The flight was completely uneventful and we arrived in Salt Lake City on schedule. Our whirlwind trip to Kentucky for the twins’ baptism was coming quickly to an end. Before we went to the Cincinnati airport this morning, Nina and I talked about whether or not the flight would be empty. I told her that I thought it would be a very sparsely populated airplane. Boy was I wrong! The cabin configuration was 2-3-2 (a-b c-d-e f-g where a and g are window seats, b, c, e, and f are aisle seats, and d is the middle seat) and all of the window and aisle seats were occupied. Most of the middle seats were occupied as well. Fortunately, the seat between Nina and me was empty — she was in 12C and I was in 12E. The Cincinnati airport was very busy, even at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning. The wait for a McDonalds breakfast was about 20 minutes. That was my only choice since the hotel breakfast didn’t start serving until 7 (or 7:30 for room service).

When we arrived in Salt Lake City at about 10:15 MDT, to our surprise the terminal was very busy! People were everywhere and there were lines in the restrooms. Where is everyone going on a Sunday morning??? Why is Delta in such difficult financial circumstances?? Inquiring minds want to know!

We drove to Heather’s to pick up Bradica (the dog) and stayed for dinner. Crock pots are wonderful inventions. Daryl drove down from Salt Lake for dinner as well. We had a great dinner, great conversation, and then loaded up the dog and drove home to our apartment in Pocatello. The trip was finished, and so were we. It’s been a very quiet evening! It was a great trip, but it’s good to be home again.

We’re back at our hotel room for the evening and will soon head for bed. We’ve got an early flight tomorrow morning and will go directly to the airport after checking out of the hotel.

The remainder of the afternoon was quite pleasant. A huge thunderstorm dropped more than 2 inches of rain shortly after we got back from the baptism. That kept everyone indoors for the remainder of the afternoon. It truly felt like a Sunday afternoon!! Perhaps that’ll count as we won’t get to Church tomorrow. The most eventful part of the afternoon was when a Pyrex dish exploded on the stove top. Jim was getting the dish ready to make gravy from the roast juices, had left it heating up on the top of the stove while he did something else, and it boiled dry. The explosion was pretty spectacular — glass everywhere, particularly all over the stove top and on the floor in front of the stove. What food was on the table was protected, a very good thing. In spite of the fireworks, the dinner was quite tasty.

The picture to the left was taken just prior to the baptism. James is on the left and Steven is on the right. James is just slightly taller than Steven. I’m actually getting to where I’m pretty sure I can tell them apart. They definitely have distinct personalities and differing preferences. However, they sing together beautifully — well in tune and right in time with each other. They really enjoy singing and they could easily be singing close harmony together in a few years as they’ve both got great talent. I was also impressed with the ward support at the baptism. There were more than 25 ward members present at 2:00 p.m. on a sultry Saturday afternoon. James and Steven were the first two baptized in the new ward building. In fact, their baptism was postponed from early June because the ward was being split and they were moving into a brand new building. Jim and LeeAnn attend a good ward and have a good relationship with a number of people in the ward.

For us this was a whirlwind trip. We arrived late Friday night and are leaving early Sunday morning. It is very warm and very humid this time of the year in northern Kentucky. We aren’t used to this kind of weather and it just wears us out. The hotel room’s air conditioner is on full high coldest setting and it isn’t doing the job. We’re looking forward to getting back to the dry country!

James Roland and Steven Leeland Smith were both baptized and confirmed
members of the Church this afternoon by their dad Jim. They were both very
excited about being baptized. The service was quite delightful. Everything
went as planned. Shaundra gave the opening prayer, Nina gave the talk on
baptism and then James was baptized first followed by Steven. LeeAnn’s
mother Nancy gave the talk on the Holy Ghost after which Steven was
confirmed followed by James. The Primary President and then the Bishop
welcomed the boys into the ward. LeeAnn’s father Vern gave the closing
prayer. I played the piano for the service. The boys were very handsome.

Jim gave both of the boys a very nice blessing. Each of the boys received a
very individual blessing, taylored specifically to their personality. I was
very pleased with all of them. Good job, boys!

Delta is providing the transportation as we head to Florence, Kentucky for
the twin’s baptism tomorrow. We’re about 45 minutes from landing when the
Blackberry will get a signal and this missive will be sent.

