So many topics to talk about concerning the events that are taking place in China, while hosting the 2008 Olympics this year. I usually enjoy watching the Olympics and have had opportunities to attend some of the games in the past, but never have actually made it to any of them.

This particular location that they picked for hosting the games, in China, has had it’s ups and downs, and it is the first time that I haven’t kicked myself in the rear for not making more of an effort to personally attend this most exciting and interesting event.

The air quality in China is a major issue and I can really feel for the participants that are having to deal with such a problem as not being able to breath properly while trying to perform the best that they have ever had to, in order to take home a medal. It has been a real eye opener for the rest of the world, and maybe now something will be done to make China a better place to live and breath in the future.

I wish them all the luck in the world, and I hope that the US can kick some butt and bring home a good amount of medals for us to rant and rave about, until the next Olympic games are held. 

Yesterday was such a nice day for a change, the heat has been most unpleasant as of late, keeping most people inside and in the air conditioning of their homes or businesses, so having a nice for a change was a pleasent change of pace, and required some time of outdoor activity to enjoy it all in.

The wife has been wanting to visit the cemetery that most of her people are laid to rest in, I can’t blame her, it is good to go and pay your respects from time to time, good for the soul. So we went ahead and spent a good portion of yesterday’s afternoon doing just that.

We were pleasantly surprised to see how well maintained the graves were, last time the place was a mess and my wife was very upset about it, enough to call and complain upon her return home from her last visit. Upon our arrival we noticed a man on one of the John Deere lawnmowers, was busy mowing the grass to a bristly green stubble that tickled our kneecaps when we knelt at each grave site.

The granite markers all looked good, their blue-gray color still as peaceful and strong as the day they were placed in the earth. The stones feeling cool and smooth as you trace your fingers over them and feeling each letter and number that is etched in each person’s headstone, telling the names and dates of the desceased.

I’m glad to say that the wife held up pretty good through out the whole time, as we wondered from grave site to grave site, after grave site, her only regret was not bringing enough flowers to put on each and every grave of all of her relatives that we found. I promised that we would be more prepared at out next visit, which hopefully won’t be for another year or two, or three…..

I’ve been out fishing for the past week with an old friend from my high school days. We packed up our camping gear and went deep into the hills of Cherokee Canyon in southern Virginia, to our old fishing hole, which to our surprise looks pretty much the same as it did some thirty years ago when we used to go there as kids. Needless to say, for a mans vacation geared towards relaxation it was a huge success. Although the fishing itself was not as big a boon for our collective freezers, we did manage to come away with some forty or fifty good sized fish. We caught a few trout, some spot, sunfish and both smallmouth and bigmouth bass. Nothing of record breaking size, but we were pleased just the same. We had our best luck on the fourth day there when the bass starting biting. We got rained on quite a bit but it was more fun than a hindrance of any sort. As a matter of fact, except for the one time the tent fell in during a downpour and soaked us to the bone, it was a very relaxing experience. We spent most the evenings dining on our days catch and reminiscing about the old days. On my return home my wonderful wife told me I smelled like a fish market on a hot day! But she was happy that I’d had a good time. She herself had a wonderful week as well from what she’d told me and mentioned that next time she would like to accompany us along with a couple of her friends who Ilearned also enjoy fishing, although they prefer flyfishing above other styles. One of her friends even offered to teach me howto tie flys. looks like the next fishing trip is going to be a real hoot, I just hope the girls don’t show us fellows up to bad when it comes to fly rod fishing.

The wife and I have been discussing grandmothers latest decision to stay where she is at rather then to move in with us. She says she has been on her own since she was knee high to a grasshopper and doesn’t see any reason for me to worry about how she’ll be getting along. It’s a good thing we’ve relatives nearby or I’d have grandmother really ticked off at me for moving her out of where she is now and into a guest room at our own home. Sometimes what we think is the right thing to do isn’t right at all for the concerning party.

Grandmother is a hardheaded old woman with strong opinions about how things should be. but she did promise that if it got to the point where she can no longer take care of her own personal needs, she’d give me a call before she’d ring my sister because she believes sis is just out to get the family land or some such thing. She told me every time she confides in sis about something the girl gets, “all whacked out” about everything! Grandmother is a hoot at times and I must agree with her about sis’s overreacting to nearly everything these days. The girl does have a tendency to blow things way out of proportion to say the least.

Our oldest girl called us from California where she and her college roommates have rented a place on the beach for two weeks while they’re on school break. She was excited to find that their neighbor actually knows me and her mom very well. Turns out they had rented a small apartment on Mission Beach right next to an old friend of ours from back when we traveled around the country. Now I’m sure that me and the Mrs. will get to here all about what our friend tells our daughter about us in the old days. She was never really very enthusiastic about stories of our past when she had to hear it from us, but she seems really excited about finding out that we really did have a life before kids from someone else. Maybe it’s because she’s three thousand miles away and ran into someone that actually knows her parents that she’d never met before and totally by accident. Kids, they can be amusing.