Color in the Desert

The high desert of New Mexico and especially in our neck of the woods is not noted for color. We don't have the swath of deciduous trees turning in to reds, browns, yellows, golds. On my hike this weekend I went on the Embudo Trail close to the house and when I came the view over the mountain valley I was his with this view of a couple of collections of intensely gold trees in a sea of brown and green. I'm not sure if these pictures will convey just how much the colors popped.




In addition, I also saw a new bird, the Hairy Woodpecker. And I made a tasty chicken stew with olives and orange rind that wife and I shared with an excellent Oregon Pinot Noir. A nice interlude before hitting the road trail again.

And The Winner Is...

Mrs. de-I and I went out today looking for counter top colors for the kitchen part of the remodel. We visited a client of mine who's in the business. As is usual in these things (at least for us) the choices are overwhelming. Below is a picture of the varieties of colors that one could choose from.


Wife picked out a whole bunch of colors samples to bring back. Much to our amazement one color just popped for us...called adobe of all things. Not only did we both instantly like it (more of this bizarre concurrence of taste on the part of Wife and I) but it got the GGSA (Gay Guy Seal of Approval) as our friend who had helped so much with Mrs de-I's living room makeover happened to stop by and seconded our choice. One can only hope the rest of this project continues to move along at this pace.

Adobe Front and Center

The Secret to a Long Marriage Revealed

How does one manage to stay married for decades and decades and still maintain the sweetness and emotion that first brought you together in the first place?

Why Westphalian Pumpernickel of course - just look at the picture on the package.


Please note the importance of 'whole kernels'

Note from Atlanta

I'm writing a quick note prior to my meetings starting today in Atlanta. We're in the midsts of another successful business succession project (this one has been going on for almost 5 years -- and yes they do usually take that kind of time). It was down to 33 degrees this morning and I was not packed for it. I always get caught somewhere during the fall with the temperature plunging and my not having the clothes.

If you didn't see Sunday's Next Iron Chef competition, it was awesome and is rerun on both Thursday night and Saturday night. The finale is this Sunday and its down to Besch and Symon in Kitchen Stadium. If you are male, you might want to see the rerun just to see the most sensual dress I've ever seen worn by a judge in a chef's competition.

Flooring and Lighting and Window Treatments, Oh My!

Wife and I are whizing through a host of selections we need to make in order for our contractor to put together semi-final plans and a preliminary quote which is needed to get the financing. This involves such decisions as:

• Floor coverings
• Lighting
• Heating and cooling
• Cabinetry
• Electrical
• Communications (TV, phone and computer)

Amazingly we are pretty much on the same page. This has been true over the last year or so. It's very strange when after many years of successful discord, you suddenly find yourself totally on the same page as your spouse!

TNIC - Update

Knowing that I was going to be able to spend Thursday evening with food and cooking crazy daughter MotherRocker and that the re-run of the fourth episode of The Next Iron Chef competition was to run that evening, I skipped the Sunday showing to watch with her. It was quite thrilling as two of the four remaining chefs were on the knife’s edge. Ultimately Aaron Sanchez was the one to go. Chef Michael Symons has now won the last two competitions hands down. It seems that it will come down to him and John Besh. Cosentino is going to have to really go to another level compared to his last couple of performances to stay in the game. This weeks adventure is in Paris. Wish I could be there.

Because of a very productive ride home from Chicago, I am taking tomorrow off and going on a long hike. After feeling the chill descending on Chicago, it was really good to get home to the bright sunshine of Albuquerque.

The Joy of Sleep

On Tuesday afternoon, we gave the first Chicago presentation of my business succession workshop "Will Your Business Pay for Your Retirement" (c). Since Ricardo and Lakeview have their own "unique" style of business networking this was done at our offices with wine and cheese...during the presentation! All I can say was I was glad the group was relatively sedate and attentive.

Actually we had a great prospect their brought by Ricardo. Afterwards we went to Timo for drinks where I spent an hour and half with the prospect doing heavy duty selling...with drinks. This was followed by dinner (with drinks) and more heavy duty networking with a resource. By the time we got back to Ricardo's I was wired. I went to sleep but was up three hours later and could not fall back to sleep. Naturally it took a while to get going on yesterday morning.

In spite of that I had good energy through the day. Fortunately, we had no business during the evening. We ate light (thank you Jodie) at Ricardo's and I was in bed by 9:30. I was out for the whole night.

It was great.

(this post is brought to you from an incredibly small (two tables) and packed Starbucks located at Wells and Adams in downtown Chicago - yeah wi-fi)