morrowlife

Here’s the beach at Santa Cruz around sunset.  That was a long but enjoyable day.  I think I may have mentioned that my favorite part was the four hours LRN2 and I spent together waiting for the rest of the people to come.  The low point – cleaning up the Dutch ovens afterwards.  Never again.  Check out that old concrete ship at the end of the pier.  World War I relic.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam.

Short shrift tonight.  I want to work on a bit of iPhone programming before I go to bed in about an hour.

Lots to do at work.  It’s kind of hard to stay productive right now – I suspect it’s because many of the things I need to do are things I don’t exactly want to do.  Must . . . put . . . shoulder . . . to . . . the . . . wheel.

Plenty to do at home too, but the schedule isn’t quite as tough.  LRN4 spent a good portion of the day cleaning out her hobby shelf in the garage.  Most of the stuff is in the trash can now, but she found some pretty good things there that she’s hanging on to.  Maybe she’ll be able to find a little time to work on hobbies after the house isn’t so full of time-consuming junk.  We can only hope.

Otherwise, not much.  Oh – our iPhone app came out today!  I have no idea how many downloads there have been, but we’ve had about five people already that can’t get it to download their data.  Sigh.  I suspect the database people may have chosen today to make another change, which would be unfortunate, but my contact at the church can easily get that fixed.  Or it’s something else we’ll get figured out.  My iPhone- or iPod-Touch- or iPad-owning Loyal Readers are invited to go to the Apple App Store and search for LDS Tools.  Let me know what you think.  Even bug reports are welcome.

Been watching the videos from iTunes U of the Stanford iPhone Development class.  It’s very well done, with good, clear lectures and quite good production values.  Highly recommended for budding iPhone developers such as myself.  I’m also working through the Big Nerd Ranch‘s iPhone Programming book.  Also highly recommended.  Between the two, maybe I’ll be able to figure this thing out.  I think I’m making progress.

So today was my all-iPhone blog.  Some days are just like that.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: let’s just say I’ve had this problem before too.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a hungry-looking bear waiting for its prey – group campers. Fortunately, this bear is technically just a statue, making it highly unlikely to actually catch any campers. Part of both my famous Camping and Statue series. Let’s throw in my famous Vacation series for good measure, for a very rare Triple Series Great Art day.

Well, I’ve certainly been negligent again, haven’t I? Must . . . post . . . more . . . regularly.

Good weekend. My dad was here – had a great visit and had a chance to talk about a lot of important things. I really appreciated his advice on several things. LRN12 was also here, and was as fun as ever. If only that girl would sleep. Sheesh. I wonder how her mom functions. LRN4 is still exhausted.

Otherwise, not much is new. The Miata is finally officially gone, after spending several days at the mechanic (and several hundred dollars!) getting fixed so it would pass its smog test. Finally passed yesterday and got picked up by its new owners today. Hopefully, they’ll really enjoy it. I know we did. My next convertible: a Corvette. It’s either that or a Porsche, and the Corvette will be way cheaper to keep running, I suspect. Not for a while, though. I’m happy with the four cars I have.

Speaking of which, LRN4 canceled the Miata’s insurance today and put LRN2 on as my beloved pickup’s driver. We’re saving a thousand bucks a year! I think they were charging us way too much for the pickup in the past. I doubt we have any way of getting the overcharged money back at this point, but at least it appears to be fixed now. Let that be a lesson to us all. Check your insurance bill. Carefully.

Let’s see, what else is going on? I really can’t think of anything. And it’s time for bed, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: McNugget punch!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s LRN1 and his new haircut.  What do you think, Loyal Readers?

Wow.  It’s been a long time since I last posted.  Some journal, huh?  Maybe I need to get another hobby.  But what would my long-suffering Loyal Readers do for entertainment?

We had a great weekend at Lake Tahoe.  The cabin was cute.  A little older, but neat and in great condition.  It was nice being there.  I’ll get a few photos onto the blog Real Soon Now.

