Hey, I'm not dead.
I've for some reason not been inclined to go online in the evening and writing, but lots of interesting things have happened and I'll try to sort of catch up.
Jen, Jack, Bryan have been and come back from England, and I am trying to get pictures up online so people can see them. They had a great time, altho it apparently rained a great deal when they were in Cornwall camping. Jack "sent" me a postcard that said "We slept in a field where it rained a lot and got cold so we all came home." I think I have most of the pictures online here:
http://pics.livejournal.com/patsmor/gallery/0004yy20?page=1
(I tried putting Jack's pictures in smaller galleries by month, and the cross-links make it look like thousands of pictures. Honest, there aren't that many...)
Doug (BIL) and I talked about how amazing it is to see one's daughter in the role as a mother, and how proud and astounding it is. (his daughter is Lucy's mom in the pictures.)
Duncan had an extra week before he left for college after camp ended. Good, so he could pack more thoughtfully. He lost about 15 lbs at camp, slimmed down from the running around, and I swear he grew another inch. He grew up a lot, too. My boy just amazes me.
Duncan spent 3 or 4 days here in MV (16-20 of August, I think). Among other fun things we did was have dinner with greatsword's housemate L, and then took Duncan shopping for things like a new pillow, some sheets, etc., etc. Going shopping with those two is definitely an experience. Since I don't have brothers, I can only imagine that is like getting ganged up on by your brothers. Since he was going back to Cameron Park by train, I shipped the big bulky ones all up to him after the date I knew he would be at school. We wandered by Borders and of course had a lovely browse.
The great thing about the conversation with L while we were shopping was that while Duncan was off looking at SF books, he asked me how I was doing with Duncan going. I realized that the thing I was anticipating missing most was the conversations about life and stuff. Not the "What did you learn in school today, dear?" kind of conversations, but the ones about philosophy, and life, and things that happened and so on. I was glad that he asked, because before he did I hadn't really realized what I was afraid of.
Dunc got to spend some time with learnteach, cnewsonsmith, ingridthefair, nitnorth, and hyla_regilla before driving up with his dad to Oregon. I don't have a report on how the drive went, but he had a great time at the freshman orientation and is really liking his classes. They're tough, he says, but he's happy about that. He's on the newspaper staff, and has written a couple of articles for them already. And he's called a couple of times, and I've called, and we've had email. So I'm feeling less like he's gone forever.
He's been signing for his loans, and for his work-study jobs. One is 3 hours a week learning to be a sysadmin at the Bergman institute, which is the institute Glee and I write for. Next term there will be more hours, and next year if he learns enough this year it will be the full 15 hours a week. He's very happy about it. Mom is, too.
Work is going well, altho I have had some bad weeks, largely the big anniversary times. LAH's birthday, 9/11, some things like that. I'm trying to pull out of them, but it's sometimes really, really hard. cnewsonsmith's birthday was very good, and a nice bulwark against some of the other things.
I went to a 2-day class on how things are done at Intuit in Plano, Texas. Some of the logistics were hellish (canceled planes, canceled credit cards, etc., etc.,), and the class was very, very hard because I just had a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around the jargon and mindset. That in itself freaked me out, since I'm generally pretty good at scoping out new environments. I guess I'm going to have to learn that that may be a new mental fragility I need to work around. I loved getting to know my coworker in Plano better, tho!
Another good-bad situation is my upcoming trip to Montreal!!! The annual data commissioners' meeting is in Montreal, and our manager thinks it's good for all our growth to go to things like this. I am just thrilled!!! I leave next Sunday morning (plane is at 7:30 am! Blargh), and will be back on Friday (I think). I've come to realize I need the Monday to get adjusted to the time change and climate and all that. I can't do the "red-eye and then meetings all morning!" thing any more. The body can't take it. Glee and I are sharing a room in the Le Centre Sheraton Montreal, as the rooms sold out even faster than expected. I had gotten a room in a Novotel down the street, but was about to cancel it when we realized that our boss, who supposedly had a room as a speaker, in fact did NOT have a room. We swapped my reservation in the Novotel to her, and I'm bunking in with Glee. Tuesday morning, before the schmoozing thing gets started, we're taking a walking tour of Old Montreal Center. I can't wait.
