Round 1 Of The Holidays

We just got through one of my favorite times of the year, Halloween and Thanksgiving. This year the holiday was a little extra busy. I'm back in school finishing up my BS in Cyber Security and had a class that was taking a little longer than I expected in October. I'm going to Western Governor's University and the classes are self paced. 

I think I mentioned in my last post the hernia surgery I had 4 years ago failed recently and I was feeling it in California. I got checked up and had to go through another surgery. Apparently the doctor that did the first surgery patched on the outside instead of the inside so the hernia punched through and got pancaked causing even more pain than before the repair. I finished my class just a few days before surgery, which was on 10/25. The doctor told me that even though they were going in with a scope this time it would hurt more than the first surgery which was open surgery. He was wrong. The only thing that really sucked about this one was that they pumped me up with gas to get a better look inside and it was killing my shoulder for a couple days. Other than that the recovery seemed to go really fast. I only missed one full day of work then took half days the rest of the week. I used my downtime to study for my next class and after ten days decided I was ready to test out. Three days later I took the test, passed, and have been on break since then. I have my last class of the semester that I am starting today and trying to finish before Christmas so I can take another month off before the new semester. This is my new strategy, cram and break.

I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to do Trick or Treating with the kids this year but I ended up doing just fine. We probably covered two miles that night and found the Rumchata house from last year. This year they were out of Rumchata when we got there so they made me a peppermint schnapps in hot chocolate and they made Natalie a Baileys in hot chocolate. Always the best part of trick or treating for us adults.

Since I was supposed to be on light duty for 6 weeks I haven't been hiking or hunting. I've been just hanging out around the house and taking the kids to the park. Well that all changed a week before Thanksgiving. I didn't want to have the yard a mess with guest here so I did some things I shouldn't have and I paid the price for it. I was fine in the day but when I went to pick up a turkey that night for Thanksgiving I started feeling abdominal pain. I dealt with it for another ten days and finally saw the surgeon again yesterday. He said he doesn't believe the hernia broke through but I probably pulled out some of the tacks so my time on light duty is reset. So now it's 6 more weeks of no fun, and this time I really have to stick to it.

This year Thanksgiving was at our house and I decided I was going to do my first smoked turkey. Two days before Thanksgiving I decided to message my cousin who is a master smoker and ask for some advice. It's a good thing I did because if I had just smoked the turkey like I do chickens it probably would have been dry. My cousin sent me some videos on everything from how to keep coals burning longer to how to brine, inject, and season a turkey for smoking. On the way back from my anniversary getaway with Natalie I bought some last minute supplies so I could brine the turkey before making an airport run to pick up family. On Thanksgiving I injected the turkey with a Cajun sauce then covered in Cajun seasoning and smoked with Pecan chips. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the best turkey I have had. Most people dry out their turkey when they smoke them but this turkey was the moistest I have had and it was packed with flavor all the way to the bone. Thanks to an awesome turkey I think Thanksgiving was a success this year. Much better than the last one we hosted which was a disaster.

The family stuck around the rest of the week. Friday after picking up a new dishwasher (my old one broke two days before Thanksgiving) we took my dad up north to look at some homes. Saturday we did a quail hunt and Sunday my nephew talked me into taking him on a coyote hunt. I was a little hesitant to take him coyote hunting because he is a little crap talker. He loves to talk trash about how he is going to get a coyote faster than I did and how I messed up multiple hunts when I was learning (I'm self taught). I thought knowing my luck I'll take him out there with the right ammo, set him up the right way, use the right calls, and he'll get lucky and get a coyote and I'll never hear the end of it. I was also having a little big of a motivation issue, which I normally don't have when it comes to hunting. I was tired from the holiday, my stomach was hurting, I just wasn't feeling like waking up early. 

