morrowlife

Here’s LRN4 in front of a really cool two-story bandstand we found in Canada.  The band sits in the top story and fish and beavers live in the bottom store.  Or whatever lives in a fountain.  Plankton?  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken during our 2012 cruise to Maine and Canada, and part of my famous Cruise, Vacation, and Statue series.  Isn’t that a statue there in the middle of the fountain?

Lots going on around here.  LRN4’s still in the hospital.  Sadly, her first round of chemotherapy didn’t result in remission.  Her blast cells were reduced from 100% down to 7-14%, but that’s still not good enough.  Even more sadly, she has what’s know as the FLT3 mutation.  That’s just about the worst thing you can have, so she definitely needs a bone marrow transplant.  They’ve made all the arrangements for her transfer to City of Hope in Duarte, California and we expect to go sometime in the next couple of days.  We’re pretty much in a holding pattern here at this point – they don’t want to start the next round of chemo until after the transfer, since that would stick us here for a month, so LRN4’s just getting pumped full of antibiotics, platelets, and hemoglobin and we’re spending our time keeping our strength and spirits up.  I imagine we’ll get very busy when we get to California.

LRN2 started his job on Monday.  He reports that he’s spending most of his time learning company policies and a little bit of technical information about the job.  He discovered to his horror today that they’re not allowed to bring computers, cell phones, or other electronics to work, and that their work computers are locked down pretty tight.  We gave him the bad news that locked down computers are the rule in the workplace these days.  You have to mess around with your own machine on your own time.  Hopefully, he’ll get used to that real soon now.

LRN2 also bought a car a few days ago, so he can actually get to work!  He got a 2002 Ford Escort ZX2.  He wanted a small, reliable car; this one is definitely small and hopefully reliable.  Time will tell!

That’s about it.  LRN4 consumes my life right now.  We’re in a fight for her life and we intend to win.

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this combination shocking food violence news and exciting Morrowlife employment agency job opportunity: garlic-bread-stealing, mugging fox!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s our newly-installed back yard.  We’re really happy with the way it turned out – practically zero maintenance and it’s going to be a beautiful place to spend time and entertain.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Statue and Las Vegas series.  Note the cool turtle statue LRN5 gave us a few years back.  He fits right in here!

Been at the hospital with LRN4 every day.  She’s doing exceptionally well, getting lots of exercise, looking and feeling better just about every day, and generally wishing this whole mess were over and she could go home.  We’re likely to actually go home in about 10 days, which isn’t way too much.  It’s just too much.

LRN1 and LRN2 were here for the weekend.  We had a great visit, they enjoyed their visit with LRN4, as did she, and we sent them back to Provo with a 5×8 U-Haul trailer full of LRN2’s worldly belongings.  I really enjoyed their visit and was very sorry to see them go.  But at least I now have an empty exercise room, into which I’ve been transferring LRN4’s numerous exercise gadgets and gizmos.  When we have visitors in the future, they’ll have to make do with our one guest room and a blow-up mattress in that room.  But at least LRN2 has a place to sleep in his new apartment!

That’s right, LRN2 has moved into his new place.  Both he and LRN1 report that it’s very nice.  It’s a two-bedroom place with a single roommate.  I think he’s just subleasing the room to LRN2, in fact.  His roommate is an older guy who has been through a divorce and will have his three kids over to visit occasionally, so LRN2 will have some youthful company from time to time.  He ought to enjoy that.  He starts his new job in six days now.  He’s frantically searching for a car so he can get back and forth to the job.  Hopefully, that search will bear fruit in the next day or so.  Happy hunting, LRN2!

My latest [amazon asin=B001FA1NK0&text=Apple TV] has been acting very strangely lately – it’s playing video just fine, but reboots every two minutes when it’s not playing anything.  Very annoying.  It’s being retired to my office for further testing and evaluation, and I’ve ordered a new [amazon asin=B00BGGDVOO&text=Roku 3] to take its place.  It was a bit of a stretch not to buy another [amazon asin=B007I5JT4S&text=Apple TV], since I’m such a fanboy, but I’ve read excellent reviews on the new Roku and I’m excited to try it out.  I used the gift card my colleagues gave me at my retirement luncheon in California a few weeks ago, so it cost me nothing!  Well, nothing but 27+ years of hard labor, but I was also compensated for that in other ways.

