My favorite time of the year is Christmas recounting the events of the past year. One word sums up 2024 for me is Change. See if you agree.

In the 2023 Best of Edition, I wrote:

I'll have been in Mexico for five years as of February 2024, a record for me since high school. It's a question of where and when I go.

Walking on the project heading out for lunch. Distracted, I slipped and fell. Thinking the only thing I had were bruises and a bruised ego, I dusted myself off and thanked those that showed their concern.

At the gym, my usual crunches were very painful. For several days, I skipped them. My CT scan was inconclusive, but the doctor told me what I thought was bruised rib/stomach muscle was my gall bladder and we ran a functional test to confirm. I flew back to Phoenix without knowing the results, thinking I may have to make a return trip depending on the outcome.

It was rainy and cool back in Phoenix and Nogales but still much warmer than Omaha. No complaints for that. I had seen images of Nogales snow on Facebook and, upon return to Nogales, on the trunk of a car.

My doctor called and said the gall bladder had to go. I could wait until my next scheduled medical visit in July but if I felt any pain, immediate medical attention was needed. Then I thought I should move it up to February as my next destination was unknown.

I booked the trip home to have my gall bladder surgery. The medical folks were not helpful in conserving my days in the US. To be honest, it was my GP. I couldn't fly for fourteen days after the procedure. The follow-up was a month after the surgery. Penciled in a plan to drive back to Mexico when weather and my condition allowed, and the bosses approved my proposal.

Sitting at my desk on a Friday afternoon, the boss called me in. Thought they just wanted a private statement from me, but this was not that. Your trip to Omaha is your demobilization. My Mexican assignment is finished. It hit me like a Mike Tyson punch: fast and hard that I didn't see coming. Project has about three months to go. I was being cut for cost. "Someone will be in touch with you". No, checking with supervisors, there wasn't any immediate work for me. They still haven't been in touch with me to this day.

The two guys who relayed the news about my demobilization said they would have been elated if they were me. No, I wasn't elated.

Three days short of five years in Mexico, I went from a second of elation/relief to stunned. Was supposed to be in Mexico for thirty months but this was double. We acted on the government promise that we'd keep our people in Mexico ready to resume work when COVID was over. Our expenses would be compensated. Multiply that by approximately twenty projects. The government has only resolved one contractor COVID claim and that was for pennies on the dollar. We had about twenty projects and I don't believe we'd settle for that same rate.

Bittersweet best described my mental state. In the back of my mind, I know that my position is the first to go. I'd seen the project winding down. Now, I was free to do as I please with my life and my career yet extremely disappointed at how the separation took place. I was hoping that I'd get assigned to the Hanoi project but was told the construction part of the contract had not been awarded.

They did let me keep my work computer saying they intend to let me keep working. I was told it was mine to keep. I have no use for this computer. I forgot the password. It remains unopened in the backpack it was shipped in. I have three laptops of my own.

Packing away five years of life in just over a week was difficult at best. I had stuff moved from three previous assignments from other parts of the world. Each trip over the border, with few exceptions, meant a trip to Wally World was as mandatory as the stop at the border crossing. I still had about three months of food stocks to consume in just over a week. We had a long weekend, two and a half days, where the bulk of my packing was done. The irony is that I'd considered a trip on this same holiday to get more kitchen stock. I gave a lot of stuff away. The hard part about packing for a move is deciding when you can do without an item you normally use. The apartment looked like a bomb had gone off. I refuse to throw away boxes. Five years of ordering from Amazon left my box closet packed with too many boxes.

Those possessions were stored on pallets waiting for my shipping instructions.

I avoid going away parties involving me. I arrived with little fanfare and like to leave in the same manner. My two neighbors/colleagues along with another colleague joined me for my last seafood dinner at a restaurant just up the street but that was it. I left quietly. Took a different border crossing at 0700. Unlike my usual crossing, there was nobody in front of or beside me other than my driver. After five years, my mind had not come to terms with the fact that it was unlikely I'd pass through this area again.

The night before I left, I made the following post on Facebook:

Three days short of my fifth anniversary in Mexico, I will be leaving tomorrow for new adventures. This is your teaser, I don't know what's next but I'm looking forward to what God and life have in store for me. He's been AWESOME to me so far! It's not posted yet but, one thing is sure, you'll read about it in the next update of the Bluelou Times.

