Archive for June, 2011

Tikal reader

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Here’s LRN1 in front of the temple at Tikal, Guatemala.  He was there yesterday and, by all reports, had a great time.  I’m really glad he got to go there.  Great Art courtesy of one of his fellow missionaries and part of my famous Guatemala series.

Incredibly busy days yesterday and today.  I’ve been getting ready for an all-day meeting on Thursday.  I’ve decided to travel to our Air Force base for it, mainly to get our folks there to give me back something I loaned them for one week a year ago.  Seems like my only hope is to go get it myself.

Anyway, it’ll be incredibly busy at work tomorrow morning, after which I’m coming home and heading south.  LRN4 is coming with me.  We’ll enjoy the drive down there together, have a nice dinner, and hang out in the Embassy Suites hotel tomorrow.  Thursday, I’ll go to my meeting and LRN4 will work on her website and generally hang around.  Friday morning, we’ll go get the package and head for Sunnyvale.  I’ll drop the package off and we’ll go home.  Sounds busy.

Friday night, we’re going to a Modesto Nuts baseball game – never been, but there was a Groupon coupon and I love minor league baseball.  We’re going with our friends Art and Cathie.

Saturday evening, we’ve been invited to our friend Julie’s 50th birthday party.  We also have golf lesson number four Saturday afternoon.  That was supposed to be it, but our instructor is throwing in a fifth lesson.  No charge, I assume.  At least there better not be.

Sunday, both LRN4 and I have lessons to teach.  I’m substituting in Gospel Doctrine and she has Relief Society.  So that’ll be busy too.  Plus, we need to prepare ahead of time, of course.

Monday afternoon, we’re going over to our friends Rob and Jan’s house for a holiday picnic.  Directly after that, I take LRN4 to the airport in Stockton for her trip to Las Vegas, hopefully to buy us a vacation/retirement condo.  And I go home and sleep.

Whew.  Sounds like fun.  I had no idea we were so popular.

LRN2’s doing well in school and at work.  LRN1’s doing well on his mission.  LRN3’s doing well in Virginia.  LRN5 just got back from Las Vegas (should have bought us a condo!) and is doing well.  Everything’s good!

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: monkey advertising executive!

See you tomorrow.

Kiln

Friday, June 24th, 2011

Here’s a kiln.  A relatively large one.  Great Art taken at Greenfield Village during our recent trip to Michigan and part of both my famous Machinery and Vacation series.

Off Friday.  Good day.  Worked a bit on the pool and pond while LRN4 trimmed plants and did some lawn work.  Nice warm day, but not murderously hot like the last few days.  Nothing to complain about.

Let’s see, what else did we do?  Oh yeah, we practice our golf swings a bit.  LRN4’s getting it.  I’m quite certain that if she practices even a little bit, she’ll end up way better than me.  We also went to the store to exchange a shirt she recently bought that was a bit more roomy than needed.  I also got a new pair of flip-flops.  They had originally been $20, but they were on sale for $10.  LRN4 had a $5 off coupon and a 15% off coupon.  They ended up costing $4.63 or something like that.  Naturally, we were at Kohl’s.  Anybody who pays full price for anything there is making a mistake.

Great news from Provo!  LRN2’s computer came back to him this evening!  It turns out that it really was a case of mistaken backpack identity.  We’re all greatly relieved and convinced that there aren’t many places other than BYU where that would have worked out.  He’s planning to put his name/address/phone on a card in the backpack, and he’ll probably use one of the lockers at the cafeteria in the future, more to keep it hidden than to prevent crime.  Which still does occasionally exist there in the Happy Valley.

Anyway.  We’re really glad for him.  In other good LRN2 news, he had a great second day at work.  He’s working on setting up a bunch of new computers and routing some new ethernet cables.  Sounds like fun.  Definitely more fun than food service and janitorial work combined.

We’re getting all our ducks in a row for LRN4’s vacation-house-hunting trip to Las Vegas the week after next.  We’ve gotten financing approved and have our down payment money ready to go (huge down payments are required for second homes and condos and places in Nevada, so you can imagine how much we’re having to come up with – yikes!).  Now all we need is to find an outstanding place there within our admittedly miniscule price range.  Our niece Marcie has kindly contributed her real estate agent along with a few good leads, and now it’s up to LRN4 to find it.  Should be no problem.  Our family there seems pretty excited about trying to attract us out there.  We’re pretty excited about it too.

That’s it for tonight.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: watermelon dispute!

See you Monday.

Forge print

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Here are a couple of signs on a wall in Greenfield Village, presumably advertising the fact that they have a forge and a printer’s shop.  Among many other things.  Great Art courtesy of my good old Minolta camera (recently re-batteried) and part of my famous Vacation series.

Two posts on two consecutive days!  That must be some kind of record.  At least lately, that is.

