Merry Christmas 2011

Christmas time is here once again. I want to let you, my friends and family know, just how much I appreciate and love you.

A special note of appreciation to my nephews Carlos and Kike, who are serving in the Air Force of the United States of America. Carlos is in Okinawa and Kike is going through basic training near San Antonio Texas. Carlos is now a citizen of the US and Kike is on the fast track to becoming a citizen. There is something to be said for someone who chooses to be an American. Carlos and Kike, we are very proud of you.

Lila finished her first year at the University and hopes to graduate in about a year. Ceci finished her certification as a medical assistant and will return to school so that she may become a nurse.

My brother Bob and got married to his girl friend Reva of 20 years. This year our extended family did a much better job of spending time together.

I got to visit many long time friends, especially from school and Boy Scouts.

I want to wish all of you, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!

Apple versus Android

I often get asked, especially by my family, what phone they should get, or what computer. I am waiting for someone to ask me what tablet to get. I wrote this blog entry to try and get ahead of curve for just once.

When selecting a smartphone, one of the most important questions is what network will you be using. Where you are makes a big difference in the coverage you will experience. We live in East Bay portion of the San Francisco Bay Area. In this area the major choices are:

AT&T - I hear a lot of complaints from people on this network.

Metro PCS - Cheap, but we had lots of trouble with coverage.

Nextel - Great technology, but not being kept up.

T-Mobile - Lots of complaints

Sprint - Great coverage

Verizon - Great coverage

I have the EVO 4G. About a year and a half after it was released, it is still one of the most powerful phones out there. It uses the Sprint network, which means that my data plan is truly unlimited. This phone uses the Android operating system and is made by HTC. I would have preferred an American company like Motorola, but one was not available without changing networks, which can be a real pain. The Evo 4g is a great phone. Verizon has an equvilant phones such as the Thunderbolt or Droid Incredible 2.

The android phones are high powered, but not nearly as intuitive as the iphone. If you are a novice, but want a cool phone, pick the iphone via Sprint or Verizon. All the people that work for me and have iphones with At&t do nothing but complain about their service.

Here are things reasons I like my Evo 4G over the iphone:

I have had 4G right from the start and the slowest my phone goes is 3G.

I can replace my battery and buy an after market battery to increase the amount of time between charges.

I don't have to use itunes.

I can run flash.
I can upgrade the amount of storage space I have anytime I like.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about tablets. I use an ASUS netbook. Asus is the company credited with inventing the concept of a netbook. It is basically a small laptop, with no DVD/CD drive. The Asus has a solid state hard drive, which makes it more durable and uses less power. Because it is so small it will run on battery power for over five hours and it fits easily, in my backpack and is easy to operate in tight spots like the middle seat of an airplane.

Small size and long battery life are qualities that tablets are known for. I find that wow my Evo 4G has one of the largest screens on the market (4.3 inches), I am 50 years old and find it is often still too small.

I want something larger, but I want it to be my phone too. I want it to fit into a shoulder harness so that it is out of the way, but easily accessible. A belt holster just won't do with a tablet.

There are two camps when it comes to tablets: the Ipad and Android tablets such as the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy.

Currently the ipad has over 70% percent of the market. They must be doing something really right and it is difficult to overlook this. The battery life is amazing compared to the Android tablets. The ipad is one beautiful machine. Still, the ipad has many of the limitations that the iphone does such as having to use itunes, it can't run Flash and you can't upgrade the amount of storage ...etc.

Tablets come in two flavors: Wireless only and wireless plus a cell account such as Verizon running 3G. The difference means additional cost upfront, plus an ongoing cost just for using the tablet. Wireless only means it will only work when you are somewhere with wireless access unless you have what you want loaded on the tablet and that gets back to storage.

Some people say the ipad is too big and too heavy, but I'm not so sure. The older I get, the worse my eyes are, I start to think that it can never be too big.

Still it is a pain that when you want to type that you loose half of the screen. If I carry a tablet, do I still need to carry around my netbook? If so, what is the point and why do I still want one? I want one that I can make phone calls with. I want to replace my smartphone and my laptop with one device.