(OK, I was amused. I know enough French to say "Hello, my name is Pat McGregor. I need to talk with a reservations clerk who speaks English." It stunned my boss when the phone was picked up by the reception desk at the Novotel and that's what came out of my mouth. Since I had been dealing with these folks for several days, I knew that was the best opening to get the service I needed. I think my boss thought I might be fluent in French. I'm amazed that I've learned enough to say that!)
I've got a lot of writing and stuff to do before I leave. I'm going to need to really focus this week. I'm going to visit Jen & co on Friday, returning on Saturday, and then packing for Montreal.
Oh, the bad part about Montreal? My passport, which I first sent in to be renewed in May, isn't back yet. We started a search for it with the bureaucracy in early August, and I paid another $127 plus pre-paid expedited fed-Ex back. Still not here. Our travel people and our admins found what I need to get in to Canada as long as I get back before October 1. I need a copy of my application and the receipt for the application. Which receipt, you may notice, one doesn't get when one renews by mail, which I was entitled to do. But, thanks to Wells Fargo keeping pictures of checks on line, I have a copy of the canceled check that the Feds cashed about 5 days ago. If that's not good enough, I'm not sure what to do!
The other bad thing? I need to find dress-ish shoes to go with my dress pants and dresses/suits for the conference. I don't think my leather Teva sandals will be dressy enough. Naturalizer, clark's, something like that. Recommendations, anyone?
This is important because in October the Annual Privacy Academy is happening in San Francisco, and again our Boss wants all of us to go because it's such a good learning experience. I had planned to drive in every day, but she told me to get a room because "it helps you stay in touch better and it's easier to get to the 8:30 am classes." I'm signed up to get my Certification as a Privacy Professional during the exam there. So I'm studying up for that, too.
My sometimes lurker friend Big Mike lost his father while I was in Plano. He had been ill, but not to the point that they expected him to die, and his pneumonia suddenly worsened. I called Mike first thing in the morning my time in Texas, so I surprised him a bit. (They were in Greensboro, NC.) His dad was a great, great man, and Charlie (the dad) and the sons were all very close. When my Dad died, Charlie and Mike helped with getting the Masonic stuff arranged. I was torn about leaving a work thing this early in my job tenure and not going to be there. I sent flowers and a note from me and my sisters & made sure they were there for the viewing the night before.
I got home from Texas and that weekend my friend The Mold Lady lost her mother. It was not unexpected, as she's been very ill for the last six months or more, but my friend and her husband both feel it very keenly. This was the weekend of the Mists Bardic, and one of the reasons I didn't make it to that. The family situation and the trust, etc., are somewhat confused, so I probably won't hear anything about a service.
Remember that my sister-in-law Cindy in England died in early May? When I was down in San Diego in early July I was talking to Doug, her husband, on the phone about the glorious weather and all the hibiscus in bloom and all the other stuff growing, and he was talking about rain. I was standing on the deck and took some pictures and sent them while we were talking. Glee tossed off "He should come see it in November!"
So, he is! He's going to spend a few days at the end of October in East Lansing with Jen's dad (Cindy's brother), then going to spend slightly more than a week in San Diego with Glee (seeing things like a WARM! ocean and the various gardens, museums, and so on. Just wandering around the way he likes to.) Then, the evening of the 13th I'm flying down, and the next morning he and I are starting a drive up state through the Salton Sea, Joshua Tree Park, The Mojave, and Death Valley. There are things we have each wanted to see. We had hoped to see Mono Lake, and the Forest service web site said there was a tour on Sundays in Nov, Dec, and Jan, but when I called today it has been canceled. So we may re-arrange our trip some. We had planned all the driving days after Joshua Tree so that we'd be in Lee Vining to see Mono Lake on Sunday. Now we can look at other options.
(I've reserved an SUV from Hertz for the trip.) I've been building a AAA trip-tik with their interactive tool, and checking out the roads with Google Earth to make sure they really exist and are paved, and so on. We've been talking every few days, even though it's a way off, because it's really exciting. I'm teaching him how to use Google Earth so he can look at things, too.
I think that's about it. I've done 9 loads of laundry yesterday and today, folded about half of it, and found a lot of my nice work shirts that I couldn't figure out where they had gotten off to. And a bunch of Duncan's t-shirts and stuff that got intermingled in the laundry. I'll write and find out if he wants them there or at the Cameron Park house. I also uncovered some things that got packed at the other house and are so covered in cat fur that washing didn't do anything useful. Luckily, they are things like very old towels.
