morrowlife

Here are some folks looking for fish at Lake Chabot. Part of my famous Camping series.

Happy New Year’s Eve! Like most people, I have no idea where the year’s gone. There’s been a little bad. And a whole lot of good. Overall, I can’t complain.

Thanks to Anon for missing yesterday’s post. I was working on Waterlogged until all hours of the night. Didn’t get it done last night, but Loyal Reader Number One and I worked on it again today and got it fixed. Hooray! Everything’s now on Godaddy and I won’t be getting any more intrusion attempts. Larry’s serving video for the loft’s television. Life’s good.

Only five more days before I go back to work and LRN1 heads back to school. And everything and everybody else gets back to normal. I’m kind of looking forward to the “normal” part. But not the “work” part. And definitely not the “LRN1 heads back to school” part.

I have a pretty long list of things I want to get done during the holiday. So far, so okay. I’m a little behind in the “Cleaning Up My Room” department, and not so great in the “working on the cars” department. I’m right up to snuff on the “messing around with computers” department, though. Priorities.

We’re going to the Big Stake Dance this evening. For some reason, our excellent stake president has really wanted it to be a nice event, so he’s had people working on it all year, including several dance practices. Ought to be pretty fancy. If I can stay awake. I’ve been up until all hours of the night nearly every night this vacation, and I’m exhausted tonight. I’ll make it, though. Send me a few encouragement rays, Loyal Readers.

I’ve started reading Bernard Goldberg’s Arrogance. It describes itself as a book about “rescuing America from the media elite.” It’s been a pretty quick read. It was written in 2003, so he misses a lot of material about media malfeasance, especially in the light of the recent election. He’s pretty much right on the money prediction-wise, though. One interesting point he makes, though, is how fast the media will turn on one of their pet liberals when they come into conflict with somebody else higher on the pet liberal ladder. He cites the case of Tammy Bruce, the president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW. She was very popular in her community of like-minded people and a darling of the media. Then she had some harsh words to say about O.J. Simpson’s treatment of his ex-wife, starting with physical abuse while they were married, right up to her murder after their divorce.

The establishment didn’t like that, and they didn’t put up with it for one second. She was ostracized from her previous friends, and she became instant persona non grata with the media. I guess black men are higher up on the pet liberal ladder than white women.

For further evidence, see the case of Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama. She’s still trying to figure out what happened.

Anyway. Entertaining book.

That’s pretty much it for the year. Have a great and safe New Year’s Eve. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Lake Chabot through the trees. Part of my famous Camping series.

Not much to write about today. Work was . . . pretty much as usual. Lots of meetings, little other work. But I enjoyed it. I did go to my first of three luncheons scheduled for this week. The others are tomorrow and Thursday. It was a nice South American restaurant, but the prices were outrageous. I think it was probably my most expensive lunch, other than the one where I had to get a new bumper for my car. I doubt that one will ever be topped. At least I hope not.

I’m delighted to report that somebody has finally publicized my exercise plan. I have a feeling I’ll be in fine form tonight.

In more worrisome news, Steve is staying away from MacWorld. Is he sick? Or just sick of it? Only my Loyal Readers know for sure.

Don’t feel like writing any more tonight. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Two holding a geocache at Anthony Chabot Regional Park. Sadly, the cache turns out to be positioned behind a bush, so we can’t see it. Not my best Great Art. Picture courtesy of the exclusive Treo-cam, and also part of my famous Camping series.

Great news from Loyal Reader Number Three in the job-search department! We think. He called his old employer at the firing range to see if there was any opportunity. They asked him if he had received their letter. He hadn’t. Apparently, they sent him a letter a couple of days ago to see if he was interested in coming back. He’s interested. There are no details until the letter actually arrives, and it may not turn out to be what he thinks it is, but we’re all cautiously optimistic. Best of luck, LRN3!

Okay day at work. I wasn’t supposed to be there today, but we did get the things done that had to be done, so I don’t resent it. Too much.

— Much later —

Had to stop – too many things going on. It’s now nearly 4:00 in the morning and I’m finally just about to go to bed. Yikes.

It all started out when I went to the store with Loyal Reader Number Four and bought a new router. The old one was dying – it crapped out pretty much once a day. It took a little while to get the new one installed. And then my IP address changed. Which killed my websites. Which would have been fine, except that my Dynamic DNS service didn’t work anymore because I had a new router and the script couldn’t find its IP address. Which I couldn’t figure out how to fix.

