Another quiet Sunday evening in Pocatello … all the more so because Nina’s been sick all day and half of last night. It’s probably something she ate. We decided to go out for dinner last night. It was my day to make decisions (I have the responsibility on the odd days and Nina has it on the even days), so I delegated to her. She came back with three choices: Applebees, Sr. Iguana (a pretty good Mexican food place), and Sizzlers. I picked Sizzlers. We got there about 5 p.m. to find the place packed and when we left an hour later, it was mobbed. However, something in the food last night wasn’t right and Nina’s been spending a LOT of time since then sitting on or hugging the porcelain throne. I suspect we won’t go back there for a while. Nina suggested that we could just decide what we wanted to eat, buy it at the grocery store, and cook it here. “Much safer,” she says.

I’ve had to take the SpyCam software offline. This was the software that would take a picture every five minutes and upload it to the weblog. The camera works just fine, but for some reason the SpyCam software is not working anymore. I suspect one of Microsoft’s security patches is causing the problem. I’ll look to see if there’s any other options available. Meanwhile, no more up-to-date picture on the weblog.

The computer issues abound, actually. Because the government has changed the starting and ending dates for Daylight Savings Time, I needed to patch the two web servers here at the house. One of them I use for development and testing and it also provides some other services. The other one is where all the weblogs are running. I felt that i could do a number of things at the same time by upgrading the operating system from Suse 9.2 to Suse 10.3. I ordered in the CD’s and last Thursday night proceeded to do the upgrade on the development server. While the upgrade went fairly smoothly, the web server wouldn’t come up and run correctly. I’ve spent several hours over the past couple of days sorting out the problems and I think that problem is finally solved. Now the database server is throwing several hundred errors each time I try to start it. I won’t be upgrading the blog server any time soon. I think it’d be good to have all the issues worked out before I attempt to do the upgrade. I’ve decided to buy a new web server computer, bring that one up and get everything working, and then migrate from the old server to the new server. That should be an easier transition. We’ll see.

A few days ago I got an email on my blog from Elreen who had done a search for Convergys on the web and found the picture that I had taken of the Convergys building in Alabang in Manila. Elreen works for Convergys providing Sprint customer service and wanted to know if they could put my picture of their building on their Friendster page. Of course I agreed. I also said that I’d take a picture of the Convergys office in Pocatello. So, Elreen, look on the right sidebar, scroll down to the Picture Album and click on Pictures!

On our way home from Soda Springs we were stopped behind this SUV at the railroad tracks waiting for a train to pass. I noticed the bumper sticker … “Is it Sunday yet?” along with the license plate bracket which said the driver was from Montpelier, Idaho. A closer look at the sticker and I saw “NASCAR”. That’s the new religion in much of the US these days. My brother Perry and his wife Chris have gotten this fever as well. For at least the third year in a row, they’re headed next week to Las Vegas to a Nascar race. Hopefully this year he’ll take winter clothes with him! Last year they about froze….

The visit with dad and mother today was very nice. We got there about 11:30 and left to come back to Pocatello about 3:00. Dad was pretty perky this afternoon. Nina had made some cookies (three kinds: chocolate chip, molasseses, and Snickerdoodles) for him, so he was quite happy. Mother said he could have one … he managed to get two down before she put the cookies away. Dad has a growth on his neck that needs to come off as it’s starting to give him some pain. He’s meeting with the doctor on Monday to get everything set up. They’ll do the surgery in the operating room at the hospital, but he should be able to come home the same day.

Tonight we had tickets to a Season of Note performance titled Samarabalouf. This was an absolutely delightful performance. I took some video with my little Sony camera. It’s about two and a half minutes long and gives a taste of their music. We had a great time and would definitely go see this group again. They definitely had the whole crowd on their feet by the end of the concert and then they played a good ten-minute encore.  Well worth our time to have been there. A good day and a delightful evening for sure.

It’s kind of snowing outside. The snow cloud stalled overhead for a couple of hours and perhaps an inch of snow has fallen. With any luck we’ll get a bit more before this small storm moves to the southeast. It’s been a nice, quiet Friday evening here. After dinner we watched an episode of Monk, sitting in our recliners just like old folks. It was nice. Tomorrow we’ll go over to Soda Springs for a little while in the late morning. Tomorrow evening we’ll go to a concert from the “Season of Note” series at the Jensen Center. I’m looking forward to both events. Meanwhile, let it snow!

