Paradise babies...

Paradise babies...  We've got five kittens in our “isolation room” (a bathroom in our basement that we never use), and our neighbor's cow (Annabelle) gave birth to a bull calf earlier today.  Photos of both below...

We're back...

We're back...  Not too many ponders, though.  I'm too tired for that :)

When I went out to Virginia to visit my mom, my intent was to bring her back with me to set her up in an “independent living” retirement community near us in Logan, Utah.  That didn't quite work out as planned; some logistics didn't come together, and almost at the last possible moment.  Now I'm back in Utah, and scrambling to get that stuff straightened out.  When I do, I'll be flying back to toss her on the plane to come out here.  With any luck at all, by the middle of next week she'll be out here near both me and my brother Scott.

The retirement community let me wander around and talk with the people living there, and the staff, on two different occasions.  All by itself, that was encouraging – that they're not at all afraid to let me poke around.  I've now talked with a total of 10 residents, and they are uniformly happy to be there.  Several of them were effusive in their praise for the staff, and none of this was in earshot of them.  That seems remarkable to me for such a facility.  I didn't keep count, but 7 or 8 of the residents also volunteered just how good the food was there.  Today I saw the preparations for an outing that included a picnic; there were trays of carefully wrapped sandwiches on delicious looking bread, some marked with names, and lots of other home-style picnic fixing (including a giant bowl of potato salad that had me drooling).  We're hoping that all these first impressions turn out to be accurate, and that my mom is just as happy there as these 10 residents appeared to be.

Meanwhile our dog Miki has joined me in my office.  He's not working nearly as hard as I am, though :)  If you enlarge that photo and look hard, you can just barely make out his brown nose on the left side of the furry brown lump.

Debbie found out last night that we're getting two puppies from the litter Sheila M. (our breeder) just raised, though we don't know which two yet.  She saw the whole litter last night, and says they're huge – and every last one is totally adorable.  One of them in particular reminded her strongly of Mo'i when he was a puppy.  We pick up our two little devils on Saturday.  Our household will then instantly become even more chaotic than it already was!  I can also confidently predict that we will have quite a few more young visitors, too: with 5 kittens and 2 puppies, we'll probably have to bar the door to keep them away...

It's good to be overweight!

It's good to be overweight!  According to this study studying a group for the ten years 2003 to 2013, the BMI associated with the lowest all-cause mortality is 27.0.  My current BMI is ... 27.2.  Yay!

On the other hand, I should note that so far as I can tell there is vastly more noise than signal in studies of this nature.  This particular study looked at nearly 100,000 Danes in that period.  It wouldn't surprise me a bit if 100,000 Americans, Japanese, or Egyptians were studied, they'd get completely different results.  Probably even a different set of 100,000 Danes would get a different result!

But I like this one :)

Night in Paradise...

Night in Paradise...  I woke early this morning, around 2 am, and couldn't get back to sleep.  After guzzling a cup of tea, I headed out for the short walk to my shed and office.  It was a moonless night, pitch black, and perfectly clear – and that gave me a stunning view of the sky.  The Milky Way is prominent overhead and down into the southern sky (very dark here, as the Wasatch Mountains are that way).  Nearly due south was a great show: Saturn and Mars, quite close together, and close to the bright star Antares.  Beautiful!

Light blogging alert!

Light blogging alert!  I will be traveling (or getting ready to do so) for the next week – I'm heading back to Virginia to visit with my mom.

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  My mom's in the hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia, and of course we're concerned for her.  Send any good thoughts and prayers you can spare her way, please.

It's a beautiful spring morning here in Paradise, Utah.  The photo at right is the view out of my new office's north-facing window just a few minutes ago.  My friend and neighbor Tim D.'s house is buried in those beautiful trees.

