morrowlife

Here are Loyal Readers Numbers Five and Twelve getting a little shuteye a couple of months back. LRN12 certainly used to get a lot of it. I hear she’s been cutting back lately.

I have no excuse for not posting last Friday. I was home all day. It was busy, but I could have found the time. Sorry to disappoint my Loyal Readers.

Anyway. Loyal Reader Number Four and I went and got the trailer Friday morning. I checked the water systems (all present, accounted for, and fully operational) and the general condition (no worse than the last time we saw it, meaning fully operational but showing a little cosmetic wear). I also checked the generator, since we’ll need it on our Easter week campout (fully functional). Then I got Loyal Readers Numbers One, Two, and Four to help me wash it, which went surprisingly well. There’s still some mold on the window moldings (maybe that’s why they call them moldings!), but it’s better than before and I’m hoping it won’t get any worse here in the Dry West. I made major improvements to the awning’s cleanliness as well. The trailer has been declared Ready for Camping.

The one thing I forgot to do was to take pictures of the cleanup for the HRVA. Dang. I’ll have to write a little note there anyway.

I also took Loyal Reader Number One’s car to the dealer for a free cooling system check on Friday. They called on Saturday morning and told me it needs head gaskets for an astronomical price. We’re going to get it done, but not at the dealer and at hopefully a less astronomical price. It’s a good car and I might as well put the money into the one I already have as get another one with more unknown problems.

Friday evening, we went to the Modesto Junior College spring organ concert. There was lots of excellent music and we enjoyed it. It was held at the Protestant church where LRN2 takes his organ lessons. It’s a beautiful old pipe organ and it sounds fantastic. I wish our church was still doing pipe organs – there’s just something special about them. The strange thing about this place, though, is that the organ console and piano are at the back of the chapel, requiring us to turn around if we wanted to watch the musicians play. I spent most of my time enjoying the music and not necessarily the performances. The other strange thing is that they passed a collection plate around, which I thought was odd for an MJC-hosted event, even if it was at a church and even if most of the organists perform at various churches on Sundays. Oh, well. I gave them a few bucks.

Maybe I have an excuse for last Friday after all.

We went to Lockheed Martin day at Great America on Saturday. We rode the rides, ate the food, and got slightly sunburned. A good time was had by all. I decided not to take my camera, which may have made the day more convenient but eliminated the possibility of getting any new Great Art for the blog. Sigh. This was my first time on a stand-up roller coaster. Fun. I also enjoyed their big wood coaster. It wasn’t exactly old, but it was certainly old-fashioned, and that’s good enough.

Sunday was busy but enjoyable. LRN1 and I got a little home teaching done, but we still have one more visit to make this month. Not good.

It’s almost 10:30 and I need to get to bed. See you tomorrow.

Here’s an Artistic View of the Leaning Tower. Is it the tower that’s leaning here or the statue? Either way, it’s hoity toity for sure.

No time to blog tonight. I worked for twelve hours today – it was my Monthly Marathon Day. I got some things done (or at least started and well under way) that had been on my plate for a long time, so I’m feeling good about the day. On the other hand, I just got home and it’s already late and I’m tired. On the other other hand, I’m not going to work tomorrow. On the other other other hand, I have lots of things to get done tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep.

I hope to work on the trailer, fix the Miata’s door speakers, go to the library, and maybe work on Loyal Reader Number One’s car. In addition to the coolant leak, it’s apparently running terribly now. We need to figure out if some of the coolant is getting into a cylinder or what’s going on there and maybe even get it fixed. Don’t know for sure what to do right now. It might need Professional Help.

It was nice to hear from Loyal Reader Number Sixteen in Tuesday’s comments. Thanks for staying Loyal, Reader!

No post yesterday – it was Meeting Wednesday. There doesn’t seem to be much time for anything but work and sleep right now, but that will get better one of these days. In the meantime, work’s over so I’m for sleep. See you tomorrow.

Here’s a recent picture of my father in Oak Creek, that beautiful Colorado utopia. Or broken-down old wreck of a town – you be the judge. Anyway, he’s standing in front of part of the town’s historical downtown display. As discussed here the other day, he knew a bunch of the people in the pictures behind him. Very cool

Rainy morning. At least it was in some places – Modesto and Sunnyvale, at least. There doesn’t appear to have been very much here in Lardville, though. Too bad; we needed the moisture. It was raining fairly hard when I got to the office. It slowed things down a little bit, but it wasn’t raining hard enough most of the way to make any difference. We’re expecting sunshine and warm temperatures for at least the rest of the week.

