Greetings from a warm and sunny Florida!

Temps have been been getting into the 80′s all week.  Been able to wear shorts and t-shirt comfortably.  Paying for it a bit with a nasty head cold today.  Been blowing my nose every 10 minutes in hope that the sinus pressure will let up.  Stayed at the time share with John while everyone else went to see Winter the dolphin with no tail in Clearwater.  Believe the rest did me good – feeling better now…

Been having a busy week on vacation.  Everyone arrived on Friday as planned.  John was the last to arrive because of the bad weather in Milwaukee.  Took time to de-ice the plane and wait for the runway to get cleared.  Think he is lucky to have made it….

The timeshare unit is nice.  It has two bedrooms – one on each side with a main kitchen, dining/living room in the middle.  Has a washer/dryer so been able to have clean clothes all week.  The complex itself is nothing overly special, but we’re not really doing much here…  Seems like it was built in the early 90′s and is in need of some TLC….

On Saturday the group of 12 went to the Kennedy Space Center south of Orlando.  It had grown since the last time we were there.  We did the bus tour to see where the rockets were launched at.  Was cool that the bus went right past the launch pad for the Space Shuttles.  We also did the Shuttle Launch Experience ride that simulated blasting off into space.  Here’s a few pictures:

John exploring Mars

I'm going on Space Walk at the International Space Center..

Command Center simulation

Rocket type used for manned mission to the moon

Van used to carry astronauts with their support packs to the launch pad

Sunday we went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It was a bit more crowded then I anticipated.  Seems like we spent most of our time in the Africa section of the park.  Went on the jungle safari and then onto paths to look at the primates on display.  Got to see a large male silverback guerrilla up close.  My favorite ride was the Kali River Rapids – except for the getting wet part.  Went in the early afternoon – so felt good.  Also liked the Dinosaur ride – kind of a Jurassic Park thing going on.  I about lost my shit when we were going rapidly downhill in the dark and a big dino jumped out at me  We made it back to the timeshare around 7:15pm and we prepared a yummy supper of chicken parmesan.  It is nice to have kitchen to cook in – except for doing dishes  There is a dish washer, but stuck on meatloaf is a bit much for it…

Getting ready to board the Jungle Safari

Then on Monday we went to Disney’s Magic Kingdom.  It was busy, but did not seem as crowded as the previous day.  I had enough of doing “the group thing” and did the park by myself.  John stayed back at the timeshare to do school work.  I did most of the rides in the park.  It was the first time I did the “It’s a Small World” ride – John always refused on previous trips here.  I had so much fun basking in the tacky wonderland of dancing/singing dolls that I did it twice.  I ended up doing most of my favorite rides multiple times because by 8:00pm the lines were down to 5 minutes.  My favorites of the day were the Carousal of Progress, Tiki-Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Hall of Presidents.  Didn’t think the Obama robot was a very good likeness….

Watching people board the "It's a Small World" ride..

Made it back to the timeshare by 9:45pm – enough time for me to say hi to John, shower and fall asleep.  I was way done for the day  Then woke up at 3:00am with nasty sinus headache and drippy nose.  :(  Ended up sleeping in until 8:30am and staying in the room most of the day……

John did school work all morning, but took a break to run out for supper at a nearby Sweet Tomatoes .  Was a yummy treat for us since Des Monies does not have any of them…

Not much else going on.  I went to Walgreens and picked up some Sudafed and it seems to be helping.  Hope I feel well enough to do Epcot tomorrow with John’s Dad and Stepmom.  John has an online lecture later on this evening.. Been thinking about poor Prince being along most of the day at the apartment in Iowa.  Hope he is getting along well with the neighbor kid across the hallway.  Really hope he is not angry at us and pee pee’s all over the place…. Time will tell… guess there is more then one way to get new carpeting

Greetings from Florida…

The weather here continues to improve each day.  When I arrived on Saturday it was chilly with lows in the 40′s and highs in the 60′s.  Today it was clear skies and in the upper 70′s with lots of sun.  Bit better then Des Moines – they had a high of 36 today… Not that I’m rubbing it in or anything

Florida...

