Friday, April 28, 2006

Life's better on the beach

As promised, I'm updating my progress on the South Beach diet. It's been working well and I'm very satisfied with the results. I will admit that we're running out of groceries and since we're leaving for the weekend, I don't want to buy any more, so the menu selection is getting monotonous. That'll change next week when I move into phase 2 and start introducing some good carbs (like fruit) back into the mix. I'm pretty convinced by now my whole problem was sugar overload. When I cut out the sugar, I started to feel better almost immediately. It was rather amazing. I'll have another blood test in a couple months and see if my body agrees with what I've been feeding it lately. Anyway, I feel better and I'm down to 211 lbs this morning. Still flabby, but 12 lbs less flab than 2 weeks ago.
I'm excited for the weekend. We're leaving this afternoon for Duluth. Our youngest neice, Val, is getting confirmed on Sunday. We're staying at Kyla's apt. in the Cities tonight. Poor Sugar has to go to the kennel while we're gone. She's not happy about it either. Hopefully we'll get to tour the Glensheen Mansion while we're there and visit the harbor. Duluth is one of the coolest cities ever. Too bad it's so dang cold there! But still a great place to visit. That's all for now. Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Poker Run is ON! June 3rd, 2006

The 1st Annual Wyatt Ammon Memorial Poker Run is on! I've established the route and all the stops, now I need to get the flyers printed and advertise the heck out of it. Here's the itinerary-
sign-up= Sidewinder Bar, N. Cliff Ave. Sioux Falls from 11-1.
1st stop= Baltic Corner Bar, in the country by Baltic
2nd stop= Prarieview Steakhouse & Lounge, Dell Rapids
3rd stop= Colton Bar, Colton
4th stop= Steve's Bar & Grill, Trent
5th and last stop= Old Dutch Inn, Dell Rapids. Last card by 6 pm. Prizes to follow asap. There will also be food and karaoke at the Old Dutch after the poker run.

I understand there's some confusion as to exactly what a poker run is. I'll try to explain as best I can. At the sign-up spot, you'll sign a waiver that says you won't hold us responsible if you somehow manage to disable, dismember or kill yourself while participating in this event. Then you pay $10 for a poker sheet. The poker sheet has five places on it. At each of the 5 stops, you'll find the card table and draw a card from the deck. The card you draw will be designated on your poker sheet by the volunteer manning the table, along with a special stamp, showing you actually were there, and not just filling in the card by yourself. No cheating now! At the last stop, you'll draw your 5th and final card and then turn in your sheet to the judges. Best poker hand wins! You can buy as many poker sheets as you like at sign-in. Payback will be to the best 3 hands drawn. !st= $100, 2nd= $50, 3rd= $25. Hopefully there will be some other prizes donated that will be given away as well.

You don't need a motorcycle or specialty vehicle to do the poker run. There are generally lots of motorcycles and hot rods, just because people that own these are always looking for a good reason to get them out of the garage and show them off. It's certainly not a requirement. The route I picked isn't a long one and you have 5 hours to complete it. That leaves plenty of time at each stop to socialize, admire the cars & bikes, or just enjoy the drive.

We are certainly hoping for a beautiful 80F day but this run will happen, rain or shine. All proceeds will go to the Wyatt Ammon Scholarship Fund. Please come and join us if you can. I'm VERY excited about this event and I'm looking forward to greeting each of you personally on June 3rd.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Spring

isn't here yet. It is colder than a Minnesota well drillers gizzard here today. Highs that never got out of the 40's and a very stiff north wind. Some of our tulips bloomed over the weekend though, so maybe there's still hope. It's not all bad, the weekend was absolutely gorgeous. 70's and no wind, the likes of which we probably won't see again for a while, if you can believe the extended forecast. I had a list of things to do this first nice weekend, that was as long as my arm. The warmer it became, the slower I moved. Dad said I was suffering from spring fever. He could be right. I guess spring fever must mean something different now that I'm 50 than it did when I was a young man. ;-(
Mom and Dad brought their new camper to Dell Rapids this weekend to show it off, and check things out to make sure everything worked properly. It is very nice, with a jumbo living room slide, something their old one didn't have. We visited them down at the campground on Sat. night, meaning to play cards, but ended up watching the movie "Somethings Gotta Give" on tv. Jack Nicholson is so old and nasty, but he's a great actor. Keanu Reeves however, I can do without. Forever. How in the name of moviemaking, did this doof ever break into the business?
One thing that didn't happen over the weekend was me getting the riding mower started. Not for lack of trying, but it just wouldn't cooperate. I ended up mowing part of the yard with the push mower, which was better for me physically I'm sure. I'll try again tonight but the old Sears mower just may have to be turned out to pasture.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Catching up......

