WEEKEND UPDATE

Home in Port Charlotte
74* at wake up, high of 92

It's been a very long week of work on the road. I worked the Miami/Fort Lauderdale/Homestead/Keys areas. I enjoyed 2 nights in Islamorada but other than dinner and sleep didn't do anything there. Nonetheless, time in the Keys beats time anywhere else.

Today is Saturday and I have a bunch of things to do before departing Sunday afternoon for DC. Our hot tub has fallen into a little disaray and we are getting that all cleaned up and rebalanced on chemicals. We don't care for bromine tabs so we are switching back to chlorine. After the spa duty I need to mow, edge and trim the grass. I did it on Thursday night after returning from home but need to do it again before leaving town, lest I come home to a jungle. Rolando's house still has power on and he hasn't pulled his furniture yet. He's hoping for a miracle to save it but it seems like it's only a matter of time until it's a foreclosure. They have missed 2 payments and got their pre-f notice from the lender. I plan on continuing to maintain the landscape to avoid having a next door eyesore.

The boat drive project remains unfinished but the materials arrived Thursday and Friday. I doubt I will get to it today though. Friday was spent typing reports from sun up to sun down. Oh it was a rough road trip with lots of bad news to pass on to my branches. I don't care to talk too deep about company business on here but it was a week of seeing poor practices in action. I'm sure we will get it cleaned up, as I have the full support of the big brass.

I'm sure you all know Hurricane Bill is no threat to the US Mainland, save for some high surf in New England. There are no other threatening systems on radar, just a tropical wave off the coast of Africa that has less than a 30% chance of organizing. Just to be safe, I showed Kathy how to install the window boards using the new Plylox fasteners.

This evening we have a dinner party at Chuck and Ruthie's house. The Cardinals play at home tonight in the second pre-season game of the year. I will record the 1AM re-broadcast and watch the first half before heading for the airport tomorrow. Speaking of broadcasts...we switched from DirecTV to Dish Network. We got a bunch of new features that we were lacking before like HD reception, HD DVR, some movie channels and a third TV hooked up. We got all of this for cheaper than we were paying without those options. We saved about 20 bucks over DTV and saved another 15 by cancelling our Netflix subscription. Every dollar counts, right?

Good news / bad news
The bad news is I haven't maintained my running through July and August and I gained about 10 pounds. The good news is I started again this week and ran 4 days. Our humidity will start to drop off in September too and that will encourage me to stay with it through the winter. It was a year ago that I was at 280 pounds. I got down to 238 and this morning was back at 248. I am committed to stay running. Without it, I will surely see 300 someday and that's not acceptable to me. My sister Shannon has continued to be a good source of inspiration, as she runs along "with me" from her home in Southern California.

My oldest son, Ryan, now works for my company in our Phoenix branch. He is very happy, so far. My youngest boy, Billy, has started 8th grade in Phoenix and he plays Pop Warner football. Ryan plans on attending every game. My girls, Kimber (22) and Stephanie (17, Senior year) will be with us for Thanksgiving week. My Dad plans on driving out in December this year, with the pointer sisters, Penny and Patty. I can't believe this will be my third December living in Florida. I got here 12/3/2007. Time sure flys.