Debbie had her second leg surgery yesterday, which took about three hours.  The surgeon removed bone materials from her femur, reopened the wound from the May surgery, removed the antibiotic cement and added the femur materials with some other stem cell materials to the tibia wound area.  She is wearing a specialized bandaid for a week that is designed to increase circulation.  The best case scenario is if these materials set and begin to form and grow new growth over her bone in the next several months.  We have follow-up appointments next week and the week after - we believe that she will be released from the hospital on Wednesday or Thursday, but if her sodium levels fall, she may be in longer.  Her pain is high currently, but with a little time, it should become easier.  We appreciate everyone's support, prayers, and positive vibes!  It has been a long, long, long and hard road to today, but we are optimistic!

Every four years, C-Span assembles professors and historical scholars to rank the U.S. Presidents - the latest results from the 2021 survey were:

​1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
​4. Theodore Roosevelt
5. Dwight D. Eisenhower
6. Harry S. Truman
​7. Thomas Jefferson
8. John F. Kennedy
9. Ronald Reagan
​10. Barack Obama
11. Lyndon B. Johnson
12. James Monroe
​13. Woodrow Wilson
14. William McKinley
15. John Adams
​16. James Madison
17. John Quincy Adams
18. James K. Polk
​19. William J. Clinton
20. Ulysses S. Grant
21. George H.W. Bush
​22. Andrew Jackson
23. William Howard Taft
24. Calvin Coolidge 
​25. Jimmy Carter
26. James A. Garfield
27. Gerald R. Ford
​28. George W. Bush
29. Chester A. Arthur
30. Richard M. Nixon
​31. Benjamin Harrison
32. Rutherford B. Hayes
​33. Martin Van Buren
34. Zachary Taylor
​35. Herbert Hoover (love his vacuums!  :-) 
36. Warren G. Harding
​37. Millard Fillmore 
38. John Tyler
​39. William Henry Harrison
40. Donald J. Trump
41. Franklin Pierce
42. Andrew Johnson
​43. James Buchanan.

I wonder where they will rank Joe Biden?  My guess is that he will be somewhere in between #15-20 initially and whether he goes up or down from there will depend.  I believe that history will rank Trump lower than his current #40 position, but never below Andrew Johnson or James Buchanan.  Also interesting that MTG tried to vilify Joe Biden the other day saying that he was trying to finish what the despicable presidents FDR (#3) and LBJ (#11) started, not bad company, but I'm guessing she is not a historical scholar...

If I'm right about Biden, and time will tell, the best Presidents in my lifetime will be:

​1. Ronald Reagan
2. Barack Obama
3. Lyndon B. Johnson
​4. William J. Clinton
5. Joe R. Biden
6. George H. W. Bush
7. Jimmy Carter
​8. Gerald R. Ford
9. Richard M. Nixon
10. George W. Bush
​11. Donald J. Trump

My modern U.S. Presidential list would be slightly different, though I agree with most of the bottom half: 

1. Lyndon B. Johnson
2. Barack Obama
3. William J. Clinton
4. Ronald Reagan
5. Jimmy Carter

My Top 5 Ever Are:

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. Lyndon B. Johnson
​5. Thomas Jefferson

I love it when Weebly crashes and I'm 80% through a post and it's not saved for some reason - I have used we believe for many years, and know how to crank out contact quickly with the service, but ever since they were purchased by Square, the investment has slowed, and the quality of the service has likewise become quite terrible. 

​Sigh! Anyway, the post I was riding with about aquariums. I got my first aquarium in 1987 when I was in college it was a 20 gallon long aquarium with too many fish, too many frogs, and too many plants. Miraculously, nothing really died all that much and I seem to have a green thumb for aquarium keeping.

I graduated to the desired salt, water side of the hobby, with a 40 gallon, high end, display aquarium that I kept for over 15 years as a fish only tank. Likewise, it was overstocked, and the hobby was not very advanced at the time.

​I am unsure how many times I moved and tore down and reset up that aquarium over the years, but it has to be high up there on the all time record list.

Since then, I've had a 55 gallon marine fish display tank, two small 20 gallon reef tanks, and 90 gallon cube mixed reef tank, 37 gallon, soft reef tank, and our prized 225 gallon saltwater next reef tank that we maintained in Texas for a few years. We had to give this tank up when we moved to Colorado and both Debbie and I have always wanted to get back into the Hobby.  

Fast forward to 2021, we bought another 220 gallon reef tank that we began pricing out and buying hardware for but then Debbie had her tragic leg accident in between convalescing Debbie and an intense work schedule over the last few years, the reef tank has sat empty in our living room, and I'm coming to unfortunate phase where I need to make a decision of whether we can go forward economically and from a time efficiency perspective, since I have very little or do we sell the tank and revisit this whole hobby down the road.

​I'm not ready to make that call today, but it's coming because an empty aquarium as a centerpiece in the living room of your home is peculiar to say the least.

Between Covid and two years of Debbie's recovery with at least another year to go, we have been sheltered in for a long time, and I'm growing more and more restless. I'm beginning to think about minimalism, shedding all of our junk, and being more out there and adventurous, and in many ways a 220 gallon saltwater reef aquarium does not fit into that lifestyle. I suppose that we'll see how Debbie's recovery goes and make the call in a few month, but I do miss the hobby and hope that one day we can return to it, whether that be sooner or later, I would just need a lot more help from Debbie then she can get right now.

One of the challenges is the high expense of reef lights and equipment and changes in the harvesting laws for live rock, which makes reef cycling and maturing so much more difficult today than it used to be in the past - I can't imagine that I would be happy with a cycle that is so much longer and living with the "ugly" phase of an aquarium for potentially years instead of months; hopefully bacteria-induced cycling advances significantly in the near-term.
​
​I am researching new methodologies and technologies, to make reef, keeping easier and less maintenance, and will be sharing some of those findings and videos, and so forth as I work towards this decision.

Circa 2014

I love how Flynn and I would break into spontaneous song all the time back when they were younger...  

We planted some African Daisies this spring/early-summer and the record-breaking constant rain storms that we had all spring and early summer had all but killed them, but I’ve been able to nurse them back to health (okay, actually they did all the work, I was just feeding and cheerleading), but it’s wonderful to see them thriving now!

It's long and takes a while to get through, but I thought that this was a fascinating podcast episode...

We visited Debbie's surgeon, had some blood work done, etc. earlier this week and she is cleared for surgery at the end of the month.  It's going to be a busy time between work and being a nurse for Debbie, but we're super-excited to get into this next phase.  The surgery will take 3-4 hours (more on this later), she'll likely be in the hospital for a 4-7 days afterwards and her overall recovery could take 12-18 months but we'll be on our way for her to reclaim her life after the horrific accident that has seen her bedridden for two years!

We have several appointments today to determine if Debbie can have her second leg surgery (possibly next week) - fingers crossed!!!

You can follow Buffalo here: https://www.instagram.com/BuffaloKaplinski/

He is painting so well, into his 80's, just amazing.  This piece, "Sunlight's Peak Near Aspen, Colorado," is an 11x14 plain air watercolor - he is one of the all-time greats and a real national treasure - I am blessed to call him a friend!

I took Connor and his friend Chris to the Sonoran Desert Museum for Day Three of ConnorFest 2001.