Kirchgoens Germany Revisited

This is an update from my last post. After more than 20 years, I was finally able to talk to one of my old Army buddies. Tim is as cordial and friendly as I remember him to be. As I imagined, we reminisced about our time in Germany and I was amazed at how easy it was to walk someone through twenty plus years of my life in just a few minutes. We plan on staying in touch and if things work out well, we won't let another 20 years of friendship pass us by.

Is there an old friend in your life that you need to get in touch with?

Kirchgoens Germany

My first duty station with the army was Kirchgoens Germany. Over the past 20 years I have lost contact with everyone I was stationed with. This past week I was able to contact someone from my unit, Tim via classmates.com. We have communicated through e-mail these past few days and I am hoping to talk to him on the phone soon. I can't wait to reminisce about our experience in Europe. Although we were stationed in Germany at a tense period in our history (while the Berlin Wall was still up, a.k.a. the Cold War), I anticipate that we will focus most of our time on great times with great friends.

California Roll

I'm a big fan of International food. This Sunday I tried my hand at making California Rolls. My first attempt at sushi, actually turned out well. My son Ricky is a big Sushi fan and he ate several pieces, so I'm assuming it was pretty good. I was surprised by the amount of time it took to make. It took about two hours to prepare. Of course, we have enough sushi to feed us for several meals. Ricky was happy to take a container of the stuff to school for his lunch. It was a great culinary experience.

New Web Address

To make it easier to share the blog, I have a new web address. The new address is www.rickdumont.net. The old address will still work.

2007 Irishfest

Last weekend we went to the 11th Annual Irish Festival at the Altamont Fairgrounds near Albany. Linda and I went last year (I got to see my favorite artist Dougie MacLean) and decided to take the boys with us this year. Wesley had a large school project to get done and decided to pass, yet Ricky was able to join us. We had a great time!



Our favorite group this year was a band called GiveWay. Four talented sisters from Scotland that have been singing and playing as a band since 1998. Now they have taken their show on the road and we were fortunate enough to see them. They picked up a couple of new fans from Syracuse! There website is worth a visit, www.giveway.com, and they actively post at MySpace.

There are more pictures of the festival at flickr and a couple of videos on YouTube.

From my Colorado Visit

I thought I'd take a couple of minutes to share a couple of pictures from my Colorado visit. I had a couple of days in Colorado before I headed home. I spent the first day with Rob at the Air Force Academy. It was both interesting and fun. The highpoint was seeing the cadets sky dive, or maybe it was the medium pizza at Godfather's Pizza? You can check out more Colorado pictures at flickr.

During my visit, I ate very well. We ate out at the Golden Corral a couple of times and went to Noodles one night, which was really good. The trip wouldn't be complete if me and Dad didn't do a little book shopping. We found a few treasures. He and I took the Cog Railroad up Pikes Peak. The scenery was as spectacular as you would expect it to be. I even had some fun with electricity.

The weather at the Peak was cold and cloudy. As we went to the high point of the peak, I heard a buzzing in my hat. At first I wasn't sure what it was. I took off my hat to see if it was a bug or something (it wasn't), and the buzzing started again as soon as my hat was back on. Once I figured out what it was, I yelled to dad and headed back inside the building. The buzzing was static electricity going from the top of my head to the metal button on the top of my baseball cap. Just as we were heading into the building, we heard a thunderclap on the other side of the peak. I guess lightning just likes me. I was glad to be back indoors.

All in all, the trip was fantastic and it was great to see my parents and Rob, Mary and Rachael.

Back Home

My flight from Atlanta was delayed and I didn't get home until well after midnight. I got a few hours sleep and then headed to work. After work I headed over to the High School to see our Cheerleader Jennifer cheer on the football team. This is her second game, but the first time I was able to see her cheer. She was tossed in the air at least half a dozen times. The toss happens whenever our team scores a touchdown. We won 41 to 0, so the Cheerleaders were doing a lot of cheering. . . and tossing.

More cheerleading pictures on flickr.

Day 4 - We Made It!

We arrived safely here in Colorado Springs at about 1PM. We spent several hours unloading and then went to dinner at the Golden Corral with Rob, Mary and Rachael. I'm beat. The clock on the wall says 9:30 PM, but the clock in my head is still set for east coast time and that would be 11:30 PM. Good Night!

Day 3 - Missouri and Kansas

We made it through St Loius early this morning and passed through Kansas City before lunch. We dropped off Wally Wood's desk to Roger Hill in Salina, Kansas. Once we dropped off the desk, we decided to keep driving a bit further. We'll be spending the night in Hays, Kansas. We made good time and should be in Colorado Springs by tomorrow afternoon.

Day 2 - Almost in St. Louis

We made good time today. We started out at about 7:30 AM, passed into West Virginia, then Ohio, then Indiana. We finished up in Illinois, just before St Louis. We ate dinner at Cracker Barrel and now it's time to rest. Hopefully I'll get a chance to do another update tommorow.