Hey there Pop,

You will never believe what we saw today - a Bald Eagle flying down the river! It was amazing! He was fully grown and beautiful (I'm assuming it was a he, they're the only ones that get the white head right?). I tried to take a picture, but it only turned out as a blob in a tree. Sadly, my SLR was out of batteries and film, so I couldn't use that big old telephoto lens that you got me.

Scott just sort of caught it out of the corner of his eye and showed me - we're lucky to have seen it.

So other than that I don't have a ton to report. Well, I suppose that's not true...

- The basement flooded again, only not as bad this time. Not only did we not have the basement completely back together, but we were better at clearing up and the river didn't get as high. So it was a pain, but not as bad as before.

- Happily, since the flood wasn't as bad, the new wall that Scott put in didn't get damaged. Yeah, he and Fred put a wall up right next to the shelf you guys built. We haven't had time to paint it, but I guess that's for the best (it got a bit damp after all).

- St. Patrick's Day was fun and I heard/read a couple of jokes that made me think of you:

An Irish man shows up in a pub one day and orders three pints of Guinness. He takes sips from each glass until they are empty and calls the bartender for three more. The bartender says, 'Sure it's up to yourself, but wouldn't you rather I was bringing them one at a time? Then they'll be fresh and cold.'

'Nah...' your man says, ' I'm preferrin' that ye bring 'em three at a time. You see, me and me two brothers would meet at a pub and drink and have good times. Now one is in Australia, the other in Canada and I'm here. We agreed before we split up that we'd drink to each others honor this way.'

'Well,' says the bartender, 'that's a grand thing to do, all right. I'll bring the pints as you ask.'

Well, time goes on and your man's peculiar habit is known and accepted by all the pub regulars. One day though, he comes in and orders only two pints. A hush falls over the pub. Naturally, everyone figures something happened to one of the brothers. A group of the regulars corner the bartender and finally persuade him to find out what happened. With a heavy heart, the bartender brings the two pints and says, 'Here's your pints... and let me offer my sincerest condolences. What happened?'

The Irish man looks extremely puzzled for a moment, and then starts laughing.

'Oh, no, no, no! 'Tis nothing like that. You see, I've given up drinking for Lent...'

Funny right?

- I finally got a wii fit, it's been a lot of fun. I'm trying hard to do it every day, but not very well :-)

- Oh, I goofed up on the ice a while back and banged the Mazda into a curb - sorry. The good news is that it wasn't bad, just a bit of an alignment problem, Jacob fixed it and it seems fine now. I think that it's not much of a winter car, so I'll be careful from now on.

- I had my birthday, I really missed you. I went ahead and took the day off, I figured that my day would be pretty tough, so I figured I'd lay low.

- I finally went down to Wild Birds Unlimited and got a new feeder, along with a bunch of seed and some special food to help birds have healthy eggs during the nesting season. Hopefully it works.

- Mom called and said that Julie lost her house, apparently she refinanced at some point and got behind. I don't know where she moved or what's going on, but Mom says that now the people are ripping down the chimney and doing a bunch of other random stuff. Sounds strange, I told Mom to send me some pictures so I can see what's up.

- Scott got a job (I know, total shocker)! The tile work was really dropping off and we've been getting worried, and then he managed to find this position doing weatherization inspections. It's for a non-profit organization that helps low-income families take advantage of the energy rebate stuff. He's only been at it a week, but so far it's been good. He's off to Lansing next week for more training. And happily it comes with hourly wages and benefits!

- The card store downtown has closed - I'm so sad about it, it really was a wonderful place. I loved going down there and just hanging out with everyone there. She's going to have limited classes at her house, so I'll have some opportunities. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with some of the ladies, they're all pretty great. But it really was one of my anchors, I mean, what am I going to do for 2 hours on Saturday morning?

Sorry to have rambled on, mostly it's been a hard winter and I'm very tired. I keep trying to be up and ok, but what I really need is some sun and time off to enjoy life again. Here's hoping.

Talk to you later Pop, I love you.

Hey there Pop,

Sorry I haven't been around in a bit. I just haven't known what to say lately - I just miss you so much. Everyone says that it's hard to lose your Dad, I agree. But I didn't just lose my Dad (that would be bad enough) I lost one of my best friends. I miss not telling you things, I miss hearing all your random stuff, I miss knowing that I could call you to find out anything I ever needed to know. I miss talking about my pictures, I miss finding out about the house renovations, I miss hearing about the A's even though I never really cared. I miss you.