Des Moines....

Blog entry is being typed up from my 101 Dalmatian room at the All-Star Movies Resort.  I’ve call this place the “Disney Ghetto”.  It’s not that bad, but just feels cheap and low rent compared to other Disney resorts.  The dining experience here is a food court like at a mall.  My room is clean and modern and the hotel is quiet and not very busy.  Been taking a tour bus shuttle from the ghetto to the Swan and Dolphin where the conference is at.  Takes 10 minutes and is a non event.

Outside my hotel room...

The conference has been lots of fun and went by very quickly.  The opening general session is their big spectacle “rah rah” speech on Monday morning.  They opened it with the group OkGo performing three of their songs.  Was a good way to wake up at 8 in the morning.  Each year they have a celebrity speaker, but keep it a secret as to who.  This year it was Michael J Fox.  He talked about how social networking has been a large part of his Parkinson’s foundation.  It enables people with Parkinson’s to work together with others for support and researchers around to world.   Also went into his personal life, what it was like to slowly acquire Parkinson’s and the cool things he has done in his life.  This blog entry by another Lotusphere attendee (TurboTodd) does a very nice job of summarizing his speech:  Turbo Todd’s Blog Entry.

OkGo...

Michael J Fox....

Remainder of the week I attended lots of technical sessions.  The big push of the conference is around enabling businesses to have the tools for social collaboration.  Their vision is like having FaceBook, Google Mail and a file sharing system (SharePoint/DropBox) mashed together in a single business system.  You then join communities around work functions, and then able to be productive by having social interactions augmented by other business tools.  Found it to be a logical extension of what the Lotus products have done in the past.

The remainder of the sessions centered around geeky programming and administration topics.  Saw lots of demonstrations of new techniques, extensions and different ways to accomplish once complex tasks.  Took lots of notes using iPad during the sessions using an app called VooDoo Pad.  Made it easy to organize everything by topic…

Waiting for a session to start...

On Wednesday evening the conference had rented SeaWorld from 7:30pm until 10:00pm.  Was not a huge amount of time, but was able to see most of the park, have supper, do a few tame rides and catch their 30 minute Shamu Rocks show at the very end.  The park felt quite empty because most of the attendees were in line for the big roller coasters rides – Kraken and Mantis.  The Shamu shows was impressive.  Can’t imagine how much time and effort it takes to train the wales to go through their series of tricks.  Shamu was not as large as I envisioned, but was still cool to see…

Coworkers waiting for the show to start...

My view of the tank/stage during the show...

The closing general session was today.  They had Andrew Zimmern from the Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods as the celebrity speaker.  He talked about his adventures with  different African tribes and how he is a better person when he travels, experiences new cultures and food.  He was quite personable and took lots of questions from the audience.

Crappy iPad picture of Andrew....

So the conference is done… Took my last shuttle ride back to the Disney ghetto.  Glad I got to go – gave me a chance to understand what IBM/Lotus is doing to stay relevant as the web/technology continues to evolve.  It’s encouraging to see they are building off of the core skills I have (Java, JavaScript, HTML, XML, CSS) and using newer technologies (DoJo, Server Side JavaScript, XPages).  Now feel like I have some direction for skills that I should continue to work on to stay employable and productive as a programmer.

Tonight I’m just going to relax at hotel room and grab a bite to eat at the food court.  Have not spent much time at the resort so will be good to walk around and explore what I missed.  Tomorrow will take a taxi over to the timeshare and wait for John, his Dad/Step-Mom, Sister/husband/3 kids and her inlaws  to arrive that evening.  Will have a total group size of 11.  (If I counted correctly  )  Hope the timeshare has laundry facilities – my clean wardrobe is down to one change of clothes..

