The last day of April

It's Thursday, April 30. The weather is supposed to be nicer today; hopefully, Joy and I can take a bike ride this evening. Of course, they are already talking about rain again for the weekend.

On Monday, I bought went to AAA to get our tickets for Magic Mountain. Tomorrow, we're planning to take John to the DMV so he can take his written test for his learners permit. That's partly so he can help drive while we're on our vacation, getting some hours in.

Yesterday, we had an off-site face-to-face meeting for the developers, support people, etc., for my product, ServAssure Enterprise. The meeting was held at McMenamins Grand Lodge in Forest Grove. Some of our co-workers from Bangalore, India and State College, Pennsylvania flew in for it. Hopefully, we'll use what we talked about yesterday to make our process and our product better.

I have multimedia duty again Sabbath at PVC--substituting for someone out of town.

Just another Monday

We had a good weekend. John had three of his friends over for his birthday party on Saturday evening. I doubt that any of them got more than about one hour of sleep, between their games and movies. John was bragging that he was going to stay up all night last night, too, but he fell asleep in the car while Joy was talking with him--between words of a sentence that he was speaking!

We got our Southern California CityPass tickets at Costco yesterday. They were only $227 each; that saved us $128 for our family, enough to pay for all 4 of us to go to Magic Mountain, too. We were expecting booklets of tickets, but they are gift cards, instead. Now, we just need to pay for our gasoline, food, and a couple of Las Vegas shows, and we haven't used any credit cards. Of course, I'm sure we'll be buying some souvenirs from the various places.

Friday once again

It's another Friday; it's doughnut day at work, which is always good--or at least tasty!

Tomorrow, we have multimedia duty again. We might take a trip to the Orezon Zoo tomorrow afternoon, depending upon the weather and Joy's cake decorating tasks. Samudra, their baby elephant, just hit the 1000 pounds mark--a big baby, but very cute. In the evening, John is having some of his friends over for his birthday party. I imagine that they'll make a lot of noise, watching movies and playing video games. Maybe I'll have to stay in my room with my headphones on and listen to music or watch a DVD on my laptop!

Last evening, Joy and I went to PVC to hear a webcast by Dave Ramsey present a Town Hall for Hope. While I don't necessarily agree with everything Dave advocates, I give a hearty amen to the idea of personal responsibility. Requiring my grandkids to pay for mistakes made by greedy individuals in New York, Washington, or wherever, just doesn't seem right to me; nor does suing McDonalds because their hot coffee was actually hot and someone is stupid enough to put the coffee cup between their legs and got burned.

Another nice stretch of weather

We've enjoyed several nice days in a row. On Saturday afternoon, Joy and I rode our bikes about 9 miles on the Springwater Trail. This time, we rode east towards Gresham. The temperature was just right for riding.

On Sunday, we spent several hours organizing our garage. On Sunday evening, we took a drive up to the top of Powell Butte. Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Adams were all visible, in the sunshine.

We made our vacation reservations over the weekend. For our Vegas trip, we'll be flying Alaska Airlines to and from Las Vegas. Our hotel will be the Stratosphere. We decided to stay in Williams, Arizona for our Grand Canyon excursion. It was over $100 a night cheaper than the motels that are closer to the park. We also ordered our America the Beautiful pass, giving us admission to all of the national parks, monuments, forests, etc. During our trip, we'll be going to three national parks: Death Valley, Zion, and Grand Canyon. We'll also be going to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Just the admissions to those four parks cost almost as much as the annual pass, plus we can use it at Crater Lake, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Rainier, closer to home.

We're staying in three different motels in Southern California. The 1st couple of nights, we'll stay in Sylmar, about half way between Six Flags Magic Mountain and Universal Studios Hollywood. Then, we'll spend 4 nights in Anaheim, near Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. Finally, we'll spend two nights at a motel in San Diego near Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. We still need to purchase our Southern California CityPass booklets. Through AAA, we're getting very good prices on our Magic Mountain tickets.

Other than our gas, food, parking costs, and tickets to a couple of shows in Vegas, our vacations have all been paid for! We're going to buy food at grocery stores as much as we can, especially while we're in the amusement parks with their captive audience pricing.

Friday!

It's Friday--and we're supposed to have very nice weather over the weekend, a double blessing. Hopefully, we can get out and enjoy spring weather in a park or the zoo!

Last evening after our workout at the gym, Joy and I went on a movie date to the Moreland Theater in Sellwood to see Duplicity, starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. It was an interesting crime caper, that kept having unexpected twists--up until the end. The theater itself is the old style, distinctive type, very different from the multiplex theaters that we usually frequent.