Spent the first week of my newfound freedom seeing doctors in preparation for my surgery. Did the fall cause the need for gall bladder removal or was it old age? My doctors think that the fall may have accelerated the need for surgery but there were no gallstones. The gall bladder needed to go. It wasn't a case of if but when.

Not knowing what condition I'd be in physically and mentally; I booked a few social engagements early in the week of my surgery. I didn't know how long before the procedure I would be required to fast so the last day before surgery would taper off socially. I spoke to the pre-surgical nurse...no eating or drinking fluids starting at midnight the day of the procedure. That's fourteen hours before my operation. I could have water to swallow my meds and to rinse my mouth after brushing my teeth. It was a lot easier than it sounded.

Years ago, my appendix were removed using laparoscopy so I was familiar with the process. I don't recall if the appendectomy used a robot, but this one did. You can watch the video. I was in and out of the operating room in an hour, I'm told. I left the hospital that evening.

The hospital gave me a booklet of instructions to follow post-surgery. The surgeon simply said to listen to the body. Sound advice yet I had written instructions stating otherwise. In any case, the hospital and surgeon had covered their butts.

A few months beforehand, I started taking fiber that seemed to have little effect. I was contemplating ceasing but the nurses advised otherwise. Though I do have occasional pains at the incision cut locations, the only side effect was the inconsistency in eating. Sometimes, I'm fine. Other times, eating the same food creates the immediate need to head to the restroom...like instant. There is no hard fast rule. Though I'm no body builder, the surgical site is below the navel and it looks like hell!

While at home, I did more maintenance on me...eyeglasses and contacts following the cataract surgeries in July. My eyes stabilized. Putting the contacts on and wearing them after an eight-month hiatus was seamless. It was eerie knowing I wear two sets of contacts: the ones from my cataract surgery and the new contacts. I could do most things without corrective lenses but reading from a distance was a problem. Reading my cell phone and smart watch remain an adventure as well as presentations from a distance on a large screen TV or computer monitor.

Had two wisdom teeth removed on my birthday. Yes, party on! Happy Birthday! It was too easy.

I've maintained since my first job hunt after college, that looking for work is just like employment without pay. It became my new job! No, I could have filed for unemployment but didn't. Pride gets in the way sometimes. I later discovered that I didn't pay in so I couldn't take out.

Before I left Mexico, I had a couple of strong leads for work with two distinctly different companies. The first was a company many of my former colleagues had joined. The second was one of our competitors.

The first company does domestic work with lots of flexibility. I'd be working in the US with a reduced work week...somewhere in the forty-hour range...five days a week. I could live in close proximity to the work or I could live anywhere and commute. It would be a slow tapering from my career towards retirement. Given my positive view of Tucson and Phoenix, I was hoping to work in Arizona. My increased need for medical maintenance, this option may be best for me in the long run. After six interviews over an elapsed time of a month, they decided to change directions requiring me to do the same. This lead came from a former colleague.

The second would be more of the same thing I'd been doing for the past thirty years. That possibility was paused by the company. I suspect that my former company protesting the job award to this company was the culprit. Eventually, the government elected to rebid the job in the fall where my former company again protested the award they didn't get.

Choices! Possibilities! Yeah! Unfortunately, the sudden cancellation of these opportunities was just as crushing as losing my job in the first place. Between the health updates and waiting for the outcome of those two possibilities, I did nothing towards finding work for a month and a half except hone up the resume. I kicked myself for not using that lost time to do more to find work. To the application machine Batman!

I had many job offers including a previous employer wanting me to go back to Mexico, Mexico City to be specific. The company that had the Turkey job needed someone to go to Lagos Nigeria. Lagos would be a four-year gig. Mexico City would be about eight months. Neither location sounded good but the actual work in Mexico fascinated me. I passed on the Mexico City gig but they kept trying to work me. I'd seen the renderings of the Lagos project and concluded it was a neat project in the wrong location. I tried using six months for a trade in Lagos to go to Turkey not knowing that the job would be rebid this fall.

I had a job offer to go to the DC metro area as well as AZ. The AZ job would be with a previous employer in a small mining town about an hour east of Phoenix...too far from Phoenix or Tucson so it was a pass.

