August 1st was mother’s 84th birthday, and what’s a birthday without presents and a birthday cake? My sister-in-law Chris baked a butter-pecan cake with butter-pecan frosting, a delightfully delicious combination. As tired as she was after a very busy day, the cake and the candles brought a nice smile. She’s looking pretty good for eighty-four years old!

My sister Eileen and my favorite brother Perry along with his wife Chris joined Nina and me in singing happy birthday, ending with a wish “and forty more….” She laughed at that and said she wasn’t interested in forty more years!

It wasn’t hard blowing out the candles, though. The overhead fan quickly took care of that duty. It had been a long, hot day outside and the cool air from the swamp cooler was definitely welcome.

Why had it been a long day, you ask?

Friday was the first day of the Big Workshop Yard Sale. We’d been preparing for this sale for a couple of weeks after dad decided that his vision was becoming such that he was ready to sell his workshop full of tools. Mother ran an ad in the local newspaper that my sister-in-law Chris put together. We made up garage sale signs as well as some posters listing the major items on sale. Mother put up the signs earlier this week. On Thursday my favorite brother and his wife Chris (the newspaper ad writer) joined me in Soda Springs as we set up tables and tarps and moved everything we thought was sellable out of the shop and out into the yard to be sold.

The hardest job was actually pricing the items for sale. Fortunately, it’s easier to sell someone else’s stuff. We didn’t have nearly the emotional attachment or the vivid memories of how much was paid for these items. Finally on Friday morning about 9 a.m. the sale was ready to go.

We were immediately mobbed. By 10:30 more than a thousand dollars of tools had been sold. The two-day sale netted more than $2,200. Dad had said he was hoping for about a thousand dollars. The sale far exceeded his expectations! There are only a couple of items left of any worth that didn’t sell.

What didn’t get tossed into the trash on Saturday afternoon will be taken to Pocatello to the auction in a couple of weeks to be sold for whatever the auctioneer can get for them.

I was kind of surprised at some of the items that sold very quickly and some other items that either didn’t sell, or sold quite late. For instance, there was a brand new, still in the box drill that never sold even though it would have sold for half of the new price. On the other hand, some very old Christmas tree lights were among the early items to be sold. It’s definitely true that one man’s trash is another’s treasure.

There were a couple of fellows who came back three times, buying stuff on each visit. Another fellow came and looked over a jointer very carefully and for quite a while. He left without buying it, coming back later to find that it had been sold.

This was definitely a man’s yard sale. A couple of women came, looked quickly, and left calling their husbands on the phone to tell them to get over to the sale.

One interesting part for me was learning from some of the guys what some of the tools were and what they would be used for. It was a couple of long, hot, tiring days, but well worth the time and effort for mother and dad.

Mid-morning on Friday, my cousin Ted Larson (I knew him as Barry, his middle name, as he was growing up) and his son Robert came by. Ted and Robert live in Carlsbad, New Mexico and Ted recently retired as a school teacher. They’ve been making a circuit through Colorado, Utah, and Idaho visiting friends and relatives. The last time I saw them was when we were in Las Cruces, New Mexico for my uncle Delon’s funeral. While he was visiting, we talked about blogs and blogging and he’s ready to have a blog set up for him. So, in the next couple of days, he’ll appear on the blogging scene as well. Ted, it was fun to visit with you and Robert and I’m looking forward to reading your stuff!

So, it’s been a busy and fun week. The sale went well. Mother had a nice birthday. Dad’s shop looks woefully empty (and hopefully will stay that way!!). We’re home on a Saturday evening and both Nina and I are very tired. We’ve both got things to prepare for Church tomorrow. Danielle comes on Monday for a week. We will remain busy for the foreseeable future, it seems.

Yesterday Nina and I went over to the AT&T store in Pocatello and placed two iPhones on order, a white 16gb model for her and a black 16gb model for me (so we can tell them apart!). According to the clerk, had we come in the day previously, the wait would have been three days for the black phone. However, that opportunity had passed. Nevertheless, we placed the order and bought two car chargers for the phones as well.

The quoted delivery time is 10 to 21 working days. The whispered time was “faster than that.” We did get an email with a link to see what the current order status is.

