morrowlife

Here’s a beach on Kauai.  That was just a pretty place, no matter how you looked at it.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken from the pier featured prominently in The Wackiest Ship in the Army, and part of my famous Vacation series.

Not even a week since my last post!  Could be worse.  It’s been much worse, in fact.  However, I can proudly point to the fact that there has been at least one post every month since November of 2005.  That’s not all that shabby.  Really.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Two more days before LRN1 is home!  He left his last area after lunch today and went to Coban, where he was previously assigned.  He’s there for the afternoon and evening and leaves for the capital in the wee hours of the morning.  He’ll arrive early tomorrow morning, go to a transfer conference, have a final interview with his mission president, have a nice pizza dinner, and hit the sack.  Thursday morning, he’s up early and off to the airport.  Travel safely, LRN1!  We can’t wait to see you.

In fact, some more Loyal Readers are coming to town to welcome LRN1 back.  That’s right, LRN3 and LRN15 are coming up here on Thursday afternoon.  They’re spending the weekend with us so they can hear LRN1’s welcome-home talk in church on Sunday.  Then they’re back to Virginia.

Lots more shopping been going on.  We went to Ikea on Saturday and got a bunch of stuff, including a very nice set of matching tables that include a corner desk, with the total spanning a length of about 11 feet across one wall and 8 feet across the other.  I really like ’em.  We also got a very modest dresser for LRN1’s room, a bunch of lamps (elsewhere) so that every room in the NNFOS has light now, a very nice TV table for the living room, and various other small items.  My hands got pretty sore putting all the Ikea stuff together, but it was worth it.  It’s looking more and more like a home around here.  LRN4 even got a nice big clock today and put it on the wall.  And I even noticed it, not more than ten minutes after I got home!

Speaking of which, our household goods are scheduled to get here on Monday.  Sadly, they won’t be here in time for LRN1’s arrival, but we’re ready for that anyway.  We have our two queen-size air mattresses, and we borrowed a twin mattress with sheets and blankets from a nice family in the ward this evening, so we can even accommodate LRN3 and LRN15 for the weekend.  They’ll sleep on one of the air mattresses in the office and LRN1 will rough it on the twin mattress.

We’re looking forward to having our stuff.  We’re doing pretty well without it, but we’d really like the beds and it’s about time to quit using cardboard boxes as tables and nightstands.  I hope the place won’t feel too crowded when it gets here.

I just got the third disk of the second season of Sledge Hammer from Netflix.  I really enjoyed the first season and I’m looking forward to the second one as well.  I’m sure it gets even stupider than it was in the first place, but when was that an impediment to good humor?

It’s time for bed already, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: fugitive baboon!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the last picture ever taken by my old beloved iPhone-cam.  It’s my new beloved iPhone 4S: the unboxing!  I love Apple’s packaging.  And I’m not alone.  There are lots of people who save the boxes just because they’re so beautiful.  What a bunch of fan boys.  I always throw my Apple boxes away immediately after no more than five or six years.  Great Art courtesy of the (old) exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Machinery and Vacation (I bought the thing on our Hawaii cruise during shore leave on Oahu) series.

Only a couple days since my last post.  Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf.  Maybe not.

I have good news and bad news.  First the good: LRN4’s car got here today, and it appears to be undamaged from its journey!  I’m delighted to have it here – now she can get wherever she wants to go whenever she wants to go there.  Now the bad news – our household goods aren’t even out of California yet.  Sigh.  That’s the price you pay for only shipping part of a truckload.  Apparently, our stuff was put on the truck first, and the driver is going to be loading his truck with other people’s stuff until Saturday.  Then he has to drive for a few days.  Then he has to unload everybody else’s stuff.  Then he’ll get to ours.  It looks like that won’t happen until the 19th or 20th.  So LRN1 will get here before our things do, a possibility we had hoped to avoid.  He’s been living in tin-roofed shacks for the past two years, though, so we’ll probably be okay.

LRN4’s been very busy in shopping mode.  Lots of stuff must be procured for the new quarters.  It was tough deciding what stuff to bring, what we could do without, and what we wanted to replace.  Several things ended up in the “replace” bucket.  She’s been buying towels, rugs, shower curtains, food, can openers, measuring cups, potato peelers, and tons of other stuff.  It’s looking homier around here all the time.

Only eight more days before LRN1’s home!  Tomorrow he’ll start his last week.  Stay focused, LRN1!  But get ready to be home too!

It’s snowing!  Started in the early afternoon.  There’s probably an inch or so on the ground, although it doesn’t seem to be sticking to the pavement.  Maybe that’ll happen overnight.  Might be a slower drive than usual tomorrow morning.  Fortunately, I have all-wheel-drive.  Also this thing which tells time.

