Out with the Cold, In with the Flu - Sunday, January 7, 2018

2018 has not been kind to Bob. First, we had four days when the temperature did not go above freezing. I had a very mild cold with only a runny nose and cough, but no sore throat. It was gone within a couple of days leaving only a cough behind for the past week. 

Bob, on the other hand, came down with a fever, achy muscles, and a severe headache on Dec. 30. A number of people at his work had the flu, and he contracted it as well. He was very miserable. 

We had both planned to do two Volksmarches in Fredericksburg, Texas, but he was in no shape to go walk in sub-freezing conditions. He stayed home to take care of himself and to avoid infecting other people.

Last Wednesday, Bob had an appointment for outpatient surgery and had a good-sized chunk of skin cancer taken out of his back. On Thursday, he saw his dermatologist and had maintenance freezing of skin cancer done to a number of spots. And Friday, he had a routine colonoscopy. All this while he was definitely still under the weather. (All of these appointments had been made months ago.) Poor guy.

For the past eight days, he has done minimal work at the office. He did go in to pick up his work computer so he could work from home. The flu has really kicked his butt. Today is the best he's felt since Dec. 30. It's not like him to be sick.

Because of the New Year holiday and an extra paid day off by Sun Communities, I worked two days last week and got paid for four. Very nice! Thank you,  Sun Communities!

On January 2, my friend Susan and I went to see "The Greatest Showman." Both of us loved it. The movie tells the story of P.T. Barnum's early career and how he came to organize his circus. This movie is definitely a musical. Almost the whole movie is singing. A lot of the music was composed by the musicians who created music for "La La Land." I particularly enjoyed the parts of the movie that dealt with his love for his wife and girls. He took a few missteps along the way but generally did right by the people who were in his show.

After the movie, we went to Susan's house to work on a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of vintage posters. That was a fun puzzle! She got that one, and some others, from Half-price Books.

Vintage Posters - a 1,000 piece
Eurographics© jigsaw puzzle

After working two days, I drove Bob to his colonoscopy appointment on Friday, January 5, and waited for him in the waiting room. All went well. They found two small polyps that the doctor sent off for biopsy. The doc thought they looked benign. 

On Saturday morning, January 6, I was up bright and early to volunteer from 8-10 a.m. at the first checkpoint on the Alamo Quarry walk (6k and 10k walks available). Two walks were scheduled and my checkpoint was not the well-attended one. I had about 16 people come by my checkpoint before 10 a.m., with a total of only 35 on that walk for the day. 

A second walk started from the same place (Corner Bakery at Quarry Marketplace) which over 100 people did--it was the walk that went to Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Museum and Olmos Basin Park. My friend Susan volunteered at that checkpoint and they were busy all morning.

When our volunteer shifts were over, Susan and I met at Corner Bakery to do the 10k Museum Walk. Unlike last year at this walk, when the temperatures were in the 20s with a wind chill making it even colder, today's temperature started out in the high 40s and moderated to mid-50s by early afternoon. It was cloudy and downright balmy after our sub-freezing temps around New Year's Day. (We did not have any rain. Always a plus.)

Walkers registering

Special thanks to our volunteers!

The walk started with a loop around some beautiful homes in Alamo Heights (Paddington Way/Haverhill Way), and then we headed through more beautiful neighborhoods on our way to Olmos Park. 

We then did a loop around the soccer/football/softball fields at Olmos Park Basin, then headed east toward Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Museum. The museum is unique and kitschy, but you've gotta love Barney Smith and all the work he has put into his collection (which he made). Volksmarchers have been walking to his museum for years, and every year we have signed our names to toilet seats. Barney is now 96 years old and in great spirits. He greets us each year. His wife passed away about four years ago.

Mardi Gras and Fiesta toilet seat art

Each year Volksmarchers sign the toilet seats.

Randolph Roadrunners 2013 toilet seat

Randolph Roadrunners 2018 toilet seat

Barney Smith and me in his museum

Barney was a plumber for many years. Below are the pieces of silverware he removed from sink traps.

Gray around the photo is ash from
Mt. St. Helens

State quarter collection

Below, Susan Medlin, our Regional Director, is talking to Barney Smith's neighbors about Volksmarching.

Volunteer Audrey - thank you!

From the Toilet Seat Museum, we walked back to Olmos Basin Park and finished our walk back to Corner Bakery. 

