Internet parodies

I have written many times before about how the internet has changes things – the way we interact, conduct business, entertain ourselves, stay connected. Recently the whole idea of how we entertain ourselves became highlighted anew for me and I thought I would talk about it a bit.

As mentioned here, we got rid of cable about 8-9 months ago. Although Mrsfabp misses the mindless babble of some show or another in the back ground, I have to say that I don’t miss it at all. We utilize nexflix and hulu and other similar content aggregators to watch specific TV shows and we watch them differently now. Last weekend we watched CBS’ Big Bang Theory – not one show but 6 consecutive shows, few commercials, with bathroom and snack breaks at our time, not theirs. MJ is reliving some early childhood moments re-watching Rug Rats, the Nickelodeon classic, without all the cereal and toy commercials. I get to watch a baseball game almost every night during the season and have plenty of shows to catch up on when there are no games – Eureka and Burn Notice to name a couple. I watch Colbert and Jon Stewart, streaming from Comedy Central and get Letterman clips when in the mood.

One of the real benefits of the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter is that they provide tips about things to watch. For example this weekend, someone I follow on twitter mentioned a video called “My Drunk Kitchen” which is a short parody of all those cooking shows on The Food Network. Having been a FN fan, this was right up my alley. Having been drunk once or twice in my life helped solidify my watching experience. Someone else, on Facebook mentioned a Bob Dylan parody of a popular song right now and this too was a great entertaining experience while drinking my coffee Saturday morning.

The internet parodies are something that didn’t really exist 15-20 years ago in any form. Sure, someone spent time to video a skit or something but it rarely saw the light of day for the general public. Yes, someone may have made a funny song parody, Weird Al Yankovic comes to mind, but again access to it was more limited. Comedy albums? Except for an occasional Bill Cosby or Bob Newhart, kinda blah. Youtube began to change that a few years ago with postings of comedy performances and clips that heightened peoples reputations like Mitch Hedberg. Why back in my day we waited until someone passed around a mimeographed sheet of off color jokes or cartoons and we were happy to see the 17^th copy of it with the barely legible type and all the creases and fold lines. The internet changed all that and the entertainment comes streaming in at gigabytes a second.

CollegeBoy and his roommates at school made a parody song the day after Osama Bin Laden was killed. To date it has over 17,000 unique views. This just boggles my mind, to think that that many different people have seen it. His roommate Christian aka skullkruncher13 has a youtube channel where he makes internet game raps and several of them have over 2 million views – 2 MILLION! Man, the kids nowadays huh!

A few entertaining links:

For “My drunk kitchen” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmHdRTX-g9Y

For Bob Dylan’s “Friday” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FISHEO3gsM

For CollegeBoys Roommate video and game rap videos, check out … http://www.youtube.com/user/skullkruncher13

She’s leaving home. Bye, bye…

There is so much planning and emotional content to moving far away. What about the furniture? Who will be our doctor? Do we take the cat? What about our kids? Yes, what about our kids.

CollegeBoy is easy. He is beginning to find his dream, has figured out something he is very good at and this summer will expose the real world to the marketing possibilities of social media and social networking. With only one year of college left, he is planning to live in NYC and take the Big Apple Challenge – the “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere” test. I have no doubts he will succeed and really enjoy very much whatever the challenges he accepts. He is checked off our list.

But what about MillieJupiter? She is an adult. She has a job that she loves and is good at and where her skills are respected. She has lived with us since returning from college because mostly, Librarian is wonderfully fulfilling work except in the wallet area. This past few years have been nice, having her home again. I missed her so much when she went to college. Hell I balled like a baby for 4 hours when we helped her move from her college life to her first apartment. We welcomed her home when it didn’t work out and despite some rocky times, we all lived happily ever after or at least until our retirement plans require us to move across the country. This has been a rough patch for us all. She did not want to leave her job and relocate. Finances were tight and she would have a great deal of trouble affording her own place. So we looked and prodded and hoped and then Mrsfabp stumbled upon a possibility (extra kudos to Mrsfabp here) and MJ liked it a lot and can afford it and is content with entering into a roommate situation again and in just a few short days, she’s moving out.

