HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OF YOU AND TO ALL THE MISSING BEES!

There has been much speculation lately as to where the Bees have gone. Today, as we get up this morning to celebrate this special holiday, I have great news. I have found the answer to where the bees have gone.


But first, since it is Thanksgiving, I want to thank all my friends, my family and all the people that I don't even know who read my Blog from different parts of the world. I write because I like to write and even though I do not do it very well, I get enormous enjoyment out of doing it.


As most of our family gathered last night at our home to celebrate Grover's birthday and to chow down on Turkey Chili followed by Blackberry Crackle and ice cream, I looked over at the table and saw how thankful I am for such a great family. I wish Gustavo, Dorte and the twins could have been with us and of course I wish my Mom was well enough to come celebrate with us along with my brother Steve and his wife Judie.


But even though they weren't here, I am as thankful that they are apart of my life as I am of the 9 of us gathered together last night. I am sure there will be a photo later on Andrea's Blog as she was the photographer last night.


I am SO, SO blessed in my life and have so, so, so much to be thankful for. In addition to my wonderful family, I have been fortunate to make friends all over the world and also to see a very large part of the world. And so to all of you, even though many of you do not celebrate Thanksgiving the way it is done here, I wish the very best for all of you and give thanks that you have been a part of my life.


And now back to the Bees.


I woke up at 530 this morning and we are going over to have a family breakfast in a couple of hours at Andrea and Lee's home. I was too hungry to wait so I decided to have some berries. I had purchased a box of Driscoll's Raspberries from Fresh Market in Atlanta.


I got out my bowl, napkin and spoon. I took the carton of raspberries out of the refrigerator.



> I popped open the sealed, plastic top and imagine my surprise at what I saw. The answer to where the Bees are going.



I was not happy. Berries and Bees in your Bran at 6am is not my idea of a healthy breakfast.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GROVER!!

Today is my son Grover's birthday. I will save both of us the pain by not saying which birthday it is.


Much has happened in life since he was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma a few decades ago. We were so poor we had to get a six month loan at a bank to buy $50 worth of tires a few months before he was born. But a week after we brought him home from the hospital, I went out and spent $35 on an electric train engine for him for Christmas. I am not sure why I thought he would be playing with it when he was a month old, but he was my first child and so his world was as new to me as it was to him.



Now he is a well educated, hard charging, constantly working executive at a consulting company with two wonderful boys, Landon and Wes, shown in the photo of the four of us above. We were standing at a geyser in Yellowstone a couple of months ago and it was not quite as cold as it looks in this photo.



He has been working in California the last week or so and I think he is still there today so he probably won't see this until later, but tomorrow he will be with the rest of us to celebrate not only Thanksgiving, but his birthday.



I am very proud of what he has accomplished in getting his education and in his career. There is a certain comfort a Father has when he sees his son doing well and he knows he never has to worry about how he will do career wise.



He is a man of unlimited curiosity about things. He has been a passionate aficionado over the years of soccer, golf, fly fishing, biking, scuba diving, beer making, mastering the Rubix cube, complex mathematics, bowling, music, cooking and dozens more. That curiosity appeared early when as a child he was always taking things apart to see how they worked. He usually couldn't them back together and I was never of any help in that regard, but it showed this intense desire he has to understand how things work.
Grover learning how a phone worked, so long ago (as you can tell from the modern electronics in the background)



Grover, I love you and am glad we will see you tomorrow and for a couple of days after that. I will see you at Atlanta Hartsfield tomorrow afternoon, along with several million other passengers.



Happy Birthday Grove!

Love, Dad

HAPPY 94TH BIRTHDAY MOM!

Yesterday was my Mom's 94th birthday. I was on a plane much of the day flying to Atlanta from the West Coast so I am just posting this today. But last week, in between attending a Board meeting in Ft. Worth and a Board meeting in Davis, California, I was able to fly to Phoenix and spend a day with Mom, celebrating her 94th birthday a week early.

Yesterday, Andrea mentioned in her tribute to my Mom, how much has changed for Mom since her 90th birthday celebration we shared with her in Atlanta just four years ago.

