Category: Chris’s Blog

Day 023 of 2026

Hey All! Aurora, CO is now officially participating in Winter. The Pack (and their humans) are not pleased at all. For the sake of frozen paws, and frozen hands, I do not think we are going to be going for pack walks until Monday. I am debating if I am even going to go to the Rec Center tomorrow, and if I do will it be a swim day or a treadmill day. I am thinking treadmill or indoor track.

Temps in Aurora

Forecast for Aurora

Anyways, today was a good day at work. I am starting to get into my new routine and figuring out how to handle all of my tags and interactions with our 1099 technicians. I am also realizing some things never change from my time in the classroom. Read directions???? why should we? Try to use every excuse in the book to avoid something? Yup. And not realizing that if 100’s of other people did it without any issues it is highly unlikely that it won’t work for you. And I was able to complete a rather large project that I was worried about. Turned out I was over analyzing it. I deleted a spreadsheet this morning and started it over, problem solved.

I also picked up my new glasses today at Lens Crafters. What an adjustment! Right now the prescription is so strong, it was needed, that I feel like I am drunk. They tell me that it could take up to two weeks to adjust to the changes. Please let it go faster than that. I am looking at a square screen, I know it’s square, but according to my vision it is pushing in on the lower corners, this is the strangest laptop that I have seen in a while – and it didn’t look that way before the new glasses.

Anyways, tomorrow is a new day. We will see what we get up to.

2026-01-23
Day 022 of 2026

Was a pleasant 15 degrees outside when I got up this morning with the dogs. Of course Res went out and did his business really fast. Climber on the other hand, it took her a bit longer. Then Res had to go back out and find anyplace Climber peed and pee over it. Yup, this is the story of my life. It’s OK, it was way too cold to take them on a walk today anyways. We usually cut walks once it gets under 20 degrees.

Spent my morning out in Golden, CO for an StrikeCheck inspection. Diagnoses a Home Automation System, and a Lighting Control System and all the fun stuff that goes along with it. Yes, it had failed. That’s about all I can say about it here due to privacy reasons. The homeowner was a great guy and his dogs were really friendly, nosy, but friendly and cute. Had it priced and ready to go out within an hour of getting back home. I like doing that. The only part of the process I can’t do is generating the final report.

I saw some Elk on the way to the appointment. I wish I could have stopped and taken some photos of them as I don’t see them that often. I think the last time I saw them was last year, also out in Golden. They were not there on my way back out of the neighborhood. I had every intention of stopping.

Spent the afternoon getting caught up on work things, and then I had the chance to get outside and play with Climber in the yard. She is the first dog we have had that I can play catch with. She loves her tennis ball. I really want to do agility with her, I think she would enjoy it. I may try and build a couple things for her to try this Spring to see if she is trainable.

Did the evening walk with both Res and Climber together because Jesse had a hair appointment. It may be their last walk for a few days as our temperatures are supposed to plummet starting tomorrow for 72 hours. Not as cold as the Northeast, but still I guess we are finally participating in Winter 2026.

Climber

Res and Climber

Wrapping up the evening here at the house, I went to the basement and brought up the portable heater that we use in the family room when it gets really cold. The brick of the fireplace absorbs heat from outside and radiates it into the rest of the room. This room is not on a basement so we have 2 outside walls, 1 garage wall, the slab, and then it is open to the upstairs where the kitchen is. It’s low in the house and it can get chilly. In addition to my office this is the room I would like to put baseboard heat into when I re-do the heating system (that is coming in the next few years).

I never did make it to the rec center today, and tomorrow does not look that great either. I really need to get into the pool, it’s been a week today, but it’s one of those things that time just has not been available.

Anyways, see you all tomorrow where we can do this all again!

2026-01-22
Day 021 of 2026

A busy day today believe it or not. Work, fitness, dogs, etc.

Started off the day at my normal time, logging into work about 6:45am Mountain Time (8:45 Eastern). Started off the day with a significant number of requests, be it Cause of Loss Determination (COLD)s, technician support requests, and pricing/invoice review tags the first thing in the morning ones receive priority. Once I get those done I can start whittling down the list of other requests that I have inherited. I can never finish it all in one day and it is sort of good for me to realize that.

I was able to get out for a lunch break today, decided it wasn’t a swimming day for me, I just didn’t feel like it, so I got outside to get a walk in. It wasn’t bad, didn’t push it, but did get in a little over 4 miles. I also was able to finish the book on “tape” that I have been working on. I read the print book, loved it, and now the audio book was good as well, “Heated Rivalry” is a must read book. I hear the movie is good as well but I have never seen a movie that is as good as the book. Also saw my Prairie Dogs today, I call them the Neighborhood Watch!

