morrowlife

Here are a couple of statues in Mexico, including one about to take my picture.  Kind of creepy if you ask me.  Great Art taken in Puerto Vallarta during our Mexican cruise and part of my famous Statue series.

Short Shrift not required tonight!  Although I really have nothing to say.

I finally got around to buying a year-long iPhone developer license late last night.  I’ve been meaning to do it for weeks.  Now I can compile and install the latest version of the church app without waiting for my friends at the church to send it to me.  Hard to develop and test when you can’t build and install.

Speaking of which, I’m having a funny problem.  Part of the application downloads a bunch of data from the church.  One of the guys on my team reported that it suddenly wasn’t working for him anymore yesterday.  I tried it and it’s not working for me either.  We appear to be the only two people on the team who are having a problem, but the application is dead on both the simulator and my phone.  Apparently, there was a database update yesterday or the day before, and it appears to have broken something, but only for some people, since most of the other people on the team are still fine.  Weird-o-rama.

A bunch of people from our ward when I was bishop have discovered me on Facebook, so I suddenly have a lot of friends there.  I was kind of trying to limit it to only family and a few extremely close friends, but how can I say no to those wonderful people from Denver?  So I have a bunch of friends now.  It’s interesting to hear from old friends and see what they’re up to these days.  It was also cool to see pictures of my niece Vickie’s brand-new baby.  Awww…

Still, I can’t see spending hours every day sitting on Facebook.  A lot of people do, though.

Spent most of the work day today doing yet another iteration of financial planning for next year.  We may have at lest two more plans to make too.  Sigh.  After all these proposals, there had better be a decent program next year!

Went swimming after I got home from work this afternoon.  It was a really hot day today and the pool is incredibly warm.  You could walk right in – just how I like it.  It’s supposed to stay very warm during the day and much warmer than usual at night for at least a couple more days, so I’m planning on spending a bunch of time in the pool while I can.

Of course, there are plans for the weekend.  First and foremost, I need to write my talk for Sunday.  The topic is “preparing for a full-time mission.”  Shouldn’t be hard to come up with something good.  I can just suggest that people consider what I did and then do pretty much the opposite.

Seriously, I think there is way more formal support for missionary preparation these days.  Anybody can buy a copy of Preach My Gospel, for example.  If a prospective missionary will spend the last year before his/her mission working through that book, they’ll be ready.  Of course, that involves plenty of scripture study, contemplation, and prayer, which is what mainly effects the preparation anyway.

I think I’ll also mention the new Duty to God book.  As I’ve mentioned before, I consider that book to be Preach My Gospel Junior.  I think it’ll turn out to be great training for PMG for Aaronic Priesthood-age young men if they’ll take it seriously.

Speaking of Duty to God, I’ve been a tiny bit surprised that some of the young men I’ve spoken to about it are a little disappointed that they don’t earn trinkets as they go through the book.  I’ve pointed out that the trinket always ends up being meaninglessly shoved into a drawer, never to be looked at again, and that the true reward for going through the book is in what you become, but they’re not all convinced just yet.  Besides, one of my close young friends pointed out that there is a handsome plaque available upon completion of the Priest portion of the book, so he’s happy with that.  I’m fine with that too because I think he’ll see later what his true reward will be, when he’s able to enter missionary service with a strong testimony and an ability to study the Gospel and act on it – skills acquired in the Duty to God program.

Gee, I just wrote my talk.  I can just get up the pulpit, open my blog on my iPhone, and read from it.  Perfect.  Of course, maybe I can spice it up a bit as well.

I also hope to get some work done on the Arduino project, of course.  I have known what I want to do for my next step for about a week now and haven’t had the time to do anything about it.  Frustrating!  I also have a TON of work to get the project online. A ton. Starting with rehosting Gardenville on WordPress.  I should have been documenting my progress all along.  And when I finally get the current project working and documented and a new board designed, produced, assembled, and publicized, there’s still the accelerometer project, which is what LRN1 and I set out to do in the first place.

Also need to help LRN2 get a website set up for his current cartooning work.  He’s got something pretty good in the works.  He’s not interested in publishing it on paper – he’s going strictly digital.  I promised to help get a site ready and tomorrow is as good a time as any.

Also need to work on the iPhone project.  I want to finally get the app compiled and installed on my own phone.  Even if it won’t work until the church gets their database fixed for me.

