morrowlife

Here’s the chow hall in the Old Hessian Barracks in Trenton, New Jersey.  Turns out the Hessians were only there for a very short time, preceded by the British and the Americans and then followed by the Americans again.  We still have it.  Seems like a very reasonable way to use military facilities – same fort, new army.  Saves a lot of trouble that way.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Vacation and Workbench series.

At least I assume somebody worked on all of those benches.  Eating is work, right?

Had a great Thanksgiving weekend.  We went to visit family in Michigan.  I needed to work on Wednesday, but I left at about 2:15 and we were underway by about 2:45.  Got to LRN8’s house just a minute or two before midnight.  Pretty smooth sailing all the way.  We enjoyed Thanksgiving day, Friday, and Saturday with the family and drove home on Sunday.  A few spots of heavy traffic and the restaurants and gas stations were incredibly crowded, but we managed.  All in all, we had a nice time.

Work is busy, busy, busy!  I’m finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for our current phase, which should end just before Christmas.  After that, it’ll be another couple of weeks of extreme busyness followed by our probable return home.  Looking forward to that!  We’ve been here a bit longer than predicted, although we always knew it could be up to a year.  It’s been a great job with wonderful people, but I think I’m finally ready to move on to the next thing.  Whatever that turns out to be.

LRN4’s website attracted a bit of high-profile attention this week.  LRN15’s mom mentioned it to some visiting bigwigs at her job with a daycare provider.  The ‘wigs were impressed and are planning to recommend it to parents of their tykes.  We’re hoping a whole lot of people start using the site.  Fortune and fame are just around the corner!

Oh, and go to her website, click on her Amazon links, and then buy something.  Anything.  She’s an Amazon Affiliate, as you know.  Or click on one of [amazon asin=B0042Z55RM&text=my Amazon links] and buy something.  I’m an Amazon Affiliate too.  We both have pretty serious financial juggernauts going on here.

Time for bed.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: ice-cream woman attack!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s LRN4 with a friend she made in Bar Harbor, Maine.  Very large ice cream cone there.  And a triple scoop!  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Cruise, Vacation, and Statue series.

Not a lot going on today.  LRN3 reports that he and LRN15 are heading to LRN15’s sister’s Gigantic Wedding Extravaganza tomorrow.  The wedding is on Saturday in Yorktown, so they’ll all have a few days together to vacation a bit and do wedding-related things, such as eating.  Have fun, Loyal Readers!

As already mentioned, LRN1 is in the market for a nice used SUV of some kind.  He spent some time today with his very kind uncle, who made some good recommendations.  I think he has the search narrowed down to about five different models – a couple of Nissans and three Chevys.  Jeeps are out of the question – old ones tend to be beaten up pretty badly and there have been a few reliability issues.  Ditto Ford Explorers.  Those trucks may not take as much of a beating, but reliability on the older ones hasn’t exactly been perfect.  He was looking at Toyotas for a while, but people are willing to pay a bit more for them than he is.  What do you say, Loyal Readers?  What should he buy?

We’re thinking about another cruise to Hawaii in the spring.  LRN4 got a great offer from our travel agent today – even cheaper than our last trip there.  It would be an exact repeat of our 2011 cruise there, including the same ship, but I had a great time on that ship and love to go to Hawaii.  So we’re seriously thinking about it.  Should we go?  Have to make our minds up by Monday at the latest.

I want to go read, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: bus driver banana attack nightmare!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s LRN4 standing out on deck during our recent cruise to New England and Canada. Look at those smooth seas! And it was warm! Hence LRN4’s willingness to be out on deck! Enough exclamation marks for now! Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken the day after we left Canada, and part of my famous Cruise and Vacation series.

Had a nice weekend! The weather was beautiful, the leaves were right in the middle of changing colors, and we did some fun stuff. Went to a corn maze in New Jersey, visited the farm attached to the corn maze, and went out for Japanese food. All in one day!

Also finished working on the update to my Morse Trainer iOS app and got it submitted this evening. It’s now compatible with iPhones with Retina displays, iPhone 5’s, and all kinds of iPads. A few functional updates went in as well. I can hardly wait for Apple’s reviewers to finish with it and get it released! Fame and fortune await! Next up for an update, the Brewing Co. app.

Been swapping text messages with LRN1 this evening. He’s in the market for a nice (cheap) used 4×4. He likes my Beloved Pickup, but it’s not quite four-wheelie and off-roadie enough for him. Good luck in the search, LRN1! I love buying cars. Just love it.

LRN4 and I have been watching TV this evening – some of our favorite shows. We particularly like the [amazon asin=B001V7UXG2&text=Jeeves and Wooster] series, starring Fry and Laurie. Very amusing, very classy, and highly recommended. We also watched an episode of [amazon asin=B005NKIPUO&text=Sledge Hammer]. That’s one of my very favorite shows ever. Dumb, tacky, and hilarious. Also highly recommended. We started the viewing pleasure with an [amazon asin=B001CT05TE&text=F Troop] episode. Not as funny as Sledge and not as classy as Jeeves, but amusing. Recommended.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: ham assault!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s one of the many lighthouses we saw on our recent East Coast cruise. This one was in Portland, Maine. Beautiful, no? And how about that weather? It couldn’t have been prettier! That’s another, slightly less commodious lighthouse there in the background. Great Art courtesy of the famous iPhone-cam and part of my famous Vacation series.

