morrowlife

Here are Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two engaged in some interpretive dance. Wait, don’t tell me. Ummm . . . LRN1 is interpreting an oboe player taking a bow after his second performance at Carnegie Hall and LRN2 is interpreting a giraffe wading in a stream. Nice job, guys!

No post Friday. I forgot. It seemed so much like Saturday that it just slipped my mind. Sorry about that, Loyal Readers. I have no idea how you survived.

Great General Conference over the weekend. I watched all ten hours. I had predicted the new First Presidency member a few weeks ago. It’s nice to see that President Hinckley agreed with my judgment.

I finally took a few minutes on Friday morning to re-replace the front brakes on the Sable. I took off the junky Napa brakes – they grabbed excessively and squeaked like crazy – and put on Autozone ceramic brakes. The whole job took only about half an hour and cost just thirty bucks. While I was out for the test drive, the check engine light came on. Sigh. I took it to the Ford dealer and told them to fix it, change the oil, find the oil leak, and put on two new tires. We got it back today. I’ll see tomorrow how I like their work, and will finally give the brakes a chance to prove they don’t squeal. They discovered the oil leak was in the oil pan gasket, which we paid a exorbitant amount of money to have replaced eleven months ago. We have an appointment on Thursday to have the other shop rework the gasket under warranty. Let’s hope for the best.

Otherwise, I didn’t get much accomplished over the weekend, what with the conference going on several times a day. Loyal Reader Number Four and I went to the stake adult activity on Friday night. It was a murder mystery dinner, and it turns out to have been based on a Book of Mormon story, which was cute. I suggested that they use an Old Testament story for next year’s dinner, but I think that might turn out to be just a bit too violent. Or something.

We had a nice baptism last night – two brothers who are 12 and 13 years old. They seem like really nice boys and are excited to be church members. One of them got his head bonked pretty hard on our unusually small font. That’ll be something to remember.

It was perfect top-down weather again this afternoon, and I took advantage of it. The Miata was basically mandatory, given the location of the Sable. I suppose I could have taken the truck, assuming I could afford the gas.

Weather alert! We’re expecting rain later in the week and snow up in the mountains at any moment. So the convertible is staying in the garage for a few days.

– Later –

Home Evening is over. We played Chinese Checkers. LRN2 was the victorious conqueror, with LRN4 one move behind. I barely squeaked out third, one move ahead of LRN1. Loyal Readers Numbers Five and Six stopped playing before they figured out who was ahead, so I think it would have been a tie.

Time for treat and bed now. See you tomorrow.

Here’s a trailer that’s going on the HRVA Real Soon Now. This old wreck veteran survivor is quite a piece of work. It has a great big owner-installed picture window in the back that really sets it apart from most other trailers. I was hoping to find the owner at home and maybe get a tour of the interior but, alas, it was not to be. It will always remain shrouded in mystery.

Cool day today. The wind blew like crazy last night around here, and it was apparently really blowing again today. No wind in my building at work, though. No windows either.

Anyway. It’s supposed to be only about 69 degrees tomorrow here in Lardville, start warming back up on Saturday, and be back in the 80’s by Sunday. I guess we just have to get used to these harsh Fall days.

Loyal Reader Number One decided to return his iPhone and get a less extravagant communication device. Today was the fourteenth day he had it and therefore his last chance to return it with no questions asked. I think he made the right choice. The iPhone is cool but not cool enough for the money they’re charging – certainly too rich for my blood. I like its bling but believe I would quickly tire of it. He can spend about a tenth of the money over the next two years and have a very nice phone with great okay passable service. We’ll probably get him a new phone ordered tomorrow, at which time he’ll box up the high-zoot one and send it packing for a full refund, less a slight restocking fee.

I’m planning on staying home tomorrow – I worked the last two off-Fridays, so I assume it’s my turn to skip. I’m also planning to miss the next off-Friday, so we’ll see how my irresponsibility works out. Woo hoo!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s an old bear trap. I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to drag this thing out to the woods and release the bear.

Rough drive this morning. In fact, I never completed it. It turns out there were a couple of problems. First, there was a two-semi accident in the middle of Livermore. That had things snarled up pretty badly. Then a pickup overturned a couple of times in Dublin, spilling several bottles of chlorine on the road and breaking them, which caused chlorine gas to waft gently over the freeway. They closed the 580/680 interchange down for about four hours. I waited in the traffic jam for a little more than two hours and finally decided to give it up for the day. Had a nice day at home, although I spent most of it working anyway.

It was meeting night tonight. I have a Sunday baptism to prepare for, so we discussed the plans just a little bit. I have lots of work to do for that one – the full-time missionaries were going to propose an agenda for the meeting, which they decided not to do. So I will. Sigh.

Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two got the best scores on English and Math, respectively, out of their entire school on some test they took last spring. Today they both received little SanDisk MP3 players as a reward. How nice of them to do that. They both have iPods already, but these little things are really cool and will definitely have a use. They come with an easy-to-see screen, a built-in microphone, and an FM tuner and you put music on them just by dragging and dropping from your computer. And they retail for only $40. I haven’t played with one yet, but I’m tentatively recommending them. I’ll give a full report when I can get one of the Loyal Readers to let me play with his for a little while.

I spent a couple of minutes trying to add a slightly better CSS interface to Waterlogged. I was trying to copy something from the book I’m reading, and it wasn’t a perfect fit. I couldn’t get it to do anything, though. Maybe I need to restart the Mongrel servers after updating the code. I thought you didn’t have to do that with Rails, but I could be wrong, given our setup. I’ll have to give it a try one day Real Soon Now.

Time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Here are Loyal Readers Numbers One, Two, and Four enjoying their books in our campsite at Clark’s Fork.

It’s earlier than my usual blogging hour tonight. Got home at about 7:00, worked on the water softener (it won’t soften water, which is it primary – indeed, only – function), ate, and sat down to blog. The water softener did some more damage to my already-sore hands. Pity me, Loyal Readers. Hopefully, my sacrifice won’t be in vain and we’ll start getting some soft water now.

We won’t be buying any more GE appliances, that’s for sure. So far, we’ve needed repairs on our brand-new GE refrigerator (twice), dishwasher (twice and it needs it again), stove, microwave, and water softener (I’ve worked on it myself twice now). I guess the oven is okay. Never again.

It was the perfect afternoon/evening for open-air motoring on the way home today. And I mean perfect. It was clear, completely comfortable, and delightful. I pity all people with roofs on their cars. And I especially pity people with soft tops who didn’t have them down tonight. Fall is absolutely the best time for convertibling.

The new charger for my RAZR arrived today. It works fine, so I’m completely happy with the phone now. I’m not completely happy with WalMart, though. Their advertising said nothing about the pathetic, unusable charger that came with the phone. It was reasonable to expect a working, US charger, and they didn’t provide it. That’s just one more reason why I hate doing business with those people.

But I love my phone.

Time to move on to other things. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twelve helping load the dishwasher – possibly her very favorite activity. Exclusive low-quality RAZR-cam photo courtesy of me.

No time to write about much – Home Evening went a little late, since our activity was in the spa. It sure was nice, though.

Fine weekend. I got a little bit of work done on a few cars – not much more than checking oil and air filters, but at least it was something. Loyal Reader Number Four and I also got the pool and pond filters cleaned. I sliced my finger pretty badly on the pool filter; fortunately, it’s healing quickly. I had been hoping to change the Sable’s brakes again to try to stop them from squealing, which they’ve done ever since I put Napa’s finest brake pads on. I’m going to switch to ceramic pads and see if they help. Anyway, I decided to put it off for another week due to the injured finger.

More news later. See you tomorrow.