Then there’s the pond.  It’s still disgustingly green.  I’m just continuing to clean the filter every time I get the chance and hope for the best.  We may need to go to a pond store and see if they have better anti-algae chemicals than the ones we’ve been trying.  Our current chemicals appear to encourage algae growth, rather than stop it.  Sigh.  The fellas can’t be enjoying it in there.

And I’ll quit for the night.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife job opportunity: cat burglar!

See you on Monday.

Here’s a small view of the campground where we stayed last week, showing some of the permanent campsites.  People build their own buildings around their trailers.  Kind of odd, although a few of them seemed nice.  I don’t think I want to do that with my trailer, though.  In one case, there was a beautiful new motorhome stuck inside a permanent structure.  What’s the point?  Part of my famous Camping series.

Yet another Extreme Short Shrift post.  I had a bit of a train problem this evening – we were just a few minutes short of two hours late.  Apparently, there was a defective switch that wouldn’t go where it was supposed to go.  Can’t argue with waiting until that was fixed.  I sure didn’t like getting home that late, though.  Walked through the door at about 9:25.  Sigh.

Really nothing else to report tonight.  I had all kinds of plans for tonight – working on the iPhone project, getting some things done on my to-do list, relaxing, communicating with my family, etc.  All that’s out the window now.  Maybe tomorrow.

Thanks to LRN2 and LRN4 for making some comments lately.  Makes me feel good.  I still need to figure out how to get the comments back on the front page.  I’ll get ‘er done, guys.  There must be a way!

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this disturbing food fraud news: funeral fraud!

See you tomorrow.

Here are LRN1 and his companion, standing in the rain.  Apparently, it’s been raining like crazy lately.  Love them boots.  Part of my famous Guatemala series.

Another short shrift night, I’m afraid.  It was Massive Meeting Tuesday.  Fortunately, the sisters were adamantly opposed to staying late – Young Women Camp starts next Monday and they’re in full panic mode.  So we got done in plenty of time.

Had a good iPhone project telecon this morning.  I feel like I’m back in touch with the project’s status and working well again after last week’s vacation.  We have a new version that ought to be ready to release at the end of this week.  Although the initial version hasn’t even been submitted to Apple yet, due to various issues.  We’ll get out there sooner or later.  In the meantime, I have to admit that it’s kind of fun having something on my iPhone that nobody else can get yet.

Otherwise, a normal day.  Pleasant and uneventful.

So I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this updated Morrowlife employment opportunity:  pole-sitting monkey.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s our trailer at the commercial campground in the mountains last week, before the obnoxious neighbors showed up and scared us away.  I had very mixed feelings about that campground – it was prettier than most commercial campgrounds, but the permanent campers lent it the distinctive air of a trailer park.  Not the kind of air you want to have loaned to you.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Camping series.

Extreme short shrift tonight.  It’s late and I have to get up early.  And I stayed up late last night and got up early this morning.  In short, I’m sleepy.

Went to a Very Special Family Home Evening Dinner with our friends Bill and Carol this evening.  Had a nice meal and a very nice visit.  I really like them – they’re fun to be with.  I had a very greasy but otherwise good hamburger.  Ate too much.  As usual, lately.  This is no way to lose weight.  In fact, it’s a pretty darn good way to gain weight.  Which I don’t want to do.

Heard from LRN1, as usual for a Monday.  He’s doing well.  He’s still struggling to learn how to be a junior companion, but I think he’ll get there.  I expect he’ll be a junior companion until he gets to liking it.  Great experience for him.  They have a baptism scheduled for the near future.  Let’s all hope and pray that it happens!

Otherwise, worked, ate, and commuted.

So I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food-related violence news: frying pan assault!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s yet another rather frightening totem pole.  I especially like that bear on the bottom.  I guess I’d be grouchy too if so many animals were standing on my shoulders.  Photo courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Camping and Statue series.

We came home a bit early from the camping trip.  New neighbors moved in and they were fairly obnoxious, so we decided we would rather relax at home in peace than fight the neighbors.  Spent the day today by the pool, which was relaxing and enjoyable.  Probably more of the same, although we probably ought to get some work done too.

Also spent time working on the sdlogger project today.  I’ve been having trouble with making floats and strings transfer across the network.  Been working on the strings today and I’m a bit frustrated.  I can make nine characters transfer just fine, but ten characters just won’t work.  I’ve pretty much given up on getting it to work right and I’m now thinking about workarounds.  I think I may have an idea to get it moving forward again.  I just wish I knew why it won’t work.  Floats – maybe tomorrow.  There’s a lot of diagnostic work to do.

And that’s about it for today.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food crime news:  garlic smuggler!

See you on Monday.