Nina came home from the hairdresser with a new hairdo this afternoon. I like it and pestered her with the camera until I got a picture that seemed to do the new do some justice.

While she was away at the hairdresser, I was at the dentist getting the remaining work on the root canal that was done before I went to Belgium. I think she had a whole lot more fun than I did. After filling my jaw up with anesthetic, the drilling and filing (that is the right word. They take these tiny files and run them up and down the nerve canal to open it up and clean out anything that might be there) began. It took almost an hour and a half to clean everything out and put in the permanent filling. One of our dental plan options is Willamette Dental which is a dental maintenance company. The good part about this plan is that they focus on maintenance so checkups and cleanings are scheduled as often as needed. The dentists are young and change occasionally. I go see whatever dentist is working that day. That works quite well for me.

The new kitchen table hobby for Nina is putting together these small 500 piece puzzles. She works on them whenever she is waiting for Bradica (the dog) to come back in from outside. The new look for the table is that I have to take all of my paper off the table and put it away somewhere every day. I kind of think that part of Nina’s goals for this year is to have an uncluttered table and an empty kitchen counter. Sometimes I do my part to help….

Sunday evenings are almost always pretty quiet around here. After a day in church we rather enjoy a quiet evening here at home. It’s also been a fairly uneventful week as well. We had a bit of weather on Thursday, but that went away without leaving any snow behind. This has been a strange winter with no snow. Our eight-horsepower super-delux snowblower hasn’t even been started this winter. Maybe that’s what is keeping the snow away.

Yesterday I needed to be at the temple in Idaho Falls at 5:15 to attend a temple session. Today was Ward Conference for the three wards that meet in the building on South Grant Street. The wards involved in Ward Conference along with the Stake leaders are invited to a special temple session the evening before conference, so Nina and I planned to spend some time in Idaho Falls ahead of the temple session.

The plan was fairly simple. There was an RV show in Idaho Falls so we decided that we would stop there first and look at the RV’s on display. That would take a couple of hours and then we’d go over to the new Olive Garden restaurant for a late lunch (or early dinner). Then a quick stop at Deseret Book for some pictures that Nina needed for the girls at the prison. We’d then go over to the temple about 4:45 p.m. for the 5:15 chapel session.

Lots of slips between cups and lips on this one. First, we were ready to go in good time, so we left about 10:30 to drive to Idaho Falls. We got to the RV Show about 11:30 a.m. Then that turned out to be a trailer show. There were only four RV’s on display and none of them were interesting to us. The show was all trailers, fifth-wheels, and toy haulers. In talking to one of the sales guys I learned that in Idaho Falls they don’t sell very many RV’s. People already have pickup trucks, so there’s a lot of business for fifth-wheel and regular trailers. Further, he told me, lots of folks have dirt bikes and ATV’s, so combination trailer / toy haulers are very popular. None of that is interesting to us, however.

By noon we were finished with the show. We would have left then, but as we were headed for the door we ran into a family that we knew when we were living in Chardon, Ohio. A couple of their kids are the same age as some of ours. We had a nice visit with them and learned that they have been living in Idaho Falls for several years now.

So then what to do? It was 12:30 p.m. and we had four hours to kill. We decided to do lunch. There is a new Olive Garden restaurant in Idaho Falls and we had a gift certificate. We got there to find a long line. We didn’t have anything else to do, so we waited. When we finished lunch about 2, the line was much longer. This is a very popular restaurant right now in Idaho Falls. We now had two hours and a half to kill. We went to Deseret Book and Nina picked up her items. Still two hours left.

We went to Barnes and Noble. I picked up a book I wanted and a couple of CD’s. More than an hour left. There’s a Best Buy close by the book store so I went over there and picked up a new iPod connector for my car. We finally had frittered away the afternoon and drove to the temple.

We had a delightful session. Some friends invited us to go for desert afterwards as he had a couple of computer questions. We went to Applebee’s in Idaho Falls to find that the wait was more than a half hour. Well, there’s an Applebee’s in Pocatello and we were sure there was no waiting in Pocatello, so we met in Pocatello and had some decadent desert and a nice visit. Some days go quite differently than planned!

I ran across a somewhat strange motor scooter in Idaho Falls. Three pictures are posted in the picture album.