morrowlife

Here’s yet another picture from the Big Sur campout. That was sure a pretty place. And so photogenic.

Happy start of another week! It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day today – in the mid to upper nineties here in Lardville, as a matter of fact. It’s supposed to stay warm and sunny for at least the next week or so. Loyal Reader Number Four told me she measured the pool’s temperature and it’s somewhere between 78 and 80 degrees. That’s swimmin’ weather! I’m seriously thinking of taking a little dip when I get home.

Implying, of course, that I’m writing this on the train again. The rail commute is still not getting to me and, since the drive was starting to get to me, I’m on the train again. And getting a lot done, including keeping my unread emails down to zero, watching a bunch of video podcasts, listening to a bunch of audio podcasts, writing the blog, reading a bunch of books (both electronic and old-school), and sleeping. Wow! I’m just a paragon of productivity.

Although I’m still mourning the loss of the rolling briefcase. I really like the temporary replacement I’m using, but it’s pretty hard on the back to haul it back and forth across campus. Fortunately, there was a shuttle bus pulling up just as I got off the railroad bus this morning, and a kind colleague offered me a ride to the stop this afternoon. So no exercise today, but no sore shoulder/back combination either. I hope I can hold out until next month.

We got just a few things done over the weekend. I got the barbecue repaired on Saturday – it turns out the old burner was completely rusted away – and even got the self-lighter working again. It was pretty full of grease and grime, so it was simply a matter of cleaning it up. I also went to the library and checked out a little pile of train-based reading material, including a couple of Dave Barry books and a couple that should help me improve my chess game. There are also a few other random selections in there, along with a few classical CDs for my listening pleasure.

Perhaps the most interesting thing from Saturday was when LRN4 and I went to the pond store in Escalon. They have lots of sample ponds, numerous kitschy pond accessories, and very high prices. I got some ideas there and will look online for better prices. Sorry about that, Escalon store.

While we were in Escalon, we stopped at a new neighborhood to walk through their models. The floorplans were pretty unexciting, the workmanship on the models was pretty bad (boding extremely poorly for how they build the non-show houses), the yards were pathetically small, it’s another half-hour away from work, there’s not much shopping, the neighborhood is right by the railroad tracks, and the prices were high. Other than that, we loved the place. Not moving there anytime soon.

Sunday was another busy Sabbath. Our church meetings were nice (my Sunday School class was a little short on participation, since there were only two people there, but was otherwise fine) and other meetings went well too. Loyal Reader Number One performed at his Honors Recital, as discussed previously, and did quite well. I mentioned to LRN4 that the quality of the recitals we’re attending these days has gone WAY up – it’s more like going to a concert than a piano recital. Every performed was hand-selected and excellent. The recital was at the college down in Turlock; what a pretty campus! Loyal Reader Number Two has organ lessons there every week, so I’m the only one who wasn’t familiar with the place. Turlock might be a nice retirement location.

That’s about it for today. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number One’s rock sculpture, as mentioned in yesterday’s comments. Now isn’t that about the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen? Kind of like a statue. Yeah, a statue. Ralphie!

Greetings, earthlings. How was your Friday? Pretty decent around here. I worked for about four hours – 8:30 to 12:30. It took two hours to get there and an hour and a half to get back. So that’s a grand total of 7.5 hours away from home. It certainly shortens the day up, but that’s okay – I didn’t have any particular plans anyway. So there was a lot of relaxation this afternoon.

Unfortunately, that schedule won’t hold tomorrow. I need to prepare a Sunday School lesson, fix the barbecue (replace the burner and I think I’ll go ahead and put in new lava rocks while I’m at it), and, um, I’m sure there are plenty of other things I could do. Oh yeah, the Sable is filthy, my nightstand has become somewhat cluttered, and I need library books to read. I’ll probably find a way to stay busy.

Loyal Reader Number One is taking his SAT test tomorrow. Good luck, LRN1! Loyal Reader Number Two is at the scout Jamborall tonight and all day tomorrow. So it will be a bit quiet around the old homestead.