Bike path from Olmos Basin to Quarry Marketplace

Quarry Marketplace used to be an actual quarry

And here we are, back at our start point. After a 10k (6.2 mile) walk, we are ready to eat. The Corner Bakery has wonderful food. We enjoyed our lunch very much. 

After lunch, we went to Susan's house to start a new jigsaw puzzle. It was a wonderful day, but we missed Bob!

Today, January 7, Susan and I did a 10k walk at Leon Creek from Bandera Rd. to Culebra Road. After our walk, we headed to Simi Indian Restaurant for their Sunday buffet. They opened at 11:0 a.m. It was so good. 

We had to hurry and eat because we were heading to Wonderland Mall's Santikos Bijou Theater to see "The Shape of Water." I have to admit this movie was not my cup of tea. It's a sci-fi love story that takes place in 1962. A merman is in custody at a top-secret government facility. Two housekeepers at the facility find him and want to get him away. To me, this movie had way too much gruesome violence. It had a nice love story, but that's not enough to save the movie. 

The rest of the day, I took it easy. Bob is feeling better today. I hope he continues to improve because this flu has not been easy on him. 

That's all for this week. Enjoy 2018!

On a Different Note...Movie Reviews - Wed., Oct. 5, 2016

Sully: So far, I have seen Sully twice: once with Susan and Darren on Sept. 13, and then with Bob on Sept. 18. What a great movie! The story is told with the emphasis on Sully's personal life and the inquiry into the events of the forced water landing. (As Captain Sully points out in the movie, this was a "forced water landing," not a plane crash.) It's fascinating to watch the sequence of events (including the subsequent rescue) which is covered in great detail. 

We learned a lot from the movie and have a renewed respect for Captain Sully, co-pilot and crew. We can never fully understand the stress and pressure brought to bear on Captain Sully, but this movie does a good job of going deep. Clint Eastwood has earned our acclaim for directing this movie based on a real-life incident and giving it heart. 5 stars.

In between the two Sully viewings, Bob invited me out to dinner at Pappadeaux's Seafood Restaurant. The president of the company he works for (Southwest Electrical Contracting) was visiting from Colorado and took all the executives, managers and their wives or partners out to dinner. Bob had cedar-planked salmon with salad and I had rib-eye steak and salad. For dessert we had Creme Brulee. We enjoyed going out to eat very much. In all, there were 18 people at dinner.

Eight Days a Week: For this movie, we went to local theater that shows independent movies. Eight Days a Week chronicles the Beatles as they toured the world, from their early days in London (1962) until they broke up in 1969. These iconic lads stole people's hearts and were at the top of the charts for years. The movie shows previously unseen footage of the Beatles and you really get a feel for their personalities. It's hard to believe they were together only ten years, yet have influenced music for 50+ years. Wow. 

Personally, the Beatles have been in my life since I first watched them on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 until the present. 4-1/2 stars

While we were at the Wonderland Mall where the Santikos Bijou theater is located, we came upon a CosPlay/Gamer/Halloween event. All kinds of booths were set up and adults and children were trick-or-treating. We had no idea what some of the costumes were.

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Harley Quinn

I have no idea what this is.

The Magnificent Seven: Oh, my. A Western in the tradition of the big westerns of years past. The opening scene of the mountains with fall color and snow-capped mountains is gorgeous. We learn about the citizens of a small mining town called Rose Creek, a number of whom are simple farmers. 

A San Francisco industrialist named Bartholomew Bogue comes to town with his henchmen and seizes control, killing a number of people in the process. Rose Cullen, whose husband was killed, goes to another town to look for help to overthrow Bart Bogue and reclaim their town. She finds Denzel Washington who plays Bounty Hunter Sam Chisholm. At first he is not interested in joining their cause until he hears the name Bartholomew Bogue.

From that point on, Sam Chisholm crosses the territory looking for others to help him remove Bogue and his henchmen from Rose Creek. He finds six others willing to help, including Chris Pratt (as Josh Faraday), Ethan Hawke (as Goodnight Robicheaux), and Vincent d'Onofrio (as Jack Horne). A lot of the movie is spent on recruiting the magnificent seven and then planning how they will defeat Bogue, who is four days away in San Francisco. It's a very exciting climax and will have you on the edge of your seat. 4 stars

Deepwater Horizon: We all remember the record oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon, but I didn't remember learning exactly how it happened. This movie brings it all to life. Mark Wahlberg plays the chief electronics technician, Kurt Russell plays Mr. Jimmy Harrell, boss of the workers on the oil rig, Kate Hudson plays Mark Wahlberg's wife, and John Malkovich plays the bad guy, BP executive. 