And other people miss you too. I've been on Facebook for a while - it's a "social networking" website and I've found Jessica, Yvette, Jenny and Shelley (as well as a bunch of other elementary, junior high, high school and college friends - it's pretty cool). Jessica and I chatted back and forth, talking about you and Chuck. It's been a while since he passed, but we're both in the same boat - we both had great Dads and we're both a little less without them. The other three of the fearsome foursome miss you too - I met up with them in San Diego a couple of weeks ago and they all had such nice things to say about you.

The other day I had a dream about you, Aunt Barb and Grammy were there - we were all in the old house at Rossmore. I knew that you were all gone, but I didn't care because I was just so glad to see you all and talk to you. I was a little worried to see Uncle Jim, but maybe he and I were just visiting you all - hopefully he's ok. I should probably call and check on him.

Speaking of pictures - here's a collage of all my January pictures.


I kept doing a photo a day, I really liked it last year, and I think I'm getting pretty good with it. Oh, and Mer and Tammy are doing it too, so that's kind of fun.

I guess that's it - oh crap, I almost forgot! The Sharks were in first place!!!! Not just in the division, actual first place. They're doing really well this year, maybe you're pulling some strings for them?

All right, that's probably it for real - I promise to not be gone so long again.

Talk to you later Pop, I love you.

Hey there Pop,

I was driving home yesterday and saw the new TL - it sure looks a lot more like a bat-mobile than the last one! The new one is way too swoopy, Mom would hate it, way to much chrome too. Oh well, it's not like she needs a new car anytime soon.

Of course I thought of you when I saw it, sure it's a lot less pretty then the other one, but every time I see one I always think that you should have gotten that car. I know Mom loves the Infinity, but I really do think that it was the better car.

But it gets me thinking, what are we going to do when it's time to get a new car? What's going to happen, who's going to pick out a car for Mom? I guess that maybe John can help us - he really knows a lot about performance cars.

Though I do have a bone to pick with you on your last car choice - no heated seats in the Mazda? I realize that you weren't really planning for me to have the car, or for it to have to go through Michigan winters - but heated seats would have been nice!

I guess that's enough babbling about cars for now, but I'm sure we'll talk more about it at some point, Mom's going to need a new car at some point :-)

Talk to you later Pop, I love you.

Hey there Pop,

So what did you think? Pretty great stuff today - that's for sure. I've got to say, I like saying President Obama, it makes me happy. It seems like everyone was really feeling pretty great today, I really hope that we can all continue to feel that way.

I thought that President Obama's speech was inspiring and yet approachable - but then, I've always felt that he is an amazing orator. And I'm pleased that the country finally has an eloquent and educated person in charge - I think good things are going to happen.

I really loved the piece that Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Pearlman did, "Air and Simple Gifts". It was really well done, but then what would you expect. I thought of you a lot during that part, wondering what you'd think of today.

You're missing some serious history here Pop. It makes me sad, but I know you're still keeping track so that makes it a little less sad.

Talk to you later Pop, I love you.

Hey there Pop,

I was listening to the radio today, and they were interviewing this guy that drove his truck off the road into freezing water, swam to shore and then walked, wet and frozen, for hours looking for someone to help him - and he survived. Then he talked about how he kept telling God that he didn't want to die, that he had a wife and grandchildren - he wanted to live for them. He said he kept asking God to live, and he did.

So I was wondering, did you ask? Did you tell God that you didn't want to go, that there were still people that needed you here? Did you have time to ask? Would you have asked if you had time? Or did you give up, were you ready? Because we weren't.

You know how I feel about God, that I've always had doubts. Sometimes I wish I could believe, but it's just too hard to. Because what if you asked Pop, what if you asked to stay - and God said no. How can I believe in someone who would do that?

I guess I can't.

Talk to you later Pop, I love you.

Hey there Pop,

I know it's been a while, but we've been dealing with a bunch of crap lately. We got back from California in good order, really one of the best flights back we've ever had - the flight was on time, we weren't rushed, the baggage wasn't too heavy, the flight attendants were nice and we even got exit row seats. Until we got back into Detroit it was pretty great, but then the inevitable waiting for baggage - that and the fact that it was past midnight by then.

I forgot to tell you that they got the new terminal done, now there's no more ghetto terminal. We first flew out of the new terminal in September, as we rolled the bags in I thought "I should call Dad and tell him" - of course I couldn't, so I'm telling you now. The funny thing is that there was still a bunch of construction and three months later it's still not done. Sounds like a typical project, all the little stuff left to the end and then never done.

