Jared made his way up from Salt Lake to spend a couple of days with us. He’s moved out of Denver and has been staying for a couple of weeks with his brother Daryl. On Monday Jared heads northwest planning to stop around Seattle. Then comes the fun part of finding a job and an apartment. This is a good change for Jared and we wish him great luck in his new adventure. He’s excited and energized. An occasional change is good for the soul.

I’m writing this from my new Apple Mac Mini. It finally arrived. Assembly occurred in Shanghai, China. Perhaps that’s why it took so long? Dell doesn’t have much to fear from Apple in the build-to-order and deliver-immediately categories. I ordered Nina’s new Dell computer on a Monday evening and it arrived the following Friday. However, the computer works well. The iPhoto program is very easy to use — until it came time to set up the picture so I could upload it to the blog! I’m missing some kind of a step in that process as I couldn’t get the picture to compress small enough. I found a round about way, but there must be a better method. I have the computer hooked up to a very old 17" monitor and will look to see if I can somehow put this into the computer room and hook it up to my normal monitor. The Apple mini wants a USB keyboard and mouse. My KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch is all set up for Intel-based computers — that is, PS2 type connectors. There are PS2 to USB converters, so I’ll try that out to see if it’ll work. If so, we can use the Mac Mini in the computer room. Otherwise, I’ve got to find another place to put the computer! There aren’t many choices, either, not with a monitor this big and bulky.

That wasn’t the only new toy for the week. For a long time I’ve wanted a digital camera that uses real lenses and works more like a film camera. I’ve had Minolta film cameras for about fifteen years and own their top-of-the-line film camera. Meanwhile, Minolta and Konica have merged and kind of lost their way in the digital camera world for a while. They have finally come out with a terrific digital camera completely compatible with all the Minolta lenses. I finally bought the camera body and it arrived on Wednesday. It’s a great camera and I’m very satisfied with the purchase. Now I need to sell off the other cameras to help pay for the new one! We’ve had just outstanding weather this week and I’m looking forward to doing a little picture taking over the weekend. Who knows, more pictures may end up on the web site!

The disappointing part of the week has been how long it has taken for the motorcycle shop to get the oil changed and the bike checked out. When I called on Monday, they said to bring the bike in and they would get to it as soon as possible. It’s now Thursday and they haven’t started on the bike, yet. Maybe tomorrow?? Next week’s weather is forecast to be much colder with possible snow on a couple of days. That means the bike will stay in the garage and I’ve missed this week of being able to ride it. However, I really don’t have much to complain about, do I? Toys are Great!

I like quiet weeks and this has certainly been one of them. Last Saturday I drove down to the Salt Lake Airport and picked Nina up. We stopped for lunch in Pleasant View on the way back to Pocatello. That area has changed — so much so that the small town feeling has about disappeared. Our house there has become quite dilapidated. I’m hoping we would have taken better care of the house and the yard. The day was bright and sunny with about a fifteen degree temperature differential between Salt Lake City and Pocatello. Nina had a great visit with Jaelene, Scott, and family but it is always good to be back home.

In an earlier post I wrote that Jaelene and Scott “seemed” to be getting along OK. Scott has (rightfully) taken exception to the word “seemed”. I’ve edited the post and fixed the wording, Scott! You and Jaelene are doing very well.

I got an e-mail from another fellow who works at the same company where I work and who is in Oudenaarde, Belgium for a period of time. He’s Japanese and wanted to know where the Chinese Restaurant was that I wrote about in one of my posts. He was doing a search on the internet about restaurants in Oudenaarde and found my web log in the search. I wrote him back with the name and address of the restaurant. Hopefully he had no ill effects! I haven’t been that sick in many years.

In yesterday’s e-mail I received a couple of comments on blog posts I made when Nina and I were in Chandler, Arizona over New Years 2003-2004. Her name was Nina, her husband had worked in the Pocatello area, and they also are interested in the Hanger Cafe at the Chandler Airport. Interesting coincidences. The Google search robots land on my blog a couple of times each week, so just about everything I’ve written in this weblog is searchable on Google. Several other robots stop by on a regular basis, but Google indexes the website more often than anyone else.

The twins are hanging in there! They also now have names: Casey and Devlin. Mo and Pete have put up a Yahoo Groups website with information about the boys and some mind-boggling pictures. Here’s some excerpts from Mo:

Devlin and Casey were born at Yale New Haven Hospital on 23 Feb. at 1:04 and 1:05 AM. Casey beat his brother into this world by 1 minute…. Casey was 1 lb. 5.5 oz. 12 1/4 in. Devlin was 1 lb. 7.5 oz. 12 1/4 in. We FINALLY settled on their names a day or so after they were born. Both of their names are Celtic in origin and both mean brave and fearless. We felt that the symbolism of these choices were important.

They’ve made it for eight days in this world and that means their chances of survival are pretty dang good. This is great stuff. Hang in there, guys! If anyone wants to know the website address for the updates on these two guys, send me a note and I’ll pass it along in a private e-mail.

News Flash! The twins were born last night, very unexpectedly. Mo went in yesterday for a checkup and all was normal, including the ultrasound. Last night about 10 p.m. eastern time she went into labor and by 11 they were at the hospital. Shortly aftewards Mo was bundled into an ambulance and sent to the Yale Hospital in New Haven where both boys were born in a c-section. The boys, currently named Twin-A and Twin-B, are OK for being born three months early at about a pound and a half apiece. They’re in intensive care and things are very touch and go for them. This is a tough start to life. Peter is hanging in there like a trooper and says that Mo is doing well. Our prayers are with you all.

