Bruce Daley

The smell of the first few drops of summer rain on a hot sidewalk.

• have your child read and write as much as possible
• your child may practice vocabulary and grammar on the foreign language Quiz pages
• for Latin class, www.quia.com/pages/cambridgeone.html will give students a head start on vocabulary and www.cambridgescp.com will help with both culture and translations.
• English, science and math sixth grade teachers will post summer review and enrichment activities on their teacher webpages
• teachers may give packets to help students over the summer, or if you have a particular worry, please contact your child’s teacher

In my 50th year I want to perform 50 acts of kindness

1. – 4/20/58 – After talking with one of my son’s friend’s father about his sister’s suicide 30 years ago I dropped a book off at his house that I thought might help him.

It was harder than I thought but my entry was finally accepted. Oddly enough it was too short to improve my writing and too obscure for me to receive much recognition. I did gain a little social credit from the folks at work though.

entry

Life just did not work out that way

After two months of cycling around Ireland I rode 130 miles into Dublin.

Work especially on three areas:

1) Return of serve
2) Second serve
3) Backhand

Discipline myself to stretch before and after every game

Play in USTA leagues and maybe T2 Tennis

3/25/2008 – Practiced serve
4/13/2008 – Team practice
4/15/2008 – Hit the ball with Paul

In my 50th year I want to play tennis at least 50 times

1. 4/20/2008 USTA Team practice
2. 5/7/2008 USTA Match – Win
3. 4/27/2008 USTA Team practice
4. 5/04/2008 USTA Team practice
5. 5/11/2008 USTA Team practice
6. 5/18/2008 USTA Team practice
7. 5/20/2008 3.0 top dog doubles
8. 5/21/2008 USTA Match – Win
9. 5/25/2008 USTA Team practice
10. 5/24/2008 Men’s singles
11. 5/25/2008 Mixed doubles round robin
12. 5/26/2008 Mixed doubles at club
13. 5/28/2008 USTA Match – Win
14. 5/31/2008 Crestmoor 3.5 pick up game
15. 6/01/2008 USTA Team practice

Fruits and vegetables
Low-fat yogurt
Bagel with jam
Graham crackers
100% Fruit strips
Popcorn
Fruit salad
Dried fruit like raisins or mangoes
Mozzarella sting cheese
Pita wedges and hummus
Apple sauce
Bagel chips
Frozen all fruit bars
Nonfat frozen yogurt
Pretzels

I expected to move up and gain a 3.5 USTA ranking but despite winning most of my games I remained a 3.0. My social life was much more active as a result of playing tennis. I was more fit, but not as fit as I got from running and lifting weights. I did not lose much weight as a result of playing so much tennis.

My experience this month was to go to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base outside the Chinese city of ChengDu. The facility is home to over 50 giant pandas. It also has detailed exhibits on panda evolution, habits, and conservation efforts as well as an artificial lake, tea house, and gift shop. Once a fierce carnivoir, the Giant Panda evolved into a mostly peace loving eater of bamboo leaves. First made known in the West in 1869 by a French missionary, the Panda’s choice of diet require it spend most of its day and night sleeping waking up only long enough to chow down for a few hours on a low nutrition bamboo diet. As the signs at the base point out, this kind of life makes the animal oddly endearing. Regrettably it also does not leave a lot of time for mating and the total worldwide estimated population of the species about 1,000. Breeding is the true purpose of the base and I felt myself strangely moved by the comparison between my own challenges dating and those of the Giant Panda.

Although it is a little late in the month to declare my November experience, I am going to China after Thanksgiving for business.

1. Empire Falls – Richard Russo
2. The Romanian: Story of an Obsession – Bruce Benderson

Athletic

1. Do 50 push ups
2. Swim 50 laps
3. Play 50 tennis matches
4. Walk 50 miles
5. Ride my bike 50 miles
6. Lift 50 pounds 50 times
7. Demonstrate 50 yoga moves

Community

8. Plant 50 trees
9. Feed a meal to 50 homeless people
10. Do 50 hours of community work
11. Make 50 people microloans of $50 dollars through Kiva.org

Intellectual

12. Read 50 books
13. Watch 50 award winning movies
14. Memorize 50 Haiku
15. Memorize 50 passages from the Bible
16. Write 50,000 words about the experience
17. Make 50 blog posts about my experience

Social

18. Send 50 books to 50 friends
19. Fast for 50 hours
20. $50 every week for 50 weeks on yourself
21. Write 50 words

What I expect to happen if I pursue this goal:

1) By planning, achive everything I set out to accomplish
2) Have a more active social life engaging people in the process
3) Write enough 50,000 words about the experience to have a book

Over the weekend, my girlfriend H. and I went up to Vail. Down in Denver the weather was cold and overcast but past the foothills the Mountains were unseasonably warm and sunny. Although there was still snow on the north facing roof tops we went swimming. The hotel where we stayed was also playing host to students attending a formal college dance. One our way back from swimming we rode in the elevator with another couple and four students on their way to the pool – two men and two women. They carried large cooler of Long Island Ice Teas. One was very drunk and the other three were well on their way to getting drunk. We had a polite conversation about what they were doing. The woman who was the most drunk wore a rainbow bikini. As she left the elevator she told us what an attractive people we were! Since at 49 I don’t hear that very often it was very fulfilling and took the edge off of the Rockies losing so badly.

Today I took my two children on their first public bus ride. The terminal is only a few blocks from my house but I don’t use it very often which is understandable. In order to make the best use of public transit you need to look up the schedule beforehand, be a little early, find the exact place the bus stops, have exact change, and know in advance when to get off which we all practiced successfully today. This is just another example of why it is most often harder to be poor than rich. Since I have two cars taking the bus is not the path of least resistence to most places but if you don’t have a car it can be a better alternative than walking. It was a fun outing for us but most impactful to my 12 year old son. On the bus I asked him what should this bus represent to him and he answered “Freedom”.

We closed our first deal in August. Because of regulations we are not a bank but an investment advisory firm. Our company is called Rabbit Ears Capital Advisors and has offices in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, Denver, and Atlanta.

Actually I have climbed an active volcano, Mt. Popocatepetl outside Mexico city. How did I know it was active? From a distance you see a thin vapor coming out of the top like the steam from a kettle you have just taken off the heat. The mountain is so high it is snow covered near the top, but as I rounded the lip of the crater all the snow was melted by a warm, sulfer smelling wind coming out of the mouth of the volcano. Since then the volcano has errupted a few times.

Flew my girlfriend to New York City for a 5 day date. It was such a good trip she started using the “m” word by the end.