Once the phones arrive, we go back to the store, activate the phones (for a fee, of course), and transfer our phone numbers from Sprint to AT&T. That will close out our Sprint contract. The new monthly cost will be about the same as we were paying for Sprint with a whole bunch more capability because of the iPhone itself.

As we were heading for bed last night, Nina asked if I was “excited for the new iPhone?” I was/am and it’s clear that she is also.

The next ten days are pretty booked. Today through Saturday is consumed with dad’s yard sale. Sunday I’m teaching in Priesthood meeting and Nina is speaking at the prison. Monday our granddaughter Danielle comes for a week’s visit. Tuesday evening we’re headed to Yellowstone (we’ll be in the campground in Madison). Back to Pocatello sometime on Thursday and doing stuff with Dani the rest of the week. Sunday she and I are going to Arbon Valley as I’m speaking in Sacrament Meeting there. Then we’ll take her home after a event-filled week with her grandparents.

When the grandkids turn twelve we invite them to stay a week with us as a way for us to become much better acquainted. This year four grandkids reach that magical birthday. In June we had our granddaughter Madison, next week is Dani, and then in October we’ll have James and Steven. Maybe by then the iPhones will have arrived?

On this mid-morning Thursday I’ve been working with a new program called Drupal to see if I can make it work for some of my websites. While it is very capable, I’m having trouble making it do (what I consider to be) the most basic tasks. So, rather than beat my head against the desk for a while, I’ll write a blog entry instead while my subconscious tries to figure out my problem.

The major activity this week is dad’s yard sale, selling off all the tools in his workshop (or at least some of them … he keeps changing his mind about what tools he wants to keep). I’ll be driving over to Soda Springs this afternoon to start getting things set up for the yard sale. Pricing the stuff for sale and packaging things together for sale will be very difficult, I think. I’m hoping to have a number of pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I’m working on a new release for the picture album system. The idea is to load the pictures to Flickr and give them a picture set name. Then in the picture album, reference the picture set name for the new album and it’ll automatically generate links for all the pictures and then allow you to add text and modify the sequence, if necessary. That way the pictures don’t have to be sized before loading because Flickr will do it all. We’ll see how that works. It’ll be about a month before this capability is ready for release.

Hot, hot, hot is the description for the days recently. I’m about ready to close up the house and turn on the air conditioning once again. The mornings are cool, but by the time the sun gets onto the back of the house, it has become very hot inside and it takes the AC a long time to catch up. Better to start when the house is already about at the temp the AC is supposed to hold.

Well, I’m no closer to an answer to my dilemma. Time to go get something (soft) to drink. I’m probably missing some very basic step that is intuitively obvious to everyone except me!

Yesterday we all went to the movie to see Get Smart, which turned out to be a very funny and delightful movie. I’d like to see it again, actually. We had a bit of time to kill before the movie, so Nina and I went over to the Apple Store, which was in the same mall as the movie theater. The sign at the entrance to the store said that they were sold out of iPhones for the day, but I could check the Apple website after 9 p.m. to find out whether or not the store would have any iPhones the next day. I checked late last night and the store was scheduled to receive a new shipment and would have a limited supply of iPhones available on Friday morning.

We arrived at the store about 8:15 a.m. and found a very long line. We started at number 56 and by 9:15 a.m. when they started letting people into the store, we had gotten up to number 49. Fortunately, we had some lawn chairs in the trunk of the car, so I was able to get one and have a place to sit as the wait was going to be very long.

About 9:15 a.m. they started letting people into the store. A store employee came out and gave a long speech to the folks at the front of the line which we couldn’t hear. Then he came around the side of the building where we were waiting in line and gave us the instructions. For current AT&T customers, the process was going to be fairly complicated, particularly if they had any kind of a discounted plan through their employer or some other organization. That didn’t include us. Then came the bombshell … they could not do number transfers for out-of-state customers. We could buy a phone if we wanted, but we would get a new Utah area code 801 phone number.

We both want to keep our current cell phone numbers. I folded up the chair and we came back to Heather’s house sans new phones. We’ll have to do the “pay and wait” in Pocatello, where the current wait is more than three weeks. No joy in Mudville today!