I should mention that the HP Web OS (Palm) is really great software, but I have the feeling that it is too little, too late.

Microsoft gets a lot of praise for their Windows Phone 7, but they just don't have market share. Windows 7 is available on some tablets, in fact I have an ASUS tablet running Windows 7. I use it only for work. It doesn't need a wireless or 3G (4G) connection. Again Windows does not have a significant share of the tablet market, but you can never count Microsoft out.

The above are just my opinions.

Wedding for a Special Friend

Today Jaime married Autumn and became Mr & Mrs Smith. We were invited to their wedding. I really don't know much about Autumn. The few times I have seen her, she has stayed close to Jamie and taken great care of him. It doesn't matter, because if Jamie has chosen her, then she must be pretty special.

I have known Jaime since he was a small boy. Jamie, his brother Pedro (aka Shuman) and sister Mariemilia are the celebration of two great families, the Smith and Manrique families. When I first met Jaime, he was called Jaimeto. His brother Shuman was still breastfeeding and his sister would not be born for years to come. Jaimeto's father was called Jaime. Jaime was a very generous man. He helped many of family members (both on his side and his wife's) to have a place to live and find a job. Jaime was one of the most generous people I have ever known. He never had a lot, but what he had was yours. Jaime was always the life of the party. He loved to laugh and share that laughter with others. Sadly Jaime left us too early.

Even though Jaime and his wife Rebecca were divorced, Rebecca made sure that all of Jaime's friends and family where with him in his final hours. One thing about this amazing family is that when one falls or needs help, there is always one or more to step forward to offer support, or step in their place to move forward. Rebecca was never the life of the party, but she was always strong and loving. She kept her family moving forward and provided the love and support her children needed, but it didn't stop there. She is one amazing woman. This family is very big and very close. It is made up with many aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces.

So back to the wedding... Jaime and Autumn got married and there was not one dry eye anywhere. Jaimeto has cancer. He has been battling cancer for some time now. He has been in a wheel chair for years. This is a marriage made of the purest love.

When it came time to speak about the newlyweds, and propose a toast. One family member stepped up to the plate, each to be overwhelmed by the emotion of the moment. First was Jamie's younger brother Shuman. He mention that his brother has had a rough time. He broke down, but immediately, his sister came to him to support him. She expressed her love to the couple. She mentioned how after her father passed away, that it was Jaimeto that stepped into that role for her, but it was too much for her as well and she broke down. Jaimeto took the mic to express his gratitude and love for his friends and family too, but the emotion overwhelmed him as well. Their mother Rebecca took the mic, followed by their grandmother. "This is not a time for tears ...". This family does not know the meaning of defeat, but they do know the meaning of the word "family".

Over thirty years ago, I was first invited to this family's house for Christmas eve. Only two people in this huge family knew me and they did not know me that well but we worked together at a hotel. They brought out a huge bag with one present in for each person, including me. I was shocked. This family took me in to their home and treated me like one of their own. To this day, I feel a special connection with them. They are part of my family. Jaimeto, I am grateful to you and your family in ways you can never know. I love you very much and am grateful that you included us in our wedding. You are a shining example of what family means.

May God bless each and every one of you.

COHS Water Polo Alumni Match 2011

I had to come down to Southern California for work, so I extended my stay by a day so that I could get together with my classmates at our Pizza Night, which was great. For some reason my wife insisted that I stay an extra day and not worry about coming home until Sunday morning. She said that I don't get to visit my friends from school very often.

Friday morning Diana (Cobos) Campbell gives me a ride from Anaheim and we go directly to Charter Oak. I want to know when the alumni match will be. In the office, the lady says that they have not set the date yet, but gives me the phone number to one of the coaches. I call and leave a message on his voice mail. About 10 minutes later, he calls back and explains that the match tomorrow (Saturday) at 10:00am. What a lucky break.

With less than 24hours notice, I get my phone and start calling friends. Cobos calls her brother. I post a notice on Facebook and we put the word out.

Craig "Gumby" Schaeffer and myself are the only ones this year that can play. Eric Schubel makes it, but it recovering from an injury, so he and his son are there for moral support as well as Inez Schaeffer, Diana (Cobos) Campbell, Pam McKovich and her son Hunter, Steve Brady and others.

