Checking In

I realize I have been pretty quiet of late. No particular reason, I just haven't written here.

I have finished installing the cabinets and appliances in the kitchen.  This shot misses the oven, of course, but it is kind of apart from everything else.

The light from the window washes out everything in that vicinity, but this still features the old sink.  The new sink came in a couple of days ago.  Installing it is going to be a bit of a challenge because I will have to completely redo all the drains under the sink.  Oh well - that's fairly small potatoes compared to the other fun I've had in this project.

Today I am planning to start on the crown molding.  It sounds like Home Depot has flushed my design from their system (really?!?) so I have no design to work from.  I will ad lib it to the best of my ability.

Other than that, retired life is great!

Snow ... and snakes?

As Charlie and I started out on our walk this morning we noticed a dead snake in the road - looked like it had been run over.  It was a bull snake, about 3 feet long.  None of this is all that extraordinary, except the snake was not there yesterday, and the temperature has not been above 40° since then.  So what was this snake doing out on the road at that temperature?  I suppose I will never know.

We ended up getting about 6" of snow, which is not bad for mid-May.  It looks like the low last night was 32° last night, and it was 34° when we started our walk.  We got a lot of plants covered up in the yard yesterday, because the forecast low for tonight is 30°.

I have been reacquainting myself with FFTW this morning because there is something I want to try for a program I am working on.  After four months of not programming my skills have lost just a little bit of their edge, but it is fun to discover that there is still a brain in there.  However, at this point I had better get back to working on putting in cabinets.

SNOW!!

Last night they were forecasting up to half an inch of rain, then another inch of rain today, turning to snow late tonight.  So this was not what I expected to see when I got up this morning:

The forecast still says less than an inch for the rest of the day, but right now the snow is falling heavy and fast.  There are about 5 inches of snow right now, and at this rate we should be getting an inch every half hour or so.  The high yesterday was 77°, it has not gotten above 33° so far today.

I am extremely happy with the weather, but I will admit to feeling a little sad for the ash trees.  They lost all their leaves when it got down to 19° two weeks ago, and had just started sending out new leaves.  I don't know if this cold will kill those leaves, since the forecast low over the next couple of days is about 29°.

I took Charlie out for about two miles this morning.  I let him off-leash because there was almost no one around, and he had great fun bounding through the snow.

Water

I typically walk Charlie in an open area ("greenbelt", in the local vernacular) close to the house.  There is a small stream that runs through it.  There is one stream crossing in particular where they have had problems in recent years with the water running across the trail.  They have tried three different configurations now to prevent that.  The newest configuration had its first test yesterday when it rained steadily for about 5 hours.  It failed miserably.  I know, I know, I should have taken a picture.  They built a dyke about 3 feet tall to channel the water to where it is supposed to go under the sidewalk.  The dyke was breached in four places this morning.  I think when they propose solutions they just can't picture the volume of water that goes down there during a storm.  Much lower down we crossed again.  They recently reconfigured that crossing by constricting the tubes that flow under the sidewalk (?!?), but at least the sidewalk is about four feet higher than the creek bed.  You can see marks where the water was flowing at least six feet deep there.  Someday I need to go out while it is raining and take pictures.

I put in two more cabinets yesterday.  Only two more to go on that wall, then there are only two on the wall above the sink.  Tee hee!  Then I have to attack the lower cabinets.

Visible Progress

Well, I am finally starting to make visible progress on the kitchen:

Since we are seeing it straight-on it is not obvious what the differences in depths are.  The cabinet over the refrigerator is basically as deep as the refrigerator.  Putting it up was an interesting exercise.  The two right-most cabinets are slightly out of horizontal, so I am going to have to move them a little this morning.  After looking at the picture I realized that the cabinet with its back to us (which is the next one to go up) is blocking the bottom cabinet that I have put in to the left of the range.  Once I take out the cabinets on the right I can put in the base cabinet and the new cook top, so I am excited about that.

