Archive for December, 2015

Holiday pet

Thursday, December 31st, 2015

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Here’s the Loyal Pet standing guard over our Christmas tree this year. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken on December 30, 2015, and part of my famous Event, Las Vegas and Pet series.

Note my new famous Pet series. I think it was time.

Wonders of WordPress once again. After this post, I’ll be caught back up. Of course, I still need to post for January IN January. But that might happen.

First, a quick recap of our travels.

On December 9-10, I went by myself to Los Angeles to attend an Apple tech talk about the new Apple TV. There was lots of information on the device’s capabilities and how to access them programatically. I’m pretty enthusiastic about it and currently looking for a Killer Idea. I’ll let you know if/when something comes to mind.

On December 18-22, we went to Windsor, California to visit Joanne’s kids and mine. Paul and Mark went with us, which was great! Sadly, Melissa had to work (WORK!), so she couldn’t come. Kristina spent most of that time with us, as did Katy and Cliff (Mia was away with her dad). We saw Ryan only briefly, but it was a very nice visit. All in all, a nice time was had by all.

Before we got home on the 22nd, Andy and JaNell arrived in Las Vegas for Christmas! Actually, Andy came alone; JaNell was supposed to go to southwestern Colorado to spend the holiday with her mom. However, the weather there got ugly and plans had to be canceled. We were able to get her a ticket and she flew to Vegas and spend the holiday weekend here. It was great!

In the meantime, Katy and Clifford left us in Windsor to go to Los Angeles for something (I can’t remember right now exactly what it was), and then they drove over to Las Vegas to spend Christmas with us! So we saw them twice in two locations in one week. Amazing!

We had a great Christmas with all of my kids and their partners. Then, to top it off, Mia’s other grandparents dropped her off here the day after Christmas. She was only with us for a couple hours, but we loved it. She gets more fun every time I see her.

I’m so, so glad everybody was here. Thank you, Loyal Family!

Andy and JaNell went home on the 27th and Christmas was over.

On December 31-January 3, we went to Ontario, California with members of the Porsche club. We had a great time! Because of an early morning departure on New Year’s Day (and possibly the average age of the group, of which I think we were some of the younger members), we celebrated the New Year on Eastern time and went to bed. That worked for me. Of course, this post only covers what happened through the 31st, but I can predict that we went on an amazingly fun drive in the Los Angeles canyons on New Year’s Day, another fun drive to Big Bear on the 2nd, and came home mid-day on Sunday the 3rd. I further predict that I got sick on Saturday afternoon with something that was going around the group all weekend and had a pretty miserable time of things for a few days. I’m glad not to have missed any of the group events, though. Feeling fine as this is written.

Now to a topic that has been much on my mind lately. To wit: has Facebook taken the place of the Morrowlife blog? I find myself posting less and less frequently here and more and more frequently there. I’ve been reading for quite some time that blogs are dead, particularly as the term refers to personal journal-style writing. I’ve resisted that trend, especially during the days when this space served a much-needed cathartic purpose during the days before and -especially- after Shannon’s death. But now I need to decide whether this should continue. So a few thoughts:

  • Will Facebook be a lasting journaling platform?
  • If not, will I want to follow the crowd to the next thing?
  • One of Facebook’s strengths is that it lends itself to immediate, short-form writing. I’ve been using it as kind of a travelogue and an outlet for humorous musings. Is that the direction I really want to take with my personal writing? In other words, does this blog serve a purpose that Facebook really doesn’t? Is Facebook good enough to keep a record of what I’m doing, where I’m going, and who I’m with? Are those the most important things to capture?
  • The Morrowlife blog demands that I sit down and think about what I want to say. That’s also a strength because I think it leads to higher-quality thoughts (stop laughing! You know who you are!). That has been worthwhile to me. But there’s definitely a valid place for quickly-written here-I-am things.
  • Do I have enough bandwidth to do both? Admittedly, Facebook doesn’t really take any effort, but my presence there seems to make posting here even more difficult.
  • Tell me what to do, Loyal Readers!

Brilliant thoughts, each one.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: dog-impersonating bear!

See you on Monday.