Pennsylvania waterfall

Here's a very young Loyal Reader Number One hanging out by a waterfall somewhere in Pennsylvania. Part of my famous Camping series.

I have a sneaking suspicion I've used that photo before. If any Loyal Readers care to find it, you'll be fully rewarded by seeing your name on the actual Internet.

Went out to dinner with Loyal Reader Number Four this evening. Loyal Reader Number Two's at the temple, so the mice are playing. We went to the Greek hamburger joint in town and had a pastrami cheeseburger. Saw our cruise partner Connie there. The burgers and fries were delicious. And huge. We're both el stuffo.

Lots going on in the toilet community today. For one thing, they're getting expensive. For another, they're getting disgusting. And finally, the rest of the world is jealous of us! That's what makes America great - our toilet paper technology is the envy of the world.

LRN4 and I are watching an old episode of Remington Steele. It was a cute show and still holds up pretty well, the 70's haircuts and clothes notwithstanding. It's on Hulu - check it out.

Drove the Miata to work today. The traffic was mediocre, but it was nice to drive the sports car. Hadn't been inside it for a few weeks. I'm thinking of taking Loyal Reader Number Two over to the church parking lot tomorrow for a little manual transmission driving practice. Wish both him and the car luck.

Back to the show. Have a great weekend and I'll see you on Monday.

East coast camping

Here's Loyal Reader Number Four walking down the road in an east coast campground. The camping was certainly green and beautiful there. And wet. Part of my famous Camping series.

I have a serious problem with the Morrowlife blog. It's taking way too much of my precious home time. That's one of the main reasons why I bought the data plan for my phone - the hope is to get it done and posted during the evening commute every day, leaving me free to eat, do high council work, watch computer-based TV shows, and even possibly visit with my family. And maybe get to bed on time once in a while.

There is one small problem, though: the phone's battery life stinks. Every night on the way home from work since I turned on the data plan, the phone has died from lack of chargage. I'm thinking of getting another charger I can keep at work. That would fix me up.

Or maybe it's just that I've been playing with the web/texting/email too much during the day. Still, the battery ought to last WAY longer than that. Sigh.

Anyway. Not much else going on so far today. That's about to turn around, though. My non-Loyal-Reader brother-in-law Ken is in town and is stopping by for dinner and (hopefully) an evening of chatting. He's going home tomorrow, apparently, which is a good thing because my non-Loyal-Reader sister-in-law Melanie (AKA his wife) had surgery today to replace the elbow joint she broke a couple of days ago. She might like him to lend a hand for a few days.

Or maybe not. Friends of Ken will know that of which I speak.

But we're looking forward to his visit this evening.

Loyal Reader Number Four and I selected our cruise side trips last night. We're going ATVing at one place, visiting a glacier and salmon hatchery at another, doing something fascinating that I can't remember right now but am tremendously excited about at another, and visiting the world-famous Bouchart Gardens in Vancouver. Should be a real fun trip.

I'm excited to be spending several days at sea on this cruise - we were ashore every day on the Disney cruise a few years back, which was our only other similar experience. I didn't feel I had enough time to just explore the ship and relax. This time, we're only off the ship for four of the ten days, one of which will only last something like six hours. So we'll have plenty of ship time.

I want to play shuffleboard. Also recline on a deck chair, read a book, and watch the world go by.

Oh, I just remembered what the other excursion is. We're getting on a little boat in the harbor and going to see an eagle preserve of some kind, a bunch of authentic totem poles, and a bunch of other stuff. I believe there's also a bunch of authentic Alaskan food. Whale blubber and that sort of thing. Yum.

That's about it for now. Work Friday tomorrow. See you then.

Whip store

Here's the place where I bought my Kazakh camel whip, if memory serves. That's a cluster of them there hanging in the middle. I possibly also bought my green Kazakh robe there. That's my former colleague James in purchasing mode.

Yet another pleasant sunny/cloudy, warmish day. More blossoms on trees, now including many of the orchards here in Lardville.

Read this interesting article today. The California drought question is a very relevant one around here right now. The news morons here in the Valley are touting the need to impose extreme rationing measures this summer. And the reservoirs are at 97% of average. Based on that, I suspect Our Masters in Government are among the few remaining people who still believe the Old Media. Sigh.

