morrowlife

Here’s one of the drive wheels from an old steam locomotive.  A beautifully restored old steam locomotive. In fact, it’s probably way better than it ever was when it was actually pulling railcars, including the day it rolled out of the factory. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in June 2014 at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, and part of my famous Machinery, Train, and Vacation series.

That was the trip to Michigan that I felt I must make. It started as a month-long drive all over the country to help me heal a little bit and morphed into a flight to Utah, a ride in Andy’s car to Colorado, a flight to Michigan, and one more flight home. I never did take that road trip I was contemplating.

The trip turned out to be the last time I was with my mother before we found out she had cancer. What a difficult year it was! But I’m alive and moving forward.

Long time no post. Let’s try to recap just a little of what’s been going on. Hmm . . . not too much, it turns out. I’ll just get started with what I can remember and we’ll see where that takes us.

Joanne and I went to Seattle last weekend. We stayed at a beautiful historic hotel downtown a few blocks from Pike Place Market. We saw the old subterranean portion of town (fascinating!), took a tour around several of the old neighborhoods, and rode the auto ferry to Bainbridge Island for lunch and a drive. It was all beautiful. The weather was quite favorable and we enjoyed the weekend greatly. We’re going to San Francisco this weekend so Joanne can attend Katie’s bridal shower and I can hang out with Clifford. Should be a ton of fun.

Mark’s current semester is winding down quickly. He’s doing very well in all his classes and looking forward to some time off during the summer (although he will be attending the summer term).

Andy is getting ready to move out of his extremely expensive downtown Denver apartment and into a friend’s house while he saves to buy his own place. I loved that apartment and the area, but he is paying an amazing amount of money to be there.

Joanne has moved into her very nice condo. She’s enjoying it and I like it too. Corey is still with her and he seems happy there also. She couldn’t resist having a pet, so she got a cat a couple days ago. It’s a beautiful animal and only has a few bad habits. I’m sure crazy about her.

Paul and Melissa are moving too! They expect to be here in Las Vegas in May. I’m looking forward to having them close by.

Katie and Cliff are still getting married. It is less than two months away! I’m tremendously excited for them.

I’m not moving. Instead, I decided a few days ago to finally take glider pilot lessons. I’ve been contemplating it for quite some time now. As my Loyal Readers no doubt know, I have long loved sailboats and not particularly loved powerboats. I dislike the noise, the discomfort, and the pointlessness of the whole thing. Sailing takes skill, things move slowly and yet seem quite exciting, and the trip is enough for it to be enjoyable.

I took some flying lessons back when I was in college and discontinued them after three or four lessons for pretty much the same reasons I dislike powerboats. They’re noisy, uncomfortable, and pointless. I have long wondered whether I’d feel about sailplanes the same way I do about sailboats. So I’ve decided to find out. I haven’t had my first flight yet, but I’m hoping it will be soon and frequently thereafter.

As a bonus, the sailplane license is much less expensive to get and sailplanes are much less expensive to rent after you have your license. The only downside is that you’re even more of a slave to the weather than you are with a powered plane. That ought to be okay, though; our weather is pretty good most of the time.

Since I haven’t started flying yet, I’ve started studying. I found several FAA publications that offer a lot of information for glider pilots and I’m reading them like crazy.

Speaking of reading, I got a Kindle the other day and I absolutely love the thing. It’s just like Andy told me – reading is just more pleasant on a Kindle. Recommended!

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: joyriding dog! Two positions are available.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a reminder of why I don’t eat at Denny’s anymore. This is a piece of apple pie exactly as it was delivered to Joanne the recent evening we decided to abandon my principles and try Denny’s again. Doesn’t that look appetizing? Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken late in the evening on March 14 at a Denny’s in Henderson, NV, and part of my famous Food, Joanne, and Las Vegas series.

Not pictured above: my hot fudge sundae. That was so disgusting I had to send it back. I have no idea what they did to that hot fudge, but I could not eat it, no matter how hard I tried. I finally decided to stop trying.

On to more pleasant subjects. My, it’s been a long time since I posted, once again. In fact, it’s been exactly one month. Lots of things have been happening, as my Loyal Readers might expect. Let’s see if we can recap a few of them, shall we?

I had a torn and partially detached retina repaired early this month. My eye had gotten a large floater while I was in Florida for the AAFS conference and I finally decided to go to my optometrist’s office and have it checked out. He detected something wrong and got me an appointment with a nearby opthomologist early the next morning. That guy discovered the problem and zapped it with his handy laser. It seems to have worked well. The zapping hurt some, but I gritted my teeth and dealt with it. The floater is still there and affecting my vision, but I hope it will settle over the next few months.