In other big news, I’m writing this on my new computer!  It’s a beautiful MacBook Pro.  Nothing too out of the ordinary, but I really like it.  LRN2’s machine looks identical to it (although his hard disk is a bit smaller), and LRN4’s also looks almost identical – she has LRN1’s old unibody MacBook from a year or two ago.  It’s still a great machine and seems just like mine except for a smaller hard disk and no backlighting on its keyboard.  I’m guessing its processor might be a bit slower, but not so you could notice.  We’re all in computer heaven around here.

And we’ve been busy getting rid of old computers.  I’ve thrown away six or seven desktop machines in various states of repair, along with my old semi-broken laptop.  My trusty, still-working right Linux machine is in storage in my office – I’ll probably get rid of it soon, but I can’t quite bear to do it yet.  I think I’ve thrown away enough computers for one week, don’t you?

We’ve gotten rid of a whole lot of other stuff too.  Most notably, we’ve said goodbye to our camping trailer (as previously mentioned) and my beloved Miata.  Got pretty good money for both, although the Miata’s final departure has been delayed by difficulties getting it to pass its smog test.  It had to have its timing adjusted and now it’s getting a new catalytic converter and a fuel filler pipe.  We’re having to put a substantial portion of the purchase price back into it, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

We’ve also gotten rid of a ton of unneeded books, jillions of unneeded computer parts, unneeded stereo equipment, an unneeded semi-working laser printer, and who knows what else.  Progress is steady, but I fear we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the tip of the iceberg.  Much more junk awaits the axe.  And it can’t be gone soon enough.

Speaking of being gone, LRN2 has decided to graduate from high school in December and start college in January!  That’s pretty big news around here.  He has started the BYU application process and has until October first to complete it.  I think he’ll make it on time without too much trouble.  I’ll be really sad to see him go, but I think it’s a great idea to get out there and get going on college.

LRN2 has started driving my beloved Ranger, since my beloved Miata is gone.  We had to get a bunch of things fixed on it this week, including getting new spark plugs, spark plug wires, coil, and fuel filter (basic [but expensive] tune-up stuff), new brake rotors and pads, and a new steering wheel (paid for this week but not to be installed until next week).  It’s running great now.  I have the Suburban at work again, which passed its smog test (finally) last week.  Hopefully, we’re at least temporarily finished spending half our money on auto repairs.

Anyway.  LRN12 is here for a few days – she arrived last night and is staying through Monday.  In other visiting news, my father arrives from Michigan tomorrow.  He’s also staying until Monday.  Hopefully, this town will be big enough for the both of ’em.  I’m really looking forward to my dad’s visit, and I always love having LRN12 here too.  Should be a good weekend.

Well, it’s past my bedtime, as usual, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife employment opportunity: snake wrestler!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the guy who robbed our train in Arizona a few weeks ago.  I had some money in my hand to give him, but he forgot to ask me for it.  I didn’t feel that it would be good form to invite him to come back and take it from me, so I kept quiet.  Photo courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Vacation series.

Wow.  It’s been a week since I posted.  Been busy.  LRN2 and I went to the Santa Cruz beach for about 14 hours on Saturday.  We had a nice time, but I have to say I think my favorite part was waiting for four hours for the group of yoots to get there.  We had the two pavilions to ourselves, it was nice and quiet, we got to read and talk, the weather was sunny and warm without being hot and the wind was calm.  Very nice.  Then the group got there and it was still enjoyable but certainly no long quiet.  I have a couple of pictures, which I’ll have to add to my blog Great Art backlog Real Soon Now.

Lots of car troubles.  Sigh.  The Suburban went for a smog test this afternoon and failed because it hadn’t been long enough since its minor emission system problem was fixed and the computer was reset.  My beloved pickup is in the shop in Sunnyvale as I write this.  Its positive battery cable disintegrated because of undetected corrosion.  Can I just buy a new positive battery cable for ten bucks or whatever?  No, of course not!  The battery cables are part of a $111 engine wiring harness!  And it takes an hour and a half of a trained mechanic’s time to remove the old one and install the new one!  For another two hundred bucks!  Double sigh.  Must be done, though.  So I’ve got problems.