After straightening the two cabinets, though, I am going to have to put in the microwave.  That ought to be interesting.  I am actually going to open up the wall, because the only stud for mounting it is right in the middle of the microwave, which precludes venting it back through the wall.  So I am going to build a frame of 2x4's so that the vent can go through and I will have multiple "studs" for mounting.  The new microwave only weighs about 80 pounds, so I am going to need some help getting it into place.  I have been building supports for the cabinets as I go along, and I think I will do one for the microwave as well.

It has been a week, but I should also comment on the snow.  After ridiculously warm weather for weeks we got 8 inches of snow last Friday night, then it snowed all day Saturday adding another three inches of snow.  So below is the view out the north window of the house Sunday morning:

 Eleven hours later I took about the same shot:

Snow doesn't last too long in the Spring.  Oh well.  The temperature got down to 19°F, which is pretty cold for Spring.  Most of the trees lost all of their leaves to the cold, but I am pretty sure they will grow a new set of leaves.  I haven't checked to see if any peaches survived.  The older tree had set fruit, so I guess there is a small chance it survived.

Sanding Drywall Compound

Well, I finished putting up drywall, taping, and the first coat of mud where the soffits were.  However, the next step was to sand.  I hate sanding drywall.  The dust gets everywhere!  I cough and gasp, even if I am wearing a mask.  But then...

I read about a sander with a vacuum attachment!  What a great idea!  As you can see, it has pretty good suction (I bought a new shop vacuum while I was at it).  Sanding is a little difficult because it sticks to the wall so hard, but there is no dust!  Even the hand on the sander has no dust.  I was sanding a spot right above my head, and breathed in no dust.  What a marvelous invention!

General Conference - More Thoughts

One of the unanticipated blessings of driving to and from northern Idaho was the amount of time I got to listen to General Conference.  I basically got to listen to the whole conference four times.

One of the talks that has caused a lot of reflection is President Nelson's talk about the Savior.  He makes the interesting observation that it is "doctrinally incomplete" to refer to "the Atonement," instead of "the Atonement of Jesus Christ."  Since we so commonly do that in talks and lessons I really had to think about this.  I finally realized that his point is that the power comes from Jesus Christ, not the atonement itself.  So I am working on correcting my phraseology.

Well, I need to go mail in my taxes... What?  No, this isn't last-minute.  Last-minute is 11:59 tonight.  Anyway, then back to work on the kitchen.  I started putting up drywall over the old soffit areas, but at some point realized that I had forgotten to replace the insulation there, so it is going to have to be undone.  Sigh.

Travels

I have spent the last week at my mother's house.  She lives in northern Idaho and I decided to drive up here - a 16 hour trip.  She is actually getting ready to move to Salt lake, which is only about an 8 hour trip for me, but I needed to complete doing her income taxes, so I came here.

We have had a lot of fun visiting, perhaps spending more time on that than on other work.  But I have helped her pack a few things, and I did finish her taxes.

General Conference

We have just finished listening to General Conference.  During the sessions I have repeatedly felt the witness of the Holy Ghost that this is the work of God, and those to whom we have been listening are called by him to lead his work.  As usual I have retained almost nothing of the talks.  I will not begin to remember them until I have listened to them a number of times.

I remember my father setting up the stereo so he could record the conference talks on a cassette tape recorder when they were rebroadcast on KSL at midnight the day after the conference.  We lived in Omaha Nebraska, and typically only got one session of conference on TV, but at night we could pick up KSL radio, so Dad recorded the talks then.

Now anyone in the world can watch General Conference on the internet, and the talks are available for download almost as soon as the sessions end (for some reason the last three talks from Sunday afternoon are still not available - but they will be by tomorrow).  It is trivial to download those talks and listen to them on my phone or in my car.  What a blessing this is in my life, and how grateful I am for this technology which allows this luxury.

