour late and there were other inconveniences and miscommunications that delayed us getting out of the airport zone until after 3:45 pm MST. By the time we all got back to CR it was after 4:30 and DL had to hurry off for her night of work in the Springs, leaving her no rest before her long shift. The evening was okay as I pushed the girls on their swings, was a presence as they did some color books and sticker books, and after a modest supper, read them a number of story books as they readied for bed following their baths. I went out and got HBL some milk, and I picked up a 12 pack of various flavors of Sam Adams beer to enjoy later in the evening. HBL and I had some good conversation before he called it a night around 12:15, and I followed about an hour later.
Thursday, New Years Day 2009 we went out to run some errands and have some fun with girls. We stopped at a park in Lone Tree and the girls enjoyed the playground, swings, and monkeybars. Later it was McDs where they went bonkers playing in the playcenter.
And Friday 2 January I headed home around 10:30 am to wrap a nice long week mostly filled with solitude but also with nice fun.
*****
There are 17 individuals that will considered for 2009 induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton OH. There are four first time nominees, nine other modern era players, two contributors, and two players nominated by the Senior Committee. The list of individuals was originally announced as 133, whittled down to 25 last October, with these 17 being announced on 15 January. The names under consideration for induction:
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