Perspective

The past week has been filled with such strong emotions, feelings, thoughts, and reflections. We go through life so smug sometimes thinking that we have things together and know just what we are doing and where we are going. Then something meaningful comes along to provide us with the emphasis to make needed course corrections and perhaps reset our intenal compass to ensure we are where we want and need to be.

Memories mean so much more than meetings, Compassion so much more than appointments, Love so much more than promotions. I've been reminded this past week that the world will remember little of the things we do to earn a living, but our life's legacy will be considered and measured by how we loved those who surround us.

Life is sometimes too short and if we are not careful we end up letting fleeting but critical moments go by without doing what we can to lift someone who is down, lighten someone's burden that is heavy, support someone who needs strengthening, and care for someone who needs love.

Tomorrow is a chance to start again on that winding road that gives us experiences to learn from, opportunities to grow from, and situations to act upon. This past week has brought me a full palate of rich experiences that I hope to not soon forget. I hope the attached slide show will be of some benefit to those who were unable to attend Bill's funeral, but wanted to see a glimpse of the event.

Rochele

Rochele, an unusual name? For those of you who don't know, her name was a combination of Rock and Michele and means...."from the little rock". We thought that was appropriate. Rochele was always one of our more spirited children and was not afraid to get a little dirty in the process. When she was very young, Michele saw something stringy hanging from Rochele's mouth. Upon further examination, it was found that she had put a "daddy long leg" spider into her mouth. Thus Rochele's nickname that has stuck through her life.....Roach.

Being the 2nd child, I'm sure Rochele felt ignored from time to time. Being very young parents, we hardly knew what to do with our 1st child. With two in our home, it was just twice the fun. Rochele had some serious changing to do between her baby stage and her young adult stage. As a baby, she hardly made a peep. She would stay in her crib for hours on end with never a complaint. She could entertain herself without us hardly even knowing she was there. Even when we took her for her shots, she refused to cry. She seemed to make up for all that quietness as she got older. Once she could vocalize words, we were destined to an endless stream of songs, movie recitals, and anything else she could remember to spew out of her mouth. Until the day she got married she could perform almost any show she had ever seen. If you can't remember a Disney song....just call Rochele, she can sing it to you still today! Now we see her own daughter following closely in her mothers footsteps.

Click on the slide show and see the fun we had raising Rochele and learning to appreciate her zest for life. No matter how old she gets, or how many kids she has, she will still be "Our Little Girl".

2 Days, 3 Cities

Ok, Travel has officially become out of control. Listen to the last 24 hours....
Earthquake hits LA, 2 hours later I'm landing at LAX for Budget meetings. Dinner overlooking the beach with other DM from the west, then work all evening on computer. Budget meetings start at 7:00am in the morning and go until noon. Race to airport, catch flight to Phoenix and drive home to have dinner with Michele (Guess who's plane was delaying everyone). Work on computer for an hour or so, then back to the airport to catch another flight from Phoenix to Las Vegas for meetings at Hospital early in morning. In Afternoon fly back to Phoenix and then drive out to Yuma for more meetings.
I told Michele that I am working out of my office all week next week if it kills me (well, except for one day I may have to go to Tucson).
I officially feel like a pack mule, just hauling computer and bags on my back from place to place. I know why they call them beasts of burdon. That preaty much explains me.


Oh, a couple of weeks ago I had to go to Florida for some consultation with 3 hospitals surrounding Cape Canaveral. I flew in late on a Sunday night and didn't get to the hotel until about 1:30am. It was one of those hotels where you walk along an outside balcony to get to your room. I set my stuff down in the room and noticed there was a sliding door out the back. I opened the door to get some cool air and was scared to death as I heard this loud noise right outside my door. I turned on all the lights and what do you know, the ocean was steps from my room. There was a full moon and you could see up and down the coast. I left all my lights on for about an hour. When I got unpacked I noticed a large sign that said, don't turn your lights on at night. Apparently there are Sea Turtles that lay eggs on the beach out my back door. If you leave the lights on, the Turtles are confused. Your see, after the turtle eggs hatch apparently the baby turtles follow the full moon light reflected off the ocean back into the water. If you leave your lights on, the baby turtles are confused and head for the hotel. Opps, Im guessing there are some very confused baby turtles due to my leaving the light on for a good portion of the night.


I've attached some pictures of the beach outside my door, and if you look closly you can see the marking in the sand where the mother turtle drug herself up the beach just outside my room, did her thing, and then headed back out to sea. Hopefully I didn't do anything to reduce the turtle population of the Cape Canaveral area.

Monsoons and the Desert

The rains finally came to Phoenix the last couple of weeks. It's been a dry few months, but the break in the weather is long looked for down here. It's kind of like how excited everyone get's for the 1st snowfall up north, same thing here with the rain. There are radio contests for when the 1st inch of rain will fall, and everyone goes outside to watch it as soon as it comes.


One of the nice benefits of the rain, is what happens to the Desert Plants. For months they just kind of exist in a dormant state, and then when the rain comes....whoaza, blossoms come out big time. It' s kind of like our 2nd spring.


Anyway, I've attached a few pics so you can see what I'm talking about. See the clouds in the sky, when you see those in Phoenix you know the afternoon will be wet again. Oh, and if you look closely at the picture looking out our backyard with the dark grey clouds, on the corner of our block wall is a lizard that set up home in our yard. I guess the fence is his kingly perch. One last thing...someone asked if these pics were taken on different days, Nope they were all taken on the same afternoon (7/21/08). The only bad part...my pool skimmer is clogging up with blossoms. Yup, never can be happy.