morrowlife

Here’s our new house in Las Vegas, as it appeared on June 26.  Nothing but cement and piles of wood.  Stay tuned for greatly updated pictures.  Great Art courtesy of Jud the Real Estate Guy and part of my famous Las Vegas series.

Lots going on.  Not the least of which is pictured above.  We’re supposed to close on the new house on September 28.  When will we move into it?  Not so sure.  After my current job is over, that’s for sure.  In the meantime, it will be our vacation home.  Not to mention someplace to dream about.  I’m really excited to see it someday.

Busy, busy, busy at work, and getting busier.  I just hope I survive the rest of the year.

We’re heading to Park City in a couple of days for four (including travel time) fun-filled days visiting with LRN4’s family and – hooray – LRN1 and LRN2.  I’m really looking forward to it.

Got a haircut tonight.  It had been way too long and it really feels better.   Itchy, but better.  I’m heading to the showers after this is done.

There was a huge fire here in the apartment complex on Sunday night.  A building not far from ours was struck by lighting and erupted into flames.  The roof pretty much burned off, major fire damage was done to at least a few of the apartments, and smoke and water damage undoubtedly was done to a whole lot more.  Freaky thing.  Pictures coming Real Soon Now.

Haven’t bought anything interesting lately, other than some Healthy Choice fudge ice cream bars.  Strangely, they don’t seem to sell those at Amazon.  Pity, that.  Gratuitous advertisements resume soon.  Well, as soon as I buy something, anyway.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers (if any) with this shocking food violence news: newlywed reception food thieves!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s our preparations for our latest cruise.  Do you think I brought too much stuff?  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at Ellis Island, and part of my famous Machinery series.

Luggage is machinery, right?

Extreme short shrift, as usual.  It’s about 15 minutes before I want to be in bed.  Sigh.

Been busy programming much of the evening.  I’m really starting to make progress on my next project.  I’m not too sure how impressive it will be visually – still need to work on that – but it’ll be my first Cocos2D game, and that’s a big deal.  It’ll go out under the spinfo.info umbrella, since it’s just for fun.

The real trouble is that I don’t know whether the folks at Apple will even approve it for the App Store.  I think it’ll be okay, but it’s a programming game and I don’t know how sticky they are about their rules that say you can’t release development systems.  It’s not a development system, it’s a programming game.  I have high hopes that they’ll be able to tell the difference between the two.  Still, I wish I could ask them to be sure before I invest a bunch of time in it.  Sigh.

Not much else new around here today.  Worked like a sled dog today.  Prefer to work like a house dog.  Maybe tomorrow.

LRN4 spent the day with the kids she’s been helping out with a lot lately.  They have a baby brother who’s been having a rough time of it and is in the hospital.  Hopes remain high for his recovery, but their family has been really sacrificing to take care of him.  I wish them all the best.

Anyway.  Just a week and a day before we head out for our long weekend (Wednesday – Sunday) in Michigan.  I’m looking forward to visiting my family again.  Then a couple of weeks later, we’re off for a weekend in Utah to visit LRN1, LRN2, and LRN4’s family.  Exciting month.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: Danish assault raccoon!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the ballroom in the conservatory at Longwood Gardens.  Just a humble little place to meet in a modest little 4-acre indoor garden.  That DuPont guy knew how to live.  Also, he could afford it.  Note the image on the projector – we were there during the Orchid Festival (or whatever they called it) and they were all over the place.  Beautiful.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken during our springtime visit to Longwood Gardens, and part of my famous Machinery series.

I’m sure there’s some machinery in there somewhere.  The slide projector?  The chandeliers? Something else?  Maybe I need to come up with a new famous series or two.

More about Longwood below.

Lots going on.  The Las Vegas house project is moving forward!  LRN4 has been very busy picking options, we’ve been signing all kinds of stuff, and we’re about to send a pretty big check for the options that won’t be included in the mortgage.  Plus, they’ve done their digging in the dirt.  That wasn’t nearly as extensive as when we had our house in Virginia built, which actually included a basement.  In this case, they’ve kind of scraped it a little and put up concrete forms for the foundation.  Oh, well.  It’s still exciting!

I only wish I could be there to see it happening.  Or at least convince somebody to take some pictures for me.  I’m the boss.  Need the info.

The pace at work continues to pick up.  I’m pretty much running from morning until afternoon.  It’s fairly satisfying, but I think I could be satisfied with just a little less work.  Have to look into that.

LRN3 and LRN15 came to visit us this past weekend.  We had a very nice visit.  LRN3 is looking and sounding great!  So is LRN15, of course, but then she was always that way.

Had a pleasant birthday and Father’s Day.  We didn’t do much of anything either day, but that was how I wanted it.  Plus, we went to Longwood Gardens the day after my birthday for the exclusive evening show.  They were open until 11:00 and had some pretty cool indoor and outdoor lighting displays.  We saw almost everything and really enjoyed it.  It was a hot, muggy day, though and we were pretty sick of walking around by about 9:30, so we went home.  We hope to go back again sometime soon, though.  Great Art of the event coming Real Soon Now.

