Archive for the ‘camping’ Category

Two surfers

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Here are two guys out surfing at Big Sur back in March. Of 2008. Great Art courtesy of my long-lost Olympus camera, taken during one of our memorable camping trips at Big Sur, and part of my famous Camping series.

Not a lot of camping going on in this picture, but I assure you that we were camping. By the way, that sea looks awfully calm and those guys look awfully close to the rocks. Doesn’t look like really good surfing to me.

Extreme short shrift tonight. It’s very late and I’ve been working on a new website to support my Common Core app by supporting teachers who want to learn how to implement Common Core standards. You can have a look at the website here. There’s next to no content as of now, but I’m working on it. The hope is that it will grow into a place that will help teachers stay up-to-date on developments in the Common Core world and maybe even provide some tips on working with it in the classroom, without getting involved in the politics that appear to really be raging right now. The other hope is that it will introduce a few people to my app and maybe drive a few sales. Wish me luck!

I also sent out about ten offers of a free copy of the app to education bloggers today. So far, I have one response, so I sent a free copy that person’s way. Let’s hope it gets a positive mention and maybe a few more people find it useful enough to buy.

Buy, teachers, buy!

LRN4 is doing very well today. She spent a lot of the day getting chemo and doing the type and cross-match for tomorrow’s transfusion. Tomorrow promises to be an exceptionally busy day for her. Good luck at the hospital for a few hours, LRN4!

And that’s it for today. Must hit the sack. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: fish-delivering dolphin!

See you tomorrow.

Big Sur surf

Tuesday, September 10th, 2013

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Here’s a wave breaking near the beach at Big Sur, California. Great Art courtesy of my late, lamented Olympus camera, taken in March 2008 at Big Sur, and part of my famous Camping series.

No posts for a few days. I was working like a dog on the iOS app. Of course, most dogs work by eating, sleeping, and doing various extremely rude things all day. Other dogs pull sleds, bring brandy to stranded skiers, sniff out drugs at the airport, guide the blind, or chase down bad guys. I’ll leave it to my Loyal Readers to decide which kind of dog I work like.

In any case, my dog-like efforts seem to have paid off. I submitted the iOS app last night! Finally! For the most part, I’m really proud of it. As with pretty much anything of this type, I can think of several things I should have done differently. Maybe I’ll fix some of them in a later release, maybe it won’t seem necessary. But I certainly hope enough teachers find it useful enough that they’re willing to part with three dollars to have it. And I hope they use it and show it to their friends. Who also buy it. And I become filthy rich while helping teachers comply with the Common Core State Standards.

Don’t worry, Loyal Readers. When I become filthy rich, I’ll remember you. I probably won’t share any of the money, but I’ll definitely remember you.

Anyway. Now I’m on to my next project – the medical forensics PC program. Much more about that one later.

And now for the thing all my Loyal Readers are really here for – LRN4’s condition. She’s doing very well indeed today. She had a lot more energy today than in recent days. I don’t really know why, but I’m certainly happy about it. She even felt good enough today to go to Costco with me and to bake a couple loaves of very delicious bread. She took a little nap this afternoon and she’s at the quarterly homeowners association meeting as I write this. She was elected to the board a few months ago, but this is her first meeting, since we were at the City of Hope for the previous one. I’m really pleased she has enough energy for all those things today.

She had her last day of IV-administered chemo yesterday, so we’re hoping her energy level picks up again soon. Although that’s a little less likely because she’s still taking the oral chemo medication. Actually, our doctor informed us yesterday that the two drugs she’s been receiving aren’t technically chemotherapy, in the sense that they don’t attack and kill fast-growing cells in general – they’re both targeted drugs that are hopefully getting the bad cells and leaving at least some of the good cells alone.

Which may explain why LRN4’s blood counts are so good.  Both her platelets and red cells are doing very well indeed – she hasn’t needed a transfusion in several days, and the counts have actually been going up. Her white cell count is very low, of course, but even it isn’t as low as it has been. While pretty much everything makes us nervous these days, our doctor seemed to think her counts were very good news. Her weight loss may have at least stabilized over the last few days and other Nexavar-related side effects seem to be fairly minimal. She’d love to quit taking the Nexavar, which is supposed to continue for the rest of this month, I believe, but our doctor talked her into continuing it for as long as she can tough it out, as he really believes it has a pretty good chance of making a difference for her. So she’s gritting her teeth and staying on it for now. We can re-evaluate every week or so if things get significantly worse than they are right now.

And that’s about all the LRN4 news for today. She’s having good days and bad days, but she’s staying tough. Her ability to handle this disease is awe-inspiring.

Happy birthday to my brother-in-law Ken! What a great guy he is.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: exploding rhubarb chutney!

See you tomorrow.

Camping readers

Friday, August 2nd, 2013

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

Here’s the only woman in the entire world who matters, along with our dear, sweet youngest son.  Great Art courtesy of my exclusive old Minolta camera, taken during a camping trip in Pennsylvania on Labor Day weekend in 2005, and part of my famous Camping series.

This was a very difficult day.  LRN4’s leukemia is back.  I’m heartbroken, frightened, terrified, and really struggling to be the positive, confident one.  I’ll get back there tomorrow.  She goes back to the hospital tomorrow, assuming there’s a bed available.  They start chemo, keep her there for a couple days, and hopefully send her back to the Village to finish the 10-day chemo course.  Then more chemo, probably another transplant, and we don’t know what else.

All’s not lost – it’s just a setback.  But things were going so well and we were so close to going home and resuming our lives.  We believe that’s still in our future.  It’s just delayed a little bit longer.

No funny stuff today.  Next week.  LRN4, I love you.  You are everything.  You are the only thing.  Survive.

See you on Monday.

VW camper

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

Here’s a cool old VW camper, found at Henry Ford Museum (I refuse to call it “The Henry Ford.”  Way too pretentious).  I want one.  Great Art taken during the same Michigan trip documented on Monday and part of both my famous Machinery and Camping series.

Extreme short shrift.  I’ve been working on LDS Tools emails.  Sigh.

Also worked on getting the newly-arrived replacement towel rack into the downstairs bathroom before LRN4’s ladies’ dessert get-together tomorrow night.  Got it installed, but did some pretty bad damage to the wall on my first try, when I attempted to put it where the old one had pulled out of the wall.  Not a good idea – the wallboard there is just too chewed up.  Anchored it into a stud behind the wall, and now it’s not going anywhere.  LRN4 is fixing the holes I left in the chewed-up wall area – one of her handywoman specialties.

Two more days before my holiday vacation starts!  Also, two more days before LRN2 graduates from high school!  Yea for both!

And that’s about it.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: bean throwing!

See you tomorrow.

Cache finder

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Here’s LRN4 standing beside a very cleverly hidden geocache on our last camping trip.  She was the one who found it, so she gets the credit.  Part of my famous Camping and Vacation series.

No post yesterday.  I was busy working on my app.

Which still isn’t done.  Every time I fix one thing, another needs fixing.  I can’t seem to get the timing right, so I had to do a pretty basic redesign of the main part of the first half of the app.  That’s working now, and the timing still isn’t quite right.  So I’ve started working on a calibration function to get the timing figured out on the fly.  That ought to take care of it.

Otherwise, had a nice weekend.  LRN5 and LRN12 were here again, as mentioned on Friday, which was nice.  LRN5 needed to study, so we entertained LRN12 and had a good time.  I got some good programming done too.  And not much else.  It rained, so outside activities/chores were limited.

Nothing else to report, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife employment agency job opportunity: runaway chimp university student!

See you tomorrow.