Got back from lunch and then worked another couple hours. As I work for an East Coast company I try to wrap up my workday by 2:45-3:00pm MT and then I have some downtime in the afternoon before the regular evening things of dog walk, feed, food,

You would think that would wrap up our day, but no, I am right now trying to figure out why Climber is trying to push every button I have. She is not settling down and she is going to end up back in her crate again….. And she is in jail again. Everyone deserves some rest and relaxation time and Climber has to start realizing that she needs to settle down. She is not getting out of food mode and this is becoming a major issue.

This is Climber starting the destruction of the next toy. Below is Res protecting his favorite toy.

And then we have Climber pondering out of crate time…. will she be good…… will she be bad…..? It’s a 50/50 toss up.

Anyways, see you tomorrow and I will see what I can do to add something exciting to tomorrows post.

2026-01-21
Day 020 of 2026

First day back in the office after being out of town since Thursday last week, so of course my desk was DEEEEEEEPPPPP. I did have some time on the phone today with my manager and we had a good discussion of some upcoming goals, and some upcoming adjustments to my responsibilities. More about that in the future.

Anyways, I did not get out today to the rec center to use the pool. I plan on doing that sometime tomorrow, time depending. I really need to start doing the resistance training that the physical terrorist…. I mean therapist wants me to do. Maybe I will try to do that first thing in the morning and then the pool later in the day. I have to figure this out.

We are supposed to get a real cold spell for the next few days, possibly getting down to single digits. We will see.

Stay warm all! See you in the AM.

2026-01-20
Day 019 of 2026

Good morning all!

This post will be written in sections. I am at Burlington International Airport at ass o’clock in the morning.

This airport is sort of neat, it has all sorts of games in a game area after security which is nice.

But otherwise it is a typical small town airport. I was the ONLY one in the security area this morning.

And the airline God’s appear not to be with me this morning:

Of course, right before they told us to put our laptops away for takeoff my manager asks me to test a few things and get back to him on a few other things. It is freaking stupid that we have flights without any wifi capabilities these days. Also if there is no wifi they should absolutely say so on the reservation screens. Makes it very difficult for those who have to work during their flight.

I am now officially out from under the no-compete portion of my employment agreement from the school I used to work for. I have a ton of HVAC and electrical material that I wrote but we never used that I may start posting. It seems a waste that everything that I wrote is just going to the great big bit bucket in the sky. I will have to edit some of it, but maybe thsi stuff will help someone out. I am trying to decide if I want to re-record my videos to update and remove some references that no longer exist and some potential copyright issues. Its time consuming but probably time to modernize.

Wandering the terminal here at IAD (Dulles International in DC) waiting for my flight. Wondering if he is forcing the gift stores to carry this crap.

One gift stores I won’t shop in.

And of course, when I travel in the winter this happens while I am gone.

At least just Jesse was able to clear the back yard with the leaf blower.

We are sitting here on the tarmac at Duels waiting for the crew to “resolve a maintenance issue with an in air system”. Yeah me.

Finally in the air lunch was good.

I will say the food on my United flights is very good.

On final approach from the North into Denver.

The rail part… almost

And today’s travels…. airline style

Anyways that’s a wrap. See you tomorrow!

2026-01-19
Day 018 of 2026

Had a relaxing morning with my Dad and Stepmom in Middlebury, VT today. I actually woke up around 8am and felt like I had a good night of sleep. Spend some time talking with them both and then had a late lunch and headed North up to the Homewood Suites in Burlington to stay overnight before my flight in the AM back to Denver.

I tried to go use the pool and the hottub this evening at the hotel but it was pretty loaded with kids and that is never a good sign. Went back to my room and decided to see what was downstairs for dinner. Amazing experience, the hotel manager stopped me as I was poking around the freezer in the suite shop and told me to go have some Pizza in the breakfast area. He said they ordered way too much for their employee dinner and had plenty for those that wanted it. No problem, I went had some wings and some pizza. Totally does not fit into my diet but I will worry about that tomorrow.

Now back in my room and working on my greyhound data processing as well as trying to get some of my Facebook conversion posts completed. I am trying very hard to move the last 15 years of my Facebook life onto this platform so I stop giving my intellectual property away to the Facebook algorithms. I am not sure if I will ever have success in finishing this project, but I do have hopes.

Jesse sent me some neat photos of what he did with the wall over the mantle in our family room. It was time to hang the pack photographs back up, and they look good. I am missing one photograph which we need to solve, we need one of Climber. But she is very difficult to take photographs of because she is so crazy in motion at times.

Anyways, that’s a wrap for today and let’s see tomorrow were the airline gods idea of geography takes me.

2026-01-18
Day 017 of 2026

Good morning! Today’s post is am going to write in sections as the day goes on. Anyways, got up this morning to falling snow.

