Monthly Archives: May 2009

TTT for May 26th

General

Why be brief?

  1. During my growing up years, May 30th was a State holiday called Decoration Day. The holiday was always on the 30th. That was the day we made the pilgrimage to all the cemeteries around to place flowers on the graves of family members and flags on the graves of deceased veterans. School in Soda Springs always ended not later than the day before Decoration Day which made the day even more important. In May 1966 President Lyndon Johnson set the last Monday in May as Memorial Day and the holiday hasn’t been the same since. Now it’s just another three-day weekend with most people no longer associating the day with remembering our war dead.
  2. The Big Event associated with that holiday was the Indianapolis 500 race. NASCAR hadn’t been invented and the only other racing to compete with the Indianapolis 500 for TV time was Grand Prix racing with the fall Watkins Glenn Prix being the Big Deal. Today the Indianapolis 500 is a footnote event and Grand Prix has disappeared, I think.
  3. A few years ago while on a business trip to Belgium, I took the opportunity to do a driving tour around some of the World War I cemeteries in Belgium. One cemetery I visited was a German cemetery with a very moving sculpture of a father and a mother grieving for their fallen son. That lead me to remember a post about the last cemetery I visited and the graves of soldiers who had died in the last hours of the war. I also posted a number of pictures from Ieper, from the driving tour, and from the American Cemetery in Waregem, Belgium. That caused me to have to go look at the pictures and read the posts once again. So much for trying to be somewhat brief!
  4. Nina and I actually tried to go to an Indianapolis 500 race. We were living in Chardon, Ohio and a good friend at the time was a Major Indianapolis 500 Fan. The four of us drove over to Indianapolis and stayed in a crummy motel. We went to the race on Sunday, but the cars made two circuits around the track when the rains came in copious quantities. After a couple of hours of waiting, the race as postponed to the next day. That didn’t work for any of us, so back home we went. Since then the race has been moved to Monday permanently.
  5. We spent Memorial Day with our daughter Heather and her family in North Salt Lake. One highlight of the day was swimming in their marvelous pool. Nina got sunburned … I got a bit of color on the top of my head. They have a very nice pool.
  6. On Memorial Day morning Nina and I drove to the cemetery where Trevor is buried and where the grave stone also memorializes Traci. I got off at the wrong exit on the freeway which required some back tracking. We got to the cemetery to learn we couldn’t remember exactly where his grave is located. The Really Big Pine Tree by his grave is no longer a Really Big Pine Tree. I’ll claim that as the excuse and I’m sticking to it. This time, though I wrote down the locations as well as made a waypoint in my iPhone with the latitude and longitude. Maybe we’ll have fewer problems next time!
  7. Another Memorial Day activity was going to the movie theater to see Night At the Museum Battle of the Smithsonian.  It was a corny, crazy, funny, and satisfying movie. I’d actually like to see it again! The other big movie of the weekend (which was supposed to be the Really Big Deal) was Terminator Salvation, which got tromped by the Night at the Museum comedy. I’ve no interest in the Terminator movie at all. On the other hand, I’m looking forward to seeing Star Trek again!
  8. A really stupid event took place in Burma where a guy with no sense at all swam across a lake to “visit” Aung San Suu Kyi, the only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner. That resulted in him being captured and the Burmese government gaining the opportunity to put Kyi on trial and continue her imprisonment. Worse is that the nut case is apparently a Mormon. We’re not imune either to crazies.
  9. Bought a bunch of lumber today to use tomorrow to build some garden beds that have been sold. I may come close to breaking even on this venture … no cruise is forthcoming from it, though. Dang!
  10. What was supposed to be a fast ten things has turned into a rather lengthy period of time, mostly because I got sidetracked reading from my blog about the WWI cemeteries and looking at my pictures. Now I’m rather nostalgic and am right ready to travel to Europe once again.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Trevor RIP

E-Mail Musings

It’s Memorial Day 2009 and we’re at the Wasatch Lawn Cemetery in Salt Lake City at Trevor’s grave and Traci’s memorial. We had a hard time finding his gravesite as we don’t get here very often. I always think I’ll remember exactly where it is but alas, not so. I think I’ll write it down this time and then the trick will be to remember where I wrote it!

