My Comet Friend! Don Holmes

In honor of my Albuquerque friend from high school, Don Homles.

A close-up view of Comet Holmes is seen in the constellation ...

I wondered if...

... anyone in Denver (the city) would catch on to the name play of Denver and the Mile High Orchestra. I saw this in the Rocky Mountain News:

And an interesting side note . . .

• Sure, creatively named competitors on The Next Great American Band include The Dirty Marmaduke Food Squad, Zombie Bazooka Patrol, Fifi Larue and The Light of Doom. But our pick for best band moniker is Denver and the Mile High Orchestra, pictured at right. DMHO, which bills its style as Christian big band, is not named after the Mile High City, though, but for bandleader Denver Bierman.

First Snow :o)

YES! Today is our first snow of the season. I guess you KNOW we were excited!

OH WOW!

Okay... some of you may be familiar with American Idol. Having lived in Nashville and had friends in the music circle we were privileged to have had acquaintance familiarity with both Mandisa and Melinda Doolittle through other friends, but this time... OH MY. Beginning Oct. 19 the producers of American Idol are looking for The Next Great American Band and one of my best friends in the world (like a brother) Denver Bierman, leader of Denver & the Mile High Orchestra, tried out! This photo was on FOX's web site and I've seen numerous video commercials (see best one below) over the last several weeks with Denver on it. At this point, all we know is that they tried out. Join me in watching on October 19th to see how they do. Hope the mean judge doesn't say anything mean to the guys! GO DMHO!

Meeting people

Yesterday, as we were leaving our house on some errands we stopped and actually backed up in the road to meet Judy. She was out watering in her yard. The first time we went by I waved and mouthed hello and she politely nodded back and offered a slight smile. We forgot something so had to go back and pick it up. As we were going by Judy the second time I realized we just needed to stop and introduce ourselves so I backed up in the road, rolled down the window and introduced myself and Julie.

As we were talking Judy said something interesting... I don't remember her exact words but it was clear she was pleased we took the time to stop and introduce ourselves... and discover a little about who she was... somewhat shocked as a matter of fact. People do this so little these days that we are usually met with skepticism whenever we do... "is this person a serial killer" or "are they asking all these questions because they are going to take advantage of me somehow" seem to be the looks on their faces. However, now when we pass that corner and Judy is out we can wave and use her name to greet her.

No one else is likely going to take the initiative so we just have to do it. Meet someone new in your neighborhood today. Even if its several blocks away and you see someone walking or out in their yard, just stop, introduce yourself, and get to know a little about him or her. It could be the beginning of a great relationship.

Okay... all things new!

Those (two) of you who have followed our blog for the last several years will immediately notice that some things have changed around here. Today I changed my email domain over to be managed using Google Apps (AWESOME! If you have spam problems I highly recommend it). It required I swap which host my domain pointed to and I essentially began saying goodbye to the host I've used for some 5-8 years. An attempted back up and restore of the old life|simple blog content failed so we're going to start all things over just like our re-relocation to Colorado. Some of the old stuff is gone. Maybe I'll put it back over time and maybe I won't.

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