General plan for vacation next week is 5 days at Disney, 1 day at the Kennedy Space Center and just hang around the timeshare.  Should be a great (albeit expensive) week…

Greetings from a frozen West Des Monies, IA.

The weather was great this week until Wednesday evening.  We were getting highs in the 60′s and then all of a sudden the wind shifted and now it is nasty cold out. (21 right now at 4:00pm). Did get about an inch of snow, but the wind strong enough that it is mostly in drifts around yard. It has not been above freezing the last two days.

I leave for Florida tomorrow afternoon.  May get some snow showers in the morning, but nothing that would prevent my flight from leaving.  Orlando has not been exactly balmy the past few days with highs in the lower 60′s.  Extended forecast looks like some highs in the mid-70′s for next week.  Hope it works out like that.

Work has been extra busy for me this week.  Worked hard to get things squared away before my 2 week absence.  Don’t want to leave a mess for my manager.  Have several large projects that will need lots of my attention when I return.  Also have some new projects that are starting to ramp up that I will need to get involved with soon.  Took some time to set my “Out of Office” reminders, voice mails and submit time sheets for the weeks I’m away.  Then made sure I knew how to check the voice mail for my work phone.  Think I’m good to go.

The first week in Florida will be staying at Disney’s All Star Movie Resort.  It is the cheapest Disney hotel available for the conference at $85.00 a night.  Not expecting it to be very nice, but does not really matter because I will not be in the room much.  One cool thing Disney does is provide Magical Express Motor Coach service from the airport to the hotel.  Upon my arrival I go to a special desk, give them my baggage check ticket and board the buss.  They will pick up my luggage for me and have it delivered to my room a few hours after I arrive.  This is done at no extra cost.  Works for me.

The conference is divided into sessions and I have a total of 26 different sessions selected to attend – 5 or 6 different ones each day.  They provide web sites and iPhone apps to help me keep track of it all.  My butt will probably be tired of the conference room chairs by the end of the first day.  Seems like they never have much padding on them.  :)

Brining my Kenwood ham radio along.  It is about the size of a walkie talkie and would enable me to talk via the local repeaters in Orlando.  One of the repeaters is connected to the internet via EchoLink – so it may be possible for me to chat with John with it.  It is more of a geeky endeavor then being practical… but will be cool to try out.

They usually have a celebrity appear as part of the opening session.  Will be interesting to see who they get.  I know they have Anthony Bourdain scheduled for the closing session.  On Wednesday evening the conference has SeaWorld rented as a private party. Not been there before so should be cool to check out.  The remainder of the conference I will be listening to technical sessions about Lotus products, programming, best practices and where they are heading in the future.  My department will be moving to Notes 8.5 as a development platform in the next year – so want to ramp my skills back up for it.

Last week I misplaced my eye glasses.  Can’t find them anywhere.  I’m sure they are somewhere in the apartment, but have looked everywhere.  Decided to order a new pair online using Zenni Optical.  Have seen them advertised online as offering complete glasses for $6.95 a pair.  Their website was easy to use and I ordered a pair for $28.95.  That price includes shipping.  Crazy cheap.  Pictured them being made out of aluminum foil, rubber bands and plastic wrap.  They arrived today and they are actually quite nice.  They seem quite substantial and look like I expected.  Have paid a whole lot more for glasses that are not as nice.  Will definitely order from them again.

Poor John will be left behind with Prince in Iowa.  It will not be all bad for him because he will have less interruptions for his school work.  He seems to like his current classes – networking and web design.  They seem quite technical and involved, but he likes the challenge.

Next Monday he has a meeting with a tax person to go over setting up relations with them.  Now that we own an apartment building we want to be able to take advantage of any available tax benefits.  In the past John did our taxes using TurboTax, but he thinks our situation has outgrown the software.  It would be cool to get a nice tax refund this year.  Would help fund the long list of projects we have:  new hallway carpeting, painting the exterior of the apartment building, build storage shed, have new windows installed, build a new deck on our apartment, replace the front windshields of the RV and on and on.