The flight has been completely uneventful. Flying has long since lost its
glamour and allure. I’ve been wondering if if would be possible to put
together a “frills” airline that didn’t cram everyone in like cattle and
treat them like peasants. Would it really cost that much more? Trains once
were the elegant way to travel but now the service is so poor in the U.S.
that most folks don’t even consider travel by train. On the other hand,
Ijll be in Europe in a couple of weeks and would probably use the train for
any long-distance travel. For instance, I could fly Virgin Atlantic (an
airline that seems to do well while treating people like they have value)
to London and then take the train through the Chunnel for a price less than
air fare. We’ll see….

We’ve begun our descent into the Cincinnati Airport. The trip will soon be
over. Nina’s caught a cold and is feeling pretty poorly. Lousy timing for a
cold!

It appears that the web log is back in business! Cable One got their problem fixed and I’ve gotten my problem fixed. With luck the system will stay up and operational from now forward, except (of course) when the system comes down to be moved into the new house at the end of July. There have been too many little problems and it’s time for the system to settle down for a while.

I’m at lunch at the office on a pretty busy day. Because of the time differences, 7 a.m. in Pocatello is 3 p.m. in Oudenaarde, Belgium. That means many meetings are scheduled between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. Pocatello time. Two or three times a week I’ll have meetings at 7 a.m. and every day I’ll have meetings at 8 and 9 a.m. with people in Belgium. The rest of the day us usually fairly open. Every other Thursday, however, is a day packed with meetings. On those Thursdays all the local management meetings are scheduled and any HR training needed is scheduled as well. Since I get most of my work done in meetings (I’m not paid to be an individual contributor), that’s where I spend most of my day. Today is just busier than most.

Last Sunday was the 4th of July. We gathered in Soda Springs, Idaho, at mom and dad’s house. At one point there were twenty-six people there. Dawnmarie, Kirk, and their five children were the first to arrive. Saturday afternoon Heather, Ty, and their four children arrived. Sunday afternoon my sister Eileen and two of her children (Alison and Suzie) came up for the remainder of the holiday. We got a surprise visit from Daryl who stayed through late Monday afternoon. On Monday my niece Amy, her husband, and three children came over for a few hours. Most of the folks visited, played, and ate. But, Ty, Kirk, Dad, and I worked on putting up a roof.

Dad is building a large workshop behind his house in the back yard. He had finished putting up the framing and was putting on the plastic protective sheets on the roof when he fell off the ladder (see the July 2nd post) and injured himself. He’s still in a lot of pain and having lots of gastrointestinal problems. So, the roof needed to be put on. I thought it would be six or seven hours of work. Not so. We worked all day Saturday and all day Monday until Kirk and Ty had to leave in the late afternoon. By that time, the roof was about two-thirds finished. My brother Perry drove over yesterday from Green River, Wyoming, to help finish up the roof. So, I took off early yesterday afternoon and we went back to Soda Springs. Perry and I were able to finish the roof. Now there’s no need for dad to climb up on the ladder until he’s in much better health. It’ll be a lovely shop when he’s finished.

Because sleeping arrangments were scarce at mom and dad’s house, Nina and I (along with Bradica the dog) drove back and forth from Pocatello every day. That meant that Nina had driven back and forth to Soda Springs eight times in nine days. That translates to about 900 miles of driving! So what does she do today? Drives down to Orem to visit Heather and drop off Bradica, the dog. She left about seven this morning and will be back about eight this evening.

The travelling isn’t finished with that, however. Tomorrow morning we’ll drive back to Salt Lake City to catch an airplane to Kentucky for the twin’s baptism on Saturday. We’ll fly back Sunday morning. It’ll be a rapid trip, but we do want to attend every baptism we can of our grandchildren.

Only problem with all this is, while the holiday season has arrived, who’s had time for any holiday-ing? Not much time in this household, for sure. Happy 4th of July!

Monday night late I noticed that my web log was no longer accessible from the Internet.
The problem didn’t seem to be any of the problems I was having earlier with getting
the right setup. So, this afternoon for lunch I spent a fair amount of time on the
phone with Cable One trying to get the problem fixed. It turned out that the problem
was that my Internet Protocol address (IP address) was supposed to be permanently
assigned, but the Cable One tech didn’t do the order correctly to get everything
set up.