This year things are a bit different. They are charing $10 for alumni to play, which is fine. The money goes to help the water polo team. Craig and I are smarter than we were two years ago. Then, we warmed up rather well. Too well. By the time the game started we were already tired. We had spent too much energy warming up.

Another difference is that instead of one huge alumni team with about 25 substitutes, we are split between those that graduated in this millennium and those of us that graduated in the last millennium. This is a serious concern for us older folks. We are going to have to play a lot more as our team is much smaller.

Both Craig and I started. We like to think that we did no harm. We substituted in and out throughout the game. During one play, I passed the ball to Craig and he scored. Chalk up one for the geezers! At the end of the fourth quarter, it was tied. We played one more period and managed to win the game 21 to 20. That is the same score we won by last time we played, two years ago.

It was a great game. We were all puffing and wheezing, but we pulled it off. Hats off to COHS varsity water polo, especially number 9. We may have won, but they played a full game before they even played us.

See you all next year and hopefully we will have more time to prepare and more Lancers from the 1970's. Maybe coach McNeil will show up, who knows?

COHS Water Polo Alumni Match 2011

I had to come down to Southern California for work, so I extended my stay by a day so that I could get together my classmates at our Pizza Night, which was great. For some reason my wife insisted that I stay an extra day and not worry about coming home until Sunday morning. She said that I don't get to visit my friends from school very often.

Friday morning Diana (Cobos) Campbell gives me a ride from Anaheim and we go directly to Charter Oak. I want to know when the alumni match will be. In the office, the lady says that they have not set the date yet, but gives me the phone number to one of the coaches. I call and leave a message on his voice mail. About 10 minutes, he calls back and explains that it is tomorrow (Saturday) at 10:00am. What a lucky break.

With less than 24hours notice, I get my phone and start calling friends. Cobos calls her brother. I post a notice on Facebook and we put the word out.

Craig Schaeffer and myself are the only ones that make it to play. Eric Schubel makes it, but it recovering from an injury, so he and his son are there for moral support as well as others such as Inez Schaeffer, Diana (Cobos) Campbell, Pam McKovich and her son Hunter, Steve Brady and others.

This year things are a bit different. They are charing $10 for alumni to play, which is fine. The money goes to help the water polo team. Craig and I are smarter than we were two years ago. Then, we warmed up rather well. Too well. By the time the game started we were already tired. We had spent too much energy warming up.

Another difference is that instead of one huge alumni team with about 25 substitutes, we are split between those that graduated in this millennium and those of us that graduated in the last millennium. This is a serious concern for us older folks. We are going to have to play a lot more as our team is much smaller.

Both Craig and I started. We like to think that we did no harm. We substituted in and our throughout the game. During one play, I passed the ball to Craig and he scored. Chalk up one for the geezers! At the end of the fourth quarter, it was tied. We played one more period and managed to win the game 21 to 20. That is the same score we won by last time we played, two years ago.

It was a great game. We were all puffing and wheezing, but we pulled it off. Hats off to COHS varsity water polo, especially number 9. We may have won, but they played a full game before they played us.

See you all next year and hopefully we will have more time to prepare and more Lancers from the 1970's. Maybe coach McNeil will show up, who knows?

COHS Pizza Night

Before I get started about the Pizza Night, our hearts go out to Deann (Call) Lent, her family, friends and neighbors. She lives in Seal Beach. On Wednesday a crazed gunman entered a beauty salon and murdered eight people. Deann's son goes to school with the boy, whose father did the killing and the mother who was one of the murder victims. Deann, our thoughts and prayers are with you and yours.

We have been doing COHS Pizza Nights for a few years now, but this was absolutely one of the best. We had a great turn out including two of our teachers:

Mr. King was our music teacher in 8th grade at Sunflower Jr. High. He was so cool. He was into racing cars. He dressed more like us than your normal teacher. He introduced many of us to the Beatles for the first time. We explored what kind of music we liked. We did not sit in rows, instead we sat in a circle where everyone could see everyone else. It was so great to talk about music, cars and our times in school with Mr King and he could not have been more gracious.

