Alan Hood

Sometimes taking yourself to seriously can lead to more problems than you already have.  One of the problems I have is taking myself too serious.  I get overly concerned over the smallest details and forget to just live life for the sake of living.  I get mad at the people I love the most for no real reason at all.  I need to learn to just let thing be and see circumstances for what they really are which is just a test of my character.  Don’t get me wrong this is something I have worked on for a very long time; I am just writing this to remind myself that I need to do better every day.  I have to let things go and accept people for who they are.  That is usually easier said than done, but if I want to have the best life I can have then I need to remember it all the time.  I have read and practiced a lot of different self help seminars, books, and cd’s which I am sure some people think is a load of crap.  I get a little something from each one that helps me be not only a better person to the people around me, but helps me live a happier life by accepting the things that I cannot change.

Some people find the guidance in their lives through religion or some other means like meditation or yoga.  But I have always had a hard time accepting any form of organized religion and I do better by focusing just simply making an effort to be better.  I hope one day soon I will learn to not take things too seriously, but unfortunately that day is not today.  I will just work harder to get past the obstacles in my life and make tomorrow a better day for all of the people I love.  I am one of the lucky few who have a great support team in my incredible family.  If I were half as good a person as my wife is then I would be great.  I can’t tell you how lucky I am to have her, she is without question one of the finest people ever put on earth.  It doesn’t hurt that she has great boobs also, but that is a different story.

Some days are inevitible, no matter how much you prepere yourself and dread the day, you know it will come no matter what.  I got that call that you never want to get from my mother on sunday.  She told me that my grandmother was going to be put in hospice to prepare her to die.  I immediatly made plans with my family to make the trip to Albuquerque to visit my grandmother for what may be the last time.  A couple of hours later after speaking with my grandmothers doctors my father told me that I should make the trip immediately, never a good sign.  So we quickly packed and made the trip.

We got to Albuquerque and went directly to the hospital, arriving at midnight.  My grandmother was sedated and never gained conciousness the entire time we were there, but i believe she knew I was by her side because she would squeeze my hand.  16 minutes after 8:00 Monday October 29th I watched my grandmother take her last breath and pass to a better place.  My grandmother was a very reliogious God fearing woman who unquestionably knew that she would be going to heaven and there is no doubt in my mind that she is there now, in a better place without all of the pain she was suffering through for the last few years.

The part that hurts me the most is knowing that the glue of our family is no longer holding us together and I am sure that whatever was left of the foundation will eventually erode without her.  Some people are just good to their core and my grandmother was one of only two that I haver ever met in my life.  So as I Sit in Starbucks in Albuquerque New Mexico I find it sad that this world and my family will have to be without such an incredible woman.  Grandma, I love and will miss you forever.

I am personally saddened by Marion Jones admitting to using steroids. Women that hot should have to cheat. Seriously she is really hot. I mean hot like in unfreaking believably gorgeous. Okay seriously it really is a shame that she allowed herself to be pt into a position where she thought cheating was the right way to go. I won’t pretend to be surprised on mad or say I feel let down. That’s life and sometimes people make bad choices but what she did doesn’t affect or hurt me in any way so I won’t make a big case over it. It is sad that a woman as hot as she is has to spend time in jail but I will get over that also.

The really travesty will be if her teammates have to also give up their medals because of the choices she made. Yes the relay is a team event and it is possible that they received medals because she was cheating, but her teammates should have to pay for her crime. We have team sports everywhere that involve one or more of the team members that are caught cheating but we don’t make the rest of the team forfeit wins because of the actions of one. If we did then every team that Barry Bonds plays on should have to forfeit every win they got while Barry was playing. That is not the way we have ever handled cases where one participant is caught cheating. We penalize the individual not the team, and that is what should happen in this case also. Don’t make others pay for what Marion has done, they didn’t have any say so in the choices she made.

I hope that this event will mark a healing point for Marion Jones and she will go on to lead a happy and healthy life from this point forward. Good luck Marion.

Did I mention that Marion Jones is really hot?

My youngest daughter decided to have an end of summer pool party today, and like life as usual everything has to get done in the final hour. The bad part of this whole scenario is that she took Friday off from school to prepare for the party, but she didn’t get anything done for 2 days and left everything for the few hours before her friends are supposed to arrive. I really shouldn’t be surprised by this but I am slightly perturbed by her lack of action. The biggest problem is that her mother and I are now getting on her nerves by telling her everything that has to be finished, and she is getting some attitude with us. I know its just part of being a teenager but it is frustrating when you are doing something to make her happy.

I am sure everyone is thinking end of summer pool party isn’t it a little too cold for that, well not here; we live in Mesa Arizona where it is still 95 degrees. I know everyone thinks it is just too hot here but this time of year until April of next year the weather here just can’t be beat.

The party has started and I have already had to tell the little hellions to stop screaming, but one day of pain for my child’s happiness isn’t too much to put up with.