And I have about a million (scientific estimate) LDS Tools emails to get to, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: grandma bacon assault!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the guy driving our submarine off the coast of Oahu during our recent cruise.  Note the shipwreck in the hazy background.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive old Minolta-cam and part of my famous Vacation and Machinery series.

Another long spell since the last post.  Sigh.  Lots has happened.  Shall we take a look at some of it?

Still no real commitment from the company on my TDY assignment.  Of course, they’ve been off for the holidays, just like me, so I haven’t really expected anything.  It’s been since mid-November, though, and I would have hoped they could get their collective act together by now.  Hopefully, we’ll get the formal offer early in the new year and get moving forward.  If not, we might just be staying in Lardville after all.  Which would be a bit of an embarrassment, since we got ourselves untangled from lots of commitments already.  But there you have it.

We’ve had a great Christmas break so far.  We went sledding at a local farm on Christmas Eve.  Also drove through their mile-long Christmas light exhibition a few nights earlier.  Both were fun.  LRN5 and Cliff joined us for sledding and for Christmas, which was really nice.  We love having them come over.  We spoke on the phone with LRN1, who is doing very well in Guatemala.  Less than two months before he’s home!  Christmas itself was quiet and peaceful, just like I like it.

On Monday, we went to see Arthur Christmas at the movies.  It was really entertaining – I’d definitely watch it again.  Tuesday, we went bowling with LRN2 and his friend Josh.  LRN4 slaughtered us all, as usual.  But it was fun anyway.  We had a pizza and a pitcher of root beer there.  There’s nothing better than bowling alley pizza, I always say.

Tuesday night, LRN2 went to LRN5’s house to see Cliff’s show and spend the night.  He appears to have had a good time.  LRN4 and I took advantage of the evening on our own to go out for our anniversary dinner one night early.  We went to the Olive Garden in Tracy for a great meal and browsed the Barnes and Noble store and then the entire Tracy mall afterwards.  Had a nice evening together.

Wednesday was our official anniversary.  We spent it quietly at home and had a nice day.  Thirty-three years of marriage.  That’s starting to sound like kind of a long time, huh?

Today is game day, tomorrow is our annual film festival, Saturday is New Year’s Eve, which will be spent at home, Sunday is New Year’s Day, which will be spent at church and home, Monday is packing day for LRN3 and me, and LRN3 and I are off for Provo and Newtown, respectively, on Tuesday.  Next holiday for me: Memorial Day.  Yikes.

And it’s time to go play games.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: alcoholic thieving monkeys, breaking and entering bears, and kleptomaniac cats!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s LRN4 with one of her fellow pirates.  That’s LRN4 there on the right.  She’s the one with both legs.  Also hands.  But no beard.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone 4S-cam, taken in Maui on our recent cruise, and part of my famous Statue and Vacation series.

Greetings from the New Fortress of Solitude East (NFOS)!  That’s right, I’m in Newtown.  This is my second week, in fact.  Never got around to posting last week.  Sorry about that, Loyal Readers.

It’s the New Fortress of Solitude because I’m all by myself.  Poor me.  My TDY hasn’t been approved by the cast of thousands on the signature list yet, so I’m just coming out a week or two at a time on business travel.  Makes it a bit lonesome, although I do have plenty of time to myself.  The moment of silence lasts all evening long.  I’ll be home in Lardville next week, working in Sunnyvale, and on holiday the following week.  Come January 3rd, I’m back here for a three-week stint.  LRN4 will be joining me for that one.  Hopefully, the TDY will kick in after that and we can start looking for more permanent quarters.  Although I’m really enjoying the Residence Inn.  It’s just too small for the long term.  Also too expensive.  But a very nice place to stay.

I have a Ford Crown Victoria as my rental car this week.  I have always liked big cars, and I had hoped I would like this one.  It is indeed large, although the interior isn’t really roomy by current standards.  It’s moderately comfortable and handles okay.  The big V8 engine doesn’t seem all that powerful, though.  Also, there’s no Sirius radio or steering wheel radio controls.  And it just seems so … dated.  Last week, I had a Ford Flex and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I’ll be fine with the Crown Vic the rest of this week, but I hope I don’t get another one.  Blasts from the past should probably stay in the past.

Besides, the car has over 14,000 miles on it.  That’s pretty ancient for a rental car.

Speaking of cars, LRN4 sold the Honda last week.  She’s the best salesperson I know.  I’ll miss it, but it was time to let it go.  I’m happy with my Taurus.

I’m certainly cranking up the airline miles and the hotel nights again.  Hotel nights especially.  Will have ten nights this month and I’m scheduled for another 17 next month already.  And there will undoubtedly be more after that.  The Marriott people are going to LOVE me!  Even though I’m going 2500 miles each way, though, I’m still not traveling enough for the airline miles to amount to a hill of beans.  Not like when I was going to Europe week in and week out ten years ago, racking up 20,000 miles a month.  Those were the good bad old days!