Already I feel the tears but not just because we will miss her. I am happy she is taking this step into adulthood that we all need to take. We will always be there for her, even if we’re 2000 miles away because that’s what we do, that’s who we are. She has an ever expanding life and is growing up more each day. This will be good for her and for us. Knowing she is settled and safe is a load off my mind. Enough to make a tear or two about. Yes, she is leaving home, but in some ways she is going home too. And I feel good about that.

The also rans...

In the previous post here, I explained the premise: road trip, baseball movies, best of the best. Easy. But not all baseball movies can make the cut and so, a list of those that didn’t, why they didn’t and some quotes along the way.

Bad News Bears – I mentioned this briefly in the previous post but do believe it is entitled to a bit more explanation of why it gets cut. Good, wholesome idea and plot – unruly kids, drunk coach, improbable odds and a bit of magic creates a memorable film. However, the sequeals killed it and in reality, I need more thatn a bunch of foul mouth kids, drunk coach and pratfalls and mistakes to think it deserves classic status. Entertaining? Yes, Good baseball movie? Yes again. In the same league as some of the best? No, not this film. But I do give kudos to Walter Matthau who seems to have been born to play that role.

"This quitting thing, it's a hard habit to break once you start”

Pride of the Yankees – This is what passed as a great baseball movie back in 1942 when it was released. It wasn’t about baseball, it was about relationships. Where are the car crashes, where are the explosions? No really, it is a look inside a complicated man and the relationships he has with the various people in his life – his parents, domineering mother, wife, sports writers and teammates as well as the public. Problems – multiple, starting with the fact that Gary Cooper was not an athlete, was right handed and they reversed the film to make him accurately bat left handed but then considerably altered Gehrig’s speech to the fans at Yankee Stadium on Lou Gehrig Day to better fir the tenor of the film. With such a well covered event, it would be like having Charlton Heston part the Red Sea in the “Ten Commandments” with an iPad. That plus there is so little baseball playing shown, in part due to Cooper, a fact that is covered with stirring montages of stadiums and pennants and other similar images. Come on people, play ball why don’t you.

“Is it three strikes, Doc?” “You want it straight?” “Yeah”. “It's three strikes.”

Bang the Drum Slowly is a melodrama staring a then unknown Robert DeNiro. Again this is not about baseball but rather is a drama set in a baseball uniform. These guys could have been any other sports figures by changing very little. Good moving film, just not one deserving of the Hall of Fame Bus Tour.

“Skip the facts, just gimme the details.”

Major League – Not much to see here I must admit. Sure, some funny parts and lines but no lessons learned except that sometimes fiction (Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn” plays out in reality (Charlie “Two and a Half Men Meltdown” Sheen). Just not enough to warrant inclusion in the classic baseball extravaganza.

"I’m tired of pretending I’m not a total bitchin’ rock star from Mars." (woops, sorry, quoted the real Charlie Sheen…)
“Vaughn's been looking good out there today. “ “Don't worry, he'll blow it.”
(You tell me which quote is more appropriate and truthful…)

A League of Their Own – This was the toughest one to eliminate and I will admit right from the start that should we expand this to the Top Six Baseball Films, it gets the nod as next one in. It is funny, historically based, full of baseball lessons that are real. A bit too much “girly stuff” for my taste in a baseball movie but the acting and directing and pace are all winners in my book. Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, Jon Lovitz, Garry Marshall, directed by Penny Marshall. American Classic. Put it in the bullpen and be ready to call it in, but it just does not make my starting five.

“Well I was just wonderin' why you would throw home when we got a two-run lead. You let the tying run get on second base and we lost the lead because of you. Start using your head. That's the lump that's three feet above your ass.: Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There's no crying! THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! Rogers Hornsby was my manager, and he called me a talking pile of pig shit. And that was when my parents drove all the way down from Michigan to see me play the game. And did I cry? NO. And do you know why? Because there's no crying in baseball. THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! No crying!

A list of movies I would not even have considered…
The Rookie – good movie with Dennis Quaid, almost made it to the also ran status
Air Bud, Seventh Inning Fetch - enough said
The Babe starring an incredible simulated Babe in John Goodman nor The babe Ruth Story with William Bendix
BASEkatball – remind me to tell you the Mrsfabp story about this classic
Ed – the monkey and Matt LeBlanc, what were they thinking?
Summer Catch – please…
Fever Pitch – Jimmy Fallon AND Drew Barrymore, in the same movie?