This is a very pretty morning. The sun is shining, no breeze, clear blue skies, and abundant birds singing away in the trees. Nina’s cleaning off the gravestone and some of the overgrown grass around it. The vase needs to be replaced, though. Someone has ripped off the original vase. Since we already own the gravesites to the east of Trevor’s grave, I think we need to put a bench there. Trevor and Traci, we’re thinking of you today!

Sent from my iPhone

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Lunch at Applebees

E-Mail Musings

A couple of months ago the local Applebees had a fire and had to close for rebuilding. Today was the grand re-opening so we went for lunch. It’s a nice restaurant and we like having lunch or dinner there. Welcome back, Applebees in Pocatello!

Sent from my iPhone

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The Economy Is So Bad….

General

I got one of those email messages that had been forwarded more than a dozen times. So, I’ve no idea who to attribute these to, probably some late-night show comedian. But, they are funny!

The economy is so bad that:

  • CEO’s are now playing miniature golf.
  • Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.
  • Jewish women are marrying for love.
  • Even people who have nothing to do with the Obama administration aren’t paying their taxes.
  • Obama met with small businesses to discuss the Stimulus Package: GE, Pfizer and Citigroup.
  • McDonald’s is selling the 1/4 ouncer.
  • Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children’s names.
  • A truckload of Americans got caught sneaking into Mexico.
  • The most highly-paid job is now jury duty.
  • People in Africa are donating money to Americans.
  • Motel Six won’t leave the light on.
  • The Mafia is laying off judges.
  • A funeral director committed suicide because he needed the business.
  • My cat sold my dog to a Chinese restaurant.

And finally … Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal. Hey, great idea …the guy who made $50 billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $750 billion disappear.

Triple-T for May 19th

TripleT

And here’s Roland….

  1. I spent the morning in Idaho Falls at the LDS Welfare Services Cannery. The local Church congregations in my area were assigned to provide volunteer service there this morning. The cannery was producing chunky chicken noodle soup with a goal of 10,000 cans during the morning 4-hour shift and another 10,000 cans during the afternoon 4-hour shift. As we wrapped up they told us we had processed 9,600 cans of soup, meaning that about 20,000 people will have a meal. The goods produced in the LDS Church Canneries go all over the world to help feed the hungry and mitigate disasters. My job was to load cans onto the conveyor system, so I was working at the very front of the production line. The good part was that this work was done outside the production area so it was much cooler. Difficult part was four hours of standing and repetitious movement: snag eight cans from the pallet of cans, put them on the feed conveyor, snag another eight cans, rinse and repeat. After emptying a pallet of cans, replace with another pallet full of cans. Even with ear plugs I can even now hear the rattling of cans on the conveyor belt!
  2. Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far reaching an official high of 92°. The extended forecast is for higher than normal temperatures and lower than normal rainfall. That’s a good recipe for wild fires.
  3. A couple of weeks ago Nina bought an apple tree at Costco. This tree had four branches, each with a different variety of apples. The tree sat in a bucket on the back deck for a couple of weeks until last night when it got planted in the back yard. There are several blossoms on the tree so just maybe we’ll get some apples?
  4. We spent Saturday morning at the Farmers Market where we gave away a lot of brochures and had many people looking, but no sales. Yesterday morning a woman called me and asked if I would custom build a garden bed for her as she wanted one larger than I had on display. That’s turning into a nice order.
  5. Saw some information on Utah Preppers, a website dedicated to all things related to being self sufficient, about potato boxes. That looked very interesting and a better idea than using old tires. I’m thinking I should build one and have that for sale at the Farmers Market as well. Maybe I should build two … one as a display at the market and one for use here at the house.
  6. Today was another election day, this time for the local school board. I stopped in to vote after my Rotary Club meeting ended. There were a number of people voting which surprised me. I kind of expected the turnout to be marginal at best. Perhaps the February school board fiasco with a levy that failed followed by a scaled down levy that passed in April has fueled the interest.
  7. Gasoline prices have been going up here and are around $2.10 or so all over the area. We’re leaving on June 14th to make another trip out east. While the trip will be less expensive than the one we made to South Carolina last year, I’d still like to see gasoline prices under $2.00. There’s no good reason for them to be higher than that.
  8. On the other hand, my IRA actually made money in April and it looks like May will repeat that performance. April was the first time since last June that my IRA has had a net increase in value. Maybe things are getting better economically.
  9. Remembering things has become somewhat of a joke between Nina and me. The other day we were trying to remember the name of a couple we knew very well when we lived in Colorado Springs. That name just wouldn’t rise to the surface. A bit later Nina came up with her name, but we couldn’t remember his, or their last name. As the morning progressed, she got a name, then later got her last name back, then got the name of her daughter back, and finally got her husband’s name back. I have a list in my iPhone of important names to remember; names that I occasionally draw a complete blank on when called upon to remember them.
  10. The Hubble Space Telescope has been refurbished by the Atlantis team. I thoroughly enjoyed watching their work being televised from space on NASA TV. It was absolutely amazing to see them work through problems and issues and despite lots of unexpected events (and NASA tries incredibly hard to think of every possible scenario), everything got finished. I ran across a beautiful set of pictures from this mission today: boston.com/bigpi… The imagery is gorgeous and breathtaking. I’m really hoping that my great grandchildren will think that space travel is as routine as we take air travel today.

