A Day at the Zoo

The day started as not necessarily the best of days.  The weather was cloudy and somewhat gray - there was a promise of showers in the air.  Sleep for me had been good on Saturday night but I lay in bed sleeping fitfully from 6AM onward.  I fell into a deep sleep around 7:30AM and then awoke with a start shortly after 8:20AM as I went through the throes of a painful dream.

Once the dream had faded from my consciousness, pain and stress combined in my brain to form the normal rush of morning anxiety.  Instead of letting it have it's way with me, I was to have my way with it for a change.  For the longest time I had thought about going to the Denver Zoo as it had been years since Zack and I had been there.  Originally the plan was to be shared with others, but it became my goal for today.

The morning moved into overdrive as we showered and quickly readied ourselves to get out of the house.  Fuel was needed for the day, so a short stop at Einstein's Bagels was used to fill up on carbs and be ready to have some fun.

Arriving at the Zoo shortly after 10:00AM there was already a considerable crowd of people there.  Despite the looks, things weren't that bad as the threat of rain seemed to have scared off some people.  For many years we had a membership to the Zoo but given our lack of attendance the membership had lapsed many years in the past.  After a brief discussion with Zack, I made the decision to renew our membership.  If not for Zack and me, then just for myself.  I could see myself coming to the zoo many later afternoons in the fall and winter to take pictures of the animals.

I won't go into a blow-by-blow experience of every animal that we saw.  We just had a fantastic time being together and looking at all the animals.  Both Zack and I are lovers of all animals - large and small.  In each animal we looked upon we saw something interesting - something to talk about and share.  It was a tremendous day for the both of us as we shared the experience with each other.  It is times like this that I know whatever the future brings, whoever Zack grows up to be - we will always be connected and have our bonds of family between us.

We spent the entire morning and a good part of the afternoon there.  It is remarkable how much construction is taking place there and how much the lives of the animals that live there will be improved by the new environments that are being constructed.  Next year when these new environments open, there will be a profound change in the zoo.  It will truly be a remarkable place.

The following are some of the better examples of photos that I took there today.  I used my digital SLR and tripod to get these shots.

 (This last one is a shot of the wildest beast of them all - the feared Prince Finnegan!  Just teasing...  had to throw in a shot of our sweet little pup just for laughs.)

I hope everyone has had a great weekend!

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.

FYSRD

A Little Bit of Everything

So....  I have a little bit of everything to write about this evening!  First I will start with the adventure of the day for yesterday - Friday.

After Zack was done with school and I had finished up all my work for the day we piled the dogs into the Explorer and headed for the mountains.  Given I was doing my Team-In-Training runs most Saturday's throughout the winter it had been a long time since we had been to the condo.  We reason for going there had nothing to do with relaxing or hanging out in the mountains, we were headed there because my condo association had the annual meeting this morning.  I really didn't want to go to the mountains at all because the weather there was supposed to be bad, with lots of snow.

As the weather forecasters predicted we ran into a lot of snow as soon as we past the town of Silver Plume.  From Silver Plume until we reached the condo in the town of Silverthorne, we were in constant snow.  I like snow but not in the latter part of May!  When we arrived at the condo we began our normal routine of taking everything up to our unit on the second floor.  We were traveling light so we just had ourselves, the dogs and one small bag of stuff.  Walking in the door of the condo we quickly notices that all was not right.  I turned on the light switch and no light came on.  After investigating throughout the condo, there was no electricity at all and by the smell coming from the refrigerator the power had been out for quite a bit.

My call to the management company for the condo brought the maintenance man out to check the electrical connection for our unit.  Through his quick review of the situation it was determined that our electrical provider - Excel Energy had turned off the power to our unit.  To me this made absolutely no sense since I was under the impression that electricity was include in my monthly HOA dues that I pay.  After a number of phone calls back and forth to the property management company, I realized there was no way the power was going to get turned by on Friday night so I made plans for Zack and me to spend the night at my brother's condo further up the mountain.