Anyway.  I’m enjoying the job.  It’s all quite new, so it’s a bit of a struggle to learn everything I need to know to be productive, but that will come.  I’ll also get to know the people, which I’m looking forward to.  They seem like good folks.  And east coast people just dress better than their counterparts in the west.  I don’t exactly know why they do, but it suits me just fine.

Heard from LRN1 today, rather than yesterday.  They had a Monday conference with their mission president and didn’t get to write until today.  We’re almost exactly two months away from the day he comes home!  I’m getting really excited to have him back.  And it’ll be fun to spend a couple of months together before he’s back to school.

It’s past time for me to get to bed, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: spaghetti spat!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a tender just leaving our ship, which was anchored off Maui at the time.  We were heading back in at the time.  The apparently very junior officer steering our tender had quite a difficult time pulling us up to the ship.  Took him several tries.  We gave him an appropriate amount of grief, of course.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone 4S-cam and part of my famous Machinery and Vacation series.

Pretty good week.  Busy, busy, busy.  Getting ready for the big events that start this weekend.

That’s right, folks, we’re movin’ on down the road again.  We’ve been here in Lardville for more than five years now and have loved it, but it’s time for another change.  This one is just temporary, though.  I’ve been invited to take a six-month (or a little longer, depending on who you ask) assignment back in Newtown, Pennsylvania.  Astute readers will recall that that’s where we lived just before we came here.  Well, okay, we were actually in Doylestown, which is about half an hour away from Newtown, but my office was in Newtown.  And that’s where we’re going to be too.  No more two hour commute each way.  Our goal is five minutes this time, but we’ll accept ten minutes in a pinch.  We don’t know exactly where we’ll be living yet, but there are several candidates already on the list, and I’m sure we’ll find more with just a tiny bit of looking, if necessary.

LRN4 and I are really excited about the move, including the fact that it’s just temporary.  We absolutely loved Bucks County when we lived there before and expect to love it again.  We expect to live in an apartment or a townhouse, with no gardening to do, no trees to trim and spray, no foliage to cut back, no lawn to mow and trim, no pool and pond to take care of, no broken appliances to fix, and almost no cleaning to do.  We hope to do a bit of traveling around, both locally and a bit more distant, on weekends and generally enjoy ourselves.  Also get ready for my post-retirement career and living in a much smaller place.

There are lots of things we’ll miss about Lardville, and there are also many I’ll miss about my old job.  However, that program is ending and everything is going to change anyway.  There is almost nothing I’ll miss about spending four hours a day either on crowded trains or waiting on crowded train platforms.  We’ll certainly miss the ward and our many friends.  However, we’re coming back after the assignment is over, at least for a short time, so we don’t have to spend too much time crying about it.

While we’re gone, we’re going to see about selling our house and moving into a smaller place here.  If it sells while we’re out there, we’ll come back (or probably just send LRN4 back, to be perfectly realistic about it) and move our stuff into an apartment or someplace.  I have no idea whether it will go in that period of time or not, but our realtor friend seems to think it’s a possibility.  Stay tuned.  I’ll miss this place, but I’ve missed all of our other houses too and lived to tell the tale.

Anyway, I’m going to Newtown by myself for two weeks to start the job and coming home on the weekends.  I’ll go to work in Sunnyvale the week of December 19 to clean out my office, finish my people’s performance appraisals, tie up any loose ends, and be done there for the next several months.  I also need to bring donuts to work that Wednesday, go out to lunch with friends again, go to the Dave Koz concert in Modesto that Wednesday, go to the dentist’s office that Thursday, and get ready for Christmas all week long.

Playing golf tomorrow morning with my friends Doug, Rob, and John.  Need to clean the pool and pond.  Also need to hire lawn and pool care services for while we’re gone.  Need to go through more stuff (we’ve been making that our chief hobby lately) and either sell, give away, or throw away a whole bunch of it.  Also need to pack for Newtown.  Also need to change a lightbulb and, as mentioned above, go through a bunch of junk.

Tried to sell my beloved Honda at work this week, but there just wasn’t enough time to get any bites.  That means LRN4 will give it her best shot while I’m in Newtown this month.  Sell, sell, sell, LRN4!  She’s the best salesperson in the family, so I know she’ll get it done.  I just hope she gets a bunch of money for it.  I certainly enjoyed that car, but I’ve enjoyed a lot of other cars too and lived to tell the tale.

Anyway.  Time for bed.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: intelligent poop-throwing chimp!  LRN3 already has his application in.

See you on Monday.  From Pennsylvania!