I watched one brother turning away from the pulpit at the end of his talk, and wondered what he was feeling.  He was a member of the presidency of the Seventy, so he will speak multiple times in General Conference, but for some of those speakers it is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  The transcript of the talks must be submitted in advance for the translators to work on, so I guess they don't have to worry that they forgot something they meant to say (that's what I am usually thinking when I finish a talk).

My favorite talk at this point - one I did remember some, and have already listened to again - was Joaquin E. Costa, who spoke about what he had learned about listening to the missionaries.  He had a bright smile on his face during almost his entire talk, and although he must be a year or two older than me, looks quite young.  His description of how he learned about the gospel and arrived at baptism is very powerful.

I am looking forward to listening to these talks again and again.  I don't spend as much time in the car as I used to, so I am going to need to come up with another way of listening to them to supplement the car.  Maybe I can listen while I walk Charlie - he doesn't care much about conversing with me.  But I have a renewed commitment to pay more attention to my personal religious observances, especially with reading the Book of Mormon, being considerate of others, and keeping the Sabbath day holy.

I am grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ, for the organization of the church, and for listening to the testimonies of others.  I have a strong testimony of the truthfulness of this work, based on repeated impressions and feelings from the Holy Ghost.  I feel great hope for the future as I consider God's plan for us.  I share these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Spring Break / Spring a Leak

Delkys has Spring Break this week, so I have been neglecting some other activities in favor of doing things with her.  However, I have continued working on the kitchen as well.

I have now relocated everything out of the soffits except for one wire - the 240V line to the current range.  The cable construction looks rather complicated, so I am not sure about cutting and splicing it like I have with the other electrical lines.  Also, I am going to run a new line for the new cook top anyway.  Since I have to open up the wall for the latter, I will at the same time move the plug for the range up, so then I will have enough slack in the wire to move it as well.  Clever, huh?

In the interest of ongoing education I tried an experiment today.  Did you know that if you touch a live 110V line to a water pipe that before the circuit breaker can trip it will burn a hole in the water line?  I may not have conducted the experiment on purpose, but the results were rather spectacular - a shower of sparks followed by darkness and a shower of water.  It was a dead enough short that it tripped the main breaker for the house.  Very impressive.  Since both water lines were right together I couldn't figure out how to get a pipe cutter in there, so I thought I was going to have to use a hack saw and risk cutting both lines in order to repair the pipe.  However, just before I started cutting I realized that the reciprocating tool (or whatever they call that multi-purpose cutter) would cut it very accurately, so I was able to repair it fairly quickly.  Whew!

Pipe Fittings and Prophets

So I got all the plumbing in the one side of the kitchen relocated up into the floor.  I still have to get the electrical out of there, which may be another adventure.

While making a connection with the pipe I had a previous connection just fall apart in my hand.  Talk about your basic cold solder joint!  That made me extremely nervous, so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised that about 20 minutes after turning on the water another joint started to leak.  Got that fixed, then discovered the toilet leaked when it was flushed.  After a while I realized that was an old problem, not anything I had caused.  A few strange parts from Home Depot got that stopped.  Sheesh.  I may not go into plumbing as a second career.

The new cook top I ordered came in today.  It is a marvelous thing.  It was not clear to me from the installation instructions whether it needs a 120V or 240V supply.  I finally found someone who could tell me, it must be a 240V supply.  No problem.  That just means that I need to add a new subpanel for the house.

Yesterday during the training meeting in the temple the temple president talked about obeying the prophets.  He commented how we feel like we would be able to do some great thing if they asked us, but usually what is required is a few very simple things repeated over and over, like attending church, reading the scriptures, having personal prayers, etc.  I suddenly had an insight that had never occurred to me before.  Doing some great thing sounds wonderful, because all it requires is doing something.  What the prophets are requesting from us is not really about what we do, but about what we become as a consequence of doing it.  So the stakes are much higher on the simple repeated actions than they are on the one big task.

Of Kids and Grandkids

Carter and Levi drove over from Utah yesterday.  Actually, since Carter is only 3 he let his parents drive, so Daniel and Ashley are here as well.  Daniel has been helping me on the kitchen this morning - that has been really nice.