Mr. Hall was my German teacher for all four years at Charter Oak. I was born in Frankfurt Germany. I immigrated to the US when I was only a year old. No one wanted to learn German more than I, yet I had a tough time. On my first vocabulary test I got a "D". This was devastating. I did not give up and Mr. Hall never gave up on me. After high school, I would continue to study German for 3 more years in college. Mr. Hall is actually Dr. Hall. He received his PHD during my senior year. A special thanks to Pam McKovich, who arranged Mr and Mrs Hall to attend our pizza night. It was very special to be able to spend time again with him after so many years.

We had a larger than normal turn out. Not everyone who thought they could make it did, but quite a few did show up who didn't think they could. My brother Dave was able to attend our gathering and it is always nice to see him. We had a number of first timers. I hope they felt welcome as we all share a special bond.

Eric Schubel is normally part of our group of regulars. He was recently in an accident, but after four days, his injuries have not improved. He decided to go to Urgent Care. We wish him a swift and full recovery. Eric says he will be at the alumni water polo match tomorrow. He won't play, but he will be there to cheer us on.

Thank you to everyone who made this such a special evening.

Bob and Reva's Wedding

My brother Bob has had the same girlfriend for twenty years. They have been living together for most of this time. After these years, they decided to get married. They honored me by letting me officiate their wedding ceremony. I'm not a minister or anything, but in California, a couple can petition for a one time license allowing a friend of family member to perform the wedding.

The paperwork was not moving fast enough. I received a call from the San Luis Obipso court. They informed me that there would not be enough time to finish everything, but I could go into the court and get sworn in immediately. They said they were open the Friday before the wedding, but I decided to drive down the day before with my wife Carmen. We left early in the morning and drove straight to the court house. I figured it didn't make any sense to tell Bob and Reva. It would just stress them out. I would take care of it.

Carmen stayed with the car and I went in. I raised my right hand and swore to protect and defend the constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It was very exciting, I thought that any moment they would give me a helmet and a rifle. Then I had to swear to protect and defend the constitution of the state of California as well. I was ready. If anyone tried to overturn Prop. 13, I would whack them over the head. It is interesting that the swearing in ceremony really had nothing to do with marriage.

We checked into our beautiful hotel, the Best Western Royal Oak. Our room was great. That evening we enjoyed the San Luis Obispo (SLO) Farmer's Market. The best Farmer's Market that I know of. It takes place in the evening. They shut off several blocks in the downtown. It is much more than a Farmer's Market. It is a huge party, complete with Barbecue, Live Music and more. We bought lots of fruits and vegetables. More than would fit in my backpack. Our eldest daughter asked us to get some Kettle Corn, so we got a big bag of it. For dinner, Carmen enjoyed a Tri-tip sandwich and I had 2 beef ribs. We both shared an ear of grilled corn and a dessert to die for. It was a chocolate brownie, with strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. We were stuffed!

The next morning, Friday, we woke up to beautiful weather. We had breakfast in downtown SLO at McClintocks. This place is an institution. We were joined by our very good friend of many years, Susie Norris. We chatted catching up and before you knew it, it was time for her to go.

We headed back to our hotel and enjoyed the hot tub. Next was lunch time, which meant that we were going visit our friend Jennifer in Templeton. We brought the fixins for strawberry short cake. Jennifer was ready with a delicious lunch of homemade tomato soup and garlic cheese bread that was to die for. I should mention that she has two of the cutest 6 year old twins you could imagine and they kept us entertained the entire time.

As we approached early evening, it was time to get ready for the wedding rehearsal and dinner. While Bob and Reva live in a lovely house in Morro Bay, they have rented a beautiful ranch for the wedding located in Los Osos. This is fitting, since our last name is Bear and Los Osos is Spanish for the Bears.

Our eldest daughter has rode down with my youngest sister Becky and my Dad. Lila is in charge of the music. Our youngest daughter Ceci had to stay home because she has classes all day Saturday, and she took care of Carmen's Parents who are 91 and 83.

