Rob and the California George Family

Things have been very busy for me since the cruise. The week after the cruise I was in Montreal visiting my current customer. This was followed by a week of preparing for another prototype review for that customer. This week, I am in the Toronto area at another office for the same customer. However, I hope to find more time for blogging again.

Since it has been a while, this post will cover a lot of ground.

Andrew has been playing with a couple of bands and starting to make some money here and there. He is a lead singer and plays guitar and bass guitar. His band has had a couple of out-of-town trips with the most recent to Arizona where they played at a bar and Utah where they played at a wedding. Celeste had a chance to see him play at a local bar/restaurant near home while I stayed home with the girls.

Bethany has started the SAT/ACT testing process. You can definitely tell a motivated teenager when they are willing to PAY to get up early on a weekend and take a grueling test! She is especially looking forward to getting out of school. The day after her last final, Beth is off to Norway to visit Ina and her family for three weeks!

Hayley has continued playing volleyball. She moved up a level and has real coaching instead of just me now. Her skills have definitely improved with her specialties being serving and setting. Hayley is about to graduate from 8th grade and become a freshman at the high school.

Hayley and I went to see the latest Shrek movie last weekend while Bethany was taking her SAT Subject Tests. It was fair, but not as good as the first one IMHO.

Hayley continues to be my last hope for playing my board games. Bethany is not into them at all, Andrew will play some when he is around, and Celeste will only play a few. Hayley has really enjoyed quite a few of them and occasionally I pull out an old classic. The most recent classic was Battle Masters. This is close to minatures, but still on a game board. Granted the game board is around 4' by 5' and with lots of cool plastic pieces to move around (knights, orcs, archers, beastmen, etc.). We pulled aside the dining room table to have room to play and kept it around for the weekend. Lots of fun pulling out the old stuff!

As I write this, I am in the Toronto area for work. I am outside of town without a car since my hotel is across the parking lot from my customer. I can see downtown Toronto in the distance from my hotel room, but no time on this trip to visit. I've posted some pictures from there. Also, when I checked in they were out of regular non-smoking rooms. Rather than moving me to smoking (Yuck!), they upgraded me to a suite with a Jacuzzi and Sauna. Despite all of my trips to Finland, I have never tried a sauna. I did try out the Jacuzzi, so maybe I have to give the Sauna a try tonight. Maybe. I posted some pictures of that too.

I did take a nice walk last night and found a local geocache. I was disappointed to see the the geocoins that were supposed to be there were not. However, when I read the log today I see that a new geocoin was dropped off. If the rain stays away, I may go get that one.

My hotel is very near Pearson International Airport, so I can see planes in the final approach to landing from my room. The hotel is soundproofed nicely, so it is cool to watch. This is obviously a very international destination. Here are some of the airlines that I can remember seeing from my hotel this week:

* Air Canada
* Jazz
* Continental
* United
* American
* Korean Air
* LOT (Polish Flag Air Carrier)
* AlItalia
* Lufthansa

OK, that is enough for now. I'll try to post shorter blurbs more often for a while!

Here is the Toronto skyline as seen from my hotel window:

This is the jacuzzi and sauna in my hotel room:

Here is the jacuzzi in my room when I prepared it for use:

I found a geocache in that small tree behind me:

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Blogging, Family, Games, Geocaching, GPS, Hayley, Ina, Movies, Rob, School, Travel, Volleyball, Work

I just noticed that it was Feb 10 of last year when Shoo convinced me to start this blog. Wow, that went fast. It's sometimes really easy to decide what to write about and sometimes takes me some time to come up with a topic. I can't do the simple few sentences every day that Tim does -- but I like the fact that I can count on daily updates from him. When I do write I find that I have a lot to say, but I try to keep it somewhat brief.

My main goal when I started this was to document some of our funny family stories. I have not been as successful as I would like at this, but I do have a few that I definitely want to keep track of.

I am concerned about the direction that blogger.com is going. They seem to be pushing a new direction of requiring a google account to connect to the blog. I have too many accounts and passwords now. I really don't want another. If they require that then I may have to find another option for blogging or maybe just stop. Anyone else on blogger.com have a similar concern?