Mom enjoying good food and good wine on her 90th Birthday, November, 2005


Those of you that have been reading my Blog for a while know what she has been through. Three years ago I went to see her for her birthday and I shared the photo below with all of you. She was living independently in an apartment house filled with young people, driving her friends all over town in her Sexy Lexie, the Lexus we had given her, and just enjoying life as if she was 50 instead of about to turn 91.



Mom on the patio of her apartment, November, 2006, one year after her 90th party

During the next year, she broke her back in a freaky accident and decided, on her own, that it was time to move into an Assisted Living facility. Then two years ago when I was with her to celebrate her birthday I wrote this posting about her. I also posted the photo below of her, happy as always (despite the back brace she was in) as she hung her fall wreath on the door of her Assisted Living apartment.

A few months later things went downhill rapidly. She had a stroke while recovering from her broken neck, right about the time her back was improving and she had started driving her car again. We had to move her to Phoenix to a rehab facility and while there she realized she should probably not return to Kingman, her home for nearly six decades. In making that decision, she knew she was leaving behind the hundreds of friends she had there.

One year ago, while recovering in the rehab facility, we snuck in a bottle of Asti Spumante (her favorite) and toasted her 93rd birthday, believing that it was her last birthday. I wrote about her in this posting . And below is a photo of the two of us at that time a year ago.

Mom and me on her 93rd birthday in November, 2008 at the Rehab facility

In the last year, I have told her "goodbye forever" four different times. Some of you will recall the pain I expressed in January of this year when I was sure I would never see my Mom again. We said our final farewll as we left her to go to the funeral of my Mother-in-law who had passed away on the very day we were saying goodbye to my Mom. I wrote about it again in February after she broke her neck in a fall. Then I wrote a real tear jerker in March and again in April while she was in Hospice. Finally,I was able to write about her by last June in a more positive way as I had accepted that she was on her final journey and it was during a visit that month that we agreed to stop saying the tearfilled "forever goodbyes".

During the early part of this year, Mom went into Hospice, stopped eating for 37 days so she could pass away and when that didn't work she somehow or other improved (no one knows how) to the point where they asked her to leave Hospice. Since that time she has moved to a much better facility and the last few times I have seen her we have both agreed just to say "See you next time" with a laugh and to stop saying these forever goodbyes. And that is what I did (along with wishing her Happy Birthday) last Wednesday when I was with her.

When I was there last week, I told her: "Mom, last year on your birthday I could not imagine you would make it to your 94th birthday." She laughed and said "Well, the same goes for me but I still have a week left to not wake up one morning before I turn 94".

I then told her: "At the rate you are going we may celebrate your 97th or 98th birthday" to which she replied "Oh my God, I sure hope not. Certainly not if I have anything to say about it". She still has her sense of humor.

So I finish this post by telling the world again, as I have told her so many times, that I love her more than words can express, that I am who I am because of her, and that she continues to be my role model and inspiration. When I was with her last week I told her about the crazy trip I had taken to Portugal and back two weeks ago and she said "Good for you. Keep it up as it is who you are and it keeps you young." That is what I mean when I say she is my inspiration.

Below is a photo that I want to close with. The photos I have shown above show the toll the last four years have taken on her since her 90th birthday, especially the last year. But you can also see she still looks darn good for someone who has been through so much. And this last photo is one I like-the two of us, celebrating my First Birthday, so many years ago. We looked at it together last week and both had a great laugh, as is almost always the case when I am with her.

Note the one constant in all the photos. She is always smiling. That is my Mom.

Happy Birthday Mom!

DO I OVERCOMMIT?

This is a question I often ask myself and there are a number of people that ask me that. I thought I’d take the period from October 29th through November 6th and dissect it and see what we can learn from it.

Last Thursday, we flew five and a half hours out to San Francisco from Atlanta to attend a two hour reception. Then we drove back to the San Francisco airport area, grabbed a sandwich from Panera, checked into the hotel, went to bed and got up at 4:30 am to fly the five and a half hours back to Atlanta. Fortunately the wind was with us and it took a little less than five hours.

We arrived back home Friday evening and it was a nice Halloween weekend (other than the rain) and by Sunday night I was recharged. Monday morning I got up at 4:30 am to catch an early flight to Chicago for a lunch appointment. Then I went to the office for meetings from 2pm until 5pm and then we had a Board committee meeting until 8:30pm.

