morrowlife

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Two practicing for his aerobatics routine with the Blue Angels. I believe he’s one of their youngest members. Part of my famous Machinery series. Fortunately for LRN2, it’s not also part of my famous Statue series.

Things are really feeling like they’re Back to Normal. That’s a good thing, sort of. Christmas is definitely over, which is sad (with the possible exception of the decorations, which make me happy before The Big Day but grow tiresome afterward) because I enjoy the long vacation and being home with the family, but happy because I also enjoy normality and peace.

I guess I just need to work myself into a position where being home with the family is my normal state. Hmmm.

Speaking of Christmas decorations, we have an ongoing post-holiday phenomenon at our house. No matter how hard we look, we always end up missing a few things. We usually find them within a week or so and then have to rummage around in the garage to store the errant objects.

This year, we found Loyal Reader Number One’s stocking (overlooked in his room), our slightly sacrilegious door-hanger-pillow with the snowman nativity (on the pantry door), and the Christmas hand towel (on the oven door).

Which brings up an interesting question: What overlooked Christmas decorations have my Loyal Readers found and how long after Christmas have they found them? Comment, please. Maybe we should have a contest for the latest find – a lost Christmas decoration or something.

Great news! LRN1 reports that his new MacBook has arrived! When I last spoke with him, he had it in his hand. In the shipping carton, that is. It got there just before he had to head for class and then work. The plan was to go back to his dorm room this evening, open the biz, and bask in the warm glow of Apple goodness.

Wish I could be there. He has promised to take plenty of pictures. That ought to help ease my fanboy pain at least a little.

— Update later in the evening —
The computer is out, updates are being installed, LRN1 has a copy of Windows XP Professional to install via Bootcamp, the computer is cool, and everything is once again right with the world.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s another one of those extremely uncomfortable-looking statue pilots flying a two by four with wings. I’m just grateful they’ve now developed more comfortable airline seats. Part of both my famous statue and machinery series.

Great weekend. Loyal Reader Number One went back to Provo this morning. He’s already missed, of course. His flight was on time, his grandfather was there to pick him up, and he only missed his first class this morning. It’s all good. He called me this afternoon to let me know his new computer has already been shipped from Singapore(?) and is now in Alaska. I expect it will be there sometime this week.

Yes, we ordered him a new computer. It’s a 13 inch MacBook that ought to be pretty nice. LRN1 will use it until he leaves on his mission, after which it will revert to me. Take good care of it, LRN1!

LRN1’s old (and I mean old) laptop has finally gone too weird to use. The optical drive won’t read DVDs anymore, the wifi won’t work anymore, and the machine has started generating random errors. We haven’t given up on it – Loyal Reader Number Two has inherited it. He’s nursing it along quite nicely. And using a long ethernet cable. He’ll need to get a USB wifi dongle sometime soon.

I’m back to work. Sigh. We’re just as busy as ever, but it was a good day. I’d rather be sleeping in every morning, but it’s nice to get back into the routine.

Lots of new things happening at church, which will be described in detail next week.

I don’t know what to think of my exercise plan now. Apparently, even though thinking makes you fat (see last Friday’s post), it also makes you thin. I’m starting to wonder about these so-called “experts.”

The weight-gain epidemic does seem to be getting worse, though.

My new 1 terabyte disk and Larry-to-TV cable arrived today. The cable works great – the picture is big and clear. The disk will probably work great, as soon as I move a bunch of files around the network to make room for it.

Time for bed. More weekend news tomorrow. See you then.

Here’s the do-it-yourself chopper invented by the good folks at Hiller Aircraft. The idea was that it would be parachuted to a downed pilot in a big suitcase-type thing. The pilot would put it together in a matter of five minutes or so without any tools required, and fly it out to safety. It had a range of 50 miles and sounds like a great idea. The military showed interest, but ultimately didn’t buy it. Too bad. Picture taken at the Hiller Aviation Museum. Part of my famous Machinery and Statue series.

Extreme Short Shrift again today. It’s after 10:00 and I need to get to bed.

Didn’t do many of the things on my schedule. It rained, so the Sable and Ranger didn’t get washed. I never left the house other than my two-minute trip to the mailbox, so I also didn’t get the Sable’s oil changed. Need to try to get that done tomorrow. If it’s not nice out, the car washes simply won’t happen. There’s a little more cleaning up and putting things away that needs to happen, and I’m hoping to clean the guns we used at the shooting range a week or so ago. I’d also like to get a tiny bit of work done on the Suburban and the Miata. As I mentioned to Loyal Reader Number Three while he was here, owning more stuff just means you have more things broken at any given time. Sigh.

