morrowlife

Here’s the grocery store in Baikonur. Fortunately, it never rains. It does snow, though. And it gets real cold.

Can you tell I’m running short of Great Art, Loyal Readers?

Another rainy/sunny day here in Lardville, though. Highs were only about 50 degrees, which is a little cool for this time of year, but I really can’t complain. There’s some snow visible at the top of the mountains near work, but many trees around Sunnyvale are also in full blossom. Spring appears to have come a tiny bit early this year.

Got out of the office an hour earlier than expected. That’s a Real Good Thing, since we have a Stake Adult Pizza Party tonight at 7:00, giving me a whole hour and a half at home. That’s luxurious.

Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve are going to spend the weekend with us. LRN6 is hoping to detail his truck. I hope it’s possible, given the predicted rain situation. The bright hope is that they’re predicting clear weather on Saturday afternoon. I guess he could work on it in the garage no matter how bad the weather is. It’ll just get dirty a little faster.

I enjoyed reviewing Loyal Reader Number One’s pictures from his latest mine exploration trip. Finally got to see them last night. I’m hoping to get his permission to use a few of them here. How about it, LRN1?

We got a cable TV bill last night. We’re paying those thieves a hundred bucks a month just for the television part now. I think that’s up about 70 percent in two years. Even if it’s not quite that much, it’s WAY more than I’m willing to pay. I need to get serious about computer/internet/netflix solutions right away. I’m looking right now for a remote control to use instead of a keyboard/mouse. Any ideas, Loyal Readers?

I also need a video card that can connect to my old tube TVs with either RCA connectors or good old fashioned coax cable. There must be something cheap but good out there.

Time for the traditional Morrowlife weekend preview. Let’s see . . . I need to prepare a Sacrament Meeting talk for Sunday. Topic: home storage. It’s kind of a tough topic this week, but I’ll come up with something. Maybe even something good – we’ll see. I also need to get an appointment to meet with an Elders Quorum presidency and make a whole bunch of YW camp phone calls. Probably need to look at the pool and pond filters too. I’m sure I could find something to do to one or more of the cars in case the opportunity presents itself. And who knows what’s on Loyal Reader Number Four’s mind? And of course there’s always jacuzzification.

Plus, Saturday is Valentine’s Day, dontcha know.

Today’s toilet news: This just seems like a bad idea. I mean, what if they just decide not to buy any?

See you Monday.

Here’s a satellite in the cleanroom at Baikonur a few years ago. They don’t usually cover them with gold anymore, so this one is a bit unusual. Slightly fuzzy picture courtesy of me. No flash photography is allowed in the cleanroom. And I can’t hold still too well.

Family life is pretty much back to normal, other than the gaping hole in our hearts left by Loyal Pet Number One. That will heal.

Good news on the Loyal Reader Number Two front. He passed his written test at the friendly DMV office. He has his first on-the-road lesson on Thursday, after which he’ll be a Legally Authorized Restricted Motor Vehicle Operator. Nobody saw that coming.

He’ll be fine, of course.

The situation is otherwise normal today. Routine mission.

It’s Massive Meeting Tuesday. I rode the train anyway due to yesterday’s non-trainage, so I’m heading home on the 3:45. Can’t complain about the early departure, which gets me home at 5:30. Maybe my boss can, though.

Weekend activities were enjoyable. I was inert at home all day on Friday and didn’t do a whole lot more on Saturday. Sunday was a different story, of course, but was equally enjoyable. There were plenty of meetings, choir practice, and a chance to teach a Missionary Preparation class for about 45 minutes. Good day.

A brief word about my new Loyal Fish: it’s a very large goldfish that’s orange on the top and white on the bottom. Loyal Reader Number One suggested that we call him Half-and-Half. So that’s his name. He’s a great addition to the pond. I’m sure he’ll be fabulously happy there. As long as he doesn’t get eaten like good old Bunkie.

Today’s toilet news: they’re on the attack.

Time’s up. See you tomorrow.

Here are Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two with Loyal Pet Number One, back in Virginia during happier days for LPN1.

It is with great regret and deep sadness that I announce today’s death of LPN1, our devoted dog Belle. She had been becoming increasingly weak and ill, and Loyal Reader Number Four and I decided that today was the day for her to take her final trip to the Vet. It was a wrenching decision and a very sad day for all of us. We will truly miss Belle. She was about the best pet ever, and our happy memories of her will last the rest of our lives.

