Timothy James Boyd (1948-2009)

Tim Boyd was born on September 22nd, 1948 and before the age of 23 he married my mom, Beth. 5 years later, I was born and my brother Brad followed 5 1/2 years after that.

 

With just a high school education and a year in a local vocational college, Dad only had 2 jobs after the age of 18. He spent 18 years working for the City of Opelousas Power Plant followed by 22 years as proprietor of B&T Kwik Shop in Nuba, LA.

In July of this year, mom and dad came to visit me in Austin. I was planning on putting my house on the market and they were gonna help me clean it up some. Dad spent 2 days with a pressure washer and a blower cleaning the entire outside of my house and clearing out my gutters. When he started a job he finished it and when he was done all he wanted was some cold beer and good dinner. I took them to a Brazilian steak house and they both enjoyed it.

Dad came to Austin about once a year for the nearly 10 years that I’ve lived there. Mom and dad even made a surprise visit for my 32nd birthday party and when I walked into the waiting area at Chuy’s they were both already there.

I wasn’t really aware of how bad my dad’s health was declining. Mom told me that his back was hurting him and he had lost some weight. My uncle Willy called me on Tuesday the 13th to tell me that I really should come home to see dad. I drove home on Thursday and I think the following image of my dad will be the one I remember forever. Dad was lying in his bed on his back. As I walked into the room he lifted his right forearm while keeping his elbow on the bed and pumped his fist in a motion similar to arm wrestling. His arms and legs were very skinny and the 30 lbs of weight that he had shed during the previous 2 months left him looking very aged.

On Friday morning, we got up and took dad to the hospital for some blood work and to do a bronchoscopy. Having to roll your 61 year old father in a wheelchair because he’s too weak to walk just 10 weeks after he seemed so strong and healthy was a heart breaking task. I’ve never liked hospitals and as positive and hopeful as I wanted to be, I knew there was a chance that he wouldn’t be coming back out of those doors alive.

There was one problem after another, either his platelets were too low or his heart rate was too high, so it would be 4 more days before they would even be able to do the bronchoscopy. On Saturday, dad was still very alert and they had started an IV to give him some fluids and nutrition. At times he would say a few loony things but he was on several heavy pain meds. I talked to him and tried to make him comfortable. He was worried about his store and kept asking questions about invoices and deposits. I told him that mom and Uncle Mike had it all taken care of and that he should rest. I held his hand and rubbed his head and tried to be strong.

I went back to Austin on Sunday with plans to return later in the week. When I got back on Friday morning, I spent a lot of time with dad at the hospital. His condition had worsened and he was almost too weak to make any sounds. I could understand some words but mostly I tried to do the talking. Dad was having trouble breathing and had been in and out of the ICU. On Saturday, they had to put a mask on his face to help his oxygen levels and he kept trying to take it off. A few hours later, they changed out oxygen masks and dad was still having trouble breathing. He didn’t want the mask on his face and I held his hand so he wouldn’t take the mask off and I told him that he had to have it on because it was helping him.

They again changed masks and this time to one that sealed around the edge of his face and really was pushing a lot of oxygen into his lungs. They took him back into ICU and were trying to get him to a point where they could begin the chemotherapy. Because of the limited visiting hours in ICU it wasn’t until 10am on Sunday that I got to see him again. I stayed with him until 1pm when they began the chemotherapy. They let my mom sit with him in the ICU. I had lunch with my uncles, aunts and cousins and then packed my car and headed back to Austin.

I got home at 10pm on Sunday night and was hoping to hear good news in the morning that the treatment had helped and that dad was showing some signs of improvement. Instead, the news was bad and I quickly packed my car with new clothes and headed back to Opelousas. I arrived just after 4pm at Opelousas General Hospital and with my mother standing between my brother and myself at his bedside we watched him die. The ventilator continued to fill his lungs with air and you could see his chest rise and fall but he was dead. The man that loved my mother, who taught me how to throw a baseball and taught me how to safely handle a firearm was gone.

These last 2 weeks have gone by so quickly and have left me with a heavy heart and watery eyes. I hated to see my dad in such a terrible state of health. He was a good man to so many people and he lived a happy and simple life. He loved me and my brother and I loved him for exactly the person he was, an honest, hard working, unselfish father.

  I hope my nearly 3 yr old niece will remember her Pa Boyd. She was his only grandchild and it was so amazing to see my dad spend time with her. He would play puzzles and games and read books with her and whatever she wanted she got.

I hope my mother finds peace in the absence of her husband. They shared over 38 years of marriage and have always provided for me and my brother with everything they had.

 

Dad, I love you and I’m forever grateful for everything you did for me. Rest in peace.

Ticket Stubs

I’ve had this box in my closet for years now. It started out as a big empty box and as of now it’s a big full box. You’ll find Christmas Cards from my mom, an old LSU Tiger stuffed animal, notes from girls back in high school and ticket stubs.

