morrowlife

Here’s a truly hardy surfer. That water was freezing cold. He and everyone else like him were covered from head to toe in neoprene.

I’m back from the south! Things here were pretty much the way I left them. Except that the hole for the pond is essentially complete. And Loyal Reader Number Five is gone, leaving Loyal Reader Number Twelve behind. So she’ll hopefully be returning soon.

We’re ready to finish the pond, probably tomorrow. We just need to buy a bunch of pond liner, a pump/filter combination, and some fish. The fish will probably be delayed by about a week, giving the pond a little bit of time to settle in. I’m excited! Loyal Reader Number Four has done a TON of work to dig it for me. Thanks awfully, LRN4!

She also made arrangements for us to get a large pile of rocks from somebody down the street and around the corner. They had ordered four yards of large-ish river rocks and had a bunch left over. We borrowed our neighbor’s wheelbarrow (he wasn’t home, but he had previously offered to let us use it) and our friends’ utility trailer (they weren’t home, but they had previously offered to let us use it) and went over and picked up a large pile of free rocks. All in all, a pretty good deal. As long as we don’t get arrested for having a stolen wheelbarrow and trailer. We still have both of them – we plan to buy some dirt and/or smaller rocks tomorrow too.

Both boys are out right now. Loyal Reader Number Two went camping with the scouts. It’s a quick trip – they’re planning to be home before noon. Loyal Reader Number One is out at a stake YM/YW movie-watching activity. He’ll be back later tonight.

I’m incredibly sleepy, so I’m out of here for tonight. Have a great weekend.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number One on the beach. Looks like he’s having a great time down there.

Happy birthday, Loyal Reader Number Four! We’ve known each other for roughly two thirds of our lives now, and they’ve definitely been the best two thirds.

A big Morrowlife welcome to Loyal Readers Numbers Five and Twelve. They arrived at Chateau Saindouxville on Tuesday night and are here for a couple of weeks. We’re glad you’re here. And I’m planning on shooting some more Gratuitous Great Art. Gotta bring those Loyal Readers back in.

No post yesterday. Couldn’t do it. Had to come down to Edwards. I got home from work, wolfed down some (delicious) dinner, did my YM/YW presentation, packed, and left for Down South. Got here about 1:30 this morning. Yikes. At least I managed to stay awake all the way. Had to switch from podcasts to music about an hour out, but I made it without napping along the way.

The upside: I got here so late they counted me as checking in today, not last night. So I’m only being charged for one night. Well, my company is only being charged for one night, that is. There are a couple of downsides, though. First, they serve a free breakfast, but I’m only “staying” one night so I only got one coupon, so there’s no free breakfast tomorrow. No real problem, though – the breakfast isn’t really very good anyway. Actually, it’s bad. Real bad. The second small thing is that they didn’t make up my room, since they think I just checked in today and therefore didn’t need maid service. No made bed, no clean towel. Horrors! Fortunately, I expect to survive even this indignity.

Today’s meeting went well. Most of it didn’t really apply to me, but I got some great insights into how they do things here and what their plans are. I have some ideas now for how to support them better.

Had sushi for dinner tonight. Not the best in the world. Far from it. However, the worst sushi is better than, um . . . never mind. I can’t think of anything worse than the worst sushi in the world. Anyway, it was passable and I don’t regret having it.

Driving home tomorrow morning. Ought to be there around noon. LRN4 has some rocks for me to move. I can hardly wait! See you then.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Two checking out the waterfall at Big Sur. We were NOT responsible for all that graffiti, of course.

Another sunny, warm, perfect day. Had some clouds in Sunnyvale in the morning, along with a fairly chilly wind. No such problems in Lardville. Worked, ate, worked some more, and went home. I’m still trying to hire a few people – we had another phone interview today. Most of the people turn out to be somewhere between a B- and a C. Today’s guy was B-. He’s been with the company for a couple of decades but has only been developing software for a few years. And he told us he gets bored every couple of years and starts looking for something more interesting. Not our favorite characteristic, that. He sure does like to talk, though. We couldn’t get the guy to shut up, to put it frankly. Maybe he won’t be getting an invite after all.

