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!