So I finally bit the bullet and bought hosting on Godaddy. I’ve been thinking about doing that for quite a while. It took quite some time to get the site set back up there, but it’s finally working and I’m going to bed. The remaining sites will move over there tomorrow, after which Larry will live out his life as a testbed. Or something.

No links, no toilet news, no food attack news. Just bed. See you tomorrow.

Here’s the view from near the campground at Anthony Chabot Regional Park. Loyal Reader Number Four and I were commenting on what a pretty little green meadow that was. Loyal Reader Number Two mentioned it looked like a golf course to him. Which it was. Part of my famous Camping series.

Yet another berserk day at work. We made it through our financial audit this morning. The folks interviewing us didn’t seem like they had a specific plan, so we just went through a few things and called it an hour and a half. Then we got a nice (and free) mexican lunch. No complaints.

We have one more audit by videoconference tomorrow. Hopes for success are high.

Talked to Loyal Reader Number Three a couple of times this afternoon. He’s still working on the job search and wanted to talk about the latest edition of his resume. Looks good. Let’s hope it does the trick.

In fact, let’s work on focusing some exclusive Morrowlife concern rays on LRN3’s behalf.

Prayer might be a good idea as well.

No Christmas list yet. I really need to put some work into it. Wait a minute – I know what I’ll do: leave it to my Loyal Readers. What do you think I should have on my Christmas list? Remember, we’re talking about me here, so nothing’s too good. Comments, Loyal Readers?

Todat’s heartwarming holiday tale: Man uses candy cane to fend off attacker. Go, and do thou likewise.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a pretty little building in a pretty little clearing in a beautiful big forest. The fact that it’s a restroom has no bearing on the situation. It’s still Great Art. Picture taken at Anthony Chabot Regional Park. Part of my famous Camping series.

Busy, busy, busy. Worked like a camel, only with less spitting. But the smell was pretty much the same.

But let’s talk about the weekend first, shall we? There were predictions made on Friday, and my Loyal Readers are doubtless on pins and needles to know how it turned out.

First, the not-unexpected bad news: I didn’t work on the rocket launcher. Maybe next weekend. Doggone it.

As discussed previously, the organ recital Friday evening was beautiful, and Loyal Reader Number Two gave a fantastic performance. We received word before we left home that there was a large accident on the freeway that haf traffic backed way up, so we decided to get there on the back roads.

It didn’t work exactly to plan, but we got there, and we got to explore some nice back roads. And plenty of them. If it hadn’t been dark already, there might have been some nice scenery.

Anyway. We picked up Loyal Reader Number Twelve and headed over to the Victorian Christmas Farm. It was decorated nicely, there were a couple of musical groups (including some young girls playing flutes and recorders), there were some Christmas cooking demonstrations, and the requisite vendors were there too.

LRN12 was acting very quiet and standoffish, which was somewhat puzzling. She’s been a little bit ruled by emotions of late, though, so we didn’t get too excited about it and just enjoyed having her with us.

Well. We found out the true cause right as we stepped out of the beautiful Victorian house. LRN12 barfed on the porch. Also herself. And Loyal Reader Number Four. After that, she felt fine and had a nice time. And so did we.

And I forgot my camera. Yet again. I got some acceptable shots with the exclusive Treo-cam, though. They’ll have to do.

Saturday evening was the ward Christmas party. A nice time was had by all. As far as I could tell. I had a nice time, anyway. They didn’t do much. We had a nice ham dinner, listened to a Christmas story, heard a little bit of singing, and went home after visiting with friends for a while. Not bad.

Also spent a few hours looking at new cars. We finally saw one we really liked – the Ford Edge. We drove a nice example and are tempted. There’s a lot of money off, but it’s still too expensive. Don’t know what we’ll end up doing.

Outdoor Christmas lights and setting up the tree were on Saturday’s schedule, but didn’t get done.

Which brings us to Sunday. We got the tree and all the interior decorations up, although as of my departure this morning, the boxes still needed putting away. Still haven’t figured out the outdoor lights.

Otherwise, not a good Sunday for me. I was feeling quite sick all day. Missed church, which featured Christmas songs, which I really enjoy. Some improvement today – thanks for asking.

Forgot to go to the First Presidency fireside. I bet it was nice.

Which brings us to today. Got up at 4:00 and worked eleven and a half hours. Which was too much.

Tonight’s calendar calls for Christmas cards to be done at Home Evening. Might be a long night.

Today’s toilet news: Japan is in trouble.

And so, in conclusion, I offer a great job opportunity for Loyal Readers Numbers One and Three (and really pretty much every Loyal Reader out there): Hotdogger.

See you tomorrow.