Not much else going on.  Need to get some laundry done yet tonight.  Plan to pack in the morning.  Need to load some movies onto my iPad to watch during the flight.  Have a direct flight on the way, but go through Denver on the way home.  That will suck.

Greetings from West Des Moines, IA!

Just got back from ice skating downtown at the Brenton Ice Rink.  Decided to practice a bit before my next round of lessons starts tomorrow (Monday) evening.  The ice was decent and it was not overly crowded.  Practiced transitioning from forwards to backwards via the mohawk turn and by a few other methods.  My only complaint tonight is that my feet hurt more then usual.  Tomorrow will wear thicker socks.

The ice rink tonight...

Last Thursday the temps got into the mid 60′s…  so was able to have the windows open for a few hours in the apartment.  John went outside and cleaned all of the apartment buildings windows using the squeegie on the telescoping pole we purchased from Menards a few weeks ago.

Weather has slowly been getting back to normal.  Today it got up to 41 out..  still pretty good for January in Iowa.  Keep thinking we are going to pay for all of this with a nasty blizzard and below freezing temps in February.

John is getting back into the swing of things with his new set of college classes.  He is taking a web site design class and a computer networking class.  They both look pretty interesting to me.  The networking class is going to have him use a “Cisco Network Simulator”.  He will be changing the programming of routers and get to understand how IP (Internet Protocol) functions.

We’ve been  having fun with the remote control car/tank think John received for his birthday.  One of the neat things it does is let you take pictures from it’s internal camera.  Here’s a few pics from when I chased Prince around the apartment with it:

Cautious yet curious..

Like a deer in the headlights Taken in "Infrared Mode"

Enough already.....

This morning was apartment cleaning day.  John became the “angry cleaner” and complained and moaned about stupid stuff while doing his part.  I did the laundry (including bedding) and cleaned the bathroom.  John cleaned the kitchen, dusted and vacuumed.  Seemed like a pretty even distribution of tasks – except mine lasted all day.  Last load of clothes is in the dryer now.

Have started to read more the past few weeks.  Just finished The Associate by John Grisham – borrowed it from my Dad at Christmas time.  Did not like how it ended.  Now reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  I’m 75 pages into the book and so far it is interesting.  Was able to check it out as a digital book for free from the West Des Moines Public Library using their WILBOR eBook system. They purchase eBooks and then loan the copies they own to one person at a time.  After you check them out you are then directed to Amazon.com to download.  I’m reading it with the Kindle software on my iPad.  This is the first eBook I’ve read on my iPad and it is going well.  Not sure I like looking directly at a light source while reading, but it does work well for reading in bed while John is sleeping.  Still prefer my Nook’s E Ink screen but free is free and not complaining.

Next Saturday I leave for the Lotusphere conference in Florida.  Wanted to purchase some nice clothes to wear, so we went to the Valley West Mall a few miles away from the apartment.  First we stopped at Chipolte for supper.  Enjoyed a vegetarian fajita burrito and ice tea.  Like how they grill their veggies – really brings out their flavors.  Then headed over to JC Penny’s.  Nothing like trying on new clothes after eating, but oh well.  Received a gift card from my parents for Christmas – so was able to pick out several pair of casual kaki Dockers, three shirts and a new belt.  The weather in Florida has been rather cool the past week, but today it got into the mid-70′s.  Hoping to wear short sleeve shirts most of the time I’m there, but will bring a jacket just in case.  I’m going to have to pack carefully since the first week will be “business casual” attire, then the second week will be shorts, swim suits, Speedos and vacation attire.  Thinking about brining along my ice skates because there’s a really nice indoor rink not too far from the time-share.  Very much looking forward to the two weeks in Orland, but first need to make it through a full week of work.  Want to get lots done before I leave so I don’t fall too far behind.

