morrowlife

Here’s another in my famous workbench series. This one is in the blacksmith’s shop at Greenfield Village.

Very short shrift tonight. Home evening is over (enjoyed it, as usual), I stayed up way too late last night, and I’m sleepy.

Wretched morning commute today – three and a half hours. It was a little under two on the way home, but the damage was done. I’m riding the rails tomorrow.

Otherwise fine day – and fine weekend, for that matter. I finally got some new speakers installed in the Miata on Friday (off Friday, of course), did some pretty serious cleanup work on the pool (it’s not yet healthy, though), and had Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve and the other set of grandparents over on Sunday evening for LRN12’s first birthday party.

Her official birthday was today, though. Happy birthday, Loyal One-year-old! The Loyal Readers had a little tire trouble last night, so it took quite a bit longer than expected for them to get over here, but we had a nice meal and a good time together anyway.

But I’m exhausted, so it’s time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twelve yet again, enjoying her Halloween dinner. Looks like she’s had a little too much trick-or-treating. Photo once again courtesy of Loyal Reader Number Five.

Wonders of Blogger. I just never got to it on Thursday or Friday. Considering the fact that I was home all day Friday, that’s pretty lame. Oh, well.

There wasn’t a lot going on those two days anyway. I drove the Miata to work again on Thursday – beautiful weather coming home, as usual these days. I think this coming week will be nice too, although I’ll probably ride the train at least a couple of times. The Honda’s mileage budget allows me to drive it to work once a week or so as well, so that might happen too.

I bought some new stereo equipment for the Miata on Friday and got the door speakers installed already. They weren’t too difficult to do once I got them figured out. I may have to take them back out again to install a rubber piece between the speakers and the doors, but we’ll see if that’s necessary. The stereo will probably require a custom installation kit. They don’t cost much, but I’m not impressed with the kits I’ve seen so far online. Might have to just bite the bullet and buy the best one of them I can find. The stereo has a CD player and – most importantly – a plug for my iPod. Sweet.

I also tried to install the new radio I got in Detroit for Loyal Reader Number One’s car. It’s a brand-new 1993-ish premium Ford radio that’s never been played but has been in one accident crash (actually, it wasn’t an accident at all). I was able to get the old radio out (after buying the right tool which was fortunately quite cheap), but the plug arrangement of the new(er) one is different. It looks like the existing one can handle only four speakers, while the new(er) one can take up to eight. The original one is back in the car, but I think we can make this one work. I just need to find the pinout for the new(er) radio’s connector and we can get it connected. It would be really nice to find the right connector itself so I could just solder wires, but that may be too much to ask.

Anyway. We just finished re-watching Operation Petticoat on DVD. What a great movie. In fact, it’s been kind of a movie weekend. I saw A Day at the Races yesterday, and we just started Horse Feathers. I like the Marx Brothers – not all the time, but often. Zeppo (link note: I recommend my Loyal Reader consider joinging SPAZ!) just isn’t funny, though, is he?

Time to do other things. See you on Monday.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twelve once again grinning for the camera, in better focus this time. Isn’t she just the cutest little thing? Photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number Five.

Happy Halloween! Extremely short shrift once again today. We spent Halloween evening at Loyal Reader Number Twenty-Four’s family’s house. We just got back and it’s already time for bed. No Wednesday meetings tonight – it was the fifth Wednesday of the month and everybody wanted to be home tonight to hand out candy anyway.

As mentioned previously, I had to pick up donuts this morning, so I drove the Miata. Worried about the traditionally wretched Halloween afternoon traffic, I left the office at about 3:15 and got home at about 5:15, so I stayed right on par. Pulled into the garage just as the family was getting ready to get in the car for our visit. Yet another perfect afternoon for open-air motoring.

It’s official – I’m taking the Honda back. Hopefully, it will work out. If not, we’ll just switch again. I’ll probably start tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.

And now it’s time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Two in the forest at Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

Greetings from the train! I checked my ticket and it’s been two months since I last rode. My boss still isn’t crazy about the fact I need to leave on a schedule, but I just respond with a completely logical, unimpeachable “so what?” Now who can argue with that?

The entire rail portion of the trip this morning was in the dark. The sun was just coming up as we got off the train and onto the bus. And it’s already down this afternoon. Winter. Sigh. At least it will be better next week when Daylight Savings Time is finally over.

Speaking of which, several people were an hour late to church last Sunday. They all had alarm clocks that automatically go into and out of DST. Since they changed the spring forward/fall back days this year, millions of alarm clocks are goofed up for three weeks a year. Strangely, my Atomic Clock didn’t change. Why? Who knows?

I’m listening to a Fibber McGee and Molly radio show on the iPod. Pretty good, but not as good as I expected based on past experience. I’ll give it a few episodes before I decide for sure. Coming up soon: The Shadow.

I don’t think I ever mentioned the last part of the trip to Michigan. It was the Loyal Mother’s seventy-fifth birthday, and my sister had invited me to surprise her. She was surprised. As discussed previously, I attended my nephew’s fiancee’s bridal shower (my first one!) on Saturday morning, Loyal Reader Number Sixteen’s Halloween party on Saturday night (I won the costume contest!), and the Loyal Mother’s birthday party (another surprise!) on Sunday evening. All were enjoyable. Monday morning, LRN16, my other non-Loyal-Reader sister, the Loyal Mother, and I went to Greenfield Village for a few hours. The weather was perfect – sunny and in the low 70’s – and we had a great time. I’ll have a picture or two to post soon.

The flight out was uneventful – made the connection in Chicago just fine. On the way home, though, we were seriously delayed leaving Detroit and I missed the connection to Sacramento. There were no more flights that night, but I was able to slip onto a San Francisco-bound plane. Got home at about 1:00 AM Tuesday morning. And my luggage made it at about 6:00 that afternoon.

Update from home: Just as I was getting ready to post this, an earthquake hit. It wasn’t the biggest one in the world, but it really shook us hard for a few seconds. Things were really swaying there. Fortunately, nothing seems to have fallen (all those shelves in the garage that I’ve been meaning to anchor to the wall are still up and not on top of the cars, for example) and the water’s still in the pool. Very unexpected event.

That’s about it for today. See you on Halloween.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twelve feeling pretty happy. Fuzzy but very cute photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number Five.

Short Shrift yet again tonight. We had a nice long Home Evening and it’s past time for bed. Good lesson (Moses), good activity (Perudo), and good treat (freshly-baked banana cake). Also good music (Book of Mormon Stories and something else I chose but can’t remember).

Work is back to normal. I’m hideously behind on my emails, so I’ve decided I absolutely MUST ride the train and start catching back up. Starting tomorrow. I have to bring donuts to work on Wednesday, so I can’t really ride the train that day, but I can on Thursday.

I’m still trying to decide whether to start driving the Honda again or not. I’ll probably end up doing it for a little while. Loyal Reader Number Four is enjoying it, but it’s hard to fit Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two in there with her. Also, the allowed mileage is not quite large enough for her. I can leave it at the station all day, but can’t drive it to work more than one or two days a week. However, with the availability of the train and the Miata, I could handle that now.

Time for bed. See you tomorrow.