It’s a rainy Sunday so I was thinking about movies…

…and it reminded me of this story from a number of years ago:

My brother-in-law KML of Manhattan Man fame, and I once hatched this great idea for a vacation extravaganza. A long bus trip where we would visit the major sports Halls of Fame – NFL in Canton, OH, Baseball in Cooperstown, Basketball in Springfield, MA and Hockey in Toronto, Canada. We figured we would have plenty of beer on board and serve stadium food like hot dogs and peanuts and chili and nachos and pretzels and well you get the idea. We also figured that we would need to provide some entertainment to the masses onboard and thought that sports movies would be the best thing we could provide. When we got to the baseball movies we realized that there way too many for the trip and so we had to narrow it down to just the best of the best. I forget what ones we came up with that day but when I was thinking about this today. I figured I would give you a list of the ones I would want to see and why, and which ones don’t make the cut. Here they are:

Baseball movies to see, in no particular order (YEMV!):

The Natural – great book, good movie even if a bit overdone. It depicts an era of baseball that is awash in its innocence and reflects it in just how the characters are presented. Plus, the homerun off the lights stanchion gives us the fireworks display we all love.

“Pick me out a winner Bobby.”

Bull Durham – This movie seemed to give a fairly realistic look at life in the minor leagues. I think that is why I liked this film as much as I did. Kevin Cosner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins give quirky, earthy performances as 3 bit players in a Passion Play about baseball and life. Every baseball fan knows of a Crash Davis type, hard working but always destined to be in the minor leagues but with lots of knowledge to impart. Nuke Laloosh, he of the million dollar arm and ten cent brain (you hearing this AJ Burnett) and Annie Savoy, one of the original baseball annies. This movie really understands how baseball as life fits into our experience and existence and ends up being a lot more than a simple baseball movie.

“Man that ball got outta here in a hurry. I mean anything travels that far oughta have a damn stewardess on it, don't you think?”

The Sandlot – Kids playing baseball has been part of movies since the Little Rascals or even before. But they can be divided into several genre – over the top kids / Bad news Bears; kids with animals or other unbelievable things / that baseball playing monkey, Angels in the Outfield; Fictional stories / where the young kid becomes a manager and team wins; and the only really good kind of kid baseball movie, like The sandlot, which is about a kid’s coming of age because there is baseball.

“Baseball was life! And I was good at it... real good.”

Eight Men Out – Besides being life, baseball is also a teacher and this movie focuses on the lesson we learn when we cheat. This movie is about the darkest era of modern baseball history, the 1919 Back Socks Scandal where the Chicago White Socks threw the World Series that year. The eight team members were banned from baseball because of it and one, Shoeless Joe Jackson, has never made the Hall of Fame despite deserving such an honor based on his performance on the field. In an odd tip of the cap to the current era, Pete Rose showed us that the “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it award” goes to him for betting on baseball and not being allowed in the Hall of Fame despite fine batting credentials that would have made him a hero under any other circumstances.

“Regardless of the verdict of juries... no player who throws a ball game... no player who undertakes, or promises to throw a game... no player who sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing a ball game are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it... will ever play professional baseball again.”

Field of Dreams – Of all the movies mentioned, this is the one that always brings a tear to my eye. This is the movie that seals the “Baseball is life” meme in me. When Ray Kinsella has the opportunity to play catch with his father again, it never fails to touch a part of my own life, my relationship with my father, regrets about that relationship and the healing power of baseball that I have hoped I have passed on to my own son. Corny, perhaps, but real in every sense of that word. I also tear up when Dr. Graham, as a kid steps out of the field of dreams to save Ray’s daughter, perhaps one of the greatest fictional acts of kindness ever filmed.

“Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

Next up, a look at the films that did not make the Hall of Fame for me in the film department

MASS Exodus: Spring Update, May 2011

It has been a while and lots of things are happening here so I figured I would update where we are now in the process. So here goes.