Zack and I went and had some dinner at the Dillon Dam Brewery and then we got the dogs and headed to my brother's condo.  We had a good evening watching TV and we were all in bed and asleep by 11:00PM.  Saturday morning brought a rude surprise as when we looked out the window we realized that over 8 inches of snow had fallen over night.  That was a very big yuck for May 21st!

(The view from the back of my brother's condo this morning around 8AM - Love the 8 inches of snow!)

It took me a bit to get the car cleaned off and backed up the driveway but then I was on my way to the condo association meeting.  After it was ascertained that we had a quorum the minutes from the last meeting were read and then the meeting got down to business.  The HOA president opened the meeting asking if anyone had any new business.  It was at this point I raised the issue of my electrical problem.  My statement of what was going on brought a flurry of comments from many other people who had experienced the same problem at one point or another.  In the end run it turns out that I have gotten free electricity since I bought the place 9 years ago!!  Can you believe that!!  I certainly couldn't.  The old owners had never transferred the service to me so the electric company continued to provide power assuming that the place was vacant.  They finally realized their mistake sometime earlier this year and shut the power off.  Gees!!  To resolve the problem I will need to get an account with the electric company and begin to play my electric bill.  Thankfully there is a state law in Colorado which doesn't allow them to go back and retroactively bill me for nine years worth of electricity!  They can only bill me retroactively for 6 months - thank god!

In the end this problem will be resolved without too much more than a stinky refrigerator.  My other major thought for today is - I hate doctors!  Now I don't hate the personally - it is more kind of a professional thing.  It seems once you reach the age of 40 you rarely get good news from your doctor.  A month after I turned 40 I got a diagnosis (thankfully that turned out to be incorrect) of having lymphoma.  This week I got the confirmation that many of my family's genetic bad traits are starting to kick-in with me.  All I can say is grrrrrr....  I had a blood test on Tuesday as my one genetic traits I know about - high blood pressure has reared it's ugly head again.  When the results of those tests came back on Thursday - I found that I had 3 more strikes of the family genetics going on.  At first it kind of scared the hell of our me, as I felt like I was rapidly starting to fall apart.  In the end run it means a bunch more tests for me and most like another 4 pills a day that get added to my routine.  Things certainly could be worse that is for sure - but after having a crappy week, getting that news on Thursday really sucked!

Oh well - big sigh!  It is at least a Saturday evening and I have some fun stuff to look forward to with my Z-man.  For Sunday - I have a special day planned with Zack, as we are going to go to the Denver Zoo.  We haven't been there in ages.   Zack loves seeing the animals and I am taking my camera and trying out some new photographic techniques I picked up in a class several weeks ago. That should be a lot of fun!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far!

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.

FYSRD

The First Walk post Fibula Fracture

Today was the day I finally felt like I could do it.  I managed to get out and take over a 2 mile walk on my gimpy left leg.  This means that I am no longer so gimpy!  Yes - the Orthopedic Doctors did give me the go ahead in my last appointment with them to start walking and hiking.  The caveat that they offered was to only do it if it felt right.  Today was the first day it actually felt right. 

Running is still probably a month way so I believe that will limit my ability to run in races like the Steamboat Spring half marathon and even the Slacker Half marathon.  (It is probably better for me to skip the Slacker Half marathon as that race is pretty much an entirely down hill course.  There would be nothing worse to do to my newly healed left leg by running it down hill. Yeah - My stress fracture would be back quicker than I could say lickety-split.)

Regardless it felt really good to get out of the house and do some serious walking.  It is amazing how used to action your body becomes and then we you take it away how crappy things feel.  With any luck I will have no backward steps in my recovery and can continue to get stronger!

Not much else going on around the Kromer household these days.  Zack had to stay late at school today and take the late bus home so that he could finish some work for Science.  Nancy made a trip out to the store and the dogs and me pretty much hung around all day.  When I should caveat that a bit - as I actually did real money making word for IBM, whereas Lex and Finn simply did money-destroying activities by chewing up things that they shouldn't.

Oh well - I guess that is a typical dad in the Kromer household - nothing too different.

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.

FYSRD!