Not much else going on…  I squealed with delight when I discovered that Project Runway All Starts started last week.  I missed the first episode on the TV, but was able to watch online via their website:  Project Runway All Stars.  It is just delicious to see some of my favorite contestants back and competing.  The only downer is that the show is not hosted by Heidi and Tim.  Watching it makes me realize how much they bring to the show.

I’m off to play Warcraft for an hour, then watch TV and read until I fall asleep in the freely laundered sheets.

Greetings from Caucus Day 2012 in Iowa….

My work day went by slowly. I’m pretty well caught up with most of my projects and now waiting for others to do their part. I’m starting to go over things for the Lotusphere computer conference that I will be attending in a few weeks. Started going over the list of sessions I can attend and some look pretty good.

Went and participated in the Iowa Democratic Caucus tonight. Why? Because I could. It was held at the local high school (Valley Southwoods). Was an interesting evening seeing the election process begin. The school was decided into two sections along party lines. I walked in and headed to the Democratic section with my voters registration card in hand. They did not have me listed in their paperwork, so had to fill in my information by hand. No big deal.

Democratic Registration Table

After registration everyone went into the school library where a video screen was setup. There were around 250 people in attendance – many people ended up standing because there were not enough chairs. At 7:00pm the “team leaders” started talking about the upcoming election. Think I heard the phrase “Yes We Can” at least a dozen times.

The President giving his speech

Next they had a video conference with the President that lasted 30 minutes. He gave a rah rah speech about how we can spread the word better then any politician ever could. Then we took questions from Caucus locations around the state. Fine and dandy. Then we were divided up into caucus groups by our Precinct. Each group then went to a separate classroom to do the actual caucus process.

Precient leader going over the process in the classroom.

In my room there were 25 people in attendance. So they divided 25 / 6 to get the number 4. Subracted one to get 3 – number of delegates needed for the next caucus event. Three people volunteered and we all voted on them. Next several resolutions were read and voted upon. Things like how judges are appointed, city planning for green space and how corporations should be restricted in the amount of money they can contribute to a campaign. We voted on each of them. Not exactly sure where the resolutions go – assume they continue to percolate up the system…. Then it was all done. Total time was 90 minutes. Glad I went – was interesting to see the election process in action. Also gave me a chance to see what the local high school was like – brand new and spotless.

Not much else going on. Going to take a shower, relax and read a bit before heading to bed.

Greetings from a new year in Iowa!

Today is John’s 68th 38th birthday! To celebrate I baked him a cake (yellow with chocolate frosting), made his favorite supper (beef stroganoff) and got him a fun gift.

John's Cake

Now make a wish.....

Cake decorating is not my thing – so the little Pooh candies on top will just have to be good enough  Had to run out to the RV to find a cake pan.

For his gift I gave him a Rover App-Controlled Spy Tank with Night Vision from Brookstone.  You control it with your iPhone/iPad.  It has a camera on it so he can drive it all over the apartment without having to leave his desk.  His favorite pastime with it is to chase Prince around.  Is funny to watch.  He’s getting good at navigating it around.  Prince just does not know what to think about it….

I stayed up long enough on New Years Eve to usher in 2012.  John made it until 11:45pm and then drifted off to sleep.  It was nice to spend the evening home all cozy in our apartment. Remember several really cold New Year’s eves in the RV with the wind rocking it around.

Yesterday (New Years Day) I played Warcraft for five hours and finally made it to Level 80 – the last level I can obtain with the expansions I have for it.  Was cool to obtain a goal that I set for myself when I started playing on Christmas Day 2010.  I then proceeded to purchase the next expansion - Cataclysm.  It will enable me to advance 5 more levels – should not take me too long to obtain.  Then another expansion is in the works for sometime this year – The Mists of Pandaria.