Yesterday Debbie made her Amish beef stew, and the photo at left shows what that looked like just before we ladled it out of the pan.  That's might good stuff!  We gorged ourselves on that stew, along with some fresh-baked dinner rolls that Debbie baked in butter.  I was in a food coma for hours afterward :)

Yesterday afternoon we had a brief downpour, and that knocked bazillions of petals off the flowering cherries near my shed and carried them along with the flowing water.  In some places, there was a half-inch of accumulated petals.  In other places, they made interesting patterns on our pavement, as at right.

I worked in my office all day yesterday, laying out ceiling panels (the hardware for which is supposed to arrive today) and installing window shades (three of four are now up).  We also waited around the house all day yesterday for the scheduled delivery of the little refrigerator I bought for my new office.  The delivery service is Pilot, and right now they're on my “I don’t love you any more!” list.  I'm standing by to downgrade them even further.  First of all, they gave me an absurd delivery window: 9 am to 9 pm yesterday.  Then they sent me messages periodically during the day to let me know it was on its way, and to make sure I was there to accept it.  The driver was supposed to call 30 minutes before arriving.  The tracking site said it was on the truck for delivery.  But ... 9 pm rolled by and no truck.  I called their number, was put on hold for 15 minutes and disconnected.  Called again, same result.  Called a third time and finally got connected to a helpful and sympathetic woman who told me ... my refrigerator hadn't been delivered (I knew that!), she had no idea why, the delivery had to be rescheduled, the “agent” was supposed to have called me to tell me this was happening (they didn't), and she'd “make a note” for them to call me this morning.  Surprise: they haven't.  Unless they do something spectacular to turn this around, I'm not going to use Pilot delivery ever again.  What awful service!  And what a contrast with Fedex, UPS, Yellow, OnTrac, etc...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Debbie's making her famous Amish beef stew today.  That means I had “chopping duty”: cutting up the meat and (lots of!) veggies.  It's gonna smell real good in the house pretty soon.

My mom is much on my mind today.  She's having a slightly risky procedure (a heart biopsy) done this morning, and she's a million miles away in Virginia.  My sister Holly is with her.  It was supposed to start about 3 hours before the time I'm writing this, and I haven't heard any news...

We saw a female black-headed grosbeak on our feeders this morning (like the one at right, but that's not my photo).  The males in their mating plumage (which would be right now) are beautiful medleys of black, orange, and yellow.  This was a very common bird for us back in Jamul, but this is the first one we've seen on our place.  I hope this means we have a nesting pair nearby!

I'm working on my office again today.  Yesterday I finished hanging all the acoustic panels on my walls – that leaves just four flat panels to go on the ceiling.  I'm going to lay out all the measurements today, but I can't actually hang them until the hardware comes in.  That was supposed to be today, but the shipment was delayed by weather; now they won't be here until tomorrow.  My little refrigerator should get here sometime today, and the blinds for my windows are coming in Fedex this morning.  I have plenty to do :)

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  I'm working away at setting up my office today.  As I write, I have 8 of 14 panels mounted.  They look (and work) great!  I'll get 10 done today, probably in just an hour or so – then I have to wait for hardware to arrive on Monday or Tuesday before I can mount the 4 ceiling panels.

Called my mom this morning, for Mother's Day.  Even though she wasn't feeling well, it was still nice even just to say “Hi!” on Mother's Day.  Debbie is kind of blue today, because she can't call her mom – between her failing hearing and her dementia, there would be no point.  She and her mom used to talk almost every day...

