So Long, Rick!

We were back in the studio on Monday afternoon for a few hours. I haven't been happy with the color application of my last couple of votives so I switched to the Swedish overlay method and got much better results.

We've only been at Foci again for a few weeks but I'm feeling like I'm nearly back to where I was before we took those nine months off. I really enjoy making the candle votives I've been playing around with but I do need to do some other shapes, too. I have a request from a friend for a larger mouth vase so maybe I'll put some thought into that as well but I don't think I'll stop doing the votives anytime soon.

I'm sitting at 246 days remaining in my career as an air traffic controller. Using this nifty calendar I can count back that same number of days and get a better feel for just how long 246 days is. This was us that many days ago. It's happening quickly now but I'm feeling ready.

Speaking of retiring: Rick Melhorn has left the building after having reached the mandatory retirement age of 56. A nicer guy you will not meet. I've worked on and off with Rick for the last 30 years. A retirement party was organized for him at one of the local pubs in town. It was nice to see such a good turnout.

Jeff Boyce even made the trip from Milwaukee to celebrate Rick's retirement. Jeff used to work with us until about 25 years ago when he decided to move closer to home and took a job at Milwaukee tower from where he recently retired. Jeff was the controller who took the initial emergency call from the ill-fated United-two-thirty-two. It was nice to see him but I wish we'd have had more time to chat.

Rachel texted us tonight with a link to a site that tries to calculate the age of people in photographs. Go to How-Old.net and submit a photo or two. Tammy's gonna love me for this one!

I've been out on my bike just a couple of times this week and because I can, I've got some video from both rides. I made it out Tuesday morning with some (much younger!) friends from work and did my best to not let my age show. I did okay.



I was also out yesterday morning before work doing my Hampton Loop. I felt pretty good out there and was able to keep my watts well above 200 for much of it.



And that's a wrap! Enjoy your weekend.

Over and out!

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