Anyway. Loyal Reader Number Four and I need to make our excursion selections for the Alaska cruise. We still haven't had the chance to even look at the choices on the website other than a few minutes one Sunday evening. And I just don't know when I'll find the time. Fortunately, LRN4 has offered to make the choices on my behalf. I'm inclined to take her up on that. She usually has a better idea of what I like than I do myself.

Had a long text message conversation with Loyal Reader Number One this afternoon. He has a great super-secret iPhone/iPod/Mac project just getting off the ground. He's doing it for a coding contest, and I think it has an excellent chance of becoming a pretty popular app. Good luck, LRN1! And be sure to support your aged parents when you strike it rich.

Situation otherwise pretty much average. Let's see if there's any toilet news this afternoon, shall we? Straight from Dave's blog - it's cold out there.

How about some controversy too? Is this thing crazy, nutty, or merely loony? I report, you decide.

See you tomorrow.

Dirty mask

Here's Loyal Reader Number One doing his Michael Jackson imitation. Except not as weird. Or sick. Or disturbed. Or anything. Look at all the dust on that thing - I wouldn't want that in my lungs. Photo courtesy of LRN1. I think.

Pretty day out. Plenty of clouds, plenty of sun.

Well, I did it. Ordered a Voip setup from a company called Ooma. The hardware should be here in a week or so, after which I need to activate it, order my phone number transferred to it (if possible, which I believe it is), wait for the transfer for a week or two, and cancel our POTS. I'm excited about it.

Ooma hardware is pretty expensive at 200 bucks through Amazon (retail is $250). The monthly charge is quite reasonable, though: zip. Nada. Zero dollars and zero cents. They want to upsell you their premium service, and they might succeed with me. The standard service includes everything we have now plus voice mail. The premium adds some pretty cool stuff like voice mail sent to you via email and multiple lines. We'll have to see.

I first tried ordering Vonage. Didn't work out so well. I was able to place an order via their website, but there was some kind of "processing error" that they couldn't explain that canceled my order but kept my account. They were unable to redo the order using the existing account name and I was unwilling to start over again, so we agreed to part as friends. I can't recommend them, though.

Anyway. I've already spent the entire amount of the savings. I turned on unlimited text messaging for the family and unlimited data service for my cell phone. I hoped to get data for Loyal Reader Number One too, but the price was high. We'll have to see if we can figure something out. They sure charge a lot for that stuff. But it's really cool. I'm more worried than ever about my phone's short battery life, even with the mega battery. Sigh.

So what else is going on? It's semi-massive meeting Tuesday. My meetings don't start until 7:00, so I rode the train and just left the office an hour early, but the last meeting doesn't start until 9:00, making for a late night. Survival is likely, however.

Loyal Reader Number Two has great, momentous news: his braces were removed yesterday! He looks great and feels the same. Congratulations, LRN2!

No toilet news, no controversy. It's late.

See you tomorrow.

Dynamite cut

Here's something that just looks like a bad idea. That's dynamite. And a pocket knife. Two things you don't normally want to see together. Picture courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One, who survived the photo opportunity.

Nicer day than expected. I went to work prepared for rain and got mostly-to-partly cloudy. No complaints. The temperatures are back up into the 60s during the day and 40s at night. The hills are mostly green, although not yet as velvety as they'll be in another month. Springtime is breaking out.

No post on Friday. Even though it was Off Friday, I failed to plan. Loyal Reader Number Four and I went to the temple that evening and then it was bedtime. So no post. I pity your suffering, Loyal Readers.

Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve (I really need to come up with a shortcut for them) were here for the weekend, which was nice. I hope they're enjoying their visits these days, because I know we are. Anyway, the weather wasn't conducive to Suburban detailage, so LRN6 did a few odd jobs on his truck and relaxed some.

As did I. I worked for quite a while to get Larry set up as a proper media center. All I lack is a remote control. And a final decision to cut the cable.

I think the thing I'm worried about most is losing the ability to channel surf. But I really doubt any of us will miss it all that much. There is just a ton of free stuff on the internet, including lots of good old shows we definitely like. Think Dick Van Dyke. The Addams Family. McHale's Navy. Bob Newhart. Bullwinkle. Monk. Psych. And many, many others.