So, in our last adventure I had gotten the cold water pipes reinstalled.  Wrong.  Well, it turns out I had installed them in the wrong position.  So I spent all of yesterday figuring out how to remove them and reinstall them.  And yes, now I am working on the hot water pipes.  Fun, fun, fun.

I realized I was having troubles starting this morning.  I would rather be holding Levi than working.  It suddenly became clear to me that I just don't have enough grandchild time.  It's fun to talk to them on the phone, I love the pictures, but there is nothing like having them here in person.  Oh well - Back to work.

Fire the Bird!

I got most of the water pipes done yesterday.  I think I can finish today before going back to the temple.  However, I had one bad experience related to this.

As I was working I decided I wanted to listen to Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony, so of course I just turned on YouTube and played it there.  Well, YouTube now apparently auto-plays if you don't kill it, so it went on to the second movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony - not bad at all! From there they went into Scheherazade.  A little Rimsky-Korsikov is good for the soul.  And then... They started playing Stravinsky's Firebird.  Well, I was trying to finish, and then clean up, and I didn't want to take time out to go to the computer, and it was going to have to end soon, anyway.  Right?  I just discovered a new definition of eternity: Anything by Stravinsky.  AAUURRGGHH!!  It never did finish, and so when I was done cleaning up I finally got a moment to go kill the silly browser!

One experience like that is almost enough to make me think I will just go back to 70's and 80's popular music.  What's that you say?  Tony Orlando and Dawn?  Right!  Stick with classical.

Pie Day

I was in the grocery store the other day listening to them advertise special prices on pies for Pi Day, and it just really seemed to take the fun out of a nerd holiday.  Oh well.

Yesterday I bought all the parts necessary to reroute the water lines in the old soffit space.  Of course there was a little additional destruction to do, but that is all over.  I cut the two water lines leading into the soffit, and capped them, so I can leave the water on while I redo all the piping in there.  The final step will be to reconnect everything.  I'm hoping to finish that today, then I will just need to reroute the drains and the electrical.  In the area that runs parallel to the floor joists the electrical will be very easy - just a matter of lifting the lines higher.  The drains and electrical that run perpendicular to the joists will be another matter.  I am not entirely sure how I will reroute that drain.  I'm sure the inspiration will come to me.  Hopefully it comes before I try anything stupid.

A little bit of cold

It was 28° when Charlie and I left to walk this morning.  It is nice to see sub-freezing, even if just barely sub-freezing.  Doesn't look like the forecast is giving me much hope, either.  One low of 32° in the next couple of days, then all above freezing for the next week and a half.  With rain forecast for a week from today.  I know that a forecast a week out is pretty meaningless, but it is disappointing to see rain instead of snow in March.

That reminds me of when we moved to Colorado.  Delkys and I were on a house-hunting trip about this time of the month, and it got up to 90° one day.  We were coming from Southern California, where Spring was a distant memory, so I didn't think much about it.  My first day of work was the 20th or thereabouts.  As I sat in orientation I looked out the window at the big fluffy flakes of snow falling, and thought "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more."  Then I enjoyed snow for the novelty of it, now I'm addicted to cold and snow.  What a difference 20 years can make.

Temple Day

Yesterday's work in the temple reinforced something that I have observed before - time in the temple can have a great softening effect on me.  The temple provides a holy atmosphere, where I feel closer to the presence of God.  The ordinances emphasize the role of the Savior in our salvation, and bind us to him through holy covenants.  And the people in the temple, both workers and patrons, are among the best that you can hope to meet anywhere.  So I came home last night with a great feeling of peace and joy, and that has persisted this morning.  I am grateful for the temple, and for being able to work and attend there.

Agency

We widely recognize the truth sung in the hymn, "God will force no man to heaven."  But I have heard people wonder (and I have wondered myself) why the Lord intervened so mightily in the cases of Saul of Tarsus and Alma the Younger.  He may not have forced them to heaven, but he certainly slapped them back from their hell-bent behavior.  Why those two, and not so many others?

