Archive for March, 2010

Pig rider

Monday, March 29th, 2010


Here’s LRN2 riding a pig. And enjoying every moment of it. Picture taken at Great America on Saturday and part of my famous Statue series.

Busy, busy, busy weekend. Went to Great America on Saturday, as mentioned above. The weather was perfect (sunny and in the low 70’s), essentially every ride was open (in marked contrast to past years!), the crowd was pleasant (consisting solely of my coworkers and their families), and we had the best time we’ve ever had there. Stayed a little longer than we planned because we were having so much fun. We all even enjoyed the roller coasters we rode. And the bumper cars. Of course. I’m really glad we went.

Saturday evening, LRN5 and LRN12 came over for the rest of the weekend. It was really nice to have them here.

Sunday, my counselors and I had a ward (branch, actually) conference to attend and a fireside to present. Enjoyed it all.

And things are back to normal. LRN4 cleaned up LRN1’s stuff from his former room/my current office. It looks great in there! Now we just need to get rid of the bed and get a thinking couch in there. Then it’ll be perfect. And I can start doing some work in there. Or at least some thinking. On my thinking couch.

I’ll leave you with today’s exciting toilet news: famous urinal copies!

See you tomorrow.

Temple

Friday, March 26th, 2010


Here’s the view I had of the Oakland Temple on Youth Conference day last Saturday. Had a great day, if a bit tiring. Great Art courtesy of the famous iPhone-cam.

It’s Friday! Funny day at work – nobody was there. That’s fine because we didn’t have that much pressing business anyway.

No post yesterday. No good reason, other than that I was at the gym. I just got busy. Not that anybody particularly missed it. Sigh.

Not much to report anyway. Wrote a letter to LRN1 this evening. It had been more than a week, I believe. The time is going so quickly. He’ll be back before we know it. We need to get his room/my office cleaned up before he gets here.

LRN2 had a big day today – he had his audition for the organ scholarship and . . . wait for it . . . got it! Congrats, LRN2! Of course, the money will pretty much all go to his organ teacher, who suggested he go for it, but still. That’ll free more of my money up for gum and candy. For me. So LRN2 may not be getting all that much out of the scholarship after all. But the important thing is that he earned it by being such an excellent organist. Which he is.

Tomorrow is Great America day. We’re looking forward to it. Should be about 74 degrees and sunny, which is nothing to scoff at. Ought to be a nice day.

Well, that’s about it for today. I’ll leave you with this shocking food violence story: taco holdup!

See you on Monday.

Swinger

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010


Here’s LRN12 at the park the other day, doing what is currently her very favorite thing. She still hasn’t figured out the old leg pumping trick, so she working strictly with external propulsion at this point. Namely, me. Or whoever is at the park with her. She’ll get it soon. Great Art courtesy of the famous iPhone-cam.

Normal day. Slept in until 6:00 and got home at 7:30. LRN4 was out visiting teaching and got home at about 9:00. Now blogging and getting ready for bed. After updating my iPod collection, of course. And probably a few other things.

I just finished fixing the family mailing list so that LRN1’s forwarded messages will get through. LRN4’s been forwarding them, but they never got there. Turns out Google Groups was rejecting them because it was set up to reject non-member addresses, and she was sending them from a different address than the one under which she’s signed up for the service. The rejection notices were going into her spam mailbox, so she never saw them. I modified Google’s settings to allow postings to come in from nonmember addresses and be posted after I check them out. Resent everything and it worked! Everybody on the mailing list got seven letters, and now they’re all caught up. I can only imagine their excitement.

LRN4 is considering hiring a lawn service to take care of our grass, allowing her to use her precious gardening time on actual gardening. Personally, I’m in favor of the idea. She had somebody mow yesterday and they did a fair job, but she’s calling a different service tomorrow for a quote.

Speaking of LRN4, her car’s in the shop. It had started misfiring. Needed plugs and wires, and we’re getting a new coil just for the principle of the thing, along with new valve cover gaskets to correct an oil leak. Should be running like a top by this time tomorrow. In the meantime, I took the Suburban to the train station this morning, which I always enjoy, and left my car with her. She has an unnatural aversion to parallel parking the Burb on the very busy streets around the college in Turlock where LRN2 has his organ lessons. Can’t understand her reluctance.

Anyway. I’ll leave you with this shocking food violence news: judicial egg attack!

See you tomorrow.

Elephant

Monday, March 22nd, 2010


Here’s one of our cabin steward’s towel animal creations from our recent cruise. I believe this one was from our first night, and it’s pretty much the only one where we were absolutely certain what it was. Our steward wasn’t much of a towel folder. Part of my famous Statue series.

Had Youth Conference on Saturday and Sunday. They were LONG days full of very hard work, but very rewarding. I’m glad to have had Friday off to get my own things done, although a significant portion of that day was spent buying stuff for the Youth Conference dance.

Otherwise, nothing happened. Back to normal today. I have a pretty big fireside to plan and conduct this coming Sunday evening – feel like we’re pretty much just able to address the next thing on the calendar at this point. Not a good feeling. Don’t know how to improve it at this point, though, so we’ll just keep plodding along.

I’ll leave you with this exciting Loyal Reader employment opportunity: thieving baboon.

See you tomorrow.

TV watcher

Friday, March 19th, 2010


Here’s some Great Art I took by accident. And it still turned out great – a little bit Arty for my taste, but Great for sure. LRN12 was over here the other day and watched a little TV. I was firmly ensconced in my recliner.

Off Friday today. Got the Suburban filled and washed (over a hundred bucks – yikes!), got the Honda washed, exercised at the gym, bought a new sport coat, a beautiful wool overcoat, a suit, and five beautiful ties, including a Jerry Garcia. Pretty cool, in a 60’s kind of way. Also bought all the food we need for tomorrow’s Youth Conference dance, of which I am in charge. Also borrowed a chocolate fountain, which the yoots will love, I predict.

Gorgeous day, by the way. It was in the upper 70’s and perfectly sunny. Couldn’t have been nicer. Tomorrow and Sunday are supposed to be beautiful also. Saturday is the first day of spring, which is very welcome as far as I’m concerned. I’m ready for the summertime, and spring is the first step towards summer, no?

Have to leave for Youth Conference at about 8:45 AM and I expect to get home at about 11:00 PM. Should be a long day. I expect it to be fun, but long. LRN2 and LRN4 are coming for dinner and the dance, which will be nice. It’s being held at the Oakland temple – the yoots are going over there for a while, and we’re doing all kinds of other activities for them. A lot of work has gone into it, and we’ll be glad when it’s over. Then on to the next activity. This Stake Young Men President thing is a lot of work! Much busier than the high council.

I expected to be speaking in church this Sunday too. When I went to confirm the details this morning, I discovered that the new schedule has a bye month for me this month. Last month was also a bye for me, so I haven’t spoken for a while. It turned out well today, though, as I’ll be so busy this weekend anyway. Next month I speak in my home ward, which will also be nice. For me, if not for them.

And I’m off to bed. I’ll leave you with this bit of relationship advice: not all surprises are welcome.

See you on Monday.