Archive for January, 2008

Top of the cliff

Thursday, January 31st, 2008


Here’s Loyal Reader Number One at the top of that cliff he climbed at camp this summer. I believe a similar picture to this one has been featured here before, but not from this exact angle. Which makes this picture totally unique. Really.

I’m home! I had a comfortable ride back, worked a couple of hours, and drove home in the rain. Slowly. I’m seriously thinking of riding the train tomorrow. I definitely will if it’s going to rain. Hold on a minute and I’ll check.

— Checking —

I’m back. There’s a 30% chance of rain. What to do? I suppose I’ll decide tomorrow morning. The suspense is killing us all.

My mother called me this afternoon and told me my uncle Morrell Snowball had a massive stroke and is in the hospital. His chances of coming back out are said to be small. I’m very sad. Morrell and my Aunt Ruth have been very kind to us and our children over the years. We’re hoping for the best for them both.

See you tomorrow.

Accommodations

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008


Here’s a lovely little suite at the Alcatraz hotel. Plush. Picture courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One.

The meeting went fine. I learned a couple of important things and have a much better feel for the next few months’ worth of work here at the base. On the down side, it was about 35 degrees with a rumored 50 mph wind early this morning. There’s about a five-minute outdoor walk between the badging office and the building where the meeting was held. It was directly into the wind. Of course. Very chilly. It was a great day to stay inside.

Had dinner at a nice Indian restaurant. Enjoyed the meal. I originally planned to go to Outback for a steak, but it looked too crowded.

Already time for bed. See you tomorrow. From home!

Ferry Building Line

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008


Here’s a San Francisco Bay ferry at work. Photo from last summer courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One.

Greetings from Lancaster! It was a pretty uneventful trip – smooth roads and no traffic. I got up to about 4,000 feet in the Tejon Pass, where the outside temperature went from about 50 to 35 degrees. Fortunately, though, there was no snow. Well, not on the road, anyway. Which was good enough for me. It’s quite a bit colder here than at home right now. The hotel is nice and warm, though.

Speaking of the hotel. I got checked in and left immediately for my sushi dinner. Got back to my room, took off my shoes and socks, and . . . the carpet was wet. Yuck. It turns out it was shampooed a few days ago and hasn’t dried yet. They moved me to another room. It seems to be dry. I consider dry carpeting to be a “must have” feature of a high-class hotel room.

By the way, the sushi was great. And the restaurant’s floor was dry. I believe.

I’m driving a rented Hyundai Santa Fe on this trip. It’s fine, I suppose, but not exciting. Likes: fairly comfortable driver’s seat, good radio display (with 18 XM presets!), nice dashboard lighting, decent ride, all the power accessories needed for comfort, and two (count ’em!) sunglass holders in the headliner. Dislikes: underpowered, too much wind noise, and the multiple sunglass holders push the map lights so far back that you have to hold your map two inches from your nose to get any light on it.

Looking forward to tomorrow’s meeting. It’s one of those ones where I need to pay attention but have nothing to present. Should be a good day.

See you tomorrow.

Recital

Monday, January 28th, 2008


Here’s Loyal Reader Number One preparing for his recital last week. He did a great job. As mentioned before. Lo-fi photo courtesy of the exclusive RAZR-cam.

Bad traffic coming home tonight, for no apparent reason. Horrendous traffic going in this morning, due to rain. I never got rained on, but I drove on a lot of wet roads. Or more correctly put, I idled down a lot of wet roads. Sigh. Should have taken the train.

I’m off to Edwards tomorrow. There’s a meeting on Wednesday. I’m leaving the office mid-day tomorrow and going directly back to the office on Thursday. I’ll miss being home, but plan to drown my sorrows in a nice sushi dinner tomorrow night. And maybe I can get some more CSS tutorials done. And maybe watch those Ernest movies on my iPod. Now there’s a valuable use of time.

I listened to the President’s State of the Union address on the way home tonight. As usual, I agreed with most of it and disagreed with a little. At any rate, it was interesting. I like that President Bush continues to amaze the news idiots by not doing what they think he should do. They just can’t figure out why he won’t take their brilliant advice. I can figure it out, though. And so can all the rest of the normal people.

Anyway. Time for home evening. See you tomorrow, from a remote location.

Santa

Friday, January 25th, 2008


Here are Loyal Readers Numbers One and Three making sure they get what they want for Christmas. World peace again this year, Loyal Readers? How about a nice football instead? Taken at the House of Christmas Lights, of course. Low-fi picture courtesy of the amazing RAZR-cam.

Wonders of Blogger. No time to blog last night. We went to Loyal Reader Number One’s winter piano recital pretty much as soon as I got home, and then watched an old Bob Hope movie called Alias Jesse James. It’s from 1959, which is just on the edge between his earlier good stuff and his later cheesy stuff. Fortunately, this one lands on the good side. The interesting thing is that I had never even heard of this movie before. And I thought I was something of a Bob Hope fan.

LRN1’s piano recital went well, particularly for him. All the performers were obviously talented, or at least skilled. A few weren’t very well prepared, but overall it was an excellent presentation. They had a lot of performers up there, but the whole thing took no more than an hour, so it was solid music, which I like. No long-winded piano teachers between every song telling us how great little Johnny is and how sweet little Susie is. Just music. Not that I mind long-winded piano teachers, of course. Don’t want to offend any long-winded piano-teaching Loyal Readers I might have. Heaven knows I need all the Loyal Readers I can get.

Gotta go help Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve with their move. See you on Monday.