Howdy! Welcome to The Bluelou Times! I've visited and lived in many interesting places in my young life. I've recorded many of my memories in letters I've sent to my friends. This web page archives several of those letters. This is a sample. My friends think I should be a writer. These memoirs are my first attempts at being that writer. If you like it, you can find many more just by clicking on the links to the left, right, or top of the page. You can also let me know by clicking the e-mail link below. Please Check Out My Sponsors (And Some Interesting Stuff Too..) You can click on some of the flag links above. In 1994, I'd sold or given away most of my worldly possessions in three weeks (truck, ATV, fridge, washer, ACs, etc.) and boarded on a plane from Atlanta to Frankfurt Germany thinking I'd made the dumbest mistake in all my life. The story of those three weeks is a tale of its' own. I decided that since I'd made my bed, I'd best sleep in it. I flew on to Istanbul and then to Ankara. I was fumbling with my luggage trying to explain to the customs agent that those were truly cooking spices. Who in their right mind would want to take drugs INTO Turkey? All the while, someone who could have easily bailed me out of this mess...was laughing at me and my traveling rummage sale. Hey, I deserved it! I'm still the world's worst traveler. This person was my then roommate and longtime buddy, Mike Veal (aka Mr. Wheel). It turned out to be the best thing I'd done and I don't regret a minute. Mike's still with my company and we stay in touch. He's been a long reader of the Bluelou Times. Believe it or not, he's been to more places than I've traveled.

As I noted in the last update, we got a day vacation each for Christmas and New Years. I stayed in Leavenworth. I needed to preserve my leave for future leave. Weather was mild so I did a lot of bike riding. Winter came fast to Leavenworth. There were two snowfalls several days apart that melted the next day and one that came and stayed. I typically do my grocery shopping at Wally World on Friday night after work. On the Friday night before the big snowstorm, I did my normal shopping, but the store was packed and the shelves were on the way to being barren. Saturday night, frozen rain began to fall. I was going out for an evening walk descending a slight grassy grade from my apartment to the parking lot and almost fell on my rear. I turned around went back inside canceling my walk. The next day, the snow came varying in depth almost to a foot. It didn't go away. At work we were told to bring our computers home on Friday night to work from home on Monday returning to the office on Tuesday. Work on the project was shut down for about a week. It was announced at our church, there were ten people at Mass where it's normally around two hundred. I watched Mass on YouTube. The local authorities were all over the media telling folks to stay home. Wanting to test out the all-wheel drive feature on my car, I drove slightly over a mile to the nearby grocery store. The parking lot at my parking lot was the hardest thing to traverse. The streets were clean but the snow removal company failed to show leaving the apartment managers scrambling to find a replacement during the height of the snowfall. My neighbor couldn't get her car out of her parking space. It was an embarrassing mess. I normally get my weekly junk mail (grocery fliers, etc.) mid-week. It didn't show until the following Monday. A week afterwards, the pharmacy mailed my prescriptions. Running out of the medications in transit, it took ten days from start to finish where it normally takes half that time. I got the tracking number discovering that my meds were drifting around Kansas City. It took weeks for the Wally World shelves to get restocked. The snow removal at my apartment in subsequent snows was much better. I was putting in about thirty miles a week on my bicycle up until New Years Day. With the snow, all three are now parked. The Omaha part of my family said they got no snow accumulation. Ten days later, I drove to Omaha for the semi-annual running of my doctors discovering the snow stopped at the Missouri-Iowa state line. A few months after my cataract surgeries, I needed laser surgery on my left eye. After this round of doctors, the right eye wanted equal attention from the laser. The first laser surgery required two visits to the surgeon's office, one for the pre-screening and one for the actual surgery. It took several seconds to do the surgery. About two weeks after my recent Omaha trip, I had pre-screening and the actual surgery in one visit in KC. One of the staff nurses not only knew where Nogales Mexico was but had been there visiting family about a year ago. She had family there...small world! The follow-up exam was about a month later in Leavenworth. The technician finished the exam. I asked if she wanted me to take off my contacts. I got to do the exam again sans contacts. The doctor was originally from Birmingham, AL and had worked at the existing prison where my company is building the replacement. Small world! Otherwise, I did get a six-month renewal. Honda announced my car was being recalled due to a steering defect. I never noticed a problem but I scheduled a repair that needed rescheduling twice as the dealer hadn't received the replacement parts. The actual repair took just minutes. I was having lunch with a friend. We went from the dealer to the restaurant without having ordered when I got a text message that the repairs were complete. While in a meeting with a colleague, a boss tossed a hail stone in the meeting room. I spotted a couple of dings in the Honda hood. It was one day one short of a year before taking possession of this car. That night, a year ago, there was hail. Lucky for me, I had parked the car in the garage where the hail reeked havoc on every car and roof in the neighborhood.