And that’s about it for tonight.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: crime-fighting staring goat!

See you tomorrow.

Here are a few of the fountains at Longwood Gardens.  Great Art taken last summer courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Statue series.  Seriously, I’m sure there’s a statue in there somewhere.

Speaking of beautiful botanic gardens, we went to the Springs Preserve over the weekend to check out their more desert-related landscaping there.  Not quite the spectacle that Longwood Gardens is, but it’s nice.  We bought a membership and plan to go back several times.  There are hiking trails, sample desert gardens, and lots of classes on how to make your yard here beautiful.  Recommended.

Speaking of which.  The big news: we’ve ordered the backyard landscaping!  Also the backyard hot tub!  It’s going to be great!  They start work in a week or two.  We’re getting pavers, rocks (regular and river!), trees (including the lemon tree I wanted and the palo verde tree LRN4 wanted!), bushes, cacti (including a fencepost AND a few barrels!), walls, lights (up-facing AND down-facing!), raised beds, a watering system, and … wait for it … four (count ’em – four!) boulders!

We already submitted our proposal to the HOA and Gabriel the Landscaping Guy is ordering stuff.  Also, we ordered the hot tub today.  Yea for us!  Come hang out in our backyard in a few weeks, Loyal Readers!

Actually, I’m not quite sure how we’re going to fit all that cool stuff into our teeny tiny yard.  But if anyone can do it, Gabriel can.  I’m pretty sure of that.  Oh, and we only went about 20% over our total house fixing-up budget.  Which is pretty good when you get right down to it.  So I don’t feel bad about that at all.

On the negative side, my Beloved Pickup is in the truck hospital.  We went to get it smogged to get Nevada plates on it, and it picked that time to turn on its Check Engine light.  Sigh.  So my non-loyal-reader brother-in-law gave me the name of his shop.  I called them and they said to come right over, seeing as how it was a Beloved Pickup Emergency.  Haven’t heard back from them yet.  Cross your fingers for my Beloved Pickup, Loyal Readers.  Also for my checking account.

On the positive side, LRN4 and I now have Nevada Driver’s licenses, my car now has Nevada license plates, and I now have both Nevada and Clark County business licenses.  My business can now officially do business!  More to the point, my business can now make money!  Now to actually do it…

I’m making a tiny bit of progress along those lines too.  I’ve decided to take a stab at creating a few little Windows programs, for which I’m busily educating myself.  It’ll take a little while longer before I’m completely comfortable with Visual Studio, but I’m getting there.  It’s looking like it’ll be a reasonable transition from Objective C and Xcode to C++ and Visual Studio.

In the meantime, my existing plans to work on iOS and Android software are also moving forward.  In the good news part of that equation, my little Morse Trainer app finally seems to be catching some people’s attention.  In the bad news part of that equation, the app is free.  Still, there ought to be a way to build on that little bit of momentum and find a way to monetize my participation in the morse code community while still contributing valuable free content.  Just need to work on that a bit.

The best news of the day is that LRN4’s nasty case of strep throat appears to be marginally better.  On the bad side, she’s been taking the penicillin since Saturday and she’s not as improved as we expected.  So we’re only cautiously optimistic at best.  She’s really had a tough time of it.  Get well soon, LRN4!

We’re less than a month away from our cruise to Hawaii!  I’m looking forward to being at sea again and to seeing our friends Doug and Connie from California.  Can’t wait for the fun to start!

Made a few exotic purchases at Amazon today.  Check out these [amazon asin=B009OWLPM2&text=sporting goods]!  And these fantastic [amazon asin=B001F4TVD2&text=home furnishing accessories]! What a glamorous life I lead.

And it’s just about bedtime, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: gingerbread house arson!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a statue of some beavers.  In the middle of a fountain.  Somewhere in Canada.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Statue and Cruise series.