And yes, as Loyal Reader Number One asked in the comments, I did install Miro. It easily links to any Hulu page, which is very cool. I also have MediaPortal, which is pretty neat. Especially for the price.

The big question is whether a remote control will effective navigate Hulu and Miro, which is the source of much of the good stuff. I guess I just need to buy one and verify. Then we cut the cord.

I'm also about ninety percent convinced to cut off the house phone and go with either Vonage (or somebody similar) or that $25/year service I was thinking about before. Or even just our cell phones. That's a problem, though, since our signal at home is so poor. Anyway, I'm thinking of using the savings to buy text messaging and a data plan for the cell phones. Seems like a good trade to me.

Opinions, Loyal Readers?

Yes, I know - you can't stay awake with this fascinating monologue going on. Well, let's liven this thing up a little. Today's controversy: How do I get in on this deal?

See you tomorrow.

We try to please

Here's a sign inside the mine Loyal Reader Number One recently visited. They try to please. One of the things that struck me about his latest pictures is the condition of all the wood inside the mines. It looks brand new, yet those mines have presumably been abandoned for quite some time, and the wood was presumably in there for a reasonably long period before that. Nothing seems to wear out. As opposed to the pictures he shared from his Utah mine trips - those places look pretty ramshackle. I wonder what the difference is. Picture courtesy of LRN1.

Beautiful, warm, sunny day. It was a shame to spend essentially all of it indoors. It's supposed to be nice again tomorrow and Saturday, so there's hope.

I enjoyed attending the branch's Elders quorum presidency meeting last night. Like all the other branch meetings, it was conducted entirely in Spanish. The good: I'm still able to comprehend essentially everything without having to translate in my head. The bad: I'm finding myself having to think a little harder than I did as a young man as I speak. Hopefully, sustained practice will help me overcome that.

The weekend's here, and it promises to be somewhat busy. It's Stake Conference weekend, so we have temple night on Friday, leadership and adult sessions on Saturday, and the general session on Sunday, which promises to be the sparsest day schedule-wise. I'll do a bunch of girls camp work Sunday to keep myself busy.

Other weekend activities include a possible visit from Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve. LRN6 wants to work on detailing the Suburban on Saturday, which would be great, although my availability will be limited, so we may have to reschedule. We'd like it if they came anyway, of course.

I also need to have a serious look at the pool and pond filters. Maybe I can get that done on Friday. The filters Will Ever Be With Us.

I checked out the additional mine pictures LRN1 linked to in his comment to yesterday's post. Excellent photos - thanks for sharing. Highly recommended viewing. Since all these photos are the property of somebody else, I'll refrain from posting any of them here.

Here's a revolting development in the media center world. I don't think the Old Media will ever really get it, do you? Every time it seems like there's a chance, they do something like this.

Today's odd news: The Maytag repairman has a problem. I wonder how lonely he'll feel in a jail cell.

There's even some toilet news today: It's getting more expensive every day. The news isn't all bad, though - the Maytag repairman may be getting a break.

That's it for tonight. See you tomorrow.

Broken Rover

Here's a position familiar to owners of British vehicles since time immemorial. Even extremely expensive British vehicles. Picture courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One; taken during his recent mine exploration expedition. The guy with the Ford truck had no car problems.

No rain today, for the first time in several days. There's still a lot of standing water around, as observed from my train window. It's supposed to be dry through Friday, after which the daily rainstorms resume. Still no complaints - we need all the moisture we can get.

Got the media center program installed on Shemp last night. Its documentation says my machine is fine with the exception of the memory - I have 256 MB and it wants 1 TB. It actually runs (and looks real nice to boot!), but does so VERY slowly. I really need to start looking for some memory for both Shemp and Larry. They won't really be useful until that happens. Then I can add remote controls. And then some new HDTVs. Then we can start saving money on television!

No toilet news. No links. Maybe tomorrow.

That's it for today. I've been seriously sleep deprived this week and need to do something about it. Such as getting to bed on time.

See you tomorrow.

Dark Mine

Here's an unidentified mine explorer exploring a mine. Looks dark down there. I'm still working on the "why" (link warning: amusing YouTube video with sound) before I can get to the "when," "where," and "how." Photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One.