Check out the photos (left and right). I was the January 2025 employee of the month. I possessed the Johnny Cash bobble head for a month and got to park right next to the office in the employee of the month parking spot. It's kind of a mock-award in my opinion but parking next to the office did come in handy in the aftermath of the huge snowstorm.

Juggling my streaming TV subscriptions. I cut back on YouTubeTV but added Netflix for WWE and Philo for their music and other videos YouTubeTV doesn't offer. I still have Peacock though I wonder how soon they'll divorce from WWE.

I did enjoy my Huskers winning their last game of the season. The best part is that they got extra practice time at the end of the season. There's hope!

Didn't make it to see the Chiefs in person. I watched the games from my apartment. Even if the game was shown on pay per view, it was shown on local TV here in KC. I subscribed to Netflix about halfway through their playoff game. I switched over. Deciding not to repeat their recent boxing live stream debacle, they delayed the Chiefs live stream by about a minute.

I joined friends to watch the Super Bowl at a local bar. The girlfriend who had never seen American football, picked the winner.

People are creatures of habit. Like living overseas, I settled into my Leavenworth routine. If I'm not at work, gym, or on my bike, I'm in my apartment. I've had a few social meetings with family and friends in the area but most of my time is in my apartment. I don't venture far.

A friend asked if I made any friends while in Leavenworth. Short answer is no but I have renewed friendships with some I haven't seen in decades.

There's a bike shop opening near my gym in Leavenworth. I stopped in for a visit. Normally, I buy my common parts online but I bought some inner tubes and had a bike tune paying a premium price for goodwill.

From another entry in the stupid job solicitation file...sent to both my phone numbers and email addresses:

Hi LOUIS DESROSIERS,? Are you interested in a driving opportunity with Uber?
If you're interested, please reply YES. If not, reply NO. To stop receiving future texts about Uber job opportunities, reply STOP.

The second, a former Harbert colleague, recycling a six-year-old email exchange asking me if I wanted to go to Lagos Nigeria. FYI, Lagos is far from a dream location. Not really! I confess that I tried to leverage working on the Lagos job for six months in hopes for getting the job in Adana Turkey but that response from the offeror resulted in silence. To do it now, I'd need to liquidate my newly established home and I'm not ready for that. I wouldn't consider it for that location anyway. This friend was working from his home and not from the job site.

The new/current job required me to hone my Microsoft Excel skills. Frankly, I was no slouch to Excel in the first place. I wasn't as good with Google functions such as Calendar, Chat, Docs, and Sheets. Excel kicks Sheets to the curb but the shared function has a place.

Company is pushing us to learn to use Artificial Intelligence (AI). Call me old-fashioned but I haven't found anything I like about AI. I like writing, reading, and editing my prose without having a computer do it for me.

I recently shared this FB video. Make sure you turn on the audio. My brother-in-law loves playing Santa. That's my great nephew. It will melt the hardest of hearts. "Santa" also visited a friend of mine recovering from an infection that put my friend in the hospital.