Something I forgot to mention yesterday: the Hyrum Canal folks “started up” the canal.  By “start up”, I mean that they started running water through it again.  It's been dry since late last fall.  All the irrigation systems that run from Porcupine Reservoir shut down for all the months where no irrigation is needed, to let the reservoir fill up again.  Starting up the canal is more involved than one might think; it takes several weeks of hard work by a crew of 6 to 10 people.  First a crew comes through clearing any visible debris from the canal bottom – fallen branches, trash thrown in by someone inconsiderate, dead animals, etc.  Then they cut encroaching brush and branches, or even take out entire trees – whatever it takes to keep the canal clear.  The resulting brush piles are burned.  All that takes a couple of weeks.  Then they start the water up, which causes more debris – and a surprising amount of it! – to float up and threaten to clog up under bridges, in culverts, or where the canal takes a sharp bend.  A crew sloshes around in the rising water, using pitchforks to toss this floating debris up onto the shores, gather it into piles – to be burned the next week.  This is the step completed yesterday, so now the canal running down the east side of our property is flowing.  Shortly, when the rain stops, we'll see irrigation systems running up in Hyrum.  I expect the Paradise Irrigation company water that we use to be pressurized sometime this coming week...

Tornado in Colorado...

Tornado in Colorado...  Sent along by friend, former colleague, and Idaho mogul-of-everything Doug S. 

For some reason the default camera orientation is to the rear of the car, but the tornado is in front of it.  That means you need to adjust the camera orientation (using the four arrows visible in the upper left hand corner of the screen once you run it) before you'll see anything at all.  Once you get the camera looking forward, you'll see the funnel form, touch down, cross the road in front of them, and then pass by on their right.  Very impressive, and these guys are totally nuts!

Question for anyone with tornado experience: the funnel, near the ground, is distinctly brown.  Why is that?  Is it just dirt and dust being thrown around?  Or is their something else going on?

For dog owners...

For dog owners...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  So this morning I took a couple of dog photos (below).  That's Miki the field spaniel on the left, and Race the smooth-coat border collie on the right.  They were so happy to see us this morning!  Running around the kitchen following us as we make our coffee and tea is exciting for them.  Also, they're anticipating our morning ritual of using pieces of a banana as a training treat (they love bananas!).  I make them spin, sit, lie down, and stay ... and pay them with chunks of banana.

After Abby S. left this morning, I spent a few hours installing some more acoustic panels in my new office.  The series below shows what's involved.  In the first photo, you see the aluminum Z-clips I installed on the back of a corner panel.  Those Z-clips are a clever mounting device – they're quite strong for the vertical component of the load (roughly 100 pounds per Z-clip), and plenty strong enough (roughly 15 pounds per Z-clip) for the horizontal component of the load.  The eight Z-clip pairs I used on these corner panels are gross overkill for a 40 lb. panel – those things aren't going anywhere :) 

The next photo shows how I laid out and mounted the mating Z-clip halves on the wall.  While it's important to get these reasonably close to the right place, the Z-clip design is reasonably forgiving for positioning errors – you can be off by about a half inch in any direction and it will still work just fine.  It's harder than you might think, at least for the corner panels, as they aren't built precisely square.

The third photo just shows half a Z-clip pair, mounted on the wall.  The mating Z-clip on the acoustic panel is pointing down and engages the up-pointing one on the wall.  To hang the panel, I just lifted it up higher than where it belongs, and let it fall into the clips.  The last photo shows the finished result for one corner.

Debbie and I are going to finish off this evening by watching a movie (at home!).  Earlier we had a lupper at Angie's, which we expected to be peaceful and quiet at 2 pm.  Instead it was absolute chaos, and crowded.  Why?  Our waitress told us it was this way every year for a few days, centered around the Utah State University (nearby in Logan) graduation time.  We had no idea!  The lupper was great, though: we had their very nice vegetable beef soup and a couple of “melts” – a patty melt on rye for me, and a southwestern chicken melt on sourdough for Debbie.  Yum!

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  I just finished up with my Saturday morning tutoring of Abby S.  We worked in my new office for the first time, instead of the kitchen table.  The look on her face was priceless when she walked through the garage and wood shop areas of my shed (which she'd never been inside of before), upstairs into the attic/storage area, and then opened the door into the high-tech looking office.  It really is a bit like walking through a cave and opening a door into a datacenter :)  It was very nice to work in front of big screens, with a real keyboard, instead of on the laptop.  Abby did wonderfully again, except for the fact that she neglected to do her homework.  Her excuse?  She got lost in a book: Fablehaven.  Good book, good excuse :)

A few days ago Debbie started working the dogs (Race and Miki) in the agility ring again.  It is so nice to see her recovery progressing to the point where she can do this!  She can't run yet, but she can do everything else – and without pain.  Wonderful...

