Every once in awhile, something nice, fun, or surprising in a good way happens unexpectedly, making your day. I've had some big ones over the years, but it's the little random ones that seem to have the most bang for the buck. For example, yesterday while waiting for the game to start in a few hours, I was realestatingonline with the TV on across the room. An old Gunsmoke comes on, and it's a special 2-parter co starring Jack Elam, and it's filmed entirely on Oregon's Beautifully Wild Rogue River. Elam and Arness shooting the Rogue's rapids on a log-raft in living Technicolor. Thoroughly enjoyed watching it, and just new we would win the game afterwards. Anybody want to contribute?
It's been a while since anything really cool has happened to me since I shook the hands of Nixon, JFK and Rockefeller. I also had a long and very cool conversation with Mark Hatfield. I also was the manufacturing engineer that built the box that shoots the most powerful nuclear missile in the world. I worked on a Boeing cruise missile, the V-22 Osprey and was part of a group that worked on producibility of all of the Boeing jumbo jets. When I was at Tektronix I had an oscilloscope on my desk that had a sweep rate faster than the speed of light and I dealt with currents in solid state devices that were in the femto ampere range. One of my buddies in college, Gordon Meigs, who also worked at Tektronix was part of a team of scientists and engineers who measured the effective mass of the photon to a much higher degree of certainty, approx. 1/3 of what they used to think it was. I had lunch with the President of Tektronix and lunch and dinner with the Executive Vice President. Lately - I got Lillard's autograph and a fist bump. I got a photo at a restaurant with Enis Kanter. I got a photo of me and Bill Walton. I regularly see and exchange greetings with Bill Schonely. Along with a dozen or so others, I've met with two past Blazer GMs. I've got numerous Blazer memorabilia including an autographed basketball and two autographed Blazer pennants. Thanks to Wookee, I got to meet and talk with the two Mikes, and I got to meet Hurd who was my great nephew's basketball coach. Also, back when I was young, I had a class with Governor McCall's son, Sam. The governor's mother had an antique store close to my house in NW Portland. The mayor, Bud Clark, bought his house from my parents. I used to swim in Oswego Lake with Don Schollander, a winner of the most gold medals in the Olympics. I used to wrestle with Rick Sanders, winner of two Silver medals in the Olympics and according to him one of those should have been gold and the other very well could have been gold except for a fluke. In college, I was the best at making an LED in our Solid State Devices lab. Okay, it's all old stuff but I'm going to throw that out there.
Within the past year Got married Began graduate school Got a bee hive Moved to a stellar 30k person town with great weather Have strawberries and a lemon tree Work promotions and accolades Wife is rediscovering and accomplishing several 20 year old goals
The lemon tree is so cool. However, in Hawaii you could have a lemon tree, an orange tree, a banana tree, macadamia nut tree and a mango tree. Here we've just got pear, apple, cherry, quince, filbert, chestnut and walnut trees for fruit and nuts. I did grow a small patch of excellent strawberries in the backyard of my last house. This house has too many ornamental bushes and trees as well as several large trees to allow room for things like strawberries. The bee hive is cool but unless you've got acres of clover to feed them or perhaps an orange grove, I wouldn't care that much for the honey. Graduate school is cool. Makes you feel a little taller. Being married - The first few years can be very very rocky. You've got to stick it out and work on it and you will have a result that is more wonderful than you can imagine. I use to live in a small town of about 3,000 near Portland. Had places for fishing, swimming in a lake and riding your bike everywhere. Now, I've moved back to that town but it's now about 40,000. Too big to know everyone in town anymore. The field of promotions and accolades is so foreign to me that I can't even imagine what it's like. I'm so conservative about work that I went into engineering so I could be forced to use pure logic in solving problems.
My wife was confident that we would win while I was a nervous wreck chewing my fingernails down to the bone. Okay, that last part is a lie. When I get really nervous I eat crap food. My favorite is a vanilla Frappuccino which I freeze until it's slushy - addicting.
Got to meet Lanny, Ptldplatypus and trailblazer18 (and their wives) at a Blazer game! Went to a Distant Worlds concert in seattle, and also Seattle Symphony! Not sure if it counts but I also get to play with my kids everyday after work and almost nothing beats that for me.