Number one priority, the house has been put on the market. After discussion with our realtor, we decided to put the house up with a higher price than we expected to get such that there was some wiggle room and area for givebacks related to the work that must be done on the home – the new septic system and new roof. These two jobs come with written estimates totaling about $21K. After two weeks we had two people look at the house, remark about the work needed to be done along with updating and cosmetic work, and pass. Our realtor has now proposed a change in strategy, where we market it as a rehab project, with a much lower price. This makes some sense to us but of course is a blow to our ego as we struggle with things like overpriced and updating. We also have decided to put the last of our funds into getting rid of our underground oil tank, moving it to our basement. Banks giving mortgages frown on underground oil tanks even though ours was certified by our oil company because we are on an auto fill system and they had to pressurize it to make sure of the size when calculating the monthly bill. Other things already accomplished or in process – Front bay window, repaired, broken bedroom window fixed and put back in, shed doors replaced, new shed rafters to be done this weekend, washing out of basement, Saturday afternoon job, new grass by new well, planted. Grass in yard cut. The list is endless, endless I say.

I have to admit that Mrsfabp and I have been having difficulty with all the stress this is creating. We are short with each other, generally grumpy about it all and having some trouble on the communication front. However, these are usually short lived and we work through it all pretty quickly but it is there and a pain and we keep trying to be supportive of each other through this all. This process sucks and we both recognize that.

Now onto some more stressful stuff, my own retirement. I finally completed my paperwork for a retirement date, including the request for a reclassification. The reclassification was a necessary thing as this state does not recognize clinical work as direct service. This could be a 10% difference in my monthly pension. At least 7 clinicians that have retired in the last 2 years have applied for it and gotten it but to me, the stress of waiting is immense and just has me worried. To top this off, there is a new bill introduced into the Massachusetts senate to offer an early retirement incentive. They have been trying to get the workers in the 50-60 year old range out of the jobs because the newer workers pay more toward retirement, thus building up the retirement account. Sounds good to me, as if I need extra incentive to retire. This just gets to be a problem with the timing of both the house sale, move plan and retirement date.

Just what I need a bit more stress. By the time July comes I am going to need a green chile cheeseburger and craft beer badly. At least I will be able to get one in Las Cruces.

It’s déjà vu all over again…

With apologies to the great Yogi Berra, philosopher and ballplayer…

Almost all of us has experienced it sometimes in our life. You remember the experience, the weird feelings you get that you have been somewhere before or said something like that or been a part of something, somewhere, sometime. We call it déjà vu, and I had an interesting experience with it today.

Now, I used to get these experiences all the time. Often they seemed to be several minutes in place or included seeing things I never had seen but would swear that I had before. Through my early thirties, I seemed to have them regularly, frequently even. Then it stopped. Maybe once in a great while I might have that feeling but it was momentary, quick, lacked the detail that it used to have. I must say, I missed it. It was always a very cool feeling, especially when you realized that you were having one of those experiences. And it was fun to try to piece it together.

It has been a long, long time since I had experienced one of those feelings, years, perhaps more than a decade. That is until last Friday.

I was in a meeting, in a place that I go to for meetings very regularly. At this meeting were maybe 10 people, all of whom I had been at a meeting with, in this particular room, before. Different times of the day, different circumstances, perhaps never this exact group of people before but maybe. There were however, two people there who had never been in this meeting room before, had never met with this group of people. As I sat listening to someone speak, I suddenly had a feeling of familiarity, as if this situation had occurred before. I happened to look at one of the people I had just mention was never in this setting with the rest of us, and he did something with his glasses and suddenly for a few seconds, it all came back to me, what was said, what was done, what was happening. I got a weird feeling in my head, and it was over. The déjà vu had passed and it was just a meeting again.

I don’t know what causes this phenomenon. The brain is a complex organ and who know how or why we experience any of these things. Perhaps dreams becoming real, perhaps the brain making up connections that really don’t exist. Maybe a time shift in the very fabric of the universe complete with time/reality shifting anomalies.

Perhaps it’s just none of the above…

Celebration!

A once in a lifetime event occurred last Sunday evening. Perhaps one of the most evil people we have known was killed by US Special forces in Pakistan. Osama Bin Laden had been hiding there for the last 5 years and through the extraordinary efforts of US Intelligence, Navy Seals and the President of the United States, was found and summarily executed.

