Yesterday was a day of being rescued by my wife. It started in the morning when I needed a book for a talk in Church the next day. I couldn’t find it so I asked her if we had the book. We did and she retrieved it from the bookcase from the shelf it was supposed to be on. I’m sure that I had looked there two or three times. That led me to sign up for LibraryThing and start entering our collection of books. So far that capability has worked pretty well.

As the Stake Sunday School President, each month I speak in a different Ward in the Stake as the companion to the scheduled High Counselor speaker. That usually happens on the third Sunday of the month, except this month the third Sunday is Stake Conference. I also teach the High Priest Group in our Ward on the second Sunday of each month. So that meant I was scheduled to teach in one Ward and talk in a different Ward. In my brain I had it figured out … Priesthood Meeting would be from 9 to 9:50 in our Ward, and Sacrament Meeting started at 10:50 in the other Ward. However, I had forgotten that our new meeting schedule for this year has Sacrament Meeting first … which meant that both activities I was scheduled for would be happening at the same time. Nina, however, had not forgotten. She asked me how I was going to do both things. I explained my logic … and got rescued once again when she reminded me of the new meeting schedule. I found a substitute to teach my class and stopped doing the lesson preparation.

Later that day, I saw the postman drive by without stopping to put mail in our mailbox. That is rather unusual since we always get mail (usually junk mail or bills). I told Nina that we didn’t have any mail and she was surprised. When I went out to do some errands, for some reason I stopped at the mailbox and it was full of mail! I don’t know when it came. The postal vehicle I saw must not have been our postwoman!

We have the Dish Network satellite system here … four satellite boxes feeding four TV’s (to be watched by two people … and we actually have six TVs in the house). One of the satellite boxes is a DVR (Digital Video Recorder). Nina records a lot of stuff on the DVR. The software on the DVR was recently updated, however, and it works differently. Nina had set it up to record Monk and the new software took that to mean to record every Monk episode that came on, including the myriad of reruns and repeats. I decided to DVR a new series that starts tonight The Sarah Conner Chronicles. That way I can check it out on my schedule and decide whether or not I’ll watch future episodes. In order to do that, I had to override a Monk that was being recorded at the same time. When I explained this to Nina, she said that I needed to get my own DVR … it would be a problem if I started recording stuff on her system! We had a good laugh.

But, it brings to mind an interesting point. When we only had a VCR, if something was to be recorded, I always had to set it up. It was simply a complicated procedure that Nina didn’t want to have to learn. And it was a fairly complicated process (I wonder what the VCR would have been like if Apple had designed it?). The DVR, however, is not complicated. Nina has no problem setting something up to be recorded, has claimed the machine as her own, and the hundred hours of video she can record can be easily consumed. Maybe I do need my own DVR!

Several lines of furious thunderstorms are making their way from Alabama into Missouri and on up into Illinois spawning tornadoes on their way. About 5:30 this afternoon sirens started sounding outside. I was wondering where the fire was since so many sirens were sounding. LeeAnn came into the living room to tell us that tornado warnings had been put up for this area and that twisters had been sighted. That was what the sirens were all about! Since then the sirens have sounded several more times. We’ve had some very big winds, lots of lightning, and some very heavy rains — all of the kinds of weather that reinforces my desire not to live here!

It’s been a fun day. I took the three grandkids this morning to the car wash to get some of the grime off the car before we leave tomorrow morning for the two-day trip back home. They had a grand time, particularly little Shaundra. When she pulled the trigger on the wand for the pressure wash, she certainly wasn’t expecting the force of the water pressure which just about knocked her down! The car looks much better and is ready for the next coating of salt and grime. The weather looks fairly reasonable for the trip home. We’ll probably be able to dodge most of the bad weather.

Once Ohio State is able to pull this football game out, we’ll finish the packing for tonight. We’ll load the car in the morning and hopefully be able to leave about 7 a.m. or so … provided no tornadoes actually come around!

We prevailed on some folks that attended Shaundra’s baptism to take a group photo of the whole family. This is the result and I’m quite happy with the result. So, who’s who?

From left to right: LeeAnn, Me, James, Nina, Shaundra, Nancy (LeeAnn’s mother), Steven, and Vern (LeeAnn’s father). I had to chuckle a bit at the positioning of Vern’s head … we’ve been kidding him about his new-found halo.

Saturday evening we had a delightful turkey dinner and had a lot of family fun. This morning Jim’s ward switched to a new time: 9 a.m. start. Everyone except Jim had to be out of the house by 8:40 a.m. (Jim had to be there at 7 a.m. for early morning meetings). It happened in a rather miraculous manner. The meetings were great. I was delighted at how well the congregation sang the hymns. There was a constant waiting line to bear testimonies. The Sunday School lesson was excellent. Jim and his family are in an excellent ward where Jim is the Elder’s Quorum President and LeeAnn teaches the CTR 5 class in Primary. We had several people tell us how much they enjoyed having Jim and LeeAnn in their ward. I must say we had a great time.