Today marks the 161st anniversary of the arrival in the Salt Lake Valley of the first contingent of the Mormon pioneers. The advance party had been in the valley for a couple of days and the main company, lead by a fairly ill Brigham Young, drove into the valley on the 24th of July, 1847. The 24th of July is an official State of Utah holiday.

Each year the 24th celebration starts with a Sunrise Service at the Mormon Tabernacle on Temple Square put on by the Salt Lake Chapter of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers. This year’s program featured a 200-voice choir made up of members of the Church in the Davis County area. Our oldest daughter Heather was singing in the choir, so Nina and I decided to be there for the program. We were well rewarded for our small effort!

I’ve not been inside the Tabernacle for several years and not since all of the renovations and remodeling were completed. The building itself is beautiful and a monument to the faith and dedication of those pioneers who were forced out of Nauvoo, Illinois and came to the Salt Lake Valley seeking refuge. I have ancestors who were part of that movement.

William P Smith is my direct Smith ancestor who joined the Church in England in 1840. He immigrated to Nauvoo, Illinois and was forced to leave there in 1847, impoverished and with a large family including a 6-day-old baby girl. William then spent several years operating a ferry across the Missouri River near present-day Omaha, Nebraska and made the journey from Nebraska to the Salt Lake Valley in 1852.

Milo Andrus is another ancestor on my mothers side who joined the Church in 1833 in Florence, Ohio (near Kirtland, Ohio) and was party to all of the mobocracy and persecution that drove the Church from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois and finally to Utah. Milo and his family arrived in the Valley in 1850 after he finished serving a mission to England from 1848 -1850 in the same area where William P Smith had joined the Church a few years earlier. Milo was a polygamist, having 11 wives and 57 children. The Milo Andrus Family Organization is organized by wives and I descend from his fifth wife, Mary Ann Webster.

There were others as well. Josiah Guile Hardy, Samuel Gillett, John Sant, and others I’m sure I’ve forgotten to mention.

I thought about these men and their wives as I sat in the Tabernacle this morning. I was moved by the music and by Elder Tingey’s remarks. I have a remarkable heritage and I definitely bask in the fruits of their service and sacrifice. It’s good to have a day each year to remember them and honor them.

It has been dang hot for the past week or so in Pocatello. Today hot was combined with humid, which is a rare occurrence in this part of the country.

That hasn’t stopped outside yard work, though. I’ve been working on watering systems for the garden beds so that we can go away for a few days without everything drying up and blowing away. Not only did I have to make a couple of trips to Home Depot and Lowes for parts, some of the parts didn’t work and needed to be further repaired. That becomes very time consuming and makes me a bit grumpy.

My favorite brother and his wife came here on Friday and spent the night. We all went to Soda Springs on Saturday to begin the process of getting ready to sell off most of dad’s tools in his workshop. His eyesight is deteriorating as his macular degeneration has turned wet in both eyes. He’s decided that now is the time to clean out the shop and see what the stuff will sell for. We’ve decided to hold the sale on Friday and Saturday, August 1st and 2nd. It’ll be held in their backyard in Soda Springs. So, we spent much of the day on Saturday in dad’s workshop sorting like tools together, finding which of the electric tools worked, cleaning up the shop, and making it ready for the big set of work still to come … to price and lay out everything for the sale.

I made my monthly trip to Provo last week for the CTO Breakfast. I rode the motorcycle down and back, spending Thursday night at Heather’s place in North Salt Lake. The ride down was a lot of fun. The ride back got long and boring. I went down in the late afternoon and early evening when it was getting cooler. I came back in the late morning and early afternoon when it was very hot and quite windy. Getting enough to drink was an issue! I finally stopped and bought four bottles of water at a convenience store and downed them all on the rest of the ride. The motorcycle costs about half as much to drive down as the car and is usually twice as much fun!

Tomorrow we’ll go down to Heathers for a few days. Thursday, July 24th is a Very Big Holiday in Salt Lake, commemorating the arrival of the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley. The day starts with a concert and ceremony in the LDS Tabernacle on Temple Square at 7:00 a.m. and our daughter Heather is singing in the choir. We think that is a marvelous opportunity and we’ll be there to watch and listen.