Have also been playing Kinect games on the XBox.  My favorite one is Puss in Boots.  You stand in front of the TV and control the sword wielding yellow cat.  It is a blast.  The game has you sword fighting, kicking, scratching, playing guitar and lot of other physical moves.  Here is a video that shows what the game is like:

After breakfast this morning I decided to brave the cold windy weather and take the Christmas lights down on the front of the apartment building. Don’t like it when homeowners leave their Christmas decorations up all winter – so did my part. Only took me 15 minutes to get the ladder out and pull the lights down. Got them put away ready for next year.

Around 10:00am John needed to get started with his school work for the new semester – so he kicked me out of the office. I got the hint and decided to leave him alone and head downtown to ice skate for a bit. I had a free pass from taking ice skating lessons so only cost me the diesel fuel to drove down there. It was windy and below freezing out so the ice was nice and smooth. The rink was not very busy so I got to practice moves we went over in class. Ended up skating for 90 minutes then decided enough was enough and went inside to change out of my skates.

Started to change and a reporter for the associated press came over and asked if she could interview me about the Iowa Caucus. I said sure and answered her questions while I got my street shoes on. She had a microphone connected to a digital recorder. The questions were around the different candidates – which ones I like and which ones I didn’t. Who I though had the best chance. As a Democrat did I think Obama had a chance of reelection and etc…. Interview lasted 10 minutes… I’m not the most political person in the world – so doubt the interview will show up anywhere…. especially after I told her “Any candidate who exploits people’s religion and faith for political gain are scum and would not get my vote.”

Here is a video about Iowa that is going around the internet. It does contain a few swear words – but worth it:

Then on the way home I shopped for the gift John received and got the grocery shopping done for the week. The holidays had disrupted my grocery buying schedule – so today I ended up purchasing $110.00 worth of grub. Groceries are relatively cheap here in Iowa so I came home with a large quantity of items. Never know when “the big one” will hit and we are snowbound for weeks. May appreciate that extra can of tomato soup

Not much else going on… Going to relax and get ready for a short week of work. Hope my coworkers are in good cheer and ready to take on the challenges of the new year.

Happy New Year’s Eve from Iowa!

We just returned from dining at a Machine Shed restaurant.  It was not overly busy and had good service by a guy in coveralls.  We both had steaks and they were really good.  One of the better steaks I’ve had in the past year.  Would like to check them out for breakfast sometime.

This morning we went to Homemakers furniture in search for some lamps for our bedside tables.  This is the store we purchased most of our furniture at back in September.  I like them because they carry a wide range of items.  From cheap “flat box” furniture to expensive name brands.  We spent 15 minutes checking out their lighting department not finding anything exactly right.  We then went upstairs to their bedroom furniture area to see what they had in the bedroom displays.  After wandering through all of the displays we went back to look at several specific ones..  We wanted something tall enough to work well for reading in bed.  Idea is to have the light shining down unto the book and not throw shadows.  Found a set of tall chrome colored ones with white square fabric shades that we both liked.  They were $49.00 each so worked with our budget. Salesman confirmed they were in stock – so we paid for them on the sales floor.

We then decided to look at coffee tables since we are still using a big cardboard box.  The box is ghetto fabulous and easy to move when I want to play a Kinect game.  We spent an hour wandering around the display floor and just could not find exactly what we wanted.  Found a few that would have worked except they could not be moved easily.  One almost fell apart when we attempted.  One that looked like an old trunk would have worked, but was way too expensive.  We got out of the mood to shop for furniture so left without one.

Next we drove back to the customer pickup area.  We gave our order number to a clerk via a microphone (like ordering fast food), then we get assigned to a parking spot by number.  In 5 minutes a guy came out and put the box with the lamps in the back seat of the Jeep.  In 10 minutes we were back home.

Started putting the lamps together in the living room and discovered a part was missing.  There was only one of the round metal pieces that holds the shade above the light bulbs.  So could only assemble one of them.  Another odd thing is that there were extra parts in the box for a gold lamp.