Too many things left undone at the end of the day. I need to bear down a little. At least my renewed train ridership has eliminated the hundreds of unread emails, anyway.

We’re a few minutes north of the office now and it’s gotten cloudy again. These clouds look like they have a little rain in them too. It won’t happen, though. It’s clear in Lardville.

My boss was out sick today. I tried contacting her several times and got no response. I hope she’s okay. I found out she may want me to travel down to Southern California tomorrow for a Thursday all-day meeting, but couldn’t get her to respond. I can go if needed. Otherwise, I’ll gladly (would rather) stay home. Whatever.

I want to start reading my Ruby book again, so it’s time to quit. See you tomorrow.

Here’s my next new car. Very cool.

Tiring weekend. Can’t explain why, other than that I was up too late every night. I slept in every morning, though, so I still have no explanation. The sad thing, though, is that not much got done around the old household.

We had four couples over for dinner on Saturday night for a “small group dinner,” sponsored by the ward. It was great to get to know a few people a little better. Friday night, Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two went to the Aaronic Priesthood commemoration barbecue. It was nice and the food was really good. The only strange thing is that we held the barbecue at the church’s pavilion, which is in the middle of a large dirt drainage bowl. The place would definitely benefit from some grass. Not to mention a few trees.

Loyal Reader Number Four bought the floating pool cover. We tried it out and I really don’t like it. It’s big and bulky and therefore hard to put on, remove, and store. It gets jammed into the skimmer. It doesn’t protect the pool from leaves and junk either. In fact, it seems to attract the stuff. It certainly does warm up the water, though – at least the first foot or so of it. The bottom line is that I think LRN4 is going to return it.

Mother’s Day was fine, but there were no gifts, which I regret. As mentioned in this space before, LRN4 had bought all of her own presents, so we gave her a few cards and worked on meals. Not very exciting. There will be presents on her birthday later this week, regardless of what she says, by golly!

Oh, and there will be presents on Father’s Day and my birthday too. That goes without saying.

Time to quit. See you tomorrow.

Here’s another look at that rock field in the state park in Pennsylvania. That place was really cool (please note that I didn’t say it rocked).

Short day at work today. I took the late train (slept in until 6:00!) and am currently riding home on the early train. It’s quite crowded today because they have about 150 kids riding home from Great America. They’re confining them to the front two cars, but that still leaves many more adults in the rest of the cars. They were there this morning too, but it didn’t seem as crowded as this afternoon. Right now, there’s a woman sitting across from me reading the newspaper. Her paper keeps falling down and covering my computer screen. It’s really getting bothersome. Harumph.

Not much to talk about today. Loyal Reader Number Four called and told me she bought a clear plastic “bubble wrap” cover for the pool today. I’m a little worried about it – it may be difficult to store and a pain in the neck to put on and take off – but it will hopefully warm up the pool a little. We probably won’t need to be using it by the end of June anyway, and if it extends the swimming season by a month or two, as friends have told us it will, than it’ll probably be worth the hassle.

Ah, the middle-class blues. How ever will we survive?

The boys and I are going to the annual Aaronic Priesthood barbecue this afternoon at 6:00. We’re having tri-tip and hot dogs, along with various salads, condiments, and accessories. Sounds like fun. I’m hoping it stays warm enough late enough to be comfortable – probably won’t be a problem.

The weekend looks to be busy too. I need to work on Loyal Readers Numbers Two and Four’s computers. As mentioned before, LRN2’s machine is totally dead. LRN4’s computer is just acting strangely. It can’t seem to keep its sound card working, for example. I think I need to reinstall the operating system. I’ve been casually trying to find a Windows XP upgrade on the extremely cheap – I don’t think LRN4’s ready for Linux yet – and avoid having to install Win2K again, but I don’t think she can wait any longer. It’s been warning me that it’s not healthy and I really need to heed that warning. If I can’t find a cheap copy of XP on Saturday morning somewhere, I’ll just go ahead and rebuild the system and upgrade later. The machine wouldn’t be a good candidate for Vista and I had been hoping that XP would be dirt cheap by now, but it strangely seems to be just as popular, expensive, and in-demand as ever. I wonder why.

I’m done. Have a great weekend and I’ll see you on Monday.