Reva is working so hard to pull off the perfect wedding. Our two families come together for dinner after the rehearsal for the first time We get along perfect. Reva's best friend, Katie has hire a wonderful Mariachi Band, and we all enjoy the music thought the evening. We have a fantastic time. The families have become one.

Next morning we get up bright and early to help prepare for the wedding. Reva is like a little tornado working so hard. It is time for Carmen and I to get ready for the wedding, so we head back to our hotel room to shower and change.

As I am getting dressed, my cell phone rings. It is my cousin Mary. She asks if I am around the family. I tell her no, the only person here is Carmen. She pleads with me not to tell the family, that she does not want them to worry. I assure her I won't and she tells me that they have been in a car accident. The car is totaled. I ask where is she, she tells me the name of the hospital, but does not know the name of the town. I look up on my phone and sure enough the hospital is in Templeton, same exit that we used to visit our friend Jennifer.

I drop off Carmen at the ranch, and head up to Templeton. I have Carmen tell everyone that their car has broken down and that I have gone to pick them up. The wedding is supposed to be at 4pm, it is now after 3pm.

At the hospital, I find the only person that is unhurt is my aunt Joyce. She was sitting in the back of the VW Van with her seat belt on. My uncle Puzz was the first to be release. He has cracked ribs and a knot on his forehead the size of a baseball. Both of his elbows are bandaged. I check on my two cousins, Mary and Christine. The doctors are still working on them, so my aunt suggests that we go to the vehicle and get their belongings.

Fortunately, the VW Van is only about five minutes away, but you never realize how much stuff you have in a vehicle until you have to take it all out. We head back to the hospital. The doctors finish sewing up the forehead of Mary. Christine looks like she is in rough shape. She is laying in bed in the fetal position. She has cracked ribs as well. The doctors give her a shot of some sort of pain killer. It must be some amazing stuff, because before I know it, she is walking and later that night would be dancing!

We head back to the wedding. They have a room booked in Morro Bay. We get to the junction. Left is the wedding, right is their hotel. They are all in a lot of pain. The slightest bump in the road causes my uncle to moan. He is 85 years old. They choose the wedding. To me this is the greatest complement that anyone could pay to Bob and Reva.

The wedding starts 2 hours late, but then again it could not start without me, could it? It is a beautiful wedding. Katie's daughter sings so beautifully. It could not have been more perfect. Everyone has a great time and it is all over way too soon.

My cousin Hank was not traveling with his family. He came down by himself. He gets his family back to Sacramento.

Bob and Reva, we love you very much and wish you a long and prosperous marriage.

Preparedness Reminder

A couple of months ago, we sold our RV. We had not taken a trip in a few years. To be exact, we had not taken a trip since the price of gasoline had shot past $2.00 per gallon. Years later, gas is between $3.00 and $4.00 per gallon and there is no reason to believe that it will ever go below $2.00 a gallon ever again. The RV got between 7 and 8 miles a gallon. That means that if we get 8 miles per gallon and gas is $4.00 per gallon that it costs us $.50 per mile to travel. That is a very expensive rate of travel. Many times it would be cheaper to drive and rent a hotel room.

There was another reason for selling the RV. The economy sucks and like a lot of people, we needed the money.

Besides recreation, there was another use of the RV, that I had appreciated, but not as much as I do today. That RV was also our preparedness kit. The entire family could live in that RV if we needed to. It had drinkable water, a shower, toilet, 2 sinks, clothes, back packs, food ...etc. The RV even had a generator. So why do I appreciate the value of the RV as a preparedness kit more today than any other day prior?

Earlier this week, it rained. Here we are in California, famous for our great weather and yet it is raining in June, almost July. I can't remember when this last happened. The good part of the rain, is that all of my rain barrels are full, and that will come in handy later as you will see. The bad part is that at work we lost power at about 3pm in the afternoon. This is not good for a technology company, that prides itself on providing the best customer service in the business. We rely on a phone system that requires power, computers that require power, servers and support databases ...etc. that all require power and we have none. Did we have battery backups? Yes, but they don't allow you to operate for very long.

