Wednesday, February 22

Good news, I took the day off from IBM today to go to a national Photoshop traveling class called Light it, Shot it, Retouch it LIVE at the downtown Sheraton.  I take my bike  and there are about 500 people there ready to learn from Scott Kelby, arguably the worlds photoshop god.  Its geared toward modeling and portrait photography, but well worth my time and attention with great tips and materials and resources.  Product lighting is a footnote but a great lesson for me.  He make it look easy, which it is not.

I stop at Honey Bears to use soon expiring groupons and ride home with a box of yummy BBQ for me and my honey for dinner.

Thursday February 23

Another day pretending to care about DR and work on calls and on email.  I actually got to the bottom on my email today for the first time in a few weeks.  I need to get the LDRPS procedures going.  I facilitaed the Infrastructure meeting today, taking over from Scott.  It felt like some were happy about it, others not.  There are new issues to followup on.. more work to do.

As I am close to heading out to my fitness class I get a call from a CA corporate guy wanting some post production work for some little kid video games that is working with a Scottsdale company.  Its a referral from Allied Video who sends me work he cant or does not want.  I talk to the guy for a while and look at his website.   I am sure he is making a killing on his crap arcade machines that give away kiddie trinkets for their parents dollars for playing ripped off ipad games.    Later that night I send him a proposal adding an offer to refer him to someone else which he asks for the next day.  Its good that I can turn away work that looks crappy and way outside of my video expertise.

The gym is good, I work to the point of 'light head' at the end of the circuit.  Julie calls during the time on treadmill and has a quick chat with Jamie, my nazi trainer.

Saturday February 25

Evan and Josh are taping NYS games today.  Julie is headed to work all day with PA volunteers making netiquettes of children killed at the hands of their caretakers for her Champions event.  I am headed to the Phoenician for an all day ETRADE education day learning about EFS and Option trading.  The class is excellent as is the facility.  I get a handle on option trading and may try it after the dust settles with moving everything to ETRADE and moving all the mutual funds into EFS index funds.  The market hit and retreated from 13000 a few times last week.  Markets seem to be recovering so the indexes should be on their way up.  Per the retirement plan we need another million in the vault before we can retire and feed our money habit till were 90.

At lunch I was late in the line and sat down at one of the few remaining seats.  I introduced myself to woman next to me.  After a few questions it happened that she was Julie (Brown), married to a Robert who used Julia Roberts as a way for people to remember their names.  She works for IBM supporting Amex as a PM which I was in her meetings for TPF disk change over.  Quite a coincidence.

We meet back home in the afternoon and head to the Chapmans for a pot luck dinner with them, Toley and Galina and Maureen O'Connell.  Its quite fun.  There is an undercurrent of the polarity of the politics in the room with us and the Chapmans being bleeding heart atheistic liberals, Mo a prolife activist and G and T Fox news, Rush L hypocritical tea party republicans.  It's almost fun not to skirt around those beliefs.   We play the name game and Mo and I kick ass as the only team with usa roots  as partners.

Sunday, February 26

VERY EARLY start for today with a 4:30AM start for a video shoot of ZMX Extreme workout from Cody and Jason at Paradise Valley Country Club.  We shoot in their equipment room and then in their spin room until 9:30.  The 30ish mercedes driving real estate developers very fit guys go through 30 or so exercises for my camera.  They are impressive.  We then do an hour of voice over, which goes pretty well too.  They are educated and thoughtful.. I captured most of the video at night, and it looks OK.  It will be a lot of work to put it together.  I will have to learn about screen splits and other effects to make it good.
Its home, and a nap, and then a hike up south mountain with Skelly.  We make it to the top in 35 min without stopping, slowing down now and them on the higher inclines to bring my heart from zone 4 to 3.    Julie and I enjoy a nice dinner and the Oscars.  Looking at myself on video, I see a not too attractive guy.. old, bald, a little dumpy.  I ask Julie what she sees when she looks a me.  I tell her that I see her as a much younger woman.. she says she sees me in my 30's.  The right answer.

January 21

I am 59 today.  Quite amazing and scary on how close it is to 60, which by anyone’s western sentiment is on the older side.  I am thinking that it is quite similar to being 17 and 18 with opportunity only there when you create it.  Hiring someone at 59 is challenging to anyone.    That said, I am grateful to have been steadily employed for the last 28 years by well heeled companies and sitting in job that does not force me to be a slave to it.  It’s boring for me as I have little interest in being an icon in DR or IBM or keep up with the latest thinking and tools.  I give them the benefits of my years and networking to keep their money coming in, and me in the employed category.  It does seem that that is the preferred role my handlers prefer, as I do as well.

At 59 I weigh 195 pounds and earnestly intend to weight 185 or less on my 60th.  I am working out at Lifetime at least twice a week for 90 min, and getting stronger and thinner for the wear.  

59 years is a pretty big piece of a humans life.  When I’m with the kids and sometimes younger friends I surprise myself by just how many stories I have.  I have much to be proud of in these year, but by far the most shining of these accomplishments is my marriage to my darling Julie.  I am beyond lucky to have found such a beautiful woman, inside and out who is as committed to this life sentence as me.  

I degrees.  I am thinking that this document will be a diary of the days events with just some feelings thrown in now and then.  I will attempt to go light on historic references and long on events.  Lets see if I can muster the discipline to keep this going.

SO>>> Today, my 59th birthday I woke up 90 min later than planned (my android alarm was not set correctly), dressed in bibs, and headed for Flagstaff Snowbowl for a half day skiing.  This is now a tradition on my bday as Snowbowl gives free lift tickets on your birthday.  I went by myself after not being able to get any interest up for the trip with my very few friends that also ski.  I made it to the mountain about 9:30 which was covered at the top by a snow cloud.  It is windy making the 27 degree temp seem much colder with, razor sharp snow flakes falling some of the time.  The mountain snow is bad as it has not snowed in a few weeks.  Good thing its free for me.  I make it up and down sunrise and midpoint agaziz about a dozen times before calling it a day.  Even in these conditions, I do love to slide down the mountain.   The ride is nice as I am in the Infiniti.  It does need new windshild wipers and the sprayer on the drivers side needs fixing.  
I eat breakfast for lunch at The Place and read the paper.  It really is a very nice way to spend a day.  

I get calls from all the family and the boys on the way there and home wishing me a happy Bday.  They are kind with talking about my advancing years.  

Julie is out getting a cake and restaurant discout cards when I get home.  I welcome my cute little Skelly Belly and Rosie and Julie comes home with a nice bday hug and kiss and present and card for me.  I get a snap shirt and pj pants and a very clean house.  So thoughtful
We relax a bit and then pick up Galina and Toley for a dinner at North.  Evan is already there and made the res, and we are soon seated.  Julie gets tulips from Evan, I get cars from Evan and Kristy as well as cookies and a pocket knife from Keystone from them.

The conversation and time are fun.  Today is the S. Carlina repub primary and a flash comes on my phone that Newt G won.  I bet Galina that if Newt gets the nomination that Obama will easily get reelected.  It turns ugly for a few minutes until the politics leave the table.  

We drop off the Fox News heads and do some grocery shopping at Walmart on the way home.  Every since we can remember, grocery shopping has been part of our weekend dates!  

Home and TV, Ipad, dog play  and making the DVDs for the Aztecs finish off the night