Jeg er Dansk -- inte Svensk

Roughly translates.... I'm Danish, not Swedish! Heh heh... I know, I know. What's the difference? Other than a couple hundred miles?! Even the language is similar as I discovered while doing the translations! hee hee

All this because of a sweet little love note he left for me this morning on my little note to him last night....

Ahhhhh, love. It's great!

I like to find little notes from him! Even if he doesn't remember how to spell my maiden name!

;)

I have to wake up at what time???

Aaack! Summer break is over..... the alarm is set for 6:16am.... oh man... it's probably still dark out then.....

heh....

See ya when the dust settles and the school busses roll away!

AH... the fun with high speed

See what I've been missing all these years?!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI


....and who said the treadmill was a boring workout?!


edited....

Of course, Kurt finds a better one....

Maynard Ferguson

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14502089/


I actually heard the sad news from my friend, Scott Englebright, a former lead trumpet player with MF. We haven't written in a while and I was a bit surprised when an e-mail showed up from him... The Subject was simply "Maynard Ferguson" and the text was nothing more than the above link. I knew right then that clicking the link would bring me to bad news.

I have to confess that I'm surprised by two facts: One, that he died so "young" when his grandparents lived into their hundreds. (I'm not sure if his parents are still around or not.) And, Two, that he managed to live as long as he did when the obvious toll of a hard life on the road, as a musician, had really taken the years out of his body.

I saw him less than a year ago... he looked great, had lost a little weight. He seemed much sharper than I've EVER seen him, speaking directly and more to the point than I'd ever heard. His energy levels on stage, while down from the 40 year old Maynard I first saw in the early seventies, were still far beyond any other performer I've ever seen. His playing was a little less over the top, a little more paced and reserved. He seemed to have studied more, planned for his moments in the sun. The range was still incredible, unbelievable for a 77 year old man! And while there were certainly moments that could have been executed a bit cleaner by a younger Maynard, there was no doubt that this man was still the master of his game, still the "World's Greatest Trumpet Man"!

And I guess that the most important tribute to my hero, my idol, is that, right up to the end, he was still having fun, still doing what he wanted to be doing and enoying himself to the fullest doing it. There was truly a life well led!

I can't think of ANY other player who changed the way ALL trumpet players think about and approach the horn as much as he did. Sure, there were other guys with the range, there are stronger high note players out there today... but if MF had stayed with the violin, would there be? Or would we all be squeaking 'em out instead of blasting them to the back row? And, sure, there are "classical" players who are quite content with their ranges, who stop at High C or D... but check out the quotes from Bud Herseth and some of the classical trumpeters when Maynard came on the scene. They all shook their heads in wonder... and the next time they picked up their horns, you know they "gave it a shot"... and most of them shook their heads again...

I know that my world is slightly smaller today...

lookin' cool

Well, she likes it for the most part... had a bit of a crying episode just now as she cannot get comfy to sleep in it... So, I told her, she's just getting used to it, has already worn it for 14 hours so far... and given herself her pretend bolus' with her meals... (it's filled with saline, the insulin comes next week).. So, we'll continue to experiment with wearing the machine and finding comfortable sleeping solutions.... I'm not sold on it yet... it's so complex, it's a bit daunting for even me.... the medical professional! heh...

Well, we took the pump off for tonight.... we'll hook it up again tomorrow and continue the test drive!

summer winddown

Hmmm, is that even a word? It looks funny no matter how I try to spell it!
Winding down... wind down... hmmm

Anyways.

The final week of summer. We had a fairly warm day yesterday, and it's supposed to continue mid 80's through tomorrow. Nice to sit poolside. However, there was such bickering and fierce fighting that morning over who took who's spot on the couch in front of the almighty TV. Good grief. That ended that thought. Naughty children don't get rewarded with pool time. Instead, they used that energy to clean their bedrooms! Ha! Don't muck around with the mom!

Some problems with Comcast high speed internet. Seems they cannot understand that we want to used our working WIRED home network to connect all 3 computers to high speed. Their wireless setup didn't work... and now after a second service call, they still cannot get the wired network to go. Kurt's tried to bridge the computers... or something like that... heh, like I understand all this tech-talk. So, now only the kids' computer has high speed, and so here I sit on their machine! OH! Cousin M, we have a new phone number now... I tried to send an email... but it bounced back to me....???! Send me an email so I can writecha back!! =)

And now the big news!!!!!
I hold in my hand... our new mechanical pancreas! Cool, 'eh?! Tomorrow we get our 3 hour training course. A medical rep comes to our house to hook it up to little cee and teach us how to program this little brain! Very cool! Or so we're told by everyone who has it! We shall see! Then next week, I'll pull her out of school and we'll go down to Chicago for one final consult with the docs at Children's Hospital.... sigh.. All these doc visits... bleh.

Alrighty, time to organize all the necessary school supplies and make sure we have enough 'cool' clothes for school! Woot!

Worth Quoting

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.

-Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love
Robert Heinlein

Birthday Boy!!!!!