So called Homemakers back and they confirmed they had another set of lamps and that I needed to go back to customer service.  No big deal.  Went back, showed them what was missing, signed some paperwork, went out to the warehouse and after waiting for 10 minutes a guy came to help me.  He opened up another box of identical lamps and obtained the missing part from it.

Made it back home, got them assembled and setup in the bedroom.  All is good.  Here is pic of the one on my side of the bed:

New lamp - guess it looks ok...

The on/off switch for the lamp is on the cord – will be a pain the locate it each evening.  Tomorrow going to run to Home Depot and obtain two touch switches and incandescent bulbs for it.  The switches will make it so I just need to touch the lamp base to turn the light on and off.  Only down side is that the switches do not work with the CFL light bulbs.

Anyway….

One of my New Year’s Eve traditions is to watch the “Dinner for One” video.  The video is a tradition for people in some European countries like Denmark and Germany. I like how nostalgic it is. Seems like it gets better each year…

Hope everyone has had a great 2011 and we all have a happy and prosperous 2012. Should be an interesting year with the Mayan calendar predictions of doom, presidential election, John graduating college next fall and obtaining a job in his new profession. Can’t wait to see how it all ends up….

Greetings from West Des Moines, IA….

Received a call from John around noon – he is on his way back home.  Should make it here around 8pm.  I’m sure he will be happy to be back after spending a week in Wisconsin.  He has some Christmas gifts waiting for him that my parents sent along.

Prince is patently waiting for John's arrival..

Work has been more hectic this week then expected.  Continue to work on help desk issues along with end of the year tasks that I normally don’t handle.  I’ve meet lots of new and interesting people working with other departments on issues.  Will be glad when this week is done.  Knowing that I will be going to a conference in Florida in a few weeks helps keep me in a good mood

Went ice skating downtown for a few hours last night.  The rink was really crowded and the ice was really crappy.  It was like skating in two inches of snow because of top layer of ice being shaved off by all the skaters.  Could not practice too much because there was no space.  Oh well…. did not cost me anything because I had a free pass from taking lessons.  The next round of lessons starts in two weeks.

Not much else going on.  Going to do my weekly chores of vacuuming the apartment buildings hallways and cleaning the windows.  Want the place to look nice for John’s arrival.

Greetings from a cool day in Iowa..

The weather has been pretty good for this time of the year – highs in the lower 40′s and lows around freezing.  Would like it to stay cold enough for the ground to stay frozen and not be muddy.

Had a nice Christmas with my parents at their farm outside of Thomson, IL.  Arrived there on Friday evening.  The drive was not too bad – took me around 4 hours with one stop for fuel.  Mom made oyster soup and it was yummy.  I believe it is just milk, butter and oysters with salt/pepper.

Mom's tree

On Christmas Eve they had a full house with my brother Deven’s family coming over.  Was fun to see them again.  Nephews Jet and Scout are getting to a fun age where they can both talk and play.  Was cute to see how they liked to eat pickles and cookies more then the ham dinner.  We spent a few hours playing with their new toys.  Jet did a good job at putting together the Lego kits with just a little help from me.

On Christmas I accidentally slept in until 8:30am, so we did not get to opening presents any too early.  The nephews must have worn me out.  Received lots of nice gifts – my  two favorites are a grey hoodie that has “IOWA” stitched on front and a sandwich press for making panini type sandwiches.

Then Mom had a trip to Clinton, IA planned for us to tour the George M. Curtis Mansion.  It is owned by the Woman’s club and they ran the tours as a fund raiser.  We had a nice lady from the club give us the tour of the place.  She brought us from room to room on the three levels and pointed out all of the nice woodwork, Tiffany light fixtures, stained glass windows and fireplaces.  She explained that Mr. Curtis was a lumber baron back when logs were floated down the Mississippi River from Wisconsin.  He was also a politician – served two terms as US Representative for Iowa.  There were many different styles of wood work throughout the home, perhaps to show off the different styles he sold?   The third level was once an open dance floor, but is now divided into rooms.  The Woman’s club rents out sleeping rooms – mostly to preachers at local churches.  They rented some out to college aged kids, but they partied too much for them.  The mansion is also rented out for receptions, dinners and parties.