From the opening scenes you get a sense of foreboding about what is about to happen. Transamerica workers are flown from Louisiana by helicopter to the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig to get it ready for production. Two BP executives whose company owns the rig are along to speed up getting the rig into production; it is already 43 days past the date when production was supposed to start. The oil rig workers do not want to start production as there are too many problems and safety tests which still need to be addressed or completed. The BP company men order shortcuts be taken and safety protocols bypassed or ignored. The result is a horrific explosion and fireball aboard the Deepwater Horizon. The special effects and story are so well done, you will be holding your breath, dodging flying debris, and hissing the villainous BP exec, Donald Vidrine. We highly recommend this one. 5 stars.

And last, but not least, we watched the following movie on a Netflix DVD:

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi: At 2-1/2 hours long, this is quite the biographical war movie. Wikipedia.org gives the following description of Benghazi in 2102 when this event occurred: 

 "In 2012, Benghazi, Libya is named one of the most dangerous places in the world, and countries have pulled their embassies out of the country in fear of an attack by militants. The United States, however, still has a diplomatic compound (not an official embassy) open in the city. Less than a mile away is a CIA outpost called 'The Annex,' which is protected by a team of private military contractors from Global Response Staff (GRS)."

U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens arrives in Benghazi and decides to stay at the diplomatic compound with limited security (only two Diplomatic Security [DS] agents, and gate guards hired from the 17th February Martyrs Brigade, AKA 17-Feb). We know this is not good from the get-go. Stevens notices suspicious men taking photos of the compound. It happens to be the morning of the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. Doubly not good!

What follows is a travesty and a tragedy. At nightfall, militants from Ansar al-Sharia attack the compound. The 17-Feb guards run from the gates leaving the compound defenseless from intruders. The ambassador and an IT specialist are taken to a "safe room" by Wickland (one of the DS agents). A large gun battle ensues which can be heard from The Annex. The attackers cannot force their way into the safe room, so they set the building on fire.

Meanwhile, at The Annex, the GRS team wants to help at the compound. However, the CIA Chief-of-Station refuses as he does not want to give away the position of the CIA's secret Annex or leave The Annex vulnerable to attack. The GRS team disobeys orders and races to the compound to reinforce the limited security, only to find 17-Feb have deserted their posts and the compound overrun by attackers. 

The CIA staff make many fruitless calls to try to find any soldiers to help them. A drone is sent to assess the location of the enemy, but only GRS out of Tripoli sends anyone to help. That help is a long time coming. 

In the meantime, the GRS soldiers and Wickland return to The Annex, but Wickland gets lost on his way there and leads the enemy right to the Annex's gate. All night long, the attackers lay siege to The Annex. One of the defenders likens their situation to The Alamo. Every time a new vehicle or people arrive, the soldiers on the roof ask the CIA Chief-of-Station if they're expecting any "friendlies." The answer is always "no." 

The movie takes you right into the heart of these GRS soldiers and you want more than anything for all of them to survive to go home to their loved ones. It's awful what happened there and many did not make it home. Be sure to see this movie. It's so well done. Five stars to this powerful movie. Zero stars to the U.S. for not responding to the cries for help.

Wow, that was quite a lot of movies. Travel Bug out.

A Birthday, A Theft, A Concert, Walks, Movies, An Award, and a Baseball Game - Sunday, August 23, 2015

OR...How much stuff can I cram into one blog?

Let me begin by saying: Our life is not boring! Over the past two weeks, we have been busy doing a variety of fun stuff, in addition to our usual walks.

But before I tell you about what we've been doing, here's a birthday message I want to send: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my son, Michael, who turned 36 today. Michael, the day you entered our lives we were so thrilled. Throughout the years you have exceeded our expectations and we are very proud of you. I hope you're having a wonderful celebration today in Oregon. Play some laser tag for me, okay?

In my last blog, I forgot to mention we went with our friends Lisa and Joe to see the San Antonio Missions play baseball on Wednesday night, August 5. It was a beautiful evening at the ballpark and we had a relaxing time watching the game.