So, sometime in the next 24 hours they will finally get me back online. In the meantime,
I’ve been working on figuring out why e-mail postings haven’t been working. That
problem turned out to be a rookie programming mistake. When I took my first programming
class at Purdue University in 1968, the instructor told us that by the end of the
class if we learned nothing else, we would learn that we didn’t know how to count.
Counting in a computer program turns out to be quite complex. Do you count before
or after the event? Do you test the count before counting or after counting? How
does the programming language count — from 0 or from 1 (that is, is the first
instance 0 or is the first instance 1?). This weblog is written in a language
that counts from zero. So, the first e-mail message found on an iteration is the
zeroth message, the next one (if there is one) is the oneth record, and so on. I was
counting from zero but testing against a count from one. A good rookie mistake that
I’ve made several times (and will likely make again!).

So, if you’re reading this, Cable One has fixed their mistake and I’ve fixed mine.
Aren’t computers wonderful?

It’s mid-afternoon on the Friday before a three-day weekend. I’m in the office and it is very quiet. The parking lot is more than half empty. It is holiday time! Since this year offers three opportunities for a long summer weekend, many folks are taking advantage. I’ve got a couple of more meetings right after lunch and then I’ll be on my way to Soda Springs.

We’ll spend the days in Soda Springs over the weekend and nights back at our apartment. Dawnmarie, Kirk, and clan are arriving in Soda this afternoon. Heather, Ty, and family will come up Saturday late morning. We’ll enjoy the time visiting with them and playing with the grandchildren.

It has been a fairly eventful week, however. Dad is building a workshop behind his house. The frame is up and the roof trusses are in place. He was nailing up the firring strips for the metal roof when he lost balance and fell off the ladder last Friday. He landed on his back and bit his tongue pretty badly. When we saw him on Sunday, he was feeling pretty rotten. He had a very upset stomach and was in a lot of pain.

He visited the chiropractor on Monday and got some pain relief, but he still had a lot of gastronomic distress. Finally on Tuesday he went to the doctor who put him in the hospital. He spent the night there undergoing tests and observation. There isn’t any significant apparent damage, but he had become quite constipated. He came home on Wednesday. Nina went to Soda on both Tuesday and Wednesday to stay with mom and do what she could to help. We both went up last night (Thursday) to help clean things up on the deck for the grandkids. He’s feeling better, but still is a long way from getting back to normal.

The shop, however, is still a high priority! He and mom drove to Pocatello yesterday to pick up the roofing and siding material for the shop. Since it’s not a good idea for him to get up on a ladder until he’s feeling much better, I think that Kirk, Ty, and I will spend Saturday putting the roof on the shop. Haven’t done that before, so it should be a good learning experience. Perhaps even a great way to spend a Holiday!

The past few days have been a series of difficult technical problems with my home network. This evening, Daryl came riding to my rescue!! Hurrah Daryl!!

I moved the network pretty much intact from Colorado Springs to Pocatello. The only real difference was the internet service provider. Once the high-speed connection was installed and all the outside technical stuff like domain naming services was set up, my network came up and worked like a charm — except for being able to connect to my employer’s network. That just wouldn’t work. The technical guy at work told me that unless I changed the internal addressing on my home network, I would never be able to connect. So, I began the process of changing all of the internal addresses.

That process seemed to go pretty well, except that nothing would work on the inbound side! The weblog was not reachable and email bound for rnsmith.com wasn’t being delivered, either. Even internal mail could not be retrieved from the web server. One problem for me was that all of the documentation for this network is on the moving van! I had set up the email system more than a year ago and the details had long since fled my grey matter. I spent several days poking here and there in the system to see if I could figure out what the problem was. I wasn’t finding much that seemed to make any difference. So, finally I called Daryl.

We connected this evening and within ten minutes he had found the problem. I would never have found these configuration files until the moving van arrived and I found my documentation.

Our son Daryl is one of the most knowledgeable and capable systems administrators I’ve ever worked with — bar none. You’ve come through once again, Daryl. Many, many thanks!