Bike Ride Day

It was warm enough today for a bike ride. I think the temperature hit 50. I called Mark to see if he wanted to go and he thought it sounded like a great idea.

I had a little problem with my bike not wanting to power up. But I put it on the charger for a few minutes and that coaxed it into turning on.

We rode down to the park, down along the river through Peaceful Valley, across the Sandifur Bridge and back to the park along the Centennial Trail. It was a 7.5 mile trip and we were out for about an hour. 

Even though we were on e-bikes, I still felt like I got a pretty good workout. I was definitely feeling the burn in my legs when doing the big hill climb up from the Sandifur Bridge.

I guess this is one of the benefits of the mild winter we’ve been having.

CT Scan

I have just returned from Inland Imaging near Sacred Heart Hospital for a CT Scan with contrast of my abdominal region.

I assume this is a follow up of the scan they did last summer trying to get information on a lesion they found on my pancreas. This all happened during testing to see if I qualified for a heart transplant through Stanford Medical. It turned out to be nothing, or at the very least, non cancerous. Despite that, you may recall that Stanford turned me down for the transplant.

I left the house at 8:00AM for an 8:15 appointment. I was home shortly after nine. So it was very quick.

The interesting part is the contrast feature. They hooked me up to an IV and at one point after several scans, they announced, “Here comes the contrast.”

Starting slow and then speeding up, my body was flooded by this warming feeling that felt very weird. 

I have an appointment with the Pancreas Doctor scheduled in about a week. At that point, I’ll have another update.

Ski Day Number Two

My friend Geoff invited me for a ski day at Schweitzer today. I generally don’t ski Schweitzer because they have priced me out of the market.

I went today because I was able to get a half priced ticket due to Geoff’s Icon Pass. Even at half price, the ticket cost $67.00. That’s more than any of the other areas are charging. The half price cost is MORE than the regular price being charged by any of the other ski resorts in the area. 

To make matters worse, this has been a horrible ski season for all the resorts. There has been a major lack of snow. Lots of Schweitzer is not even open.

They have pretty good coverage but you have to watch where you’re going in many places on the hill. Rocks and weeds are abundant.

The snow was wet and sloppy, the kind of snow you would expect in the Spring.

The weather was the best part. Clear with high clouds, and occasional sunniness.

The bad part of the day was the way I responded to the activity of skiing. As always, the walk from the car to the lift is the worst part of my day. It felt particularly bad today. It took a while to recover.

We got in seven runs, the last three I skied with my oxygen generator. I can’t say it made a huge difference. Perhaps my stamina improved a bit but by that time, I was pretty skied out and ready to end the day. The last run in particular was rough on me. It was a very long run and I stopped a lot on the way down to catch my breath.

This is my first time skiing where I am seriously wondering how much more I can ski. It was a rough day and I am dead tired right now. I can barely type this post.

January BP

 

Bike Ride

It managed to warm up into almost the 40’s today which gave me the opportunity to try and go for a bike ride. I rode downtown and down along the south side of the river to the Sandifur bridge. I crossed there and headed back, stopped at the Falls briefly to take in the roar of 2,000 cfs of water rolling downstream, and then a stop at the Warming Hut.

The Warming Hut is really called David’s Pizza and I wrapped my fingers around a nice hot chocolate. I was quite chilled. The Rumple Minze in the cocoa helped as well.

I did 7.7 miles in about 45 minutes. That does not include the half hour pit stop at David’s.

Morning Drugs

I pulled out my morning medication today, looked at the hand full of pills and decided, I should have a picture of this to document my morning pill intake.

So there we are.

And there’s another post for the year! 

Adventures of Retired Guy

Have you checked out my website? 

It's www.adventuresofretiredguy.com. 

I've been doing it for two years now.  It may be the one New Year's Resolution I have actually kept in my lifetime. 

I post a cartoon every day during the week and then write a little commentary blog on Saturday. Sunday belongs to the Lord, so I get a day of rest.

Here is today's cartoon.

I decided to do this because I was no longer drawing since retiring. I didn't care for that. I have realized I have lost a lot of my computer skills I used when I worked. I struggle when I use Adobe Illustrator. I have simply forgotten how to do things. 