Over the weekend, we should be making our reservations for our southern California and Las Vegas vacations this summer.

Tax Day 2009

April 15--a day of dread for many Americans. Where does all of the money go? A visual guide to where federal tax dollars go.

Yesterday, we gave John a Savage Mark II .22 rifle for his 16th birthday. It has a 10 bullet magazine, and is bolt action. He also got Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 DVDs, some pillows, and an ornamental dragon handled knife.

The weather is supposed to be better this weekend; hopefully we can get out and enjoy it.

John's birthday--16 years old.

Today is John's 16th birthday. He's still not ready to take his drivers license test, so he won't be driving today, though. We went out last evening to celebrate, since James is working today. John selected Red Robin as his restaurant of choice. He wants a .22 rifle to use for target practice. We live in city limits, so he won't be able to shoot it unless we're out in the country somewhere. John will have some friends over on Saturday evening to play games.

Tomorrow is income tax day. Our taxes are finished and have already been efiled.

I've been dusting off my Perl skills on a project at work. I used the language extensively several years ago, but its syntax is pretty obtuse. Oh well, at least I have a job, unlike thousands of other Oregonians. I heard on the radio this morning that Oregon's unemployment rate is over 12%--wow...

Good Friday, 2009

It's Good Friday today. The weather isn't forecast to be nearly as nice for today through Easter Sunday; in fact, it's supposed to rain. Too bad it won't be as pretty as last weekend! Oh well, at least it is the weekend.

Tomorrow, we're going to the home of our friends Les & Keri to celebrate Adriana's 1st birthday. Joy and I are honorary aunt & uncle to Adriana. Joy is going to be making a birthday cake this evening.

It is Fondue Friday this evening for the youth from PVC. We're hoping that John will connect with some of the kids there and be interested and enthusiastic about going to this regularly.

A nice April Monday

Yesterday was beautiful and sunny here in Portland. It got to almost 80 degrees. Today is supposed to be similar.

Joy and I took an eleven mile bike ride from our home down to the Springwater Trail. We were a little stiff and sore afterwards, but our LA Fitness exercising has made a dramatic improvement in us. A year ago, a bike ride of only about a mile made us pretty exhausted, and yesterday, we weren't that tired, just a little stiff from doing a different exercise.

Attached are a couple of pictures that I took yesterday with my G1 phone.

A Good Weekend

The Why? seminar that we attended was good. We learned a lot; now we just need to apply what we learned to our lives.

On Saturday evening, we went over to the home of our friends, Les & Keri. I helped Les get his new netbook computer connected to their network printer. We then watched Stardust, an enjoyable movie.

Yesterday, after our seminar, Joy & I took a walk in the sunshine along the Springwater and Butler Creek rails, talking about the seminar. We took pictures of rabbits, trilliums, ducks, and creeks.

It is supposed to get up to around 77 degrees today, a record high for this date.

Another Friday

This weekend, Joy and I are attending the Why? seminar by the Life Renewal Institute. The seminar teaches a process whereby one can recover from the wounds received in childhood which plague our thoughts, feelings and behaviors and sabotage our relationships and success.

It is supposed to be sunny and in the high 60s or low 70s this weekend. Hopefully, we'll be able to enjoy some of the sunshine after our seminar.

I saw a hummingbird feeding from cherry blossoms outside my office on Wednesday. I'm glad that spring is here.

April is a busy month: our son John's birthday, Easter, etc.

April Fools Day, 2009

There have been a lot of online pranks already today.

Wikipedia has entries like these:

• ... that in 1825, the Court of Exchequer declared all contracts by hobbits illegal and void in England?
• 1572 – Spanish general and governor Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba (pictured) lost his glasses in the town of Brielle, enabling sea beggars to gain the first foothold on what would become the Dutch Republic.
• ... that Wikipedia now has an article about everything?
  

Google has announced Gmail Autopilot by CADIE.

It was another rainy morning, here in Portland. By the way, yesterday, askmen.com had Portland listed as number 22 in the entire world of men's favorite cities!

An interesting weekend.

On Saturday morning, we left Portland in the rain, the trees in spring blossom. By the time we crossed Pike's Hill on I-5, it had changed to snow. The snow was coming down pretty hard going east on US 12, and the road was pretty covered going over the hill west of Morton. At my parent's home in Glenoma, they had a couple of inches of snow on the ground.

It snowed off and on most of Saturday afternoon. Yesterday, the sun came out and the snow melted. John was out shooting pellet guns. By the time we drove home, he was getting pretty accurate with it.

