Hi everyone, Mike here with an exciting, delightful, unbelievable (I want to be careful not to oversell this) update.

The first picture you see is of my sister, Karol and her husband Dave.  Her birthday is early in the month and we miss celebrating it with her and family. She passed away last Fall and we miss her. She was the youngest of all my siblings and no one expected things to happen this way. Life has its own ways and timings of impacting us. I loved her sense of humor. She would make cards for us and at the bottom back corner would be something like" a Karol the Great original, retail price is $1 million."

A friend shared another one of those infamous WD-40 company ads that show up on the Internet. I can assure you the company never created this one but someone did and put it on the Internet with that clever copy.

Speaking of WD-40, had a wonderful reunion over white bean chili with chicken and a few bottles of wine with some of my fellow retired management buddies including Garry (CEO), Jay (CFO) and Stan (Global HR). Try as we might, we just couldn't stick to the facts in any of our stories of the past, present and future. It was too enjoyable weaving in fantasy and opinions (OK, and the occasional lie) as we talked about ourselves and others.  At the end of the day, I believe the value of our lives will be measured by the impact and relationship we have with others. These are three of many valued friendships I celebrate.

Also had a wonderful dinner with my old Servite friend Greg Amendola and his wife Lori. We keep finding wonderful places to eat in Carlsbad and Oceanside enjoying great meals and Company. On the way back to our car Greg took the picture of me standing by the street named after me (I'm sure).

I continue to grow stronger, more flexible, more stable and balanced and therefore more functional every day thanks to my Great trainers and caregivers. The attached video shows me in our backyard figuring out how to navigate steps on our patio using wrist crutches. When I am going up or down I am carrying my own weight and balancing with Josh resting his hands on my hips for safety. I was able to get into our car on the driver side from my wrist scratches entirely by myself for the first time. This literally opens the door to very dangerous thoughts and activities on my part. I was able to get out of our car on the passenger side with Josh only helping me put my hand on the door, otherwise I did it all. This is a good skill to hone for when the police pull me over and I have to quickly evacuate the car and escape. 

I hope to begin to show this growing functionality in public over the next few months. It is one thing to do it in training, quite another to do it publicly where if I do something like fall it can cause a ruckus when I land in somebody's lap or knock over their glass of wine. Discernment to do what, where and when Will be key in the future for safety reasons for me and the general public. I still have a ways to go in getting up off the ground by myself to a standing position but I am progressing. That will be a key determinate.

I have a growing heart to pray for all of you. I hope this is true of many of you too. God is so good, He gives us so many gifts, we need to encourage each other in opening them and being grateful for them. We love all of you! "Keep moving forward" is my motto for 2024. Let's do it together!