morrowlife

Here are Shannon and me going to brunch on our wedding day. Great Art courtesy of our friend Burns Newby (probably), scanned from the wedding photo album he gave us way back when, and part of my famous Shannon and Event series.

I spent a few minutes today capturing some of these scanned images, so there are more of these to come. Priceless, no?

Had a fine weekend. Went out with friends on both Saturday and Sunday – Saturday to Boulder City, where my friends Bob, Helena, and Holly live; and Sunday to a place in downtown Las Vegas called Container Park. Went with Helena, Holly, Mark, Mark (but neither of them was my Mark), Holly (another one), Gina, and a couple other people whose names escape me right now. Just kind of hung out together and had a nice time. It’s been really good to get some friends.

Did a bit of work today. I discovered an incorrect version number and copyright date in the app Chris and I have been working on, so I fixed it and resubmitted it to Apple. Also started looking at Common Core Classroom. Also identified a bunch of work I need to do on PhotoDoc. Also spoke with a dear old friend from San Diego named Gary today. He found my website and may have some work for me. We chatted for a while and agreed to meet tomorrow here in Las Vegas. Apparently, he’s traveling here tomorrow. Even if there’s no work for me, I’m excited to get together and renew our friendship.

Ordered another Roku today. I’m simply not happy with the video solution I have for the office, consisting of a partially-broken second-generation Apple TV for netflix and a first-generation Apple TV running Linux and XBMC for locally-hosted content. So I’ll put the new Roku in my bedroom and move my old first-generation-but-still-working-fine Roku into the office. And everybody will be happy. Maybe there’s something else interesting I can do with the old 1G Apple TV.

And that about brings us up to date. It’s late already and my sinuses are acting up again, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: runaway reindeer!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and Mia getting ready for a Halloween party in October 2008. This kind of looks like a selfie, but that would be a bit misleading. There’s no mirror on the front porch of our old house in Manteca. This Great Art is courtesy of Katy’s [amazon asin=B000FKIJUI&text=”Casio EX-Z70″] camera, taken by Katy (probably), and part of my famous Shannon and Event series.

I could have included it in my famous Architecture series since it includes a portion of our old house, but I opted not to do that this time. No guarantees on future category-stretching Great Art, however.

Pretty good day. I got some work done, although nothing to show yet. I worked on the Business Casual website. I’ve been thinking of adding a splash page that would redirect people looking for PhotoDoc to the appropriate page and then show the Business Casual page for people interested in educational software. Got something working, but there were still some technical bugs and I decided I don’t like the plugin that I used to create the page. So I deleted the plugin and the page and I’m back to the drawing board. I’m now thinking of just including a very visible link to PhotoDoc from the Business Casual sidebar. What do you think, Loyal Readers? We’re giving the PhotoDoc website link to potential customers, so I don’t expect too many PhotoDoc searchers to look for the Business Casual website.

Another option would be to create a Common Core Classroom website, but I have way too many websites to try to keep track of already. So I don’t really want to do that. What should I do?

Had a nice phone conversation with my sister Julie. She noticed yesterday’s discussion on finding a meeting room and she called me to give me a rundown on her numerous experiences with that very thing. I feel a whole lot better educated and able to make intelligent decisions in that area. Thanks, Julie! It was also great just to chat, of course.

Also had a nice talk with my dad today. We didn’t talk business, other than a great idea he has for a new company. I’ll have to figure out a way to steal it from him. Also talked with Paul briefly. He seems to be doing fine.

Mark and I went to dinner with the Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives group from meetup.com tonight. It was fun! It was pretty much exclusively couples, which wasn’t a surprise to me, but everybody was very welcoming and we had nice conversations, along with excellent Greek food. I’d get together with those people again.

Speaking of meetup.com groups, I’ve scheduled myself for another 40+ Singles group happy hour. This one is on the patio of a Mexican restaurant (I think) not too far from here. It looks like a few of the folks I met last week will be going, plus a bunch I haven’t met. I hope it’s as much fun as the last one.

That’s pretty much it for today. More website work tomorrow and possibly one more update to the iOS app I worked on for Chris. Next week, I’m working on Common Core Classroom for sure. It feels good to be back to work.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: Brussels sprouts heist!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and me in the back yard of our house in Manteca in September 2011. Just a few months before we went back to Pennsylvania. We had no idea we’d be leaving our house there so soon. It was a great place to live, although it was very expensive and it was way too far away from my work. But I loved that place. Great Art courtesy of my old Olympus camera and possibly taken by Katie or maybe using the tripod and its self-timer, and part of my famous Shannon and Garden series.