Well I decided to take him anyways. Our first stand was a bust and I thought the entire morning would be because of the wind. On our second stand I was very careful how I set up because of the wind and I told Jeremy exactly where I thought the coyote would come in. I laid down on my side and started calling and probably not even 30 seconds later a coyote came in exactly where I expected it. At first all I saw was a head and I thought it was a big jack rabbit but it didn't take too long before I realized it was a full grown coyote. The coyote was probably 55 yards out and here I am laying on my side with a shotgun. I decided there would be no waiting today. The coyote looked a little on the skittish side and I didn't want to wait too long and have it take off on me. It was hanging back watching my call instead of making a charge so I had to make my move. I had no idea if Jeremy even saw the coyote at this point but I decided to pull the trigger. 

I hit the coyote but it wasn't enough to drop it. I started yelling for Jeremy to take a shot and he did immediately. I then started yelling to get up and chase it. So we both jumped up cocking our shotguns as we were running and the coyote was trying to move west to the hills. At this point I got another shot in the coyote's butt before she got behind some Palo Verdes. Jeremy ran around the trees on the north side and I was on the south side. Then I heard a blast and saw cholla flying all over the place. So then I'm yelling at Jeremy about shooting the cactus. Apparently the coyote was behind it. We were now 50 yards from where we were setup and the coyote made it another 50 or so yards from here before Jeremy got the last shot on it. I thought we had lost it but Jeremy was right on top of it when I got around the trees. It was a fun hunt and Jeremy did good. I know the kid had a blast out there and he's all excited to do it again in February.

I have to say it's a lot better hunting with two people. You get more visual coverage when calling and it's so much easier to chase these things down since they're almost always going to keep running when shot at that distance with a shotgun. This was the first coyote I've got that had a good pelt so I decided to skin it. I did a pretty decent job skinning it until I got to the face. I think I need some practice and a better knife for defleshing though. I got as much flesh off as I could and salted the hide in the garage all week. I'll find out tomorrow if it looks good enough to pickle and tan the hide.

Zach was Iron Man for Halloween this year.

Adri was a Monster High Doll.

Dean was a caterpillar.

My favorite stop, the Rumchata house. They do normal hot chocolate for the kids.

At the park with the kids.

I think I'm the only one that follows my kids around the playground. I don't care that there are cameras everywhere I'm always worried about someone trying to snatch my kid. And yes, I get worried when I see Zach climbing up high for the first time. 

Dean liked the train ride until they blew the horn in the tunnel. 

My nephew Cody likes holding the babies and giving them their bottles.

Natalie turned old this year. My dad got in earlier than expected so he got to join us for birthday cake, a day after her birthday.

Dean and Zach playing with cousin Oliver.

Putting my turkey in brine. I put my turkey in a brine made of sugar, salt, water, onions, celery, garlic and lemons. I kept it bagged up in an ice chest with ice over it over night in the laundry room. On Thanksgiving I removed the turkey and washed off all the brine.

After washing off the brine I did my Cajun injection. I injected everything; breast, drums, wings, even the underside then stuffed the turkey with apples and onions before seasoning.

Here is my turkey getting ready to be smoked.

While I was outside smokin I caught my dad playing with Dean on the trampoline.

About halfway through smokin.

After 3.5 hours this is a well smoked bird. Don't let the dark color fool you. That bird was moist.

Dean has an obsession with the remotes.

Hunting rabbits and quail.

I got the first quail of the season. Normally I shoot them on the ground but in this area they like to fly out of the bushes. I hit this one mid air and watched it tumble. A few minutes later I got another, feathers went everywhere, but it didn't go down. Jeff took the second shot and the bird made a hard turn right and we lost it. Cameron happened to be in the area and found it in a bush.

The morning of our coyote hunt. It was a little chilly.

Normally I sit or stand when hunting. This time I decided to try something different since my stomach was bugging me and I laid down on my side.

I was able to do a somewhat decent job on skinning the yote until I got to the head. I don't have the skills yet to get everything including the nose off.

10th Anniversary

Last week Natalie and I had an early celebration of our ten year anniversary. The advantage of getting married around Thanksgiving is we are always with family that week so we can drop the kids on someone and make a quick getaway. This year we have Dean and he is a handful so our getaway was only 24 hours to avoid having my sister institutionalized. 