Speaking of Great Art, we had a bit of a sad thing happen recently, which is scheduled to lead to a very good thing tomorrow. LRN4 had a bit of trouble in the packing/loading phase of her return trip from Nevada last week, and my trusty old Olympus camera is no more. For which she’s very, very sorry.

Well, its probably premature to say the camera is no more. It probably still exists, either lost somewhere in LRN4’s sister’s house (unlikely – they looked pretty hard on our behalf) or it’s currently in the possession of some thief in the employ of Alamo Car Rental in Nevada (the most likely case, in my opinion). Such is the all-too-common way of minimum-wage labor, unfortunately.

Anyway, that’s the bad news. The good news is that the camera had to be replaced, and quickly. LRN4’s hugely-popular website demands it! In fact, it needed to be upgraded anyway. She has ordered [amazon asin=B004J3Y9U6&text=this lovely camera] to take its place and was fortunate enough to get [amazon asin=B007M54E08&text=this very nice SD card] to go along with it for free! The camera isn’t exactly free, but I think the price is very good and, according to the reviews, it appears to be a pretty good piece of equipment.

Want to buy a new camera of your very own? Click on my link! You get your camera and I get a tidy little kickback at absolutely no cost to you! In fact, click on any of my Amazon links and buy anything while you’re there and I get a tidy little kickback. Do it! Do it now! Feed my financial juggernaut!

Speaking of Amazon, I’ve been on a bit of a buying spree. My rented Ford Flex had a broken rear wiper and the fine folks down at the Firestone shop couldn’t figure out how to fix it. The one thing they were sure of was that they needed a whole lot of time on a weekday to fix it. I did a few moments of internet research, figured out what I needed, [amazon asin=B001KS0M5O&text=ordered it from Amazon], got it in a couple of days, and installed it within about three minutes without the use of tools. It was worth the ten bucks to not have to leave it at the shop all day.

Anyway. LRN’s been doing a bit of shopping herself. So far, she has bought a bunch of house paint (and applied a good amount of it to the interior of the house in Las Vegas), several [amazon asin=B0041HYB9E&text=temporary blinds], and a permanent [amazon asin=B004AKHOXW&text=curtain] for the sliding door. Not mention a few books and some other nice stuff.

Speaking of which, the house in Las Vegas is officially ours! LRN4 bought the place slightly ahead of schedule, picked up the keys exactly on schedule, painted a bunch of it (as previously mentioned), and returned home exactly on schedule. It was a lonely nine days for me, though. Now we need to move into the house! Don’t know when that will happen. They’re talking about keeping me here in Pennsylvania until sometime in January.

Otherwise, not much happening. Although buying a new house is kind of a lot, now that I think of it.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: cupcake rage!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a second look at the Coco Palms lagoon.  I’m pretty sure I offered a first look at it quite some time ago, although that one was the view to the left as you exited the (hurricane-destroyed) main building going towards the cabanas.  This is totally different.  This is the view to the right as you exit the (hurricane-destroyed) main building going towards the cabanas.  Great Art taken on our cruise to Hawaii during shore leave at the (hurricane-destroyed) Coco Palms Resort on Lahaina and part of my famous Vacation series.

I really wish I had been able to see the Coco Palms when it was actually open.  It looks like it was a really cool, if possibly somewhat dated, place.  I was born too late!  Or at least I traveled to Kauai too late, anyway.

Although it might not be too late after all.  It’s for sale!  I’m looking for partners.  You bring the money and the work, and I’ll provide the ideas.

I’ve take lots more Great Art recently – just need to get it into iPhoto and select the Greatest shots for the blog.  Real Soon Now, guaranteed.  In the meantime, Hawaii pictures aren’t all bad.

Now for the excellent news: we’ve submitted the Brewing Company app!  It went in to the App Store System yesterday and heaven only knows when it’ll come out.  When it does, I’ll let my Loyal Readers know.  In the meantime, why not check out our company website?  I put up a shell on Saturday and have been gradually filling in the blanks.  It think it’s moderately presentable at this point.  Criticism (constructive or otherwise) appreciated.  You can’t polish a gem without knocking off the rough edges.

Over the weekend, we went to a place called Northlandz.  It contains the most amazing model railroad in the world.  I think that’s a pretty accurate statement.  The thing is in a gigantic building with 8 miles of track.  It took us three hours to walk through it.  Just for grins, there’s also a fairly large dollhouse, a bunch of dolls and other toys, and a huge pipe organ, along with several other organ consoles.  Why?  Who cares?  I’m not sure I’d go back again and again as I would will to Longwood, but I’m really glad I went once.  And I’m not a big model railroad fan.

Although I do like trains.

I mentioned the Beagle Bone single-board computer a post or two ago.  I finally got around to ordering on the other day from Adafruit and . . . they were out.  They have plenty of them at [amazon asin=B006X35EN6&text=other vendors], but nobody else seems to have the cool starter kit that Adafruit offers, so I’m waiting.  Impatiently.

I’m reading [amazon asin=1590593898&text=Joel on Software] right now, along with a couple of other software books that maybe I’ll talk about in a future post.  The Joel book is a fascinating book for software developers that really makes you think.  The guy has very good instincts about the industry in general and the art of developing software on either a large or small scale.  I don’t always agree with everything he says, but I suspect I do so at my own peril.  Highly recommended reading.

Time for a couple of other thing before I head for bed.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity:  angry elves!

See you tomorrow.