Dawn & Nelson-Snowbirds

This is the travel diary of our "snowbird" winter in Arizona. We'll try our best to update this every day along to keep our friends and family updated on our lives.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Another "down"

...sad news to start my new week. I just found out that my friend and fellow model boat racer Troy McIntire passed away this morning. Troy had surgery to repair a ruptured achilles tendon on Thursday, and after complications was back in the hospital today. He had a blood clot that moved into his lungs, and he had a machine helping him breath. His heart stopped several times and despite their drastic measures, doctors were unable to save him. Wow. Bummer...two deaths in two days.

Nelson

Hi everyone...
It was one of those weeks this week. There were lots of ups and lots of downs, the biggest of which was the passing of my Grandma Holmberg yesterday. Maude Ellen Holmberg was my last remaining grandparent, and when she passed away Saturday afternoon, she was 91 years old...so we were all very lucky to have her for so long. My Grandpa Holmberg passed away in 1990, so Grandma lived for a long time by herself. Thankfully, she had my dad and my Aunt Betsy living in the Seattle area so she'd have someone around her a lot. Anyway, since getting the call from my dad yesterday, my mood has been kind of up and down. I can't decide if I should go to Seattle just to be around the family, even though there's really nothing I can do at this point, except be around family. But I have that here, too...

Earlier in the week, though, we had some fun stuff. Dawn and I signed all the papers on Estacada Video, and it's now officially ours! Dawn has been working so hard this week, doing training, getting all the appropriate paperwork finished up, and just getting started. I'll learn the things I need to know (how to check out/in movies, make coffee drinks, etc.) later, but she's really the day-to-day operator of the business. My role is to work on marketing/PR and maintenance.

So those are the two highlights/lowlights of the week.

Other stuff includes my two long dentist appointments. I really only had one tooth that was bothering me, but my new dentist (who bought the practice of my former dentist, who retired), found some fillings that he thought needed to be done. It hit me on Friday (after the second of two appointments), that my former dentist used to say there were some places that looked like they could use fillings, but didn't NEED fillings. I think the new guy decided to do them even if they didn't NEED to be done. The teeth weren't bothering me, and it didn't seem as if the supposed cavities were getting any worse, so I am a little irritated that maybe he's trying to quickly pay off the loan he got to buy the practice in the first place. At work, I got some publicity for a couple of clients, which is my job...but it always feels good to succeed. Until one of the clients complains that it wasn't enough – even though I got a story printed with a pretty un-newsworthy story idea. Oh well. It's still fun and I really like my job.

Lastly, I've had a chance to work on my new boat a little this month, and yesterday I got the decks put on. That's a milestone that marks the end of hull construction. I still have to build the cowlings and do all the paint, and hardware installation. There are a few pictures below.

This is my new boat. It'll eventually be the 1978 Miss Madison. There's a picture of the real boat below.


This is a picture of the real 1978 Miss Madison. What mine will look like when it's done.


This is Mick's new electric boat. He's going to try out the electric club a little bit next year to see if he likes it more than the nitro club. He's been working hard to get the "Little Bud" (1968 or 1972 version) ready for some testing.