There was so much goofage today that I’m out of time for writing. So I’ll see you Monday. Have a great weekend.

Here’s yet another in my famous seagull series. If you look really carefully, I’m sure you can see some birds in there somewhere.

Another day, another small fortune. Gee, it’s great working for a big company. Sunny this morning, cloudy this afternoon, with scattered showers predicted for right about the time I’ll be getting off the train. Fortunately, it’s only about a one minute walk from the train to the car, as opposed to the ten minutes required to get from the bus stop to the office.

Speaking of which, I wimped out and took the shuttle bus this afternoon from the office back to the bus stop. One happened along just as I was leaving the building, so I hopped on. No exercise for me this afternoon. It turned out to be a good thing; I had a small personal luggage disaster this morning. Years of abuse finally took their toll on my rolling briefcase. Half of the handle fell off. It gave its life for commuting. This afternoon, I moved everything over to the briefcase that came with my computer. It’s nothing special, but it’s not bad either. It does not, however, have wheels. It must be carried. Which gives me even more health-giving exercise twice a day. Maybe more than I really want to get. We’ll see. At any rate, both my birthday and Father’s Day are coming up next month. I now have something for my wish list. Unless I just go ahead and buy myself a new roller before then.

Nothing much else to talk about today. We delivered the product that was planned for today on schedule, so it will be a quiet weekend, work-wise. My people are happy.

Loyal Reader Number Four was introduced today to another person who got ripped off by the Landscaping Idiots. They’re working with the local prosecutor to get these people prosecuted. Which, it turns out, is what prosecutors do. It seems they have no license and they’ve become somewhat well-known in certain circles for doing a little bit of incredibly shoddy work, grabbing as much money as they can get, and disappearing. The prosecutor is looking for additional people to file complaints. Sign us up! We feel very fortunate to have gotten as much out of them as we have. The cement isn’t the finish we contracted for (they turned out to be incapable of applying the salt finish they contracted for), but attempt number two appears to be of sufficient quality that it won’t fall apart within the first six months.

The house people were working on various warranty items today – that’s how LRN4 heard about the other ripped-off homeowner. Hopefully, they will have fixed my sink, which has had a very strange problem since we moved in. When you get enough water into the sink to cover the drain, air bubbles get trapped in there and it won’t drain quickly. If you lift up the stopper higher than usual, the air comes out and it drains immediately. I’ve been guessing that the sink’s vent is blocked, but that’s just a guess. I hope to find out the truth when I get home this evening.

Enough blabbering for today. See you tomorrow.

Here’s a slightly sick Loyal Reader Number Twelve and her Loyal Grandma. I know how to bring those Loyal Readers in, don’t I? Gratuitous baby pictures, that’s the ticket.

There’s a beautiful afternoon outside the train window. As opposed to this morning. It was dry on the way to the station, during the wait for the train, during the train trip, during the walk to the bus, and during 99.5% of the bus ride. It started raining hard just before the bus door opened. I made the ten-minute walk to the office and got pretty well soaked. It stopped raining not long after I got inside. Oh well. I kind of enjoyed the very wet walk and eventually dried out. No harm done. My briefcase, lunch, and I were certainly wet, though.

I listened this morning to a LibriVox Mark Twain story that I had never read before! I thought I had read everything he wrote. The story’s called Taming the Bicycle. Very amusing. I invite my Loyal Readers to see if they can find a copy online. If so, read it!

As my Loyal Readers may have guessed, yesterday’s discussion of LibriVox led me to take another look and download some more Twain books. I downloaded The Innocents Abroad and a few short stories. I’ve started working them into my podcast list. Along with all those old-time radio shows I downloaded a couple of months ago. And my backlog of about a hundred other podcasts. And my backlog of another hundred video podcasts. Can’t watch those ones on the iPod, it not being video-capable, but I may copy them to the laptop soon and watch them during the train ride. Great idea!

