Where has the time gone?

It's been over five months since I last posted. Although, not a lot has changed there have been some. At the end of March I passed my insurance license test for life, health and accident then I contracted with Aflac to begin selling their products.

It has not gone as well as I would have hoped to do but it is making a little progress. The hardest thing has been signing up that first new client. I've done well going out with other agents to their enrollments but I sure would like to gain a couple of new clients even if they are small.

My mom and my father-in-law have both been having some serious health issues which has caused some concern. In the middle of all of this, my oldest daughter and son-in-law have taken new jobs at Tulia ISD. It's a little further away than Petersburg, but not that bad, maybe 15 more miles. During their moving, I've spent a lot of time with the granddaughters babysitting so mom and dad could work at both houses. My youngest daughter also is changing schools again. She'll be teaching junior high math at Smyer ISD. She also has became engaged with a wedding planned for right after Christmas. Her fiancee is an ex-Marine who is studying to become an RN.

The nice part about this time of the year is football is just around the corner. Nick Long and I along with Jordan Herrod will be the broadcast team for the Plainview HS Bulldogs and we will also continue doing the Friday Night Live Scoreboard show with Mike Roden. Mike who manages the Texas Panhandle Sports Network, the parent of FNL, will be in the studios of KGNC-AM in Amarillo while Nick and I along with Jordan will do our part of the show from whatever football stadium we are at on Friday night. We will broadcast five shows from Plainview's Bulldog Stadium, once each from Canyon, Hereford and San Angelo and four other shows from Nick's home office. Those four nights are because of Plainview's open Friday and two Thursday night games and the first week of the playoffs. (If Plainview makes the playoffs, we'll have to see where that show will be broadcast from.)

Red Raider football also is just around the corner but this year all the games will be observed from home, either on the radio or the television. Unfortunately, season tickets just weren't in the budget this year. Maybe we'll get to one game in person.

The Texas Rangers are still rolling along and it looks like they will make the playoffs again. Pitching injuries have plagued them this year, but the strength of the lineup allows them to score plenty of runs but they need some strong pitching to make a run to their third consecutive World Series.

My closing thought for the day is: "The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it." -- Plutarch

Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken. -- Psalms 55:22 (NASB)

Two months into retirement

Dec. 21, 2011 was my last day as a public educator. It's hard to believe that I've spent 25 years involved in education from Texas Tech as a dispatcher and graduate assistant to Seagraves as a computer science and journalism teacher to Lockney as the technology director. There's been lots of interesting challenges over that time, not the least was the keeping up with the ever changing world of technology.

So, two months into retirement it's time I get serious about a few things:

1. Spend more time studying and preparing sermons and chapter studies for my church
2. Develop my new blog: http://walkinginthenarrowway.blogspot.com/
3. Develop my high school sports blog: http://westtexashighschoolsports.blogspot.com/
4. Expand my high school sports website: http://www.wthssports.info/
5. Be more consistent with my blogging on this site
6. Find at least a part-time job to supplement my retirement
7. And, whatever else that I need to get more serious about

Now that national signing day and the biennial UIL realignment are over, it's time to focus on the upcoming Texas Ranger and Texas Tech Red Raiders baseball seasons. Hopefully the Rangers can get back to the series for a third year in a row and then complete the job that they were so close to completing this past year. I also hope the Red Raiders can get into the college world series. They have the depth to do that this year if the injury bug doesn't bite them like it's done to the football and basketball teams.

Texas is still in the middle of a drought so we can only hope and pray that things don't get as bad as they were last year with the lack of moisture and with wildfires. I'm looking forward to following the storm chasers online as they chase around the country (if I had the time and funds, I might like to do that sometime). On Feb. 4, the storm chaser community lost one of the top young chasers, Andy Gabrielson, when a wrong way driver collide head-on with Andy near Tulsa as he was returning home following a chase in Texas. This year of chasing has been dedicated to Andy.

My closing thought for the day is: Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't. -- Richard Bach

“For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;” 1 John 3:11 NASB