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Saturday, February 1, 2014

Chiluly Exhibit at Phoenix Botanical Garden





One of the things on Connie's bucket list is to live through an earthquake.  Let me rephrase that.  Live through an earthquake that he feels.  Feels is the critical word here.  Many years ago we got to the airport at o'dark thirty.  Got through security (fyi - if you've not yet signed up, the pre-check is AWESOME!) and found some chairs in the gate.  Pretty soon, my chair was rocking.  Connie must be pumping his knee.  Nope, he was asleep.  Great, so it's some guy behind me and I can't  lean back and say, "Cut it out buddy!"  We get on the plane and the pilot announces that this is a first for him.  They're checking the runways for damage because we've had an earthquake.  Connie looks at me and sheepishly announces that perhaps he's slept through it...  Yup.  That would be the case.

The next one was a couple of years ago.  Sam and Judy were in for their review.  Judy was across the table from me and Sam was to my left.  Connie was out walking Annie.  The shaking started.  Judy and I looked at each other and said, "Earthquake."  Took a bit of time to find the info that indeed, Indiana had had a very small earthquake.  Did Connie feel it when he was out taking DoggieWoggie for her daily constitutional?  Nope.

So, with great anticipation we headed west.  First stop, Phoenix.  Second stop, California.  Now, the time was ripe for Connie to really experience an earthquake!

We took off for Phoenix at o'dark thirty.  Finally, we were there.  Our rental car was ready.  Except, it was a hatchback and our bags didn't fit.  Back to the office.  Free upgrade because they didn't have anything else that we could take out of state.  Thank you Alamo!  Off to the botanical garden.  $22 a person and 75 minutes until we had to be at the hotel and ready for the first speaker.  Ummm, no, we'd be back.

Speakers, break out sessions.  Just tons of education and fun.  So, three of the speakers.  Erik Wahl.  A graffiti artist.  Such cool work.  And, a great message.  Then, David Kelly.  Chief global strategist for a fund company.  Amazing man.  I need to listen faster because he crams so much info into his talks that I can listen three times and still learn more!  Last, but not least, Bill Walton.  Big deal, eh?  He's a basketball player.  One who's had 37 orthopaedic surgeries and has found a calling as a motivational speaker.  He talked about playing for John Wooden.  I had the privilege of hearing Mr. Wooden at an educational retreat put on by a big fund company.  He was 95.  Bounded into the room, spoke, then answered questions for almost 45 minutes.  I still remember the sense of awe I felt.  Now, I felt almost the same thing listening to Bill Walton.  This from a gal who prefers professional football to all other sports!  Photos afterward.  Yes, he is VERY tall!



You're wondering how we got back to the botanical garden, aren't you?  We were scheduled to have dinner with my friend Windus.  She's from San Diego so we don't get to see each other too often.  I told her we had a fabulous idea for Tuesday evening.  She loved it and so did the two colleagues of hers who she brought along.  The bonus was that the sun was just setting and there was a Chihuly exhibit.  At the risk of boring you, there are several photos.  After the botanical garden, we were off to Stingray Sushi.  We loved their Godzilla roll.  Actually, we really liked the whole dinner!


 





 

Ok, we're having major technical difficulties here.  I can't edit at all from home using either Internet Explorer or Chrome.  At the office I can marginally edit using Chrome.  Methinks it is time to ditch Blogger and go with another system.  If only I had the time to mess with that!















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