4 days of living with my son again

The Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone, which means my son has also come home only to return to school already.  Now if you asked him, I think he may say that he came to visit Mom's home and went back to his.  He is right, this will always be a home to him - just not his home.

In other news, I'll be helping out my brother with the tree lot this year.  So if you are in the neighborhood, stop by the Sierra Madre Christmas Tree Lot (https://www.facebook.com/SierraMadreChristmasTrees?ref=br_tf) to meet some wonderful people selling trees and giving back to the local community.

I am glad Black Friday is over with and looking forward to Cyber Monday!!!

Latest text messages from my son

My son and I communicate during the week by texting and by phone on Sundays.
Here is a summary of our recent text messaging:
(Mine are right justified, and his are left justified)

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"Heading to CVS, is there anything I can get for you?  I'm putting together a package for ya"

"Snack foods would be appreciated"

"Anything in particular?"

"Ritz I have all that peanut butter and nothing to put it on"

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"I was just on TV Look for Luke and myself"

"ESPN?"

He texts picture of them on the Fox Sports West feed for the TCU vs. SMU game.

 "!!! You look good!!!"

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"I'm at Sport Chalet with $10 to spend.  Do you need socks?"

"No."

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Picture of the package I sent 
"Got it"

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"My night class is cancelled that Tuesday before thanksgiving if that changes anything"

"We'll tix purchased already.  I'll for the info from my email account.  If i could change it can you be at the airport for a 2:45 flight or a 5:40 flight?"

"540 would be safer because of tall the traffic"

"Done - no change fee!!  I didn't get email either will get a copy to you tonight somehow :)"

"Sweet!"

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"Work was easy I was just on the phone the whole time calling people.  The staff is friendly and helpful so overall it doesn't look like a strenuous job."

I put together another package for ya, watch your mail on Thursday

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Picture of his first check
"First check!"

Outstanding!  Almost enough for a tank of gas.  Did the package show?

Yes but I wasn't able to pick it today.  I will tomorrow. 

I sent you the hangers :)

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Thanks for the dried fruit!

You bet!  They said the spicy mango is addicting so watch out!

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I'll talk with him tomorrow

Checking Out Off Shore Oil Rigs

I work with some fabulous people at NPS-CAW, or the Naval Postgraduate School - Center for Asymmetrical Warfare, who invited me out on a cold and quiet day off the So Cal coast to check out a few of the local oil rigs.  CAW prepares agencies for potential attacks and their next project was to involve a few of the .gov agencies and prepare them for a take over of one of our off coast oil rigs.  We were pretending to be the bad guys and circled the oil rigs and took video/photos to be used in their upcoming exercise.

UPDATE - .gov shutdown have put these guys out of work!  Hate our current government non compromise situation.  Looking forward to Nov 2014 to vote them out!!!

We also had a guy on board who had a lot of toys (wink wink).  The first time he flew it, we were able to recover the 'toy' and the Go-Pro.  The second time not so lucky, we lost to Go-Pro which you can see shoot across the bow in the video - sigh...

Nothing like doing 32 knots on smooth seas, oh and doing a complete 360 degree turn at 30 degrees at full speed to boot - NO PROBLEM!!

Overall GREAT DAY!!!

Success - video from the Go-Pro was more impressive :)

 

Oops!!

 

Smooth seas, the ship's wake was no problem either!

**Video too big to load :(**

 

 

Hooked on Breaking Bad

OMG!!! I cannot believe this series...it has me totally hooked and thinking about all possibly scenarios.  Of course it completely goes way beyond anything I could think of.  Only 2 shows left and I can't wait!

I've got a visitor who keeps coming back....

On August 17th, 2013 my neighbor finally got a picture of the bear which has visited me 6 times since beginning of July.  It poops in my back yard, and has damaged my diveway's 8 foot fence twice.  Luckily there was no damage to the cars parked in the driveway.

 

The first visit was to drink the left over beer from the night before by dumping out my trash all over the place.

The second and third was just to poop.

The forth was running from the Animal Control folks who were trying to chase it back upto the park where it probably came from.  Damage to fence occured during this visit.

The fifth was this to poop and was caught in this photo.

The sixth, I have no proof that the bear actually visited, but the fence was damaged again.

 

All in all, I love my house and it has been 4 weeks to the day that I've had a visit.  Phew!