Archive for December, 2008

Fishing people

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008


Here are some folks looking for fish at Lake Chabot. Part of my famous Camping series.

Happy New Year’s Eve! Like most people, I have no idea where the year’s gone. There’s been a little bad. And a whole lot of good. Overall, I can’t complain.

Thanks to Anon for missing yesterday’s post. I was working on Waterlogged until all hours of the night. Didn’t get it done last night, but Loyal Reader Number One and I worked on it again today and got it fixed. Hooray! Everything’s now on Godaddy and I won’t be getting any more intrusion attempts. Larry’s serving video for the loft’s television. Life’s good.

Only five more days before I go back to work and LRN1 heads back to school. And everything and everybody else gets back to normal. I’m kind of looking forward to the “normal” part. But not the “work” part. And definitely not the “LRN1 heads back to school” part.

I have a pretty long list of things I want to get done during the holiday. So far, so okay. I’m a little behind in the “Cleaning Up My Room” department, and not so great in the “working on the cars” department. I’m right up to snuff on the “messing around with computers” department, though. Priorities.

We’re going to the Big Stake Dance this evening. For some reason, our excellent stake president has really wanted it to be a nice event, so he’s had people working on it all year, including several dance practices. Ought to be pretty fancy. If I can stay awake. I’ve been up until all hours of the night nearly every night this vacation, and I’m exhausted tonight. I’ll make it, though. Send me a few encouragement rays, Loyal Readers.

I’ve started reading Bernard Goldberg’s Arrogance. It describes itself as a book about “rescuing America from the media elite.” It’s been a pretty quick read. It was written in 2003, so he misses a lot of material about media malfeasance, especially in the light of the recent election. He’s pretty much right on the money prediction-wise, though. One interesting point he makes, though, is how fast the media will turn on one of their pet liberals when they come into conflict with somebody else higher on the pet liberal ladder. He cites the case of Tammy Bruce, the president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW. She was very popular in her community of like-minded people and a darling of the media. Then she had some harsh words to say about O.J. Simpson’s treatment of his ex-wife, starting with physical abuse while they were married, right up to her murder after their divorce.

The establishment didn’t like that, and they didn’t put up with it for one second. She was ostracized from her previous friends, and she became instant persona non grata with the media. I guess black men are higher up on the pet liberal ladder than white women.

For further evidence, see the case of Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama. She’s still trying to figure out what happened.

Anyway. Entertaining book.

That’s pretty much it for the year. Have a great and safe New Year’s Eve. See you tomorrow.

Straddling pilot

Monday, December 29th, 2008


Here’s a guy out for a ride on one of them flying machines. His eyes bear mute testament to his slight level of discomfort at straddling that thing. Picture taken at the Hiller Aviation Museum. Part of both my famous machinery and statue series.

Great day at home. On the downside, off-week number two is 20% over. Sigh. On the upside, I rested like crazy, and actually got a few things done. Let’s see, now. The pool filters are now clean, the leaves are picked up from the bottom of the pool, the Honda is clean, Larry’s server files are moved over to Moe, an HDMI cable for Larry and a 1 terabyte disk drive for moe are on order, the workbench light power strip is back on the wall, new windshield wipers are on the Honda and the Sable (and will be on the Suburban tomorrow morning), the band of my new watch is more my size, and a lot of food has been consumed. Not bad for a day off.

Lots of things are on the schedule for tomorrow, but they’re too boring to discuss here. Suffice it to say that I’ll be as busy as a leisure-filled day will allow.

I just finished reading The Blight Way, Patrick F. McManus’s first (as far as I know, anyway) murder mystery. Highly recommended. It’s a delightful little murder mystery. No gore, no sex, no profanity. Just fun and a triple homicide to solve. Exactly what I expected from McManus, and exactly what I wanted. If I still have a Morrowlife book club, this would be this month’s selection. I’m looking forward to reading McManus’s other mystery book, as well as the one scheduled to come out next September. Not to mention his new book of humor columns.