My life was so good then. Our lives were so good, I mean. Some struggles, certainly, but comparatively very good.

A bit of a tough day today. As I reported yesterday, I had sinus problems all day yesterday. Shortly after finishing this post, I suddenly got a terrible chill. I checked my temperature and it was at about 99.5 degrees. Not massively bad, but the chills were terrible! I got into bed under my electric blanket turned up way high and with a heavy quilt over that. This arrangement was warm enough until the fever finally broke sometime during the night, at which time I threw the quilt on the floor and turned off the electric blanket. When I woke up, I still didn’t feel all that great, so I canceled today’s exercise session and slept on the couch and then back in bed until about 1:00 this afternoon. After that, I felt pretty good. The right side of my head is hurting again this evening. After I finish with this blog post, I’ll take another Mucinex and a couple of Tylenols and get to sleep. Let’s hope I’m feeling better tomorrow.

In defense of my allergy theory, the weather suddenly changed yesterday and today from warm and still to cooler and windy. So I still think it was the demon dust.

Did a tiny bit of work today – looked for a meeting room where we can hold a PhotoDoc training session in October. I think there are several good choices, depending on how much we want to spend, which will be influenced at least partially by how much we want to charge. I’ve asked John to check with some associates to see if my initial price proposal is in line with expectations.

Made another strawberry-banana smoothie this afternoon. They’re so good!

In the evening, the older John (young John’s father, of course) dropped in to see us. He’s in town for a couple days, so he took Mark and me to dinner. We went to a very good Indian restaurant not too far from the hospital. Enjoyed the food and they company. Thanks for the visit and meal, John!

During dinner, John and I were talking about recent events. I mentioned something about being widowed being very different from being divorced, specifically that there is no anger or hurt feelings involved, although I still have plenty of regrets. Shannon and I talked about that a while ago and she forgave every injury and asked me to live guilt-free. That’s a tall order, but I’m trying. John mentioned he discovered something I also learned from counseling other couples in the past – whenever I’m inclined to think I wasn’t much of a good husband, I can reflect on some of the truly horrible husbands I’ve known and give myself a grade of at least a B. Good point, John.

And that’s about all that happened today. Back to the gym tomorrow morning – we must keep up the momentum!

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: paratrooper mouse!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and me getting ready to board the ship that took us to Mexico back in February 2010. She had her great old flower bag, which accompanied us on every one of our vacations for many years. I had my computer bag, which accompanied me pretty much everywhere always. Great Art courtesy of our friends Doug and Connie – I have no idea which one of them took it – using their nice Canon camera, and part of my famous Shannon, Cruise, Machinery, and Vacation series.

I look at this picture and think: if I had only known we had less than four years left. There are a lot of things I would change. I would overlook everything and anything that I let come between us. I would tell her I love her a hundred times a day. I would do everything in my power to make her happy and make her life absolutely carefree and make her feel constantly surrounded by love. I would treat her like the queen she was to me. But there are some things I wouldn’t change. I think this vacation is one of them. We had a wonderful time together and everything was just perfect. I’ll never forget it, along with the other cruises we took. I was so happy and felt so close to Shannon on those ships. It’s no wonder I love cruising.

Not a busy day. My sinuses are acting up pretty badly. I’m sure it’s an allergic reaction to something, although I have no idea what. If I knew, I’d get away from it. I’m feeling pretty miserable. No fever, no other symptoms other than clogged sinuses on the right side of my head and a headache. But that’s enough.

So I didn’t do much, yet again. I did find the time to go through a bunch of emails and to plan out the next few days of work. Now I just have to do the work. I also spent a little time finding accommodations for Mark and me (and Andy and Heather, although they’re making their own reservations) for the family reunion in Park City. We’ll be staying at the same hotel where we stayed for the last reunion. It’s not the best place in town, but it was nice and worked for us then, so I suspect it’ll work for us now.

