July 9

Like always, please visit my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
It’s the All Star Break and we really need it. The Rockies are sitting at 33-52, not the score we wanted to see them at ending the first half of the season. I missed the Home Run Derby, but hopefully I have it recorded. Carlos Gonzales didn’t win. He was the only one from the team that was in it. He only hit 4 homers. But, that’s better than none.

We had a family reunion on my wife’s father’s side. It was a two day event, but I only went to the second day. On Saturday, one of the guys didn’t show up for work and wouldn’t answer his phone, so I had to stay until eleven. So, my wife went by herself while I slept. The second day of the reunion was more fun anyway. We had a barbeque at the park. It was a very cloudy day, but it didn’t rain. My wife was one of the three organizers, so I helped bring tables, chairs, and most of the food. A couple hundred people showed up. I recognized some of them, but I mostly didn’t know anyone. Luckily, there was a volley ball net. We got a game together and it was pretty fun. There were way too many people on each side, but it just made for a better game. After a while, three quarters of them went to challenge another section of the family to a game of kickball. I was going to go, but I was having too much fun with the volley ball. We ended up staying all day. My wife had to get up in front of everyone and talk over the microphone about her side of the family. She was pretty embarrassed and kept it quick. Her dad had a great time with his relatives. My wife said that she was never going to volunteer to be part of the organizers again, but towards the end they said that they were going to have another reunion in two years. Yep, she’s one of the organizers. At least she has two years to recover from this one.
The bad news of the week is that my brother lost his job. He has five kids and can’t afford to be out of work. He applied at Safeway, but his wife is trying to get him hired at her company. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. The whole thing happened at the worst time. He called me asking if he could borrow some money for rent. But, I had just put all of our savings into a down payment for my daughter’s car last month. So, I couldn’t help. But, I called him over the weekend and he thinks he can scrape together at least enough to pay the landlord. That just means he needs to find a job right away and squeeze his belt for this month.
One of his boys and one of my nieces had a birthday this week. I’m not sure what my brother did for his son’s birthday, but from the posts on Facebook, it sounds like my niece went gambling to celebrate. There was a post that said my nephew was up four hundred bucks in Roulette.
More bad news, my son and daughter in-law aren’t pregnant. I was all ready for a new baby. So, I guess they just have to keep practicing.
I’m still on chapter four of Slider. I should finish that up today or tomorrow and start of chapter five. It’s still looking like a fun book. So, I guess I better get started. That means that it’s a wrap for last week’s events. I’m putting Eddie Money, Meatloaf, and the Eagles in the playlist for tonight’s background music.
-Thom