For LRN4’s birthday, I ordered her a new [amazon asin=0528006223&text=road atlas].  I ordered the 2012 edition, which never seemed to come, so I finally got curious and discovered that the 2013 version is already out.  I switched the order and it arrived yesterday.  She loves it!  Her old atlas was from about 1980.  A few roads have changed since then, so it was time.  Yes, I know road atlases are somewhat obsolete in this newfangled age of the GPS.  She likes having it anyway.  Not that she doesn’t trust our GPS receivers.  But she doesn’t.  Not really.

Tomorrow night – free tickets to a Phillies game.  The company is giving them away to employees, along with a very nice tailgate party.  We’re looking forward to it.  It’s supposed to be 97 degrees and humid tomorrow, but we’re looking forward to it anyway.

And it’s way past my bedtime (seems like it’s always way past my bedtime, doesn’t it?), so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: basil attack during meat flap!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the other end of the train tracks I’ve shown in the last few posts.  This is the side where the ferries arrive from Ellis Island.  I believe the same thing used to happen in the old days, with perhaps fewer tourism-oriented passengers.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken during our recent visit to New York, and part of my famous Machinery series.

I realize a building may not qualify as Machinery in some people’s view.  I urge those people to inspect the large clock prominently placed on that building.  It still tells the correct time and is machinery, without a doubt.  Not to mention those fancy-looking lights.  Plus, there’s a hint of leftover ferry-landing equipment there in the foreground.  So I stand by my statement.

Well, it’s happiest-day-of-the-year eve.  Tomorrow’s my off Friday, so I’ll have the whole day available for fun and frolic.  Ought to be nice.

LRN4 spent about a week and a half in Virginia recently, visiting LRN1 and LRN15 during a few difficult days for them.  She enjoyed her visit and is glad to report that things are going well down there.  It’s also nice to have her back home.

Work continues as normal.  I’m working harder than I want to and mainly enjoying it.  I’m enjoying the people very much indeed.  In some ways, I’ll be sad to leave here when that time comes.  In other ways, I’ll be delighted to be moving forward with my life.

Speaking of moving forward, dirt has been scraped on our behalf in Las Vegas!  Apparently, concrete forms have also been placed for the new house’s foundation.  We’re supposed to get pictures over the weekend, which I might even share here.  Exciting!  We’ll soon be three-home people.  Think of all the homeowner’s insurance!

Otherwise, not so much new since we last spoke.  So I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: fruit-related traffic jam!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a green statue we noticed during our recent trip to New York.  Apparently, it’s French or something.  The statue itself is beautiful, and it’s on an equally impressive pedestal.  It’s not often you see such a thing.  Interestingly, it was set up in the middle of an old fort.  Who would have guessed?  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Statue series.

Just checking in tonight.  Been a busy but pleasant week.  Worked hard, ate hard, slept hard.  That’s how I roll.

LRN4 and I went to dinner tonight with our friends and my colleagues Hai and Thomas.  They’re going back to Sunnyvale tomorrow – their TDY is over.  I’ll miss them.  It looks like they’re keeping me here for the duration, though.  We’re glad about that. We’re enjoying Pennsylvania quite a bit.

On the other hand, our Las Vegas home project is moving forward smartly.  We’ve signed the papers, they’ve signed the papers, we now have an appointment to pick out the house’s options, and they’re starting to shovel the week of 4 June.  Can’t wait!

The Loyal Readers at college are both doing well.  They’ve just taken midterms with mostly very positive results.  Keep up the good work, Loyal Readers!

My trusty old router is no longer so trusty.  It’s gotten to the point of crapping out pretty much once a day.  So I ordered a trusty [amazon asin=B002HWRJY4&text=new router] tonight.  My two-day Amazon shipping will get it here by next Wednesday.  It’s the same brand as the old one, so it’s likely to have all of the old one’s good points (dual-band wireless, guest network, attached storage capability, etc.) and probably all of the same bad points as every other consumer-grade router.  Namely, that it will probably last a year and then be ready for replacement.  Such is the way of routers.

Nothing much else going on.  It’s the four-day Memorial Day weekend!  We have little to no plans, other than finishing the Brewing Co. app on the Android.  I’m going to do it!

I polled the Loyal Readers this afternoon for iOS app ideas.  I got several excellent suggestions, all of which are going on my list.  I was looking for things to work on after I go out on my own and when I’m between paying customers.  I am SO ready to get started.  Which I’m doing in my copious spare time.  When I’m not wasting that spare time, that is.

Anyway.  It’s already way past my bedtime and I must obey the call.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: hospital-invading monkey!

See you tomorrow.