Slept in this morning after getting the new computer (new name: Shemp) working perfectly last night. I still plan to install an open source media center application. Haven't decided which one yet. Maybe not tonight, though. It's already after 9:00.

Anyway. I'm feeling much better - the headache is basically gone and even the throat feels a little better. Cautious optimism reigns.

Worked a little on Girls Camp tonight. One step at a time, I'm getting there.

No toilet news tonight. I don't know what's wrong. So we'll have to settle for wedgie news. That'll teach 'em.

See you tomorrow.

Winch

Here's Loyal Reader Number One with a mine winch. Picture courtesy of LRN1 and taken just before he descended into the bowels of the earth. Part of my famous Machinery series. More mine pictures to come.

Pretty good weekend. Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve were here, as discussed on Friday. I was incredibly busy on Sunday. As usual. Enjoyed the day and the weekend, although we did have a lot of rain.

Stayed home sick from work today. The Loyal Readers were still here, since it was a federal holiday. We had a nice day home together, in spite of my coming-and-going splitting headache. I'm hoping to be feeling better by tomorrow morning.

More rain today. We've been needing it. It's supposed to rain practically every day for the next week, and who know how much more after that? Things are really greening up, and it's not even spring yet.

LRN5, LRN6, and LRN12 gave me their desktop computer, which they didn't want anymore. I helped LRN6 get all his software set up on his laptop - mostly iTunes, to be exact, but I also get it completely updated and all that stuff. It seems to be working fine now.

The new machine's hard disk was pretty gunked up, but it's a nice computer, if a little old. It runs at about 2.6 GHz, but is fairly crippled by only having 256 MB of memory. That can be remedied, though, although none of the memory I have around the house is of the kind it needs. Soon. Anyway. I uninstalled a bunch of stuff and got it at least functional, but it was still pretty slow. I decided to reinstall Windows, which I did. Then I found out I didn't have any of the Dell drivers. Oops. No audio, minimal video, no network, et cetera. LRN5 promised to look for an installation disk, if such a thing exists. In the meantime, though, I got onto the Dell website, searched hard, and found the drivers. Got 'em installed and it's working great! It's installing updates right now. Service Pack 2, to be exact.

Don't panic about the disk, LRN5. In fact, never mind. Although I'll gladly take anything you do end up finding - might have something useful on it.

Nothing much else new today. My day was pretty much spent working on computers and playing with LRN12. Both of which I enjoy. I really hoped to do some High Council work, but you can't have everything. Real Soon Now.

Today's toilet news: They're getting expensive.

It's almost midnight and I need to get to bed. See you tomorrow.

Grocery store

Here's the grocery store in Baikonur. Fortunately, it never rains. It does snow, though. And it gets real cold.

Can you tell I'm running short of Great Art, Loyal Readers?

Another rainy/sunny day here in Lardville, though. Highs were only about 50 degrees, which is a little cool for this time of year, but I really can't complain. There's some snow visible at the top of the mountains near work, but many trees around Sunnyvale are also in full blossom. Spring appears to have come a tiny bit early this year.

Got out of the office an hour earlier than expected. That's a Real Good Thing, since we have a Stake Adult Pizza Party tonight at 7:00, giving me a whole hour and a half at home. That's luxurious.

Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve are going to spend the weekend with us. LRN6 is hoping to detail his truck. I hope it's possible, given the predicted rain situation. The bright hope is that they're predicting clear weather on Saturday afternoon. I guess he could work on it in the garage no matter how bad the weather is. It'll just get dirty a little faster.

I enjoyed reviewing Loyal Reader Number One's pictures from his latest mine exploration trip. Finally got to see them last night. I'm hoping to get his permission to use a few of them here. How about it, LRN1?

We got a cable TV bill last night. We're paying those thieves a hundred bucks a month just for the television part now. I think that's up about 70 percent in two years. Even if it's not quite that much, it's WAY more than I'm willing to pay. I need to get serious about computer/internet/netflix solutions right away. I'm looking right now for a remote control to use instead of a keyboard/mouse. Any ideas, Loyal Readers?

I also need a video card that can connect to my old tube TVs with either RCA connectors or good old fashioned coax cable. There must be something cheap but good out there.

