One week post surgery and so far all is well. MarLa has been taking good care of me and keeping me from doing too much. When I listen she is an angel. When I don't listen she becomes Nurse Kratchet. I've decided to listen. Many, many thanks to all. Got visits from my sister Karen and my fire department buddy Paul Moffat at the hospital. Plus many phone calls from old friends and family. Mike McGinness my oldest and fondest friend apologized for twisting my back into knots in wrestling back in Jr, Hi. and starting this whole need for surgery. Then all of you sending your prayers and kind words my way has been great. Surgery was not 2-3 hours but 4 hours as the doctor told me my bones were 50% lager than most of the patients he works on and took more drilling and grinding time and that everything went on without a hitch. I had two bone spurs pushing in on my right sciatic nerve and some scar tissue taking up some nerve space. And so now I now am a proud owner of a 10" incision from the base of my ribs to my plumbers crack. Attractive right??? Some folks do tattoos, I do scars. I was told by a doctor once that men with scars are found to be more attractive. Well never had a problem there but little extra good looks never hurt. So what's the future hold? Well there will be one more week to get past the infection concern and then it's just be getting the back, back in shape. Decided to do the mini Tri-Athlon at Moses Lake again this year in June to help motivate me into better health. Looking forward to 2016 as it will be a year of change. I start my new job in Fire Prevention as an Assistant Fire Marshal (post coming soon), MarLa and I celebrate 30 years of marriage (going to Costa Rica for 2 weeks), looks like Jared will be assigned to a Marine battalion in August stationed at Hawaii, and hope to get over to Spokane a lot to be with AriAnna, Ryan and the boys.I'll also work on doing a little better job at Husband, Father, Grandfather, Brother, and friend. In the meantime it'll be sauntering for another week, then graduate to short then long walks for two weeks, add in swimming and water aerobics at week four, and  then adding on the bicycle and jogging at week eight and beyond. Even though it will be cold I'll probably go without a shirt as people will honk and wave as they drive by and say to each other...Wow look at that scar... but what a handsome looking middle aged man!                                                                     Merry Christmas and many smiles. Keep your eyes open for those whose Christmas is anything but joy and peace, and lift their hand and strengthen their knees.

Don't call me as I will not call you back...
So in the process of trying to "find" my skinner self I "lost" my cell phone. The saga starts where I'm on my newly remodeled bike (extra wide handle bars (Due to my expansive chest) and a new speedometer to avoid getting a ticket from MarLa's co-workers) I zip about nine miles when that little voice in my head says, "Keith did you zip your little pouch shut that holds your cell phone in on your bike bag?" Screeching to a halt which took a while as I was going an amazing 17.9 miles per hour I limped off my bike and NNNOOOO. It was not zipped and it was GONE!!!
I looked in the cloudless sky and said to the man upstairs WHYYY didn't the voice come sooner? He answered and said ... I'll tell you what he said when his response hits my slow thick skull. Needles to say I did a 180 and double timed it back with speeds that would have made "American Pharaoh" look like she was at a stand still.
I'm sure at intersections small children mistook me for Captain America on a bike. Having peddled the flats of the valley and up 277th Mount Kilimanjaro to Military road I came up empty. I was by then admittedly exhausted and tired. So stand by as a replacement phone is as they say "in the mail". What's weird is last few days have been like the 1970's and 80's where I find myself free of the Matrix and the fibers of the world wide web. Big brother does not know where I am 24/7. And I kind of like it. It must be the dirt farmer in my blood.
Phoneless in Seattle

Horror of Horrors
As I have been trying to achieve an Olympic body I realize there are two objectives I must meet. Objective “A” is consuming 10,000 calories a day and objective “B” is no less than 3 work outs a day. I have achieved object” “A” quite nicely and now it is time to focus on objective “B”. And so I wake up at 5:15 to start my day with my mile swim at the Mt. Rainier pool. In my excitement to have a body like Michael Phelps, not Bruce Jenner, I fail to remember I ...took my swim trunks out of my swim bag for my Whidbey Island get away. This discovery was not realized until I drove into the pool parking lot and my “cat” like senses told me something was wrong. I thought, “Well I could go home and work on objective “A”, but then I thought, “Possibly they might have a spare pair I could borrow.” Approaching the young lifeguard I told him of my predicament and he said you can check the lost and found for a pair to wear. This is where my story gets ugly. For those of you who are University of Washington grads or fans (go Dawgs) I suggest you quit reading now. So digging through the huge box of swim suits I discover the “only” pair large enough to fit my Olympic body in training is the Crimson and Gray WSU trunks!!! Horror of horrors. It was at that time that my life flashed before me like a VHS cassette tape with all the joyous moments of Husky wins and Cougar defeats. Now my grandson Hunter, a BYU cougar and WSU cougar fan would have been ecstatic at this time. I can hear him saying “Wear them grandpa nobody will know.” Now I love Hunter but I don’t give in so easily to temptation and so dug through the box again. And my second efforts of finding a suit large enough to fit produced a woman’s one piece!!!. But as stated earlier I wanted a Michael Phelps body not a Bruce Jenner body and so with a heavy heart placed the Cougar trunks on the Husky hips and thighs. Some of you may be judging me now and saying I would have swam naked before donning the Wazzu colors. But the lanes were full of swimmers and those folks paid good money to exercise. If I would have swam al- a- fresco somebody would have screamed, “There’s great white, run for your lives” and vacated the pool, thus losing out on their workout, and hard earned money I might add. So I quickly dove in the pool, (oddly landing on all four paws). The swim went well, but for some reason I just wasn’t quite as fast as when I wore my purple and gold trunks. I can’t explain why. On the way back to the showers the young lifeguard snapped a picture of me for my “time-line”. As it turns out he graduated from Wazzu and so the smile on his face was memorable. Leaving the locker room I left the “borrowed” trunks in a strategic place where he could easily locate them.

Once again I have found out that life can be unpredictable and occasionally throw you a curve ball.