Archive for April, 2014

Grand Canyon – Aug 29, 2010

Wednesday, April 30th, 2014

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Here’s Shannon at the Grand Canyon during our family reunion there. She was such a happy person. Great Art courtesy of my old Olympus digital camera, taken at the Grand Canyon, and part of my famous Shannon, Event, and Vacation series.

Wow, I missed both Monday and Tuesday this week. Sorry about that, Loyal Readers. Can’t promise it won’t happen again.

So let’s see if I can think of what has been going on these past few days. The parade on Saturday morning was fun. The weather was about as inhospitable as it gets around here – 55 degrees, very windy, and a tiny bit of rain. But that was just fine as marching weather. From the look of the spectators, the weather was considerably less friendly for spectating. Crowds were restrained but polite. And we did our part for leukemia research in the hopes that future patients will have even more than we got.

Didn’t make it to the picnic. I went on a brief outing with a lady friend that turned into a much longer outing than planned and Mark and I missed our event. Mind you, the outing I did take was fun and the company was pleasant, but we missed our picnic anyway. Next time.

I got some really substantial work done on the PhotoDoc website. You can now register for the seminar and actually pay for it! I need to run it through the sandbox system at PayPal from beginning to end just to make sure there are no hiccups, but it looks like we’ll be good to go. We’re sending out invitations starting tomorrow. Wish us luck, Loyal Readers!

Had lunch with my friend Joanne today. She’s a really sweet lady who lost her husband just after I lost Shannon. We have a lot in common and I enjoy her company. Met her at a 40+ singles event. We were both very reluctant to go but feeling like we needed and wanted to socialize a bit. Somebody told me she was in similar circumstances to mine and we were introduced. I’m really glad.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: pea-eating-caused divorce!

See you tomorrow.

Living statue – Sept 6, 2012

Friday, April 25th, 2014

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Here’s another picture Shannon didn’t want me to share on the blog. This one was taken aboard our ship during our East Coast cruise in September 2012. I think she captured the artist’s mood exactly, don’t you? Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Shannon, Cruise, Statue, and Vacation series.

No post yesterday – sorry about that. I was out until pretty late in the evening and just didn’t have the energy to write. But yesterday was a very enjoyable day and everything went well.

Today was enjoyable too! I worked on the website again and got a preliminary version of the conference registration working. It still doesn’t allow you to pay (which I think is a fairly important aspect of the thing), but I think I figured out how to make that happen just moments before I stopped work to go out to dinner. So tomorrow or Monday.

Lots going on over the weekend. Mark and I are marching in the parade in the morning and then I’m going to a meetup luncheon at a Thai restaurant mid-day. Then there’s a meetup family picnic on Sunday afternoon and a few other things sprinkled in there too. It’s going to be busy and it’s going to be enjoyable. This has been a very good week.

Extremely strong winds today, continuing into tonight. I’m hoping it eases up a bit before picnic time rolls around. It might be a bit awkward chasing our hamburgers and watermelon slices all over the park.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: domestic banana assault!

See you on Monday.

College dropoff – Sept 5, 2008

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014

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Here are Shannon, Andy, and Mark at Andy’s first college dorm. I believe we were dropping Andy off at school for the first time. Great Art courtesy of my old Olympus digital camera and part of my exclusive Shannon series.

That was an interesting trip. We did a little sightseeing before we went to school to drop Andy off. As soon as we got him settled in his room, though, he pretty much said goodbye and was done with us. So we left. I understand completely. I was really excited to get to school way back when and wanted to start meeting people and exploring.

Pretty good day today. I went live with the new PhotoDoc site this afternoon. I still don’t have the conference registration feature working, but I kind of have a placeholder and I think I can get it set up tomorrow. There’s also a bunch of beautification that has to be done, but it doesn’t keep the new site from being functional. And the old site was so bad that this is already a big improvement, I think. My Loyal Readers are welcome to have a look and tell me what they think.