Outside the mansion

One of the 8 fireplaces in the home - was just massive.

Another fireplace

And yet another fireplace - this one in the front foyer.

Mom and Dad

Part of the reason for going to Clinton was to take a drive in their new car.  They finally replaced their 11 year old mini-van with a Buick Enclave.  Here’s mom posing next to it:

Pretty sporty....

After the tour we went back home and I helped them with some of their Christmas presents.  One of their gifts was an iPad – so got it configured for their wifi, then got them started using it to surf the web, purchase/play music and switching to the different apps.  Then spent time getting a new multi-functional printer to work with Dad’s computer.  All went well.

On Monday morning I spent time with Dad going over plans for a trip they would like to take.  Last year they took the Amtrak train to Portland, OR when we were there.  They enjoyed it so much that they want to plan another Amtrak trip.  This time will probably be to the Southwest/Las Vegas area.  Still working out the details.  It takes some patience to coordinate train schedules with tours, buses, hotels and etc.

I got the Jeep all loaded up and headed home by 1:45pm.  Taking I-80 across was fine, but got a bit backed up getting into Des Moines.  Ran into some rain about an hour from home. Glad it was only rain and no ice/snow.   Made it to the apartment building by 5:30pm.  Did not stop for fuel on the way back – so made good time.  Listening to Christmas music on the satellite radio made the time go by quickly.

The apartment and Prince were fine.  Having one of the neighbor kids come in to feed, water and play with him worked well.  Prince was a little naughty because he decided to pee pee in his cat bed we moved to the living room.  I put it in the washing machine with a cup of pine sol and laundry detergent and it is back to being usable.

So what about John?  He spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with his family in the Appleton, WI area.  He then drove to Milwaukee in the afternoon and get checked into the hotel with no problem.

Yesterday he conducted some sort of audit of the trucking company – making sure important paperwork was being kept up and etc.  Today he is conducting training sessions for the dispatchers and office people.  There’s lots of state and federal regulation of the trucking industry that is not easy to keep up with.  He prepared the presentation last week when he got done with his school work/exams.

Tomorrow he is going to stop by the Devry campus in Milwaukee to talk with his advisors in person once.  His school work will start up again next week.  Believe he is taking a computer networking and a project management classes.  He is still a straight A student and on the deans list.

Was back to work for me today.  Had taken my work computer to my parents just in case the weather got back – so spent 10 minutes getting it all setup at my desk.  I’m “on call” this week so dealing with all of the problems users report to the development team I’m on.  Also having to deal with tasks that need to be done before the new year starts – like making sure different applications have the bank holidays entered for 2012, making sure there is a new archive database in place and other fun things…

Also working on finishing an application that reports how long it took for someone to respond to an email sent to a support mailbox.  Will probably be used by managers to see how effective their team is at dealing with them.  Then have some documentation for a new project that I would like to have done before the end of the week.

Been dealing with a headache most of the day.  Think I’m going through a mini-caffine withdrawal from the really good Starbucks creme brule coffee mom made over Christmas.  Thought I would be fine if I had it with food, but not sleeping well and dealing with headache is telling my otherwise…

Not much else going on.  I miss John, the apartment is way too quiet without him.  I even missed hearing Star Trek Next Generation playing on the TV – but not quite enough to turn it on myself  He will probably be back Thursday or Friday… depending on how things go for him in Milwaukee…

I’m off to take the garbage out, make some supper and relax a bit… Would like to go ice skating later on, but will need my headache to go away first…

Merry Christmas!

Derek, John and Prince