Slightly decadent......

8:24 am - Monday - June 19th - LPG&RVR - 41° F, humidity 75%, wind 6 mph out o fthe northwest.....heavy cloud cover, and raining as I write, with a forecast high today of 53° F! On this date in 2015 TLE and I hiked to the top of Mt. Tallac (elevation 9,735') at Lake Tahoe with Richard and Rhonda Entriken (fellow Newell owners)....yes, that is Lake Tahoe viewed from 9,735' above sea level......↴

Lake Tahoe

Richard and Rhonda

At the end of my Father's Day blog yesterday I advised.....well, maybe more like promised I would be watching all, or most of the fourth round of the USGA U.S. Open Sunday, and that is exactly what I did from 9 am util after 7 pm.  If you know nothing else about me you know for sure that I keep my promises.  Sorry, not much else to report for Sunday, but you know I'll think of something....lol.

Some might think sitting in one's recliner all day watching golf borders on being slightly decadent at best, or a complete waste of time at worst.  There is not much in life that will keep me indoors on a perfectly sunny day, but there are a few events that will....one of the four Major golf tournaments (Masters, PGA, U.S. Open, The Open), The World Cup, Le Tour de France, Women's World Cup, and maybe English Premier Soccer on occasion.   Otherwise, I would prefer to be outdoors most any day of the year.   The non-sporting event type things that will keep me indoors are rain, wind, snow, sleet, and bitter cold, but if the sun is shinning I would prefer to be outside.  Why is that you might wonder?  Well, I spent 42 years working as an insurance broker in my prior workaday life sitting behind a desk, and I felt like I was missing something all those years, even though I knew in my heart that all of the outdoor jobs involved getting pretty dirty each day, lots of sweat during the summer, getting wet in the winter I still longed to be outdoors.

Sometime in the early 90's I became a professional soccer referee, which was a natural progression for me being that I had spent years coaching and refereeing youth soccer for my kids.  It was a side job for me, and by that I mean I was a referee on weekends, in addition to practicing my insurance profession from Monday to Friday.  It was a nice compromise for me even though it did mean getting pretty sweaty in the summer, and rained upon once and a while in the winter.  I loved that job, and actually became pretty adept at it, and I actually made good money doing it. By the time I refereed my last soccer match on January 31, 2012 I had done Division 1 college matches, some semi pro matches, and a lot of West Coast Soccer Premier matches (U-19 guys and girls), and was considered to be an above average referee.  Many of the U.S. Men's National team members came from West Coast Soccer back at that time so I was officiating some pretty high level U-19 matches.  When I retired from insurance I decided to leave soccer, too, while 'others' still thought I was a good referee.  I knew many who continued to referee well past their prime, and it showed, and others knew it....I didn't want to be one of them....lol!

As a child growing up in SoCal my parents took every opportunity to get us (5 children) outside.  We spent  every summer for years experiencing the great outdoors via annual multi week camping trips to Lake Tahoe, backpacking in the Sierras, going to Manhattan Beach (SoCal) to body surf every Sunday during the summer when we were not camping.  In the winter we would spend between 20, and 30 days snow skiing at Mammoth Mountain in the Eastern Sierras.  My parents instilled in me their love of the outdoors at an early age, and I, as a father of 5, did the same with my children.  They didn't grow up playing video games, but were outside living life.

Wow, that was quite a digression, even for me.  Anyway, I love being outdoors, and for those few rare exceptions that I listed above, that is where I would prefer to be, all things being equal, and the river don't rise.

Thanks for stopping by!