Catching Up

We had a very busy week last week.  So busy we turned down an invitation for Saturday evening.  Part of that time we had all 3 Grandkids overnight.  From a two and a half year old to a newly minted teen girl.  It wore us out.  We seem to do better with the youngest than we do the older ones.  When they don't talk it's hard to figure out what to do.  Tiring.

The weather was so great last week I went a bought some more outdoor paint so I would be ready to tackle the patio.  The very next day and every day since it has been extremely humid with threats of rain.  It never rained but with the humidity so high I held off.  It takes much too long for paint to dry then.  Sometimes it doesn't cure right and no telling what might fall on it from the trees and get stuck.  But I am ready with the paint now.  Two gallons of extremely expensive paint.  It is considerably more than when I bought it last year.  Thanks Joe.

This week we don't really have any plans.  We did some Costco shopping.  We had read that many Costco\s were being shopped hard and were out of things we like to stock up on.  They had toilet paper but not a lot.  We just missed out on paper towels.  Everything else looked normal.  They are doing some remodeling again.  Moving the optical and hearing aid center.  I was going to get my hearing aids maintained as I have been experiencing some issues.  They were closed down so that will have to wait much to 'K's displeasure.

I have been working on getting all my photos on my PC cleaned up since my online backup is full.  I have about 5000 photos and I got all of them moved to a USB flash drive after I weeded a bunch out (around 2000).  Oh, I have at least that many other photos on a portable hard drive that need attending to also.  But as you can imagine it is a daunting task.  I purged my PC and my one of my online accounts.  They all need better organizing.  That may never happen.  

Currently I am trying to find old photos of my parents, grand parents, great grandparents and the wife's, non digital.  We want to make a wall display, a sort of family tree.  I will scan them and touch up those that need it and print copies.  They will get framed and then need to be arranged on the wall.  'K' will handle the arranging.  Surprisingly, I haven't found as many as I thought I would.  I have plenty of my Dad's parents, a few of my Mom's, minimal amount of the previous generation(but the ones I have are great).  We have almost nothing of 'K's' grandparents unfortunately.  So it will be heavy with my blood relatives and not many of from 'K's' family.  We may expand to uncles and aunts, we just have to see how this plays out in numbers and arrangement.  And, again I have many more photos of mine than 'K.'  

We both have been really wanting to head down to Padre Island on a day trip but things and the weather there have not cooperated.  It seems the weather may be an issue for a while too.  We try to go in October as it's not hot and there is less chance of getting burned to a crisp by the sun.  However weather is pretty sketchy.  You just never know this time of year.  Maybe we can try one in November and see how that is.

 Happy Trails

Bluegrass Festival

Here are a few photos and a couple videos of our trip to Famers Branch and the Bloomin' Bluegrass Festival.

The Line Up

Yours Truly and friends-look at that weather.  I got a little sun burned even with my hat on.

Del McCoury

Dan Tyminski

Ricky Skaggs

Sister Sadie-These gals were great

My Del video was to large to upload.  All throughout the festival we would see several artists playing with other bands.  It seems to be common place.  

And by the way, don't buy breakfast tacos in Farmers Branch.  5 star rating on Yelp and they were virtually inedible.  Sausage and egg tacos use something like vienna sausage, they don't have potatoes and use mozzarella cheese.  This was a little hole in the wall operation that usually have the best food in San Antonio.  I knew I was taking my chances outside of the Breakfast Taco Capital of Texas (despite what Austin thinks they are), but dang, how can you mess that up so bad?  

Happy Trails

Technical Difficulties

I am late posting today due to me trying to get my photos and videos uploaded from my phone.  I've done it before with little problem.  However, there is something not working right this time.  I am trying to get it sorted.  I wanted to up load a few photos and videos to this page.  Not sure how long it will take to get that figured out, so I will proceed with todays post and hope I get it worked out in the next day or two.  

We took a road trip up to Farmers Branch this past Thursday.  Farmers Branch is a bedroom city of Dallas.  I wasn't looking forward to driving through Dallas to get there and sure enough we hit a major road jam due to construction.  Other than that, this went near perfect.  This was the first overnight road trip since our trip to Phoenix at a moments notice to see Son #2 marry.  I think that was a full 4 years ago.  At my age, driving in unfamiliar places makes me a little anxious which had never been the case before.  The long lay off from almost any travel just added to that.  