I’ve been reconsidering my contemplated driving tour of the country. As I’ve probably mentioned before, my original plan was Las Vegas – San Francisco – Park City (or Salt Lake, depending on when) – Denver – Detroit – Stafford – Orlando – Tucson – Las Vegas. When Mark and I looked at the calendar for that trip, it would take more than 30 days. I’m thinking that’s a bit more than I really want to do. So now I’m thinking Las Vegas – San Francisco (only if Katy and company have time to see me then, otherwise I’ll visit them another time) – Park City – Denver – Detroit – Las Vegas. It’s two days’ travel from Denver to Detroit and three back to Las Vegas, so I would have to find some hotel rooms for five nights. I would plan to stay in Detroit for the week that includes the Fourth of July, which would make it something like ten days there. I wonder if the Michigan family would get tired of having me there for so long. I guess I could split my trip up between family members so none of them had time to get fed up. I’m planning a trip to Orlando next February for a conference, so I’ll see Tony then, and I can run over to Tucson and see Chris pretty much any time. I’d miss Paul and Melissa this time, so I’d have to find a way to get with them soon. Besides, they’re hoping to move to Las Vegas soon, so I’ll see a lot of them then.

Anyway. I need to make a decision and start checking with family members to see what works for whom when.

And that’s pretty much it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: macaroni and cheese-related parental assault!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and Mia enjoying a moment together. She was just insanely in love with that little girl. Mia brought Shannon so much happiness; I’m so grateful she came into our lives and so grateful Shannon got to be a part of her first seven years. Great Art courtesy of Katie’s camera (probably), taken in our family room in Lardville by Katie (probably), and part of my famous Shannon series.

That picture just makes me cry, both for happiness at what was and for sadness at what is being missed.

Mark was a bit less of an enthusiast on that day:

Mia seemed to be enjoying it, anyway. Mark loved Mia then and loves her now, but I guess he must have had other plans that afternoon. His picture was taken a minute and a half before Shannon’s.

Interesting day today. I received an email this morning for the life insurance investigator telling me that St. Rose refused to release Shannon’s medical records without a court order. They gave me an address and phone number for my local court, so I went over there after gym time to fill out the court order (of which there were several sheets), wait while the nice lady got a judge to sign it, wait a long time to file it with the court clerk, take it over to the hospital, and give it to the records people there. In my opinion, they’re completely unreasonable to refuse to comply with the law without a court order, but that’s what they do. St. Rose Dominican Hospital needs to be publicly shamed for wasting so many people’s time and money just to make their lawyers happy.

That little activity took most of the day, so I went home afterward and baked a couple loaves of bread. White Amish bread, to be precise. Turns out I need a lot more experience in bread making. I don’t think I let the yeast grow quite enough at the very beginning before I started adding other ingredients. It never made up the difference during the few times it was supposed to be rising. The finished product looks okay and tastes marginally okay, if a bit yeasty, but it’s a bit too thick. I’ll try again later in the week and see if I can improve on the results. I’ve committed to bringing bread to Melanie’s house on Sunday afternoon, so I need to get at least a bit better at it before then. Besides taking a bit of time, the concept is pretty straightforward, so I’m pretty sure I can master it. Oh, I don’t know how old my yeast is either. There’s a lot of it in a plastic container in the fridge. I guess I need to find out how long it stays good under those circumstances. I also need to know whether I need to bring the yeast to room temperature before mixing it with the warm sugar water.

Do any of my Loyal Readers know more than I do about making bread? A little help, please!

Mark and I had breakfast food for dinner. I had some bacon I wanted to cook, so I did that while the bread was baking. When it was done, I fried some eggs in the bacon grease. So we had bacon, eggs, and cottage cheese with peaches for dinner. Mark also had the last of the Costco apple streusel muffins. It was a pretty tasty dinner.

In the evening, Mark and I jacuzzified. Then I watched an episode of the wonderful old [amazon asin=B0011FLGYM&text=Burns and Allen] TV show and retired upstairs to write this.

I dreamed of Shannon last night. All I can remember is a moment of the dream. Shannon put Mark to bed in his crib. The trouble was that Mark was about seven years old, so it was a bit of a tight fit. But it seemed perfectly normal in the dream. Shannon looked at him sadly. Then I woke up. This is one dream I choose not to interpret. My Loyal Readers can do that for themselves. I’m just grateful I had it, even if my heart broke again just a little.

Ken and I didn’t work on the truck on Saturday. We got distracted by a project to get Melanie’s computer connected to their network. We got a network cable installed and working, but the computer still won’t recognize the network, even after we replaced the ethernet card. Our next step is to try reinstalling the operating system. If that doesn’t work, I don’t know what else to try. We’ll try again to get to the truck next Saturday. There’s plenty of time.

And that’s it for tonight. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: photography-enthusiast eagle!

See you tomorrow.