Early Morning and Reflection

I am still on East Coast time after being in NY for 6 days... I woke up at 6:00am on a Saturday... a true rarity without some outside stimulus causing my rise to consciousness. First things first... find something to do that doesn't make noise so I don't wake up the rest of the house... Check e-mails... organize home office... but no shredding! I was thinking about how to bring past experiences in the west (I've been here over a year) without being too retrospective. Sonny woke up so it was time to do our coffee ritual... and here I can truly say that I have fallen in with the trendy coffee drinkers... I can't recall if it was a magazine or a movie quote that stated, "The more complicated your coffee order the more the asshole." I hope that's not true because if it is I have a lot more enemies that I thought... specially when I order a Venti-soy, white chocolate, almond, no-whip. At least I don't use the word Chai (sp?) for some reason that strikes a nerve with me.

After getting Sonny's order it was time to head off... but not before opening the blinds to insure that Sonny was up and at'em to partake in our morning coffee experience.

I do love the view from our bedroom window... we live in Summerlin in Las Vegas and we are very close to Red Rock Canyon. Some of the mountains that form and surround the canyon can be seen off in the background. www.americansouthwest.net/Nevada/red_rock_canyon/nca.html

Unlike my friend Victor, there is no jumping on the subway or walking around the corner. So for someone like me that has to drive everywhere I definitely need to get there in style... and for someone that was in highschool in the 80's what better mode of transport than the flagship auto of movies such as Risky Business, Weird Science and countless others in the 80's...

A Red 1989 Porsche 928 S4. Now that's what I'm talking about... buy the time I get to starbucks I really don't even need a damn coffee! (This would be my juvenile side coming out here) It's not just the exhilaration of driving a 320hp red sports car but I replaced the factory system with a custom system. Originally a 10 speaker Bose low output system... I took all that stuff out and put in 10 Kenwood Excelon competition component speakers, two Alpine Amps, 1 12" Alpine kicker and a Sony MP3 head unit. Today the CD of choice is the Dazed and Confused soundtrack CD part 2.

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000002L1V/002-1449532-6450424?v=glance

A classic rock bonanza... both the first and second CD's are real joys to listen to. Also Vic, if you are reading this I bought the MIA CD. I knew I liked it because after being awakened at o-dark:30 while hungover I still really enjoyed it.

The drive to and from the Starbucks is always nice... not too far and always with the mountains in the background... the temp today is about 78 in the morning with about 30% humidity. I am nearly inspired to drive to Red Rock and take the scenic drive but then I would really be fulfilling the role of ordering complicated coffee from Starbucks as Sonny wondered where the hell I was!

So it was back home to drink our coffee and decide what to do for the day... hiking in Red Rock seems like the plan later today. Unfortunately, I have to work to do in preparation for my trip out to Bend, Oregon on Monday. I will be training sales people and need to get finish a slam dunk presentation... usually I like to just get up in front of a sales staff and just train and I enjoy what I call "aha moments" when you know you taught them something they didn't know. However, after you leave they remember about 7% of the rest of the things that you shared so it is always good to have a printed presentation for them to reference and turn those short term memories into long term... I hope. I will follow this post with a brief photo chronology of where I have been so far on my western adventure...