Kids are the greatest however my wife and I were unable to have children other than a miscarriage many decades ago. We've got nephews, great nephews, nieces and great nieces but they are all either grown up or nearly grown up. Most, if not all, consider me their favorite Uncle/Great Uncle and my wife their favorite Aunt/Great Aunt. They wouldn't tell anyone that straight out but you can tell. We love kids. Our great niece and great nephew were outstanding students at Oregon Episcopal school with the great nephew now finishing high school in Indiana. He's not happy about that but dad's gotta go where his job takes him. The great niece is and exceptional student at Emory hoping to become a research scientist in the field of medicine with a PhD and an MD. I think she's had one B in her life and that was in her junior year. All she does is study. Both of these kids will never touch alcohol, drugs or cigarettes. I remember when I made that claim. Their mom put herself through law school but dad made more money as a VP at CH2MHill. Our best friends are Caucasian husband and Korean wife and adopted two Korean children who call us Uncle Lanny and Imo which means aunt on mommy's side of the family. We are very proud of both. Their grandfather was one of the founders of Tektronix and his name was printed on all of our checks. Another niece was attending the University of Texas but transferred to the University of Washington for her last two years with a degree in biology. She's now working as an investment advisor. The connection? Beats me.
Wife & I just found out, not to long ago that our 11th grandkid is on HIS way! All eleven are within spitting distance and my wife is a retired elementary school teacher, so there are times my home feels like a classroom, which is great. We have blessing upon blessing in our house hold on a regular basis.
In general I have been so very blessed in my life, but I do try to appreciate the little things when they come around. A few weeks back I was in Buffalo NY (a wonderfully friendly place BTW) and decided to wander to the Buffalo Bisons (Triple A club of the Toronto Blue Jays) ballpark at 1:30 in the afternoon to pick up BG some swag for his birthday. I had been told the home opener was that night but when I got to the stadium I found it was actually starting at 2:00. I wasn’t looking to pay for a ticket so I started to wander off. A guy about my age asked if I was going to the game. When I explained my circumstances, he reached into his pocket and handed me a ticket that was front row, directly behind the plate and told me to use it to get in, buy swag and then leave or watch the game with him, my choice. It was 43 degrees but sunny, so I spent the afternoon watching a great game and getting acquainted with my new friend (a great guy and Buffalo native whose wife would move to Bend in a heartbeat if given a chance). The best part was catching the first foul ball of my almost 65 year old life. When I offered it to my new friend, he laughed and refused, saying it was just too cool that I had driven all the way from AR EE GAWN to catch my first foul ball and that I should keep it. So I spent a terrific afternoon in wonderful company in the best seats in the house and it was utter serendipity. The next morning I was eating breakfast and watching the local news and there in living color on the game wrap up was a 3 second close up of my big fat head, chatting away with my new buddy. Other than the last part, it couldn’t have been a better experience if I had actually planned it.......there is no friendlier or more helpful town than Buffalo NY.
My youngest son got married last August and I got to reconnect with my oldest daughter whom had not been around for many many years..my youngest son had never met her...one of the good things that came out of my heart failure episode....other than that, I've completely changed my lifestyle...no booze for almost 2 years, no tobacco for last year or so and I'm retired finally....able to devote my working days to the land I love...I've also become a competent trout fisherman.
Do you just grow ornamental stuff and large trees or do you have a vegetable garden? I love both but a garden where you grow some food is my favorite or was my favorite pass time. Now, I'm worthless if I have to do anything manual. In fact, I'm growing tired just sitting here. Time to retire to the couch and flip on the boob tube.
I have a quarter acre vegetable garden, few dozen fruit trees in an orchard, berries, grapes, chantrelle mushrooms...chickens. Life is good.
I truly envy you. I love growing stuff. I even enjoyed watching my grandparents raise a few chickens and some hogs. In my last house we had strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, Concord grapes, cabernet sauvignon grapes, jalapenos, cayenne peppers, red leaf lettuce, basil, American chives, garlic chives, garlic, white onion, scallions, shallots, zucchini squash, yellow crookneck squash, acorn squash, radishes, sunflowers, beefsteak tomatoes, sweet hundred cherry tomatoes, a gravenstein apple tree, a red flame grape vine that never produced, bush string beans, Chinese sweet pea pods, cucumbers, English cucumbers, corn, mint, dill, artichoke, spinach and parsley. I'm probably forgetting something. I learned this from my mother and her sister who grew up during WWII when they had to have a backyard garden due to war shortages. From my earliest childhood and on those two women taught me, my brother and my two cousins how to garden and how to love vegetable gardening. Even now with no room to grow edible produce we still find a way to squeeze in a few things we like to grow.
A manufacturing engineer at work was fucking around with our 3D printer and printed me off a black and red pinwheel because he knows I'm a huge Blazers fan. That was cool.
I have access to a 3d printer “print farm” where I work, and our engineers are always printing out the most random stuff. I’ll show up to work with video game character statues on my desk and whatever they come up with.