From my mom, I got a short book, The Ten Jones Kids, written by a great-great aunt, having some more genealogy of a side of my family about which I don't know very much. I found out from the book that one of my ancestors had homesteaded land where Boeing Field is now located. I'm going to type the book into Word, and from there copy it to my web site.

On the way there and back, we listened to On Her Own, a book on CD. It was a good, interesting story. We actually finished the last CD at home last evening.

It's back to work Monday. Wednesday is April Fools Day! The year is passing quickly.

Happy Birthday, Dad & Selita!

Sunday was my daughter Selita's 18th birthday. That makes me feel old!

Today is my Dad's 75th birthday. We're going up to Glenoma to visit them for the weekend and tell him 'Happy Birthday' in person. Joy is going to make him a lemon meringue pie, his favorite kind. It will be our first visit since their January flood.

It is a sunny Thursday, nice to have for Oregon in March!

Yesterday at Fry's I bought a some box set DVDs. I got Love Comes Softly Series, volumes 1 and volume 2, along with the Ultimate Flint Collection, starring James Coburn. I also got a 16gb SDHC card for Joy's Canon PowerShot SX110 IS camera, enough space to store 4000 of its 9 megapixel pictures on it.

A Wonderful Weekend!

Joy and I had a great time this weekend. Despite the forecast of rain for the entire weekend, the weather was cooperative, overall. We had some rain, but not enough to change any of our plans.

We drove over on Saturday morning, going through Albany, Corvallis, and Philomath on the way. We caressed, cuddled, and kissed in the car as we drove. We ate lunch at Sizzler in Newport. They had a good salad bar, with lots of fruit. We then bought a Subway sandwich to eat for dinner, then drove to the Grand Victorian to check in. It is a lovely, Victorian style home. Our suite was on the top floor, with a private balcony and a 2 person Jacuzzi in the bathroom overlooking the Pacific. We highly recommend that any couple wanting a very romantic and sensual trip away at the coast visit this bed & breakfast!

We filled up the large tub and soaked together with the jets going for 30 minutes or so, looking out the window at the ocean --and at each other! After drying off, we cuddled together on the large king-size bed reading stories to each other.

We then watched a DVD, How to Strip for Your Husband, Lover or Partner, teaching Joy some moves to use as my own personal stripper. While she was getting herself ready, I put Dirty Dancing on to give her some dance music to get her into the rhythm. She then practiced by herself for a few minutes, while I rested in the car, then demonstrated her routine for me on my return. Her show was fantastic, spectacular, erotic, and arousing! After her striptease, we danced naked together very briefly (it was chilly!) on the balcony in the dark with the stars above us, hearing the crash of the surf, before returning to the tub to heat us up for some awesome, great, fabulous sex.

Yesterday, we ate a great breakfast prepared to our specifications; we'd selected waffles with warm syrup or blackberry jelly, scrambled eggs, hash browns, orange juice and tea. We drove down across the Yaquina Bay Bridge to the shops near the aquarium. We bought a blown glass oil lamp at Pyromania, and then some various gifts and souvenirs in one of the other shops.

We spent a couple of hours at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, enjoying Oddwater, the sea otters, the seals and sea lions, the sea bird aviary, along with Passages of the Deep. It was fun seeing Joy touching the rays, horseshoe crabs, sharks, sea anemones, etc. She was like a little kid, all excited.

We stopped at Chinook Winds to eat, but the buffet had just closed for an hour and the smell of tobacco smoke in the air was making Joy nauseous, so we just drove back to Portland, Joy napping. Going over the pass of the coast range, it was snowing like crazy for a few minutes! A few minutes later, on the east side of the hills, it was sunny again.

We ate dinner at Chevys, using a gift card that I got from work for most of the bill.

The only downside of the weekend (other than the Chinook Winds issue) was that Joy's Canon SX100is camera wasn't behaving correctly. It would frequently display the message: Lens Error, Restart Camera. At first, we could turn it off and back on and it would function. But, it got to the point that it wouldn't work at all. I had my older Canon SD550 camera with me, so we still got some good pictures, but my camera doesn't have nearly as powerful of a zoom lens as does Joy's. Fortunately, her camera is still under warranty, so I'll take it in today to get repaired or replaced before our trips to California and Las Vegas this summer.

The first day of spring, 2009.

Today is the 1st day of spring. In the last couple of days, I've seen daffodils, crocus, and some trees in blossom. I'm ready for some warmer, drier, nicer weather!