Back to the hotel and to bed by 11pm as I wanted to get up at 3am to help adjust to the time zone of the next part of my week. I managed to drag myself out of bed at 3:30 and did the unending emails, thought about writing on my Blog, went to the Fitness Center at 4:30 am for an hour (there were not a lot of people there), and had some breakfast while chatting with Francisco, a guy from Mexico City who I have gotten to know over the years. When you and the waiter at the hotel know each other and all about your families, one could suggest you are spending too much time in this hotel.

I drove to the airport, turned in the rental car and checked in at Delta. As I went through security, the TSA person wouldn’t let me take a small bag that had only a pillow in it as it meant I had two carry-ons and my "personal" item, which was my briefcase. Of course I do it all the time but she was in charge so this time she was going to enforce the rules. I had a quick vision of her being my new government Doctor in a couple of years by the time Witch Nancy and Nutcase Harry get done wrecking our health care system.

So, right in front of her I took the pillow out, took the small empty bag and put it in my big bag, sealed it up and walked back up to her, now with only two visible bags and the pillow in my hand and she said “That’s better”. I had the same amount of carry-on but now it was okay. Our tax dollars at work.

I caught an 11:40 flight to JFK on one of these tiny commuter planes and we actually landed early. Then I learned I had to exit the terminal I was in, go outside, walk a while with my two bags and a pillow down to another terminal and check in with security again. Security is always fun when you have an artificial knee. Every single time, without exception they pull me out, put me in their little box and have someone who is now trying to complete his third day on the job come and wand me all over and feel me up.

I went to the Air France lounge and devoured two sandwiches and two large bottles of water, made a couple of calls and got in the plane. I was going to follow my typical regimen for flying to Europe. I was going to take an Ambien the minute I got on (4pm) and sleep the next 8 hours so until I arrived in Paris at midnight (but 6am their time), I felt then I would be ready to roll for the day.

I forgot to take the Ambien when I got on the plane and the next thing I knew they were serving dinner. I had been reading some stuff for a meeting and didn’t realize we had taken off, which is odd only because I think it is the first time in 20 years I have not been asleep on takeoff. So I passed on the dinner and thought I would do emails for a little while and then crash.

It is now 11pm and I have been on the plane for seven hours doing nothing but answering emails other than the ten minutes I have typed on this. We are landing nearly an hour early due to the strong tail winds, so it will be about 5:15 am in Paris when I get off and traipse around Charles de Gaulle airport.

LATER

I cleared customs and then walked about 10 miles to the other terminal where my flight was leaving from. After going through security again, we all got on a bus that was going to take us to our Air France plane to Lisbon. Nearly everyone was speaking French, not such a surprise I guess. Pourquoi je comprend le francais un peu, I was intently listening to everyone’s conversation. Of course to most of us Americans, the French language sounds so sensual, saucy and sexy that we assume they are talking about sex when they are talking about buying turnips at the market.

But in this case, as I deftly translated in my mind all the conversations, I was struck by what an incredible coincidence it was that all the women were saying things like “Look at that American guy in the orange striped shirt. He is really hot”. I might not have the translation exactly right, but you get the idea.

Now I am typing this while on the way to Lisbon, my final destination for the day. I will get to the hotel and since I will have been up 24 plus hours straight, I will hit the bed after setting the alarm on the PC, the alarm on my phone, the alarm in the room and leaving a wake up call with the front desk for a 1:30 pm wake up call because at 2 pm Lisbon time I have a conference call for an hour for a Board I am on in New York. So, 3 and a half hours sleep, the conference call and then I am going to go wander around the town for a couple of hours and wake up. I would mention the name of the town but I have never heard of it and don’t remember the name. Fortunately someone is meeting me at the airport so I don’t have to know where I am going.

Now, why did I go through this Atlanta/Chicago/JFK/Paris/Lisbon marathon? Am I going to spend some time here in Portugal? Am I going to do a tour of their Port houses? Will I sit in an outdoor café and drink crisp and cool Albarinho wine?

No. I came over here to have dinner with two guys at 8:00 tonight and then to get up at 6am tomorrow and drive 2 hours north to spend the day with 3 young guys who are each 33 years of age who have created this incredible company that I have agreed to get involved helping them with.

