Train arrival

Here's the morning ACE train arriving at the station several days ago. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone cam and part of my famous Train series. Very artsy.

Great weekend. Didn't sleep as much as I would have liked, but relaxed just the same. LRN12 spent the weekend with her mom and had a wonderful time. It's nice to have her back for a couple of days. Tuesday night, she goes back to her mom's house and we leave for Utah early Wednesday morning. Blogging will probably be light to non-existent, depending on the available of internet connections. I really need to figure out how to blog from the iPhone.

Blogging may not happen tomorrow either - it's one of my Massive Meeting Tuesdays, and then we want to leave home at 5:00 on Wednesday morning. I pity my Loyal Readers.

We worked out our Christmas activity calendar for December this evening at Home Evening. We pretty much have the usual things planned, but it's exciting for the plan to come together. We're just a few weeks away from the Christmas break!

Tonight's news is more shocking food violence: pasta attack! Can you blame the guy?

See you tomorrow, maybe.

Oncoming train

Here's an oncoming train. Picture taken at the Santa Clara ACE/Amtrak platform. This particular train was an Amtrak, which I do not ride. I do photograph it, however. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Machinery and Train series.

I think the sky was kind of pretty that day.

Extreme Short Shrift. It's late and I'm sleepy. My Mac updated itself this evening and never started back up. Had to force-quit it and give it another try. Worked perfectly that time. But I wasted a lot of time waiting the first time. And did I mention I'm sleepy?

Nice weekend. It was great visiting with LRN9. And everything else we did. Whatever that was. Oh, yeah - LRN5 was here for a few days too, which was great, especially for LRN12, who was truly happy to be with her mom. LRN5's coming over again on Thursday.

LRN12 and LRN2 have both been suffering with cold symptoms. Get well soon, Loyal Readers! I'm not sure if I'm coming down with it too. I'm feeling a wee bit feverish, possibly, and just kind of achy and uncomfortable. But maybe that's just the way I am. Time will tell. Stay well, Loyal Blogger!

I'll end today with what I think is an entirely reasonable malady - vegetable panic. I think I may have it, in fact.

See you tomorrow.

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.

Number twelve

Here's good old Number Twelve, straight from Philadelphia to you. Picture taken at the Sacramento Railroad Museum. Part of my famous Train series. And possibly posted before. Only my Loyal Readers know for sure.

Beautiful, sunny day, if a little cool. In fact, it was downright cold when I left the house. Get ready for it. Thirty degrees. Yep. Below freezing. I struggled through.

Wall-to-wall meetings at work. The calendar was filled without a gap from 9:00 to 4:45. Some of the meetings ended early, though, and I was able to get a few things done. There were also several visitors to my inner sanctum spread throughout the day. All things considered, an exhilarating day.

Tonight's schedule (assuming the train is punctual, of course): fifteen minutes for dinner and then a home teaching visit. Then I'll post this and go to bed happy and satisfied.

Things are otherwise uninteresting. Or maybe I should simply say "things are uninteresting."

Important crime-fighting news: guess who is the least likely to commit a crime!

See you tomorrow.

Road locomotive

Here's a locomotive without any tracks. Picture taken at Greenfield Village. Part of both my famous Train series and my famous Machinery series. You're welcome for the twofer.

Well. There's been quite a reaction to Friday's Great Art, starting with Loyal Reader Number Three's suggestion that Grandma teach the kid to skitch and ghost-ride (whatever those are) and going right through Loyal Reader Number Twenty-Four's non-written comments to me regarding knowing who the friend was on Saturday afternoon. Or was that yesterday? Time goes so quickly on weekends, doesn't it?

Anyway, if I can figure out what skitching and ghost-riding are, I might start doing them. Probably not, though. Just guessing there.

Update: I found out what ghost-riding is. I had suspicions. I don't think I'll start doing it.

Another update: I found out what skitching is. I also had suspicions about this. Ditto on starting to do it.

Those things sound like so much fun, don't they?

Thank goodness for Wikipedia, Loyal Readers.

Anyway. Fast-moving weekend. It was over before we knew it. The Loyal Readers got home from the Scout encampment on Saturday. They had a great time. Emphasis on the great. I'll let them tell about it in the comments. If any.

Loyal Reader Number Four and I didn't do much while the boys were away. Quiet few days. We had our young friends the triplets over to play games and swim on Saturday. Their house had suffered a broken pipe and their parents and LRN24 needed to get some work done around the house. We had a nice time.

Since Saturday was one of the six most special days of the year, we celebrated that evening. What was the special occasion? Loyal Reader Number Two's birthday, of course. He got a razor. And not a moment too soon.

We had a power outage later Saturday evening, right while we were watching Psych. The power stayed out for about an hour and a half. After the first five minutes, Loyal Reader Number One and I went out and started the generator. We plugged in a light and played some games. Had a nice time. In some ways, it was even better than watching television.

Sunday was quiet and peaceful. Just like I like it.

Took the Honda to the shop this evening. They're going to try the front-end alignment one more time. Wish them luck, Loyal Readers. Really. I need them to be lucky.

