What. A. Year. Just a few minutes left in 2020 and I’m thankful that it’s almost done. Not that everything will be different in 40 minutes, but psychologically we have hopefully turned a corner. Spent the day with various friends and associates in a safe, socially distant way. Tomorrow is a new day and a new year. Here’s a motivational quote and a silly picture of Millman and I Happy New Year and cheers to the year ahead!
And another follow-up to a post below! 2020 was the first time in 4 years that I achieved my reading goal on Goodreads! I am so pleased to be back on track in my reading life. Seems like a long time ago I was in 4 or 5 different book clubs and read 60+ books each year. This was a good reading year, focusing mainly on business development and growth. Threw in a few fiction books to balance things out. I still haven’t embraced digital books because I love to watch my stack of read books grow throughout the year. I also love the little encouraging message that Goodreads gives me at the end of my summary.
As I begin to close out and wrap up 2020, its always fun to look back on the music I listened to and the books that I read. My time was equally split this year between Spotify and SiriusXM. In April when we began to realize that there wasn’t going to be a summer concert season, SiriusXM decided to make a full time Dave Matthews Band channel. They broadcast a Friday Night Concert Series each week, as well as several one off performances by Dave.
When I needed a break from Dave, I jumped over to Spotify. He are my top songs and artist from this year. Thanks to Tom for introducing me to “Country Boy Can Survive” by Hank Williams Jr. on our quick trip to Utah in June. Missed our annual trip in August to Red Rocks to see OAR and Fiddler’s to see Dave.
And just for kicks, here is Noah’s. Glad we are getting a lot of use out of our family Spotify account.
Little Andrew has developed into quite the chef over the last several years. Here is his latest accomplishment, using some fancy new techniques that he is so pleased about. On a slightly related note, when he isn’t cooking at either of his two jobs, his band the Violet Visionaries just released their first single. Find it on Spotify and YouTube! Search for “Rollercoaster”!
Hard to believe that a year ago Wes was sitting in Senator Thunes office helping the people of South Dakota with their political problems and yesterday he delivered a very powerful and heartfelt sermon as the associate pastor at Hills View. What a year! He did an amazing job incorporating dad’s book “Roads” as the basis for the sermon. I’m excited to see where 2021 takes him, his family and their church. Thankful I am able to watch it live-streamed.
Just a boy and his dog. Got real quiet at 930 when Jen, Jim and Janet packed up and left. Andrew followed shortly after. Than sleeping. Sis getting ready for an online concert tonight. I’m cleaning and catching up on 3 days of Wall Street Journals.
Merry Christmas to all my faithful readers! We had a pretty quiet (for our family at least) Christmas Day today. There wasn’t really any rush to see if Santa had filled stockings, no mad dash to the tree to start ripping open presents in the pre-dawn hours, no real hurry to much since there wasn’t really anywhere to go or anything urgent to get done. So we took our time today, waiting for Andrew to get off of work and Grandma to make her way over. Jen made a killer breakfast, I drove over to mom’s with a “Meals on Wheels,” and we snacked a bit waiting for D. Presents were fun and very thoughtful. Wes, Kim, Kaleb and Elsie did a video call when we opened their presents. Jen made an incredible dinner of prime rib, coconut shrimp and scallops. The gang played some games and dominos throughout the day. I enjoyed one of my new cigars on the patio under the heater. Noah video chatted from Portland. Here are a few pictures from the day.
It’s a new tradition of my friend Matt Estrin, who owns 477 Distilling, to have a scavenger hunt on Christmas Eve. He stakes out a place in Greeley and the first four people who find him and his family get $100 gift cards. This years hints were pretty easy. The contest started at 10, so I arrived at the parking lot where he was at 940. I was the 5th one there. Bummer. I earned the runners up prize of a bottle from 477 and a beanie. Good start to the day!
Glad I was able to see this tonight before it got cloudy. Pretty cool! Hasn’t happened in 800 years!
We are at that new stage of life where our own kids are young adults and either living independently or very close. The last thing they want to do is Christmas crafts. Thankfully we have lots of friends who have little ones that still want to! We had the Scribbick family over last night for dinner and gingerbread houses, some Christmas books and legos! Fun night.
One of the many benefits of mom living in Greeley now is that her quarterly visits to her eye doctor in Denver are much simpler. We don’t have to plan for the roads being open, three days of travel, and moving her into and out of the house when she stayed with us. Now, I just drive 5 minutes to her house, we go to Denver and drive home. Whole thing completed in less then 5 hours. Always hard being back where dad passed away.
Christmas break has started at our house as of noon today. Look who showed up just in time to do his laundry, eat and start a board game!?!
Tuesday night was the second of the third scheduled Marc Roberge virtual concerts. It also happened to be Scribbs birthday! So we gathered at the ranch to celebrate and see some of Sean’s favorite band. He thinks he has seen them 54ish times. That’s impressive. Marc was joined by his trumpet player Rod. Interesting side note, when we saw them at Red Rocks in 2013, I was able to meet and get a photo with his mom who was also going through cancer treatments at the time. We showed off our port scars!
Life continues despite the pandemic. One of the small ways I have discovered this year to give back is through blood donation. A little over a year ago, a new member to our Leads group named Lauren joined on behalf of her company Vitalant. She shared each week on the importance of giving blood, so back in March I made my first donation. I followed that with another in July and again yesterday. I didn’t realize I could give up to 6 times per year. So maybe that’s a goal for 2021. It’s also a time to be able to see some of my friends, who are also usually donating at the same time.
A little Throw Back to the Mancation 2016 as we remember the passing of John Lennon today. That trip in 2016 will always be a highlight of my life.
I’ve been collecting a few random memes, motivational sayings and quotes on Facebook over the past several months and thought now was a good time to post them here. Feel free to copy and save and use as needed. Because we all need one another over the next several months as we face this winter. Make sure you are calling to check in with your friends and family. Stay healthy by washing your hands, maintaining social distance, and WEAR A MASK.
Because in 2020, why wouldn’t we be watching the first Mike Tyson fight in 15 years? Gathered with a few of the guys to watch Tyson fight to an 8 round draw against Roy Jones Jr. The highlight of the night was Snopp Dogg, both providing the color commentary and a 5 song concert before the main event. If Monday Night Football ever needs to add a little excitement to the booth, my vote would be for Snopp. It was great.