Snowscape

So it looks like it is going to be an inside day. My dad ans Sally are talking about going out to dinner later today, we will have to see how the roads are as I will probably drive.

And I guess Jesse and the pups are having a relaxing day at home.

Res

Climber

Jesse says the idiots set off fireworks in celebration of the Broncos winning today. Poor Climber.

Climber in Back of Crate

Anyways back to Vermont from Colorado, had a nice evening dinner at one of the local restaurants. Tried a Turkish Cheesecake…. hint, it didn’t taste at all like cheesecake, but the cod entree and French Onion soup were very good.

Spent the rest of the evening asking some questions that I had wanted to have some answers on from my childhood and teenage years, and found a few things out about my parents’ divorce I had not known about. Maybe was able to link a few more pieces together of my story. But, that is for another day….. Or never. I don’t tell stories that have the potential to hurt someone.

Anyways, that wraps up today, see you tomorrow.

2026-01-17
Day 016 of 2026

Sorry no pretty photographs today. Left the hotel in Burlington this morning around 10am after spending most of the morning re-routing my travel since the appointment for a litigation inspection canceled and an additional inspection in Saint Louis, MO was added for later this month, which bumped up against another trip. So….. had to make significant travel plan changes. What a pain the a$$, but par for the course.

So, after I got that done drove South through upper Vermont down to Middlebury, VT. It was snowing and the roads were a little icy. Didn’t have much time to stop and look at any scenery. For some reason Firefox seems to think “Middlebury” is a spelling error. Nope, it is an actual town with a pretty big college.

Anyways spend the rest of the day with my Dad and step-mother. Interesting conversation all around. I made it 20 minutes after walking in the door before politics came up. But, that’s OK, we see eye to eye on most of it anyways.

OK, forgive me, I have to add two photos of Angel Pack Members, Lady and Leona – Happy Birthday at the Bridge. You are missed today. I hope I did right by you both. I think I did, but I wish I knew for sure. You would have turned 14 today.

Some memories are awesome, some hurt a little bit.

Anyways, that’s all for tonight. I will see you tomorrow.

2026-01-16
Day 015 of 2026

I am a little late in posting today. Today was a vacation travel day. Yeh, I did something I swore I wouldn’t do, I took a few days off and flew to Vermont to visit family. Started Trains, Planes, and Automobiles started off with Jesse taking me to the A train headed towards the airport.

Then a few hours in the airport where I walked all the terminals and got my step count in for the day.

While walking around the B terminal I found the mysterious alien that everyone says is hanging around the airport. He was busy eating Voodoo Donuts today.

Finally got on my flight to Chicago, because everyone loves to travel through Chicago in the Winter. Ended up with a dash between the B terminal and the E terminal. I thought I had an hour or so to make the connection. Nope, by the time I ran across the terminal they were boarding my outbound flight.

At least I got to see some neat walkways on my way. And then we sat there for 45 minutes past our departure time. Pilot came on and said he had no idea why they were holding us. But, I am not complaining because at the last minute my luggage showed up as being loaded on the flight. Ooops…. maybe I was the cause of the delay.

Arrived in Burlington, VT. Was able to get my rental car keys while waiting on my bags. Gotta love small airports when the rental car counter is next to the baggage claim.

And now I am in my hotel room for the evening. It was way too late to drive down to Middlebury, VT to my dad’s house, I would have kept him up way past his bedtime. I will take my time here in the morning and then do the drive South. Of course it is snowing here so I am hoping that the roads will be clear by the time I head that direction. My rental car is a little VW Jetta.

Anyways, that’s a wrap for today, I will see you all tomorrow.

2026-01-15
Day 014 of 2025

What a difference a day makes! Yes, I had a much better day today, I think yesterday was due to the Tylenol PM that I took on Monday evening. Yeh, remind me not to do that again. For some reason it hits me about the same way Nyquil does and just makes me a miserable zombie the next day.

Of course my day started off with work. Not a bad morning, was on standby for a presentation about our companies online technical education, this is where we mix my background in education into my current role. My manager says that the leadership team was impressed. I think we will see what happens moving forward. There are six other organizations owned by the parent company. I would like nothing better for my role to bend in the direction of education.

Anyways, finally got out of the office for an early lunch and surprises of all a lane opened up at the pool as soon as I showed up, it was almost like they were waiting for me. Yup, that was awesome. I had a nice swim today, some of my times increased. I didn’t totally get the distance I wanted, but that’s OK, I felt good when it was done. Next up is an hour long swim that I need to complete US Masters Swimming competition. Maybe over the coming weekend I can do that.

Tomorrow will bring some fun and excitement, I will share as it’s happening. Send vibes for good weather across the country.

See ya tomorrow!

2026-01-14