Time for the traditional Morrowlife weekend preview. Let's see . . . I need to prepare a Sacrament Meeting talk for Sunday. Topic: home storage. It's kind of a tough topic this week, but I'll come up with something. Maybe even something good - we'll see. I also need to get an appointment to meet with an Elders Quorum presidency and make a whole bunch of YW camp phone calls. Probably need to look at the pool and pond filters too. I'm sure I could find something to do to one or more of the cars in case the opportunity presents itself. And who knows what's on Loyal Reader Number Four's mind? And of course there's always jacuzzification.

Plus, Saturday is Valentine's Day, dontcha know.

Today's toilet news: This just seems like a bad idea. I mean, what if they just decide not to buy any?

See you Monday.

Train waver

Here's me on the train again. That's not the most comfortable car they have - a bit chilly in the winter, if you ask me. Part of my famous Train series.

Thanks to Loyal Reader Number Three for his interesting comment to yesterday's post. The Two-Da-Loo. I think I'll . . . umm . . . pass on that.

Fine day. A little rain, a little sunshine, a little work, a little eating, a little commuting, and a little blogging. Not much else.

Today's strange news item: you can see why this woman couldn't buckle her seatbelt. I'm not sure the article contains any bad news, though. Other than her injuries, of course.

Today's useful news item: I wonder how much energy we could get out of Loyal Pet Number Two. Slithering for nanowatts, we could call it.

Speaking of which, Loyal Reader Number Four reports that Loyal Reader Number Five wonders whether we should reshuffle Loyal Pet numbers in the wake of Loyal Pet Number One's untimely passing. I'm not ready for that yet. Check back later. For now, LPN1 is The Late LPN1.

See you tomorrow.

Train rider

Here's me on the way to work this morning. Great view. Part of my famous Train series.

No blogging on the train this afternoon - I was too sleepy. My nap was good. I also finished watching the MST3K version of a movie called Mighty Jack. While I can't recommend the film itself, I highly recommend the MST3K version. Also started another MST3K movie - this one's called Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. I think this shot-on-video train wreck is even worse. Only Mike and the Bots could make it worth watching.

Loyal Reader Number Five pointed out a serious typo in yesterday's blog. I inadvertently gave Loyal Reader Number One credit for naming the new Fella. Of course, LRN1 was deep in the bowels of the earth at the time. LRN5 was the Fish Namer. Not to mention the Fish Purchaser and Fish Gifter. Thanks, LRN5! Cool name!

In other LRN1 news, he pointed out that yesterday's toilet news link was broken. Sigh. It's been fixed - check it out for some frightening toilet-related activity.

And there's even more toilet news today. Can't all our toilets just get along?

Nothing else new. See you tomorrow.

Cleanroom

Here's a satellite in the cleanroom at Baikonur a few years ago. They don't usually cover them with gold anymore, so this one is a bit unusual. Slightly fuzzy picture courtesy of me. No flash photography is allowed in the cleanroom. And I can't hold still too well.

Family life is pretty much back to normal, other than the gaping hole in our hearts left by Loyal Pet Number One. That will heal.

Good news on the Loyal Reader Number Two front. He passed his written test at the friendly DMV office. He has his first on-the-road lesson on Thursday, after which he'll be a Legally Authorized Restricted Motor Vehicle Operator. Nobody saw that coming.

He'll be fine, of course.

The situation is otherwise normal today. Routine mission.

It's Massive Meeting Tuesday. I rode the train anyway due to yesterday's non-trainage, so I'm heading home on the 3:45. Can't complain about the early departure, which gets me home at 5:30. Maybe my boss can, though.

Weekend activities were enjoyable. I was inert at home all day on Friday and didn't do a whole lot more on Saturday. Sunday was a different story, of course, but was equally enjoyable. There were plenty of meetings, choir practice, and a chance to teach a Missionary Preparation class for about 45 minutes. Good day.

A brief word about my new Loyal Fish: it's a very large goldfish that's orange on the top and white on the bottom. Loyal Reader Number One suggested that we call him Half-and-Half. So that's his name. He's a great addition to the pond. I'm sure he'll be fabulously happy there. As long as he doesn't get eaten like good old Bunkie.

Today's toilet news: they're on the attack.

Time's up. See you tomorrow.

Rest in peace, Belle

Here are Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two with Loyal Pet Number One, back in Virginia during happier days for LPN1.