More train rides are going to happen, by the way. I’m enjoying it more than I thought I might, so I bought a new 20-ride ticket yesterday. At fifteen bucks a day, those rides need to be used. I’m going to start driving on Fridays for a little while and riding the other days. And I might ride on my “on” Fridays as well; Friday afternoon traffic can be a real bear. Less wear and tear on the cars and on me.

It’s Wednesday-go-to-meetin’ night. I need to add a picture and a few links before leaving home, so don’t look for much of a serious effort tonight. Linkage will be sparse. Great Art, however, will be as impressive as usual. I think we can safely say that.

We had telephone interviews with three people today. One seemed like a really good candidate. One was so-so. And one was a space cadet. We still have several more people to speak with, so we’re not ready to rule anybody in or out yet. I certainly hope my boss doesn’t push for the space cadet, though.

Nothing else to mention tonight. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number One on the outside looking in. Taken in the homesteader’s cabin at the Big Sur state park.

Another busy day. I spent a good part of it working on hiring some people – I have requisitions for four people right now. Several people have applied, and I need to start getting several of them in for interviews. I have phone calls scheduled with a few over the next couple of days. We really need the people now – a few of our current folks have already left and there are a couple more going in the next week or so. Busy, busy, busy.

I noticed earlier today that I failed to include any links in yesterday’s post. Such an oversight usually results in Loyal Reader complaints. Apparently, yesterday’s post was so enthralling that nobody noticed. I’ll try to do better today.

The problem, of course, is that I’m once again typing the text on the train, which still (grumble, complain, etc.) has no WiFi, so I have to cut and paste when I get home. I got a picture added yesterday but was in a hurry, so no links. I’ll probably be in a hurry again tonight, but one must take the time to do the job right. On the other hand, why start doing it right now?

Congrats to Loyal Reader Number Seven on her team’s excellent showing at the competition. Keep up the good work!

Note to Loyal Reader Number Five: my art dealer will be more than happy to discuss selection, availability, and terms. We are certain we can reach an advantageous (possibly not mutually advantageous, but advantageous nonetheless) arrangement.

I’ve been reading several of Mark Twain‘s short stories the past couple of days, compiled in a book called Sketches New and Old. Hilarious. I recommend to my Loyal Readers anything by Twain. With the possible exception of Life on the Mississippi. There’s some good stuff in there too, but it’s intended to document history, rather than to be amusing. There’s plenty of detail, though, for budding Mississippi riverboat pilots.

Recommended Twain books: Roughing It (the story of Twain’s extended trip to the western territories, during which he road stagecoaches, mined for gold, worked on mining town newspapers, and generally enjoyed himself), The Innocents Abroad (the story of Twain’s extended trip to Europe and the Holy Land, which he took for the express purpose of writing this book – his descriptions of the absurdities of travel are side-splitting), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain’s fictional tale of a runaway boy and his friend, a runaway slave), and just about every newspaper column he ever wrote. There are also some obscure works, such as Extracts From Adam’s Diary (I’ve seen two versions; the “Adam and Eve” version is best), Extract From Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven, Puddinhead Wilson, and The Double-Barrelled Detective are also excellent.

We listened to an audio version of Huckleberry Finn on our way to and from Big Bear a few weeks ago. It was a free version I found on LibriVox, read by an amateur. At first, her interpretation was a little, um, amateurish, but she grew on us as the book went on. We thoroughly enjoyed the book and I’ll look for others for our next family trip.

The train’s moving unusually slowly right now. This doesn’t bode well for an on-time arrival. I’m hoping for a near-term speedup.

Somebody sitting near me is apparently eating a hot dog. With ketchup and probably mustard. Also possibly relish. It smells delicious! Which just shows how very hungry I am right now. Must . . . concentrate . . . on . . . blog.

Okay, I’m fine now. Let’s see, what else? Nothing comes to mind, so I’ll quit. Have a great rest of the day and I’ll see you tomorrow.