Then we are going to drive 2 hours back to wherever I am staying, have dinner again until about 11pm, go to bed and get up at 430 the next morning so the car can pick me up at 530 and get me to the Lisbon airport. This means that less than 48 hours from now I will head back home, flying from Lisbon, to Paris, to Newark and then to Atlanta, arriving there Friday night, a mere 21 and a half hours after my wake up call in Lisbon.

So, to return the question “DO I OVERCOMMIT?”

No. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never. (I learned how to do the words like that from Alice)

EVEN LATER

Things don’t always work out as planned. I arrived in Lisbon on time and it was raining like crazy. As I was walking through customs I realized I didn’t even know what city I was going to. This was all set up by the people here with my assistant and while I had seen the name of the place in an email, I hadn’t paid any attention. So I was sure hoping the driver would be there.

And he was. His name is Vitor and he told me it would be a half hour trip normally but due to the rain it might take a little longer. It took 2 hours and 45 minutes so I got to know Vitor and all about his school teacher wife and his boys, 7 and 3. The traffic jam we were in due to an accident on the slippery roads was as bad as any I have ever been in. Vitor complained the entire time about the traffic and the bad drivers yet as soon as we passed the accident scene he set the speedometer on 160 KPM (99.2 MPH) and flew down the rain soaked highway. I thought I was back in Italy.

We finally arrived at the hotel in the town of Cascais which is right on the ocean. The hotel was the former summer home of the King of Italy back when they had Kings. Fortunately they have added Wi-Fi and a few other amenities. It is truly a gorgeous hotel and spa so I appreciated their putting me up for my short stay in such a great place.

But of course now my long nap was out of the question due to my conference call so I slept for an hour, went down and drank two cappuccinos, cleaned up, spent an hour and a half on the conference call and then spent a couple of hours walking around this nice town. So I decided to take photos and share them.

NOT A BAD SELF PHOTO FOR HAVING HAD NO SLEEP BUT I NOTICE JET LAG MAKES MY NOSTRILS ENLARGE

THE OUTSIDE OF THE FAROL DE SANTA MARIA





INSIDE THE FAROL OF SANTA MARIA (I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT A FAROL IS)




A WONDERFUL OLD MANSION IN PARQUE MARCHAL CARMONA. THE ROMANCE OF THE MOMENT WAS BRUISED A LITTLE WHEN A GUY DROVE BY ON A SEGWAY AS I WAS GETTING READY TO TAKE THE PHOTO





A NICE VIEW OF THE OCEAN I ENJOYED

A LOCAL EATERY WITH THEIR MENU MAN

THIS LOOKED MORE LIKE SOMETHING IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGE THAN HEREPARQUE VASCO DE GAMA. I TOOK THE PHOTO AS I STARTED LAUGHING WHEN I SAW THE NAME. WHEN I WAS A KID THERE WAS A BREAKFAST DRINK NAMED BOSCO AND WHEN WE STUDIED THIS GUY IN HISTORY I ANSWERED ON A TEST THAT IT WAS BOSCO DE GAMA. I DID NOT MAKE AN A.

A NICE LITTLE IN TOWN PICNIC AREA NEAR THE HÍPODROMO

THE LOCAL HÍPODROMOA TYPICAL LITTLE INTERESTING SIDE STREET

THE CASA DAS HISTORIAS MUSEUM AND EXHIBITION CENTER WHERE THEY JUST OPENED A PAULA REGO EXPOSITION. I WENT IN AND VIEWED HER WORK WHICH WAS VERY UNUSUAL AND VERY INTERESTING.

A PLACE I STOPPED FOR A DRINK BECAUSE IT LOOKED SO UN-PORTUGUESE TO ME

I WALKED IN AND SAT DOWN AND THE BARTENDER SAID IN ENGLISH: "I BET I CAN TELL YOU WHERE YOU ARE FROM. I AM REALLY GOOD AT THAT". I SAID "WHERE?"

HE REPLIED: "SWEDEN", THEN "FINLAND", THEN "NORWAY", THEN "DENMARK", THAN "GERMANY" AND THEN "THE UK" AND THEN HE GAVE UP. I SAID "ATLANTA" AND HE SAID "THE WINE IS ON ME". IT WAS A NICE ENDING TO MY TOUR.

FOR THE WOMEN WE CARE ABOUT

Rachel and her friend Andrea decided that they would raise some money for Breast Cancer and that they would participate in Saturday's 5K Making Strides Walk in downtown Atlanta. The first person they recruited was the old guy (me).

