We did lived on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale, almost to the Everglades. We were putting up storm shutters in fall of 2005 and the question came up, why are we doing this? We bought 5 acres and built a house when I was pretty sure I was safe from being transferred again. Bought another 3.5 as an investment. We planned to live here and get to ride our horses. The developers moved in around us and it is no longer safe to ride on the streets. Land prices and taxes went nuts. Three years ago land was up to $500K per acre. Even with the bad real estate market it is at $300K. We just wanted to get away from the noise, traffic, retired New Yorkers and Cubans.

The move is not that big a deal; it is just one more, but the last. I lived in the same house from the time I was 4 until the end of college. Since then, I have lived in St. Louis, Monterey, Cal (a year at the language school taking Turkish), Washington, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Bloomington, IN, back to Indianapolis, back to Washington, to Miami. The first three moves were USAF, the rest FBI. When I was young and stupid, I worked bank robberies and truck hijackings (Cleveland), everything criminal and terrorism in Indianapolis, four of us covered 9 counties for everything in Bloomington, back to Indianapolis to run the white collar crime squad, Washington to run he FBI's computer systems for foreign counterintelligence and terrorism. I missed a transfer by being detailed to DEA for 3 years (where I met Peggy), was promoted to Inspector, so I stayed in Washington some more. I was sent to Florida to set up an office of International Liaison for all FBI work in the Caribbean and Central America plus any requests from anywhere in the world coming to South Florida. I retired on my 50th birthday and set up what turned into a high end PI company doing internal employee misconduct investigations for major companies. Retired again.

Peggy retired and we are setting up a horse rescue facility on the 500 acres in Brooksmith, Texas. The kids and grandkids live in Austin and we wanted to be close, but not too close. We’re associated with Habitat for Horses, the nation's largest independent horse rescue group. Our place is called the Forever Ranch because the horses will have a home forever here (even burial will be here). We have five horses that can be ridden now or in the future. We have one more, small mule arriving in the next 2 weeks. That will be the last addition, except for a real emergency, until we get the permanent 16-stall barn built. Then we will take in older horses that are unrideable due to age, injury, or disease. Most people do not want a horse that will cost them money, cannot be ridden, and may die soon. . The two young ones are a hand full to manage and I do not want to get thrown again. Aurora bolted with me on her and I lasted about 2 seconds before rolling off before being killed. I ride Jupiter and Peggy rides Charley or Shady. Eventually, I hope to use Jupiter to ride the fences, currently about 5 miles.

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