I sleep!

It still amazes me that I can fall asleep before a plane even takes off. Unfortunately this often means I miss beverage service. I am quite ready to go home after six long days in Dallas. My 7/31 deadline seems to be doable after a bunch of hard work by the team. Here's what I know:

There is more than one Bolsa in Oak Cliff. While the Mercado might be a great cafe, wine bar, and market, your friends are probably at the restaurant having a delicious meal and proper cocktail. http://www.bolsadallas.com/

Working on a Saturday isn't so bad if you relocate the management team to a place for the idle rich in Uptown Dallas and find $7 carafes of mimosas! (Picture above!) http://www.idlerichpub.com/

The Dallas Dirty Bird isn't so bad for Happy Hour! You can get cheap drinks and make great friends and it goes late enough for those working long hours to catch. The bird is, however, quite dirty on a Saturday night. http://www.dallaseagle.com

Dallas has pool parties. Despite being a glamorous name for an enormous apartment complex, the Village Country Club throws one hell of a frat boy style free weekend afternoon pool party, complete with DJs and cheap drink specials! http://www.thevillageapts.com/club/

Being away from family during rough times makes you feel guilty and alone. My Dad fortunately made it through a rough spell in his recovery and came home today. I'll get to see him after my daughter's wisdom tooth extraction tomorrow. 

There are big beautiful blind drag queens in Dallas! I didn't remember how huge a space or how fun S4 could be. It's actually worth the little $5 cover. http://www.station4dallas.com/

Le Meridien at the Stoneleigh is a fantastic property. When it shows up with a reasonable price again, I'll book more business trips to stay there! http://m.starwoodhotels.com/lemeridien/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=3895

If you have too much to drink because your friends offer to be designated drivers, it's easy to lose your car once and leave your credit cards twice. I'll let you guess which of the above places align with such challenges. Thankfully my recovery mission the following day was successful on all counts!

Optimism

Jay is once again on a plane. If the rough math is accurate, I've logged 1,200+ miles in the car over the past week with a trip to the DC Rally and to Cleveland for Dad's surgery. I'm not sure there's been any nights with more than four or five hours of sleep and there's no end in sight. Hopefully won't have to work all weekend and hopefully won't have any issues getting back on Tuesday before my daughter's surgery. I know she's smart and I know she's clever, but I didn't realize how wise she is. W apparently has five impacted wisdom teeth. While I was perhaps six or seven years older when all four of mine were removed, the experience will undoubtedly be unpleasant and I need to be there for her. 

Here's a pic of W and Dad before his surgery on Wednesday. His spirits were high and my brothers, Mom, Sister(in-law), Uncle N, and a few folks from Dad's church were all there by his side. Others wanted to visit last night but he was pretty tired so we encouraged them to wait until today. A close family is such a blessing. The chemo has apparently been working and the latest lung tumor shrunk. The Doc still removed it but was able to take a smaller portion of his lung. According to the scans and what she could see inside, no others are currently growing. Despite the fact this is surgery number three in three different places, we're optimistic this "stage 4" cancer is now under control. We could use another 13+ years of remission because these last few years have been terrible. He'll quickly heal from the immediate pain. It's the unknown that is hardest to stomach. 

Off to work soon! Time for a nap before we land. At least there are hot young men sitting all around me. Apparently that's when they travel? I'm generally stuck on a Monday flight with cranky old business men; like myself I suppose?

Bulls & Cancer

I have so much work to do. If it wasn't for Dad's hospital stay starting on Monday and his surgery to fight the big bad C on Wednesday, I'd stay in Dallas through the weekend. 

The only good part is making time to catch up with some Turnbulls DC and other East Coast scooter peeps at the second annual Running of the Bulls. Since I was on the planning committee last year, it will be great to just sit back and relax for this one. 

#exhausted

Note: this was spoda post last Thu but I must have shut down before it went out. Will update when I'm back at the computer...

Quality or Quantity?

Here we go on the road again to Dallas for a long work week. I am scheduled to return on Thursday but the calendar is already filled and Friday might be more likely. This could prove problematic as the DC Turnbulls' Running of the Bullls Rally is next weekend in Breezewood, PA. Hopefully this year I won't jam a shock through the frame. Forty year old vintage scooters weren't exactly engineered for motocross trails! Speaking of scooters, I rode Agador for the first time today after ten months of downtime due to repairs and maintenance. More details on that later but he's faster and better than ever. Surely worth the wait!

Now to the subject of this post. Since my last trip, there have been countless activities to discuss. Sometimes I wonder if we should do less with less people? I love all my friends and don't want to miss anything. How do people decide what approach to take? For example, we had great friends visiting over the Fourth of July. We had brunch, caught the Doo Dah with the lesbians, squeezed in two parties, fireworks, then met other friends from out of town out later that night. We saw "everyone" on the Fourth and truly had a memorable time but...should we have picked one party? Should we have fully embraced one group of friends over the other? Did we nurture our deep lifelong connections to any of them by trying to have it all or do they think we're just fleeting and noncommittal to any of them? Does it matter? How do we maximize both connections and happiness? 

That said, here are some other things from the last few weeks:

My brother, sister, and nephew spent the night. We essentially chatted, ate, and lolly gagged around the village after a haircut at Niko's. My nephew would look so cute in a Mohawk but I restrained myself!

I "passed" my annual physical with a clean bill of health and learned by old Doctor moved into the "castle" in GV. Awesome! There's more work to do with the cholesterol levels but overall good as a 40 year old can be. 

We met friends for Comfest but were essentially rained out and didn't have the patience for the crowds and miserable weather. That weekend ended with a bear pool party and dancing at both the Barracks at AWOL and dancing at the Garage. I may not be the world's most refined dancer, but it sure makes me smile. Oh the memories of the old Garage. The new place is flashy and the bartenders sport ridiculous matching temporary tattoos all over their bodies, but it still has the spirit of the 90s and I felt 22 again. Fantastic!

This weekend was fairly low key with an outing to Sommerfest at the Germania Club. Perhaps I had a few too many shots of Yeager or pitchers of beers. For some reason I felt compelled to join a German Social Club. I told myself it was sustaining a piece of history as it is the last remaining one in Columbus but on reality it might have been grasping for my German heritage. I suppose it pairs nicely with our planned 2014 trip to Germany. Not surprisingly, two neighbors also joined. 

We also caught day one of the 50's exhibit at The Ohio Historical Society Museum. This is kind of funny since it will be there, complete with a full Lustron house, for the next five years. The WOSU Member Card got us in for half price and our teacher friend got in for free. Pretty nice museum. I highly recommend the "Controversy" Exhibit. Timely with the tragic George Zimmerman verdict as there is plenty of room for thought. 

This feels like enough journalling for now. Off to Dallas!

Farewell to the Family Farm

I didn't get on a plane to get there but was transported to a far away emotional place. My earliest memories come from visiting my Grandparents at the family homestead. It's been in our family for generations and tonight was divided into several parcels and sold at an old school auction. We might not own it now, but as a great friend reminded me, our precious memories can't be sold. It gives me peace to know that many new families will now have a beautiful place to make memories of their own. The Holmes County Amish sure have deep pockets! The proceeds will provide a nice contribution to my Mother and her siblings' retirement accounts. Grandpa and Grandma would be proud that their hard work allowed them to pass on a little something to their children. I'm sure the money will be nice but the memories are priceless.