morrowlife

Here’s a tender just leaving our ship, which was anchored off Maui at the time.  We were heading back in at the time.  The apparently very junior officer steering our tender had quite a difficult time pulling us up to the ship.  Took him several tries.  We gave him an appropriate amount of grief, of course.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone 4S-cam and part of my famous Machinery and Vacation series.

Pretty good week.  Busy, busy, busy.  Getting ready for the big events that start this weekend.

That’s right, folks, we’re movin’ on down the road again.  We’ve been here in Lardville for more than five years now and have loved it, but it’s time for another change.  This one is just temporary, though.  I’ve been invited to take a six-month (or a little longer, depending on who you ask) assignment back in Newtown, Pennsylvania.  Astute readers will recall that that’s where we lived just before we came here.  Well, okay, we were actually in Doylestown, which is about half an hour away from Newtown, but my office was in Newtown.  And that’s where we’re going to be too.  No more two hour commute each way.  Our goal is five minutes this time, but we’ll accept ten minutes in a pinch.  We don’t know exactly where we’ll be living yet, but there are several candidates already on the list, and I’m sure we’ll find more with just a tiny bit of looking, if necessary.

LRN4 and I are really excited about the move, including the fact that it’s just temporary.  We absolutely loved Bucks County when we lived there before and expect to love it again.  We expect to live in an apartment or a townhouse, with no gardening to do, no trees to trim and spray, no foliage to cut back, no lawn to mow and trim, no pool and pond to take care of, no broken appliances to fix, and almost no cleaning to do.  We hope to do a bit of traveling around, both locally and a bit more distant, on weekends and generally enjoy ourselves.  Also get ready for my post-retirement career and living in a much smaller place.

There are lots of things we’ll miss about Lardville, and there are also many I’ll miss about my old job.  However, that program is ending and everything is going to change anyway.  There is almost nothing I’ll miss about spending four hours a day either on crowded trains or waiting on crowded train platforms.  We’ll certainly miss the ward and our many friends.  However, we’re coming back after the assignment is over, at least for a short time, so we don’t have to spend too much time crying about it.

While we’re gone, we’re going to see about selling our house and moving into a smaller place here.  If it sells while we’re out there, we’ll come back (or probably just send LRN4 back, to be perfectly realistic about it) and move our stuff into an apartment or someplace.  I have no idea whether it will go in that period of time or not, but our realtor friend seems to think it’s a possibility.  Stay tuned.  I’ll miss this place, but I’ve missed all of our other houses too and lived to tell the tale.

Anyway, I’m going to Newtown by myself for two weeks to start the job and coming home on the weekends.  I’ll go to work in Sunnyvale the week of December 19 to clean out my office, finish my people’s performance appraisals, tie up any loose ends, and be done there for the next several months.  I also need to bring donuts to work that Wednesday, go out to lunch with friends again, go to the Dave Koz concert in Modesto that Wednesday, go to the dentist’s office that Thursday, and get ready for Christmas all week long.

Playing golf tomorrow morning with my friends Doug, Rob, and John.  Need to clean the pool and pond.  Also need to hire lawn and pool care services for while we’re gone.  Need to go through more stuff (we’ve been making that our chief hobby lately) and either sell, give away, or throw away a whole bunch of it.  Also need to pack for Newtown.  Also need to change a lightbulb and, as mentioned above, go through a bunch of junk.

Tried to sell my beloved Honda at work this week, but there just wasn’t enough time to get any bites.  That means LRN4 will give it her best shot while I’m in Newtown this month.  Sell, sell, sell, LRN4!  She’s the best salesperson in the family, so I know she’ll get it done.  I just hope she gets a bunch of money for it.  I certainly enjoyed that car, but I’ve enjoyed a lot of other cars too and lived to tell the tale.

Anyway.  Time for bed.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: intelligent poop-throwing chimp!  LRN3 already has his application in.

See you on Monday.  From Pennsylvania!