August 17th
Today's his day, my Kurt! (even though, he really doesn't like all this fuss and stuff... although the ice cream cake... he'll eat!)

My Goofball.....



My cool, thinkin' man.....

My drinking buddy.....

My big, bad, spankin', strong boy!.....

My sensitive soul.....

The greatest dad for our kids.....

My best friend. Really!

Happy Birthday, birthday boy! Here's to 49 more!

I LOVE YOU!!!!

ZOOM, ZOOM!!

'nuf said!

heh heh

;)

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

O'Hare Backup

The jam before Chicago.

Question of the Day

Our DSL phone, cable and internet service is set for tomorrow, noon installation. Will we really be getting high speed???? I'm a skeptic until I really see the fast page loading! heh....

In other news.... mom's best friend, the little German lady died Saturday after a fall she took a few days prior. The wake is today.... so I'll be heading to Chicago this afternoon....sigh. How sad, she was such a bundle of energy and a neat person. And, she had these incredible stories of Germany during WWII.... just fascinating!

Some crazy things going on in our male-dominated, higher- grand-puhbah- belt oriented work place. It is really a disadvantage for me, the lesser belted, double X gene'd boss. Sux. You know, I had the nerve to only give him 1 month notice that I would not be able to continue to pay him to teach his class. He was so bent out of shape but didn't bother to come to me... instead went above my head and I heard it from the old owner..... However, I think I handled it with much control and took it all in stride, bit my tongue didn't say most of what was really running through my head... I did mention how my staff was so quick to want to share the power, but didn't find themselves suited to cleaning the bathrooms before their classes.... Kurt has helped me work through much of this and I'm now ok with his lack of respect toward me, the owner, for disrespecting him as he sees it.... I'm fine with having him continue on, teach his class for free! It helps me out in two ways! "Support feminism, it keeps the broads happy!" Kurt found that T-shirt slogan... heh heh...

Time to go teach class....

More Geek!

Here's couple of photos from Wizard World...
















...and a composite showing most of the "Action Figures" I brought home with me!

Geek Convention

Wizard World Chicago!

So yesterday, Kurt with his official badge pinned proudly to his shirt, went to Wizard World! I, on the other hand, took the kids to my mom's house for the day! heh heh. I think I would be a bit unsettled seeing grown men in storm trooper outfits, or the 6 foot tall Pika chu pokemon milling around for the afternoon.... heh

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/

So, ya, this is the second summer Kurt's been to the convention. Last year he had 2 kids with him, but they "slowed him down" ... hahahahah... so this year he had the whole afternoon, and a pocketful of money to enjoy!

This was my old stompin' ground... so I drove the kids past my highschool on the way to grammas. We also took the route home that I used to walk. The little guy was amazed that I didn't ride the school bus... "weren't your feet tired every day when you got home??" hee hee. Country bumpkins!

Well, anyways. When I picked Kurt up at the end of the day, he was loaded down with bags and pins and posters! The best one, the one I had been bugging him about every phone call throughout the day...... !!!!! He says to me, open up this poster before we go.... I unrolled it to see he finally found Lou Ferrigno!!!! And, got his autograph!!! Wheee! What a hunk! Lou, not the hulk guy! heh heh.

So, we'll have to organize all the new guys and get a photo up here for MK! Ahhh, too bad you weren't in town for the convention, I bet you would have loved it too!!!

Gina & Me

My girlfriend! We do yoga together, karate toghether, play at the pool with our kids together, take care of each other's dogs.... and hang out together with our hubs at each other's houses drinking beer and chatting until the mosquitos get really unbearable!

We are putting together our latest venture for the fall schedule.... inner strength and outer strength. A class that combines aerobic cardio/karate/yoga/self-defense for an hour once a week! We're hunting for a name of course... look out for the ladies.... or wine and whoop-ass (that's out there already though!).... F.I.T. Females Inner Toughness.... hahahah... anyways. We got together at her house today for a photo shoot... the idea was her in white and me in black doing our things.... Kurt will then take the 70 pictures and figure out what to do with them and make up our brochure photo and ad copy!

Some of the fun we had today..... 'course, I couldn't find my proper belt... Kurt will have to paint shop pro it! And, hey, while you're at it Kurt.... can you shave off about 20 pounds from my ass???? ;) hee heee

comfortably numb

Woke up, at 6:15am nonetheless, with Pink Floyd's "comfortably numb" running through my head.... aack, what the heck???!!

It's finally, finally, comfortably cooler here today! I'm so icky of being sticky and stinky with this heat of the past weeks.... aaaaacccckkkk! Thank goodness! We went to sleep last night, with the house temp 85F... woke up this morning to 75F! Tonight will be 61!

61! *blink, blink*

Here's hoping we can cool the house to 61....as we have another heat wave passing through....tomorrow... sigh.... It's August, I know.

Cleaners are here now for the day.... so I'm going to get out of their way. I had plenty of pics.... but here's a fun one for now. I'll put some more up later....

Lookie what Kurt found last night.



EEeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww!