I flew back to Colorado Springs last night for the holiday weekend. I’ll return to Pocatello on Monday evening and back to work on Tuesday. Since most of my normal day-to-day things are in the RV in Pocatello, I kind of feel like I’m "visiting", rather than returning "home". It’s kind of a strange feeling!

The trip was somewhat eventful. A strong storm was moving through southeastern Idaho on Friday and it had rained off and on for most of the day. The flight out of Pocatello was delayed by about 20 minutes and was a very bumpy ride into Salt Lake City. The airplane is a small twin-engined turboprop that holds less than 30 people. There were five of us brave souls on the flight. In Salt Lake City, only one runway was open for business and all departures and arrivals had to use that one runway. Consequently, everything was running late. My flight to Colorado Springs was delayed by an hour, meaning that I didn’t get here until after 11 p.m. The flight to Colorado Springs was completely full as an earlier flight had cancelled. Once we got east of the Wasatch Front, the weather cleared up and the ride was uneventful for the rest of the trip.

We spent this morning doing errands and small things. We met up with our next door neighbors, Pam and Gary, for an early dinner at an Italian restaurant on the east side of town. We’ve eaten there once before and found the food to be very good. Our second visit confirmed our first time there. The food was very good and the conversation was lovely. It just may happen that we’ll arrange to do a Mediterranean cruise with them in a year or so. They’re very fun people to be with and have very good standards.

Meanwhile, I’m very tired. I was hoping to spend some time in the hot tub before going to bed tonight, but I think it’s too windy to be comfortable out there. I’ll check it out in a half hour to make sure. In the meantime, I’m going to visit the family room!

Nina is back in Colorado Springs and I’m in Pocatello. She’s getting the last few items done in Colorado Springs and I’m getting things ready for us to take up a life in Pocatello. The home-away-from-home is our little RV parked at a campground near my office. The Cowboy RV Park is a part of a nice mobile home park and seems to do a very good business. A month’s stay isn’t very expensive and the overnight rates are also very reasonable. The park has a very nice laundry and is clean and quiet. Most people stay overnight and are gone the next day but there are about ten units that have been at the campground at least as long as I have.

Pocatello is a nice, small town. It’s bisected right down the middle by the railroad and there aren’t may roads connecting the west side with the east side. Most of the shopping and stores are on the north side of town, and of course, we’ll be living in the far south side. While it probably isn’t as far from our new house to the Home Depot on the north side of Pocatello than it is from our Colorado Springs house to the Home Depot there, it seems long for the size of town. There is a small mall (which I haven’t visited, yet), a Super WallMart, a super Fred Meyers (similar to a WalMart), along with a ShopKo and a Home Depot in town. There are a number of small restaurants, none of which we’ve patronized, yet. The town is long and narrow along a north-south axis. The near southside is dominated by Idaho State University. The center of town is pretty much dominated by the Union Pacific Railroad, which was for many years the lifeblood of the city. The Interstate runs along the east side of the city and then divides with I-15 continuing north through Idaho Falls to Missoula, Montana, and I-86 branching off on the north side of Pocatello going west to Boise. I-86 divides Pocatello from the neighboring town of Chubbuck.

Idaho Falls is the next large city north of Pocatello about 55 miles. The Temple is located in Idaho Falls. I did a session at the Temple last night, the first time I’ve been in that temple since Nina and I were sealed there 37 years ago. It is a beautiful temple inside and I had a nice, enjoyable session.

Tomorrow night I’ll fly to Colorado Springs for the weekend holiday. It’s supposed to rain and be pretty lousy weather the entire weekend in Pocatello, so I think I’m getting the best part of this deal. I’ll fly back on Monday evening with meetings starting EARLY in the morning on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the RV has been a nice place to stay. It is small (perhaps "cozy" is a better word) but is more than adequate for my needs. It makes a very good home away from home!

The move to Pocatello is much closer today. Our house in Colorado Springs is under contract with a solid backup offer from another party. We made an offer today on a house and will learn tomorrow morning if the offer is acceptable. It’s a lovely home. The current owner has been in the house for just a few months and is being transferred out of town. As soon as we walked into the house, Nina knew it was the right place. We did look at one other house which is a beautiful home but on a poor piece of property. That house is right now the "backup house".