I think that's it for now!
Jen, Jack, Bryan have been and come back from England, and I am trying to get pictures up online so people can see them. They had a great time, altho it apparently rained a great deal when they were in Cornwall camping. Jack "sent" me a postcard that said "We slept in a field where it rained a lot and got cold so we all came home." I think I have most of the pictures online here:
http://pics.livejournal.com/patsmor/gallery/0004yy20?page=1
(I tried putting Jack's pictures in smaller galleries by month, and the cross-links make it look like thousands of pictures. Honest, there aren't that many...)
Doug (BIL) and I talked about how amazing it is to see one's daughter in the role as a mother, and how proud and astounding it is. (his daughter is Lucy's mom in the pictures.)
Duncan had an extra week before he left for college after camp ended. Good, so he could pack more thoughtfully. He lost about 15 lbs at camp, slimmed down from the running around, and I swear he grew another inch. He grew up a lot, too. My boy just amazes me.
Duncan spent 3 or 4 days here in MV (16-20 of August, I think). Among other fun things we did was have dinner with greatsword's housemate L, and then took Duncan shopping for things like a new pillow, some sheets, etc., etc. Going shopping with those two is definitely an experience. Since I don't have brothers, I can only imagine that is like getting ganged up on by your brothers. Since he was going back to Cameron Park by train, I shipped the big bulky ones all up to him after the date I knew he would be at school. We wandered by Borders and of course had a lovely browse.
The great thing about the conversation with L while we were shopping was that while Duncan was off looking at SF books, he asked me how I was doing with Duncan going. I realized that the thing I was anticipating missing most was the conversations about life and stuff. Not the "What did you learn in school today, dear?" kind of conversations, but the ones about philosophy, and life, and things that happened and so on. I was glad that he asked, because before he did I hadn't really realized what I was afraid of.
Dunc got to spend some time with learnteach, cnewsonsmith, ingridthefair, nitnorth, and hyla_regilla before driving up with his dad to Oregon. I don't have a report on how the drive went, but he had a great time at the freshman orientation and is really liking his classes. They're tough, he says, but he's happy about that. He's on the newspaper staff, and has written a couple of articles for them already. And he's called a couple of times, and I've called, and we've had email. So I'm feeling less like he's gone forever.
He's been signing for his loans, and for his work-study jobs. One is 3 hours a week learning to be a sysadmin at the Bergman institute, which is the institute Glee and I write for. Next term there will be more hours, and next year if he learns enough this year it will be the full 15 hours a week. He's very happy about it. Mom is, too.
Work is going well, altho I have had some bad weeks, largely the big anniversary times. LAH's birthday, 9/11, some things like that. I'm trying to pull out of them, but it's sometimes really, really hard. cnewsonsmith's birthday was very good, and a nice bulwark against some of the other things.
I went to a 2-day class on how things are done at Intuit in Plano, Texas. Some of the logistics were hellish (canceled planes, canceled credit cards, etc., etc.,), and the class was very, very hard because I just had a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around the jargon and mindset. That in itself freaked me out, since I'm generally pretty good at scoping out new environments. I guess I'm going to have to learn that that may be a new mental fragility I need to work around. I loved getting to know my coworker in Plano better, tho!
Another good-bad situation is my upcoming trip to Montreal!!! The annual data commissioners' meeting is in Montreal, and our manager thinks it's good for all our growth to go to things like this. I am just thrilled!!! I leave next Sunday morning (plane is at 7:30 am! Blargh), and will be back on Friday (I think). I've come to realize I need the Monday to get adjusted to the time change and climate and all that. I can't do the "red-eye and then meetings all morning!" thing any more. The body can't take it. Glee and I are sharing a room in the Le Centre Sheraton Montreal, as the rooms sold out even faster than expected. I had gotten a room in a Novotel down the street, but was about to cancel it when we realized that our boss, who supposedly had a room as a speaker, in fact did NOT have a room. We swapped my reservation in the Novotel to her, and I'm bunking in with Glee. Tuesday morning, before the schmoozing thing gets started, we're taking a walking tour of Old Montreal Center. I can't wait.