My snoring exercise program has run into a snag. It turns out thinking makes you fat. I’ll have to try to cut back a little. Either that or try snoring even more. Gotta drop those pounds.

I saw a great list of gadgets to buy. With hard times coming for lots of people, we need to start thinking about survival. These things seem like the bare essentials, don’t they?

And that’s it for the week. Loyal Reader Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve will be by tomorrow. Looking forward to it. See you on back-to-work Monday.

Here’s an old airplane that had a hard landing up in Alaska somewhere. If memory serves, nobody was hurt, but that was its last flight. In fact, I believe this is the highest this plane has gotten since. Photo taken at the Hiller Aviation Museum and part of my famous Machinery series.

Happy New Year! Quiet day around here. I finished my Bernard Goldberg book and started one called Using Your Digital Camera, by George Schaub. I had low expectations, but it’s actually been kind of interesting and even useful. Pretty much everything I’ve read in that genre previously was either way too elementary (“when you push the shutter button, a picture is taken”), marginally useful for only one brand of camera, hopefully out of date, or otherwise useless. Fortunately, hope springs eternal, so I tried this one. Moderately recommended.

We spent the evening playing Rage. We have some old Rage cards, but they were getting pretty raggedy. Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve gave us a new deck for Christmas. The rules are slightly different from what we’re used to, which added a slightly new twist. Loyal Readers Numbers Four and One won the first and second games, respectively. After which we retired.

Watched a little bit of a football game this afternoon. Michigan State got creamed by Georgia or somebody. Fortunately, I didn’t really care much. Also watched a few Monks, all of which I had seen before, but all of which I enjoyed. Mostly. The 2008 Christmas show was weak, but I generally even enjoy their weak shows. I’ll be sad when that show jumps the shark.

Extreme Short Shrift tonight. It’s a little after 10:00, and I need to start getting up in the morning in preparation for Back To Work Day. So I’m quitting. See you tomorrow.

Here are some folks looking for fish at Lake Chabot. Part of my famous Camping series.

Happy New Year’s Eve! Like most people, I have no idea where the year’s gone. There’s been a little bad. And a whole lot of good. Overall, I can’t complain.

Thanks to Anon for missing yesterday’s post. I was working on Waterlogged until all hours of the night. Didn’t get it done last night, but Loyal Reader Number One and I worked on it again today and got it fixed. Hooray! Everything’s now on Godaddy and I won’t be getting any more intrusion attempts. Larry’s serving video for the loft’s television. Life’s good.

Only five more days before I go back to work and LRN1 heads back to school. And everything and everybody else gets back to normal. I’m kind of looking forward to the “normal” part. But not the “work” part. And definitely not the “LRN1 heads back to school” part.

I have a pretty long list of things I want to get done during the holiday. So far, so okay. I’m a little behind in the “Cleaning Up My Room” department, and not so great in the “working on the cars” department. I’m right up to snuff on the “messing around with computers” department, though. Priorities.

We’re going to the Big Stake Dance this evening. For some reason, our excellent stake president has really wanted it to be a nice event, so he’s had people working on it all year, including several dance practices. Ought to be pretty fancy. If I can stay awake. I’ve been up until all hours of the night nearly every night this vacation, and I’m exhausted tonight. I’ll make it, though. Send me a few encouragement rays, Loyal Readers.

I’ve started reading Bernard Goldberg’s Arrogance. It describes itself as a book about “rescuing America from the media elite.” It’s been a pretty quick read. It was written in 2003, so he misses a lot of material about media malfeasance, especially in the light of the recent election. He’s pretty much right on the money prediction-wise, though. One interesting point he makes, though, is how fast the media will turn on one of their pet liberals when they come into conflict with somebody else higher on the pet liberal ladder. He cites the case of Tammy Bruce, the president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW. She was very popular in her community of like-minded people and a darling of the media. Then she had some harsh words to say about O.J. Simpson’s treatment of his ex-wife, starting with physical abuse while they were married, right up to her murder after their divorce.

The establishment didn’t like that, and they didn’t put up with it for one second. She was ostracized from her previous friends, and she became instant persona non grata with the media. I guess black men are higher up on the pet liberal ladder than white women.

For further evidence, see the case of Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama. She’s still trying to figure out what happened.

Anyway. Entertaining book.

That’s pretty much it for the year. Have a great and safe New Year’s Eve. See you tomorrow.