Yellow-bellied marmot pup...

Yellow-bellied marmot pup...  Yesterday afternoon Debbie and I took a drive up Blacksmith Fork Canyon, toward Ant Flats, for our usual wildlife spotting.  We saw very little on most of the trip, except for the splashing of something large in the creek.  The splashing reminded me of otters playing, though we didn't ever sight the actual cause of the splashing.

But just as we were about to exit the canyon on the way into Hyrum, Debbie spotted the little guy at right on the road.  I'm pretty sure he's a yellow-bellied marmot (aka “rock chuck”), even though they're not normally found this low (we were at about 5,500' altitude, and they're normally above 6,500').  I drove right past it without ever seeing it, even though he was in the middle of the other (uphill) lane.  Yikes!  I backed up next to him, got my four-way flashers on, and jumped out to scoot him off the road.  Shortly after I got out, another car approached, headed uphill, but fortunately saw me and the flashers and proceeded with caution – and smiles when they saw what I was doing.

We had a bit of work getting him off the road, as he was feisty and uninterested in being told what to do.  His front teeth are already about 3/4" long, and sharp as scalpels (which they resemble!).  I didn't dare try to pick him up, as every time I got near him he made angry noises and attacked.  When I tried to scoot him sideways with my (nice, thick, strong) boots, he immediately attacked my boot – and sunk his front teeth so far into my sole that he had trouble removing them!  Finally Debbie came up with the lid of a cardboard box, and I managed to get him into that so that I could take him off to a safer place.  As soon as I lifted him in the box lid, he started making very loud alarm whistles, clearly distressed.

Finally we got him onto a steep slope that led down to the creek, near where I could see what looked like a marmot burrow under a big rock.  In the photo at left, he's on his back because I approached him with my iPhone, and he's preparing to attack me.  This little fellow couldn't have weighed more than 8 ounces or so, yet he was fully prepared to take me on.  If the adults are just as feisty, I don't think I'd care to approach them even if I was wearing armor!

As we left him alone, hoping he would calm down, I could see him right himself and very slowly amble downhill – and away from the road.  Here's hoping he stays off the road!  More photos from the intertubes...

I finally have a good place...

I finally have a good place ... for my lava lamp!

Dilbert nails it again...

Dilbert nails it again...  I ran into this so many times in the bad old days when I was managing.  It was common enough even in the '90s to be irritating; I'm told by managers that I know that now it is so common that it almost feels like the norm.

After living here for a couple years, I feel pretty safe in saying that this would not be the experience of managers in northern Utah.  That may well be a big part of the reason why we have so many companies moving here: an educated, hard-working population.

A most unexpected find...

A most unexpected find...  Longtime readers with unusual patience will know that I have a substantial collection of slide rules and other antique mechanical computing instruments.  Once, years ago, I wrote of my regret for not having kept the slide rules I purchased new, when they were still in use (that's BC – Before Calculators).  The first one I bought in high school; the last one while in the U.S. Navy in about 1972 or 1973 – right at the end of the slide rule era.

For years my dad would occasionally send me a box of stuff – very random stuff, including photos, letters, notes, and mementos of various kinds.  The first of these boxes arrived in the early '90s, then intermittently over the next 15 years or so.  Usually my dad would call me to talk about the potential contents of the boxes; he wanted to be sure I'd be interested in them.  Nearly all of these boxes, along with their contents, I taped back up and stored after receiving them – simply because in previous homes we had no room to display the items.

