morrowlife

Here’s the view from another of our Clark’s Fork geocache locations. This was on an old depression-era highway bridge. The bridge has been replaced by a bigger, better one, which is about three feet away. The old one is still cool-looking and the view of the river underneath is spectacular. As you can see. Part of my Camping series.

Nice day. I worked on our hostess’s laptop computer this morning – it wouldn’t boot and hadn’t ever been connected to their home network. I reinstalled the operating system from its secret partition and have been working on getting it set up ever since. It’s been trying to download Service Pack 2 for the past hour or more. I have no idea how much more time it’ll need. There are probably numerous updates to install after that, too. Good thing we’re here all week.

I also ran the PC Decrapifier on it. It worked pretty well at getting rid of the pre-installed junk. Highly recommended.

Anyway. I was finally persuaded to put the computer aside for a little while and go do a little siteseeing. We went to the Church Museum of History, Temple Square, and the Conference Center. There was a poorly-attended organ concert in the Conference Center – there were probably about twenty people there. The church’s organists do two performances daily, and have for many years. They’re now doing one in the Tabernacle and one in the Conference Center, which is the one we attended. Highly recommended. We stopped inside the Tabernacle for the first time since its recent renovation. It looks about the same as before, but better. The General Authority seats and podium are missing and have been replaced by a stage, but I assume they’re portable and can be brought back in when needed.

The museum was very nice, as always. It was lightly attended too. I guess the prime summer tourist season is over at this point. Anyway, we had seen most of the exhibits before, but I particularly enjoyed the small American Indian collection, the exhibits of Tabernacle artifacts, the collection of Temple Square photographs, and the Presidents of the Church exhibits. They had an exact copy of the podium in the Conference Center, made from President Hinckley’s walnut tree like the original.

And I forgot my camera, so there’s no new Great Art. Don’t panic, Loyal Readers. I’ll get some tomorrow. And the day after. But I missed some wonderful opportunities. I did shoot a couple of pictures on the exclusive, low-resolution RAZR-cam. They’ll have to wait until we get home, though – I don’t have the right cable for it here and this computer doesn’t speak Bluetooth.

We have a new Loyal Reader! A casual look over there on the right will reveal that Austin has signed on to the Morrowlifestyle. Welcome, Loyal Reader Number Twenty-Seven! As soon as I take his picture, he’ll have his own Very Special Day.

Here’s some good news for egg lovers – we can eat them every day without feeling guilty! Happy days are here again!

Loyal Reader Number One checks in to college tomorrow. Exciting day for him! I’m really going to miss having him at home, but we’re all really excited for his new adventure. And things aren’t like they were when I first went away to college. Email is immediate and long distance phone calls are free. Big difference right there.

Later in the week, we’re hoping to hit a Church Distribution Center and visit the This Is The Place monument. We also have some old friends from Virginia to visit. Well, at least Loyal Reader Number Four does. I don’t think I’m invited to the party. Harumph.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number One at Clark’s Fork last week. Special low-res picture courtesy of the exclusive RAZR-cam. Part of my Camping series.

Greetings from Draper, Utah! We got here this afternoon after a smooth, quick trip. The truck ran perfectly, the weather was great with the possible exception of a fairly stiff breeze, and we enjoyed being together.

The Utah branch of the family is doing well. We’ve been enjoying chatting all evening. They should really be in bed by now, but that’s not my problem, is it?

Had a great campout this weekend. As discussed earlier, we went to Clark’s Fork again. What a beautiful place! It’s in the Sierra Nevada just a little more than two hours away from home, up above 7,000 feet, and north of Yosemite. There’s a pretty little river that runs through it. And lots of spectacular mountains. Wow.

Today’s controversy: Are you pro- or anti-nun-beauty-pageant?

The fun continues, so the bloggage must stop for the night. Much more tomorrow.

See you then.

Here’s a river. Picture taken . . . umm . . . somewhere in California. It was certainly a beautiful place, wherever it was. Part of my Camping series.

