Carmichael's Position

On Turning 45

This past Monday I completed my 45th lap around the sun.  I was offered many o congratulatory well wish for a fun, relaxing, safe day in honor of the occasion.

I appreciated all of them… 

What I have learned over these past 45 years is that I am most appreciative of my friends and family, they are truly the best gifts one can wish.  I am blessed with truly diverse fellow travelers and I gain in my philosophical, spiritual and intellectual knowledge daily because of their teachings (intended or not).

Those that I do not agree with challenge me to buttress by own beliefs and values with fact, logic and philosophy… those that I agree with allow a calm solace of occasionally paddling with the stream for awhile.

I have multiple groups of friends, from my close circle of those who have known me since San Diego State (or earlier), my more recent poker and golfing buddies, and to some I’ve met though common interest, be it Photography, or Naval Aviation.  (Only a few within these groups actually cross pollinate, which I continue to think is generally beneficial to expanding my continuing education.)

I’ve said before I am not one to stop and take an inventory of my life… mostly out of fear I may discover I’ve been shoplifted… In general I am content with all I have experienced, and I seek to experience more.  I try to live my life by a simple (somewhat stoic) philosophy of “In life you never get what you expect, you only get what you INSPECT!” encouraging a life of the here and now, do not fret over things you cannot change or manipulate, and focus your energies on those that you can in a positive way.

As Epictetus says, “He who craves or shuns things not
under his control can neither be faithful nor free, but must himself be changed and tossed to and fro and must end by subordinating himself to others.”

“Work with what you have control of and you’ll have your hands full.”

I don’t always succeed in this premise, but it is good to know where I want to strive.

Thank you all for sharing your wisdom, in hopes that I may gain some… Isn’t it great that wisdom is one of those things you can share with others all your life an never deplete your own supply, nor ever completely fill your own vessel?

Vegas with Friends!

Just returned from a mini-vacation in Vegas.  Six couples were meeting up in Vegas to celebrate 3 of our May Birthdays, one for 50, one for 40 and me for 45.  And to celebrate Ginger’s graduation from Grad School receiving her Masters Degree in Nursing! I have to say this was one of the most relaxing de-compressing trips I’ve had in a long time! 

And to top it all off I’m returning with more cash in my pocket than what I left with!

All did not start off smoothly on this trip however.  We were on the 9:25pm flight out of Denver to Las Vegas last Wednesday.  And it being Spring and all here in the Mile High City, the weather was forecast to be a little on the wet side.  No biggie… planes fly in the rain all the time.  Well wouldn’t you just know it?  As I am driving up the approach road to the airport, said rain that had been pelting the GMC the whole drive swapped places with SNOW!  Heavy big potato-chip sized flakes that grew to such intensity in the next few minutes that I could not see more than a hundred yards or so.  “Yeah this’ll delay us… I just didn’t know for how long.”  Short answer… 4 hours!  Turns out Denver International Airport hadn’t planned for a snow storm this particular day and only 2 de-ice pads were open for the first couple of hours of the delay.

Finally around 1:30am we depart for Las Vegas… and wouldn’t you know it about 40 minutes into the flight over the PA we hear, “If there is a doctor or a nurse on board, please ring your call button.”   This is actually one of those weird things…  I have literally flown on more than 1,000 flights over the course of my business career and leisure life and I have heard this announcement 3 – count ‘em… 3 times!  And EACH of these times I have been flying with my wife Ginger… The Oncology Nurse! (prior to that an ICU nurse).  So I caution you… the odds of you getting sick on an airplane increase dramatically if my wife is onboard!    Turns out the patient in question probably had a case of heat exhaustion and dehydration.

We finally make it to the Mirage around 2:30 local… It’s Vegas baby!!! Its not like its dead or anything.  We drop the bags off in the room and head downstairs to grab a small snack at the 24 hour deli.  Heh… Small my ASS!  This sandwich could feed the entire front line of the USC Trojans football team… or Rosie O’Donnell whoever got to it first. 

Being that Ginger and I are both over 40 we see no sin in heading to the room for a little shut eye, besides our friends Karyn and Bob are due in on the 8:00am flight and may need our room to dump their stuff and change for the pool in the morning.  Trust me after that travel day? Slumber engulfed us like a fog on the coast!