I’m a little worried about telling my Loyal Readers about another thing that’s been going on, but I think it’ll be okay. As desperately as I miss Shannon and as deeply in love with her as I was, still am, and will always be, I’m already feeling lonely. I’ve been tending that loneliness by attending meetup.com groups. I’ve really enjoyed the sushi group. I like the format of a small group at dinner together. There’s great conversation, great food, and lots of fun. The 40+ Singles group has some nice people, but their events tend to be large groups in noisy places, which just isn’t my style. I attended another of their events this afternoon and just didn’t enjoy it much.

The problem is that the group meetings don’t really satisfy my desire for one-on-one time with the fair sex. I love having somebody just to talk to and do things with. Mark’s fine as far as he goes, but it’s just not the same. So I decided to see if I could generate some interest by signing up on a couple of free dating apps. Huge step. I sent out several feelers to some women in my general age group who seemed normal, nice, and attractive, hoping to get maybe one or two positive responses. I’ve gotten a few so far. I’ve met a couple and discovered that there are normal, attractive, happy, well-adjusted ladies who might find me attractive too. I’m delighted and enjoying myself immensely.

Are you shocked, Loyal Readers? Is it too soon? It feels right to me and I don’t think it’s disrespectful or degrading to the love Shannon and I shared or to her memory. She asked me to move forward happily and without guilt. So that’s what I’m doing. Let me know if I’m out of line.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: apple fritter stabbing!

See you tomorrow.

Warming hut – Aug 29, 2010

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014

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Here are Shannon and Mark in front of a warming hut somewhere out in the woods in the Sierra Nevada. It was closed that day. I don’t think anybody needed warming up in August. Great Art courtesy of my old Olympus camera and part of my famous Shannon, Architecture, Camping, Hiking, and Vacation series.

It’s not too often that I find a picture that fits into five different famous series. Also, I’m pretty sure that picture was used before. But I don’t care. I like it, and I’m still working on my informal Arm Around Mom series. My Loyal Readers are invited to enjoy it.

Pretty good day today. I didn’t really get any work done. I got busy talking to folks on the phone and via email, and in the afternoon I helped Mark put together his new computer. It’s fully operational now and I’m not sure if I’ll ever see him again. My one significant bit of work was going to lunch with a lady I recently met who is a longtime software marketer. She gave me all sorts of good ideas and advice. Plus, the lunch was pretty good. So there’s that.

And there’s really nothing else to discuss tonight, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: peanut butter assault!

See you tomorrow.

Ellis Island – Mar 17, 2012

Monday, April 21st, 2014

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Here are Shannon and Andy at Ellis Island in March 2012. We went and saw the Statue of Liberty that day also. I think the visit to Ellis Island was by far the more interesting of the two. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken on Ellis Island, and part of my famous Shannon and Architecture series.

As usual, I’ve waited until way too late to start writing today’s post. So I guess it’ll be Extreme Short Shrift again.

Had a good weekend. Ken and I worked on the pickup on Saturday morning. And this time, we actually worked on it! We took brackets off the engine, cleaned them up, and painted them. Next time we get together, I suspect we’ll put them back on the engine. Progress!

Sunday, we went to Ken and Melanie’s daughter’s husband’s parents’ house for Easter dinner. We had a very nice time. I had met them once before and they were very welcoming. There were probably about 20-25 people there and we had a great time. I even played a little bocce ball.

We had been asked to bring a dessert and I was puzzling about what to do. As it turns out, I went to a sushi group dinner on Friday night and the guy sitting next to me was a pastry chef. He suggested a buy some of those fancy cupcakes. On Saturday, Ken and I ran over to the fancy cupcake store and I bought a dozen. They were popular and delicious. They were probably popular because they were delicious, come to think of it. So I guess I did well that time.

Got some really good work done today on the new website. I finally found an e-commerce plugin for WordPress that will actually work. Now I have to get the backend link to PayPal working. I think that’ll happen tomorrow.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: sandwich-caused flight delay!

See you tomorrow.