2008

2008

	1/27. Dale usually comes out to the hangar with me when I'm working out there, and so does Bailey, the cat. Most of the time they play together, but sometimes Bailey just has enough and needs some space. Here she's perched in a pile of baskets while Dale tries to get her attention.
	4/1. This April Fool's joke by Mother Nature wasn't funny.
	4/19. Another trip to Lake of the Ozarks for the boat show and to look at real estate. Saw this unusual house.
	4/25. It's almost half way through Spring and still snowing. I should have Al Gore come over and shovel the parking lot.
	4/27. I win 2 tickets to the NASCAR truck and IndyCar races at the Kansas Speedway on the radio. These included pit passes on Sunday for the IndyCars.
	I wasn't sure until afterwards, but this was Mario Andretti hanging out next to Marco's trailer.
	Marco Andretti.
	Danica Patrick's car.
	After seeing Danica three times, she finally stops long enough for about a dozen autographs. Lucky enough to get 2 of them.
		6/14/08. A gorgeous day for boating. The water temp at Yankton was only 72, but Dale didn't seem to mind.

	6/21: Sam is maid of honor of at her friend Renee's wedding. We've known her since way back when Sam and she were in grade school, so it's kinda strange to see the cute little girl all grown up and married.
	Sam and I pose for a couple of father-daughter shots. She certainly is beautiful.
	Dale was along so we got a couple of him, too.
	Sam and her boyfriend Ben, who was also in the wedding.
	6/22: We go boating and tubing for the day. The last picture is just a fraction of a second before Sam's spectacular crash into the water.
	Good shot of Dale, with Sam and Ben in the background. The next picture is Sam and Dale tubing.
	J.D. and Dale take a turn. Sam and Ben.
	Sam takes the controls for the way back. I have a picture almost identical to this one, but it's from 18 years earlier. I'll find it and put it on here to compare. :>)
	6/27: I head down to Lake of the Ozarks and pick up a friend from the Midwest Boat Party website in Kansas City. On the way out of the City we see a Delorean just like the one in Back to the Future. The license plate reads 88mh.
	Stayed at the Heron Bay condo that a fellow Midwest Boat Party member owns.
	Saturday is spent at the infamous Party Cove. The weather was iffy, and the 2nd picture shows how bad it was getting. A half hour later it rained for at least another hour. We took shelter in a 42' Cruisers yacht and made some new friends.
	Later on the rain stopped and it turned out to be a decent day.
	July 4th. US92 puts on a concert with Luke Bryan, Craig Morgan and Terri Clark. This is Luke Bryan.
	Craig Morgan came onstage on his dirt bike. When he sang Redneck Yacht Club, he went over to the party barge at the side of the stage. Another tidbit is that 4 out of 5 members of his band are from Nebraska and the drummer is from Norfolk.
	Terri Clark put on a great show.
	July 12th and 13th. Madison County Fair. Gretchen Wilson was on Friday night. Good music, mediocre stage presence.
	Clay Walker was Saturday night.
	7/20 Dale and I go fly his kite.
	Labor Day weekend. One more try at house hunting at Lake of the Ozarks. Saturday afternoon I take a break at the Pizza Hut parking lot and am fortunate enough to see the Bud Light boat go by twice. Got some good pics of other go-fast boats and the heavy traffic on the lake this weekend.
	Made an offer in on this one, and got a counter-offer that was still too high. The hunt continues.
	Found it! Saturday night I get a call about a 2900' FIVE bedroom house on the 1MM North Shore of Lake Ozark. It wasn't an area I was looking at, but it's so close to the dam which makes it convenient to get to everything. I drove by to take a look and the owners invited me to look around. I officially went there the next morning for a look and we did offers and counter-offers for the rest of the day. Got it for a reasonable price, PLUS it was fully furnished. Click on the picture to take you to its own page.
	9/18. The moving truck is loaded, and I'm ready to leave what I thought would be my last house. It was custom designed to be exactly what I wanted. I would have loved to move the whole house to the lake with me. Maybe someday I'll build the same one.
	Bailey, right before I left. The new owners agreed to take care of her.
	9/19. I hire some help to unload the truck, and one of the last things was the pool table. It's all one piece, so there's no way to break it down into smaller sections. Just getting it to the deck was a nightmare. We ended up laying blankets along the deck and the stairs to slide it.