Nina’s been looking at houses all week. Last night we were pretty disappointed with what she’s been able to find. Just as we thought the options were very limited, our Realtor came up two excellent properties.

Land is relatively inexpensive in Pocatello when compared to Colorado Springs. House prices reflect that difference. However, when the land is subtracted from the price of property in both locations, it appears that building a house is more expensive by a couple of dollars per square foot. We did find what seems to be close to the perfect house.

The yard isn’t finished, but the current owner has scheduled the grass to be put in, which would finish that work. If all goes well, we’ll be moved in about June 24th or so. The house in Colorado Springs will close on June 17th. The movers will arrive on the 14th, pack for two days, and load on the 16th. We’ll close the next day and head for Pocatello. We’ll close on the new house the following Monday, and then move in over the next couple of days. Then the Colorado Chapter will be completely closed. It’s a bit nostalgic. Trading Houses — a good thing to do occasionally.

I’ve started the new job … kind of. As with all good companies, the first day is devoted to "orientation". Mostly that means sitting around and waiting. Much of the orientation here is done through the company’s computer based training system, but since there are several of us being oriented today, everyone needs to be done with all the training before we can go to the next topic.

The campground is very nice — small but clean and quiet. We’ve begun nesting. Much of the stuff has now been put away and we’re beginning to figure out how to live in the motorhome. It’s nice to be in one spot for a while! The campground is about 5 minutes from work which is also nice. Nina is out with the real estate guy taking the grand tour of Pocatello and surrounding areas. Tonight we’ll do some shopping. Since there isn’t much storage space in the motorhome, we’ll have to do some shopping just about every day.

The trip here was quite uneventful. We left Colorado Springs Friday about 11 a.m. and drove to Green River, Utah, where we spent the night in an RV park. Saturday we drove to Orem and parked at Heather’s house. Since Stephanie was in a play being put on by the Junior High School she attends, we attended that production on Saturday evening. Sunday we were up and on our way by 7:30 and arrived in Pocatello at the campground right at 11. The office didn’t open until noon, so we spent an hour driving around and looking at what stores are in town. There are more than enough places to spend money!

After checking in and parking the motorhome, we drove to Soda Springs to spend the afternoon with my folks for Mother’s Day. It takes a little under an hour to drive to Soda Springs and this time of the year everything is very green and pretty. It’ll be nice to be close enough to Soda Springs to be able to pop over from time to time. Since Pocatello is the closest shopping, they’ll come this way fairly often as well. We got back to the campground about 6 p.m., finished hooking everything up, and had a very quiet evening.

So, today a new chapter is starting. As the orientation began, the person from HR asked if I was the new Information Systems person. I told her that I was. She then told me how happy she was that I was here. I wonder what that means? I’m ready to get out of the starting gate and to go do something — besides orienting!

I’m finishing up my last day at LSI Logic. I started working at this company on June 6th, 1995, after being hired as the Information Services Director for Nihon Semiconductor, a wholly owned subsidiary of LSI Logic. A few weeks later I was off to Japan for a three-year assignment. I’ve completed almost nine years of service with the company. In looking back over my career, I haven’t worked for very many places:

• United States Air Force, May 1963 through August, 1968
• Purdue National Bank, September 1968 through March, 1969
• TRW, March 1969 through September, 1981
• Systemation, September 1981 through January 1989
• Thiokol Corporation, January 1989 through February 1993
• State of Utah, May 1993 through June 1995
• LSI Logic, June 1995 through May 2004
• And next will be AMI Semiconductor, May 2004 until ????

While this closes the chapter at LSI Logic, there is another, parallel chapter of being in Colorado Springs that will close in the next few weeks. We received the first offer on our house last night. It wasn’t much of an offer and not really worth taking my time, but the realtor is obligated to present all offers to us. We’ve rejected the offer and are sure that we’ll be seeing other offers much more in line with what we’re expecting. Meanwhile, I’m wrapping up at LSI Logic today and tomorrow I’ll officially be "Between Jobs"!

