Another busy week behind and a quiet, lazy Saturday in progress. The weather has been pretty strange. It was raining softly when we went to bed last night. About three am, there was thunder and lightening. It rained real hard for awhile, then stopped. It has been raining on and off all day, and it will soon turn to snow. We may get up to eight inches by tomorrow afternoon. The winds will whip it into drifts, and travel will be horrible.

We paid attention to the forcast and did our grocery shopping Friday night, and we have no real need to go anywhere. We can just sit here, sipping hot chocolate and watching the snow fall.....

Weekends are way to short.

Our sundays are pretty routine. We attend Church with Sunflower's brother, his wife and their kids and we go out to breakfast at the same restaurant. Tony and his family are in Mexico this weekend on vacation. We went to the restaurant and sat in a small booth rather than a table for seven. This put us in the clutches of the oddest waitress in the place. The last time we had her, she brought us a loaf of warm cinnamon raisin bread and a ramikin of whipped butter. "You will really like this!" she said. It was pretty tasty, but strange to get food we didn't order. Today, I orderd an omlet with chorizo, cheese, tomatos, green onions, sour cream and salsa. Sunflower ordered corned beef hash and eggs. Sunflower was just deciding how she would like her eggs, and the waitress said, "I'll just tell them to give you basted eggs." (Sunflower usually likes them over medium) A few minutes later, she dropped off a pitcher of warm syrup. "For your pancakes," she said. (we hadn't ordered any pancakes) A short time later, our food arrived. It was delicious, as always. Sunflower liked the basted eggs with her corned beef hash, and my omlet was wonderful. The waitress brought us each a side order of pancakes a small orange juice.

Next time, we get this waitress, we will just tell her to surprise us.

Good morning friends,

Here it is, Saturday morning and all is as it should be. I am not responsible for emergency calls, I had some extra on my paycheck from overtime and commissions and Tom is going to do the service call that just had to be done this morning. Sunflower is sleeping peacefully in the next room. For now, I can sit here, sip my coffee and surf the net.

Later, we will dress warm and head out to run some errands. This evening we will go out to dinner to celebrate the nice raise Sunflower received yesterday.

I hope all of you have a lovely day.

This evening I made Beef Stroganof for dinner using my mother's old, battered club aluminum dutch oven for the pasta. This is the pot mom used for everything. I learned to cook using it. My sisters used to argue over who would get this pot when mom died, and mom used to joke that she wanted it to be buried with her. I really tried to do this, but my sister Mary would not let me have it when mom died. A few days ago, I met my nephew over at Mary's house. He will be moving in there after he and his sisters figure out what to do with my sister's things. He was more than happy to let me have mom's pot.

Good morning friends,

It has been a busy week. There was a fire in an apartment in one of our largest client's buildings Wednesday. My fire alarm worked properly and everyone got out safe. As the fire progressed it burned through the wiring to the fire alarm and killed it. I spent Thursday installing temporary wiring through the burned area and replacing the alarm control panel so that it was safe to move back into the building. This was a ten hour day in the cold with wet feet from walking through the water left by the fire hoses. My feet feel cold again as I type this.

Yesterday I was called by the service manager of one of our competitors to work with one of his techs on a particular problem they were having renovating an older system. The service manager and, as it turned out, the tech they sent are former employees of ours. I taught both of these guys through their first few years. I was able to solve the problem for them, and I gracefully turned aside the broad hints that I should really be working for their company.

Sunflower and I are looking forward to a lovely Saturday. I hope your weekend is nice too!

Just one more boring post about my test and the results: I received my license in this afternoon's mail along with my test score: 100%. I guess I didn't overthink the questions.

For those of you who are freezing vicariously through the Omaha temperatures, it is three degrees as I type this. The high is projected to be sixteen. Since it is Friday, I have a fairly easy day planned at the University. I have an ongoing remodel project there that I work on whenever the boss lets me, and today is a good day to get at it. The boss is somewhere warm playing golf. The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy, and this is the first weekend in a month that I don't have to work. I hope wherever you are, you are getting ready for a great weekend too!

A couple of weeks ago, I took my license renewal test. I suffer from test anxiety syndrome. The longer the results take to get here, the more I question all of my answers, and worry that I was reading too much into the questions....

One of our other guys took the test at the same session, and he got his results last Friday. He had failed for the second time, which means he will have to wait six months before he can retest. This morning, I called to find out what was holding my results up. The test proctor told me that I had passed, and that the delay was caused by the wait for the Fire Marshal's signature. I feel much better now.

Sometimes it's good not to be the Sprinkler guy....

It is seven degrees in Omaha. I am not sure how cold it got last night, but this morning my pager sounded. It was the maintenance guy from an apartment complex not far from here. He had a fire sprinkler line in the attic of one of his buildings freeze and split in the night and really needed a referal. I gave him the number of the company we usually use.

we are in out of the cold, and I have a pot of chili simmering on the stove.

