Personal

I managed to get into the office a bit early this morning, which meant that I also got to leave a bit early (working as a federal contractor definitely has its perks). The only reason I mention this is because I beat K to the mail and when I reached into the mailbox, there was a rather thick envelope with the non-profit’s name (C/O me). It was from the IRS. Well, the only thing that we have out-standing with the feds is our non-profit status. So, I was a bit nervous in opening it. It felt a bit like opening a college application letter. I was really hoping that, like with the college letter, a thick envelop was a good sign. After all, if you’ve been turned down, they send you a one page letter. If you’ve been accepted, they send you a packet of information. ...

A while back I mentioned that K, some associates and I had started up a new non-profit. Things are going reasonably well. People have been more supportive than I had thought. We’ve had about 70 patients so far and we’ve got the systems set up so that patients entered into the database post up to Twitter, along with any Facebook updates. One thing that I have noticed in working with the others on the non-profit is that learning styles and communication styles seem to be closely related. You can divide learning styles (among other ways) into verbal vs visual learners. Verbal learners prefer to hear things explained to them. whereas visual learners prefer things to be written down. Based on some of our recent experiences, I think that this plays into communication styles. And it’s communication styles which are (occasionally) biting us. ...

if i ever do get around to filking the Pilgrim’s Progress, there’s a good chance it’ll feature a “Slough of Sake” and a “Carnival of Sangria.”

I’ve mentioned before that this is the first year that we’ve had a garden, and it’s been going great. In the early spring we had lots of spinach, arugula, turnips, lettuce, etc. Now that we’re in the summer, it’s time for a whole new type of produce. Last night, I went out to the garden and picked a bunch of tomatoes (yes, I prefer the cherry tomatoes), banana peppers and green beans. Later this week, I’ll pick some of the eggplant and we’ll do eggplant croquettes. Hopefully, we’ll also get some regular peppers, zucchini and maybe even a small watermelon or two. ...

or Adventures in Home Repair; or How I Spent My Sunday. For reasons best left unspecified, I found myself in need of a new exterior door - a replacement for the one that keeps my utility room from being a part of the outdoors. Last weekend, I went out to the local home improvement store and after spending two hours, I realized that I couldn’t simply replace the door, but instead, had to replace the entire door, prehung in its frame. ...

I was using my personal laptop at a meeting yesterday and grabbed about a gig of files from someone’s usb key. While I was taking minutes, I noticed a lovely new icon that popped up… your hard disk drive is failing. Eeek! Not cool. So, last night I got home and started backing up my files. A few of the new files and a couple unimportant old files didn’t transfer properly. Fine, I could live without them. ...

Yes, because I’m a mighty industrialist (aka Ubermensch) and the world will fall down if I stop writing. ;-) Okay, enough picking on the Randians. Sorry for the radio silence. A quick update: I got back from Des Moines last month and the next day had a board meeting for the non-profit I work with. As treasurer, I went to review the financial situation based on the projections we finally received. Sure enough, the detailed projections were in line with the back-of-a-napkin ones that I had presented earlier, i.e., dire. The only real solution was to close a significant portion of our operations, which we did. Unfortunately, that was also the part of operations that K cares most about. ...

Drafting out a few words for grandpa’s funeral tomorrow… feel free to ignore. I never felt that I knew Dick very well. Of course, growing up, we didn’t call him that. We always called him Grandpa S. We saw him once every few years, but with a thousand miles between Baton Rouge and Des Moines, I suppose that wasn’t too surprising. While it came 20 years later than I would have liked, I have appreciated being here today and at the visitation yesterday, hearing everyone’s impressions of the man that my grandfather was. ...

I heard from my mom today that my grandfather died this afternoon. It wasn’t a complete shock. He never fully recovered from a stroke a few years ago, was recently suffering bouts of ventricular tachycardia, had just this week been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (which recently claimed Randy Pausch - go watch his “last lecture”), and had signed a DNR order. I never did know my grandfather that well. Of my five grandparents, he was the one whom we visited least while growing up. There’s also the difficulty of understanding someone 50+ years older than you. And his general Norwegian disposition, a silent doer, made it difficult to know what was in his head. I suspect you got to know my grandfather more by working with him than talking to him. ...

May 24: Memorial day weekend is in full swing and there are idiots everywhere. I swear that the older I get, the more I sympathize with my father’s dislike of crowds. We braved a bit of the crowd (keeping in mind that we’re already in the least crowded part of the park) and went up to Floating Island Lake to see if the sandhill cranes were nesting. When we got there, a coyote was crossing behind the lake and the cranes, who were on the shore at the time, were putting on quite a display: loud squawks (or whatever noise cranes make), spread wings, raised heads, etc. Basically, everything a crane can do to tell a coyote to go away… which he did. There weren’t any eggs in the nest yet, so we left and decided to get away from everybody by hiking the Lamar Trail. That was a very nice hike, we only saw one other group of people, but we did see many hawks and bluebirds. We got down to Cache Creek and stayed for a while. The rain didn’t start until we were a mile and a half down the trail home. That would be great, except that it left us another 2 miles back. We did have rain gear, but it isn’t very good and doesn’t breathe well, so we didn’t put it on. Between the lack of rain gear and my putting my hat on the camera, we arrived back to the car tired and soaked, but happy. A wet day of hiking is still better than crowds. ...