The landscapers still haven’t shown back up. Tony the Dad apparently hurt his foot (link warning: ancient Greek frieze without much in the way of clothes!) so badly he was in the hospital. So we’re hoping for his rapid and complete recovery so he can come back and finish the job. I will be really glad for it to be done. Then I can get back to work on the pond.

Otherwise, things pretty much just maintained today. Ergo, I’ll see you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Pet Number One being lazy. I can’t blame her.

Short weekend. We didn’t do too much. Loyal Reader Number Four and I went to the temple on Saturday morning and out to dinner with three other couples on Saturday night. We went to an all-you-can-stand-to-eat Chinese restaurant. I suppose it might have been worth the price, but there was a lot of inedible stuff there. I’m not a fan of all-you-can-stand-to-eat restaurants.

I finally got the old Coleman lantern working on Sunday afternoon! Huzzah! I’m not really sure what was wrong with it. The pump was working fine, so I didn’t have to install the leather seal I had bought. The generator appeared to be brand new. The mantles were brand new. The fuel seemed to be fine. It just wouldn’t light. I ended up replacing the generator anyway (don’t know whether it really helped or not) and went through a lot of matches with no luck. I finally got out one of those long-necked lighters and got it going after pumping it way up. Lots of spluttering and flashing and – finally – light. Once it was lit, it ran just fine. Hopefully, it will be easier to light the next time. It’s a really cool old lantern (it’s a 220F, built sometime between 1964 and 1973). Now I have to decide whether to put it in the trailer with the camping gear or keep it here for emergencies. Decisions.

Took the back roads (link warning: annoying Nissan-sponsored blurb) home this evening and enjoyed the trip. It had been a very slow ride this morning, so I stayed about an hour late tonight. The freeway through Livermore and Tracy has been more crowded than usual lately, so the back roads have been more attractive. The mountain switchbacks are fun in the Miata and it’s nice to have pretty much zero traffic for a very large portion of it. I need to figure out how to drive it in the opposite direction some morning. Maybe tomorrow if it’s not raining.

Let’s see, did I cover all the high points of last week’s Utah weekend trip? Drive: check. Salt Flats: check. Dreary Nevada wasteland: check. Fun dramatic performance: check. Visiting with family: probably not. We visited with family and it was nice to see them again after too much time had gone by.

The visit with my father last week was also fine. I hope he’s having a nice time with his brother. Don’t know when that visit is over and he goes home – maybe that time has already come and gone by now.

My father brought a bunch of pictures of his hometown in Colorado that were very interesting. We had been there a few years ago and had found it interesting, but the father’s comments and perspective were especially interesting. Example: he went to the old school and found pictures of all the graduating classes from Way Back When. He remembered a lot of them and told us interesting things about them. The same with the old pictures of the coal miners from the historical display in the middle of town. Just fascinating. The town itself is a wreck, of course.

Okay, it’s time to be done tonight. See you on Tuesday.

Here’s a small portion of the view from Loyal Reader Number Four’s brother’s house in Salt Lake. Very pretty.

Fear not, Loyal Readers! I haven’t dropped off the edge of the earth. There was no blogging the last few days because the Loyal Grandpa was visiting us, and we spent every evening chatting. Until way too late every night, in fact. Grandpa pushed on further west this morning, though, so I’m back into my routine. Sorry about all the missed blogging and Great Art opportunities.

Let’s talk briefly about last weekend’s trip, shall we? We had a very nice trip. The drive took roughly eleven hours each way, which is doable on a long weekend, but not quite as convenient as the drive from Denver was. The drive is kind of interesting. It gets prettier and prettier as you go west through California from Sacramento. You climb fairly high into the mountains (over 6,000 feet), go through large pine forests, and pass some beautiful lakes. It just gets prettier and prettier. And there’s some interesting history up there too.

Then you cross into Nevada. And it gets immediately brown, flat, and ugly. It’s amazing. Now don’t get me wrong – the desert can be lovely – stark beauty and all that – and there are mountains in various places to break up the landscape, although you never climb any of them. Utah has the salt flats and even larger mountains (none of which you actually climb either). The salt flats are fascinating. I would love to go there when the land speed record cars are driving on them.

Grandma’s play was very nice. It was definitely an amateur production, with some performances much better than others, but it was very nice overall. She was very good, the woman who played her sister was very good, and her son Joel was outstanding. We really enjoyed the play.

Was it worth the trip to Utah? Sure.

It’s late once again and I have to get up early for a temple trip, so I’ll discuss the vacation more on Monday. Have a great weekend.