I've enjoyed keeping up with everyone else through the blogs. The combination of humor, personal notes, and even political commentary/debate are all interesting. Thanks to all of you for sharing!

Labels: Blogging

In case anyone is still reading my blog, I am back. I had lost the user name and password and due to a heavy work schedule didn't have time to get them back. However, I tracked it down today.

Watch for more posts soon!

Labels: Blogging

The last couple of weeks have kept me busy. I've been trying to Blog at least a couple of times per week as a living diary. The main reason I Blog is to document some of the stories and events that I want to remember with my family. I have long wanted to document some older stories somewhere so that they are not forgotten. I see this Blog as a way to do that. Secondarily, it's a great way to keep in touch with friends that I don't get to talk to as often as I'd like.

Anyway, the last couple of weeks have been really busy making it difficult to do these updates. I might get caught up with a couple of updates today though.

Labels: Blogging

Reading Joe's posts about games got me thinking about my definition of a game. It is pretty simple. Following a set of rules is either a game or a chore. If I am having fun, then it is a game. If I am not having fun, then it is a chore.

Performing tasks that I get paid for at work is sometimes a game. Playing certain "games" is sometimes a chore.

P.S. I finally got un-lazy and added a link for Joe to the left. I check out daily Blogs through the links to the left EXCEPT for Joe's. I jump to his from other people's Blogs. I finally updated my links to get to this directly.

P.P.S. I also used this post to experiment with how to add a link to text with HTML. It's something that I have needed to learn and this was a good chance. So I followed rules and had fun with it -- today's post was a game!

Labels: Blogging, Games

I find it difficult to write short posts in this blog. I really admire the way the Timmer (see link to left) can throw a few short sentences out there every day and still give us all a glimpse into his life. I'll try to mix up short and long posts in the future just to prove to myself that I can do it.

Labels: Blogging

In the short time since Shoo got me started on Blogs, I have really gotten into reading them. I like the short tidbits that people post about their lives. It is a great diversion when I need a few minutes between one task and the next. I also like the random "Next Blog" feature to see what else is out there (although there is a lot of advertising and other junk to filter through).

Also, reading other Blogs reminds me of things on my own that I want to write about. For example, Tim wrote about seeing snow in Mountain View today. Similarly, we have snow on the local mountain (Saddleback) here in Orange County and some of the nearby hills. However, I have only seen show really get down to the hills and make a pretty backdrop to South Orange County. That was around 1990. It hasn't been like that since -- only close (like now). I remember a story that my mom told me about snow in Hollywood when she was a little girl. Although it has been really, really cold here before, it has not snowed in my lifetime to my knowledge.

Also, Bob wrote about some memories from childhood. I don't know why, but it reminded me of a story from 3rd grade. I was new to Costa Mesa at the time and still meeting friends (Shoo being one of them that I met then and have known ever since -- Lee was more like 4th grade; but I digress). I lived at one end of the housing tract, my elementary school was in the middle, and one of my friends lived at the far end from my house. One day after school, he convinced me to walk home with him. It was probably a 1/2 hour walk. I called home from there. Boy were my parents surprised!

As a parent today, there is no way that my 8 year old would be out walking the neighborhood without a parent around. Similarly, if I found out that they went somewhere on their own I would go get them immediately. However, (not to get into a "good old days" discussion) my parents told me to walk home. Alone. That was probably the 2nd longest walk of my pre-Boy Scout days. What made it worse was knowing that I was in trouble when I got home. I don't remember the punishment, but I do remember that walk!

Thanks, Tim and Bob, for today's triggers for my own memories.

Labels: Blogging, Family

Rob and the California George Family
This is a test to see what the BlogThis! function does. I know a lot of people that work with computers and therefore don't want to "play" with them at home. I love to play with my computer in addition to working with it. I see things like "BlogThis!" as a new gadget to try and see what happens.

[Edited after initial post] ... and now I know. :-)

Labels: Blogging

Shoo,
Per your request, I have thrown my hat in the blog ring. This is my first post and I am anxious to say that I have been published on the internet, so this is it for now.

Rob

Labels: Blogging