OK, OK, it’s been like forever since I posted anything here. Life has indeed been crazy for me this Fall. Now that all of the kids are in school… like not homeschool, I’ve been rolling out my video production business. Work, work, work.

But the real reason I’ve been so lax here, is that I got caught up watching my team come from 4th place in mid-September to grabbing the Wild Card away from the unsuspecting Padres, then sweeping both the Phillies and the D-Backs to make it into the World Series (tying the postseason 7-0 record of the 1976 Reds). Yeah, this was a season of records for the Rox. They won 23 out of 24 games at one point, and had a storied season… possible MVP and Rookie-of-the-Year candidates, and boasting the highest fielding percentage of all time (besting over a 100 years of teams, folks!).

Yeah, they’re my Rox. But now they’re up to their elbows in Sox (0-2, at this writing), so I thought we needed to send our beloved team along a little Mojo. The kids had Rockies Day at school, where they were able to leave the uniforms at home and dress up to root on the team. They even came home all “tatted up” in Rockies ink. So I just had to take them down to Coors Field (where they just happened to have a rally going on) and shot some video of them acting crazy out on the right field porch. Here’s some stills and a vid of our outing.

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This morning, for the first time ever, we took all three of our kids to the same school for their first day of this school year. This morning I have a quiet house for the first time… like ever. It’s strange!

Dar got an email from her good friend Glen. It’s hard to believe it’s been over six years since we’ve seen him last. Another lifetime ago (a.k.a. before we had kids), Glen was working in London and paid for us come over two years in a row. The first year, 1996, we floated down the Nile in Egypt and saw pyramids and tombs and world wonders. The next year we did Venice, the Austrian Alps, and Lake Como in Italy. And both times we got to spend some quality time in the great city of London. Yeah… we wouldn’t be world travelers at all without Glen’s generosity.

We finally got to see Glen again when he came to Denver on business last week. Seems he’s been filling up his time founding companies, contracting with the US Navy to update all of their naval bases, having personal meetings with the Secretary of Defense… mundane stuff like that. Fascinating stuff, actually, and Glen’s a really great, down-to-earth guy to boot. We met up at Denver’s Aquarium, the facility that was raised from the ashes of insolvency by the Landry’s people. At the restaurant part of the facility, the ambiance was great… the food and service was just OK.

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Friday, July 27, 2007

Our last leg of the Oregon Trail journey had us parting ways with the Trail to head southward into the Sierra Madre Mountains of Wyoming to meet up with a fellow busnut and his family and extended family for a weekend of fishing, eating, hiking, and more eating. Craig Shepard of MN kindly invited us to his annual family camping trip, and gave us exact GPS coordinates to find his spot just over Battle Pass on State Hwy. 70… and boy were those coordinates exact. After huffing and puffing our SpaceShip bus over the pass, about a mile later my new GPS software on the laptop said “turn left in 0.2 miles” and I turned precisely into the secluded spot to see Craig’s MC9 for the second time in as many months.

Craig was off fishing with the kids, but his wife Teri introduced herself and showed us a few places we could park and set up camp in their circle. And we quickly did just that.

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We’re about halfway through the trip to see a few sites along the Oregon Trail. We finally found a wireless hotspot in Casper, WY… in a Jehovah’s Witness temple’s parking lot, no less, that I discovered while waiting out a huge storm that passed though here yesterday. I came back here this morning to upload a few pics.

More details, pics, and video to follow (of course)!

Sunday July 22, Cheyenne Frontier Days…

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On Friday, June 22nd, we met up with some Twin Cities, MN- area busnuts on our way up to a graduation party there that weekend. We jokingly called it the “Brian’s Busnut Bash”, since we were all named Brian, less Craig Shepard… but his son is named Brian, so he said the name should stick.

B. Diehl had graciously offered to have the bash at his house in Maple Grove. But Darlene “wondered” whether there would be much for the kids (and her) to do there while a bunch of guys sat around and discussed engines, transmissions, two-strokes vs. four-strokes, Jake Brakes, latching relays, and other fascinating topics. In perusing Google Earth a few days before, I found a large lake and park just a few blocks from the Diehl’s, so we all met up there that afternoon, at Fish Lake Regional Park.

B. Elfert brought his Dina Viaggio coach. Dad of B. Shepherd brought his “slightly modified” MC9. B. Brown and family obviously brought their GMC 4108. But B. Diehl and wife Hillary could only bring their pickup (and hamburger meat and hot dogs - thanks!), since he said he’d have to do the “Fred Flintstone thing” to get it there, since their MCI 96A3 conversion is in its last throes of a major re-power project.

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Way back in January, Dar spotted a portable air conditioner unit at our local Home Depot. And January is great time to find a good deal on an air conditioner. It was up on a shelf, covered in dust, so she calls me and asks if we could use one of these units in the bus. “How much?”, I ask. “Clearance price is $300,” says she. “Sure!,” say I. When Dar gets home, she informs me that she got it for half off of that price, since it was obviously a used floor model unit when they got the box down, and she talked them into a serious price reduction.

This portable air conditioner unit, like most others I’ve seen, is on wheels, has a reservoir for collecting the condensate, and a rather large diameter hose for exhausting hot air out of a window or more permanent fitting. Our unit is rated for 10,000 BTU, has three fan speeds, and even a dedicated dehumidify-only mode (which we surely don’t need here in the “high desert” of Colorado, but could have used it on more than one occasion whilst beach camping).

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On our last trip last fall, something went very, very wrong in our right rear axle of our bus conversion. There was grease leaking into the brake drum, rendering it useless… which is a really big deal when it comes time to stopping a 25,000 pound vehicle. The rear brakes on a two-axle coach like ours provides something like 70% of the stopping power of the brake system. So losing one side of the 70% percent makes for a very dangerous condition. I was able to limp the bus home from Texas last November, and by the grace of the Good Lord, we didn’t kill anyone or ourselves, nor even have any close calls with stops.

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Dar’s Dad and his brother, Ron, paid us a visit from 4/23 to 4/27. They got to experience our crazy lives first-hand, and somehow live to tell about it. Brian’s reputation as a cook must have preceeded him, since Ron and Papa David suggested that we eat out a lot. But that way we got to enjoy a lot of good food together, without any of the clean-up.

Like the Country Buffet

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