Looks like I need to catch up a little bit once again, so starting with Thursday..... here we go.


   My usual morning ritual of breakfast, comics and crossword of course. Since I didn't get up until it was rather late in the morning, I didn't really do much for breakfast, just some orange juice and a banana to snack on. I had been in touch with my friend Joe early on that morning and he and I were going to meet up at El Tejado's for lunch on that day.
    It was good to see Joe again and have a little one on one time with him just to see and hear what he had been up to. Basically it was pretty much what he has been doing for the last several years. Work, he's a pretty good home repair guy if anyone in the Denver area needs one, Toastmasters, two or three times a week and working in the garden he has in the backyard.
   He had brought along an old 1973 summer activities brochure from the Washington Park Community Center that one of his sisters still had for some reason. He thought I might want it because it listed the folk dancing in the park that I have been going to for the past 44 years. He actually gave it to me, which was very nice, and then I took it with me to folk dancing in the park that very evening. Sugar, the guy who started it all, was there of course, along with his wife, Bettina, one of his daughters, Nora and a good friend of mine, Sharon Williams. So there were 4 of the original 8 people who had been there the first night Sugar had shown up to dance in 1970. Not counting me of course, because I was there too.
   They all got a really big kick out of the brochure of course, and I gave it away to Sugar and Bettina because they seemed like they really needed it more than I did. I think they have in mind framing it and hanging it on a wall in their home. It was really nice to see Sugars beaming face become even happier as he looked over the brochure and saw his name printed on it.
    Friday was pretty routine also, other than running a few errands late in the day. I went over to the nearest REI store and looked at sleeping bags for about an hour. Ended up getting a new summer weight bag that I'll use on the river trip next week. It isn't quite as light as the other one I have, and it won't pack down nearly as tight, but it will still be more than adequate for what I will be needing it for.
    I met up with my friend Nancy for dinner in Boulder that evening. I had gone to the pot luck at her house about a week ago, but there was so much company there that we really didn't have much time to talk. So we had a good meal at the brew pub, along with a nice glass of beer of course, and chatted for more than an hour.
   We finally ran the clock out though, and had to pick up and scurry over to the Avalon Club to contra dance for the rest of the evening. They had a couple of musicians in from Portland Oregon to provide the tunes, and Tina Fields did the calling for the night. With three very full lines, about 180 people, there for at least the first half, it was a rollicking good time. Unfortunately for me, I am starting to notice that my allergies start to kick into high gear after about the third dance. It has to be because of the dust that all the dancers are kicking up, even though they keep the floor swept and  mopped really well. So once in a while I need to sit one out and get my coughing back under control. I hate taking all the over the counter meds and eating cough drops like candy, but that is about the only way I know how to control it well enough to keep on dancing at times.
     Today was a rather slow day over all. I spent the morning just reading, but then logged in on the computer this afternoon to check up on a few things. One of them was the DVD player in my laptop that decided it didn't want to work for me any more a couple of days ago. I thought I could just circumvent the problem by going out and buying a separate stand alone DVD player that I could just plug into one of the USB ports in the side of the computer. But even that wasn't going to be an easy or quick fix for me.
    In the long run I did what I should of done in the first place which was to "Google" how to fix one. That lead me into hundreds of chat rooms and YouTube videos, none of which were what I needed. But it did finally lead me to a website for a company that sold computer software that said it could help. So after checking them out on line I decided to spend the $30 and see what it could do for me.
    After down loading it up, and going on line with one of their computer techs, they did manage to clear up a couple hundred of the more than a thousand problems that it said my computer had hiding out in it's software. But if I wanted more help, it was going to cost me an extra $250 to have a 'Qualified Microsoft Tech' check it out..... so I said NO! That the price was to much for me right now and that I didn't need anything more now that the DVD was fixed... and then I waited. Pretty soon they were back on the screen typing out that they could do it for only $150, but that they wouldn't give me a whole year of protection in that case,  just 6 months worth. Another resounding NO!, and they dropped it all the way down to $99.99. A figure I still wasn't happy with, but better than what I had started out looking at. So they then spent the better part of an hour scrubbing out old files and fixing things up. I'm not sure if they got it all taken care of, but it does seem to be running a lot faster and easier tonight. So maybe it was money well spent.
    Took off around 5:00 this afternoon and headed up north to the contra dance in Fort Collins. Had to take the long way around of course because of all of the highway construction that is going on along I-25. So it took me more than an hour and a half to make it all the way up there. The dance was good though. The music was from the same two women form Portland who had played the night before in Boulder. Lot's of nice people whom I would not of gotten to see or dance with if I hadn't of driven up. So over all it was a very nice evening.
    But now though, it is fast approaching 1:30 in the morning and I'm pretty wiped out. I think it is time to close this up, turn out the light and get some sleep.


*