Lots going on.  Biggest thing first – our stay in Pennsylvania is almost over!  We’re scheduled to fly back to San Francisco one week from today.  We’ll stay with LRN5 the rest of that day and Saturday and then head for Las Vegas on Sunday morning.  I’ll work remotely from Las Vegas  on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  Then I fly back to California Wednesday night, go to work in Sunnyvale on Thursday to check out of the company and have lunch with friends, and fly back on Thursday evening as a free man.

That’s right, I’m leaving the giant aerospace company after more than 27 years.  It’s been my dream to retire early and start working on iPhone programming for fun and profit, and it looks like I’ll be living the dream very soon.  The best part is that all signs are pointing to a layoff for me.  That’s a great thing because it means I receive a nice little going away present of more than six months’ worth of salary.  Quite a nice sendoff.

While we’re in California, we’ll stop in Lardville long enough to pick up the Taurus and LRN4’s new pair of glasses and then say goodbye to our little town forever.  It was a pretty good place to live, but we’re excited to be moving on.  Las Vegas is a pretty good place to live too, I’m led to believe.

Lots of things still have to happen before we can leave, of course.  They’re coming on Wednesday to pack us and then they load us on Thursday.  LRN4’s car is being picked up on Wednesday.  We move out of the apartment and into the Residence Inn for a night on Thursday and get up early Friday morning to head for the airport.  In the meantime, I have pretty full days planned at work Monday through Thursday, so LRN4 will have to boss the workers around all week on her own.

And that’s pretty much where we are right now.  We spent part of the day today going through the closets and various electronics and generally getting things ready to be packed.  I still need to unwire all the computers and televisions, but I’m waiting until Monday and Tuesday evenings to get that done.  Also need to make a packing list, check it twice, and pack my bags.  I can’t wait!

And that’s about it for tonight.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: apple-pie-bomb bank robbery!

See you tomorrow

Here’s a seasonally-appropriate statue – Baby Jesus and his mother.  Maybe a bit less festive than other Christmas-themed statues, but appropriate nonetheless.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at Bryn Athyn, and part of my famous Statue series.

Merry Christmas!  We had a very nice, quiet day here at home.  Slept in (I love having older kids!), had a nice breakfast, exchanged some gifts, and just kind of lazed around the rest of the day.  I received a nice [amazon asin=B0042Z55RM&text=3 terabyte hard drive] to replace my prematurely dying [amazon asin=B001FWCB7C&text=Seagate] 1.5 TB drive (it has the dreaded click of death – a very common problem for this particular drive; Seagate, you’re on my naughty list!).  There were about 500 GB of data on the old drive.  I tried just dragging everything from one drive to the other, but it died pretty quickly and started death-clicking profusely.  Did a little online reading and turned the drive on its side and turned my fan on it and it stopped clicking after a few minutes – for me, the problem appears to be heat-related.  Still won’t copy everything at once, though, so I’m doing it a folder at a time.  It has taken me the better part of the day, but I’m optimistic I’ll get everything copied before the drive dies.  Then I’ll erase the old drive and use it for hideous disk-drive-related experiments until it’s completely dead.  That’s just how I roll.

I also received a neat0 new [amazon asin=B004OA6VZ0&text=iHome alarm clock] from LRN1.  It has all the cool features of my old [amazon asin=B0026P3CHA&text=Memorex] alarm clock (alarms stay set every day, remote control, etc.) but without the Memorex’s short lifespan.  I love it!  It will work with my iPhone or my iPad, which is cool.  The sound is way better than the one it replaced (also an [amazon asin=B004I8WH7O&text=iHome], but an older one) and it’s just generally spiffy.  Much appreciated.

Also received some nice new clothes.  I’m wearing my new [amazon asin=B009L7ZU4Y&text=flannel shirt] right now, in fact.  Also received some [amazon asin=B00A9MYSR0&text=ties], some [amazon asin=B000NZ5QG0&text=tools], some gift cards, and a few other nice little things.  Also received a great new [amazon asin=B009H8JOZS&text=television], which I’ve been using for a few days.

All in all, a nice Christmas.  I hope the same applies to all of my Loyal Readers.

LRN3 and LRN15 arrive tomorrow.  A great week is shaping up!

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: goat-riding monkey!

See you tomorrow.