This morning something in Mosiah 27:13 struck me differently than it ever has before:

For the Lord hath said: This is my church, and I will establish it, and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgressions of my people. (Italics mine)

It occurred to me in that context that Alma may have been so effective in his persecution of the church members that he may have been able to completely destroy the church.  Since God had promised that the destruction of the church could only come from within it was necessary to stop this external threat.  In this connection the end of Verse 16 makes even more sense:

...seek to destroy the church no more, ... and this even if thou wilt of thyself be cast off.

It sounds to me like the heavenly intervention was not primarily for Alma's benefit, but for the benefit of the Church.

In Saul's case there it seems pretty safe to conclude that the Lord's visit was inspired by a desire to save Saul, since the Lord immediately tells him what he should be doing.  Also, there is no evidence that Alma immediately recognized the Lord, but Saul did as soon as the Lord spoke to him.  But I also feel that Saul's persecutions may have been organized well enough that he could have destroyed the church from without.

You Can't Have Too Many Walks

This morning I was in kind of a rotten mood, so I decided we would walk farther than usual to see if that would help me shake it.  So we walked for about an hour and a half (somewhere over 5 miles).  It didn't help shake the mood, but I certainly did feel like I had walked some.

After a shower and breakfast I sat down to work on some code I am building to support my online class.  I left my shoes off because for some reason all of my shoes have started pinching my little toe.  Just a couple of minutes ago I decided I had better get going on construction (well, technically destruction), so I started to put my shoes on.  Charlie immediately jumped out of his bed and started getting excited for the upcoming walk.  A veterinarian told me that an unconstrained boxer would walk something like 80 miles per day, so I guess from Charlie's point of view it makes sense, but I told him he was dreaming.

Incidentally, working on the code got rid of the funk.  Who knew?

The Future

Last night I found the phone number for some friends we haven't talked to in a long time.  I talked for a while, then handed the phone to Delkys.  Then I was going to go sit down and read my scriptures, but I realized Delkys was talking on my scriptures.  The future is weird.

It snowed for about three minutes this morning.  Although it was falling pretty hard, that wasn't enough even to cover the ground.  Still, it was pretty, and certainly better than no snow at all.

Windy

Normally there is very little wind around my house, but it seems like the last few weeks there has been more than usual.  This morning when we started out on our walk it was about 34° with a good stiff breeze blowing.  I was starting to think about cutting the walk short - I realized I really don't enjoy walking with the wind when it is cold.  However, I persevered.

Charlie stopped to roll in something this morning in the same place he did a couple of days ago, but today I saw what he was rolling on.  It was a little garter snake.  It must have come out on one of our warm days and then frozen to death at night.  Curiously I felt no desire to roll on it.

I got the heating duct all connected up where the stove is going to go.  Today I resume removing the soffit.

Warning Messages

So, I bought these little candles in a jar from Walmart - they were 10¢ each on the clearance rack, and I like candles.  I don't know if you have ever paid attention to the warnings on these little beasties, but I include a shot of the bottom of the jar for your reading pleasure.

You can see the large warning at the top, but the fine print also contains other warnings.  If you look carefully about three lines under the barcode, you can see a warning about not allowing them to burn for more than 3 hours.  I'd seen that before and never thought about it much, but consider the second picture below, including the one I took the picture of above, plus the (cleaned up) jar from one I let burn for more than three hours.  I'm a believer!

Whiling Away The Hours

All I have gotten done on the kitchen is getting the frame for the oven built.  It is amazing how long it can take me to get things done.  Of course, since I figured out the easiest way to handle the power would be just to re-run the existing line I won't be able to power up the oven until we are done with the old one.  Oh well.  The task for today is to rerun the heating duct that now has to go around where the oven is.