On the day of my eye surgery, Joanne and I went to San Francisco to see the Chinese New Year parade. Katy, Cliff, and Mia joined us, of course. It was fun and very interesting. We got great grandstand seats and were very close to the street. We stayed at a downtown hotel that allowed us to walk to the parade, which was nice. We also rode a cable car down to the Pier 39 area and walked around there a bit, which was nice. The afternoon of our last day, we went over to Katy’s place and hung around for a few hours. I always like visiting them. I love those guys!

Joanne decided she was ready to move out of her great big house into a lower-maintenance, lower-cost condo. She put the house on the market for a nice high price and had it under contract two days later. The sale closed yesterday. In the meantime, we went and looked at a couple condos and found what we both think is a really nice place. It’s in Green Valley, which is right where she wanted to be. It’s relatively small, but it has a very big feel. She’s been there for about a week now and we both love it. Corey has moved with her and Ryan opted to go back to the Bay Area. He left during the weekend.

We’ve been working pretty hard (especially Ryan!) the past couple of weeks to get the house ready to sell, get rid of stuff that isn’t needed and won’t fit in the new place, fix things that needed attention before the handover, and move her things. There’s still some work needed – hanging pictures comes immediately to mind – but she’s basically done. I’m convinced she’ll be as happy with her newly downsized home as I am with mine.

I recently discovered that the Best in the Desert off-road racing organizer is here in Las Vegas. I volunteered to help at the Mint 400 technical inspection a week or so ago. It was a fun but exhausting day. I was basically directing traffic. Every one of the racing trucks came right by me. I love racers! The hand-built tech reminds me a bit of launch vehicles and spacecraft. I’m hoping to get more involved with the BITD people in the future.

And that pretty much brings us up to today. Life is good and filled with love. Just the way I like it.

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: massive maple syrup spill!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s yet another instance of Great Art in the blog’s Great Art section. This particular instance is in Andy’s apartment building in Denver. I’m not quite sure what it is, but I like it. A lot. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken during one of my recent trips to Denver, and part of my Art and Vacation series.

Lots of stuff has been happening this month. Let’s take a look, shall we?

I spent last week in Orlando at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences’ annual conference. We had a booth at the expo Wednesday through Friday, and John spoke at the forensic odontology session on Tuesday. Our software had a few very nice mentions, we had several nice visits at our booth, and we achieved our goals, I believe.

One of our goals was to take over development of a crucial piece of forensic odontology software. We asked for it and we got it! We’re going to upgrade it to web-based form and give that version away. We’ll also roll it into PhotoDoc and hope to attract some more users.

Next year’s AAFS conference location: Las Vegas. Convenient!

Since I was going to Orlando, I decided to tack on a few days at the beginning and the end and do a bit of vacationing. I was already staying with Tony, and Chris lives close by, so there was plenty of company. Joanne came with me the first weekend. We had a great time. We went to Disneyworld on Saturday. The crowds were unbelievable! Turns out it was Presidents’ Day weekend and there were a few more visitors than they might have had on a normal day. Other than barely being able to move, we enjoyed it. Luckily, I didn’t need to swing any cats.

Sunday we went to NASA. It was fun being there again and I really enjoyed showing Joanne around. The crowds were smaller by quite a bit and their displays were much more developed than the last time is was in the visitors’ center.

The weekend after the conference, Chris, Tony, and I went to Universal Studios on Saturday and a neat place called Bok Tower Gardens on Sunday. Universal was a bit more crowded than usual because they were having a Kelly Clarkson concert that evening. We had a great time anyway. As everybody seems to say, the Harry Potter ride was very well done and quite entertaining. I also quite enjoyed Revenge of the Mummy. Highly recommended.

Joanne has decided to sell her house! It went onto the market shortly after I got home and it sold immediately! The appraiser was there today, the earnest money was just deposited, and things are moving quickly toward a closing date in just a few weeks. She’s kind of sorry to let the place go, but I think she’s just about ready to live a bit smaller.

Of course, she can’t have all those kids with her after she downsizes. Desi and Andrea are in Texas helping Andrea’s sick mom and they’ve decided to stay there indefinitely. Ryan’s going to live with his dad in the Bay Area. I don’t know what Tina’s plans and schedule are, but they seem to be in flux. Corey’s staying with his mom when she moves.

We’re cutting back on nights out for a while so Joanne has the time to pack stuff up, find her next place, sell stuff she doesn’t want, and get her house ready for someone else to move into it.

