morrowlife

Here’s another picture Shannon didn’t want me to share on the blog. This one was taken aboard our ship during our East Coast cruise in September 2012. I think she captured the artist’s mood exactly, don’t you? Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Shannon, Cruise, Statue, and Vacation series.

No post yesterday – sorry about that. I was out until pretty late in the evening and just didn’t have the energy to write. But yesterday was a very enjoyable day and everything went well.

Today was enjoyable too! I worked on the website again and got a preliminary version of the conference registration working. It still doesn’t allow you to pay (which I think is a fairly important aspect of the thing), but I think I figured out how to make that happen just moments before I stopped work to go out to dinner. So tomorrow or Monday.

Lots going on over the weekend. Mark and I are marching in the parade in the morning and then I’m going to a meetup luncheon at a Thai restaurant mid-day. Then there’s a meetup family picnic on Sunday afternoon and a few other things sprinkled in there too. It’s going to be busy and it’s going to be enjoyable. This has been a very good week.

Extremely strong winds today, continuing into tonight. I’m hoping it eases up a bit before picnic time rolls around. It might be a bit awkward chasing our hamburgers and watermelon slices all over the park.

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

See you on Monday.

Here are Shannon, Andy, and Mark at Andy’s first college dorm. I believe we were dropping Andy off at school for the first time. Great Art courtesy of my old Olympus digital camera and part of my exclusive Shannon series.

That was an interesting trip. We did a little sightseeing before we went to school to drop Andy off. As soon as we got him settled in his room, though, he pretty much said goodbye and was done with us. So we left. I understand completely. I was really excited to get to school way back when and wanted to start meeting people and exploring.

Pretty good day today. I went live with the new PhotoDoc site this afternoon. I still don’t have the conference registration feature working, but I kind of have a placeholder and I think I can get it set up tomorrow. There’s also a bunch of beautification that has to be done, but it doesn’t keep the new site from being functional. And the old site was so bad that this is already a big improvement, I think. My Loyal Readers are welcome to have a look and tell me what they think.

I’m a little worried about telling my Loyal Readers about another thing that’s been going on, but I think it’ll be okay. As desperately as I miss Shannon and as deeply in love with her as I was, still am, and will always be, I’m already feeling lonely. I’ve been tending that loneliness by attending meetup.com groups. I’ve really enjoyed the sushi group. I like the format of a small group at dinner together. There’s great conversation, great food, and lots of fun. The 40+ Singles group has some nice people, but their events tend to be large groups in noisy places, which just isn’t my style. I attended another of their events this afternoon and just didn’t enjoy it much.

The problem is that the group meetings don’t really satisfy my desire for one-on-one time with the fair sex. I love having somebody just to talk to and do things with. Mark’s fine as far as he goes, but it’s just not the same. So I decided to see if I could generate some interest by signing up on a couple of free dating apps. Huge step. I sent out several feelers to some women in my general age group who seemed normal, nice, and attractive, hoping to get maybe one or two positive responses. I’ve gotten a few so far. I’ve met a couple and discovered that there are normal, attractive, happy, well-adjusted ladies who might find me attractive too. I’m delighted and enjoying myself immensely.

Are you shocked, Loyal Readers? Is it too soon? It feels right to me and I don’t think it’s disrespectful or degrading to the love Shannon and I shared or to her memory. She asked me to move forward happily and without guilt. So that’s what I’m doing. Let me know if I’m out of line.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: apple fritter stabbing!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and Mark in front of a warming hut somewhere out in the woods in the Sierra Nevada. It was closed that day. I don’t think anybody needed warming up in August. Great Art courtesy of my old Olympus camera and part of my famous Shannon, Architecture, Camping, Hiking, and Vacation series.

It’s not too often that I find a picture that fits into five different famous series. Also, I’m pretty sure that picture was used before. But I don’t care. I like it, and I’m still working on my informal Arm Around Mom series. My Loyal Readers are invited to enjoy it.

Pretty good day today. I didn’t really get any work done. I got busy talking to folks on the phone and via email, and in the afternoon I helped Mark put together his new computer. It’s fully operational now and I’m not sure if I’ll ever see him again. My one significant bit of work was going to lunch with a lady I recently met who is a longtime software marketer. She gave me all sorts of good ideas and advice. Plus, the lunch was pretty good. So there’s that.

And there’s really nothing else to discuss tonight, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: peanut butter assault!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and Andy at Ellis Island in March 2012. We went and saw the Statue of Liberty that day also. I think the visit to Ellis Island was by far the more interesting of the two. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken on Ellis Island, and part of my famous Shannon and Architecture series.

As usual, I’ve waited until way too late to start writing today’s post. So I guess it’ll be Extreme Short Shrift again.

Had a good weekend. Ken and I worked on the pickup on Saturday morning. And this time, we actually worked on it! We took brackets off the engine, cleaned them up, and painted them. Next time we get together, I suspect we’ll put them back on the engine. Progress!

Sunday, we went to Ken and Melanie’s daughter’s husband’s parents’ house for Easter dinner. We had a very nice time. I had met them once before and they were very welcoming. There were probably about 20-25 people there and we had a great time. I even played a little bocce ball.

We had been asked to bring a dessert and I was puzzling about what to do. As it turns out, I went to a sushi group dinner on Friday night and the guy sitting next to me was a pastry chef. He suggested a buy some of those fancy cupcakes. On Saturday, Ken and I ran over to the fancy cupcake store and I bought a dozen. They were popular and delicious. They were probably popular because they were delicious, come to think of it. So I guess I did well that time.

Got some really good work done today on the new website. I finally found an e-commerce plugin for WordPress that will actually work. Now I have to get the backend link to PayPal working. I think that’ll happen tomorrow.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: sandwich-caused flight delay!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and Andy at The Inn On the Park in New York City’s Central Park. As you can see, it was a bit of a chilly day and they were huddling together to stay warm. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Shannon, Architecture, and Garden series.

Extremely Short Shrift tonight. It’s very, very late.

Mark ordered the parts for his new computer today. He’s really excited to get everything and put it together. I’m excited for him.

I tried to go to another 40+ Singles happy hour event this afternoon, but I had been feeling kind of sick for a couple hours. I went as far as driving nearly all the way over there when I decided it was a bad idea. So I came home. I’m not really sorry – there were going to be a whole lot of people there for this one and I enjoy the really crowded events much less than small ones. I’m still planning to go to the sushi event tomorrow night, of course.

Got some good work done, but not enough. There’s always tomorrow.

And I need to go to bed. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: France-invading giant multi-colored slug!

See you tomorrow.