Another year older

On Sunday, I enjoyed another great birthday celebration, thanks to all of my swim and Facebook friends, and my two lovely daughters.
My birthday gifts included a $10 gift card to QuikTrip (yay!), a variety six-pack of dark beers and porters (double-yay!!), a bottle of Martinelli's sparkling cider, and to top it off, a Terry's chocolate orange (triple-yay!!!). Chocolate and dark beer -- what could be better. Well, it did get better. After the gift exchange, I was treated to an absolutely scrumptious lunch at Kona Grill in San Tan Village. To start things off, I ordered a Hibiscus Margarita. If you haven't had one, you should. One word: Patron! My drink was followed by my all-time favorite meal, Macadamia Nut Chicken. I made sure to save room for dessert and was planning on ordering cheesecake, but to my delight, our server brought me my own personal velvet mini-cake, complete with cream cheese frosting! Yummy!
After lunch, my oldest daughter headed off with her boyfriend, while my youngest stayed behind and we spent the next couple of hours just talking. A priceless gift, if you ask me, as we don't get to see each other often enough.
Another memorable birthday is in the books. Getting older definitely has its perks!

Chihuahua People!

I don't know why I didn't know this before. You would think that having been the owner of a Chihuahua for 12 years, I would know about this forum: Chihuahua-People!

This fabulous forum uses the same interface as United States Masters Swimming, so even though it's full of little doggy stuff, it has the same familiar feel.

Of course, I can't end this post without including a picture of my own little baby, Chiquita who turned 12 this past September. When she was a puppy, she was solid black except for a little white diamond on her chest. As you can see by the photo, like me, she is becoming more gray as she ages. But, I think she looks very distinguished, don't you?

Remembering Fran Crippen

Two years ago today, the swimming community and the world lost an amazing young athlete, Fran Crippen. His untimely death during an open water swim competition stunned me. How could something like this happen in our sport? Although he is gone, his legacy continues. Because of Fran, steps are being taken to ensure that this never happens again.
My heart goes out to his family on this day.

Endeavour is home

Bonez Sighting!!

When I moved to my current home in 2009, my daughter and I brought her cat, Bonez, along with our other two pets. Bonez, it turned out, did not want to leave his old neighborhood, which was only 1 mile away. We tried unsuccessfully 7 times to acclimate him to his new home, but to no avail. When we thought it was safe to let him out, he would stick around for a day, and then would head straight back to our old house. We tried converting him to an indoor cat, but he was originally a feral kitten that my daughter rescued and he tore up a couple of my upstairs window screens trying to escape. We knew he simply would not be happy living indoors. So, we reluctantly let him go.
Fast forward several years, and while I was walking through my old neighborhood this morning, I chose to walk in a different part than usual, and who did I run into? Bonez! He looks absolutely great! It's probably been three years since I've seen him, but it seemed like yesterday. We spent about 5 minutes together, getting reacquainted. I have to admit, I did cry, and it was really hard to say goodbye. But, I know he is only a mile away, and that he is doing well. He is where he wants to be and he is being cared for.

Bonez, coming to greet me.

Assuming the "pet me" position.

We'll always love you, Bonez.

Feline Baumgartner

Felix Baumgartner made his historic, if not terrifying, leap from the stratosphere this week. And, you know you're not really famous until a LOL or some kind of Meme exists in your honor. Well, to my delight, here is what I found on I Can Has Cheezburger today. LOL!!!

Fall Color in Northern Arizona

I paid my daughter a visit and we took in the majestic Fall color of beautiful northern Arizona. Just a few minutes drive from her dorm is Arizona's Snowbowl ski area. The drive up the mountain provides lots of Fall color viewing, with the Aspens in different shades of yellow and red.

Half-way up the mountain.

Some of the Aspens are quite tall

Snowbowl runs their chair lift year-round, which provides a great way to see the mountains and take in the glorious views.

Looking down from 55 feet up in the chair

The view from the top looking South towards Phoenix

Soaking up the rays at 11,500 feet

Not your usual Arizona neighborhood

I'll never forget my first time visiting Arizona during a business trip in 1980. My manager and I went to Arizona to pay a customer support visit to the microelectronics division of General Instrument. We flew into Phoenix's Sky Harbor airport, but instead of renting a car, we were met at the gate by none other than our customer, who informed us that he would be flying us to our destination. Flying us?! This was fine by me, but Chandler was only 20 minutes from Phoenix, why would we need to fly? Well, I quickly learned that this particular customer lived in a very special neighborhood in Chandler, which was situated next to Stellar Airpark. In this neighborhood, plane hangars, in addition to a standard garage, were the norm. Yup, that's right -- he flew us to his home -- parking his plane in his very own hangar, and then drove us the 2 miles to General Instrument.

Here's a current aerial shot showing one of the streets in the same neighborhood 32 years later. Not much has changed. One homeowner even uses his tennis court to park his planes! To see the planes in greater detail, click the image.

Here's a fun bit of trivia. The microelectronics division I had visited all those years ago was spun off by General Instrument back in 1987 and became Microchip Technology Inc., the very company I now work for (and have for years). The original building still exists, which we now call C1, and every now and then I like to visit it for old times sake. :)

Comparing Strokes

When reading stories on the Internet and in magazines, I see lots of images of open water swimmers. The typical image is during arm recovery, while the swimmer is taking a breath. I have such an image my daughter took of me while swimming in an open water race in Tempe Town Lake two years ago. I compared it to one of my favorite swimmers, Penny Palfrey, and found our styles are very similar. I'm in the bottom of the photo, with Penny on top. The major difference I can see is that since she's swimming in the ocean, she's riding a bit higher in the water (plus she is waaay tanner than me). :)

Beach Decor

After recently spending a week in southern California, and especially 3 wonderful days in La Jolla, I've really got the itch to decorate "Beach Style". I've been working on decorating my spare room "Swim Style", but I would like to take it further with the rest of my house, but focus more on coastal elements than just the pool. Here's my first element. I bought the shells in a great little sea-side shop in La Jolla and found the apothecary jar at Ross for less than $10. Yay!

I really like the glass starfish atop the apothecary jar and took a close-up macro shot with my cell phone. I got lucky with this one. My artist daughter upon seeing it exclaimed "Dude, I want to paint that!". Click the image to see it full-size. The way the light reflected through it is really amazing.

Righting a Wrong

Back in July, NBC Universal announced that pre-orders could be made for their "Go For The Gold" -- Olympic Swimming DVD. And, by ordering early, a free London Olympic pin would be included in the order (providing supplies last, of course). Well, in September, just when the DVDs should start shipping, they announced they would not be producing the DVD and made a suggestion for something I wouldn't consider buying, and informed me that my order would be cancelled and I wouldn't be charged. I was really disappointed to say the least. A few days later, I received an email letting me know that my Olympic pin had shipped. Cool, I thought -- even though the DVD was being cancelled, they were honoring the "free" pin. Not so! A day or so later, I was alerted by my bank that I was being charged $9 and change by NBC Universal -- the exact price of a London Olympic pin. Now my dander was really up!!
Instead of wasting my time contacting their customer support people, I posted my disappointment on their Facebook page and the following is what ensued:

It took more than a week to resolve the issue, and I had to go back to them on the 29th and pose the question "And..." since I hadn't heard anything from them, but I'm satisfied that the issue is resolved. To be honest, resolving the issue through Facebook was easy and pleasant.