I bought tickets tonight for the Clark County fair and rodeo in April. We’re excited to go. We went to a rodeo in Wyoming some years ago and I’m looking forward to seeing another.

And that’s it for today. Time to sleep. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: massive maple syrup spill!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the last picture of Shannon I could find before her initial hospitalization nearly two years ago. I may have posted it here before. It was taken January 19, 2013 at Longwood Gardens, about one week before we left Langhorne and moved to our home here in Las Vegas. She was perfectly healthy, in excellent spirits, and excited to embark on our new post-retirement life together. A month and a day after this picture was taken, she was diagnosed with leukemia and she began to concentrate nearly all her efforts on trying to stay alive. One year ago this morning, she died.

But she didn’t concentrate 100% of her efforts on cancer; she spent a great deal of them on me and on our family. She loved and cared for me right up until the end. There were a lot of things her doctors told her she shouldn’t do. She avoided nearly all of them. But she did choose to kind of ignore advice that she felt wouldn’t be consistent with her desire to take care of me. Those things she did, and I felt loved and cared for right up until the end. I still feel her love and influence every day. I still love her deeply and think of her every day. I don’t talk about her as much as I used to, but I think of her and miss her and yearn for her. Sometimes I still cry.

Shannon was kind. She gave away her entire life to service, not just to our children and me, but to her large and ever-expanding circle of friends. It seemed like everybody loved her, and I know she loved everybody.

I find it very difficult to believe it’s already been a year. So many things have happened in that short time. She has missed so much. Birthdays, holidays, engagements, happiness, fun, heartbreaks, love, sorrow, daily life. On the other hand, like the cliché goes, it seems like forever. The seasons have all passed, my heart has found room for a new love, I’ve made wonderful new friends, I’ve traveled to some places I’ve never been as well as to several old familiar places, my mother has been diagnosed with cancer and died, I’ve worked some and actually made some sales, I’ve grieved over and over again, and I’ve learned to be happy.

I’ve talked about choosing to live happily here on the blog several times. I’m still trying and I think that’s going well. I don’t think I’m the kind of person who has to make that decision every morning when I get up. I’ve just convinced myself that it’s what I want to do, and I’m doing it. Life is good, life is sweet, life is so, so worth living. Life is continuing without slowing down. I’m doing my best to keep facing forward.

But I miss Shannon. I will never forget her. I will always love her profoundly, deeply, passionately. We went through everything together. She walked by my side for 35 years and she began to love me four years before that. She was my life from the time I was 17 until 56. That’s a long time and a lot of mileage. She remained steadfastly devoted to me every second. She was my advisor, my confidant, my best friend, my sounding board, my lover, my partner, my everything, my wife.

I miss you, Shannon. I will never forget you. I love you.

Here’s an old John Deere tractor that was once used at a winery in Sonoma county. I don’t remember which winery, but I’m guessing they’re not using it anymore. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in Sonoma County, California this past Saturday afternoon, and part of my famous Machinery and Vacation series.

Been a few days since I wrote again. Joanne and I just got back from a lovely weekend in Sonoma valley with Katy and Cliff. We spent Saturday and Sunday exploring the vicinity and visiting some absolutely lovely wineries. Sunday, we got a VIP tour of the Korbel champagne factory that was very thorough and even included a tiny look at their actual machinery and processes, as opposed to the quaint old stuff they normally show you. It was fascinating!

Today was a quiet day. I did a bit of work on PhotoDoc, got a haircut, got preregistered for my upcoming medical procedure (more about that in a moment), did some grocery shopping, and found some time to relax and read too. Much more PhotoDoc stuff to do tomorrow.

My medical procedure. I have reached that special age when an occasional colonoscopy is called for. So I’m scheduled to do it Wednesday morning. Tomorrow will be the tough day with a purely liquid diet and then drinking a couple of doses of the “special” liquid, followed by staying real close to home all evening. They say the procedure itself isn’t bad at all. We expect to be at the outpatient surgical center for about two hours on the fateful day. Mark has agreed to provide my transportation that day.

I still haven’t fixed my quadrotor. My friend Bob loaned me the parts I needed, but I don’t need them now, as the parts I ordered to replace the loaned ones have arrived. The last ones got here today. I might be able to get the work done tomorrow, or I might put it off until Wednesday while I’m at home recuperating. I think we’ll probably go flying again on Thursday, so the pressure’s on.

And that’s about it for tonight. I’ve leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: robot jellyfish!

See you tomorrow.