Well, that's a tad different now that we have a house that seems big enough to house the entire state of Utah, with room left over for some Idahoans.  Also different, much more recently: I now have a 600 sq. ft. office, with lots of room.  As I was moving into my new office, I had occasion for the first time in many years to open and look into those boxes my dad had sent me over the years.  In one of those boxes, which dates back to the mid-90s, I found the four slide rules I had purchased as a youth.  I know for sure that they're mine, because the cases have my name, phone numbers, etc.  My dad must have had them squirreled away somewhere, together with a few other youthful possessions of mine, and sent them in that box.  I had opened that box, probably when I received it, then taped it up and left it unopened ever since.

How could I not know I had those slide rules? 

Most likely it was because I didn't start collecting slide rules until about 2002 – which would have been about 8 years after my dad sent that box.  Those slide rules, in the '90s, apparently did not make a big impression on me.  I have no memory of having received them.  I was totally shocked when I opened that box and saw them a few days ago!

All of those slide rules were common, ordinary types; none of them have any particular value.  They're all in great shape, even though I used them every day for years – I took good care of them.  They aren't valuable, but they were mine, and that counts for something in my book :)

Photo of the day...

Photo of the day...  This is the town of Sakrisoy, in the Lofoten Islands of Norway.  The photographer is Pawel Klarecki.  I'd sure love to see this in person!

Video of the day...

Video of the day...  Via my pistol-packing, hysterically laughing mama – who isn't sure it's safe for her to take credit for referring this to me :)

Excellent customer service alert!

Excellent customer service alert!  Last year we bought two products from Enclume for the fireplace in our house: a fireplace tool set and a log rack.  Both were beautifully made, sturdy, and attractive.  Furthermore, they were well-packed and easy to assemble.  So when the time came a month or so ago to buy accessories for my new office's wood stove, I bought the same two again.  This time, however, the fireplace tools were missing one of the six very special decorative button-head screws that hold it all together.

One stupid screw.  This would be a great test of customer service.

I called their number, easily found on documentation that came with the product.  A very pleasant woman picked up on the second ring.  Not “Press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish...” or “Press 1 for new orders, 2 for payments...”.  Nope.  A real person, and nice to boot.  She asked what I needed – and proceeded right then and there to work with me to identify the right part and take my shipping information.  She assured me that the part would go out in that day's mail (that was Monday).  Well, yesterday the part showed up as promised.  The right part.

Awesome customer service, Enclume!  Thank you, from a happy customer...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  I'm sitting in my “new” office, contemplating the enormity of the remaining work to do here :)  I'm going to do a bit of unpacking first, just so I can function in my office – the shredder needs to be plugged in, some paperwork needs to be found, etc.  That's the easy stuff.  Probably the next thing I'm going to do is to mount all the acoustic panels that are now just sitting on the floor, yet making my office sound great (I've got Aretha Franklin cranking with Respect right now).  Sometimes it sucks to think mathematically: I have a total of 14 panels to mount, each with four Z-clips, each of them with four screws – and I can't help but figure that that means 112 careful measurements, 112 holes, 112 plastic inserts, and 224 screws to drive.  Yikes!

One thing that's going to take me a while to get used to is walking outside to go to my office.  For over two years now, going to the office has meant a short walk upstairs.  Now it means getting my shoes on, walking 150' or so outside, and then up a long flight of stairs (the second floor is 14' above ground level) to my office.  It felt pretty weird making that walk this morning.  Debbie's having mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, she's got me and my mess out of the house.  On the other hand, now she can't just holler at me when she needs something :) 

First thing I did this morning was to refill the bird feeders.  Yesterday afternoon I watched a woodpecker open the suet feeder (which was nearly empty) and dump the remaining contents on the ground.  Between the woodpecker and the magpies, that remainder didn't last long :)  I filled that this morning with my patented mixture of lard and peanut butter; the woodpecker will be back soon.  Every other feeder was also empty, or nearly so.  The birds were hungry yesterday :)  I suspect many bird parents are feeding many bird babies...

And now I stagger off to work...