Three days of tennis, back to back.

On Thanksgiving day, after I put the turkey and turducken in the oven I was checking my email, and there was one from GaryO saying that he's got three people lined up and if I could come out and play. In 10 minutes, I was out the door heading to the tennis court. I got there and no one was around. So I wandered over to the club's gym, and found Gary exercising. Of course he dropped everything and we played single for about an hour. It turned out that I missed a keyword "tomorrow" on the email.

Friday morning I went there again and that time we do have a foursome. We played for about two hours and I was really worn out. At the end of the game Gary told me that he has recently written his third book, and to celebrate that, he and PaulF organized a Tennis Mixer at the Shores for next day, Saturday (which hadn't had one for years), that included a book signing event. He said a lot of the people I know will be there. So of course I couldn't pass that up.

Jan dropped me off at the club on Saturday morning and sure enough there were a lot of old friends that I haven't seen for a long time. I had a good time, my tennis is as bad as usual. We played four 8-game sets and I won only 1 out of 4 matches.

Later that afternoon, my left rib where the diaphragm is attached hurt really bad. I cannot cough, sneeze or even blow my runny nose without feeling a sharp jab. It took two days before I felt better (today). But, tennis is always a lot of fun. It was good to see my old friends still playing tennis.

No blog. Passed yesterday.

Got sick on the way back from Dallas, went to bed at 630pm!

My Supra is still alive

I haven't driven my Supra for almost a year, and the last time I drove it was to get it inspected. The inspection sticker expired in 12/2008. Unfortunately, at that time the place I normally took it to get the car inspected was not able to do the job because their dynamometer was down. Mine is a 1994 with 140K miles so it just missed the cut off date for inspection without dyno test. I think 1995 and newer are exempt because the car's internal computer logs the car performance as it is being driven. So I took it to another place, and they too couldn't do that inspection because some bozo in the shop evidently broke the cable on the pick up tool that sense the engine RPM. So I took it back home and the car sat in the garage for the past year.

Yesterday, I hooked up my battery charger to the dead batteries and today I checked it. After a little cranking action, the car fires back just fine. I put some air in the soft tires, drove it around the block and all seemed to be fine. I am glad this is going well. At least the next time I come home for the Christmas break, I maybe able to get it inspected and have a back up car to run around with.

Joy Luck

I bet your first thought is the book titled Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan. You're wrong. In the past couple of years every time we come home from Denver we somehow managed to squeeze in a family dinner at a place called Joy Luck BBQ. Like the one I posted earlier about a BBQ place in Australia, JLBBQ is an authentic chinese restaurant replete with barbecued ducks, chicken whole prok roast and other entrails displayed in the front of the restaurant.

So today we ate dinner there. Jonathan was not able to be at the Thanksgiving dinner, and we use that excuse to eat ath JLBBQ so he can be there. This place is only a few miles from where he lives with his dad. It was god to be able to see home and spend sometimes with us. Maria also was there. Jen and Shea was planning to come too, but with Amy and her husband planning to drive back home to Houston, she ended up spending one more afternoon/evening with them today.

As usual, the food at JLBBQ was great and we enjoy and finish almost every dish we ordered. Unfortunatley, I forgot to take a picture of what we ate. Sorry.

Thanksgiving Day - what else is there to say but Turducken?

Getting ready for tomorrow!

We arrived home a little after 130pm today. Teddy and Paddy picked us up from the airport. Ate lunch at Five Guys in Southlake on the way home, and then we had a nice visit and dinner with the family. Brian and Maria drove in from Houston and we met them for dinner at a new seafood restaurant in Rockwall, called Catch-22. The food was good, but I wonder if they can survive much longer in the location they are currently in, doesn't seemed like they have much people traffic there.

After dinner, I de-boned a 14-16 lb turkey and will stuff that with stuffing tomorrow. Along with that, we'll also cook a 10 lb boneless turducken that Brian and Maria brought down. Dinner is set for around 1PM tomorrow. We'll have everyone but Lauren, Jonathan, and the Rozell family in the cold Alaska. We'll miss them at this family gathering. Lauren and Jonathan are with their other family members. We miss them all very much and pray that they are doing well tomorrow.

Family

Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away, and I am going to use this opportunity to say how thankful I am for the blessings our Lord has been to me and my family. Since my arrival in the US over 42 years ago, I had been given the opportunity to get an education, a good job, a wife and kids, and even after the painful divorce, the Lord has given me a second chance with Jan. Through that ordeal, I was taught by our Lord to help those who are going through the pain that I experienced. It has been almost 5 years since Jan and I involved ourselves in the Divorce Care ministry. I am very blessed with the gifts of grandchildren, our children, and with the love that you all have for Jan and I.

Thank you Lord for everything.