How nice to hear from Loyal Reader Number Sixteen yesterday. It was the Great Art that did the trick, as usual.

Bought a truck today. It’s a 2001 Ford Ranger (link note: this isn’t the actual truck, but it looks just like this one). It’s an extended cab XLT with all the normal power stuff (windows, locks, mirrors, etc.). It has the 3.0 liter engine with automatic transmission. Not much power – 150 ponies – but it’ll be okay. It’s in great – though not perfect – shape and was an absolute steal. I’m planning to pick it up tomorrow. It will stay in Sunnyvale and be my station car. It can come home when a pickup is needed, of course.

The Taurus is going to Loyal Reader Number Three, if he wants it and will come get it. He’ll decide within a few days, I expect. Otherwise, it will probably go as a gift to our non-Loyal-Reader friends here in Lardville. If they want it. Otherwise, we’ll sell it or something. Loyal Reader Number One might be slightly sad to see his first car go, but he has indicated he expects the trauma to be slight. I remember being delighted to get my first car (link warning – very hard to hear commercial audio) and even more delighted to see it go.

Today’s controversy: Who could have seen this coming? My answer: Me. And you. And just about every other living being, including plants. But not the press. By the way, didn’t somebody already ‘fess up on his deathbed to making up the whole Sasquatch thing? Of course, Yetis are a completely different story. They’re totally true.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s one of my favorite campsites of all time. Sadly, it’s not actually out-of-doors; it’s in the Henry Ford Museum. That certainly doesn’t diminish its coolness, though. I’m thinking of getting one of those Camp Wahoo signs for our trailer. This picture may also get posted on the HRVA.

Nothing to talk about today. Worked hard and came home. I’m spending the next two days in a training class. I’m not really looking forward to it, but managers have to go, so I might as well get it out of the way.

No controversies today either. I will note in passing that the Associated Press has apparently decided to declare Mr. Obama the winner of the Democrat nomination race, and everybody else on their side has piled onto that bandwagon. I’m not sure who appointed the AP as their nominating committee, but I suppose they’re as legitimate (and as closely tied in) as anybody else. I see Mr. Obama as being every bit as serious a candidate as George McGovern and Michael Dukakis. Best of luck to him on that.

But no controversies here. Oh, I will also mention that some people seem to be glad to see Mrs. Clinton go.

No controversies, though.

See you tomorrow.

Here are a couple of guys surfing at Big Sur. Taken during this year’s spring campout there, of course.

No post last Friday. I don’t know why. Thanks for noticing, Anon.

Okay weekend. We enjoyed Loyal Reader Number Four’s birthday (link warning: birthday song) on Saturday. Loyal Reader Number Two went to the beach that day with about 175 of his friends. They (and he) had a great time.

Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve came over on Saturday morning and stayed until very early this morning. They were here for LRN4’s birthday, as well as to escape the heat in their non-air-conditioned apartment.

And the weekend was certainly a scorcher. It was over 100 degrees every day. The upside was that the pool was plenty warm for swimming, which we did a few times. Very enjoyable.

LRN4 and I went to an adult activity at church on Friday night. We tasted The Foods of Many Nations. Several of which were good. Then we listened to a little live entertainment – singers, a flautist, a ukelele player, and a poet. All of which were great. I especially enjoyed the ukelele player. He sang some delightful Hawaiian songs, his wife did a little hula-ing, and his ukelele was electric! Very cool.

Anyway. I accomplished nothing. The weekend was about relaxation.

Oh, I did do some work on getting Larry to serve email and particularly the Mailman list server. My hosting service’s many service outages have finally broken the camel’s back. I’m dumping them forever. Real Soon Now. Since GoDaddy doesn’t do mail lists, I have to host the McCulloch family mail list myself. I think I have a mail server and Mailman both working now, but I have no idea how to use them. Need to do a little more studying and hacking. No problem.

Time for bed already. See you tomorrow.