I was thinking about when the power goes out at our house. We no longer have the RV and it's generator, but that is no problem. We have a standalone gasoline generator. I thought about what other ways I have to produce electricity. I have an inverter that plugs into a cigarette lighter that has two outlets. In addition, we have oil lamps, LED flashlights, radios that operate on batters, solar power and cranks. At home we are in pretty good shape when the power goes out.

That brings us to today and our subject today is water. This morning just after we had all finished our showers, some idiot ran over a fire hydrant. The water flowing out was threatening to flood some local businesses, so the cut the water off. The area affect was pretty big. So we have had no running water from 9am until about 9pm this evening.

The first thing to do in any crisis is to evaluate your situation. In our case, we started by checking what we had in the way of water. At our house we have two types of water stored. First, we have rain barrels. They are all full, but this water is not good to drink, but it can be used to flush the toilets. Toilets are important! We have two toilets and seven people live here, so we have plenty of water for our toilets, in fact we offered to provide rain water to our neighbors for their toilets as well. The second type of water we have stored is drinking water. We keep old plastic milk jugs full of water.

Recently I was reading that plastic milk jugs are not ideal for storing water. A much better option is plastic soda bottles. The second thing I read recently is that you should store one gallon for each person, per day for two weeks. We did not have that much water stored, but there is the ice in the freezer and the water in the hot water heater. This is a big advantage over the hot water on demand systems.

Next, task was to see where we could get more water. My sister-in-law lives about ½ a mile away, so we went to her house and she had water. We filled up every water container we could quickly find. Outside, we have two water containers filled with rain water. When someone wants to use the toilet, they take one of the containers of rainwater to refill the toilet tank after it is flushed. Our toilets are low flush toilets. One uses 1.7 gallons the other 1.5 gallons a flush. As a guy it is pretty easy to take a leak outside. We have lots of bushes. Enough said.

During the day, we found more water containers and set up a system of providing water where it was needed throughout the house. As we discovered more water containers, we collected them together and were prepared to make a second water run at the end of the day. The assumption was that we would not have water when we woke up in the morning.

We do have other backups, for example we have two different water filters designed to filter water when camping.

Both the power outage and the water outage, were a blessing in disguise. It made us think about our preparedness status. We thought about what changes we should make so that we are more prepared for the next time we have to deal with a crisis. In California, we all assume that some day, we will have a huge earth quake, called “The Big One”. We need to be ready for the Big One! So in the case of water, we are going to collect and fill 2 liter plastic soda bottles with drinking water until we have enough for one gallon per person for two weeks.

Water is just one of many things we must be prepared to provide in a crisis, so we won't stop there, we are analyzing our food supplies, camping supplies, clothing, transportation and alternate places we can go in a disaster, such as relatives houses. We no longer have our RV preparedness kit and we need to fill that void.

Let's be realistic, Democrat or Republican we can not afford to trust in our government in the time of crisis. Katrina taught us that lesson.

Vacation 2011 with Dad

My dad (that is Grandpa to a lot of you) and I had been talking about going to the Grand Canyon for years now. The original plan was to ride mules to the bottom, but that plan really never worked out. My dad called me earlier in the year to ask "When are we going?" I decided at that moment this was the year to go, so I made all of the arrangements.

I started by driving down to Southern California, and spending the weekend with my friends from school. We had a fantastic time. We did not normal Pizza gathering. This is nice, because the group is small enough that we can all talk to each other. I enjoy the regulars such as Gumby, Eric Schubel and Cobos and others, yet each time there are people who have never come before. In this case, Steve Brady was one of the people I grew up with, play little league baseball, swam and played water polo. I had not seen him since high school. We also had a couple of others that had not attended before including some from the class of 1975 (Debora Coffey) and even someone from Royal Oak!

Beside the pizza gathering I managed to visit the Renaissance Faire and even a birthday party for someone I did not know. There Gary Dahle's wife, Judy was performing. How cool was that? Did you know that Cobos could juggle? Now you do!

Monday, I drove up to Las Vegas and Checked into the Golden Nugget. It is the longest running four diamond casino resort in Las Vegas. It is in the older downtown section, but what a beautiful place and what a great value. I love the pool with a slide that goes through a shark tank!

