Life on the High Plains

I had a tremendously fun Sunday!  Irv and I went to church and afterwards he talked me into making a trip to Sears. You see, I've been wanting a Kitchenaid mixer for quite some time.  They're kind of expensive and maybe somewhat of a luxury so I've managed to do without one for all these years.  This year, however, I received some cash and gift cards for Christmas.  Sears was having a great sale on them so off we went to get one. I planned to get the Standard 4.5 quart model.  The problem was that it was sitting next to the 6 qt. Pro model.  I'm sure I could have gotten by with the Standard model, put the Pro model was calling my name.  It cost twice as much as the Standard model so I couldn't really  justify it. Unbeknownst to me, Kenmore has started making it's own version of the Kitchenaid mixer.  They had a comparable model to the Pro except it had 600 watts instead of 325 plus 10 speed settings all for $150 less.  It takes ...

We had a wonderful few days in Idaho to celebrate Christmas.  I did a really bad job of photographing our visit.  I didn't pick up my nice Nikon at all, just the point and shot Nikon that I bought the day after Christmas.  Fortunately, Dana shared her pictures with me.   We arrived at my Dad's place on Saturday evening and immediately put up his tree and got the place ready for Christmas.   On Christmas Eve, we visited the local museum where my dad has volunteered for years.  They had a beautiful display of Christmas trees, nativities from around the world, and gingerbread houses.  (My brother taught me how to make a picture collage with ipiccy.com.  Pretty cool don't you think?)       On Christmas we opened our gifts, drank champagne, had a few naps, played Dance Central on Mr. Bean's new XBox, ate a lot, and had a game of cricket.     Yes, I said cricket.  Irv and I g...

From Keira and Cody who are home alone this Christmas.  :(

It won't be long now.  I took a tour of the new building on Friday.  Wow!  Have they come a long way in the past two weeks. The most exciting room--the server room with our two new server racks.  (you have to be a techie to understand my excitement about this) We have these really cool cabling baskets too.  There's over a mile of cable in this new building. We're moving the servers in a couple weeks.  Once we get the servers set up we will make the cutover to the new building.  It should be as simple as hooking the new computers into the system and everything will work just like it does now.  (Keep your fingers crossed that it all work as planned.) Here's my new office. I can't wait to decorate it with all the turquoise and brown accessories that I asked Santa for (two more days until Christmas!). The Board Room has custom-made carpet. It's beautiful, don't you think?

Pain.  A constant part of my life for the past 17 months. A referral to a new doctor this week.  I was referred for an Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography.  It's time to take a good look at the pancreas and liver.  The only problem is that this procedure is invasive and results in pancreatitis in a large number of patients.  Apparently pancreatitis is extremely painful and usually requires a 3-4 day hospital stay. We're starting with a non-invasive Magnetic Resonance Cholangiopancreatography (MRCP).  I'm sure our insurance company loves paying for all these tests.  It's scheduled for January 4th.  For now, I have to make it through Christmas and year-end at work. The problem is that my pain level has really shot up the last couple days, almost feels like a kidney stone.  Maybe it is a kidney stone.  Who knows?  Tomorrow we're driving up to Idaho.  I keep telling myself there are good hospitals between here...

Last week Mr. Beans suggested that we go to the Nutcracker. Yes, it was Mr. Beans' idea. Since it was an evening performance we decided we needed to dress appropriately.  The problem was that it was jeans day at work and I forgot to bring dressy clothes to work with me.  We live way too far out of town to drive home and change so Irv and I looked like bums while Mr. Beans and his mom looked gorgeous. The performance lasted exactly an hour and a half which was about the length of time that Irv can sit still.  This may have been his first and last ballet experience. The Colorado Youth Ballet did an outstanding job.  There were lots of little cuties.  I think it's quite a feat to get all those kiddos choreographed and synced together. I'm so glad my favorite grandson is learning to enjoy the arts.

Hello Winter!  So glad you're finally here.  Just please wait until afternoon to bring the wind and snow because I have a doctor's appointment that I really need to get to plus we're having our office Christmas potluck and and gift exchange. Normally, I would be wishing for a snow day, but tomorrow just isn't great timing.  However, I am grateful for every inch of snow you bring our way.

Mr. Beans' school held its winter band concert last week.  Wow!  What a difference a year can make in the life of beginning band students. Last year they just played snippets of songs. This year their music was actually recognizable.  To the ears of Mr. Beans' Grammy, it sounded as good as the New York Philharmonic. They played several Christmas pieces.  My favorite was I'll Be Home for Christmas. Of course, since Mr. Beans' school is all about space, the concert would not have been complete without the Star Wars theme.    Enjoy!

Last weekend Irv and I made a very quick trip to Vegas for a performance of the NFR. We stayed at the MGM Grand for the first time and I think this might be my new favorite place to stay in Vegas.  The rooms were very plush. While playing the slots not long after we arrived, a flurry of people rushed by along with a bunch of cameras.  This guy stopped next to us and Irv said "don't you recognize him?".  It was Mike Tyson.  People were swarming all around him trying to get pictures.  He was very nice about it. Apparently there was some big fight going on at the MGM that Saturday night.  Even the key cards for our room was advertising the fight.  I don't know anything about boxing so I have no clue who either Pacquiao or Marquez are.  Mary is a boxing fan so I texted her to find out some information about these guys.  She assured me that it was going to be no contest--Pacquiao would definitely win.  Well, appa...

Boy, we did we do a lot of traveling last week. On Monday, we drove down to Albuquerque so that I could attend a training for work and Irv could hang out with his folks.  We got up bright and early so that we would arrive in Santa Fe around lunch time.  You see, I grew up on the New Mexican flavor of Mexican food.  The Mexican food in Colorado is good, but it's more Tex-Mex than authentic Mexican. We found a little hole in the wall restaurant not far off the plaza in Santa Fe.  It is called The Shed and it is fantastic.  There's nothing like some enchiladas, posole, and pinto beans! After lunch we headed down to Albuquerque, checked into our hotel then went over to Irv's parent's house.  On the way we drove by our old high school.  How disconcerting it is to see that they've torn down your old school and replaced it with a three story monstrosity.  When they tear down the school that you graduated from 30+ years ago, th...

Last night was the annual Christmas party for my office.  My employer puts on a Christmas party that is incredible compared to other places I've worked. This year we made the trek down to Canon City, Colorado for a murder-mystery dinner on the Royal Gorge Route railroad. The evening started with the employee service awards.  This is my good friend and co-worker, Miss L, who received her 30 year award.  She claims she started working for the company when she was only one year old.  Miss L and I are the entire IT Department for the company. The one bad thing about taking a train down the Royal Gorge at night is that the beautiful rock walls can't be seen.  We still spent some time on the outside car.  It was such a pleasant evening that we didn't even need jackets.  Is this really December in Colorado? The food on the train was superb. I had the salmon. Irv went for the prime rib.  Now that is a...

It has been awhile since I've posted an update on our new office building.  I made a visit to the building site today with a representative from the company that's providing our digital signage board just to make sure everything was on track to install the board. We have a move in date--January 11th!  To me it's hard to believe this monstrosity of a building will be finished and ready for occupancy in six weeks.  I've already been told to expect to spend three days straight at the new building making sure the servers get moved and all the computers get hooked up and are ready for business on Monday morning.  I'm not looking forward to the move itself, but I am looking forward to working in this new building. Here's the Board room.  It's huge compared to what we have now. Here's where the digital signage board will be installed--we're not sure they made it deep enough or provided any type of ventilation. I'm not sure what they...