Leaving the gym checking to see if I had everything I came with. Keys? I looked and looked, inside and outside. The gym staff checked their lost and found and retraced my visit with no luck. The receptionist flared her retractable fangs and glared at me when I entered her territorial fortress most folks would call the counter. Snake eyes baby! Hard to fathom where I lost the keys. I don't need a key to unlock the doors as long as it's on my person. Ditto for driving the car. I walked nearly a mile and a half to my apartment in the beginning of a snowstorm in a hoodie, sweatpants, and a baseball cap. The keys were nowhere near where I parked it at the start of this journey. I went to the apartment clubhouse where I hung out in warmth until a locksmith, I Googled, came to my rescue. He couldn't pick the lock so he destroyed it with a drill and I got in. He drove me to my car. It was dark but I found the keys lying near my car on the snowy asphalt. Cost of my stupidity? $404. I got a story and I'm happy that I didn't freeze...was only wearing a hoodie and a ball cap with temps in the teens and snow falling...how could that be? My prayers were answered.

The locksmith was from Russia. Noting that I'd been to Armenia and Geogia, he asked if I knew any Russian curse words which he translated back into English. The Turks taught me a couple but I remembered one. My understanding of that one word was slightly different. I know a few more like please and thanks. The Armenians hate the Russians and wouldn't teach me Russian.

My old digital photo frame was dying so I bought three to replace the one and gave another to my sister. I uploaded the photos you see on this web site to my work photo frame. I'm sure my office colleagues are getting tired of hearing my stories from years ago but I still love my photo frames.

One morning, I awoke to the voice of my late mother. Thinking it was either Divine Intervention or I was dreaming, I put it together that it was a video recording of Ma sent to me via FB Messenger playing back over the photo frame.

Add another candle to that birthday cake. Don't forget that fire extinguisher! I can stare at those old photos for the longest time. It got me thinking how much my life has changed in one short year.

I celebrated with a major cholesterol fest by hitting many of the nearby restaurants. The company held a BBQ lunch on Friday and a chill cook off on Monday. I filled in the gap in fine style with restaurants you've read about right here before topping it off with a movie. Thinking my chili wouldn't stand a chance, my entry for the cook off was wieners and buns. There was nobody else that ate a chili dog so I brought the buns home.

The fast-food scene in Leavenworth is fascinating. There are exceptions but the majority exist along the main thoroughfare, highway 73, between Leavenworth and Lansing to the south with KC further south. There are a few defunct fast-food franchises recognizable from their facade. Folks at work speak of other restaurants I haven't seen. There's a bunch on the military base food court, the eastern neighbor of our project. My company has a project on that base. I was told you can get a weeklong pass simply by filling out an application.

Leavenworth has a city run recycling center that I visit bi-weekly. It's about a mile from the apartment. It greatly reduces my landfill use but makes me feel guilty about all the diet soda I drink.

Kudos to the US State Department for moving passport and other IDs online. Got my passport renewed by going to Walgreens for a photo and applying online. Ditto for my global entry card. It just takes money! Once the application is made, it takes a few days to get the documents in the mail. I found out that it's not a real ID but it will still apply for global entry purposes. Go figure!

Microsoft announced my Skype number was history in April. The emails they sent me were contradictory. One gave a hard date while others said if I followed the email link, I could keep my voice line. The latter plan was a bust as the links dead ended. I'd been thinking about dropping it now that I live in the US. MS offered Teams which I used with my last employer but I used it for the phone number where Mom could call me wherever I happened to be in the world. I signed up for a Google number. Email me...

Winter didn't give up its' grasp early. We got more ice, snow, and sixty mile per hour winds (100 kilometers per hour). Walking on concrete to my car in my apartment parking lot was an adventure. Getting from my car to the office was pure treachery with solid ice and full blast of wind. The odd part was the snow and ice melted that same day.

Weeks later, I got a group text from the boss saying to come into work a couple of hours later than normal as the power to our job site was off. Later, that two-hour duration turned into an all-day work from home as the local utility didn't have the power back on until early afternoon. The culprit was a storm downed power pole. I saw utility crews working to restore power on the way to my office to pick up my work laptop. Our office is right next to the live prison. I neither saw nor heard any signs of escaped prisoners.

I did make another visit to the Leavenworth Community Theater.

Michele communicated to her managers the desire to work part time. That is my dream position so long as it has insurance. The response from her upper management was she could do it but it'd be in six months. She wanted it a bit sooner.

