Archive for December, 2010

Telescopers

Thursday, December 30th, 2010

Here are LRN2 and LRN4 looking through telescopes at the Lawrence Science Center on Christmas Eve.  It was a pretty day and the view was nice – San Francisco Bay and environs.  The Science Center was okay – really meant for little children, but there was enough interesting stuff to keep us entertained for a couple of hours.  We enjoyed a great fish taco lunch at Rubio’s afterward.  Great Christmas Eve activity.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam.  Special cameo appearance by LRN5 there in the background.

Not much posting the last while.  We’ve been busy.  Had a nice Christmas as well as a nice Christmas holiday.  One more day at home, after which we leave to take LRN2 to college, after which we come back, after which I go back to work.  Sigh on just about all counts.  Other than the trip to visit LRN4’s family, short though it will be.

I finally received my iPad case on Christmas.  Love it!  It makes the iPad a lot easier to carry around.  Also got some nice clothes and a few other nice things.  Very good Christmas.

We’ve had a few things to repair this last week or so.  My cable modem was slowly dying, which explains the extremely frequent dropouts in our internet service.  Also the extremely slow service.  So I ordered a new, much better one.  It took about half an hour to get the Comcast people to recognize it, but I got it successfully installed.  Now our service is extremely reliable and really fast.  At least comparatively fast, anyway.  I’m happy with it.

The washing machine has crapped out as well.  Fortunately, LRN4 found a YouTube video with a guy showing how to fix the exact same problem we have.  We’ve ordered a four-dollar part, which is on its way.  It’s a really easy installation (knocking heavily on wood here) that should only take a few minutes.  I already partially disassembled and cleaned it and verified we do have the problem we think we have.

I also got the rebuild kit installed on the kitchen faucet, with LRN2’s help.  It took maybe half an hour, the parts were free (lifetime warranty), and the instructions were quite clear.  Easy fix.  We didn’t even have to remove the faucet or get under the sink for anything other than shutting the water off.  Cool.

Let’s see, what else?  We undecorated the house today.  Unusually, we hadn’t even gotten sick of the Christmas decorations yet, but we’re glad to have it done anyway.  Only took a little while and it’s good to have the place back to normal.  I suppose.

Time for dessert.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking, umm, smurf violence news: rasta-bashing Glaswegian smurf!

See you tomorrow.

Baikonur bedroom

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

Here are my quarters during one of my trips to Baikonur.  I get this picture out every once in a while to remind me of one of the many reasons why I’m glad I don’t go there anymore.

No posts for quite a while. I keep getting busy. And/or lazy. Whatever.

Lots of stuff going on. The vacation is going great. Lots going on. LRN4 and I spent several hours working on her website last night. Stayed up way late.

We all went to the movies on Tuesday. It was scheduled for Monday, but we decided to go out to dinner in honor of LRN2’s graduation. Good meal. And a nice evening. The movie was great – we saw Megamind. Very cute. And highly recommended.

Let’s see, what else has been going on around here? Umm . . . we’re having the annual family film festival right now. Junior Miss is on right now. What a great movie. I’m kind of hoping we have an intermission afterwards for lunch. I have a stack of about ten movies for after that. We’ll see what we get to.

Other things. Hmm. Oh yeah, LRN5 and LRN12 have moved! They’re now in a much bigger and better place. We’re supposed to go over there sometime on Christmas Eve to drop off some furniture and have a look at the place. Then LRN5 is going to the museum with us. LRN12 is unavailable for the museum trip because she’s with her dad for several days. They went to Disneyland sometime in the last few days, I understand.

I can’t remember which museum we’re going to right now. Just a sec, I’ll ask LRN4.

I’m back. It’s the Lawrence Hall of Science. Supposed to be interesting and good fun. I’ll let you know.

And then it’s Christmas. Oh, joy! Maybe we’ll play a manly game or two of charades.

Lots more planned after Christmas too. Fun, fun, fun.  Plus shooting.

Time for more movies.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: muffin assault!

See you tomorrow.

VW camper

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

Here’s a cool old VW camper, found at Henry Ford Museum (I refuse to call it “The Henry Ford.”  Way too pretentious).  I want one.  Great Art taken during the same Michigan trip documented on Monday and part of both my famous Machinery and Camping series.

Extreme short shrift.  I’ve been working on LDS Tools emails.  Sigh.

Also worked on getting the newly-arrived replacement towel rack into the downstairs bathroom before LRN4’s ladies’ dessert get-together tomorrow night.  Got it installed, but did some pretty bad damage to the wall on my first try, when I attempted to put it where the old one had pulled out of the wall.  Not a good idea – the wallboard there is just too chewed up.  Anchored it into a stud behind the wall, and now it’s not going anywhere.  LRN4 is fixing the holes I left in the chewed-up wall area – one of her handywoman specialties.

