I call this dining at COSTCO. I went to COSTCO yesterday afternoon. On weekdays it's usually young mothers, the unemployed, the late and early shifts folks, but mostly senior citizens like me who don't want to fight the weekend crowds.

I only bought four or five items but I spent quite a bit of time watching people consume the free samples. They had about a dozen spots for food samples and I watched several couples hit them all; sometimes twice or taking two samples at the same time. There was one guy who was skinny as can be and he must have hit each area at least twice and a couple more than that. He would chat with the server and kept helping himself to samples at the same time. I sampled about four items-I passed on the fish and the Greek yogart and a few more that just didn't look that good. There were other samplers who didn't pass on anything. It's cheap dining out.

Beautiful morning-at 7:00 there already were two balloons in the air.

Are there any worse commercials than Allstate's "Mayhem" ads?

Geico and Bud Light are still my favorites.

The last two days Keri has been going to calculator camp in Colorado Springs. That means the last two mornings I have been on my school year schedule of getting up at 5:00 am to get to her house by 6:00 am. I am feeling tired needless to say so when I went to work out after Kathy came over at 9:00 am I wasn't in the greatest of moods. First I was working out on a cardio (sp?) machine and a lady came and started on the machine next to me. First she gets on her cell phone and starts calling her friends to see how they are doing. I'm trying to watch CNN on the TV in front of our machines. When she finishes calling, a friend comes up and starts talking about nothing but I can't escape. Rather than asking them to move, another machine opens up farther down the row and I move. Then I went over to the area with light weights and exercise balls. I like to use a certain size ball (they only have two of these although people have asked for more since it is the most popular size). One of the "professional trainers" has taken one along with several sets of weights to work with her client. I ask her if she needs all those sets and she tells me she does. I am peeved since half the stuff I want is not being used because the "professional trainer" has them tied up. I'm upset since I have my routine but make adjustments using other similar equipment but by then I'm so upset I leave early. I have been up since 5:00 am and I really don't want to tangle with the "professional trainer" since that's probably how she makes most of her salary. I, along several other people, have asked for more exercise balls in that size but no one appears to care.

I don't have to get up as early tomorrow so maybe I'll be in a better mood.

Today is almost like a holy day in the Denver area-a new IKEA store is opening about 10 miles east of our house. People have been camping out (despite horrible weather at times) for days to receive free furniture as part of the grand opening. The highway department has set new street routes to cut down on congestion but with an estimated 40,000 people expected in the first few days, it may be futile. Forget budget battles and football lockouts-IKEA is opening; whoopee (not).

This is paraphrasing part of a letter to the editor in today's Denver Post:

The reader quoting Mark Twain wrote:"......First God created idiots-that was for practice. Then he created politicians."

S-I-L Eric and I watched the Rockies and Braves at Coors Field last night. The Rockies got hammered but it's still fun to be there. Ninety-three degrees at game time and 81 when the game let out around 9:30. I'm now 4-2 this season when I watch the Rox in person.

Saw a girl wearing an interesting T-shirt: "Designated Kisser" rather than "Designated Hitter" and in Rockies colors to boot. Times are changing and so are the writings on T-shirt.

As I was watching the final minutes of the overtime of the Women's World Cup soccer match, the ESPN feed was interrupted by the National Weather Service to give a flash flood warning near Boulder. At the time the score was 2-1 in favor of the USA. When the picture returned, the score was tied at 2-2 and eventually the USA lost in penalty shots. I didn't see the the second Japanese goal nor a replay. Timing is everything.

Made the Wyoming trip this week. I visited my brother and his wife in Cheyenne, went to lunch, took care of some business and then headed to Casper (gassed up in Wheatland $322.9). A good friend had an extra Casper Ghosts ticket so I did Wednesday night at the ball park. It was out the back of my motel and into the back entrance of the stadium. It's one of the reasons I stay in that motel. The Ghosts lost but it was just good to see old baseball friends. Of course I took some photos of the grandtwins to show.