Cool, windy day, but no rain.

I got to the train station this morning for the early (4:38) train, and heard an announcement that there was a broken rail(!) on the Altamont pass, so the train would be at least an hour late. I got back in the car and drove to work. It turns out that train never made it – they brought it back to Lardville and on to Stockton at some point during the morning, and the third train finally made it through more or less on schedule. It was a great day to drive. I’m hoping for better things in the rail transportation area tomorrow.

That’s it for tonight. Weekend description tomorrow. I’ll say merely that Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve were here, and LRN5 and took me to the store to buy a new fella for the pond! We picked a pretty one. Thanks, LRN5!

No links today. I don’t have the heart for it. See you tomorrow.

Here’s the menu at a pizza joint in Cannes. I can’t decide between the 4 Fromages and the Oignon. Picture taken sometime in 2002 and courtesy of my good old SiPix piece of junk. Rare cameo appearance by me.

Time for some more Great Art. I have a few shots of Loyal Reader Number Twelve on my camera, but haven’t taken the time to transfer them to the computer. Maybe tomorrow.

It was Off Friday today. I didn’t get any of the previously-planned High Council work done, other than some study for Sunday evening’s presentation. I need to talk to a bunch of people on the phone, and I figured I’d have a much better chance of finding them at home on Saturday. So I goofed off instead. Also worked a few hours.

I finished reading Patrick F. McManus’s second Sheriff Bo Tully mystery. This one is called Avalanche, and is just as good as the first one. Which was quite good. Highly recommended to my Loyal Readers, especially the McManus fans among them. Of which I’m sure there are many.

Had a ward small group dinner at our house, which was quite pleasant. Had some good friends over and made some new ones. Then the entire group (us and all the other small dinner groups) met at the church for dessert. It was . . . okay. Too noisy. Dadgummit.

Otherwise, all is well. We got some additional badly needed rain. Tomorrow’s looking to be sunny and 60 degrees, with more rain on Sunday and then more every two to three days afterward for a while. That’s about perfect for getting the ground good and soaked, which will be a Real Good Thing for the farmers. And those of us who like to drink water.

The weekend’s off to a great start, and it’s only getting better. See you on Monday.

Here’s the Astra 2C spacecraft on top of its Block DM upper stage. And a few people standing in front of it. Photo taken June 4, 2001 at Baikonur.

Pretty decent day at work. I wasn’t as productive as I might have been, but the day was generally good.

Not the weather, though. There was a good, steady rain in the early morning and a few droplets in the afternoon, separated by much cooler temperatures, clouds and sun, and general blusteriness. It was not unenjoyable, though. More rain and cool weather is predicted for Friday and Saturday.

Not bad for the dead of winter, though.

The weekend’s here! Again! Plans are few. I need to make a whole bunch of high council phone calls and visits, prepare a 45-minute high council lesson for Sunday night, start to prepare a 20-minute talk for the following Sunday, attend an all-morning girls’ camp meeting in the bay area, get together with an elders’ quorum presidency for some training, do whatever Loyal Reader Number Four needs done, and maybe jacuzzify. And work on my collection of media center computers.

I spent some time last night (until about midnight, in fact) trying to get Larry the computer ready for Windows 7. I have the public Beta of that OS installed on my Mac under VMWare, and it actually seems to work fairly well and be pretty stable. I got a DVD burned and then realized Larry probably didn’t have enough memory to run it.

No problem, thought I – I had just received four 1-gigabyte memory sticks from a friend that looked like they might just work. I duly popped off Larry’s side cover and got to work.

They didn’t fit. It turns out Larry needs DDR-400, and I had DDR2. So I buttoned Larry back up and decided to be delighted with good old Windows 2000. Which is perfectly happy with Larry’s humble 512 megabytes. Sadly, everything else about Larry is plenty beefy for Win 7. I’ll keep an eye out for a great deal on a couple of gigs of memory.

I sure wish I could have made Ubuntu work right, though. Sigh.

Loyal Reader Number One is off on his mine spelunking trip! Good luck, be extra careful out there, and have a great time, LRN1! And more good luck catching back up with school when you get back.

Good news for Loyal Reader Number Two: if he has problems with his driver’s license test, there’s always another opportunity!

That’s it. See you tomorrow.