8:00am my phone text buzzes… “Super smooth flight!!! We’ll see you guys shortly!!!”  Ginger Loves Karyn and Bob… but you wouldn’t have known it right then by the grumbled response to my reading aloud said message.  I texted back to Karyn about our tribulations the night before, to wit she was offering plenty of accommodation telling us to get more sleep… but in reality, Ginger and I too wanted to get on with our vacation.  Besides chapter 1 was simply, “Go to the pool!”  order up some Bloody Mary's (or a poison barbed mamosa), how tough could that be?  I mean really what could possibly go wrong.  Other than whist we were all in some painfully deep intellectual discussion about the various fashions arrayed around the pool… Karyn stops us cold with “Hey I have a problem, I’m having a serious allergic reaction!” as her right lymph node began to look like she had swallowed a peach pit!  And according to Nurse Ginger who happened to be sitting right there… (I’m telling you, coincidence?  I think not!) it felt like a pit too!  This time Bob to the rescue with his stash of Benadryl!  Yea Bob!  Which did indeed help reduce Karyn’s reaction… to what we still were not sure.  Olive? Strawberry? a spice of some sort?  (Plot spoiler here… a day later Karyn discovered that something had either broken off of the plastic spear used to stab the olive she ate or a piece of the pit from the olive lodged in her lower salivary gland).  Karyn is much better now!  And after removing the culprit, was fine all that trip… not counting almost losing a wallet and actually losing an iPhone… Trooper!

Ok… Festivities!   What I really enjoyed about this trip is that we did much more than sit at a slot machine and watch our 401K’s get smaller by the minute (ya know like 2008). 

We ate fantastic food at Capo’s Italian restaurant true to the “Godfather”-esque ambiance, we played golf at two really nice courses, both in good condition with stellar views of the Las Vegas Valley… by the way, if you play there… the friggn’ ball is going to break to that damn valley!  I don’t give a crap that it looks like a two footer breaking the other way.  Trust it like you would a politician!  Seriously golf is great in Vegas, that’s honestly the cheapest 5 hours you will spend!  Even if the tee was $200.00 which ours wasn’t.

 

Friday night many of us caught the Circque du Solei – tribute to Elvis show at the Aria hotel in the new city center.  Good show!  Great art direction!  I was a little annoyed with the lady next to me who spent the gross majority of the show with her fingers in her ears.  PLEASE… Don’t go to shows where strong music is going to be played if you are sensitive to loud sounds!  And if you know this already… have you heard of EAR PLUGS?!!!  Your elbows are distracting me!

Now don’t assume we didn’t partake in some of the vices Vegas has to offer as well… there was gamblin’ to be commenced.  After all we know all of these people from our monthly Poker group!  Many of us played in poker tourneys, some of us played the slots, some video poker and some of us the tables.  My buddy Cliff and I?  We headed to Craps!  The two nights we played we did quite well, Cliff better on night one with the dice I better on our second excursion.  Yes we both profited… fairly handsomely actually, hell you have to be doing well to hold the table for 3 1/2 hours with your original buy-in!  More importantly Cliff and I whooped it up good!  High Five’n yelling at the dice!  Getting the table all excited!  It was tons of fun!  Hell I think our tips to the dealers made them a couple hundred… easy!

The second golf round was guys day, with four of us heading to Red Rocks Country Club to beat that little white bastard!  I had a very good round even with a couple of blow-up holes I still managed an 82.  Not bad for a course I have never seen before in my life much less played.  Damn ball still breaks up hill sometimes… I swear it does!

While we are on the links, my bride emails me with some good news… She hit another Royal Flush on a Quarter Video Poker Machine (cashing in over $1,000.00)!  Whooooo Hooooooo! Dinner on Ginger tonight!  That’s her 3rd of those in as many of years… Her first two coming in the same month a couple of years back!

This trip even had its moments of complete spontaneity.  After our group dinner at Hugo’s Cellar in downtown we walked the Fremont Experience… As we looked up into the canopy we noticed 4 cables strung from the far end to about the halfway point of the mini-strip.  ZIP LINES!  YEAH BUDDY!!!  Who’s with me?  Dennis, Bill, Farri, and Ginger!  That’s who!  We all head off to the west end of the block to get hooked up and go for a thrill!  20 minutes later we’re all 60 feet in the air hauling ass over the crowds gathered on Fremont Street!  How fun was that!!! 

All in all, a great trip!  Surrounded by great, fun, entertaining, genuine people!  Fortunately our flight home was uninterrupted by a PA announcement looking for Ginger.