Archive for January, 2009

In the mine

Friday, January 30th, 2009


Here’s the view inside yesterday’s mine. Once again, photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One.

Yet another perfect day, weatherwise. Not a cloud in the sky, cool in the morning, and warm in the afternoon. Makes a man wish he had an office with a window. Or a nice-sized retirement check coming in. Better yet, a large inheritance. Or something.

Some good, some bad today.

First the good: I don’t remember whether I mentioned that I’ve lost my very cool ABL mug. I believe I left it on a shelf in the restroom, where it had gone for washing. When I noticed it was gone and went back, the room was under construction and the shelf no longer existed. As far as I could tell, neither did the mug. Sigh.

So the good thing is that one of my retiring colleagues deeded me hers this afternoon. I’m delighted to have it.

Now the bad: I learned this morning that my former colleague and mentor Al Wilmot passed away Thursday evening. Al was a great software engineer and, more important, a fine man. He was a little eccentric and kind of a funny holdover from the ’60s space program, which made him all the more likeable. He suffered from Alzheimer’s for the last few years, which was presumably the cause of his death. Al will be missed.

Intensely busy weekend in the offing. Tonight is the sole exception, so far. I plan to do a bunch of high-council-related organizing and emailing. I also hope to get my weekly dose of Monk and Psych. Maybe also hang around with the Loyal Readers.

Saturday morning, I’m helping prepare and serve a fancy luncheon for the stake Relief Society. Then home to work on getting some callings made. There will probably be some work around the house to do. Also need to prepare a priesthood lesson for Sunday. Also need to do some research and preliminary structuring for my talk on the eighth.

Sunday will be meetings, callings, and more meetings and callings. Followed by dessert and bed. Loyal Reader Number Six gets home sometime on Sunday, so I imagine Loyal Readers Numbers Five and Twelve will be heading out at about the same time.

Sunday evening may be quiet.

No toilet news today. In the meantime, we can attend the funeral.

See you Monday.

Mine entrance

Thursday, January 29th, 2009


Here’s the entrance to an abandoned mine somewhere in Utah. Loyal Reader Number One has been in there a couple of times with his mine exploration group. Looks cold. Photo courtesy of LRN1.

Unfortunate day on the train. We were delayed for about twenty minutes by a defective signal in the morning, and by about another twenty minutes in the afternoon by a late shuttle bus full of anxious riders. Most unfortunate.

However, life goes on. Pretty good day at work. I attended a highly expensive retirement luncheon at a fancy restaurant on a golf course. The place is apparently well known to the locals – and well respected. The food was served buffet-style and was very good. My retiring colleague gave a fine speech, which I quote here in its entirety: “Bye.”

It was very warmly received by all present.

Visited one of my home teaching families yesterday evening. They’re an interesting couple. He’s retired from the Army, and they live in their fifth wheel camping trailer. They belong to a membership camping place and travel around from one of their facilities to another. Their home base is pretty much here in Lardville, though, so they belong to our ward. I enjoyed my visit.

Highly important toilet news: there’s a memorial service coming up. I won’t be able to attend, so I plan to observe a moment of silent contemplation.

See you tomorrow.

Number twelve

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009


Here’s good old Number Twelve, straight from Philadelphia to you. Picture taken at the Sacramento Railroad Museum. Part of my famous Train series. And possibly posted before. Only my Loyal Readers know for sure.

Beautiful, sunny day, if a little cool. In fact, it was downright cold when I left the house. Get ready for it. Thirty degrees. Yep. Below freezing. I struggled through.

Wall-to-wall meetings at work. The calendar was filled without a gap from 9:00 to 4:45. Some of the meetings ended early, though, and I was able to get a few things done. There were also several visitors to my inner sanctum spread throughout the day. All things considered, an exhilarating day.

Tonight’s schedule (assuming the train is punctual, of course): fifteen minutes for dinner and then a home teaching visit. Then I’ll post this and go to bed happy and satisfied.

Things are otherwise uninteresting. Or maybe I should simply say “things are uninteresting.”

Important crime-fighting news: guess who is the least likely to commit a crime!

See you tomorrow.

Old bike

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009


Here’s an old bike. I’d like to try riding one of these someday. Preferably on a soft surface. Part of my famous machinery series.

No post today – while it wasn’t Massive Meeting Tuesday, it was Meeting Tuesday and I spent the entire evening at the Stake Center. Drove to work, which went very quickly in the morning and about par with training it in the evening. Fine day.

It’s late. See you tomorrow.

Swarm

Monday, January 26th, 2009


Here are a bunch of airplanes flying around at the Hiller Aviation Museum. They’re a little short on air traffic control there. Part of my famous Machinery series.

Well, well, well. Busy weekend. And lots of (bad) stuff going on with the blog.

Let’s start with the weekend, shall we. No blog on Friday. We were busy. Our friends came over for dinner and games. We had a very nice dinner (Bartholomew Beef!) but no games. We got busy chatting and never stopped. Until they went home. Maybe we’ll play games next time. I hope there is a next time.

So there was no blog. Fortunately, Anon seems to have missed it. Frankly, I think Anon is laying low after last week’s imposter Anon scare. Hopefully, it’s safe to come back out of the woodwork.

Anyway. Saturday was quiet and peaceful. Didn’t get much done, as I recall. I didn’t have much of anything on the list, though. Picked up a few things at the store. That’s about it. I think we jacuzzified in the evening. Or maybe that was yesterday. Sunday was extremely busy on the High Council front. Had a few callings to make, a few meetings to attend, and a setting apart to do in the branch. Also sang in the choir.

Speaking of which, the only real problem with my current calling is that the branch’s sacrament meeting is at the same time as our choir practice. Sadly, I’m being forced to give up choir for the present. Maybe the practice time will change and I can still attend at least some of the time. But they certainly shouldn’t change just for me. Although I am the only bass (link warning: really, really low Russian singing) who shows up sometimes. But definitely not every time. So they probably shouldn’t change it just for me.

Bad news on the blog front, once again. I got some comment spam last week. I’ve had to institute Measures. So far, they’re limited to captchas for all commenters and additional screening for comments on extremely old posts. Nothing too odious for my Loyal Readers, I hope. Really. I want to hear from you. I just don’t want to hear from dishonest idiots. Unless they happen to be Loyal Readers, that is. Present company excepted, of course.

Otherwise, everything is normal. Oh, I do have some very important toilet news. Well, it’s toilet-related news anyway. Valentine’s day note to Loyal Reader Number Four: no thanks. Really.

Time for home evening. See you tomorrow.