Ensenada arrival

Ensenadaarrival

Here’s the view from the ship during our last Hawaii cruise, taken just as we were arriving in Ensenada.  Get a load of that flag.  We were only in port for a few hours and LRN4 and I didn’t get off the ship, but it was nice to see land again after five days at sea.  As discussed in this space before, we’re less than a month away from taking the same ship on the same trip.  I’m getting excited to go.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Cruise, Vacation, and Machinery series.

Disaster strikes!  My beloved pickup is in critical condition in the automotive hospital!  I spoke with them today and discovered that the misfire isn’t due to spark and isn’t due to fuel.  That leaves only one cause – the dreaded compression.  That means one thing and one thing only: either a valve job, a complete engine rebuild, or a new engine.

Okay, that’s three things.  But they’re really just different manifestations of the same thing, and that spells cubic dollars.  I don’t know which option I’ll choose, but it’ll be one of them.  Probably either a complete rebuild or a new (actually factory rebuilt) engine.  The beloved pickup will live to drive another day.

Fortunately, I received my big severance check from Lockheed today.  Although I would have preferred the engine rebuild money to be put to work as living expenses for a month.  But you can’t have everything, can you?  For one thing, where would you put it?

Thank you, you’re a great crowd.  Don’t forget to tip your server.  Or your blogger.  Speaking of which, should I put a tip jar on the blog?  Nah – I’d rather have my Loyal Readers just click through to Amazon from my blog, buy something nice for themselves, and let me collect a nice little commission.  Try it, Loyal Readers – it’s easy!  So much better than a plain old tip jar.  Although feel free to send me money too.  The juggernaut must be fed.

LRN4’s sister Melanie came over for dinner and conversation this evening.  We had a great meal and she brought us a delicious chocolate pie to top it off.  What a nice evening!  Happy Valentine’s Day to Melanie.  And to LRN4.  Especially to LRN4.

Also get-well-soon wishes to LRN4.  She’s still quite miserable.  She talked to her highly-trained medical staff this afternoon and told them she’s still not feeling so hot and wondered aloud whether she should come back for stronger measures.  They said as long as she’s not feeling worse than when she started, she should stay the course.  She’s been very sick for what seems like a very long time – sicker than I’ve ever seen her.  I’m worried.  Also missing her normal self.  It won’t be long now, I’m sure.

Work continues on my project to learn Visual Studio.  I’m not at all happy with the book I’m using, but it appeared to be the best available book covering VS 2005 (which is generally the version still in use for the projects I’m thinking of taking on – fortunately, it’s also the one I happen to already have).  So under the circumstances, it’ll have to do.  The problem is that it tries to teach you C++ at a very basic level first and then it gets into the Visual Studio part of Visual Studio.  I don’t mind a refresher course on C++, but this thing is going into minute details, which I don’t feel a need for right now.  But I can’t skip any of it, because it sprinkles random essential information in the middle of the minutia.  So it’s a bit slow going.  But I’m making progress and can feel that I’m right on the verge of gaining the knowledge I came for.  Any minute now.

My [amazon asin=B009OWLPM2&text=new shoelaces] arrived in the mail today.  They look great – I’ll have the coolest shoes in the gym tomorrow morning.  However, they also came with a velcro strap – the kind you typically use to bundle wires together or some other such thing.  I have no idea why it was shipped with five pairs of shoelaces.  Maybe just to keep the spare laces together?  Or is there something the cool kids are doing with velcro straps and athletic shoes?

And that’s about it for tonight.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: astronaut food taster!

See you tomorrow.

One Response to “Ensenada arrival”

  1. Paul Says:

    My best wishes to LRN 4 and the truck!

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