Dealing with headhunters and corporate recruiters is like a telephone, a necessary evil. Headhunters either don't know how to read resumes in relation to their own job descriptions or they simply don't take the time to read and compare it to their job description. If the job was in Nebraska as I was, I was worth an email and a call. Let the recruit or the client do the job relevance assessment as I often did. Here's a text sent to my cell phone:

My client, the South Dakota Department of Corrections is hiring Correctional Officers for their location in Springfield, SD. Excellent Benefits, No Experience needed. You must have a High School Diploma/GED, be 18 years of age or older, have a valid current driver's license and be able to pass a Background check. Are you interested?

Several headhunters contacted me about this position. I'd earn about the same hourly wage working at Wally World but Wally World wouldn't jeopardize my physical being. Frankly, I can't think of anything in my resume, other than building a prison many years ago that comes close to any professional experience that would lead anyone to believe I was remotely qualified for that job. Anyone?

Had occasions where different headhunters were recruiting for the same job/position/client. Got an email early in the morning asking my interest about a position. My simple response was "call me". My email signature contains my phone number. Another headhunter called me that next morning. Since the first one didn't follow through, I gave this guy permission to represent me.

A third person contacted me about the same position an hour or so afterward. "Do you know if he's sent your application to the client?" Ruthless!

Another headhunter annoyance is something I also see in business. Wanting to jump to the front of the line, someone hits the send button on an email and dashes to the recipients' office asking a few seconds later: "did you get my email?". Yes, but I'm reading an email from someone else and I haven't had time to read yours. In this case, rather than dashing to my office, I'd get phone call or text.

Thanks to COVID, finding jobs with the option of working remote hasn't really been an option until now but most companies are steering away from this practice.

Doing online applications is grueling if you can use a resume already posted online. Every company has their specific form but they'll accept a PDF of your resume as an attachment. I created a working copy of my resume where I could copy/paste with a minimum of effort.

Folks were impressed with my experience. Did you really go to all those jobs? For most of the projects on my resume I worked on site for years on end in many of those countries but not all. Unfortunately, we like your experience but it's not the right experience.

Having not really looked for work in decades, I had to learn the new interviewing norms. I did a few interviews in person, but the majority were live by phone or video conferencing often having many in the same day. I had a few Teams meetings crash without warning exiting the program without notice giving the outward appearance that someone got upset and left the video conference. Not the case. I learned to advise folks in advance that this conversation may terminate without warning and I'd do my best to get back to the conversation.

Remembering recruiter names or potential colleagues was difficult at best. When the phone rang and the person identified themselves, I'd play along until I remembered who I was talking to. Trying to remember what job I applied for was equally difficult. I'd search for a company name in my email which would allow me to track to a web link for my reference. In general, I applied for most jobs other than California, New York, or the big cities except for Atlanta. I avoided the extreme northern climates as well.

It blows my mind how quickly companies and recruiters disappear without notice/explanation if your interview process isn't advanced. It's like the flick of switch or snap of the fingers. Here today. Gone tomorrow! Don't call us, we'll call you! It was all too familiar!

The nostalgia award goes to the recruiter who asked if I had a clearance? Yes! She had an opening in Sierra Leone to renovate the current embassy. I was part of the team that built the embassy. She was in search of a project manager...not me. No, I wasn't interested in returning but it was worth a good laugh. I forwarded her request to the actual project manager for that job.

My new professional Mecca was the airport in Omaha. One terminal is being replaced, one added, and one renovated. The whole process was projected for four years tying right into my proposed retirement. I had a couple of interviews at the airport but couldn't land that big job. I vividly remember a college field trip where a professor noted that the flooring on the baggage carousel would undoubtedly outlast the new ongoing construction. I recently checked and this professor passed earlier this year. The flooring is being replaced airport wide.

My geographical preferences in descending order: Home, Arizona, Vegas, North Carolina...

A former colleague got my name on the inner track for an interview with his current company. We tried unsuccessfully to interview on Teams while the interviewer was in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, so we postponed the interview for a week. Because I had offers I was considering, a quick and sudden day trip to Salt Lake City was arranged and taken for a second interview. Until that time, the furthest I'd ventured was the Omaha airport.

I've only flown through the SLC airport so touring the city was a new experience. It was picturesque, historic, sunny, and clean. It reminded me of Kansas City, a big city with that small town feel. I had to pay pilgrimage to the auditorium where the Jazz play basketball. Had I thought of it beforehand, I would have found the addresses of a couple of SLC based TV reality series from the Motor Trend channel. It was a fly in the morning and fly out that same day. The rental car agent did a double take at picking up and dropping off on the same day. I had emergency supplies for an overnight stay but that never happened. The following day, I did receive an offer for that job.