Two more days before my holiday vacation starts!  Also, two more days before LRN2 graduates from high school!  Yea for both!

And that’s about it.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: bean throwing!

See you tomorrow.

Turtle lovers

Monday, December 13th, 2010

Here are LRN1 and LRN2 with a big metal turtle during our last visit to the Detroit Zoo.  Which took place a couple of years ago or so.  I don’t exactly remember.  Wait a minute – I’ll check the photo.  – gone – I’m back.  It was taken on 28 May 2008.  So it was a couple of years ago or so.  Special guest appearance by LRN4 there in the background.  Also an extremely rare appearance by LRN18, taking a picture of me taking a picture.  Looks like a cool day, no?  Part of my famous Statue series.

Incidentally, the turtle’s the one in the middle.

Well.  It’s been a week.  It’s not that I don’t care.  It’s just that I don’t post.

Not that there’s all that much new. Had a nice three-day weekend.  Christmasy things are happening, of course.  In addition to last Monday’s previously-mentioned Christmas creche festival in Modesto, we went to the really, really big Christmas creche festival in Palo Alto (truly lovely, if not quite as big as previous years), wrote and sent our Christmas cards and Christmas brunch invitations, had my brother-in-law Ken over for dinner (nice evening together, as usual), went to the Gallo Theater in Modesto and saw It’s A Wonderful Life (done as a fake radio show – it was cute and well-presented, although I admit I’m still partial to Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed; especially Donna Reed), went to the ward Christmas party (huge crowd and tri-tip; also, we performed on the tubular bells), and got LRN2’s patriarchal blessing.  Whew.  No wonder I didn’t have any time for blogging.

I’m pretty well settled in to my new office, which is pretty much the same as my old office.  Can’t complain.  Work’s going fine.  We’re way too busy for comfort, but I’d rather be that way than the alternative.

Only four more work days until Christmas!  Not that I’m counting the days.  On a related note, LRN2 has mentioned that there are only four more school days until high school graduation.  I’d say that’s even a bigger deal than my Christmas vacation!  He still has lots of work to finish – stay focused, LRN2!

Let’s see.  It’s home evening night tonight.  We calendared, heard a nice little lesson from LRN2 about Christmas, just finished an outstanding cherry cheesecake treat courtesy of LRN4, and we’re waiting for my activity to start – jacuzzification.  The spa is currently at 86 degrees, so I’m figuring we can get in in another 10 minutes or so.  We haven’t been in there for a while – it’s been quite rainy lately here in Lardville.  We don’t mind the cold, but the jacuzzi is not much fun in the rain.  Snow is a different story, as we discovered back in Gardenville.

Heard from LRN1 today.  He spent last week on an exchange in another part of the mission, so he missed his normal Saturday p-day.  I didn’t think we’d be hearing from him at all, since he’s back in the office now and today wasn’t their normal p-day either.  But they apparently were given some time off, and he wrote.  He had a great time last week and is glad to be back to his regular assignment.  We’re excited to talk with him on Christmas morning.  At 7:00.  A bit early, that, but one works around one’s missionary son’s schedule.

LRN5 will be here Christmas morning too.  She wants to talk to LRN1 and is staying to help with our brunch, after which she’s outta here.  She and LRN12 are moving to a new place this week, which they’re excited about.  LRN12 will have her own room, which I believe they’re both also excited about.  We’re happy they were able to get it.  LRN12 won’t be here on Christmas because she’s going to spend the holidays with her dad and her other grandparents.  We’ll really miss her.

Well, I think I can change into my swimsuit now, so blogging is done for now.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: fudge hog!

See you tomorrow.

Madrigal helpers

Monday, December 6th, 2010

Here are LRN4 and LRN12 helping the high school madrigal group at this past weekend’s Christmas creche festival in Modesto.  LRN12 was ringing some jingle bells.  Fuzzy low-light Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam.  We’re going to the Palo Alto Christmas creche festival on Wednesday.  That one is consistently spectacular.

Extreme Short Shrift.  It’s way late already and I need to go to bed.

We tried to print the Christmas card envelopes this evening.  Got it all set up, only to discover that the envelopes were too thick to go through the printer.  Either LRN4 will buy some labels tomorrow or she’ll end up addressing all of them by hand.  Yuck.  On the positive side, we did manage to print the Christmas brunch invitations and their accompanying envelopes, which were not very thick at all.

My iPhone app has 198 downloads so far!  Sales (for free) are going along swimmingly.  Just think of it – if I had decided to charge a million dollars for the app, I’d have 198 million dollars now.  What was I thinking?

Okay weekend – didn’t do much, but LRN5 and LRN12 were here for part of it, and LRN2’s last organ concert of the year was on Friday.  It went well.  It also rained all weekend, so LRN2 should be positively ecstatic by now.

Time to go.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting food violence-for-a-good-cause news: crime-fighting squash!

See you tomorrow.