On Tuesday we went to the mall. Phoenix is definitely a shopping mecca. Compared to Pocatello it is probably more like a shopping heaven! Monday afternoon Nina and Jaelene dropped me off a Frys and I toured the store for about two and a half hours. I made it about 2/3’rds through the store as I walked up and down every aisle. It was a lot of fun and I didn’t spend very much money, actually. Tuesday was the day for the mall.

We were definitely on a schedule on Tuesday. The boys had school and we were going to the mall while they were at school. Colten had a birthday party starting at 4:30 and a big play-place and he needed to be neither early nor late for this event. I had to be at the airport to catch a 5:19 flight back to Salt Lake City. Consequently, Jaelene had everything timed down to the minute. She told me that we’d arrive at the mall at 12:15 p.m. and would have to leave there by 2. At 12:05 we still weren’t out the door and I told Nina that there was no way we’d be there at 12:15. My prognostication ability was proven unreliable once again as we pulled into the mall parking lot at 12:14. On the other hand, Jaelene definitely pushes the speed limit….

I had two destinations in mind — first was the Apple Store in the mall. Then over to Barnes and Noble to check out the books and magazines. The Apple Stores always look empty to me. There isn’t much product out; the middle of the store is mostly empty; and there are usually twice the number of employees as customers in the store. For some reason, none of the Apple Stores seem to be hives of activity (unlike Frys which was as crowded and busy on Monday as it was on the previous Saturday). I thought this might be to my advantage because I was curious about the new Apple Mini and what capability it had. I was finally able to get the attention of a very soft-spoken store employee who showed me a little of the standard software intalled on an Apple Mini. The computer itself is very small and quite stylish. I could easily see this box becoming part of an entertainment center. However, unless I wanted the stripped down standard, basic version, I couldn’t buy it at the store. The basic unit is not quite enough. It needs more memory, a larger hard drive, and a DVD burner. All of these are available — but it has to be purchased from the Apple website. There are none of these units available in the store. In fact, not much other than iPods were available in the store! Even though I was ready to plunk down cold, hard cash (well, in reality a warm credit card — warm because it was in my back pocket), I couldn’t buy anything that I wanted. Apple, that’s just plain dumb. Two other people left as I did — empty handed and disappointed. That’s a lot of unspent money walking out the door to be spent somewhere else.

I was much more successful at Barnes and Noble, and it cost me a whole bunch less money.

The amount of daylight is definitely increasing and I’m happy about that. Having some sunlight for a while after I get home from work makes the workday seem shorter and going to work in real daylight is a good start to the workday. Today’s sunrise was at 7:26 a.m. and sunset was at 6:02 p.m. That works out to be about 10 and a half hours of sunlight. In another a month we’ll have more sunlight than non-sunlight and that means the snow and cold will be gone soon as well. I’m right ready for some springtime!

I visited with the gastrologist this afternoon. He showed me pictures of my esophagus and the scar tissue from the acid reflux problem both before his procedure and after the procedure. The opening certainly appeared to be larger and rounder. The tissue samples he took were also completely benign — simply confirming his diagnosis of acid reflux induced dysphagia which is a fancy way of saying difficulty in swallowing. Previcid will allow the esophagus to heal in about four to six months by keeping the acid production down. The literature with Previcid says that it is for the “short-term treatment of erosive esophagitis.” Quite comforting. I don’t need to go back to the gastrologist. I’m to see my normal doctor in about six months to see if further treatment is necessary. Meanwhile, I’ve had no issues or problems since the procedure, no side effects from the medication, and I’m a happy camper. His only comment was that I should have come in to see him earlier and gotten rid of the problem sooner. That’s a hard call to make. How do I make the right decision about when to take a possible health problem to a doctor? It takes time and money to see the doctor as well as his time that could possibly be better spent with someone else. I’m certainly not as stubborn as my dad about going to see the doctor, but perhaps I should be a little less conservative. Perhaps.

This weekend Nina and I are off to Phoenix, Arizona. Our daughter Jaelene has the week off from work and we can use a short vacation and, in particular, a grandkid fix. We’ll fly to Phoenix on Saturday morning. I’ll return Tuesday evening and Nina will come home the following Saturday morning. I’m looking forward to some warmer weather. Phoenix will have a low tonight of 45 degrees and will warm up to 68 degrees tomorrow. Contrast that with a low tonight of 5 degrees in Pocatello and a high of 36 degrees tomorrow. It’ll be shirtsleeve weather for us in Phoenix while all the natives will be wearing coats, hats, and gloves! I’m sure that’s how the locals pick out the snowbird visitors.

Someone asked me the other day why I never talk about work in my blog. The easy answer is that few people would really be interested in my work. The more complete answer is that companies take a very dim view of employees who write about their work. Some have lost their jobs because of content on their weblogs. The courts have upheld the precept of “employment at will,” meaning a company needs no particular reason to dismiss an employee. While I don’t think I would have anything particularly interesting to say about my employer, it’s just better to leave the company completely out of the picture. There’s plenty to blog about without including my work!

A few weeks ago as I was in the Brussels Airport, I saw the latest Robert Jordan Book, New Spring, in paperback and decided to read it on the flight back home. It turned out to be a very good read, so much so that I actually read it twice. The book is set about twenty years before his first book in the Wheel of Time series and provides a very rich background for the series. I enjoyed it so much that I just continued with book one (The Eye of the World) and today I started book five (The Fires of Heaven). The last time I read the series, I got bogged down and never finished book 8 which was quite disjointed and seemingly caused the whole storyline to come unraveled. Since then books 9 and 10 have been published. My sons have told me that book 9 was much better and book 10 was back to the clear writing and tight storyline that the earlier books in the series contained. I’ll soon know. I spend most of my spare time reading now rather than sitting on the computer reading e-mail and surfing the web. It’s a great series of books overall and I’m enjoying reading through them once again. The unfortunate part is, since I’m spending all my time reading, I don’t write so much in my blog anymore….