Current construction trends are building data centers and renewable energy. Battery plants were hot but with the decline of the electric car, they're declining. I had interviews with contractors and consultants having prominent clients and directly with one prominent named customer. Given the past boon days and the seeming decline in Embassy bids over the past few years, it's my impression that Embassy projects, at best, are leveling out or on the decline.

Had a verbal offer to go to Camp Lejeune, NC. Before I got anything in writing, I got a request to fill out an application for a security clearance. I'd seen this before. A couple of days later, I got a request for my safety equipment preference and my shirt size. WTF! I don't have an offer! Oops! With all those commercials about the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, I got several alerts not to drink the water...thought that was Mexico!

I posted my resume on the major job-hunting web sites. It took about a month of applying to web sites and resume posts for the headhunters and company recruiters to seriously start calling and call they did. Interviews came in droves. Sorry, not going to give you links here but if you email me, I'll give you advice. Some of the most well-known had some of the worst search engines. I'm waiting for the day where I receive personal emails rather than job notifications that are generally not applicable to my career path.

The most fascinating interview was a one-way interview. Questions were typed on the computer screen and I video recorded the responses from my laptop. I could redo my responses as I liked until I was satisfied or I hit the overall interview time limit. While I'm not ready for Hollywood, the answers were spot on. Someone must have liked my responses as I got an offer for work.

Another notable interview was a Teams session where multiple people were watching me operate industry standard software. I'd been using that software for over twenty years.

Any in-person interviews were done with your blogger in a suit with dress shoes or steel toe boots if I was going to an actual construction site...no, I didn't set foot on a construction site but, if the boots went, the hard hat went along just in case.

Got called out on some of the software experience I had on my resume. I really dated myself.

Got a last-minute offer to work in KC. I was about to start onboarding for the DC job when I got the official offer for the KC job matching the DC offer. I had an hour to make a semi-educated decision. With KC apartment rents being half of what they are in DC and the cost of living much lower along with a three hour drive home in lieu of a three-hour flight, it was a no-brainer to rescind my DC job acceptance for the KC job. Started work on June 26. Nope! I didn't phone a friend. KC had the home field advantage.

There's a bit of Deja vu here. Back in my DC days, my current employer was the competition. The project is one we've all heard of, Leavenworth Federal Prison. A new prison is under construction right next to the existing one. As stated previously, I was assigned to a prison we built. So, if you didn't look at the link before, I'm sharing it again.

Michele said she'd know my final decision when she sees the taillights of my car. Maybe...

In April, a close friend whom I refer to one of my many moms around the world, passed at 84. I was her third son.

In early June, my mother took a couple of spills putting her in the hospital. X-rays and CT scans indicated nothing broken or damaged. Ma returned to her home after a week and a half in the hospital on her 93rd birthday. The doctor predicted that she had six months to live. The nurse said a week. The sisters said she'd be lucky to make it through the weekend.

A week later, the mother of a friend had a couple of trips to the hospital before she passed away at the age of 98. Three days later, my mom passed. Another mother of a close friend passed away in late March. It wasn't a good time for mothers. The sisters were right. By coincidence, my friends, who lost their mothers, all have the name Jeff.

To all the well-wishers on social media extending their sympathies, I can only offer you my sincerest thanks for the comforting words you offer to my family and myself. How ironic is it that Mom died on Father's Day? Like my clearance getting approved for Guangzhou after Ma's broken ankle healed and her doctor told her she could walk without her cast, I think my KC job offer getting ratified after her scheduled funeral was Ma's latest Divine conspiracy with God pointing to me. Stay tuned. There will be more Divine shenanigans to follow.

I spent a lot of time with Mom before her days at the nursing home. Wherever I happened to be in the world, when I came home, I dedicated a day to Mom and we would take a road trip to have lunch with her family. It was our time together. This extended trip home was no exception, I visited Ma many times in my time in Omaha between jobs. Although I will miss her, I have no regrets knowing she's in a better place with God and family and friends who left this world before. I firmly believe she barged past God and St. Peter to bawl out Dad for all of his transgressions pent up inside of her for all these years. I've added photos of her artwork for you to see. Keep coming back. Like this blog, it's a work in progress.

