Pappa Hardy’s Musings on Life.

Well, maybe not all that good, at least for the short run. I have been battling something akin to the stomach flu the last few days. That makes life a little bit of a challenge, but alas, we too shall over come this challenge. That is what it is all about, this life. It is about health and sickness, love and hate, light and darkness.

Now that the flu is going away, I am remembering again just how much I loved the trip that we just took to the south lands. When you get snow like we had in Utah County today, those trips to the southland, where there was actually some warmth, are great to think about. I like the four seasons, but I think spring and fall are my favorites. It is hard to believe that in a couple of months things will be much warmer. I at least can hope. I can hope for the good times.

I have a real good friend, one that I have been through a lot with. His name is unimportant. He currently lives in another state. I have a lot of respect for him and I care for him as much as friends care for each other.

A while back, he started having what he first thought was back or nerve problems in his legs. Eventually, no thanks to Wyoming doctors, he found out that he has MS. He is a brave man as he deals with this disease that he certainly did not invite upon himself. It is heart breaking to see a disease take its toll on a good friend. He is now almost bound to a wheel chair and he likely may never live to be 70.

I likewise have a brave new adventure to face. All the time I see in the newspapers now that so and so has died of complications due to Diabetes. The disease, in my case, that I brought upon myself will also take a great toll in my life. Luckily, right now my sugar is under control. However, it may not always be that way and I expect that I to am going to go to an early grave. Ah, the challenges of the world that we live in.

Today was one of those days that come only every so often. It was a crystal blue day. The colors were vivid all day long. They temperature about perfect. We started the day at the Avi Resort and Casino near Laughlin. The river was gorgeous.
We then drove down to Quartzsite. While the destination was not incredible, the trip was and we had some nice conversation and enjoyed each others company. We also mapped out some of our activities for the rest of the year.
We stopped by the famous London Bridge on our way back to Laughlin. It was framed in what was a fiery sunset that had all the colors of fire. It was a nice way to end a day.

That is a caption for a blog entry suggested by my wife. We are on a trip today. This morning we are in Cedar City and in a few moments, after a “most wonderful” continental breakfast provided by our motel, we will be on our way to Laughlin, Nevada, via Las Vegas. The caption for the blog comes from the fact that I am sitting here composing this at my laptop while my wife and mother in law are laying on the beds, stretching and exercising their bodies. Oh, how wonderful it is for us to grow older and for us to try and keep from growing older faster than we should.

Regardless, today we spend some time in Las Vegas. I think we are going to try and hit a brunch at the Paris and hope that it is really good with some seafood. It will be another walk through a very materialistic city. I want to take pictures of that place, but am not sure that I should take my nice new camera out and let other people see it. I am paranoid about loosing such things. Well, in any event, we are off and running.

I have come into work this morning because I have to. Why? Well, if I want to go on vacation and have any piece of mind, I am going to need to come into work. That is how it works for a banker. You have so cotton pickin much that you deal with on an ongoing basis that you need to get away from it, but in order to get away from it, you have to do more of it before you don’t have to do it at all, for a few days. Does that make any sense?

I need to get away from the bank. I need some time to sit and read next to a beach, or in this case, next to a river. I want to take tons of pictures. I want to be an artist, in some sense. I love photography. I sometimes wish I had made it my livelihood. I am good at, and I love it. There are other things that I love to do that perhaps I should have made my life work, and then maybe I wouldn’t need a vacation. Wrong!!!

Well, given the winter we have had at our house, I thought the whole Wasatch Front was awash in snow, and thus we were having a great water year. Well, I was confused. I was confused by the fact that it was so cold that the snow, which we had a lot of in November and December had not melted. I thought the whole range of mountains was awash in water, but it turns out that the cold kept the snow that we had received on the ground. We are actually way below the water we need, and I guess we are in a drought. It was weird. Once the warm weather has come, it has become apparent that we don’t have nearly the water that we need. It has been a dry winter, and we need water here in this desert. I have once again been reminded that I know live in a desert. That is a fact of my life that I need to remember.

Well, I went to a management meeting again today for the bank. This time, it was our Regional group instead of the whole bank. What do you know, it was almost a complete replay of the meetings I went to last week. Maybe some people come back from these meetings all invigorated, excited, ready to push forth and slay the dragons. For me, I come back with fear. It is the fear of not measuring up. I guess I somehow need to change my mind set.

In the meantime, I need to go out and get the job done.

I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal today about the effort on mainland China to make sure that all of the signs that have been translated into English there are correct. Beijing has the Olympics scheduled for 2008 and they would like to make sure that it is correct.

Having lived in Taiwan for 3 years, I can say that some of the signs certainly were humorous. It is going to be too bad in some ways, because it was always a private joke that some westerners enjoyed when looking at the signs. I guess politically correct Chinglish is also in vogue now, at least on mainland China.