Unfortunately, today will be an Extreme Short Shrift day.  It’s already almost 11:30, and I haven’t done anything at all since I got home from work.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  I ate dinner.  Also ate dessert.  I grilled hamburgers for dinner.  Put some Sriracha on them.  They were hot.  Also good.  Also had extremely sweet corn on the cob.  Dessert was freshly-baked cookies with homemade peach frozen yogurt.  So things could have been worse.

We also practiced our golf swings and took a nice long walk.  Also read the news on my beloved iPad.

Got some great news and some terrible news from LRN2 this afternoon.  First the great news: he worked at his new job for the first time today and had a really good day.  I think it’s going to work out very well for him and both he and the boss will be glad he was there.  Congrats, LRN2!

Now the bad news.  His backpack with his beloved MacBook Pro was taken from the cafeteria at dinner this evening.  There’s good reason to hope it was a case of mistaken identity that will be corrected tomorrow, as he found an identical-looking backpack apparently abandoned right by where his was.  Sincerest condolences, LRN2!  Let’s hope things work out well tomorrow!

And it’s time for bed, as already mentioned.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news:  Beefy Crunch Burrito incident!

See you tomorrow.

Exploded T

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Here’s the aftermath of a tragic explosion.  I hate to see a perfectly good Model T end up that way.  Great art (slightly fuzzy or, as I like to call it, soft focus) courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam (forgot to take my good camera!), taken at the Henry Ford Museum, and part of my famous Machinery series.

Once again, a few days have gone by since my last post.  Let’s see what’s new.  Hmm . . . Well, it’s been quite hot.  That’s a good thing; it means the pool has been swimmable.  Very swimmable.  Dare I say eminently swimmable?  Yes, I dare.  Eminently swimmable.

So we’ve been swimming.  At least I have.  LRN4 has jacuzzified a bit, but it’s still not quite warm enough for her.  It’s been as high as 87 or so in there, which is really comfortable.  I’ve been in every day since Sunday.  Ahh!  This is the life.

But not tonight.  Need to post on my blog instead.  Also go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Speaking of which, I got up at 2:45 on Monday morning to go see our boy scouts off to camp.  I brought some donuts and juice, which were apparently well received.  At least there were no more donuts when I left.  I took a bit of Sunny D home with me, though.

Made up for the early Monday morning by sleeping in a bit on Tuesday.  I had a dental appointment in the morning, so I worked from home for the day.  Slept W-A-Y in until 6:45.

Had one cavity, which was filled on the spot.  So I’m good for another six months.  There was a new dentist – I guess my old one has moved on.  The new guy’s named Larry and I like him.  Next appointment: December 22.  That ought to work just about perfectly, as it’s my last work day before the Christmas holiday.  I can work that one from home too!

We’ve started looking at vacation homes in Las Vegas.  We think we might like to end up there after I retire, and now seems like a great time to buy, assuming we can afford it.  We’re looking at fairly small condos, with the idea that it would be our home base when we’re not somewhere else.  Which is what home bases are for, presumably.  Anyway, LRN4 might go out there and have a look in a couple of weeks.  We’re starting to get pretty serious.

One potential problem: if we buy a vacation condo, I might not be able to comfortably afford a Model T.  So here’s a special Morrowlife poll:

Which should I buy: a condo in Las Vegas or a Model T?

Vote early and vote often!  Operators are standing by.

That’s about it for today.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news (and possible Morrowlife employment agency job opportunity): beef jerky bandit!

See you tomorrow.

Yosemite valley

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

Here’s some mountains in Yosemite.  Great Art taken from the Yosemite valley and part of my famous Vacation series.

Not a lot to write tonight.  I went to a friend’s house this evening to participate in a quick Scouting Board of Review for a couple of young men.  Excellent young men, I might add.  My friend John was earning his third Eagle palm, a mere six days before his eighteenth birthday.  What a great young man he is.

Anyway.  Very hot day today.  It was much cooler out in the South Bay, of course, but still quite warm.  The air conditioning broke yesterday afternoon and then again today.  Today’s failure was accompanied by a burned belt, which made our steaming hot offices smell like burnt rubber.  I invited everybody to go home and work from there if they wanted, and I took my own advice.  Went home an hour early and worked on the train and then at home.

Had a nice weekend.  It was an off Friday, and we spent it getting all our weekend’s work done so we could relax a bit on Saturday.  I also found some time Friday to get into the pool, which was at about 78 degrees.  That’s swimmable, but barely, as far as I’m concerned.  I turned the pool heat on and kind of swam from one outlet to another.  The sun was out and very warm, and it turned out to be very comfortable in the water, after a brief getting-used-to-it period.  Wanted to get in again this evening, but I didn’t get home until after the sun had gone down and I didn’t have the heart to get into the 81-degree water.  Jacuzzified instead and enjoyed it.

Nothing else for tonight.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: monkeys in pirate suits!

See you tomorrow.