Even in the middle of downtown you are never very far from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Springs.
I-70 Diner
We went by the I-70 Diner in Flagler, CO last week on our road trip to Colorado. We didn’t eat there and we probably should have. It has pretty decent reviews.
The Clock Shop
Me and My Dad
Colorado Road Trip
The Yogi’s got back Sunday from a weekend road trip to Colorado. We went there mainly to see my lovely young niece Jillian get married to a very nice young man, Brian.
(More on these two in a later post.)
On our way out there Sweetie let me take time to find “Mingo.” It is the oldest active geocache in the world. Now I can die fulfilled. I have not brought peace to the world, but I found Mingo.
We also drove through some funky weather. We had rain, fog, mist and hail on the way out.
SuperPizzaBoy got some major video game play in during the trip. In fact, he got to where he was playing video games, listening to an audio book, and eating Fritos at the same time. Awesome.
Near where my sister and her husband live we saw longhorn cattle.
Of course we got to the wedding
And did some dancing to celebrate.
SPB had a great time.
Then we came home, 
We saw some oil wells in Kansas.
And some motorcycle riders on the Run For the Wall.
No, these folks aren’t welcoming the Yogi’s home. They are cheering the motorcycle riders on. We were cheering them also. They, and their “Road Guards” were causing havoc on I70 so we were glad to turn off. I like your cause guys, but you almost caused a bunch of accidents!!! Convoying can be dangerous even if you know what you are doing and you guys don’t.
Anyways as we got closer to Tulsa we came up on the back side of a series of storms that stretched clear across northeast Oklahoma and Arkansas.
We were glad to be home. Our prayers are with the people of Joplin, Missouri.
I’ll have more on the wedding later.
CityPlex Tower
Dawn view of the CityPlex Tower in Tulsa. The tallest of three interconnected towers designed by Frank Wallace. who designed many of the buildings at the nearby Oral Roberts University. At 648 feet tall CityPlex Tower is the second highest building in Oklahoma. It was formerly the City of Faith Medical Center built by Evangelist Oral Roberts. The hospital opened in 1981 and closed in 1989. It is now an office building.
Tied up on Confirmation Sunday
SuperPizzaBoy has been taking Confirmation Classes at our church since last Fall. A group of about a dozen boys his age with two adult leaders met almost every Sunday evening. They learned much about Faith, Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, the history of the Church and leading a Christian life. They also played a lot of football and ate some ice cream. It was a lot of fun. I sat in with SPB to help him out so I got to see some of the dynamics. I quickly figured out that Confirmation Class was a safe place for son, so I bowed out.
So a few weeks ago we had the Confirmation Ceremony at the church. According to the United Methodist Church the Confirmation Ceremony is:
“Confirmation refers to the decision a person makes to respond to God’s grace with intentional commitment, publicly reaffirming his or her baptismal vows before the congregation.”
It was also the first time that SPB had ever worn a tie.
He didn’t like it too much
I don’t blame him. I hate them also.
I wore one in solidarity. I didn’t get a pic of me, wished I had.
So, kind of two rites of passage in one day. It might have been a little much. He got through it ok.
He felt a little better when we arrived and found out that everybody else was wearing one also. His group had a fine group of boys and two dedicated adult leaders.
There were well over a 100 kids confirmed. The minister lays his hands on each person and says a little prayer. It takes a while but this is a big deal in our church. The kids at about 12 years old are very vulnerable to the various influences in our culture. The church wants to be one of the bigger influences in these young people’s life.
(I have to tell you, something about this photo makes me tear up. He’s growing up but he has an awesome innocence about him.)
So it was over, and we are very proud of him. He got to take his tie off and we all went off out to dinner to celebrate.
I Tim 4:12
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.
Go check out my friend Baloney’s Perfect Pairings for more matches of photos and scripture.
Worth Dying For by Lee Child
“Worth Dying For” is Lee Child’s latest novel starring Jack Reacher. The good guy, hard as nails, lethal 6’5″ ex Military Policeman. WDF has been out for some time but I avoided buying it because Child’s previous book “61 Hours” was a dud. I’m not the only one who thought that. You can buy it on the remainder table at Barnes and Noble for about $6. So I held off getting Worth Dying For until I saw it in paperback, heap cheap with a 25% discount. So I got it.
I’m glad I did. In 61 hours Jack Reacher was a total dweeb. He was all moony and weak and disgusting. My theory was that he had taken to wearing panties instead of Fruit of the Loom’s for some reason. In Worth Dying For Jack is back in his briefs and is kicking butt and taking names.
He is all banged up at the start of the book because of an accident at the end of 61 Hours. A motorist that Reacher hitched a ride with drops him off at a remote crossroads in Nebraska. The only thing there is a motel with a lounge. Jack goes to get some coffee at the lounge. A medical doctor is drinking at the lounge and gets a call from a patient who has a bad nosebleed and needs help. The doctor declines to help and resumes drinking. That gets Jack all riled up so he convinces the guy to go help his patient. Jack drives him to the house. Well, as expected there is a woman there who got punched in the nose by her husband. Jack makes sure that the doc takes care of the woman and Jack goes searching for the husband.
The husband is part of the Duncan family who basically run the whole area and intimidate the area’s residents through threats of violence. Well, Jack is not intimidated and takes care of the husband. It turns out that the Duncan’s have a small army of bodyguards. The bodyguards are all former University of Nebraska Cornhusker football players. (I used to live in Texas, the U of Nebraska was called the University of Texas at Lincoln, just like as any Oklahoma Sooner fan knows, the proper name of the OU football team is the “The University of Texas at Norman.” This is because all the good football players come from Texas right? At least in the Midwest that is.) Old Jack mows through the football players in no time.
Well anyway with all this kicking butt and everything Jack uncovers a deep dark secret about the Duncan’s. He ends up fighting the Duncans, some Italian mobsters, and other shadowy types. I’m not going to tell you the secret. Lets just say that it is worse than anything I could have imagined. If you can imagine it, I am really worried about you. You may need therapy.
The book is a totally satisfying guy read. It doesn’t delve into the inner realms of your outer consciousness or anything like that. It is pure tough guy Walter Mitty stuff. Welcome back Jack Reacher! I give this book 3.5 stars out of 5. It’s a great read.
Previous Reviews of Lee Child’s books
Proprioception, Vestibulars, and a Trampoline
Our Son SuperPizzaBoy has a form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome. He has not only social issues but issues involving where his body is in space, (“proprioception“) and his vestibular system. You can check the links out for more information because I’m not sure what it all means except that SPB loves to jump on his trampoline and he wore it plumb out. It makes him feel better and he jumps a lot and he jumped on the trampoline so much that it just wore out.
So Sweetie and I had an emergency consult. I was at work, so we agreed that I would stop at Academy on the way home and get a new mat for our trampoline. I mean the frame was good but it is cheaper to buy a new trampoline than it is to get a new mat, new springs, and new spring cover. So that’s what I did.
Son liked the way we were thinking.
He even helped by taking the old springs off. I mean the dude not only wore the mat out, he wore the springs out also!! That kid is a serious trampoline jumper. You see it makes him feel better, it helps him organize his thoughts.
We got the new mat and springs going. He kept asking if it were done yet. “Not yet son, I’m still working on it.”
Of course, you have had heard the old joke, how long does it take Yogi to change a light bulb? All day, that’s how long.
The next day he was giving it a workout though.
He jumps almost every day if the weather is good.
He loves it. Jumping helps him organize his thoughts.
Do I understand it, no, not really, I just know that it works. Sweetie and I will do what it takes to keep the young man jumping for as long as he wants.
I’m sure you understand!