It is with great regret and deep sadness that I announce today's death of LPN1, our devoted dog Belle. She had been becoming increasingly weak and ill, and Loyal Reader Number Four and I decided that today was the day for her to take her final trip to the Vet. It was a wrenching decision and a very sad day for all of us. We will truly miss Belle. She was about the best pet ever, and our happy memories of her will last the rest of our lives.

Cool, windy day, but no rain.

I got to the train station this morning for the early (4:38) train, and heard an announcement that there was a broken rail(!) on the Altamont pass, so the train would be at least an hour late. I got back in the car and drove to work. It turns out that train never made it - they brought it back to Lardville and on to Stockton at some point during the morning, and the third train finally made it through more or less on schedule. It was a great day to drive. I'm hoping for better things in the rail transportation area tomorrow.

That's it for tonight. Weekend description tomorrow. I'll say merely that Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve were here, and LRN5 and took me to the store to buy a new fella for the pond! We picked a pretty one. Thanks, LRN5!

No links today. I don't have the heart for it. See you tomorrow.

Pizza

Here's the menu at a pizza joint in Cannes. I can't decide between the 4 Fromages and the Oignon. Picture taken sometime in 2002 and courtesy of my good old SiPix piece of junk. Rare cameo appearance by me.

Time for some more Great Art. I have a few shots of Loyal Reader Number Twelve on my camera, but haven't taken the time to transfer them to the computer. Maybe tomorrow.

It was Off Friday today. I didn't get any of the previously-planned High Council work done, other than some study for Sunday evening's presentation. I need to talk to a bunch of people on the phone, and I figured I'd have a much better chance of finding them at home on Saturday. So I goofed off instead. Also worked a few hours.

I finished reading Patrick F. McManus's second Sheriff Bo Tully mystery. This one is called Avalanche, and is just as good as the first one. Which was quite good. Highly recommended to my Loyal Readers, especially the McManus fans among them. Of which I'm sure there are many.

Had a ward small group dinner at our house, which was quite pleasant. Had some good friends over and made some new ones. Then the entire group (us and all the other small dinner groups) met at the church for dessert. It was . . . okay. Too noisy. Dadgummit.

Otherwise, all is well. We got some additional badly needed rain. Tomorrow's looking to be sunny and 60 degrees, with more rain on Sunday and then more every two to three days afterward for a while. That's about perfect for getting the ground good and soaked, which will be a Real Good Thing for the farmers. And those of us who like to drink water.

The weekend's off to a great start, and it's only getting better. See you on Monday.

Block DM

Here's the Astra 2C spacecraft on top of its Block DM upper stage. And a few people standing in front of it. Photo taken June 4, 2001 at Baikonur.

Pretty decent day at work. I wasn't as productive as I might have been, but the day was generally good.

Not the weather, though. There was a good, steady rain in the early morning and a few droplets in the afternoon, separated by much cooler temperatures, clouds and sun, and general blusteriness. It was not unenjoyable, though. More rain and cool weather is predicted for Friday and Saturday.

Not bad for the dead of winter, though.

The weekend's here! Again! Plans are few. I need to make a whole bunch of high council phone calls and visits, prepare a 45-minute high council lesson for Sunday night, start to prepare a 20-minute talk for the following Sunday, attend an all-morning girls' camp meeting in the bay area, get together with an elders' quorum presidency for some training, do whatever Loyal Reader Number Four needs done, and maybe jacuzzify. And work on my collection of media center computers.

I spent some time last night (until about midnight, in fact) trying to get Larry the computer ready for Windows 7. I have the public Beta of that OS installed on my Mac under VMWare, and it actually seems to work fairly well and be pretty stable. I got a DVD burned and then realized Larry probably didn't have enough memory to run it.

No problem, thought I - I had just received four 1-gigabyte memory sticks from a friend that looked like they might just work. I duly popped off Larry's side cover and got to work.

They didn't fit. It turns out Larry needs DDR-400, and I had DDR2. So I buttoned Larry back up and decided to be delighted with good old Windows 2000. Which is perfectly happy with Larry's humble 512 megabytes. Sadly, everything else about Larry is plenty beefy for Win 7. I'll keep an eye out for a great deal on a couple of gigs of memory.

I sure wish I could have made Ubuntu work right, though. Sigh.