A couple years ago we drove through Cave Creek and found this place called The Boulders. It's a community of upper class homes and resorts and I've been wanting to get in there since then. This year Thanksgiving was at our house so we left the kids with my sister and decided to spend a night at the Hilton in The Boulders. It's definitely one of the nicer Hiltons I have stayed at. We had to drive to the lobby then follow a golf cart to parking. They picked us up at parking and drove us through a windy trail to our casita. Whenever we wanted to go anywhere we gave them a call and they would pick us up. There's not a whole lot to talk about there but it was a fun 24 hours away from the kids. I would definitely recommend this hotel to others.

Not the Hilton

Lunch at a BBQ restaurant in Cave Creek. Lunch was so heavy that a real dinner was not an option that night.

At the pool. It was 72 degrees and Natalie was too chicken to go in.

I found a cactus that looks like me.

We found a bench to sit on and watch the sunset.

From our casita.

Wednesday morning after breakfast we took a walk and found this teeing ground for one of the holes.

Our casita was 269.

Fall 2018

This year I had the opportunity to go to Microsoft Ignite in Orlando. Out of everyone in the company they picked ten of us to go and report back what we learned. There was a lot of cool stuff there but I won't bore everyone with all the details. I'll just say AI, machine learning, and Microsoft's presence in the cloud are really picking up. This conference was a lot bigger than I was expecting. There were close to 35,000 people there in two huge buildings plus they took up the Hyatt conference rooms. I had scheduled presentations back to back and realized that some of them took me 45 minutes to get to so I missed out on a couple. When I got there Sunday night I got dropped off at the wrong hotel with my phone almost dead. I asked the guy to call me a cab and he was being a lazy turd and asked if I have Uber on my phone. I said screw this and walked luggage in hand to my hotel 1.4 miles down the road.

The second to last day there Microsoft closed Universal Orlando for the night and we got both parks to ourselves. All the food was free and they put out free beer on the tables that we could grab as we walk. They gave us all plastic bracelets when we got off the bus. I didn't realize til the next morning why. They were to let everyone know what bus to get back on at the end of the night and the girls standing in line in front of me definitely sounded like they needed theirs. We only had 4.5 hours in the park and it rained for an hour but I did get to see the Harry Potter land in both parks. I'm not the biggest fan of the rides there. I love roller coasters but the jerky 3D rides make my neck hurt and just aren't as exciting as a real roller coaster. Plus beer with 3D roller coasters isn't the best idea. I will say that Harry Potter land was pretty cool though especially with the fog and moon trying to shine through.

Of course before returning home I had to stop by Total Wine and pick up some Dominican Rums. I got my usual Barcelo Imperial, a new one Barcelo Imperial Onyx, and Brugal Extra Dry. All three survived the trip home. I probably walked a good 60 miles that week and when I got home my stomach started hurting. More about that below.


There were several large halls like this at the Orange County Convention center. It's the second biggest in the country behind Chicago.

What's better than a Stella? A free Stella.

I got a bunch of free stuff at Ignite. the kids loved the light sabers.

After Ignite the plan was to finish up my web development class at WGU. Things happened though and it didn't get done when I wanted to. I found out the first week in October that Adri had a half day the next day at school then a week off so we decided last minute to give my family a visit while I worked there for a week.I had been on the fence about going because everyone got sick that week and my hernia repair from 2015 had been hurting since I got back from Florida, plus I had a class to finish. We showed up for game night Friday night at my sister's house, did family dinner Saturday at Hibachi grill, another family dinner at my sister's Sunday, and planned our next trip. We went back home Thursday night after work and even leaving at 7:30 the traffic sucked all the way until the pass going up to Chirico. I got to bed at 2:30 Friday morning and when I took a nap that afternoon it felt like I got punched in the stomach. The hernia was getting worse. 

I got the kids Harry Potter tattoos in Florida. Here they are showing them off.

Cass and I at Hibachi grill.

Here is my dad ruining Dean's chance of ever running for office. 

The Saturday after we got back Zach had his first t-ball game. It's funny watching these kids because no one pays attention to the batter and then you have five kids all running for one ball. Zach is sensitive and when I tried telling him later at home that  he needs to pay attention he got all teary eyed.