The last time I wrote, Sunday. August 9, we had walked the south part of the downtown River Walk. On Tuesday, August 11, I wanted to see the movie "I'll See You In My Dreams" with Blythe Danner and Sam Elliott. It had some pretty good reviews and I liked both of the main actors. The movie wasn't what I expected. It started out with the death of her beloved dog. It was obvious she hadn't done much with her life since her husband died 20 years earlier; her life was very routine, nothing exciting happened. She played cards with her friends who lived in a senior community. They wanted her to move there, but she wanted to stay in her house. Her dog dying was a wake-up call for her to get on with her life.

One day, while she was in a drug store checking out vitamins, Sam Elliott walked up to her and said, "You don't need those, you look fine just the way you are," then walked away. She was smitten. The rest of the movie deals with issues of growing older, coming to terms with what's happening in your life, and making plans for fun events in the future. This would be good for a Netflix rental, but don't expect too much from it. In the end, it disappointed me, even though the critics seemed to like it.

Bob took Tuesday afternoon off work and met me at the theater to see "San Andreas." Now that's an exciting summer blockbuster! We were on the edge of our seats through the whole movie. It's about a big earthquake hitting the Hoover Dam/Las Vegas area and setting off an even larger magnitude quake along the San Andreas Fault in California. Wow! Quite the movie thrill ride!

After the movie, I hopped in my car and drove home. It took Bob quite a while to get home. He had left me a voice mail because my phone was still turned off from the movie so I didn't hear it ring. While we were in the theater, his truck was broken into. They stole his radio, his briefcase with his computer, and his gym bag with his sweaty gym clothes in it. (He had just bought his brand new briefcase a few days earlier.) That really sucks. This is the second time in three years his truck has been broken into.

Wednesday through Saturday, I worked my usual days at the RV park. On Saturday and Sunday our managers at Travelers World RV Park, Brenda and Terry, went to the Texas RV Association (TRVA) annual meeting. While I was working on Saturday, an email was sent out from one of our Carefree RV Park associates who was also at the TRVA annual meeting. She announced that Travelers World RV Park just received the 2015 Texas Small RV Park of the Year Award! How cool is that? This is a nice way to be honored.

Our plaque (hanging on the wall)

Office team: Brenda, Delia, Susan, Terry

Maintenance and housekeeping team: Terry, Bob,
Felix, Dan, Lee, Tom, Larry, Brenda

On Sunday, August 15, Susan, Bob and I walked Salado Creek Greenway (10k) out and back from Lady Bird Johnson Park in San Antonio. Again, temperatures were in the mid-80's when we started walking at 8 am, with humidity in the 80s. Ugh. But I'm glad we got out for some air and exercise.

Start point of today's 10k Volksmarch

Salado Creek Greenway

We chose this walk because it's mostly shady!

Bamboo

Walk over, time to eat breakfast. The Magnolia Pancake House sounded pretty good; however, it's VERY popular on Sunday mornings...as in 65-75-minute-wait popular. We were too hungry to wait, so we decided to drive to IHOP down the road. We were seated within ten minutes and soon had food in front of us.

Bob's Double-Stuffed French Toast breakfast

My Tuscan Scramble breakfast

It felt good to have a 10k walk and breakfast all finished up by 11 am. We went home and slept for a couple of hours after that.

Monday morning, August 17, Susan and I were going to walk Salado Park Greenway again. I got up, drove to the park to meet her at 7 a.m., but no cars were in the parking lot. I wondered if she was stuck in traffic, so I checked my text messages. I should have checked at home before I left. She had sent me a message in the middle of the night saying she couldn't make it. Oh well, I was there, so I did a 5k (3.1 mile) Volksmarch by myself. The trail wasn't crowded. It was definitely warm and humid even at 7 a.m. (before the sun came up).

Debris pile from previous flood

Salado Park Greenway bike path

I finished walking by 8 a.m., then went home to do chores: vacuuming, laundry, washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom.

Tuesday morning the 18th, Susan and I walked the Brook Hollow neighborhood which has lots of shade. Doesn't make much difference when the humidity is high. Whenever we do this walk, we see lots of deer.

Adorable fawns

As we walked past, the doe was keeping her eye on us!