The following video is Mom's funeral:

Skip to the highlight at around 50 minutes to see and hear my sister solo to Ave Maria. (She's at the left and does appear for a few seconds)

Mom's older sister, my aunt, passed a few months later. I drove up to the funeral in Des Moines on what would have been the ninety-fifth birthday of my aunt. My uncle, their brother, passed one-hundred years a month later. I wanted to go as it would be a happy family gathering event rather than a funeral. Unfortunately, I was recovering from the flu and that same three-hour drive wasn't to be.

Check out the new wheels. Deciding my international career is done, I bought a new 2024 Honda HR-V EX-L. I skipped the hybrid/electrical stuff. Too costly and too complicated to maintain...my first car purchase in 31 years. It's a major lifestyle change for me committing to five years of car payments. The first night I had it, I awoke to thumping on the roof. I went outside and saw hail...about an inch and a half in diameter. At the last minute, before I went to bed, in a moment of genius, I pulled the new car into the garage. The neighbor said his car was totaled by the hail. Given the age of the car, it wouldn't take much. The roofer who inspected my sister's roof noted damage and it was repaired a few months later. My sister spotted a damaged window screen.

My 2023 drive from Nogales to Vegas greatly influenced the brand selection as well as the purchase of an extended warranty, even for a Honda. Every mechanic I spoke with said to stick with Honda or Toyota. The simple truth is that I'm driving an all-wheel-drive STATION WAGON! Well, it's not a minivan! I prefer pickups but neither Honda nor Toyota make something I like and the gas consumption is a turnoff. I can rent or borrow a truck if I really need one.

I bought the extended warranty through the dealer rather than the open market. I was cautioned that getting open market warranties to pay for repairs could be difficult. I called one open market warranty offeror. Getting them to remove your number from their call list after you tell them you bought a warranty elsewhere isn't easy.

Let me emphasize that the purchase of the car, in all reality, means my international career is over. I work a third less than international work but my expenses and taxes are much higher. Tradeoffs! With each application or interview, visions of working in that area flowed into the brain. Actual offers: Mexico City, Lagos, Camp Lejeune, Miami AZ, DC, Salt Lake City, and KC. Each offer kept getting better and better.

Yes, we saw plenty of tornados in Omaha. About two miles west of the house, the city of Elkhorn had houses leveled. Ditto for my hometown of Blair. The gym I'd been using was closed for the weekend to be used as a emergency homeless shelter. It was never used as a shelter and it reopened as a gym a couple days later. Some of the battery companies opened charging stations where folks could charge their mobile phones. I saw a city property being used as a refuse dump for materials that used to be houses.

A couple of weeks later, while inside the grocery store, there was a tornado warning. I followed the lead of the customers paying for our items and heading out the door to the house while employees headed for shelter.

I waited a couple of months for spring to come but I did get SYB out of storage. After each interview, I needed to bust loose and relieve the stress, so I'd do something athletic: gym, walking, or bike riding. During inclement weather, I'd walk in the shopping mall. Still, I hadn't felt rested after a night's sleep since I arrived in Omaha in February. To the curious, I lost a few pounds during my unemployment.

Michele started a family tradition of doing a cancer walk/run for our sister, Lisa, who died of cancer. Other family members have done it over the years. I entered the tradition walking 5k (3.1 miles) for the first time. No, I didn't raise any money. I was there for moral support and to honor my departed sister. Michele ran the 10k and Pat walked as far as his knees allowed.

It's been a while, but I helped with the garden rototilling, mulching, and spring cleaning. Sounds like a start at going domestic...

My new employer really showed their enthusiasm towards me, more than any of my former employers. Professionally, I'm very glad I made the last-minute switch to my current employer. It's a better fit for me. Being so close to home doesn't hurt either. My colleagues are young, ambitious, and bright. Their safety program is a real morale builder.

Prison and embassy construction have similarities, so it didn't take long to jump in with sleeves rolled up. Embassies keep the bad folks out and prisons keep them in!

Continuing with the trend that the past follows me, the consultant hired by the government in Mexico is the same company consulting the government on this project. One colleague worked for two companies in my past.

My hardest adaptation is that my new company uses Google web-based applications for communication rather than Microsoft Outlook.