ANDREA AND RACHEL-FRIENDS SINCE BABIES!

They did a good job, raising something like $1,500 or so. They also invited two of Rachel's friends, Melissa and Michelle, to join us.

OUR TEAM-THE PINK LEMONADERS

They did this in honor of three very strong women who are dealing with Breast Cancer. In our family, Andrea's Mom and my bride Cathy is a breast cancer survivor. We hope she will be out of the woods in three more years.

Rachels cousin and our friend Rosalie, who lives in Birmingham, has been dealing with it for a shorter period of time but we believe and hope the worst is now behind her.

And Rachel's Mother-in-Law Vilma, in Jacksonville, is right in the middle of the hard part with horrific chemo treatments. She is fighting a valiant battle and we think of her daily.

So Rachel made us all pink tee shirts with Vilma, Rosalie and Cathy's name on them and because it was cold and a little rainy, she insisted we each wear a long sleeve black shirt under the tee shirts. The closest thing I had was a long sleeve navy blue shirt that was actually the top to a set of pajamas Luthansa gave me a couple of years ago when I was on a flight from Singapore to Frankfurt. I looked, as I often do, like a real dork.

NOTE THE FASHIONABLE BEIGE PAJAMA COLLAR PEEPING OUT ABOVE THE SHIRT

I ACTUALLY MADE IT TO THE FINISH LINE!

We had fun, it was for a good cause and we all finished. I'm glad we did this for the three brave women we love and all the other women we don't know who are struggling with breast cancer.

IT'S THAT TIME OF LIFE

Yes, I know I have not written on this Blog for a month or so. I forget why.

There is a guy named Dave that is CEO of a company that I am Chairman of. Therefore, we talk all the time but I always call him.

Yesterday, after an exchange of emails to set up a phone call with him for 6 pm tonight I told him "Why don't you call me at my Atlanta home at 404-973-7353?"

So at 6pm tonight he didn't call and I thought he forgot. About 6:10 he called and said "I couldn't get through on this number. I tried several times."

Thinking of course that he had to have dialed it wrong I replied, with a certain amount of cockiness and swagger "And what number did you call Dave?"

"404-973-7353" he said.

I then realized that I had given him the phone number from the early 90's when we lived in Atlanta previously. Of course in between we lived for ten years in New York and Chicago, but for some reason I had forgotten all of that and thought that the number we dropped in 1994 was still my home phone number. How I even rememberd it is beyond comprhension.

And you wonder why I forget to write on this Blog.

THE QUESTION FROM JEFF SOBEL

A man named Jeff Sobel left me a comment on my posting from yesterday but I do not know how to contact him as there was no email address associated with the comment. So I thought I would answer it here and if he does a Google search on himself it will turn up.

Jeff left a comment with this question:

Are you the same Grover Thomas that showed me magic tricks in meetings at American Finance in the "70s?

Well, Jeff, yes and no. I'm still Grover Thomas but I'm not the same. I'm older. And I am still a member of both the Society of American Magicians and the International Brotherhood of Magicians but because I have no time in my life, I rarely do magic any more.

Now, I'm not sure I am the guy you are looking for because you mentioned magic "tricks". I used to do real miracles that I learned from an old Wizard in the forest and would never stoop so low as to do a cheap magic trick. But I still think I may be the guy you are looking for since how many guys named Grover Thomas did magic and worked for American Finance in the 70's can there be?

In fact, back then I combined my vocation and avocation by learning to deal off the bottom of a deck during countless hours sitting in my car waiting for some deadbeat to come home and leave their car out on the street so I could pop it (repo it) when they went inside. Now, 35 years later, I have the same fun watching "Operación Repo" on the Tru channel on TV and I feel a lot safer in my family room experiencing the world of repo's this way than I did on the streets of some of America's diciest neighborhoods.

So yes, I am the guy and I remember you also. The fact you remember the magic is the most amazing part. You must have been at the meeting when I turned a randomly select grapefruit into a full size live collie and then I gave it to that woman named Brenda from Galesburg and she took it home with her. I would guess the dog is no longer alive but hopefully Brenda still is.

Click HERE Jeff and you will go to a website that shows how to contact me. Maybe we can catch up on the phone.