Personal

Our new house

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Well, our house is a little different than our house in Commerce City. We don’t need a mower here, as the front yard has desert landscaping (no grass allowed),

Our backyard instead of being 115’ from the back door to the end of the property, is 12’ to the wall.

A little bit of a difference…

A little bit of a difference…

But the beautiful pool makes up for it (a little bit)

But the beautiful pool makes up for it (a little bit)

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One thing we aren’t downsizing on is our canvases.

Leaving (for) Las Vegas!

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Leaving Las Vegas was the name of a pretty good movie.  Leaving for Las Vegas is the new title to this movie called life. Time for another new chapter in the book of life.  My life began in LA, and then went to Denver for 9 years, and now it's time to get closer to LA without actually living in LA.  It's just too expensive, and too much traffic.  That’s the reason that we left Los Angeles in the first place. But then again, Las Vegas has traffic, but its not like we're moving to the strip! 

So what brings us closer to LA and not actually living in LA?  

This little guy!

My daughter Jennifer was pregnant with Ryan and said “you have about 2 1/2 years to move back here as he’ll need his papa and nana around more often”. I went out to CA every month the first year he was born. I had to work and travel so much for work, that I accrued a lot of comp/time off, so I flew out about every month to see them. Janis had just started working for the state, so she didn’t have a lot of vacation/time off. At the beginning it was ok (not really) but later on in the year, Janis would just take leave without pay, as seeing Ryan was more important than the money lost.

Low and behold, Jennifer told us she was pregnant with our next grandson, and we decided we would have to move closer sooner than expected. We decided in May 2016 that we needed to move and quick.

Our neighbors from down the street bought the house (30 day escrow) so we had to pack up a 5000 sq ft house in 30 days (while working) and go out to Las Vegas to look for homes (1 weekend).

We flew to Vegas, looked at about 10 developments, asking for a house that was move in ready in 30 dqys with a 30 day escrow. We found 3 possibles, and on Sunday Jennifer and Neil came out to see the 3 possibilities. We needed to be 1) close to the strip, as they gamble (as do we), and closer to the south end of the valley, so we are are close to I-15 and driving out to see them.

We ended finding a home in Rhodes Ranch, which has a golf course, a built in water park, a HUGE lagoon like pool, and a rec room with basketball courts, pool tables, weight rooms, etc.

We sold our house in Commerce City and had to move within 30 days! That was fun!

 

Travis First Communion - May 8, 2016

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Travis had his first communion mass today, TL’s parents were able to come to it, which was nice. There wasn’t ability to take photos inside the cathedral, so only got photos at the reception.

It was tough to get down there to take photos, since we were in the process of moving and packing up etc., but I’m glad we were able to see this and them before we move away in a month (ish).

Oasis Grand Riviera Mayan, Cancun, Mexico April 2, 2016

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Spent a few days at the Grand Riviera Mayan resort in Cancun, Mexico. A beautiful resort,

Dominican Republic - Puerto Plata

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Went to the Dominican Republic for a week using a timeshare transfer that we have. used the timeshare, program, and unfortunately, we had no idea what we were in for.

After flying all night, and checking into the place, which was maybe a 2 on a 5 star rating. (They had a small leaf filled pool, the beach was horrible, they only had 1 of the 3 restaurants open). They immediately took us to another timeshare place, which was about an hour away, “just to see what it looks like”.

After being shown the Beautiful grounds, 10 pools, 26 bars, 10 restaurants, they take us to a timeshare presentation. We told them FOUR times that we were not interested in getting another time share, we already had one. They assured us that they were going to pay off our time share when we purchased this one. (which actually is not a timeshare company but a “club”.

We signed on the dotted line, and then went back an hour to get our things from the hotel and then an hour back to the Lifestyle Holidays Vacation Club.

The Spanish Peaks

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One of my favorite drives when I worked for Colorado POST was west on Highway 50 past the Spanish Peaks Mountains West of Walsenburg.. I always crank up my buddy Joh Chandler’s song of the same title while I’m driving past here. Jon and Pat have some land out here, and his ancestors are from this area. He wrote an awesome song and book about this area. The link is for the book on Amazon. com, I highly recommend it.

Jon Chandle'r’s THE SPANISH PEAKS at AMAZON

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4th Spine Surgery - 10/30/14

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Had my 4th spine surgery today. i retired from the police department due to numbness, weakness, and tingling in my left arm and hand. I went to Kerlan Jobe, who is the medical team that works for the professional sports teams. I had MRI’s in 1997 and they found out that my biceps tendon was 3/4 torn, and they thought that was causing the weakness. After having an arthroscopic debridement of the biceps tendon and physical therapy, they tried an acromiplasty resection of coracoacromial ligament. After doing physical therapy on that, my arm still didn’t get better On October 1, 1998, I was retired from the police department.

After retiring, I still had the issues with my left arm and hand, so I went to see the Spine doctor, Dr. William Dillon. He did MRI/CAT scan and said that the issues I had had nothing to do with my arm, but was due to my neck. I contacted the City insurance company and they basically said we retired you on your arm, go away. So I had 2 surgeries, in 20001, and 2002,

Blowout - 7/27/12

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Had my first blowout ever while actually driving the car. Driving home from work on I-76 right off of coming from I-25. Luckily no one around me and was able to get the car off the road without incident. Almost a brand new set of tires too!

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Rebar in the tire, not fixable.

I love my new job!

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love my new job and haven't even started working there yet! The boss yesterday invited Janis and I to a pizza party today that they were having after work. The Deputy Atty General paid for the dinner, which was actually just a going away party for 2 temporary employees that had left, but they thought it would be a way for me to meet everyone. I start on the 16th.

Michael Dougherty is a really nice guy. Deputy Attorney General for the state in the Criminal Justice division. Very laid back.

 Michael served for twelve years as a prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Michael handled all types of serious felony cases, including sex crimes, hate crimes and homicides. He quickly rose to supervisory positions, including Deputy Chief of the Sex Crimes Unit, and ultimately was promoted and became responsible for the management, budget, and personnel of the District Attorney’s Office (an agency with over 1,200 employees), while continuing to prosecute serious cases.

In 2009, Michael was recruited by the Colorado Attorney General to head up the Colorado DNA Justice Review Project, an effort that led to the exoneration of an innocent man wrongly convicted of murder. Just months after arriving in Colorado, Michael was promoted to serve as the head of the Criminal Justice Section for the Attorney General.

But the best part, was when I went to eat today with him, and I rolled my pizza up to eat it right at the same time that he did it with his.pizza. We just smiled and knew we’d get along!