A colleague handed out scratch bingo lottery cards one day at the office. I'm not a usual lottery player so I left it unchanged until one day I was working from home. I won another card. I didn't know where to redeem the winning card. I tried at a convenience store and then the neighborhood grocery store who offered me another card or a two-dollar refund of the cost. I chose the latter. I use plastic for my purchases with few exceptions...another change in life in the US I'm not used to experiencing. A few days later, I saw two folks soliciting funeral contributions at a neighborhood intersection. I'm a sucker for these kinds of stories and I donated the winning cash to a good cause. A happy ending!

One mystery was solved: when the prison we're building is occupied, the one it replaces will become a tourist destination. There are other retired prisons in the area offering tours. We were offered a tour of the existing prison, the one we are replacing. Pass!

Company held a work seminar in LA. They put us up in a posh hotel, the LA Westin Bonaventure. I was hesitant to go. I could best use the time at the office. I did go. I got to fraternize with colleagues I'd only seen in video meetings and got a bit more company culture. We toured one of the nearly completed LA County Museum of Art built by my company. I passed on bowling. My highlight was dinner at the Hollywood rooftop restaurant. We got to tour the wax museum. Years ago, I went to Madame Tussaud's in London, but I really went to town with photos even changing my Facebook photo. Truth be told, I had no idea I was so close to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, so I got a couple of photos. I worked the weekend to get caught up on the work that didn't happen while I was gone.

A passed photo opp was several segments of the actual Berlin wall on display in LA. Tagged with spray paint, it was pathetic 'hospitality' for someone who's seen the real thing. As an American, it was uncomfortable, at best, to see history tainted in this way.

I was mystified by the space age looking food delivery robots and the Waymo self-driving taxis.

FYI, Vegas hosted Wrestlemania over the Easter weekend. No, I watched it from my apartment but it raised my inkling to go. It was in the works but the girlfriend hijacked the time off saying she's coming to KC. I haven't had a formal vacation in forever!

The girlfriend comes. She's been here twice since the last update with another visit pending. It's routine: She loads up at Wally World, we dine out, watch movies in the theater or on Netflix, and make an Omaha run to see friends, family, and run errands. A few days later, we head back to the airport and she heads back home.

I put in several weekends to make the LA trip actually happen so when the boss said I could take Friday afternoon off, I jumped at the opportunity. Besides the LA trip and my usual project, I've been working on a bid schedule for a job in the town of my alma mater. Safe to say, I've been busy. I needed to run some errands: pay taxes on the car, swap out a bicycle from storage to my apartment, pick up some mail, and make a run to Wally's to get some things I can't get in Leavenworth. I couldn't have worked it out better. I even had dinner at my favorite Omaha Mexican restaurant, Howard's. I even had time to do my weekly shopping while sleeping in my own bed.

Hard to believe but someone got this recluse out of his apartment to a huge crowd in KC. What seemed like forever ago, I bought a ticket to see Alison Krauss. I didn't see any rain in the forecast but brought a hat and jacket just in case. During the performance, I eavesdropped on a neighbor's phone who the weather forecast predicting rain in a half-hour. It couldn't have been more accurate. There was a 10-15-minute break and the show started right up again. I really liked the acoustic sound of both bands...both bluegrass and felt the best songs were done for her encore selections but in the future, I'll stick to her studio albums.

Getting to the concert venue was the big adventure. I scheduled car maintenance for the same day. I stopped at a favorite BBQ restaurant. Many years ago, my father worked in downtown KC in a not so nice neighborhood. Was recalling those days as I passed through that same neighborhood. Made a restroom stop at a convenience store. No restroom. I didn't break stride getting back into the car and driving to the venue.

My nearly one-year review of living close to KC. I like Leavenworth better than KC. As the adage goes, it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't like to (permanently) live here. I like the three-hour drive home. I do like the KC cuisine scene but doing anything in KC requires driving. Nothing is close/convenient. It's a concrete jungle.

As the project finishes late this year, I extended my apartment lease another six months. From there, only God knows what's next.

As you can see, life has been routine, almost boring, but that's good. I live for boredom. I've avoided chaos in recent years.