Hope your weekend was as good as mine. Time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Little house

Here's another one of my famous Train series: the little house on the pampa. Picture taken with the famous RAZR-cam. As if you couldn't tell.

Fascinating comments on yesterday's exclusive Morrowlife Controversy. I'll leave the question standing for the weekend - how would my Loyal Readers put the technology behind the StupidFilter to good use? Or expand it. Or repurpose it to something else entirely. I think there's money to be made public service to be performed here.

What a work week! I worked like a dog. And not one of those spoiled house dogs like Loyal Pet Number One. I'm talking about a mangy old sled dog. Or maybe one of those sniffer dogs at the airport. Or one of those terribly abused German Shepherds stuck in the bed of a tailgate-free speeding pickup truck in Texas. Or something like that.

Anyway. The weekend's here. Loyal Reader Number Four will be back tomorrow! And I'll be at work. For very little reason. My boss thinks I ought to "show the flag" because we're encouraging a few people to come in over the weekend. I have no part of the work they'll be doing tomorrow, of course. On the positive side, I'm charging them for my time. And the traffic should be relatively light. And I'll enjoy the drive in the Miata. And I have tons of stuff to do at work that isn't getting done. But I'd much rather be at home. If it will really make these folks feel better about being there (for a hundred bucks an hour or so), I guess I can do it. But let's not make a habit of it. And when is my boss getting that transfer she's been hoping for?

Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two and I had to cancel our camping plans for tonight. We're still going out for breakfast tomorrow morning, though. They can't take that away from us.

Otherwise, all is well. I'm going to quit now and suggest to the Loyal Readers that we take a dip in the jacuzzi. Hope your weekend is even better than mine's shaping up to be. See you on Monday.

Hillside

Here's another exclusive RAZR cam picture taken out the window of the train. I'm not sure this an Ansel Adams clone, though. Maybe Monet. What do you think?

The usual Monday Short Shrift tonight. It was a long day and it's already late and I'm sleepy.

Loyal Reader Number Two is off to Scout camp. Let's hope he's having a great time. I got up at 3:30 this morning to get him to the church on time, and decided to go straight to work from there. So it really was a long day. Lots to do at work. On the one hand, I'm enjoying sitting in for my boss. On the other hand, there's a lot of pressure. It's something I could really grow into.

A few hours after LRN2 left, Loyal Reader Number Twenty-two arrived at the Oakland airport. Welcome, LRN22! So far, he and Loyal Reader Number One have worked on computers. Also, umm . . . nothing else. Ought to be an enjoyable week.

Took a swim tonight. It was a very hot day (will be the rest of the week, too) and the water was almost perfect. In another two days, it will be easy to just walk into it. That's the way I like it.

Today's controversy: Don't you think they ought to keep organ concerts down to under 500 years? Also, would you prefer to listen to the composer's other work - four minutes and 33 seconds of silence? I certainly would.

See you tomorrow.

Phone pole

Here's the view out of the train window. Very artsy, no? Reminds me of a photo Ansel Adams would have taken. Of course, Ansel would have thrown it away immediately. That's where old Ansel and I part company. I publish everything. Taken with the exclusive RAZR-cam.

The Loyal Readers are back! It was a lonesome weekend around here, even though I had my trusty Loyal Pets, at least one of whom just loves to hang around with me. I read a little, worked on an electronics project (only destroyed one LED!), watched a movie (Boeing Boeing, about which more later), watched several episodes of SpongeBob, and . . . umm . . . must have done a few other things. Oh yeah, I got gas in two cars and figured out why the check engine light was on in the Suburban (not good news, but I'm waiting for it to happen again before I get excited about it). Also made and ate my meals. And slept. Et cetera.

Anyway. It's nice to have them back. Loyal Reader Number One did very well in his performance, which made it a great capstone to his pre-college piano career. Congrats, LRN1!

Boeing Boeing was an interesting movie. It's a comedy from the sixties, starring Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis(!). Tony Curtis is a guy who has three girlfriends (fiancees, actually) who are stewardesses from different airlines and don't know about each other - their schedules just happen to work out to put them in Paris on different days every week. They all get new schedules on newer, faster airplanes, and start showing up at the same time. The interesting thing about the movie is that Jerry Lewis is in his post-Dean Martin days, and he's actually funny. No moronic slapstick - just surprisingly good humor. I had no idea he could be good. Anyway, I don't necessarily recommend the movie, but it was mildly amusing.

Time for Home Evening. See you tomorrow.

Zootrain

Here's summertime picture number two. We're on vacation in Detroit (doesn't everybody vacation in Detroit?). We just got off the Zoo train. No worries, no cares, no problems. Sigh. How refreshing. I don't know why I think this particular photo screams summertime to me. It just does. Maybe it's because of all those summertime Detroit Zoo train rides during my early years. Judging from appearances, the boys don't necessarily agree.

By the way, cool train, no? I'd like to see the full-size version, if it exists. Which it probably never did.

Today was my brother Tony's birthday. He's 40? 41? Maybe 42. Something like that. I called him at home. No answer. Called his cell phone. No answer. Happy birthday, Tony.

It's late and I have to get up early. Remind me tomorrow to mention today's wonderful Microsoft experience. For now, though, to bed.