Anyway. No other news. Having a great holiday. See you tomorrow.

Flight crew

Friday, December 26th, 2008


Here are Loyal Readers Numbers One, Two, and Three in a rare joint appearance as the flight crew of a 747. Picture taken at the Hiller Aviation Museum. Part of my famous Machinery series.

Wonders of Blogger. Friday was game day, and we were having too good of a time for me to blog. Sorry about that, Loyal Readers. And special thanks to LRN1 for noticing.

Loyal Readers Numbers Three and Fifteen went home today. Sob. We had a great visit with them and were very sorry to see them go. The good news is that LRN3’s job back at Fish and Game is a definite. He’s still working on either getting a second part-time job or converting what he has into full-time, but this is an excellent start at a job he’s very likely to enjoy as much as he did before.

Went to downtown San Francisco to see A Christmas Carol at the American Conservatory Theater. It was well done and we had a great time. The building itself was beautiful, which I always enjoy. The new TomTom guided us there and home flawlessly. It’s pretty cool – I knew all along that as soon as I got a modern GPS, I wouldn’t be able to live without it anymore. And I was right.

That’s all for now. We have friends coming over tonight, and preparations must be made. See you on Monday.

Chopper mechanics

Thursday, December 25th, 2008


Here are Loyal Reader Number Four and one of her many colleagues working on an old Hiller helicopter. Part of both my famous Statue series and my famous Machinery series.

Merry Christmas! We had a great day. Lots of presents were given and received, new stuff was played with, video games were played, He-Man cartoons were watched (that show was so bad it was great), a new jigsaw puzzle was started (and will probably be finished tonight), and a general nice time was had by all. I’m sorry the day is over.

But it is, and I’m exhausted. We stayed up way late again last night, what with preparations for the holiday. We slept in quite late, but it still wasn’t quite enough. Need more sleep tonight.

Tomorrow morning is shooting time (at the range down the road, that is) for the boys and shopping time for the girls. Except that some of the girls might be coming for shooting time too. I’m hoping it’s not raining. The Weather Channel is calling for cool but mostly sunny weather. So there’s hope.

I played with my TomTom for quite a while today – it’s pretty cool. I never went out of the house other than the back yard, so I haven’t actually used it to navigate anywhere, but I’m looking forward to trying it out in the car tomorrow. It locks on to satellites really easily and knows where all the roads are. I updated it online, and discovered you can put your own splash screens, voices, map updates, and lots of other stuff on it. I especially like the ability to do custom voices. I just might try that.

Also love my new Seiko watch. It’s small and light, unlike the monstrosity I’ve been using lately.

Lots of other new stuff to talk about, but it’s too late. See you tomorrow.

Aviator reader

Thursday, December 25th, 2008


Here’s Loyal Reader Number Two ready for takeoff. Picture taken today in the gift shop at the Hiller Aviation Museum. He really wanted to buy this getup, but we talked him out of it. Maybe we should have let him get it thought – he looks pretty jaunty.

No Tuesday post. I forgot. Fortunately, we had a nice day.

Merry Christmas Eve! We had a nice day. Went to the aforementioned aviation museum (Hiller). Turns out there was a Hiller Helicopter company here in the Bay Area. It started out as a few teenagers making toy cars in their parents’ garage. World War II broke out and the kids somehow got a military contract to build . . . ummm . . . something. I can’t remember. Anyway, they quickly became helicopter pioneers. Pretty cool.

Otherwise, we relaxed at home, enjoyed each other’s company, and watched A Christmas Story. Had our traditional lasagna dinner. It was even better than usual.

Speaking of which, there are a ton of leftovers around here. I’m having a hard time not overdoing it. As are several of my Loyal Readers.

Holiday greetings to Loyal Reader Number Seven, from whom we haven’t heard in a while. Thanks for the kind note and we wish you and your family the best Christmas ever.

Same wishes to all my Loyal Readers. Thanks for making the Morrowlife blog the cultural and financial powerhouse it is today.

And it’s time to get ready for Christmas. See you tomorrow.