GREAT BIRTHDAY

Today has been a great birthday. I have spent the week in Granbury. Thursday Nancy and I were treated to lunch at the Fire Oak Grill in Weatherford by two people from UT-Arlington. Dr. Larry Chonko, who is a chair professor of Business Ethics, and Julie Brown who is a fund-raiser for UTA Business College met with us to explain the new course they are creating for Freshmen business students to introduce them to business planning and ethics in business. They will have the students divide into teams to prepare a business plan for some area that they have some knowledge about. They will present a written proposal that will be sent to business people to evaluate. The business consultants then will come to campus for an oral presentation and to evaluate the students work from a business perspective with their feedback. This is the type of program that I used at A&M for the capstone design course in Aero and the design courses I taught in graduate interdisciplinary classes. They want to recruit a couple of hundred business people to assist. They may even invite us after our meeting, or not.

We left from there to drive to Salado where Nancy had reserved a room for us to celebrate my birthday by having dinner today at the famous Stagecoach Inn. When we got there Thursday night we discovered that all of Bell County had suffered a devastating flash flood with Salado being especially hard hit. Over 65 homes were flooded and the hotel was full with persons escaping from the their homes. We drove across the river and saw the trees that had been uprooted and devastation all along the bank. However the little mermaid statue was still there but the park around it was gone. Water had gotten into the basement level of the Inn and knocked out their ice cream machine and some other equipment.

We spent the three days looking at the shops in Salado and buying very little, but Nancy bought me a map of Callahan County from a shop that had a lot of old maps. Then today she bought a picture frame to put it in. At the Stagecoach Inn for lunch we really enjoyed splitting a 12 oz. rib-eye steak capped by a chocolate pecan pie with a dip of ice cream with chocolate-cherry syrup with one candle burning in the middle of the pie. One great meal.

I got my usual birthday phone calls. First this morning Val called from College Station where she and Vanessa are going to use Kathy and Keith's football tickets for the game tonight. K and K are having the grand opening of a new location for Window World in Austin and couldn't make the game. Kathy called me and Mark called later after we got back to Granbury. This morning my brother Walt called from Marietta, GA. I told him about Nancy talking me into walking shorts and sandals. He said he had done that 5 years ago. I asked him if he had a beard like mine and he said no that he had shaved his head. I haven't gone that far yet. My bother Robert called both yesterday and today he called while I was driving. He was a highway engineer in charge of safety and when I told him I was driving he said he would call back later because he didn't want me to use my cell phone while driving. I got some nice email greetings and will probably have a bunch of cards since I haven't read my mail this week. We are planning to attend the Granbury Methodist Church tomorrow on our way back to CP.

I have losing another battle with raccoons here in Granbury. I bought a squirrel-proof bird feeder for Nancy's back yard and it has been knocked off of the holder three times now. Once they drug it back into the woods. I haven't seen the coon but know that the squirrels didn't do it. Nancy also has a fox in her back yard. It is more silver colored than the ones at my house. At home the other day I saw an unusual event when there were 5 hummingbirds all drinking together at the feeder in the back. Normally no more than one can feed. They must have been all family.

I am looking forward to seeing how much rain registered at home. Nancy had 4 inches Thursday morning and another inch when we got back today. I looked at the radar and it is raining south of Cross Plains tonight and may move my way. We will see.

I am also looking forward to hearing the stories from the five women in our church at CP who went to Glenn Beck's Honor Day celebration 8/28 in Washington. Three were in my SS class. Mark gave me Beck's latest book The Overton Window for my birthday and I finished it in Salado. It is a novel a lot like a Clancy novel but really scary because it could very possible considering the current events in our country. Like Beck says he hopes that it won't happen. He didn't say that God could change things but that is my only hope. I started another book that really looks good called Ultimate Proof of Creation. It explains how both evolutionists and creationists can look at the same scientific data and come to different conclusions due to their starting world views. I am looking forward to reading it.