	At the bottom of the stairs we had to take a 90-degree turn to the right. That meant standing the table on the end and pivoting it around. One false move and the whole thing would have kept going downhill into the lake. I told the guys that if it headed that way, we're not fishing it out. You'll notice it was pretty dark by then. We finished with the grand piano around 9pm. Since I had so much that couldn't fit into the truck, I decided to drive it back the next morning to fill it up again. Got back to NE around 6, and my friend Steve and I loaded it up completely full again. The next morning I take off for the lake, getting there around 5. This time my helpers weren't available so I ended up unloading the whole truck by myself. I also had to deliver the truck to Jefferson City so I threw the motorcycle on the car hauler to ride back on. Got home around 1am. That was a LONG weekend.
	I've got some great flowers at the house. Here a butterfly and bee share the same plant.
	9/25. A hazy sky makes for a burner of a sunset.
	9/26. The day started out so foggy that I could barely see the dock.
	On the way to meet friends for lunch, I get to follow the Bud Light boat on its way to the Offshore Super Series races that weekend. Click HERE for pics from it.
	My new friend Eddie's boat. I later got a ride in it. What a thrill!. Second picture is Tony's Baja. Nice boat as well.
	10/2. I pick up this VERY clean Formula 272 SR1. Click on the picture to take you to its own page.
	10/6. Tony stops by the house today with his boat, and I get a couple pics of him from the deck.
	10/11. The Fall Harbor Hop, where you travel by boat to several stops at lakefront marinas, bars and restaurants to build the best poker hand. Had a great time and made friends with Brian and his crew.
	10/14. Lots of wildlife around here. A blue heron stopped by on the dock to take a break. I also have a squirrel that runs back and forth along the deck railing hauling acorns. He'll jump from there into the trees.
	10/21. Just about end of the boating season, so I spend a day waxing the boat. While Nebraska was in the 40s, it hit 72 that day at the lake. The boat came out nicely, and the reflection is amazing.
	10/22. Changed the oil in the boat's engines, and kept having to go back up to the house for stuff. At the 3rd trip, I got to thinking that I have a great, but expensive stair stepper exercise equipment (but it came with a nice house and dock).
	10/25. On the way to Franky & Louies for lunch, Eddie runs along with us and snaps this picture.
	November 1st, and the temps get up to almost 80 degrees! Took the boat out to see the Fall colors, which were just as amazing as the weather.
	Idling back into my cove I'm amazed at how picturesque my house looks with the smooth water and colorful trees.
	12/1. I'm in St. Louis to see Glenn Beck's production of "The Christmas Sweater" and take some time to head over to Staunton, IL to see this huge classic car dealer. They have over 500 cars inside and outside. The sectioned Chevy wagon was neat, and I also found a Pontiac Aero. Not too many of those around.
	The show was held in the beautiful Fox Theater. The Chinese theater theme is everywhere. Wish I would have brought in my good camera, but all I had was the cell phone.
	After picking up a signed copy of the book Glenn also was doing autographs as well. I ended up with two autographs in the same book. :>)
	12/10. A squirrel has breakfast outside my office window.
	12/11. Another gorgeous sunset. These two pictures were taken about a minute apart. Notice how much the color changed during that time.
	12/16. What a difference a day can make. One day it's 60 degrees and the next it's 8. A severe cold front came through most of the Midwest a couple of days ago. Got some snow last night and it made for a pretty Winter picture.
	12/24. I drive up to KC on the 23rd to ride up with Brian to Mom's house in the morning. Of course it ices over and snows that night. Saw this pretty bad wreck where the trailer must have fishtailed the SUV right off the road, with everything ending upside-down.
	We picked up Dale in Hallam and have a great Christmas. Here Dale and Red are looking at pictures of the new house Mom and Red are building.
	Brian and Mom Brian, Mom, Dale and J.D. Dale came back with me to Lake of the Ozarks for the week. We met Sam in Omaha for lunch. She will come down on January 1st to stay a few days and bring him back to NE.
	Around St. Joe, they must have had an ice storm. Everything was covered in ice, and the trees were breaking from all the weight. The sun came out for a minute and it was very pretty.
	12/29. Temps get to almost 60 degrees today! Dale and I walked down to the dock to enjoy a nice afternoon, wishing the boat wasn't winterized. I spot my neighbor's pedal boat sitting on his dock and get a great idea. After a phone call and permission, we clean it up and put it in the water. We spend almost 2 hours touring the cove along with a short jaunt out into the main channel. Normally anything under 24' isn't recommended in the main channel, but we had the lake to ourselves. We had a great time and the exercise was good, too.
	12/31. Should be the last pics of 2008. It's still a relatively nice day, so I get out the leaf blower to get rid of everything that blew down in the last few days. Dale gives it a try and has fun with it. Afterwards we take the little pedal boat out again to chase ducks.

2008

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