Well, it is April 2026. Here’s a summary of the events that have transpired.
Back in mid-November, mom asked me to take her to the hospital because abdominal pain. On the rainiest day of the season, we went to Dominican. After sitting in the ER for fourteen hours, she was admitted with a gallbladder that would need to be removed. Unfortunately, before her surgery the following day, her condition worsened. After a two week struggle to get strong enough for the surgery, she passed away on December 3, 2025.
We had a quiet Christmas season. Bruce, Teddi and I started on a number of cleaning sessions at the family home as we prepared it for sale. The weather was pretty good and I got a chance to ride the new e-MTB I bought as my Christmas present.
Throughout January and into February, we continued to purge, organize and distribute 60+ years of family belongings to our extended family. We had to pull carpets out of 4 rooms which is when we started to see the termite damage in the floors. The house had fallen into disrepair over the years and we needed to make it right with the new buyers who want to start a family on Spring Street.
The house went up for sale in late February and was sold in a manner of days. We didn’t break any records, but were happy with the sale price.
After doing so much organizing and purging, a few new projects needed to be done at our house. We moved and added a couple more SteadyRack bike racks. Analog bikes went on one wall and e-bikes on the other wall. So far, this is helping keep the rest of the garage and gym a bit cleaner.
During the purge phase, one of my tasks was to review all the boxes of photos and family ephemera. While I’m still not done, I scanned a number of photo albums, letters and loose pictures. See some of these in the family section. The Stan Marston letter talks about his work at the end of WWII in what appears to be an intelligence gathering unit. The Ross McMillan stories are audio tapes that I’m transcribing that tell the history of McMillans in San Luis Obispo in the early part of the 20th century.
I ended up with a lot of pots and plants from Spring St and had to create some additional greenhouse storage. The next phase is to start propagating roses and geraniums that Mom loved and hand them out to family and friends.
I got the car ready and started the AutoX season with LPR on 3/1/26. Had one really great run that put me within my goal of being in the top 20 and within .5-.8 of my typical rabbits.
I participated in a second AutoX with GGLC on 3/21/26 where I had a decent performance in the Open group getting me within 1 second of a few rabbits.
I also got a couple of track days in; one at Laguna Seca and the other at Sonoma with Golden Gate Lotus Club. In addition to getting a new personal best of 1:59 at Sonoma, I got to see stuff like this at Laguna Seca where I hadn’t been in three years. I didn’t run with Herbie, but it was fun seeing him.
We’re headed to the Sea Otter Classic this weekend. Our nephew has wanted to do more mountain biking so we found him a kids cross country race to see if he likes it. He’s also playing water polo with NorCal three times a week and in between my weekend driving events, Lynda and Leo’s agility workshops, we’re now going to water polo tournaments.