Archive for March, 2010

Rocket garden

Thursday, March 18th, 2010


Here’s the rocket garden in my office. Picture not taken in my office, of course, since that’s not allowed. I moved everything outside. Great Art courtesy of my new Blackberry, which has a 2MP camera, just like my beloved iPhone.

No posts the last couple of days. It’s been a pretty busy week. Thanks to Anon for noticing.

Had lunch on Tuesday and dinner on Wednesday with my brother-in-law Ken. He was in town selling stuff and had some time, so he came over to my office Tuesday. We had sushi in downtown Sunnyvale. The food was good; the street was torn up so business apparently stinks right now. I hope they get it finished before everybody goes out of business. We originally went there to eat at a really good English pub – fish and chips, bangers and mash, etc. They weren’t open, presumably because nobody’s going there right now.

Wednesday’s dinner was at our house. Corned beef and cabbage for St. Patty’s day.

Went to a benefit concert this evening by young musicians in Modesto. Very well done. Good music and excellent performances by everyone. LRN2’s piano teacher’s daughter had organized it as her way of doing something for Haiti earthquake relief. Her goal was to raise $5000, and she was up to something like $4250 by the time everything was said and done. She was pushing for a little bit more on the way out the door, too.

Time for bed. No food violence news tonight – maybe next time. See you tomorrow.

New eagles

Monday, March 15th, 2010


Here’s LRN2 with the other guys who received their Eagle awards last month. That’s him on the left. Congrats, LRN2!

Extreme short shrift. Very busy evening, very busy day, very busy weekend, and the week is shaping up to be absurdly busy.

Another one of my people had his last day at work today. I’m very sad to see him go – he’s been a good friend.

And there’s really nothing else I need to get to tonight. Maybe tomorrow, although it’s doubtful – we have a meeting in Tracy that starts at 8:30. I won’t be getting home until quite late tomorrow night, and sleep is a precious commodity these days.

So I’ll leave you with this extremely rare toilet voilence news: lid assault! The police have nothing to go on.

See you tomorrow.

Queen Mary

Thursday, March 11th, 2010


Here’s the ship that was parked next door to ours in Long Beach. Their cruises tend to be remarkably short, but they’re probably pretty luxurious. Or at least they used to be. Part of my famous Machinery series.

No post yesterday. I had something going on. Or nothing. Don’t really remember. Tonight was Scout Roundtable, which I attended and enjoyed. Got to meet some people and chat with others I already knew. I need to make my presence felt there a bit.

Got another person’s two-week notice today. Sigh. Another plaque and luncheon and another one of my favorite people gone soon.

Many thanks to LRN4 for his encouraging words in Tuesday’s comments. At least one reader is Loyal. I’m sure there are others. Maybe. Probably not.

LRN2 has started putting fabric back on the second half of the (no longer) blue sofa. The first half looks great, so the outlook remains optimistic for the second half. Should be done within a few days now.

Nothing else going on. I have a commitment at a yoot training evening for one of the other wards, so posting might be sporadic tomorrow too. I’ll try for something, anyway. LRN12’s coming for the weekend tomorrow. Should be a lot of fun. Because she’s a lot of fun.

I’ll leave you with this shocking food violence news: Taco Bell prospective employee robbery!

See you tomorrow.

Indian head

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010


Here’s an Indian head in ice. It was really interesting watching the guy make it. Picture taken aboard our recent cruise ship and part of my famous Statue series.

No posts since last Wednesday. Yikes! I got busy again. Need to do better. Don’t seem to be getting any comments, so I assume nobody’s reading but me. No problem – this is kind of a journal as much as anything else, so I guess I don’t really require Loyal Readers.

Anyway. We went to the Science Olympiad on Saturday, where LRN2 got a second place for his water rocket and a third place in the general technical problem solving competition. The rocket worked beautifully. We had gone to the park on Friday to test our recovery parachute extraction lanyard idea. Had a few technical problems with it, but we came up with a great solution that worked flawlessly in two tests and then worked flawlessly again at the competition. Nobody else appeared to have anything remotely like it, although some groups came up with some clever solutions to the parachute problem. I think this idea could be developed from here into something that will really succeed next year if LRN2 decides to participate again. Which I don’t think he plans to do.

Spent part of Sunday working on Youth Conference, which is coming up in less than two weeks. I’m advising the dance committee, which consists of a couple of girls who really have no idea what they want to do. Trouble is, neither do I. We’ve got some work to do to be ready in time with a dance the yoots will enjoy.

Otherwise, things are pretty quiet. I stayed home sick from work yesterday with a quite nasty cold. I’m feeling a bit better today, but still struggling with hurting sinuses, a cough, and general aches and pains.

Had to go to work today because there was a going-away luncheon for six of my people and two of somebody else’s. Not a good thing to be losing so many people at once, but we brought it on ourselves. I’ll miss those folks.

I made some progress over the weekend on restoring the Great Art to the blog. It turns out the only practical way I could come up with to do it is just to upload everything one-by-one. Very time-consuming, but we here at the Morrowlife blog are dedicated to just that sort of time-wasting thing. You’re welcome.

And I’ll leave you today with this shocking food crime news: cheeseburger thinking!

See you tomorrow.

Bienvenido

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010


Here’s LRN4 welcoming you to sunny Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It really was a beautiful day.

Another day, another … ummm … day. Not much to report. Worked, ate, and commuted. I’m planning on going to the gym this evening, which will be good for me. LRN4 didn’t go this morning – she let LRN2 talk her out of it – so I think she’s planning to go with me.

Got my new pedometer a couple of days ago and it’s now set up. I like it – it plugs into my computer and automatically downloads the number of steps I’ve taken since its last download, including the days the steps were taken on. How does it know? Makes it kind of fun to track my exercise, in a nerdy way.

Got confirmation from LRN1 that he’s in Guatemala today! The MTC there is small – only about 90 people – and he’s excited to be there. He has a new companion, although his old one is there too. Might as well get used to changing companions. I’m changing his address over there on the right, so feel free to send him a note! He’d love to hear from friends.

Also, if there are Loyal Readers who would like to be on his weekly email list, feel free to let me know in the comments.

My more astute Loyal Readers may have noticed that all the pictures from previous posts are missing. I assure you this is a temporary condition. Dumb old Blogger has decided they just can’t handle FTP file transfers – apparently, it’s beyond the capability of the web geniuses at Google – so they’re forcing everybody to use their servers for their blogs. That’s all well and good – I just pointed my website to their servers rather than my own – but they don’t transfer pictures to their servers. The new ones go there, but none of the old ones do. That leaves me with two choices: I can re-upload all my pictures individually to their servers (I have about 860 posts, so that’s no small task) or I can use their service to automatically find pictures anywhere on the web I name. That’s the only viable solution, but I haven’t quite figured out where to tell them to point. I’ll get it fixed in a day or two. Might have to wait until the weekend – I’m busy. Sorry for the shocking inconvenience, Loyal Readers. Your Great Art needs will be met soon. In the meantime, enjoy today’s picture.

That’s about it for today. Gotta go exercise. I’ll leave you with this shocking food violence news: breaking-and-entering panda.

See you tomorrow.