Archive for the ‘bird’ Category

Blue bird

Monday, April 24th, 2017

Here’s a blue bird. Well, it’s not a real blue bird. It’s more of a statue. Yeah, that’s it – a statue. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in our living room, and part of my famous Las Vegas, Bird, Art, and Statue series.

Very long time, no post. Lots has happened, but I’ve been documenting life more on my Facebook page. Still, it behooves me to drop in here occasionally. I’m sure I have no more Loyal Readers, but that’s okay. It’s more for me, anyway.

Greetings from warm, sunny Tucson, Arizona! We came here to help Corey celebrate his 22nd birthday, which is today. Happy birthday, Corey! Marisa, his Special Friend lives here, and Joanne wanted to give him a visit as a birthday gift. They both seem to be enjoying the visit.

Unfortunately, Joanne is no longer here. She started her new job at Caesars Entertainment a couple weeks ago and couldn’t be away from home. She drove here with Corey and me on Saturday and flew back home last night. Short visit for her. I’m staying here today to take Corey and Marisa out to Birthday Dinner and then driving home alone tomorrow. Corey’s staying until early next week.

Not much else to talk about right now. One of the reasons I never seem to take the time to write here is that it seems like such a daunting task to write down everything that’s happening. So I won’t. See my Facebook page for more details.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: chili-stirring-related violence!

See you tomorrow.

Bahama family – Sept 9, 2005

Friday, March 14th, 2014

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

Here are Andy, Me, Mark, Shannon, Sandy, and my mom at Ardastra Gardens and Zoo in Nassau, Bahamas. Along with a couple of friends. To be perfectly honest, we didn’t think that was the best zoo in the world, but we had fun that day anyway. Great Art courtesy of my old Minolta camera, taken by a cooperative zoo employee during shore leave from our 2005 Disney cruise, and part of my famous Shannon, Cruise, Bird, and Vacation series.

No post yesterday. I forgot. I still think that’s a good enough excuse, don’t you? Fortunately, nothing happened yesterday.

Today, Mark and I went to see a counselor. I think we both had a good experience. Fortunately for me, he told me he thinks I’m doing pretty much as well as can be expected at this point after Shannon’s passing. I still need to let the grieving run its course – I’m sure it will never end, but I’m also sure I’ll be a bit more able to concentrate after a while. The important part, he said, is to keep living my life as I work through the grief. I can do that. I think I’m doing it already, in fact.

Didn’t do much else today. Yesterday, I forgot to plan any dinner, so I ended up making a frozen skillet dinner and a tossed salad. I was a bit frustrated that I let it go until after 7:00 in the evening before I even remembered that I needed to cook dinner. Tonight, I planned ahead. I made bacon-wrapped scallops for an appetizer, grilled filet mignon and twice-baked potatoes for dinner, and caramel apple tarts for dessert. Many thanks to Chris for the Omaha Steaks Christmas present, which provided everything but the appetizers. We bought the scallops at Trader Joe’s. They were supposed to be for New Year’s Eve, but we never got to them. So Mark and I had half of them tonight. It was a good dinner.

I noticed a puddle yesterday at the front edge of my yard, right by the driveway. It had gotten worse by today, so I called the HOA, thinking it might have been an irrigation problem. They decided it wasn’t, so they suggested I call the local water district, which I did. They came out shortly to have a look and determined I had a leak in my main water supply pipe, somewhere between the water meter and the house. He also told me I was losing about half a gallon a minute. So I called the builder and asked if they could send somebody out right away. They put me in touch with the plumber who worked on building the house. Since it was leaking, they came out right away. The guy spent a few hours working on the line and got it fixed – or so I thought.

However, Mark soon discovered that the water pressure was dramatically reduced, so I called the plumber back. They guy is coming back early tomorrow morning to remove whatever is partially plugging the line. Then it will be fixed. And under warranty!

I spent a bunch of time this evening labeling old family pictures. I found a bunch of photos with Shannon in them, which was nice. I also found a couple of very brief video clips, some of which featured Shannon. I’ll have to do something with them soon. Here’s the earliest example I found: the haircut

Truly a video masterpiece! Such amazing production values.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: bear-pregnancy-detecting beagle!

See you tomorrow.

New pet

Monday, August 19th, 2013

newpet

Here’s our new pet.  Well, it’s a volunteer pet, anyway.  It flew up to us shortly after we got here this afternoon and refused to leave.  It’s very tame and a pretty little bird.  We can’t have it, though.  LRN4’s condition won’t permit it.  Besides, it belongs to someone, presumably.  But it sure didn’t want to go back.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in our front yard this afternoon, and part of my famous Las Vegas and Bird series.

That’s right, we’re back in Las Vegas!  And glad of it, I can assure you, Loyal Readers.  The house was in great shape when we got here, thanks to Melanie.  Our car was quite full, so not everything is put away yet.  But we’ll get there tomorrow.

LRN4 is doing very well today.  I can tell she’s getting tired fairly easily, but she’s otherwise doing great.  We visited with the doctor this morning, who pronounced LRN4 fit to travel.  After getting platelets and micafungin, that is.  I went back to the Village after she got called in for the infusion and packed like the wind.  Everything was done and we were ready to go at 1:30 in the afternoon.