Thursday I went to my old barber for a cut (5 minutes cutting and 25 minutes getting updated on the latest Casper happenings-I miss that in the Denver barber chains). I met my old coffee drinking homies for an hour and a half to get more updates in the education community, hear some bad jokes, but mainly to keep in touch. I take all my old "Redneck" calendar jokes for one guy who really enjoys them. I had about 6 months worth. Went to lunch with one of my best friends. We discussed life and investments (he a former stockbroker). It was anther great 2 hours. Then I met with my current stockbroker to see if he had any insight as to how to make money in the market. After and hour and a half, I had lots of ideas but no money changed hands. Thursday night I went back for another Ghosts game (saw even more old friends). They lost even bigger than the night before. The visiting team was staying at my motel but I didn't see much of them.

Friday I headed back to Colorado where I met an old fraternity brother and his wife for lunch near Fort Collins-another couple hours. From Cheyenne to Denver I was amazed at the amount of snow remaining in the Rockies. I understand the concern for flooding in the foothills. It was a great three days. I don't miss Casper but I miss some of my friends.

Today the air is so humid it almost seems we're in Iowa in July rather than Colorado. We're expecting heavy rains today.

Speaking of Iowa: there was a guy this morning at the Fitness Center sporting a John Deere tattoo. I don't where the guy's roots are but we usually see dragons, barbed wire, etc., for tats around here.

Follow-up Sonic Drive-in: the kid did deliver the meal on roller skates. How 50's and 60's is that?

We've had so much rain the last week and early this week I'm getting bids on an ark. I think our Midwestern relatives may need it worse than we do, however.

The wife said she wanted to go OUT for supper last night so I took her to a Sonic Drive-In and we ate OUTside on the patio. I'd never eaten at a Sonic before. Good malts.

The 4th of July is one of my least favorite holidays. Why-I get tired of fireworks which seem to start earlier in June and extend further in July. The three-day weekend really led to perpetual evening neighborhood fireworks displays. The ones that makes me the most nervous are the bottle rockets when they come close to my house. One time one of my neighbors in Casper started a fire in a dry field near our house. He ran out with a hose and got it out before the fire engines arrived. This morning I went out to work in the back yard and wound up cleaning the remains of bottle rockets and their ilk. Luckily we had rain right around the weekend. Remembering last year's grass fire in the field at the end of our block, I get a little nervous. I enjoy the fourth and what it stands for but I don't think that includes shooting fireworks until nearly midnight and aiming some of them at other's houses. Am I an old grouch or what?

I checked further into the yesterday's balloon landing at the end of our street. Apparently one other balloon went down a couple of blocks over. I talked to one of the neighbors who has been on the block for a while. He said they average about one balloon landing in the filed south of our street every other year. He said one year a balloon actually clipped the house at the end of the cul--de-sac and landed in the field. He said none of the neighbors ever volunteer to help retrieve the balloon from the field due to the rumored animal population-bears, coyotes, rattle snakes, etc. He also had seen the balloon that just missed C470.

The rest of the story.

Stuff you can't make up.

Usually it's the Denver Post guy with his bad muffler who wakes me up in the morning. He must have fixed his muffler because I haven't heard him the last couple weeks. This morning, around 7:00, I kept hearing a different noise outside. I looked out the window and it was a balloon-not the size you blow up or buy for your kids-and it was headed for our house. He was really throwing the gas to the burner to stay up. He passed over us and landed in a field at the end of the our cul-de-sac. I walked down to the end of the street to see what would happen next. I was the first one there but soon my neighbors came out in all sorts of levels of dress-I won't go into detail. The balloon was still upright but they could only keep it three to five feet off the ground. They were going to try to get it to our street so they could shut it down and fold it up. About five of them managed to get the balloon high enough to clear a barbed wire fence and on to our street. After avoiding a lamp post, it was a piece of cake. They deflated the balloon and started to roll it up. The pilot asked what street they were on so the chase car could find them. Half an hour later it was all gone.

I've seen a balloon almost land in a pond a couple blocks from our house and one almost land on C-470 which is a major four-lane highway in south Denver but I've never had one almost hit my house. Try explaining to your insurance company how your house was damaged by a balloon.