We went to attend a Bluegrass Festival.  I've loved Bluegrass ever since the first time I heard that High Lonesome sound and those ringing banjos riding in Dad's car with the radio on a local country station.  That is back before I was even in school when they still played a little bluegrass on regular radio along with western.

This event was fantastic.  I think I turned 'K' into a big fan now.  She pretty much just tolerated my obsession.  Now she sees/hears what I hear.  Seeing two legends and one near legend with some current award winners turned her.  She even bought herself a couple CD's which she has never done.  The lineup consisted of my two  very favorite artists.  Both of them legends of Bluegrass.  Even if you never listen to Bluegrass you may recognize Ricky Skaggs that has had a long career in various genres.  But he came home to Bluegrass finally.  I consider him the Bill Monroe of our generation.  Then there is Del McCoury.  What a fine man this is.  So happy and kind.  He is a bridge to Bill Monroe (the father of Bluegrass if you don't know) played in his band for years.  Now he is a legend in his own right and is the epitome of the High Lonesome sound.  At 80 years old he can still hit those high tenor notes as clear and loud as ever.  I filled my bucket list slots with these two.

Another was Dan Tyminski.  You may know him from his days with Alison Kraus and is very well known for his voiceover work for George Clooney in the movie Brother where art thou.  He performed the signature song, 'Man of Constant Sorrow' in that movie.  

The Musicianship was outstanding, the weather was perfect.  It couldn't have been any better.  I hope to attend again next year.  My face was hurting from grinning so much.  Every one there had the same problem from what I could see.  

Hopefully a post tomorrow with a few photos and a video or two if I can get them to work.

Happy Trails

Aftermath

I will take my lumps if you have some to give for my trolling of the sooners last week.  I was pretty giddy the first half but still had the feeling of foreboding that something bad could still happen, and it did.  In various posts I have read on Longhorn sites there are those that try to take some moral victory out of that loss.  While I could see some major improvements and great hope for the future due mostly in part to them apparently having a great coach after years of not.  It is still a heart wrenching loss.  I understand those that want to look for something positive after over a decade of bad football and more losses to ou than I want to think about.  I eat my portion of crow, but I never predicted a win for Texas, so it will bee a limited amount.  I could feel the result of the early adrenaline rush of the first part of the game and then flop.  I was drained.

We will be making a short road trip in the future for the first time in a long time.  I don't count one to Abilene 3 years ago for a funeral.  Going on sever years according to 'K.'  I will get to mark down one of my bucket list items.  Yes, this is mainly my thing but 'K' is such a trooper and is just super glad to get away that she isn't at all unhappy.  In fact she is very happy.  She will get to spend a lot of time with one of her girlfriends that is going also.  More details and hopefully some memorable photos (for me).  The only negative thing is where we are headed, traffic is a nightmare.  I don't do well in bad traffic anymore.  But we aren't letting that stop us.

We heard a preacher yesterday give a report on the work we help support down in Peru.  I was humbled.  When he was asked to come to Peru to help spread the gospel 17 years ago, there was only one congregation of the Lord.  Now there are maybe a dozen.  He humbly admits that it is the gospel and God giving the increase, not him.  What was so humbling to me were the people there.  He told us about the men that have converted and started preaching there and how far they travel by very humble means, every Sunday.  One was 4 hours by bus one way with his family.  Yet they keep working to spread the gospel despite so much adversity and very little means.  As servants of Christ, they do more than I ever did or even think about doing.  I always had/have an excuse.  They are not burdened by the society we live in that has made us lazy and the excuses flow when the comfort zone gets stretched, or would that be compressed.  Not only was it very humbling to me it was also encouraging to see people in other parts of the world that are having success spreading the gospel.  I'm not so sure we see that hear anymore.

Happy Trails

More...

The day before the big game.  Last round I promise.

Happy Trails

More ou week Memes

And the last photo is the real deal.  A brewery in Austin makes this beer, I think it is just at this time of year.  My Son picked this up for me when he saw it in a convenience store while he was at game in Austin.  It tastes terrible which is appropriate.

I have a few more, and I'll spare you those until the day before the game.

Happy Trails

ou Week

THE big game of the year is this coming Saturday.  You can never predict how this game will turn out.  That is what makes it so fun.  So today you get ou Memes.

Happy Trails