It’s also more than sweltering in Salt Lake City … so I’m hoping to have some quality swimming pool time as well as some air-conditioned time on the computer. We’ll also stop by the Apple Store to see if they have any iPhones. Time to upgrade! I may even blog….

A year ago, July 13, 2007, was my last day working for someone else. My how time flies … it doesn’t seem like a year has passed since I walked out the door at AMI Semiconductor for the last time. That company doesn’t exist anymore (it was bought by On Semi). The boss who kicked me out isn’t there anymore (the new company sent her on her way). Many of the people I worked with and some who worked for me are no longer there (some voluntarily, many involuntarily). However, one good friend of mine who was thoroughly and royally screwed by the woman who laid me off, has been brought back onboard by the new company … obviously a company a whole lot smarter than the old company.

I’ve learned some things in the past year, though.

1. Not many companies are interested in talking with, let alone hiring, a 60+ year old senior manager. They already have an abundance of highly-paid senior managers who have no current technical skills and aren’t interested in taking on another, regardless of that person’s skill set.

2. The economy today favors people who are self-employed and have become responsible for their own life and career. I’m pretty sure that in ten years or so, most people will no longer be employed in today’s traditional sense, but will be their own business providing services to very lean and significantly more agile companies. The only thing standing in the way today is affordable health care. The corporations have locked up health care and individuals cannot afford to pay for health care on their own. I’m confident that roadblock will go away within the next four years.

3. I was surprised at how isolated I was from the technology community in general here in Pocatello. There really isn’t a technology community here and most everyone working in information technology in the area do not know each other at all. I have discovered, however, a very vibrant technology community a couple of hours drive south of here in the Salt Lake valley, extending from Ogden down to Provo. While it’s a long (and now expensive) drive down there and back, I’ve found getting somewhat involved with that community quite invigorating.

4. It’s almost a cliché about retired people saying they don’t know how they ever had time to work for a living. That has proven true for me. My list of things I need to do is huge. The list of things I want to do is even longer. There is not enough time to get through those two lists as it is. The must-do list this week is daunting by itself and some pretty important items will probably not get done this week.

5. People seem to think that because you’re not “working”, you’ve got plenty of time to do their agenda. That seems to be particularly true with Church voluntary service. “You’re not working, so you have time to do this cannery / temple / Deseret Industries assignment.” I’m becoming more adept at being very conservative with my time.

6. We’ve been able to do some traveling, but I really, really miss the international travel scene. I can feel my world getting smaller again and I don’t like that very much. When I was “working” I would be in Europe or Asia four or more times a year for significant periods of time plus we’d take some kind of a vacation there as well. I miss the international travel and really fear that may be gone from my life.

7. I don’t miss my old job at all. While I miss the travel and the association with the people I worked with, I don’t miss the company, the senior management (none of whom were valuable enough for the new owners to keep), nor the stupid office politics. Sometimes other people who either work there now or worked there recently ask my opinion on some person at the old job, or some decision that the old or the new company made. I find I just really don’t care. That company is like an old disease that is finally healing.

A year ago I signed an agreement that said I wouldn’t say anything bad about the company. I’ve been pretty good about keeping that agreement. While going to work for that company was a huge mistake, we’ve had some pretty important benefits. We’re much closer to my parents who are needing more and more attention. I’ve got more time to be able to devote to them and now have a schedule that I can manage (as opposed to having some company manage it for me) so I can be available as they need me. Pocatello is a nice area to live with plenty to do in the area. The Big City is almost close enough.

So, today starts the second year of this new life. On the whole, life is good. We can afford to live (although we can’t do all the playing we’d planned on being able to do). I’m happier than I was eighteen months ago now that all the frustration of a capricious, lunatic boss (who had only a random acquaintance with the truth) is out of my life (she will take a while longer to get out of my system, I think). Things are settling down and the opportunities for the future are much clearer than they were a year ago. I’m really looking forward to the coming year. Happy anniversary!