It has been a busy week here. Monday morning my truck was dead. I got a ride to work and shifted into another truck while mine was being repaired. I moved some tools into it and I was off to a client site about 90 miles away to do a repair that required a second round trip back to the shop. The guy that usually drives that truck is a smoker and likes those tree shaped air fresheners. the combination of the two smells mae me a little nauseous all week. After an eleven hour day, I had the client's system working again. The next day started real early to let me do a few system checks in the protected rooms of a hospital. Once again, eleven hours. Wednesday, I started at regular time, but had a night appointment for that same hospital for the system in the computer center. Twelve hours for Wednesday. Yesterday I did a few odds and ends. The guy had my truck running, so I moved back into it, then helped another tech on a job he should have done Friday . He is at least two days away from done. Maybe by Monday. I am heading back there today to help him out again.

We had six inches of snow overnight. We also had nothing planned for today, so I put some nice lean beef in the slow cooker for a stew this evening, cleaned off all the cars and shoveled the driveway. It's a good day to just relax, sip some wine and watch some old movies. I hope your day is lovely too!

I just got back from my license renewal test. This takes place every four years. Since my last test, the material from which they draw the questions has been updated. Back in August, I gave the service manager a list of the seven books I needed. I told him I would be more than happy to pay the three hundred bucks, but I wanted them soon so I could start the conversion process. He told me to keep my money, and that he would get right on it. In November, He finally purchased the books as pdf files rather than the hard copies. The pdfd files were the same price. He assumed that he would just run us off copies whenever we needed them. What he did not think about was the size of these works. One of them is 765 pages. He used about a dozen printer cartridges, and a few reams of paper. I got the last of the material yesterday. (lots of study time there....) I have since ordered real books rather than the single sided huge binders I have been using.

Today was the test. I am pretty confident in my answers. The results will be here in about two weeks.

Good morning friends,

It is seven am, and bone chilling cold out there. I should be snuggled up in bed, but I am sitting with a cup of coffee while my truck warms up. One of our larger clients requires that we test their alarms during off hours. All three of us will be there, and we will be billing them for overtime rates, but even at time and a half, I really hate to work weekends. I hope your weekend is going better.

Good evening friends,

On New Years day, I resolved to:

Laugh more
drink more good wine
Take Sunflower out to dinner more often

as a start on accomplishing these tasks, I took Sunflower out to our favorite Italian place tonight, where we laughed, ate delicious Sirloin Marsala and shared a bottle of claret from the Copolla winery.....

Happy New Year, my friends

This fall, Sunflower and I spent a weekend at Arbor Lodge. This is the home of Sterling Morton, the founder of Arbor Day. We get down there every every spring as the apple blossoms are at their peak, and every fall as the trees are turning. We arrived a little early this year, and our room wasn't quite ready, so we sat on a bench beneath a tree and took this picture from the camera built into my MacBook. Right now it is snowing lightly outside, and we have had some freezing rain, but the spring will come, and the apple trees will bloom......

Good morning friends,

It is raining here. The last weekend of the year looks pretty dreary. We have no great plans for New Year's Eve. We will probably go out early in the evening for a quiet dinner, then home to get out of the craziness. I am sure the college boys in the rental house a couple of doors away will have a house full of noisy, underage kids drinking vast quantities of beer, but this will be no different than any other given weekend. I see a few police cars in their near future.....

I hope you all have a lovely and safe holiday.

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. (Luke 2:1-20 kjv)

Merry Christmas, friends

Well, a couple of weeks have gone by without a funeral to attend. We will see how it goes.

At one point, the company I work for was one of three locations. Fifteen years ago, my boss bought our location, cutting us off from the old owner. We have a pretty good working relationship. We do not encroach on each other's customers or territory, and once in a while, we order together to get the bulk discounts.

A couple of months ago, the guy who did my job at the Lincoln office quit, leaving them without a programmer. I have been rented to them off and on for the last month. I finished the bulk of the work today. Every day up there has just put me farther behind on my projects. Hopefully they will send someone to get some training, but it doesn't look likely. Today, I drove up there to load some programming. The panel was not done, and the CPU card was broken. The apparantly pulled the new card from this job and used it somewhere and didn't order a new one. I transfered the profgram to their laptop, gave detailed loading instructions and drove off.

More than likely, they will call when they get a new part and want me back up there. I don't think my boss will go for it. I hope not.....

The wake and the funeral are over. My nieces and nephew will now need to go through my sister's possessions and get the house ready for the market. Real estate is in a down turn here, so it may be a while before the house is sold. I have been speaking often to my sister in Texas. It is hard to imagine that we are the only ones left. She had planned to come this week for her daughter's Christmas party, and was unable to change her flight to get here for the funeral. I will pick her up at the airport Thursday for a long weekend visit. Possibly, I will have something other than depressing struff to post here soon.....

My sister had her carotid artery surgey a week ago today. A couple of days later she had a quadruple heart bypass. She did pretty good Thursday and Friday, but Saturday was when it started to get bad. Sunday evening she was in intensive care. She passed away this evening about 5:30......