This afternoon we played some games with the grandkids. Clue and then Cranium. Clue worked fine and we wrapped up the game just as the left-over turkey was served as open-faced hot sandwiches. Yum! Cranium, on the other hand, was much more challenging. Steven and I were stuck on green for a very long time and finally, mercifully, Nina and James won the game.

So now we’re gathered around the dining room table. Nina, James, and I all have our notebook computers open and are doing something on the Internet. Vern is reading from the November Ensign. LeeAnn is watching Jim fuss with Bloglines. Nancy is working on a glass of milk. The grandkids are being very quiet….

We’ve been here about twenty-four hours and are definitely enjoying ourselves. The grandkids are great and we’ve had a lot of fun playing and kidding around. The main event occurred this afternoon when James baptised Shaundra, his youngest and last to be baptised. It was a very nice service and well attended by the folks from their ward. It is so nice to be the grandparent at these things and see how grownup the kids are and how well they are doing.

The weather here is rather incredible … it was so warm today that I wished I had summer clothes with me! There was a Big Storm coming ashore in California, the weather maps looked rather ominous, but the storm seems to be falling apart. Regardless, we’re headed back home on Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, we’re having a good time in Springfield.

We’re on our way to Springfield, Missouri for Shaundra’s baptism on Saturday. Yesterday saw us in the car for about 12 1/2 hours, arriving in Kearney, Nebraska about 8 p.m. CDT yesterday evening. We were definitely tired of being in the car! The plan was to drive at least as far as North Platte, Nebraska and we did that plus another hundred miles. We’ve got about eight hours to drive today. It’ll be nice to be with James and his family for a couple of days.

The presidential primary season officially started yesterday with the Iowa Caucuses. That is consuming the news. For me the big news is the storm coming ashore in California today that is forecast to drop about ten feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains as it makes its way eastward. We’ll be driving home in whatever is left of that storm on Tuesday. Oh joy.

We’ll be leaving Kearney behind in about 30 minutes. Next stop: Springfield, Missouri.

I read a number of blogs and thanks to Bloglines, keeping track of them is quite easy. Today most of the blogs have been about 2007, highlights, lessons learned, best and worst, and such. Nina always makes a list of some very serious resolutions for the new year. I generally try not to make resolutions, but rather as Jeff Barr says, “Plans!” Last year in January, I did make some resolutions so it might be interesting to see how I did.

1. I resolve to spend time most every day at my desk in our home office. I’m sure that I can find enough to do to occupy this time.

Nina can definitely attest that I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in our home office. In fact, she has given the office now a pet name: The Hobbit Hole. Now that I’m working from home, I do spend a lot of time here.

2. I resolve to not go to medical school. It’ll take too much time and then I wouldn’t be able to spend enough time at my desk in our home office.

It turns out that I do have the time now to go to medical school. But, I resolutely held my ground and did not entertain any thoughts of going to medical school. I did, however, investigate what I would need to do to get a teaching certificate. That still sounds quite interesting.

3. I resolve to play with more technology on the internet. Gadgets and stuff like that are what makes life interesting.

Technology has been a lot of fun this year. My current favorite is my new Macbook laptop computer. After I was laid off from AMI Semiconductor and had to turn in my Dell Laptop computer, I ordered a Macbook and have found this to be a delightfully useable machine. I’ve also found Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Amazon Web Services have delivered some incredible capability and that may have some impact on what I do in 2008.

4. I resolve to spend at least five full nights in the motorhome when we don’t have to run the furnace.

That turned out to be an easy resolution to meet as well. After leaving my last job (see #3 above), we decided to use the time to visit family out east. We spent most of the month of August driving the motorhome out to Connecticut and back and then in September drove to Seattle and back along the Oregon coast. We definitely had many more than five nights in the motorhome without having to run the furnace! We were able to spend time with all our children and grandchildren in 2007 except for the contingent in Chandler, Arizona. We’ll inflict ourselves on them sometime in early Spring 2008.

2007 was a very interesting year. I made business trips to Belgium and Manila. We took a wonderful cruise along the Norwegian coast with some good friends. We traveled from coast to coast in the United States. I spent half the year employed at one company and the last three months of the year working on commission for a different company. I’ve had the experience of drawing unemployment ($338 a week before taxes).

I’m also certain that 2008 will be equally as interesting. We’ll start the year by making a quick trip to Missouri for granddaughter Shaundra’s baptism … leaving Thursday, January 3rd and returning Wednesday, January 8th. It’ll just get busier from there. Happy New Year!