One of the things I like about blogging is it helps me to remember things I’ve done or places I’ve been or people I’ve seen. So I decided to create a Flickr photo set for all of my old ticket stubs. I’ve uploaded all of the ones that I’ve pulled out of the box so far and have even included my most recent one. Snow Patrol played at Stubb’s BBQ tonight and my friend Rachel had an extra ticket. I’ve never listened to any of their music but I did like the show and plan on putting a few of their songs on my iPod.

Here’s a link to my Flickr set. It starts out with an LSU vs. Tulane ticket from 1938. Obviously, I wasn’t at that game but it was found in a box that my grandfather had.

Enjoy,
Logan

I Remember My First Time…

I remember my first time in the new Dallas Cowboys stadium for 2 reasons. The first reason being that I was there less than 24 hours ago and the second and bigger reason being the 180 foot wide screen that sits above the field.

I drove up to Dallas early on Saturday morning to watch LSU beat Georgia in a last minute comeback.

Texas A&M was playing Arkansas in the Southwest Classic in what would turn out to be a blowout by Arkansas after A&M fell apart after the first 26 minutes of clock time.

As you can see from my iPhone snapshot here the video screen is very impressive. Even though I had heard and read lots about the size of this screen, it still very much shocked me with it’s size.

We had tickets in the club level 200 seats right at the goal line. When the ball was on our side of the field I found myself watching the field but as soon as the ball was beyond the 50 yard line and often beyond the near side 30 yard line, I found myself watching only the big screen.

The screen is great for replays and for seeing each down a little bit better if your seats are in the nose bleed. Stretching between the 20 yard lines, the screen measures 180 feet wide. Sitting at home and watching my 55” (diagonal measurement) flat screen HDTV, I feel like I now need an upgrade!

Summer’s Gone

Summer 2009 has come and gone and it was definitely in my top 5. I enjoyed so many days on the lake and nights in downtown Austin.

  

Austin is starting to make up for all of the rain that didn’t fall over the past few months. As central Texas starts to get colder and wetter, I’m starting to think of the places I’d like to go. I did get to travel to Miami and spend some time in the sands of South Beach. It was also the first year that I made 2 ski trips, getting to ski on the slopes in Lake Tahoe as well as Winter Park, Colorado.

  

I’d like to take some quick weekend trips and I’m planning on going to New York, Chicago and Baton Rouge in the next couple of months.

I don’t get to see my friends as much as I used to, so I decided to come up to Dallas today. With Randy and Barbara’s twins (Cecilia and Alex) being almost 6 weeks old, I figured it was time to come visit. I’d like to get out to North Carolina and visit Micah and maybe even get out to Germany to see Travis too. It all depends on work and money at this point but things seem to be going well. So let it rain and let the cold fronts move through. I’ve enjoyed the past few months so much and I’m looking forward to hitting the mountains for a couple of ski trips this year, just as soon as I find the right ski boots!

Turning 33.3333 years old!

On September 18th, 2009, I was 1/3 of a century old. I decided to make a t-shirt, invite a bunch of friends to go out downtown and make the most of this faux birthday celebration.

Thanks to everyone who came out to have fun. Here a few of the pics.

Logan is Cameron, Cameron is Logan

 
Alan Ruck...

Alan is the guy who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off

People fairly often point out that they think I look a lot like Cameron.

 

Nike+ Human Race, Austin, TX 8.31.2008

	Lance Armstrong at the start of the Nike+ Human Race 10K
Lance Armstrong cooling off as he runs past the Bob Bullock Museum	Sea of red shirts running through a cooling station on Congress Ave
Matthew McConaughey after the finish of the Nike+ Human Race 10K	Ben Harper playing after the race

Do I Look Like This Guy?

They say things always come in 3s but yesterday I had something happen twice. Maybe today it will happen again and round out my theory.

The first incident happened when my friend Randy relayed some information to me from his mom. She's been watching the Olympics like Billions of others have and apparently thinks that I look like Michael Phelps.

Now I'm a pretty good swimmer, heck I was even a lifeguard for 3 summers, but I have no gold medals to date for that.

A few hours later, while out at a customer site, a guy named Alan says, "you know who you look like? Michael Phelps" to which i proclaim, "that's the 2nd time today someone has said that"

For the past many years I typically get told that I look like Alan Ruck, the actor who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off but this Phelps thing is new to me. Personally I think he has huge ears and a slight speech impediment but I'm guessing most girls would overlook that at a chance to hold his 10+ Gold Medals!

I did my best to imitate him below, tell me what you think... Long lost brothers or just bizarre random coincidental thoughts.

 

Ils Sont Partis!

