Do I Know You?

Tomorrow morning, Daughter is leaving with a group from her high school for a 9-day trip - they'll be spending a week in London! Son has been on his own for three years. Husband and I will be sans kids for the first time in many years - how will we know what to talk about?

Everyone will be here tonight for dinner - then Dear Daughter has to pack, and we need to be on the road at 4:30 a.m. in the morning. I-5 has been under construction for the past month, and all the northbound lanes are closed from L Street to Richards Blvd. That means we have to detour off the freeway through downtown and pick it up again north of the roadwork - in other words, it will take longer to get to the airport.

Along the lines of knowing myself - I took part in an exercise last week called Library Day in the Life. A couple dozen librarians volunteered to micro-blog their work days last week, in response to a question from someone who was thinking about going to library school. It was an eye-opener for me. I discovered I don't really do very much of what I was trained to do in library school, forcing me to re-think why I allowed my career to get so side-tracked. I'll be thinking of ways to include more professional projects in my career with Sacramento Public.

The Golden State of the Golden State

It's been a dry winter, with only two thirds of the rainfall considered "normal." Thus, much of the grass has already dried to its late-summer golden hue, including the grass here on the levee where I walk. The city has sent crews to mow it to the ground as a precaution against accidental fire, but it is still like tinder.

The number of burning fires is now reduced to just under 300 from over 1,000 a couple of weeks ago, and, with the advent of the delta breeze a few days ago, the air is now clearer, the sky is blue again, and the sun doesn't have that reddish cast it had during the worst of the smoke.

DSL Honeymoon

It doesn't take long for the honeymoon to be over. My brand new wireless broadband connection has most inconveniently been dropping out for a while and then reconnecting. But its newest trick is to show that there is a strong signal, but none of the browsers will connect to the Internet. I finally called AT&T tech support tonight and the technician showed me how to select a different channel and power setting. So far, everything's working, and I also changed the name of the network from the default to a word that means "lightning" - only somewhat facetiously, since my DSL connection isn't as fast as the wireless cable signal we'd been "borrowing".

Marching On!

Today, for the first time in the 14-year history of Pocket parades, I went down to watch it. Having grown up in Kailua, whose annual parade is both the oldest and the biggest on Oahu, I was afraid of being disappointed. I was pleasantly surprised to see the ingenuity and community support behind this little parade.

An antique police car led off, followed by the grand marshalls and entries. Heather Fargo, our current mayor, drove by in a little yellow smart car; right behind her, challenger Kevin Johnson waved from the back of a big, bad-a** low rider. Robbie waters tossed candy from the top of a big red fire truck, and Don Nottoli, our city councilman, waved from his car. Community groups followed: Elks, gymnastics, martial arts, cub scouts, boy scouts, girl scouts, and several local businesses.

The police wrapped up the parade with three mounted units. It was 45 minutes of fun, laughing, plenty of tossed candy, and the weather was perfect, to boot! If I could make one improvement, it would be to have more marching bands and patriotic music.

Permitted!

Yesterday, L and I went to the DMV - she to apply for a Learner's Permit, and I to renew my driver's license. She tries so hard to avoid being photographed, but I still managed to get a candid of her absolute joy at passing the written test and walking out with the papers entitling her to learn how to drive! As if I don't already have enough gray hair.

She can't actuallly start practicing until she's had her first behnd-the-wheel session at driving school, required in California of all young would-be drivers.

So - now we schedule the six hours of behind-the-wheel training at with the driving school and start logging the 50 hours of practice (10 at night) she will need to complete before she can apply for her license.

Sent from my Blackjack

So, it took me a week or so to figure out how to send a photo from the Blackjack, because it insisted on using a phone number instead of an e-mail address. Alternatively, it would open a web browser and try to send it from my Yahoo! e-mail address - and I didn't want to pay for the data usage. I've got an unlimited messaging add-on to my phone plan, and should be able to send multimedia messages (i.e. photos) for no additional charge.

Not sure if I needed to do this, but I uninstalled all my e-mail connections, and finally got a menu prompt that allowed an e-mail address in the "to:" field.

This little orchid lives in my kitchen window, and blooms twice a year. It seems to like it there, because it gets a little sun, and lots of humidity from the kitchen appliances. And it makes me happy.