29th Wedding Anniversary

As of Sunday April 12th, 2009 we will have been married for 29 years. I have been so blessed to have Shelli in my life. There has been many great times and memories and a few rough times along the way but we managed to endure. During that time we managed to raise a beautiful family of three lovely daughters who I'm so proud they call me dad! They are all doing so well starting families of their own and I love all three of my son-in-laws and our four grandchildren. I bought these multi-colored roses for Shelli instead of red roses because our anniversary just happens to fall on Easter Sunday this year and they looked like spring time. I love you Shelli and look forward to spending the rest of our lives together and the eternities.

Retirement!

It's hard to believe, 49 years old, 31 years of service, and now I rank among the retirees of General Motors. As of April 1, 2009 it will be official. I accepted the GM incentive package to retire with a monthly pension, vehicle voucher and cash, and full benefits, which was being offered to employees with 30 or more years of service. The decision was a hard one to make. With uncertain times ahead and the fact that in February, I was reduced as an electrician and offered to either take a lay off from Skilled Trades or go back to work the production line. I decided that taking a pay cut of $5.00 per hour and working in production was still better than being laid off. With the possibility of even more cut backs in contractual issues and benefits I said enough is enough. I felt that the incentive offer being given at this time is probably the best it is going to get, so I closed this chapter of my life at GM and retired. I look forward to what lies ahead. I'm currently in school looking to get into the medical field in Respiratory Therapy but I also have an appointment later this week at Michigan Institute of Aviation Technology in their Energy Industry field, possibly in wind power (green energy). I'm very excited about that and with my electrical back ground I think that may be a better fit for me then the medical field so we'll see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

Rt. knee surgery

Well, here I go again. Another surgery, this time I had reconstructive ACL surgery on my Rt. knee. This is the same knee that has been bothering me most of my entire adult life. This also makes surgery #3 on the same knee. I hasd torn cartilage removed in 1978. Then over 20 years later I had an exam on the knee and was told that the ACL was torn. So I had the ACL replace in Jan. of 2000 but for whatever reason the graft did not take and the knee was never stablized. This time I had a new procedure call a Double Bundle ACL implanted which should stablize the knee front to back and side to side. The operation was on Feb 6th, 2009 and so far so good. Physical therapy is going very well and with any luck I'll be good as new, almost, very soon.