Another brain dump in another seven days!

It Definitely Got Warm Today!

General
A Pretty Sunset
A Pretty Sunset

I actually spent most of the day outside in the yard today. The day was warm … actually tending towards hot … and was probably the warmest day so far this year. I finished up the garden bed I need to deliver tomorrow evening (took two trips, one to Home Depot and one to Lowes, though). I mowed the back yard (it definitely needs to be weed whipped), and we planted the apple tree Nina bought at Costco a couple of weeks ago. It’s got blossoms on the tree, so it’s probably high time we got it into the ground!

A couple of days ago a fellow I follow in Twitter (@Dread3) and who lives in Pocatello, suggested we should get together for lunch sometime. That sometime turned out to be today and we met at a local Mexican restaurant, Sr. Iguanas. I like that restaurant and it’s a good place for lunch because you can actually carry on a conversation with someone and be able to hear. It was nice to meet in person someone I’ve only known on Twitter. We’ll definitely do lunch on some regular basis as we’ve both got a lot of computers and information technology in our background.

Tomorrow morning I’m headed to Idaho Falls and need to be there by 8 a.m. at the Church’s cannery to put in a four hour shift canning chunky chicken noodle soup. I’ll be taking four other people with me for this volunteer assignment.

Today was a very nice day. I think tomorrow (after I get home from the cannery) will also be a nice day. I’m not quite ready to start complaining about how hot is it!

Saturday’s Farmers Market

E-Mail Musings

The market opens in about a half an hour. Most vendors are busy setting up. I have much less to set up, so I t doesn’t take long. The issue is to get here early enough to get the car and trailer in next to our spot. That gives me plenty of time to watch everyone else get set up and argue about who’s encroaching on their neighbor’s space.

Hoping we sell some today!!

Sent from my iPhone

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Fascinating Space Walks!

E-Mail Musings

Today is the second day of the work to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. I’ve got the video on my Mac Mini to watch and listen while working. These guys are amazing as they figure out how to work around problems. The views of the earth in the background occasionally are breathtaking. It’s hard to concentrate on work!

Sent from my iPhone

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