So, I decided to keep my hand in it by forcing myself to draw. It's mostly a cutsie little comic strip I do for my own pleasure. It does not appear to draw a large audience. I wish I could generate some income from it, if nothing else than to pay for the website. It costs about $450.00 a year.

At one point, I had built up a two-month backlog of cartoons. Today, I'm down to about a three-week backlog.

I have decided to take the month of March off and publish "Best of" cartoons for that month. That will, in theory, give me time to build up my backlog. In practice, I probably won't do a very good job of building up and just coast for the month. I hope that is not the case, but I know me.

Ski Day Number One

The ski season has begun for me.

I skied at Silver Mountain today. It turned out to be a great day. They still need snow but the coverage was pretty good. No rocks. There was a high light overcast with portions of sunshine.

My neighbor Fred invited me the other day. His family has a house in Kellogg and they regularly ski at Silver.

I don’t think I have skied at Silver in maybe 15 years. I’ve always complained that the runs at Silver are too short. Now that I have issues with my stamina, they didn’t seem that bad.

And the one thing I’ve always liked about Silver is they have chairlifts with footrests. That really saves your legs over a long day of skiing.

Although, since today was my first day up this season, my legs are pretty wiped out.

As to the cost of skiing in 2026 at Silver Mountain, it cost $20.00 in gas to get to Kellogg and back. I spent $9.25 on a small bowl of chili and a hot cocoa. It cost $66.78 for my ski pass for a grand total of $96.03. With nine runs for the day, that comes down to $7.42 per run. If I include lunch and the gas, which I generally don’t, the total is $10.67 per run. 

I am not including the beer I had when I stopped at the Snake Pit on my way home.

229.6

Thursday night is the traditional night when the neighbors gather for Thirsty Thursday. Even though it was January First, nobody was doing anything, so we got together at the Anderson's.

There was snow coming down so Susan and I drove down the park to the Anderson's. She brought what was left of the Hoppin John she made for New Years. 

There were a number of tasty items on the table and I enjoyed them all. That was essentially, all I ate yesterday and I gained two and a half pounds.

It must have been the pineapple cake that did me in. I had at least three pieces and it was d'lish.

227.2

It's a New Year and so I am posting in an attempt to post to this site every day this year. I'm aware this will never happen. It's possible I will break the streak as early as tomorrow. But for now, I have got it started and I actually have some information to impart.

I am starting the year at 227.2 pounds. That's a damn sight better than last year on this day, when I weighed 242.6 poundages.

I do not intend to get back to that realm of weight. In fact, here's the thing. I no longer have much of an appetite. I can easily get by on one meal a day and it will not be very big. The confounding part is that I am not losing any weight. I've been hovering over this 225 to 229 zone for the past few months.

I can't say for sure when my appetite changed. I've been noticing for several months that I don't eat like I used to. I don't even get the enjoyment out of eating that I used to get. Except when it comes to sweets.

I still love my chocolate and sugar. I may feel full, but there is always room for one more cookie, caramel, or Hershey's Kiss. I assume that's what is keeping me plump-ish.

Things to look forward to in 2026...I will turn 69 in March.  I'm not going to make any jokes but it seems like an appropriate age for me. 

The Bicenquinnquadinary is coming in July. That is the word I am using to designate the 250th birthday of the United States of America.

The political atmosphere in the U.S., and in fact, the world is still tense. We are a deeply divided group of people. 

For the record I will state here that I don't like Trump. He's an arrogant narcissist who speaks without thinking. I'm really not sure how to gauge his intelligence. Pundits who I trust say he is smart but I don't generally see it in the way he behaves. 

That being said, I like his policies. I'm glad the borders are closed and they are going after people who came in illegally. I understand their desire to be here. But you have to do it right. And we have to know who you are.

I don't know what Trumps plan is for Venezuela. I'm concerned about what we're doing down there. Same goes for Iran, the Gaza Strip and Ukraine.

The one thing I'm glad about is we don't have Kamala Harris in charge. Don't like her at all. Not because she's a woman. It's because she is a Socialist and a bit of an idiot. I can't take any more word salad statements. 

And that has nothing to do with my appetite!

Okay, I'm on the record for 2026. I would look forward to comments from those of you out there who are reading this, but I don't think anyone like that exists.