Pride of Barbados flower

The coffee shop where we start our walk

Tuesday evening, August 18, I had free tickets through AARP to see a free pre-screening of "Learning to Drive," a movie coming out in a couple of weeks. The movie stars Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley. I thought the movie was very good. It's about a middle-aged woman whose husband leaves her for a 30-something-year-old woman. She is devastated by the disintegration of her marriage, the ensuing divorce, and having to sell the house they shared for years in New York City. During her life she never learned to drive because either her husband drove her places or she took public transportation. A cabbie (Ben Kingsley) who drove her and her husband home after he had just confessed to his infidelity, heard her pleas for him to come back to her. One thing leads to another and we learn the cabbie is an Indian from the Punjab who is a Sikh. We learn about his culture, and that he teaches driving classes to supplement his income. She decides to learn how to drive. Tips about life are given during the driving lessons and the cabbie becomes her friend. This movie is so much better than "I'll See You In My Dreams." There's more depth and heart.

I have been wanting to see concerts at the Majestic Theater in San Antonio. So many good musicians are coming that we had to choose wisely which ones to see. On Wednesday, August 19, we chose to see Weird Al Yankovic. You know the crazy musician who parodies other musicians. He writes all the parodied lyrics himself and dresses in wild outfits that go with his songs. You may remember his song "Eat It," which is a parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It." I can tell you we had a very fun time listening to and watching Weird Al and and his band. Plus the Majestic Theater is a place you should make it a point to see while you're in San Antonio. It's amazing. Two of the songs Weird Al sang that were my favorites besides "Eat it," were "Foil" which parodied Lorde's "Royals," and "Word Crimes." He is truly a musical genius.

Inside the Majestic Theater in San Antonio, Texas

Majestic Theater interior

Majestic Theater

Us at the Weird Al Yankovic concert

Pretty ceiling

Weird Al Yankovic's photo on a screen before the show

Weird Al Yankovic singing

Yep, that's Weird Al in the octopus costume
parodying Lady Gaga's silly costumes

Weird Al's Star Wars encore

Thursday evening, August 20, we went to the Missions baseball game with Maureen and Gary, friends from Bob's previous workplace. Again, we had a pleasant evening watching the game. When we left in the 9th inning, the Missions were up by 3 points.

That pretty much covers the past two weeks. I'll get to today in my next blog...hopefully tomorrow.

Travel Bug out.

All Revved Up - Sunday and Monday, August 2 and 3, 2015

Sunday, August 2: 
Bob was up before dawn to run at 6 a.m. with the San Antonio Road Runners* (the team he trains with for the San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in December). While he was running, walking and sweating in the early morning heat and humidity, I was sleeping in in our air-conditioned 5th wheel. Any morning I can sleep in thrills me to no end!

By the time I got up and showered, Bob had already come home after his run and showered. I think I finally got up at 11 a.m. For breakfast, I made pumpkin-blueberry pancakes topped with cinnamon applesauce and two fried eggs. It was so delicious.

Movie review: After "breakfast" we went to the movies. "Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation" looked so good from the previews we couldn't wait to see it. We were not disappointed. Action, chase scenes, stunts galore (not to be confused with Pussy Galore of Bond movies), humor, twisty plot, great acting - this movie has it all. Don't blink, you might miss something.

Bob read one reviewer who said (and I'm paraphrasing here): This is what the Fast and Furious movies aspire to be and what James Bond movies used to be. Bob gives it four stars and I give it five. Bob prefaced his star rating saying, "I'm not as much of a fan as you are."


Monday, August 3:
The morning started out calm enough. I met Susan at a McDonald's to sign in for our Volksmarch. We're doing 10k (6.2 miles) along Leon Creek Greenway at the Mainland Trailhead. Our decision was to start at 8:30 a.m. in the hopes rush-hour traffic would have abated. But we were wrong on that count. Earlier traffic accidents delayed Susan, and I heard about a wreck on my route, so I took different freeways and arrived on time.

The walk was flat and shady which is very nice on a 90-degree morning. No unusual animal or bird sightings, but the cicadas were obnoxiously loud and screechy.

Leon Creek Greenway

Leon Creek Greenway

After our walk, Susan headed home and I, feeling adrenalized by "Rouge Nation" yesterday, decided to see "Furious Seven" at the cheap theater today. Wow, another exciting, stunt-filled movie. The plot was pretty much like every other Fast & Furious movie in the franchise. It was very exciting and paid tribute to Paul Walker, who died last year in a high-speed crash. I rate this one 3-1/2 stars.

So, I have been revved up by the high-energy movies over the past two days.

That's all I've got for today.

*Not to be confused with the Randolph Roadrunners, which is the local Volksmarch club I belong to.