In the US, when the news broke there was a significant reaction by many people in the United States and around the world. They celebrated. They gathered together on college campuses, by the White House, at Ground Zero in NYC, in streets all around the world and celebrated. There was singing and dancing and shouts and chants of joy. But some people have been very critical of the celebration, saying that we are insensitive to celebrate the death of another person no matter how heinous the crime. They said things like if the parents of someone who was murdered had a party on the day the murderer was killed as punishment with a lethal injection, we too would feel that this was wrong and out of place.

There is one significant difference in this scenario however. In the case of the parents, the scope of the murder and who it touches is small. Family members, relatives and friends. The collapse of the World Trade Center affected all of us by its nature, a terrorist attack on our country. Even if you had no connection to any of the victims, you were impacted in some way. Life in our whole country changed that day, and not for the better.

The celebrations that night were not generally vindictive. They were a celebration of our unity, our citizenship, our freedoms. It was an emotional out pouring of relief. I know that we will still have to fear terrorists, fear what they might do. But we had the opportunity to celebrate that this individual, Osama Bin Laden would not be affecting us ever again.

I talked with someone who was at Ground Zero last Sunday. Jill, a good friend, told us that the celebration there helped fill the hole that was all that was now left at Ground Zero, that people came together spontaneously and that in some way healing was taking place.

That is good enough for me. Go ahead and celebrate. Remember if only for a few minutes, that feeling of nationalism, of patriotism, of freedom from oppression. Just remember, the moment is fleeting and there is always more work to be done.

What does this mean???

Look, I think of myself as being pretty internet savvy. What I have not learned for myself, from years of trolling the ‘tubes, I have gotten lessons from 2 savvy social media consultants, my kids. So, I always find myself up on the latest internet stories, hoaxes and memes. Rarely does someone say to me, “Hey did you see this on the internet?” with my response being “No, I have not.” I look at Reddit every day, Digg, even Fark sometimes, have an RSS feeder with perhaps 40 blogs and news sources like “Chicks Dig the Fastball” and “The Zees Go West” (for my Las Cruces fix), the Atlantic and Digital Trends and The Daily Beast and Freakonomics. Hell, my son is part of a YouTube video that has 10K views in a week. I am up to date, I am connected, I am hip.

But I missed this one.

Look, I don’t giggle to much at baby videos, or dumb kids falling while skateboarding videos or kids getting hit in the groin videos but show me an animal video and you got my attention. Show me a buffalo charging someone in a national park, I laugh. Show me a kitty catching a bird in mid flight, I guffaw. Show me a bunch of baby ducks getting blown around on a street, or a flock of geese walking down a street, and I get the uncontrolled LOL, tears in my eyes, laughfest. Sorry that’s just who I am.

So yesterday, after seeing a short clip of a video a man did a where he made his dog “talk” on Ray William Johnsons YouTube channel “= 3” my interest level was raised to Defcon 3. I searched for the original and found it and spent a good ten minutes laughing about it. It’s silly and dumb and I love it. I love it because it is creative and such an easy idea to come up with but I think harder to write and create.

If you have a couple of minutes, check this video out. http://www.youtube.com/user/klaatu42 This is the sort of thing I envision our friends Bill and Clair do with their menagerie of pets – dogs and cats and now chickens, talking with them and them talking back to them.

So, what does this mean? Am I getting senile in my old age? Am I losing my grip on reality? I think I am scaring myself…

So Proud…

I have wanted to be an internet star for a while. Being that I have a face for radio, I thought it might be through the participation in a podcast, a sort of an internet radio show. We have been working toward that goal for more than 3 ½ years but there may be something good happening on the horizon. Watch this space for details about the good news or bad news over the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I get to live the life of an internet star vicariously through my son CollegeBoy. It seems that he and his very creative roommates and a close friend put together a song parody related to the political story of the decade and something interesting has happened. Let me tell you about it.

A couple of weeks ago we went to the southern tier of New York State to visit my son at college. While there we spent time with his roommates and a good friend of theirs. This is a very creative group of individuals. CB is into Marketing Communications, the others there are all in the creative arts – screen plays/ script writing, film making etc. One of the highlights of the weekend was seeing some film they were working on and having fun with.