Speaking of done, Brett got the rest of the porch finished. It's all painted and looks pretty good. Mom's mad because she said the painter didn't prime it - then he came back and did a crap job of power washing something and got the windows dirty. She was less than pleased, but then when isn't she.

But anyway, back to me :-). A couple days after we got home, the river flooded! It was amazing, in a bad way. The back basement got about a foot of water in it - every thing seems fine, the plants were all high up. The only real problem is that the small lawn mower may need a bit of work, drying out the engine, etc. The main basement ended up with about an inch of water - you should have seen all the sandbags we had - inside and out! We were up all night dealing with it, Jacob came over to help us most of the night, plus we had the Fire Department over a couple times (setting sandbags and helping with the pump).

Actually the fire inspector was over today to look at the damage so that they could work on a better plan for the next time. That's a phrase that scares the crap out of me "next time".

Here's what it looked like when it was still "pretty", it was close, but not too bad yet...


By the next morning (when I could take more pictures) the water was within a foot of the top of the fence - which is what, three maybe three and a half feet? The water was pretty damn high.

The only real loss in the main basement is the carpet. We were able to move, lift or some how deal with everything else. There's a bit of damage on the back of the big bookcases, but I think it's because of condensation on that back wall (the damage looks old). So now were in the process of putting in new carpet, and Scott's going to set some tile near the door all the way over to the laundry area, so that we won't track mud on the carpet any more. And he's going to put a wall in next to the cabinet you guys built. It should make it nicer down there.

So that's what's new around here.

Talk to you later Pop, I love you.

Hey there Pop,

Should I tell you what I got you for Christmas? Or do you already know?

I had a whole list of stuff to get you, this year I really had a bunch of great stuff. I guess the good news is that I only bought the one thing - so it's not like I have to return a bunch of stuff or figure out the correct new recipient.

I did get you that one thing - the Indians baseball cap, right from the ballpark. It has great stitching on it, it's not one of the fitted ones, but it's a nice one. I would give it to Jerry, but I bought one for him while I was there. And I just can't give it to anyone. Somehow, even though I never gave it to you, it's yours and I'm not ready to just give it away.

I was going to finally get you a Michigan flag, I've been meaning to do it since we moved, but I just never got around to it.

Of course I found a book that you would have loved, it's called Traffic. It's about why we all do the dumb things we do in cars. I heard about it on the radio one day and thought that you'd really get a kick out of it. I'd get it for Uncle Jim, but I'm never really sure of his reading level since the stroke and I hate to make it hard on him.

Mostly I just wish that Christmas would be over already. The only one who even wants to celebrate is Mer and I think it's just because of the girls - none of us have our hearts in it. I didn't even decorate our house this year. Mom's not faring much better, she's behind and feels overwhelmed with all the day to day stuff that throwing Christmas in on top of it is too much.

Scott and I took the girls down to Prime Smoked Meats to get the ham - that was an adventure. I thought it was by the old Swan's market, but it wasn't. And when we got there they were out of just about all the different types of ham. We got a giant bone in ham, I hope it's right! But it's not like we had a ton of choice - I guess I should just be happy that they had some hams left.

We all went Union Square to see the menorah lighting, tonight was the first night of Hanukkah. The girls had a great time, there was a band and a craft booth. Did I mention that it was raining the whole time? It was, but everyone had a pretty good sense of humor about it.

I really wanted to go - somehow it seems really important to me that I get to celebrate Hanukkah this year, usually it's just something that Scott and I do. Maybe it's just that I really don't want to celebrate Christmas at all this year. I wouldn't even have flown home if I thought I could have gotten away with it (not like Mom would have let me, but...).

We're changing the whole time table of Christmas too. We're going to have everyone over around 1pm. No more Christmas morning. It had to happen some time, but now seems to be the best time for it. No one can bear the thought of you not being here to cook breakfast. And I can't stand the thought of you not sitting in the big chair falling asleep while we all open presents. So this way Uncle Jim and Aunt Cindy and Greg will arrive at the same time as Mer and Jerry and the girls - and we'll have more of an afternoon of it. Hopefully we'll have time to play games and other things without everything being too rushed. I think it will be good.

I'm really missing you a lot Pop, I'm just not sure how I'm going to make it through the next couple of days. I'm sure that I'll just keep at it the way I've been, but it's hard to be here without you.

Talk to you later Pop, I love you.