I picked my dad up from the airport and we enjoyed a nice dinner and went to bed. The next morning, we were off on a helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon. My dad knew about this, but what he did not know was that we would be picked up in a stretch limo. First Class all the way!

The Helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon is pricey, but worth it. These memories are ones that we will cherish forever. I had never been on a helicopter before and my dad was only on one in the military. He said this was a much nicer ride. We flew over Hoover Dam, and saw where the Colorado River emptied into Lake Mead. The water from the river is very muddy and the lake is blue. Where the two come together is beautiful.

The tour covers the West Rim and while I have been to the Grand Canyon before, it has always been at the South Rim. I was not expecting too much. I knew that the Grand Canyon was a national park and therefore protected. What I did not realize was that parts were owned by Native American tribes and that the tour company had business arrangements that allowed us to fly over, into and land in the Grand Canyon.

It was amazing. We landed and they served us a Champagne Brunch. I was not expecting more than a snack and my dad had no idea at all. The brunch was served in individual picnic baskets. I wish I had taken a picture. Imagine two Bears and they give them picnic baskets! LOL

I knew we would land, but I figured it would not really be in the Canyon. It would be on some private property close by, but no, we were inside looking up at the canyon walls and the river was not far below us.

Before too long, it was time to return, we took a different, but equally stunning route back to the airport that included flying over the length of the Las Vegas strip. On way back in the limo, we say Batman!

Back at the resort, we went swimming and yes, my 72 year old dad went down the three story slide though the shark tank. What a fun place!

My dad treated me to dinner "The Steak House" in Circus Circus. Who knew that something that elegant and delicious would be hidden in Circus Circus? Well, my dad did. Best steak dinner ever!

We finished off the evening with the Penn & Teller show. Next to the Beatles Love show at the Mirage, this is my absolute favorite show in Las Vegas.

The next morning, we drove from Las Vegas, across the new bridge over Hoover Dam, around the West Rim of the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff Arizona. We stayed a nice enough hotel, it was a 2.5 star property. After we checked in, we checked out the meteor crater. That evening we went to Black Bart's for dinner. That was my surprise to my dad for dinner, that night. What is so special about this place is that besides having great food, the waiters and waitresses get up and sing and dance like in the old western movies!

The next morning after breakfast, we made our way up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for a different experience, a different view of a different part of the Grand Canyon. The South Rim is deeper and wider than the West Rim. It is the part of the canyon that is most often visited. It was beautiful and we enjoyed a picnic in the shade of the canyon.

While at the South Rim, we enjoyed a number of different vistas, and had a couple of close up encounters with Mule Deer. They did not seem to be afraid of us at all. This perhaps because they have rangers armed with guns protecting them. These animals are truly beautiful and the South Rim is Magnificent.

We finished the day by driving back to California and spending the night of Cinco de Mayo at the Americas Best Value Inn of Blythe California. I was very pleased at our accommodations and found their website for booking reservations to be very easy to use and helpful. I chose Blythe because we did not want to drive too far on any one day.

Friday morning we are up bright and early. After breakfast we head off to Indio, California. Date capital the USA and stopped at Shields to enjoy some dates, pick up a Mothers Day present for my mom and get some dates to bring to the friends we were about to visit.

The Millers live in Palm Springs. My dad had not seen them in close to 35 years, yet when we lived in Southern California we saw them all the time, were in each other houses. We were in Boy Scouts together, along with the Browers who made the drive to Palm Springs. All of these people are like family to us and it is a shame that we allowed so many years to pass without seeing each other. We did however try to make up for lost time. The Miller's are such great hosts. That soup was delicious. We enjoyed our afternoon with them and the Browers talking about old times.

From there, we managed to cross the LA basin without too much traffic to have dinner with my brother David in Sherman Oaks. It was good to see Dave. Dave works in the film industry. Since he lives so far, we don't get to see him as often as we would like. We need to take a picture next time we visit him. After dinner, we drove through the Grape Vine and spent the night in Buttonwillow.

The next morning, we got up bright and early. Had a McDonalds breakfast in the car while we drove home. It was the only time we stopped at McDonalds. We got home, by noon the day before Mothers Day.

I enjoy spending time with my dad and this trip will provide fond memories for many years.