So Sunday night at 11:35 pm, President Obama announced that evil incarnate, Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a raid in Pakistan. This set moving a flood of interesting events. There were wild celebrations at various college campuses across the country, a celebratory vigil at Ground Zero, the World Trade Center site. A friend of mine was involved at Ground Zero and she agreed to be interviewed on the podcast we do and in a tiny apartment complex upstate, 5 college students hatched an idea for a music video, a song parody focused on what had happened. I spent all day Monday preparing for an interesting interview. These college kids spent 12 hours, ending at 4 am writing, singing, filming and editing a video. This video was uploaded to YouTube sometime early Tuesday morning and the social networking push went into effect. There were tweets and emails and Facebook posts, likes and retweets and instant messages flying all over the internet and cyberspace. The results? As of now, Thursday morning after just about 48 hours, there have been over 7000 views of the video. These kids are internet stars and the excitement is contagious. If you haven’t watched the video yet, it is here. Lets all give a standing ovation to #17oh2, the video production company! They could be on the cusp of viral video status!

As for my contribution to this ongoing story, we are in serious edit of the interview we did with a podcast friend who was at the Ground Zero celebration. It is moving and emotional and funny and insightful and should make it to the internet on Thursday sometime. Check us out at http://www.csapodcast.blogspot.com/ to listen to it or download it from iTunes when it becomes available.

In my next post, I will address the whole issue of celebration in regards to this major event in US history…

My New Mexico Bucket List

So, the time has come to release my own bucket list. It is a bit long, does not include everything yet and ends with a few last minute additions sent by my friend on the ground in Las Cruces, Bill, who is living the retired life and enjoying the hell out of it. Here goes...

-check out the new Las Cruces minor league baseball team, the Las Cruces Vaqueros (Cowboy in Spanish) Love their logo

-go to cowboy storytelling some evening
-take a class in digital photography editing like for photoshop
-create a line of New Mexico Note cards like I did for New England note cards so many years ago -go into the desert after a rain to smell the air; I understand it is sweet and unique-go to some NMSU basketball games and see the next Dwayne Wade
-do some of those park education and tours events, you know, the one where the park ranger is dressed in one of those green uniforms (think Yogi Bear and Mr. Ranger…)

-take the Rail Runner Express Train from Belen to Albuquerque and Santa Fe

-watch the desert sunset with a nice glass of wine (did it with beer already, want a changeup…)

-try some other NM wines; my friend Maqz thinks they can’t be too good because it is so dry there. I’m out to prove him wrong or get tipsy trying…

-expand my beer making dynasty by adding a new beer to the Blue Canary Cream Ale we make already; another cream ale perhaps, a different ale, a lager…who knows?

-be around for a chile roasting day; I have done some of my own on such a small scale, I want to see it done in the giant cylinder roasters and buy them fresh

-get a small freezer to store all the green chilies we are going to buy
-plan to save a small space in it for Caliches (see The Great SouthWest Passage aka Chronicles of Las Cruces: Part 12 - "Ending on a sweet, sweet note…”)

-try some different green chile foods – like GC spring rolls, GC meatballs. I plan to work on a recipe for GC meatballs and a GC Meatloaf…my friend Bill in LCNM has tried hot chile powder on frozen custard. Wow, this could be the best of both worlds – green chile topped Caliches…

-see another road runner

-feeding birds to see the different types in the south west

-walk the Farmer’s market to buy Christmas presents.

-go to some NMSU baseball games to see the next Derek Jeter

-go ATVing in the desert-feeding hummingbirds and taking photos of them in order to document other varieties
-spend more time on my book; it has been more difficult than I thought to spend the necessary time on it but I do want to do it
-drink pinon coffee every day of my retirement
-get a juicer and make some healthy fruit/vegetable drinks and smoothies

My friend Bill provided the following addendum - I think Clair may have had a voice in this too...
-The Owl Café which makes the best chile cheese burger in the southwest
-La Vina Winery with its summer concerts and wine tastings
-Nellie's Restaurant for the Las Cruces gang breakfast (8:00AM every Sat---join us!!!)
-the Bosque, Las Cruces state park
-Dripping Springs natural area
-Visit the towns of Pecos, Shiprock, and Jornada

Remember, this list is ever expanding, like our universe and is complete with a blog post subject material for each of the items on the list!