My oh my, time goes by in a hurry. Every day I have good intentions to post and then something comes up and........so we'll see if this gets posted.

The weather today in SD is not nice, cold and rainy here but get this- in the Black Hills they are forecasting 8-12" of new snow with 60-70 mph winds! Incredible! As bad as I want spring to be here, I always enjoy a good old-fashioned blizzard, the likes of which we don't see much of anymore. I do feel sorry for the ranchers though, the sight of cattle bunched in a corner, suffocated, isn't a pretty sight.

We spent a lovely Easter with Grandma & Grandpa in Mitchell. I mean it was nice to spend time with the fam, the day wasn't so great, but of course, when it was finally time to go home, the sun came out and it warmed up slightly. Kyla came home and Allie rode along with us too, so it was nice to be together, as much as we could. Of course, Grams went all out on the food, so it was not a diet day. Which is a nice lead-in to my latest endevour- The South Beach Diet. I'm not going to be an old person and complain about my health here but I had a blood panel done a couple weeks ago and unfortunately, the results were pretty much what I'd feared. So, time to make some life-style changes. My sister, Deb, and her family have had some really quite spectacular results on South Beach, so Jeannie and I have decided to give it a try. As an added bonus for you, faithful reader (and an incentive for me) I'll tell you right now that my starting weight was 223 very flabby lbs. My other incentive is to be able to actually wear the really cool shirt with pearl snaps that Ginger gave me for Christmas. So stay tuned on my progress. Rest assured however that if I manage to blow yet another diet, you'll never hear another word about it.

Last week, on a nicer day than today, I decided it was time to get my knees in the breeze and get the Harley out. I managed a 250 mile ride, not too shabby considering I never got going 'til 3 pm. I took a nice slow ride to Sioux City, IA, with bad intentions. I actually wanted to ride a BMW. Gasp! I know, I know. Hey, I never said I was going to buy one. But the thought of 110 hp vs the 68 hp of my Harley has my curiosity piqued. Naturally, when I got there I was informed he'd just sold the demo model and sorry about that, maybe you can come back tomorrow? Maybe not. The ride down was fairly pleasant, although Hiway 75 was so rough I actually had to stop and let some air out of my shocks before I jarred a filling loose. I'm an old farm boy and proud of it, but 125 miles of smelling nothing but pig s*** was getting old. It's true! Iowa really must be the hog capital of the US. That smell was always in the air. Needless to say, I took I-29 home. SD has stricter laws against large hog confinement operations and now I can see one of the reasons why.

The rejukification of the house continues. Albeit at a snails pace. It's fun for me and I also like to complain about it, so if it ever got finished, what would I have to do???????? Just another reason why I guess I'll never own a new house. Toots for now.

"Look to the future, because that is where you'll spend the rest of your life."
George Burns

Monday, April 10, 2006

Mothers' Garden

My friend Carol has developed a wonderful plan to build a Mothers' Garden at the cemetary. She has asked me to help with it. We will try to find others who will help too. The cemetary has agreed to give us a parcel of land to use. Our vision is that it will be a quiet, beautiful place where we can all go to meditate, pray and remember our loved ones. I'm very excited about creating a space like this that is healing instead of so sad. Wyatt really enjoyed plants and the outdoors. He was a grounds keeper at Hamline one summer. He told me his favorite flower was an Iris. We have a cluster by our back door. I plan to take some of them and put them in the garden when we get to that point. I will keep you posted about our progress.
I've started to do a little writing. I will maybe post some of it now and then. Here is a sample.

Time is death in sheep's clothes.

Stare into it's face
Watch for the sleight of hand
Beware the innocent
tick tock
it is Death's march.