It's weird working only five eights...but in a good way. I'm doing my best to adapt. Watching sporting events live takes some getting used to but it's cool. I'll adjust! I call it semi-retirement.

Thought I could set apartment hunting appointments on the same day of my travel to Leavenworth. Boy was I wrong. I searched through Facebook and other web sites. Some had me fill out an application before I looked at their apartment. My apartment borders an abandoned golf three-hole course. My family contributed to my used furniture compilation for my KC apartment. Gigi brought down SYB, donated a couch, lamp, and a trundle bed doubling as twin beds. Michele and Pat donated their little used air fryer and a table with chairs. Bought the sequel to the evil chair on Facebook and a vacuum cleaner. Mom provided a small dresser. Wally's provided the rest. I shopped at the local thrift stores after I bought most of what I already needed.

My apartment is a two-bedroom unit with the second bedroom doubling as a box room. It's about a fifteen-minute drive to the office. There is no rush hour. The only delay is if there is a lot of cross traffic on my penultimate turn before entering the job site. Surrounding the apartment grounds is retired three-hole, par three golf course.

The apartment manager remembers me because the first question I asked about the apartment was if it had a dishwasher. After five years without one, I wasn't going to have an apartment without a dishwasher. Though the compound has no pool, there's a clause in the lease holding harmless the owners for pool accidents. Go figure! No, the clubhouse has a gas grill for resident use but any grill needs to be ten feet from the building. Also in the clubhouse is a limited gym and laundry. My apartment is on the second floor so it isn't too convenient to lug a grill downstairs.

I do like Leavenworth though I haven't ventured too far from my apartment.

My gym is a mile-long bike ride from my apartment. My Church is about two and a half miles up a long grade and down a long grade. Wally World is about the same distance as my church. I go walking or ride one of my three bikes daily. One of my bikes is older than most of my colleagues. On Sundays, if the weatherman cooperates, I ride to Mass and head straight to the gym afterwards.

Carried on the KC culinary tradition with visits to: Stroud's, Slap's BBQ, Jazz, Joe's, and Yard House. Toss in a trip to a local steakhouse, Metropolitan Steakhouse.

Leavenworth has many ethnic restaurants. The first restaurant on the first day I visited was a Thai restaurant. The second was Jamaican. If you sell food from some of my former posts, you've got me. I did Japanese take-away from a trailer via Grubhub and conventional sit-down Japanese restaurant with hibachi and conventional seating. Yes, you can wear your shoes. There's more to come. Maintaining the spirit of the city, there are a couple of BBQ outlets. I've tried one twice, a trailer in a hotel parking lot, and a typical building. The quantity of car washes rivals what I saw in Kosovo. Nothing I've seen has more banks than Leavenworth. Unfortunately, I don't have an account with any of these Leavenworth banks. The closest is in KC.

There is a small but nice five screen theater not far from the apartment. I'm so far removed from American pop culture, I don't know what would be a good movie from a bad one so I avoid them.

I did attend my first Leavenworth theatrical presentation of Seussical, The Musical. Had a tough time hearing parts but it brought back such revelry that I'll go back for future shows. I'm sure Lisa was smiling down from heaven as she was a huge Dr. Seuss fan.

The airport is about forty-five minutes away. Leavenworth is below where landing airplanes are in their final decent. By coincidence, my present company was part of the joint venture building the newly completed KCI terminal where many of my present colleagues worked prior to the prison project..

While in Omaha, I stayed with my oldest sister. Her house isn't far from a recreation area that's a small lake. It's posted there's an eagle nest. You can see a couple of bird nests with the naked eye. It took three trips before I saw an eagle. I had no luck with binoculars but the zoom lens on the phone was better and I got a couple of photographs that I shared on Facebook.

In my high school years, long before it was a fad, I worked at a restaurant where we served smoked pork ribs. Less ribs made it to the kitchen from the smoking shed than we started out with. It piqued my curiosity. In my time in Kodiak, AK, the BBQ turkey legs sold at the Crab Festival sold faster than they were put out for display. If you saw someone eating a turkey leg, you'd better run to get one or they'll be gone before you could blink. I do remember a quick way to start a sometimes-heated debate in Kodiak was to ask the best method for smoking meat, cold or warm. One of those retirement things I want to learn is smoking meat. My sister has a smoker and she found a recipe for the Disney Smoked Turkey Legs. I vaguely remember eating the world-famous Disney turkey leg during my Disney World trip. With the sister as my consultant, we soaked the legs in brine for a day and smoked them the next day. Smoking took about three hours. Everyone enjoyed the result.

