Archive for April, 2015

Edison’s shop

Tuesday, April 28th, 2015

edisonshop

Here’s Thomas Edison’s shop. He developed the lightbulb here. Nice work, Tom! Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken last July at Greenfield Village in beautiful Dearborn, Michigan, and part of my famous Architecture, Electronics, Vacation, and Workbench series.

It’s only been five days since my last post! That’s a new record in recent days here. So there’s not so much to report about. However, we are not without news here.

Joanne and I went back to the Bay Area on Saturday morning. We came home Sunday evening, so it was a bit brief. Joanne attended Katy’s bridal shower and appears to have enjoyed it quite a bit. My in-laws-to-be are wonderful folks and Joanne loves them too now.

In the meantime, Clifford took his stepdad James and me out for the world’s fanciest donuts, the world’s fanciest coffee, and the world’s prettiest wedding venue. It was a great morning! The big wedding will be beautiful. Sunday, Katy, Cliff, Mia, Joanne, and I went to the Berkeley Kite Flying Field. Surprisingly, while we were there, we flew kites! Never saw that coming, did you, Loyal Readers? In the afternoon, Joanne and I went to visit Ryan. We had lunch together and went over to visit with Junior, Joanne’s former dog and Ryan’s current dog. Then we came home.

Anyway, it was a pleasant weekend. San Francisco was beautiful. And we missed the big Las Vegas rainstorm on Saturday.

Joanne and I went to the 51’s baseball game last night. Our team won! We enjoyed the game. Plus, they gave everyone in our row free Big Foam Fingers! For keeps! Now that’s something.

I may need that finger. I sliced my thumb open this morning on Joanne’s mandoline. Oops. I wasn’t even cutting with it. I was just trying to put it back in its box. It was bleeding badly enough that I decided to take a trip to urgent care. They put a butterfly bandage on it and told me not to get it wet for a week. So it’s not a big deal. Still, it’s nice knowing I have a spare foam finger around the house just in case.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: crime-fighting parrot!

See you tomorrow.

Drive wheel

Thursday, April 23rd, 2015

 

Here’s one of the drive wheels from an old steam locomotive.  A beautifully restored old steam locomotive. In fact, it’s probably way better than it ever was when it was actually pulling railcars, including the day it rolled out of the factory. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in June 2014 at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, and part of my famous Machinery, Train, and Vacation series.

That was the trip to Michigan that I felt I must make. It started as a month-long drive all over the country to help me heal a little bit and morphed into a flight to Utah, a ride in Andy’s car to Colorado, a flight to Michigan, and one more flight home. I never did take that road trip I was contemplating.

The trip turned out to be the last time I was with my mother before we found out she had cancer. What a difficult year it was! But I’m alive and moving forward.

Long time no post. Let’s try to recap just a little of what’s been going on. Hmm . . . not too much, it turns out. I’ll just get started with what I can remember and we’ll see where that takes us.

Joanne and I went to Seattle last weekend. We stayed at a beautiful historic hotel downtown a few blocks from Pike Place Market. We saw the old subterranean portion of town (fascinating!), took a tour around several of the old neighborhoods, and rode the auto ferry to Bainbridge Island for lunch and a drive. It was all beautiful. The weather was quite favorable and we enjoyed the weekend greatly. We’re going to San Francisco this weekend so Joanne can attend Katie’s bridal shower and I can hang out with Clifford. Should be a ton of fun.

Mark’s current semester is winding down quickly. He’s doing very well in all his classes and looking forward to some time off during the summer (although he will be attending the summer term).

Andy is getting ready to move out of his extremely expensive downtown Denver apartment and into a friend’s house while he saves to buy his own place. I loved that apartment and the area, but he is paying an amazing amount of money to be there.

Joanne has moved into her very nice condo. She’s enjoying it and I like it too. Corey is still with her and he seems happy there also. She couldn’t resist having a pet, so she got a cat a couple days ago. It’s a beautiful animal and only has a few bad habits. I’m sure crazy about her.

Paul and Melissa are moving too! They expect to be here in Las Vegas in May. I’m looking forward to having them close by.

Katie and Cliff are still getting married. It is less than two months away! I’m tremendously excited for them.

I’m not moving. Instead, I decided a few days ago to finally take glider pilot lessons. I’ve been contemplating it for quite some time now. As my Loyal Readers no doubt know, I have long loved sailboats and not particularly loved powerboats. I dislike the noise, the discomfort, and the pointlessness of the whole thing. Sailing takes skill, things move slowly and yet seem quite exciting, and the trip is enough for it to be enjoyable.

I took some flying lessons back when I was in college and discontinued them after three or four lessons for pretty much the same reasons I dislike powerboats. They’re noisy, uncomfortable, and pointless. I have long wondered whether I’d feel about sailplanes the same way I do about sailboats. So I’ve decided to find out. I haven’t had my first flight yet, but I’m hoping it will be soon and frequently thereafter.

As a bonus, the sailplane license is much less expensive to get and sailplanes are much less expensive to rent after you have your license. The only downside is that you’re even more of a slave to the weather than you are with a powered plane. That ought to be okay, though; our weather is pretty good most of the time.

Since I haven’t started flying yet, I’ve started studying. I found several FAA publications that offer a lot of information for glider pilots and I’m reading them like crazy.

Speaking of reading, I got a Kindle the other day and I absolutely love the thing. It’s just like Andy told me – reading is just more pleasant on a Kindle. Recommended!

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: joyriding dog! Two positions are available.

See you tomorrow.