It was 66 degrees a couple weeks and raining but the kids wanted to go swimming. Why not? The water is warmer than the air.

The week after I got back from Florida we got hit was the remnants of Hurricane Rosa. We got a few inches of rain from Rosa that week, followed by more random rain when we were in California and the night we got back, followed by Tropical Storm Sergio bringing in rain, and then just more random storms. In October we got more rain than we have had all year. The tenth wettest month in Phoenix on record and first wettest October. So a week ago I tried to go hunting and even though the rain had stopped the day before the wash that is always dry was still running. I was unable to find a way across and didn't find anything but a couple burros.

Can you see the two burros? In the middle of the picture in front of the bush. Their backs were as high as I am tall.

The hills between us and Lake Pleasant.

Lately it's been busy at work. Last week we had a customer come in from Chicago and they wanted to see the Cardinal's game. I really don't like the NFL but I went since it's a work function. Before the game I had to leave work early and stop at a doctor appointment for the hernia. I had an appointment scheduled earlier that week with another office and it was a disaster. Medical care in this country is going to hell in a hand basket. I called a general surgeon listed on the blue cross site, which doesn't list any of my local doctors for some reason, and I called this surgeon and confirm they do hernias. I show up and not only do they have me scheduled for the wrong person but it's a vascular surgeon that turned me away. After losing half my day over this stupid appointment I found a new surgeon and had to schedule in between work and the game. I ended up showing up at the game an hour before everyone else so I got an early start on chili cheese fries and beer.

About a week ago with Dean.

This last Sunday I went out for another hunt. My first stand was a bust. Second was a bust as well. On my third stand I called in a yote that came up on the bank. Problem is my call was between me and the yote and the yote was a little too far for me to take a confident shot. I thought if I wait it would come in closer but it took off. So I did a fourth stand that was another bust. On the way looking for my fifth stand I came across the third herd of javelina I had seen that day. I was trying to get a picture of a baby javelina and chased them into a wash. They took off and so I turned and headed the other direction. That's when I saw a coyote running along the wash about 55-65 yards out. It was upwind and I don't know if it realized I was there. I unloaded on it and it dropped behind a bush where I finished it off. Second one in under a month.

Sometime last week with Dean.

Wednesday was a sunny day until 4 in the afternoon. It started out with clouds above Daisy and Gavilan Peak and within an hour it was a full blown thunderstorm that with a little bit of hail. My yard was under an inch of water. I took Adri to the wash to see if it was flowing. There was some water in the wash but most of it was 150 yards from us where the wash drops another 20 feet. We did have some coyotes calling at us from the other side of the wash. As we were taking pictures a full rainbow came in and the entire sky, houses, and ground were glowing orange and pink from the sun hitting the mist.

Thursday when I went to check the mail I heard them calling again. Due to the fact I was having surgery the next day I couldn't resist a quick hunt to get me through the month. I thought I could get out there with an hour of daylight left and bag another so I threw on my camo and ran out the house right when work ended. I got down to my spot and my call wasn't working. I have no idea what is going on with it lately but I'm gonna have to fix it all before I can hunt again. I finally got to a spot where I used my screeming chicken call and there were several yotes calling all around me. I was still having trouble with my call though and couldn't get my rabbit calls to load. So I was distracted messing with the call and I had a bunch of coyotes calling all around me, about 75 yards out. I think I heard a few trying to get in behind me as well. I finally gave up with the call and decided to try and chase them out before it got dark. I had to walk through the water to get across the wash and when I got up the hill there was a coyote 75 yards out. I only had my 12 gauge. Had there been more light I may have tried to take a shot but I wasn't going to do it in the dark so I went home empty handed. The only thing I got was this picture showing off our green desert.

Yesterday I finally got this hernia handled. After dinner last night I took my last percocet and decided I'm just going to deal with the pain. I decided I don't need that crap, it makes me feel too sick. I really don't know how people can get addicted to that crap. So now I'm down for a couple weeks with nothing to do but work and try to get another class knocked out before Thanksgiving.