A couple of days later, with the assistance of my sister, my coach, I made beer butt chicken in the smoker. Again, I heard no complaints.

In smoking meat, there's a major investment in time, materials, and money so I'm on the fence whether it will become a regular hobby or not.

Here's a recent video of Theresa and her church choir at the local baseball game:

In the second inning of that same baseball game here in Omaha, the visiting pitcher threw a pitch through the fence opening between the home plate fence and the third base line fence beaning a fan. I looked up seeing the ball bounce off a fan. Brother-in-law said the fan got beaned. The fan didn't appear to be hurt. Next batter up for Omaha got the first pitch in his spine. After much discussion, the guilty pitcher got tossed and the Omaha head coach got tossed for arguing with the umpire. As he walked to the locker room, the disqualified pitcher appeared to be questioning the location of the gap in the fence rather than how/why the pitch got there in the first place. I'm not a big baseball fan but I can tell you I've never seen anything like it.

We left after the seventh inning but Omaha won 3-2.

While in Omaha, I survived on NBA and college basketball, WWE, and UFL (formerly the USFL and XFL combined).

My brother-in-law recently retired. Michele had a few tricks up her sleeves to start it off with a bang. I was a co-conspirator. He didn't know both his daughters and their families would be in on the gig nor did he know of the surprise dinner gathering. I was charged with picking up the cake from the baker, the balloon pick-up from the party shop, and I went to the restaurant to reserve a table for the whole clan. My brother-in-law worked in a cheese deli. This is an actual cake (left) from a local Omaha bakery called Sugar Coma, not cheese. Every day, I would wake up wishing my brother-in-law a happy Saturday.

One of his first retirement excursions was a trip to Scotland (with my sister of course) to attend the wedding of a former exchange student and play tourist.

The company had a social gathering at the local minor league baseball game. They rented a suite which was cool. Irony is when fanny packs are banned by stadium security yet given away at the game but that's what the Monarchs did. Go figure!

Missing Mom, I made a few trips driving a bit further to Blair to see her grave resting alongside Dan and Dad.

We've had two snowfalls before Christmas. Neither yielded much accumulation.

I've had a few visits from friends and family including the famous Mr. Ed who's enjoying retirement not missing the working world at all.

For the curious, I've maintained my weight loss where I started in 2022.

One of my new bosses is a fellow Husker. When I went home for my exams, he jokingly requested Runzas. Google it! You can buy them from the restaurant still frozen for travel. I knew where to find dry ice for the road. He got a half-dozen.

About mid-football season, I switched the ringtone to the Husker fight song. Left the phone at the desk while in the restroom. Sure enough, the phone rang sending Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, and who knows who else it might have drawn cringes from.

I didn't get aboard the Big Red hype train when my beloved Huskers started out 6-1 only to crash at the end of the season. I've seen that before. Yes, we're going to a bowl game for the first time in many years. We get publicity but the biggest benefit is added practice. I remember the years when a nine-win season was an off year.

Given the almost professional status of college football, I'm on the outs with college football in general and my beloved Huskers are about to fall into the same destiny.

We had a pseudo-potluck Thanksgiving lunch at the office. The company furnished the meat and spuds with the rest from everyone else. Wally's made my veggie tray. I spent Thanksgiving in Omaha, my first time home for turkey day in fourteen years. The company had a Christmas party a week after Thanksgiving.

After reading this, you can see that 2024 was very eventful for me, both personally and professionally. For the rest of clan. Gigi and Jay are busy playing grandparents. She bought a Tesla. Theresa and Alan seem to attract COVID...they've both had it for the umpteenth time. Both are busy with work. I saw Barb at Mom's funeral. She seems to be busy with her craft work. Hobbies become professions. The family photo was taken at the funeral. Only Elizabeth was missing from the photo. Pat and Michele are in grandparent mode now that both daughters are less than two hours away.

We get a day each for Christmas and New Years, so I plan on staying close to Leavenworth for those holidays. I will be home next month for a couple of days to get my next warranty extensions. I'm saving vacation for a future trip which you'll read right here in the BLT.

Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noel! Happy New Year! Bonne Annee! Feliz Ano Nuevo! Happy Kwanza! Happy Chanukah!