Say What?

I took off from work early Tuesday afternoon to go with Brad and Lee over to Mike's house to spend some time with him and say our goodbyes. Mike is in the final stages of bone and lung cancer. It was nice to see him one last time but also as one would expect, very sad. He's lost so much weight and has become so small. Even his voice is tiny. The 3 chemotherapy treatments he received did nothing but hasten his failing health.  We spent 25 minutes with him and he did well to stay alert but I could see that he was at times struggling to focus on our conversation. I wanted to get a photo of us all but I didn't sense that it would be right. I think I'd prefer to remember the vibrant Mike Koch I've known for 30 years and not the one left beaten by cancer. He managed to get up out of his recliner as we were leaving and see us to the back door. It was a struggle for him but I wouldn't expect anything less from Mike. The cancer was such a blindside to Mike and Lyn. H...

We spent most of the weekend driving around to too many furniture stores to recall as we looked for possible furniture ideas for the 3-season porch we're planning to have built this spring. In all reality, it's probably more accurate to refer to it as a 4-season porch as we'll have both heat and air-conditioning out there. We're working with our neighbor, Karen, who is an interior designer and someone that Tammy and I both have a lot of admiration for.  She's done so many cool and fun things with her home. She's loaded us down with a ton of home interior design magazines from which to get ideas. And speaking of ideas, I've signed up for a Pinterest account and have created a page called Sun Porch Ideas where I can pin anything that catches my eye. There's not much there yet. Karen is working with us to help develop our style which is something that could best be described as a hodgepodge of sorts. We've got some traditional pieces that we purchase...

It was 21 years ago that our home was being built and I can say without any doubt that I never imagined then that it would take this long to put a deck on the back of our house. It was never a priority. I always wanted one but I also had plans in the back of my mind to do more than a simple deck and unless and until I could realize those plans, I would wait and leave well enough alone. I suppose after a while I even stopped seeing it as unfinished. Anyway, that's all about to change. The dream I've had all these years is to have some kind of screen or 3-season porch extending out from where you see the sliding door in the photo with a deck working its way to the right along the back of the house. My most recent ideas have all been leaning toward a screen-porch, wanting the feel of being outside but without the nuisance of bugs. But now that we're getting much more serious about moving forward with this project and have taken some time to weigh our options, we've dec...

Tammy got a text message the other day from an unknown number. U: "hey whats up its jerrid you got a dub?" T: "no dub here" ...and again the next day... U: "hey its me again wondering if you had a dub or no" T: "i only have a few shihtzus" U: "who is this?" T: "and an ant farm...but they're not for sale" U: "again who is this i think i got the wrong number" T: "i think so bro" It turns out that "dub" is slang for weed. And now you know. Our weather has been bitterly cold this week, but not so much that it stopped us from getting together with Mom and taking her out to Red Lobster a few nights ago. She was so pretty. I sometimes don't think that most of us realize how much discomfort from arthritis and other pains she endures much of the time, seldom complaining. She just goes about her day, taking whatever obstacles present themselves in stride. I will do well to remember ...

Yay! I actually got some Rachel-time Thursday morning. She and Missy were in town Wednesday night to see a concert and rather than drive back to Rochester they chose to spend the night at our house. I got home from the all-night shift Thursday morning and caught a quick couple hours of sleep before coming down to spend some time with them before they left. I was tired but I'll take what I can get. We sat around the kitchen table talking and drinking some dynamite coffees. Well, at least mine was dynamite. Theirs were kind of boring. I don't think either of them even took me up on my mini-marshmallow suggestion. I was pleasantly surprised when they both confessed to really liking my blog :-) ...haha...oh and I promised them a shout-out! So here it is—Rachel and Missy...you rock! But seriously, I can't think of a better compliment! They had their morning faces on so the best I could do of a photo of them for the blog was as they were walking away, boring coffees in hand. ...

My countdown to retirement widget is registering 346 days remaining in my career but it's quite likely that I'll be adding another year onto that and shooting for a January 2015 date instead. It just makes good economic sense for us. We've got a couple of home improvement projects that I'd really like to accomplish before packing it in: a screen-porch and deck off the back of our home and new windows throughout the house. Did I mention that my truck is 12 years old? Oh, and there used to be a young woman who lived with us that I vaguely recall feeling a sense of obligation toward but I'm not sure what's become of her. Anyway, I think another year on the boards can go a long way toward making good on those wants. We'll see. We went out with friends yesterday afternoon and ventured into Minneapolis to tour the American Swedish Institute. (But before we left we made up some killer cups of coffee for the road. We're really enjoying our Keurig coffee mak...

I received an email from a producer at KARE 11 a few days ago requesting permission to use the video I took last year of the Crashed Ice event in St Paul for one of their upcoming news segments. He was hoping I had the raw video file to use but unfortunately I don't. I gave him a link to the video on my Vimeo channel (since deleted because I was a bad boy) where he can download the HD version. He thinks he may be able to use it. Cool! We're back to hit-or-miss slot times at Foci due to a cracked crucible in the main furnace—the new one. Not good. I'm hoping we'll find a way to get in there most weeks as I just don't like being away from it for very long. I need to keep progressing. I suppose this will give me a chance to begin working on developing my sandblasting skills on the days when we're not able to blow glass. That may be the silver lining in this for me. I think Tammy would like to try her hand at that as well. I spent our time at Foci Thursday afte...