Loyal Reader Number One is off on his mine spelunking trip! Good luck, be extra careful out there, and have a great time, LRN1! And more good luck catching back up with school when you get back.

Good news for Loyal Reader Number Two: if he has problems with his driver's license test, there's always another opportunity!

That's it. See you tomorrow.

Christmas cards

Here's some Great Art I took at the Victorian Christmas house a few months back. I think the exclusive Treo-cam's fuzziness heightens the effect, don't you?

Greetings from the train. This week's posts have all been mercifully short, a situation which must not stand. So I'm taking a little time tonight.

Although there's quite little about which to discourse. My strict policy prohibits detailed discussion of work, and there's precious little else going on. So this might be short.

Loyal Reader Number Four spent much of her day in training at the Family History Library. She didn't get quite as much training as she will ultimately need, but she did report that a pleasant time was had by all.

Let's see, what else is going on? Loyal Reader Number Two has completed the literary part of his Driver's Training course and now has an appointment to get his driving permit early next week. Then he's off to on-road (mainly) training, followed by several months of driving us around. I think he's looking forward to it. He'll have to weigh in on that topic himself, though.

I have a bunch of emails to send and phone calls to make tonight. Need to get a bunch of people called to serve. Ought to be a busy night.

Today's Morrowlife controversy: When will this guy stop unleashing obnoxious bugs on the world?

Well, it turned out to be short anyway. See you tomorrow.

Red reader

Here's Loyal Reader Number One studying in his dorm room. Late at night. In the dark. They apparently used a long-duration exposure. Or something. Okay, I don't remember what the point was, but I do know it's LRN1. And he's . . . thinking.

Another Short Shrift blog night. No meetings tonight, but Loyal Reader Number Four hosted a Relief Society event tonight. Only one other person showed up. So I sat and talked with them instead of blogging or high counciling. There's always tomorrow, and I'll need to take advantage of it if I'm going to get my huge girls camp callings list done.

Saw a motorhome on in company's online ad site today. It looked pretty good - it's a 2001 31-footer with only 16,000 miles on it. Has a slide-out (but only one) and all the standard goodies, including hydraulic jacks and a backup camera. Went over to check it out and discovered the downside. It hasn't been driven because the owner has been living in it in a trailer park for the past year. It's not exactly in bad shape, but it's not in the kind of shape you'd expect it to be in with so few miles. So I'm passing.

Besides, my trailer is still in great shape.

On the upside, I also saw an ad for free shrink-wrapped copies of FileMaker Pro and FastTrack Schedule for Macintosh. I don't know why the guy is getting rid of them, and I don't know what I'll do with them, but he'll be giving them to me tomorrow. Cool.

Thanks to LRN1 for his comments on dumping cable TV. I've been looking into Boxee. In fact, I downloaded the OS X version this very evening. There's still not a Windows version, which it pains me to say I'm using as my media server OS, but it's coming soon. When it's here, I'll install it.

The other good news I read this evening is that my beta license for Windows 7 is good for up to three machines. I have it installed in a virtual machine on my Mac, and I think I'll add it to Larry. I also have plans to get two more PCs (for free, of course!) to be used as media servers on the two other main TVs. Thanks to Loyal Reader Number Five for one of them, and a valued colleague for the other.

No toilet news today. But this pretty much explains itself. Those Loyal Readers who see too much of themselves in that comic should consider going off the grid for a little while.

See you tomorrow.

This way out

Here's Loyal Reader Number One's plan for getting out of the mine. I hope he brought a swimming suit. Photo courtesy of LRN1, of course.

Fine weekend. I worked on church things quite a lot of the time, interspersed with playing with Loyal Reader Number Twelve, who was here with Loyal Reader Number Five, while Loyal Reader Number Six was in Southern California picking up his truck and visiting with family and friends. A nice time was had by all.

Extreme Short Shrift tonight. It's already almost 10:00 and I've been exhausted since at least 3:00. So not much blogging.

In fact, just a couple of things. I saw this interesting article today, and I'm thinking harder than ever of eliminating cable TV. You can get all the entertainment you want for little to no money. And the Comcast people are absolute thieves, aren't they? What do my Loyal Readers think about the idea?

Today's toilet news: They're starting younger all the time. I believe LRN12 needs one of those babies.

See you tomorrow.