Here’s an old gasoline tanker.  Absolutely beautiful.  Great Art taken at the Henry Ford Museum and part of my famous Machinery and Vacation series.

Well.  It’s been a long time again, hasn’t it?  LRN4 correctly pointed this out in a comment today, so I thought I’d make a bit of an update.  There are actually a few things to talk about, too!

Let’s start with this past weekend, shall we?  LRN4 and I used our Groupon to stay Friday night at the bed and breakfast in Auburn, which is a very old gold mining town about 45 minutes east of Sacramento.  The place was nice and the people were very friendly and helpful.  We enjoyed it.  Saw a bunch of the town.  The old town area had a bunch of nice old buildings, a few small but interesting museums, and some other nice stuff. We did a bit of exploring on Friday afternoon, spent a nice evening and night at the hotel, got a very good breakfast, and spent a bunch of time in old town on Saturday morning.  We were done by about noon and were thoroughly hot and sweaty by then.

Hiked back up to the car and left for Sacramento to look at a few cars for LRN4.  Did I already mention we’re selling the Suburban to LRN3?  Well, we are.  That means I needed another car at the office.  My beloved Honda took that spot.  That means I needed another car at home.  The Taurus fills that bill nicely.  That means LRN4 needed another car.  So we went to look.

Drove a couple of Fiat 500s.  I have to say I was very favorably impressed!  The cars are way cute, very well-equipped, and all kinds of good things.  There’s just one problem – they have no power.  None.  Utter dogs.  Still, we came this close to buying one, and I think we would have been happy with it.  However, we decided to just drive down the block a couple of miles and check out the Mini Coopers, which LRN4 has been dreaming about for years.  They brought one out for us to test drive that was her favorite color and had just about everything she wanted on it.  One drive was enough to convince both of us and we bought it on the spot.  Got home with it at about 6:00, completely exhausted but happy.

That car flies!  LRN4 is worried about getting speeding tickets in it.  You start it moving and, before you know it, you’re way over the speed limit.  The handling is outstanding, it has automatic everything, navigation, bluetooth, Sirius, voice commands, automatic temperature control, and a whole bunch more stuff.  Not to mention traction and stability control and just about every other kind of “control” the nice folks at BMW can invent.  I love it.

Moving up to today, it’s LRN2’s eighteenth birthday!  Happy birthday. LRN2!  We’re celebrating on Saturday, which is convenient because that’s when he’ll be home.  I’m really excited to see him.

Moving up to tomorrow, LRN3 is coming!  LRN4 picks him up at the airport mid-morning.  We’re excited about his visit too.  The house will be full for a couple of weeks.  Fun, fun, fun!

But it’s time for bed now, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: therapy kangaroo!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the steam train at Greenfield Village.  I don’t know why I love steam locomotives so much.  They’re just cool.  Great Art courtesy of my good old Minolta camera and part of my famous Train, Machinery and Vacation series.  A very rare Morrowlife trifecta.

Extreme Short Shrift tonight.  It’s late.  The missionaries came over tonight to get some help with a presentation they’re making to the Relief Society on Thursday evening about mormon.org.  That website has gotten quite good – I recommend my Loyal Readers check it out.

Sadly, my thousandth post has gone unnoticed and uncommented by my Loyal Readers.  Sigh.  I guess I’m just not posting often enough for anybody to think to read the blog anymore.  I have nobody to blame but myself, I guess.  Don’t know if I should really keep this up anymore.  Maybe Facebook and/or Google+ are the places to be these days.

Speaking of Google+, LRN5 gave me an invitation the other day, so I have an account there now.  Not many people yet – it’s going to take a LOOOOONG time to catch up with Facebook.  However, Facebook caught up with and utterly smashed MySpace, so it’s still anybody’s game.  Google doesn’t always win these wars, but they have a fairly decent track record.  Things I like about Google+: Circles.  You can choose which of your friends can see which messages.  Keep family separate from friends separate from work separate from hobbies separate from whatever other weird things you do.  Yeah, I know Facebook can do that too, sort of.  But it’s really easy with Google+.  Let’s see, what else do I like about it?  I don’t know.  Haven’t used it that much yet.  But it’s pretty much like a very barren Facebook.  It’ll grow.