I have spent the last three days at Sea World in San Diego, a trip I took with my family to celebrate my birthday. Yes I am very very old but I don’t want to talk about that. Sea World and San Diego are my favorite places on earth. I have a small salt water reef tank that I take care of at home, so it is a great pleasure to see my tank on a truly grand scale. The shows at Sea World are a little cheesy and really based on getting the audience wet, but to see the way the animals are trained is really incredible.

The aquariums at Sea World make me drool; I can’t imagine what it would be like to have an aquarium on that kind of scale. Sea World has a few aquariums that house small sharks, sea turtles, and worthless fish like sea bass, but they also have one really spectacular aquarium with southern Pacific reef fishes that can only be described as spectacular. In aquariums the size that they have the reef fishes grow to their full adult size, unlike in smaller home aquariums, which brings about a real appreciation of what it would be like to see one of those reefs in person. During the couple of hours that I spent looking at that aquarium I heard at least 100 people come up to the aquarium and say “look its Dory form finding Nemo”. I find it fairly sad that people can look at something that incredible and only see that one fish as something worth looking at because Disney put it in one of their movies. I am a little over idealistic because I love them so much.

Weather lets talk a little bit about the weather. San Diego was perfect 74 degrees and sunny every day, but I live just outside of hell in Mesa AZ. The weather here is also sunny and warm if you call 115 degrees warm. Living in Mesa seems like the equivalent of living in an easy bake oven, well it is a little breezy today so really today its more like living in a convection oven. Good grief the heat is really starting to get to me. I have lived here for 14 years now and its time to move, next stop will either be Durango CO or San Diego CA.

That’s all for right now but I will be detailing the San Diego trip in a later post, the trip was great and of course the city is fantastic.

Two years ago my friend Gordon’s son called me because a lady he works with was giving away her 24’ round above ground pool. So Gordon, Kyle and I went over to her house tore the pool down and brought it to my house. My daughter Tayler and I started digging a hole to bury the pool in because even though it is an above ground pool we wanted it down to grade level. It is very hard to explain how much dirt a 24’ circle 5’ deep contains so lets just say it is a lot. Well we dug for the entire summer and got a hole 25’ round and about 3 feet deep. Really we had both had enough of digging to last us a life time, so we hired another friend to finish the hole.

That project lasted from November till May and included renting a backhoe and tearing down a wall to get it into my backyard, with only minor improvements to the hole. Then came hired workers for 2 days to finish the hole for final setup of the pool. Now 2 vacations and 6 weeks later we actually have the pool setup and filling with water. Still needed is the plumbing and electric but hopefully those items will be finished in the next couple of days. I would like to say that it is the greatest pool in the entire world but really it is just a hole filled with water and surrounded by piles of dirt. I thought that a lot more dirt was going to go back into the hole for finish work but it looks like most of the dirt is going to need to be taken away.

I hope that by the end of this summer we will have concrete poured around the pool and the yard completely back together but only time will tell, it may be 2 more years until it is actually usable at the rate we are going.

I really should have written this as one very long sentence because that is almost what this pool feels like a sentence.

Happy Fourth of July everyone.  Another blazing hot day here in the valley of the sun but I wouldn’t expect anything less for this time of year.  Summertime is the one real drag about living in Phoenix, but the fireworks here more than make up for it and this year we had an incredible display.  Like usual we waited until the very last minute to leave the house, because it is to stinkin hot to stand outside with no shade waiting for the fireworks to begin.  This year we decided to give the casino show a chance so we drove up there and got one of the best shows we have ever seen.  45 min of awesome aerials with all of the geometric shapes and great colors they can do now, but then it was time for the grand finale and what a finale it was.  We were standing about a quarter of a mile from where they were lighting off the fireworks and I mean to tell you the earth was shaking.  I have never been in an earthquake but I am sure it is a lot like that.  Wow it was one of the coolest displays I have ever seen.

I do love the opportunities that we have here is Phoenix but I am just not sure if the heat is worth it any more.  Check back with me in December when I will be wearing shorts and doing yard work or watching a football game from some northern city where it is 0 degrees and it will be a different story but for now I am sick of the heat.

I really love my house and the time that I have spent in Arizona, but it is coming close to a time for change.  The last few summers here have made my antsy to get away from all of this heat.  And after spending the last week in San Diego it just makes it worse.  I really love San Diego the weather there is perfect but I just don’t understand how people can afford to live there.  A 1 bedroom condo on Coronado Island goes for $400,000.  Are you kidding me?  I understand that it is all about demand but come on that is ridiculous.  Ah well what’s a boy to do?  I guess that I have decided that I will settle for my second favorite place in the world, Durango.  Durango is just gorgeous, the weather is decent if you don’t have to go out for the entire winter, and the people are friendly.  Actually I say Durango but the area I am really talking about is more like Bayfield up toward Vallecito Lake.  Nice secluded area that would be perfect for a retirement cabin in the woods.

I am pretty much a loner anyway so I think it would be perfect for me.  I would just stock the pantry and never leave the house during the winter time.  I am sure that it would drive some people crazy (think The Shining), but I would be very happy being left alone for about 4 months of the year.  Now I just need enough money to retire and it’s cabin here I come.