I spent Saturday out in Manor at the Austin Polo Club. It was an awesome day with weather topping out around 80 degrees and a cool breeze blowing through the polo field. Although the Austin Polo Club team didn't win, it was a good match. The field has been newly renovated and has 12" boards lining both sides. The only other match that I've seen didn't have the high boards so the ball goes out of bounds a lot. This field allows a team to advance the ball down the sideline. With a final score of 7-2 the match ended after 4 chuckers.

The grounds were set up with a large tent and seating for about 50. There was a bar and a buffet line serving chicken and brisket. Under the tent they had two 50" flat panel TVs. After the match we sat around and waited for post time for the Kentucky Derby. I chose Eight Belles as my horse and she ran a great race with a strong finish but not strong enough to catch Big Brown.

End of an Era

On January 11th, 2008 I lost my job... I had been at Rush Enteprises for nearly 7 years and now it was time to go do something different.

The following day I hopped on a plane to Guadalajara, MX with a 1-way ticket and decided to go see some places that I had never seen. I stayed 2 days in Guadalajara at the Intercontinental Presidente as I planned out the next few days of my journey. I decided to rent a car and drive to Puerto Vallarta on the pacific coast. On a Monday morning, I set out for Puerto Vallarta and with one small detour to the Jose Cuervo plant in the town of Tequila, I made it to Pto Vallarta in 5 hours.

I found a room at the Sheraton Buganvillias on the south end of Pto Vallarta on Priceline and booked it for 2 nights. The hotel was great and the room was nice. I slept with the windows open listening to the sounds of the waves and enjoying the ocean breezes. On my 3rd day when I was due to check out, I decided to stay a little longer so I booked another 3 nights. I wasn't ready to leave.

During the day I would hang out at the pool, playing pool volleyball everyday at 1pm. There was a family there from Salta, Argentina and the father and son took the game really seriously. The dad didn't speak english so we kept score in spanish. Each morning I would wake up to a combination of water aerobics and spanish lessons. I could hear "Manos Arriba, Manos Abajo" (Hands Up, Hands Down), "Pierna Derecha Arriba, Abajo" (Right Leg Up, Down) being shouted by the activities coordinator. It was one of the more interesting alarm clocks that's woke me up.

They had a ping-pong tournament one morning and I came in 2nd. I hadn't played the game hardly ever but for some reason I was killing the ball. Only 1 guy stood in my way to winning the free drink but my backhand and the wind persisted in letting me hit the ball onto the table. The guy that beat me and his brother were from San Diego. I ended up hanging out with them for a few nights.

We'd start out at a place called Cheeky Monkey where Beer and Margaritas were $1 until 10pm. The margaritas were AWFUL but for $5 they got the job done. After that, we'd bounce around to the handful of clubs that line the "Malecon" (Boardwalk). It was a pretty quiet time of the year for tourists so not a whole lot of people were out. We met some locals one night who invited us back to a house party but our better judgement convinced us it probably was best not to go wandering too far from the main drag.

I met a lot of Canadians in Pto Vallarta. Playing volleyball one day in a 6 on 6 game i think all but 3 of us were Canadian. I guess when it's -40 degrees at your house, Mexico looks like a pretty great place to be.

Being that this is mainly a tourist destination, the food was pretty cheap. I had dinner one night at a nice Italian place, La Dulce Vida, for about $15 and my favorite of all was Los Tacos for the Tacos al Pastor at 8 Pesos each (around $.72).

After my 5th day in Pto Vallarta it was time to move on. I enjoyed being on the coast and listening to the ocean at night so I decided to head south instead of back inland. I was originally gonna travel to San Miguel de Allende but decided a 700km drive to Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa would be a better place to land.

I set out on a Saturday morning around 10am and thinking the drive would take me 7 hours at most, I would certainly get there before the sun went down. Well, I had no idea how the drive would go. The mountains alone held my average speed to under 25mph for almost 2 hours. Countless tiny towns with the biggest speed bumps ever and hundreds of small bridges and curvy roads stretched out my venture to right at 10 hours. Twice along the way, as I was going through a small town, some young girls would stretch out a string with a small rag tied to it so that I would stop. Then they'd approach the car and ask for some money. I gladly handed over a few pesos, the string was lowered and I was allowed to proceed. It was 8pm when I pulled into the front of the Las Brisas resort in Ixtapa.

Las Brisas was a beautiful resort. The room was perfect and the hammock on the balcony overlooked a nice crescent shaped private beach area. The first night in Ixtapa, I went down to Carlos and Charlie's and ran into a huge group of vacationers who were there for an annual volleyball trip. I befriended several of the people on the trip who were all confused why there would be a 6'5" guy in Ixtapa who was NOT on their trip. For the 4 days that I stayed there I had to continually tell people that I was NOT a part of their group. By the 3rd day, people would say... oh you're Logan... I've heard about you, aren't you the guy that lost your job and now you're travelling the world! I must admit, it was weird to be famous amongst a random group of americans while in Mexico.