Things I don’t know about Google+:  Not having achieved critical mass yet.  Time will tell.

Okay, that’s it for tonight.  Busy week ahead, followed by a busy weekend.  Oh, we’re going to a little seminar on Saturday for people interested in starting their own businesses.  I’m really excited about it, although I’m a bit worried I’ll find out I don’t really want to make the sacrifices necessary to build business up.  I’ll let you know!

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: neutralized fruit basket!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the business end of a beautiful Packard in the Henry Ford Museum.  Ask the man who owns one.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Machinery and Vacation series.

Extreme short shrift.  It’s already late, but I haven’t blogged in several days (yet again), so I need to at least make a token appearance.

Good weekend.  Didn’t do much.  Worked on the yard a bit, washed the pickup (my leaf blower broke a fuel line on Friday and some fuel/oil mixture got into the pickup bed when I took it to the shop, so it needed to be washed – besides, it was dirty anyway), prepared a Priesthood lesson, swam a bunch in the nice warm pool, read, napped, and generally enjoyed myself.

Wow.  That’s all I’ve been doing.  Sheesh.  LRN1 continues to do well in Guatemala as he goes about doing good.  LRN2’s having a great time at school and work, LRN3 is making excellent progress, LRN4 is fine as always, and LRN5 is doing very well too.  So the Loyal Readers are great.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: cottage cheese assault!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a kiln.  A relatively large one.  Great Art taken at Greenfield Village during our recent trip to Michigan and part of both my famous Machinery and Vacation series.

Off Friday.  Good day.  Worked a bit on the pool and pond while LRN4 trimmed plants and did some lawn work.  Nice warm day, but not murderously hot like the last few days.  Nothing to complain about.

Let’s see, what else did we do?  Oh yeah, we practice our golf swings a bit.  LRN4’s getting it.  I’m quite certain that if she practices even a little bit, she’ll end up way better than me.  We also went to the store to exchange a shirt she recently bought that was a bit more roomy than needed.  I also got a new pair of flip-flops.  They had originally been $20, but they were on sale for $10.  LRN4 had a $5 off coupon and a 15% off coupon.  They ended up costing $4.63 or something like that.  Naturally, we were at Kohl’s.  Anybody who pays full price for anything there is making a mistake.

Great news from Provo!  LRN2’s computer came back to him this evening!  It turns out that it really was a case of mistaken backpack identity.  We’re all greatly relieved and convinced that there aren’t many places other than BYU where that would have worked out.  He’s planning to put his name/address/phone on a card in the backpack, and he’ll probably use one of the lockers at the cafeteria in the future, more to keep it hidden than to prevent crime.  Which still does occasionally exist there in the Happy Valley.

Anyway.  We’re really glad for him.  In other good LRN2 news, he had a great second day at work.  He’s working on setting up a bunch of new computers and routing some new ethernet cables.  Sounds like fun.  Definitely more fun than food service and janitorial work combined.

We’re getting all our ducks in a row for LRN4’s vacation-house-hunting trip to Las Vegas the week after next.  We’ve gotten financing approved and have our down payment money ready to go (huge down payments are required for second homes and condos and places in Nevada, so you can imagine how much we’re having to come up with – yikes!).  Now all we need is to find an outstanding place there within our admittedly miniscule price range.  Our niece Marcie has kindly contributed her real estate agent along with a few good leads, and now it’s up to LRN4 to find it.  Should be no problem.  Our family there seems pretty excited about trying to attract us out there.  We’re pretty excited about it too.

That’s it for tonight.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: watermelon dispute!

See you Monday.