Big things going on here at the Secret Undisclosed Location.  For starters, we sold the trailer on Saturday morning.  We (okay, mostly I) decided we were through with it and with camping in California.  So we priced it extremely fairly and sold it on the morning after the ad appeared on craigslist.  A nice young couple bought it, and we hope it will serve them well for many years.  We’ll miss it, but not much.

We also have my beloved Miata up for sale.  There are just too many cars in our collection.  LRN2’s especially sad about seeing that one go, since he’s been driving it for the past year.  But he’ll be fine.  He’s going to use my beloved pickup and I’ll keep the Suburban at work.  Which is fine with me at this point, but I’m looking forward to having the pickup back when LRN2 heads for school.

Speaking of which, we could get him graduated from High School in December if we want, and he could leave for college in early January.  He doesn’t think he’s quite ready for that yet, but we’ll see.  Otherwise, he’ll probably go in the fall.  We need to make a decision soon, though.

Yet another thing we’re selling is my beloved Mac Mini G4 – the first one I got.  We’re really not using it anymore, and I’ve decided ten computers is too many for three people.  So I’m getting rid of everything I can get rid of.  Plus all my spare parts.  This is going to be a Mac laptop shop from now on, so I don’t need a closet full of old obsolete PC parts anymore.  So far, I’ve eliminated about three desktops, and I have one more of those to go (good old Moe) and one or two laptops too (including this one, which I will probably hold on to for a little while until I’m convinced I won’t use it anymore).  It’s been excruciating, but I’m committed to get rid of everything around here we don’t need anymore.

As part of the old computer elimination, though, I’ve ordered a new MacBook Pro for myself.  That will leave all three of us with Mac laptops, which will be great!  I’m excited for it to get here.  Just ordered it last night and as of about ten minutes ago, it hasn’t been built yet.  I’m watching Apple’s website closely for signs of progress.

The new laptop will be named Curly, so old Curly will become new Moe.  It’s already been moved over to the upstairs TV and has assumed its new role.  Larry has moved down and is now serving the family room TV (lesser-prestige job, but he’s just glad not to be thrown out like old Moe, Shemp, Buddy, possibly Ted, and a few unnamed machines).  I’m excited to get the MBP because I’ll be able to do iPhone development on the train, which wasn’t a possibility before for obvious reasons.  Plus it’s cooler.

Anyway.  Lots of things being thrown away or sold, and we’re only just starting.  The generator is probably the next thing to go.  Plus just about everything else.  Sell, sell, sell!  I’d like to see the garage practically emptied out.  Plus a whole lot of the house, for that matter.  We’re hoping to end up in a condo or townhouse in the next few years, and we need to be ready for it.  Never again do I want to fill up an entire moving van with my junk.

Remember the watchword – nicer stuff, and less of it.

I guess that’s the watch-six-words.

Nothing much else going on, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: giant man-eating squid!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the North Grove trail in Calaveras Big Trees State Park.  A very pretty place to take a walk.  Great Art courtesy of my very nice Olympus camera and part of my famous Camping series.

Hot, hot, hot day.  It got up to 103 here in Lardville, which I believe breaks the record by a couple of degrees.  At least that’s what the Weather Channel’s website says.  Even more shocking, it got up to 100 in Sunnyvale, which is nine degrees above the previous record.  Yikes.

Otherwise, though, it was a pretty average day.  Nothing great happened, nothing bad happened.

Oh, one good thing – I chatted with LRN3 during my afternoon drive to the train station.  He’s doing well.  They’re leaving for Virginia a bit early – this Friday, in fact.  He’s getting excited about it.  I’m really pleased for them, except that it will be harder for us to get together.

That’s it for tonight.  I want to take a dip in the pool before bedtime.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: poutine attack!