(OK, I was amused. I know enough French to say "Hello, my name is Pat McGregor. I need to talk with a reservations clerk who speaks English." It stunned my boss when the phone was picked up by the reception desk at the Novotel and that's what came out of my mouth. Since I had been dealing with these folks for several days, I knew that was the best opening to get the service I needed. I think my boss thought I might be fluent in French. I'm amazed that I've learned enough to say that!)
I've got a lot of writing and stuff to do before I leave. I'm going to need to really focus this week. I'm going to visit Jen & co on Friday, returning on Saturday, and then packing for Montreal.
Oh, the bad part about Montreal? My passport, which I first sent in to be renewed in May, isn't back yet. We started a search for it with the bureaucracy in early August, and I paid another $127 plus pre-paid expedited fed-Ex back. Still not here. Our travel people and our admins found what I need to get in to Canada as long as I get back before October 1. I need a copy of my application and the receipt for the application. Which receipt, you may notice, one doesn't get when one renews by mail, which I was entitled to do. But, thanks to Wells Fargo keeping pictures of checks on line, I have a copy of the canceled check that the Feds cashed about 5 days ago. If that's not good enough, I'm not sure what to do!
The other bad thing? I need to find dress-ish shoes to go with my dress pants and dresses/suits for the conference. I don't think my leather Teva sandals will be dressy enough. Naturalizer, clark's, something like that. Recommendations, anyone?
This is important because in October the Annual Privacy Academy is happening in San Francisco, and again our Boss wants all of us to go because it's such a good learning experience. I had planned to drive in every day, but she told me to get a room because "it helps you stay in touch better and it's easier to get to the 8:30 am classes." I'm signed up to get my Certification as a Privacy Professional during the exam there. So I'm studying up for that, too.
My sometimes lurker friend Big Mike lost his father while I was in Plano. He had been ill, but not to the point that they expected him to die, and his pneumonia suddenly worsened. I called Mike first thing in the morning my time in Texas, so I surprised him a bit. (They were in Greensboro, NC.) His dad was a great, great man, and Charlie (the dad) and the sons were all very close. When my Dad died, Charlie and Mike helped with getting the Masonic stuff arranged. I was torn about leaving a work thing this early in my job tenure and not going to be there. I sent flowers and a note from me and my sisters & made sure they were there for the viewing the night before.
I got home from Texas and that weekend my friend The Mold Lady lost her mother. It was not unexpected, as she's been very ill for the last six months or more, but my friend and her husband both feel it very keenly. This was the weekend of the Mists Bardic, and one of the reasons I didn't make it to that. The family situation and the trust, etc., are somewhat confused, so I probably won't hear anything about a service.
Remember that my sister-in-law Cindy in England died in early May? When I was down in San Diego in early July I was talking to Doug, her husband, on the phone about the glorious weather and all the hibiscus in bloom and all the other stuff growing, and he was talking about rain. I was standing on the deck and took some pictures and sent them while we were talking. Glee tossed off "He should come see it in November!"
So, he is! He's going to spend a few days at the end of October in East Lansing with Jen's dad (Cindy's brother), then going to spend slightly more than a week in San Diego with Glee (seeing things like a WARM! ocean and the various gardens, museums, and so on. Just wandering around the way he likes to.) Then, the evening of the 13th I'm flying down, and the next morning he and I are starting a drive up state through the Salton Sea, Joshua Tree Park, The Mojave, and Death Valley. There are things we have each wanted to see. We had hoped to see Mono Lake, and the Forest service web site said there was a tour on Sundays in Nov, Dec, and Jan, but when I called today it has been canceled. So we may re-arrange our trip some. We had planned all the driving days after Joshua Tree so that we'd be in Lee Vining to see Mono Lake on Sunday. Now we can look at other options.
(I've reserved an SUV from Hertz for the trip.) I've been building a AAA trip-tik with their interactive tool, and checking out the roads with Google Earth to make sure they really exist and are paved, and so on. We've been talking every few days, even though it's a way off, because it's really exciting. I'm teaching him how to use Google Earth so he can look at things, too.
I think that's about it. I've done 9 loads of laundry yesterday and today, folded about half of it, and found a lot of my nice work shirts that I couldn't figure out where they had gotten off to. And a bunch of Duncan's t-shirts and stuff that got intermingled in the laundry. I'll write and find out if he wants them there or at the Cameron Park house. I also uncovered some things that got packed at the other house and are so covered in cat fur that washing didn't do anything useful. Luckily, they are things like very old towels.
I think that's it for now!