Joy and I are looking forward to our excursion to Newport, on the Oregon coast. The forecast is for rain, but hopefully it won't be pouring down all weekend--and even if it is, we'll still enjoy soaking in our 2 person Jacuzzi bathtub in the Victoria Suite, looking out at the ocean. We can still do some dancing out on our private balcony, even if it's raining--we can always go back inside and warm up again.

We're going to drive down I-5 to Albany, then take US 20 through Corvallis and over the coast range, a route that I haven't taken in many years. It should be fun in our new Taurus; although it isn't a sports car, it still handles much better than our old van did.

On Sunday, we'll come home via Lincoln City. We're planning to stop at the Outlet Center and do some shopping--maybe get Joy a new swimming suit for our vacations this summer (since it is now spring, they should have summer clothes for sale!). Then, we'll go eat lunch at the Siletz Bay Buffet at Chinook Winds Casino, before heading home.

We got another car!

Yesterday, we bought a maroon 2007 Ford Taurus SE sedan with about 31000 miles on it. It will be nice to have a newer, more reliable and more comfortable vehicle for taking trips out of town. Cruise Control, yeah!

Joy and I will drive the new car this weekend when we go over to stay at The Grand Victorian bed & breakfast in Newport. On Saturday, depending on what time we actually get on the road, we may visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium. It will fun to relax at the beach for a couple of days.

Joy was sick :-(

We'd planned to go get a newer car, but that didn't work out. Joy got some kind of stomach flu over the weekend. Saturday night, she was up most of the night in the bathroom.

Hopefully, we'll be able to go out this evening. We need a newer vehicle for taking trips, like our one from this weekend to Newport, and our family vacation this summer to California. It will also be good to have cruise control, etc. Most likely, we'll end up with a 2007 or 2008 Ford Taurus.

We had a good time seeing Taken with our friends Les & Keri. Unfortunately, they aren't going to be able to make it to Las Vegas with us. We'll just have to take lots of pictures to share with them of Zion and the Grand Canyon.

It's Friday the 13th--again

I'm not superstitious, so I enjoy every Friday, including Friday the 13th. We're going out Sunday to buy a new car to replace our dead van. We've been getting by ok with a single vehicle, but our Subaru is rather old itself, and I wouldn't want to take a long trip to California, etc., in it. We're looking for a used car (a couple of years old). Cruise Control is a necessity, in my opinion. Driving for very long without it, my foot starts to get a cramp. Must be a sign of getting old.

Joy and I are going to see Taken tomorrow evening with Les & Keri. It will be fun having a double date again.

We're planning to make our reservations this weekend for both our California and Las Vegas trips, to lock in rates, flights, and cars. It looks like we'll be staying in the Stratosphere Hotel while we're in Vegas. We'll probably go to its Top of the World restaurant for our anniversary dinner, located in the top of the Stratosphere Tower, kind of like the Space Needle--but almost twice as as tall. We're planning to get there a little before sunset, and stay and watch the city lights come on down the strip.

We've added a day at Magic Mountain to our California vacation. Through AAA, we can get tickets for only $27 each, saving quite a bit of money. It will be fun to ride some world class roller coasters again. But, it will be a busy week.

We're kind of up in the air as far as our Grand Canyon trip. It would be nice to stay at a motel in Tusayan, Arizona (minutes from the park), but rooms there cost about $100 a night more than do rooms down in Williams (60 miles further south). So, Joy and I have to decide what's more important, time or money! :-)

Another week begins

Joy was over at Lincoln City with some ladies from our church. She had a great time, even though it rained, snowed, and hailed. Her favorite time was traveling there and back with our friend Keri. Even though Les & Keri are our best friends, we don't see them nearly as much as we'd like, so a chance for Joy to visit with Keri for several hours was fun for her. We've invited Les & Keri to meet us in Las Vegas for the end of our vacation down there this summer and go see Grand Canyon and Zion with them, along with an evening of strolling through the casinos in Las Vegas. It'd be a lot of fun to spend 4 days with them, away from home and the daily grind, enjoying nature and visiting.

I did some more vacation planning over the weekend. I'm going to try to have a mini-vacation with Joy once every month or so, even if it is just a weekend away, but at home [ship the kids off to friends' homes; they like doing that anyhow.]. A regular time, to keep us well connected with each other, laughing, dancing, kissing, teasing, pleasing, cuddling, snuggling, playing, and more together.

I went to see Taken on Saturday evening. It was the first movie that I've seen in quite a while that I'd consider purchasing on DVD. I'm looking forward to taking Joy to see it with me.

On Sunday morning, we changed to Daylight Saving Time. I wish they'd just leave the time alone! I like it staying light longer in the evening, though.