Traffic was fairly light for most of the trip, other than the one time it came to a complete stop.  Fortunately, we were stopped right by an exit.  Lots of people, including a bunch of truckers, were jumping off there and I decided to follow them.  If you can’t trust a trucker to know the back roads, you can’t trust anybody.  And it worked!  We followed a roughly parallel road for five miles or so and then checked out the freeway, which was clear.  So we bypassed whatever the problem was and went on our way.  And everything was fine after that.  Great trip!

My dad got here right after we did (I had phoned him and told him when to expect me, so it wasn’t that great of a miracle) and helped us unload the car.  We gave him a tour around the place, he said some nice things about it, he went and got us a pizza (thanks!), and then we left.  He flies out very early tomorrow morning.  It was a nice visit and we truly appreciate it.

And let’s see what else is going on.  Both of the cars are dead.  Well, their batteries are dead, anyway.  I have my poor little trickle charger hooked up to the pickup and am hoping I can maybe get it to start tomorrow morning.  If not, there are always Ken’s jumper cables.  But I’m hoping it won’t come to that.

Also, there’s lots to put away.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: cornflake-caused arson!

See you tomorrow.

Snowy field

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Here’s the view outside of my office today.  Pretty!  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Bird series.  There must be a bird in there somewhere.  They’ve been out there every other time I’ve looked.  Lousy Canada Geese.

Happy birthday to LRN5!  I’m really glad we got together on Saturday.  I hope it was a great day.

Wow.  Been another long time, hasn’t it?  Been a busy few weeks too.  Let’s see, the last post was during Christmas vacation, so what’s new since then?

Well, I’m back in Newtown.  Got back here on January 3rd.  Stayed until last Friday, went home, and came back yesterday.  That’s a total of about a day and a half at home.  Still, I’m glad I went.  I love our place.  Fortunately, LRN4 was with me here from the 5th through the end of last week.  We went to the airport together, flew on separate airlines, and met back up in San Francisco and rode home together in my beloved pickup.  That part was a bit awkward, as it was raining and we needed to put at least one of the suitcases in the bed.  Luckily, it barely drizzled at most during the trip.  LRN4 reports that there’s more rain in Lardville today.  She stayed home this week.

And there’s been plenty of weather here too.  Apparently, not long after we left Pennsylvania on Friday, it started snowing.  There are up to a few inches of the stuff on the ground, with lots of it melting and possibly refreezing overnight.  See above.  It hasn’t been bad driving, but we do need to stay on our toes, don’t we?  I’m enjoying the winter wonderland while it lasts.  I’m dreaming of a white . . . Valentine’s Day, I guess.

Speaking of which, LRN1 will be home two days after Valentine’s Day!  I’m getting really excited for him to get back.  His mission has gone by incredibly quickly, but the last couple of months have dragged.  Three more weeks now!  I think he’s ready to come home too.  He’s working really hard to stay focused until the very end, but it’s pretty clear from his letters that he’s ready to move to the next phase of his life.  I’m expecting to have a really nice time while he’s here, which will be for a couple of months.

The TDY finally got signed today!  I’m going home from this trip on Saturday and believe I’ll be back here on TDY starting next week.  Finally!  I’m signing the lease on our apartment on Friday afternoon and will move all the clothes and other stuff we’ve been accumulating there before I leave.  We’re really excited to finally have a commitment from the company for this assignment.

LRN3 joined the company today!  He’s our chief Android developer.  He’s also our only Android developer, but I really think we need one.  Android has sufficiently grown in popularity that many of not most iOS programming customers also expect an Android version to be released.  Now we can!  Welcome aboard, LRN3!

We need a good company t-shirt design.  If we’re going to be a serious mobile app development company, that’s a must.  I already have a bunch of family members who want one too.  Our first sale!  For free, no doubt!  Any design ideas?  Other than my picture, of course.

Anyway.  It’s way late and I need to go to sleep.  More on the news later.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: Iranian Space Monkey!

See you tomorrow.

Half Moon marina

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

Here’s the marina at Half Moon Bay.  Pretty picturesque place.  Part of my famous Machinery, Vacation, and Bird series.

Missed another few days.  Had a nice weekend, although we didn’t really get much done.  The weather was windy and rainy and we pretty much stayed around the house.  I did finally get my new app done and submitted to the App Store.  Haven’t heard from them on the review yet – I hope to have it available for download within a couple of days.  Check out a screen shot here.

Otherwise, not so much going on.  LRN4’s website continues to grow.  She’s still not getting as many visitors as she’d like, but she is at least generating a bit of buzz among her friends on Facebook.  I think she’ll get where she wants to be with it.  Check it out, Loyal Readers.  And leave a comment.  That’s an order.

It’s Friends of Scouting time!  Aaaarrrrrrgh!  I’m in charge of collecting the money this year.  So Knuckles, Bruiser, and I will be making the rounds.  “Nice house you got here, lady.  Be a shame if something happened to it.  How much are you planning to donate to Friends of Scouting this year?”

And that’s about it for tonight.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news:  frozen beef assault!

See you tomorrow.