I’m in the phase now of doing "Things for the Last Time". Yesterday was my last day as an ordinance worker at the Denver Temple. The next time I’m in that temple (which will be this coming Thursday), I’ll be a normal patron and am not even supposed to know about things like Instruction Rooms, Study Rooms, Worker Locker Rooms, closets with Voban and towels, what’s in the bureau drawers, and all that sort of stuff. We had a new worker start yesterday. He’s the High Priest Group Leader in our ward, former Bishop, former High Councilor, and an all around good man. He was quite surprised at all the work and organization that goes on behind the scene so that Temple patrons can have a good, fulfilling experience at the temple. Nina still has two more shifts to work, so she’s not yet to her "Last Day as an Ordinance Worker in the Denver Temple". On the way home we decided that our main purpose for being in Colorado Springs was to work at the Denver Temple and become thoroughly acquainted with that critically important part of the Church. What will be our purpose in Pocatello, Idaho? Maybe when we’ve been there as long as we’ve been here that’ll start to become clear.

I’ve also been to my last Tuesday night Mutual activity. This coming week I’ll be in Milpitas, California, on Tuesday night for a going-away dinner sponsored by my boss. Next Sunday I’ll be released as Young Men’s President and won’t have that set of responsibility any more. I’ve only been in this calling for a little more than six months, but it has been a good experience for me. I’ve come to know a few of the young men quite well — and I now know all of their names. We’ve some very good young men in the ward who love the Lord and are figuring out their worth and relationship with our Savior. I’ll miss them and the opportunity to be more of an influence in their lives.

As I go places, I’ve started thinking,"Will I ever drive down this street again?" or, "Is this the last time I’ll be in this store?" In most cases it’s probably true, but certainly not life altering. However, a week from tomorrow, I’ll drive to my current office for the last time, never to be there again. On the other hand, I’ve still got the back end of my car full of junk computer stuff. There was supposed to have been a recycle day last Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. I drove over to be there right a 9 a.m. since we needed to leave at 10:15 to drive to Denver. Several other cars pulled up as I got there, but the doors were closed. Finally after about 20 minutes of waiting with no activity, I called Nina and got the phone number from the advertisement. The recorded message said that the activity had been called off due to bad weather. Thursday’s weather was bad, much of Friday’s was bad, but Friday afternoon was a lovely day and Saturday was a near perfect day. The recycle event hasn’t been rescheduled, so now I’ve got to figure out what to do with all this stuff. I’d think the weather would have to be absolutely miserable to call off such an event!

I’ve attended my last Sunday morning Leadership Meeting in this ward. This weekend was Ward Conference with sessions last night and this morning. We have a very spiritually engaged Stake Presidency and Bishopric and the conference was one of the best I’ve attended in many years. The theme of the conference was The Lord’s Love and we were well taught out of the scriptures and through testimony. In the general session this morning, the Stake President called up a number of people to bear their testimony. All of a sudden, Nina’s name was called. She sure was surprised! She bore a wonderful testimony that was referred to several times as the Stake President spoke later in the meeting. What an awesome woman!

We’re just about ready to list the house. We’ve a few minor things to do, some touch-up painting to get done, and some more stuff to bring up from the basement to go to the trash. The window washers are coming on Monday and the carpet cleaners will be here on Tuesday. We’ll sign the paperwork to list the house tomorrow and it’ll be on the market starting Wednesday. That’s another major milestone! We’re hoping that we’ve got it priced well so that it’ll move quickly. I think this is a good time to be selling a house. Hopefully it’ll be a good time to buy a house in Pocatello. We’re both thinking that there probably isn’t as much demand for housing in Pocatello as there is here in Colorado Springs.

Two weeks from today I’ll be settled into a campground in Pocatello getting ready to report for work at a new job. This coming week will be almost a whirlwind of activity followed by another week of wrap-up. Lots of "Things for the Last Time" over the next ten days. The mood is one of nostalgia coupled with a quiet excitement.