As we were walking this morning Charlie found something he wanted to roll in.  I never want to know what it is.  Except that he basically just laid down, and when I got to the end of the leash he just stayed laying rather passively as I dragged him onto the sidewalk and then along the sidewalk.  Sometimes I really wonder what is going on in that little brain of his.  He got up before we had gone too much farther.

And... I just looked out the window to notice big, fluffy snow flakes coming down.  I don't know if they will amount to anything, but it is nice to watch them fall.  It's still 34° out there, so it is either going to have to snow harder or the temperature will need to drop more for anything to accumulate.  Oh - as if on command, it is snowing harder.

More Snow

So this is what the back looks like this morning:

 And incidentally, this is what the thermometer looked like this morning:

So overall, life is good!

Also, our new double oven was delivered this morning.  I have been working on getting the space prepared for it, but I did not make it, so it is sitting in the middle of where the wall used to be.

SNOW!!

I suppose that anybody who reads this already knows that I am something of a fan of snow.  However, this winter we have had little snow.  This morning when I got up to leave for the temple I was very excited to discover a skiff of snow on the ground.  It was little enough, but after so long with no snow I was pretty excited.

When I came out of the temple it was still snowing lightly, and although there was still no accumulation, I was glad it was at least still falling.  However, in the last half hour or so the snow started falling much harder, and look what has happened:

OK, it still does not count as one of the greatest blizzards ever, but there is over half an inch of snow out there!  I am happy.

Alright, back to destroying the kitchen.

Cut and Paste

I have worked my morning shift at the temple, now I get to try to do a little kitchen work before the afternoon shift.  However, I am not doing battle with the soffit today.  Since we have ordered the oven I know exactly the dimensions I need, so it is time to prepare its final resting pace, so to speak.  The opening "may be" a little slim, so I "may" have to trim some 2x4's to make enough room.  Sigh.  Well, at least I know its not a load bearing wall, since it is right next to the load bearing wall I just replaced.

This is a heading

As Charlie and I were out walking this morning we got into a neighborhood we have never traversed before, and I was trying to find a trail back into the greenbelt.  I got thinking about what direction I was actually going, and realized that with the sun up I could figure it out easily enough.  I had to think a couple of seconds because ... hmm ... I was going approximately 180° different than what I thought.  Still, that is rather comforting.  No matter how confused I think I am about my heading, I am actually never more than 180° off.

So, traveling is bad for my adherence to most habits.  I only did my regular scripture study twice, only wrote here once, and a few other things suffered.  But I got to see my mother and grandkids (oh, and children), so that was good.

One classic moment was when I tried to adjust a blind, and the whole thing came crashing down.  My 4-year old grandson looked rather shocked and said "Gramps, you shouldn't do that!"  Of course, he's the same one that tried to convince his parents he should come home with us.  I thought we had explained to him that, tempting as that was, it was not realistic.  However, when we actually got in the car and backed out of the driveway he dissolved into tears.

On the drive home last night we encountered one patch of ice on the freeway.  It was only 10 or 15 feet long, but it was on a gentle curve, and that whole thing about 0 centripetal force means you go in a straight line tangential to the circle kicked in, and for just a moment it was alarming.  Physics is nice, but every now and then it can be a bother.

Well, back home, and back to the old grind.  I have to admit that I am not disappointed that the old grind does not include work.

Some Better News

I have been up in Northern Idaho visiting my mother the last few days.  Last Saturday she went in for an MRI to help the doctor assess the progress of her Parkinson's disease.  After reviewing the MRI the doctor said that she does not have Parkinson's, only some other less serious problem.  It will be possibly two weeks before he will have time to explain things fully to her, but apparently he is not gravely concerned.  So overall this is good news.

Being away from home and removed from such routine as I had developed has caused me to be even less productive than normal.  I have gotten a few things done here, but mostly I have enjoyed talking with my Mom.  It is not uncommon to discover that we have spent two or three hours just reminiscing.

Egging on the Dog

I have to admit that summer is beautiful.  There, I said it.  However, this is February, and it is not supposed to be summer out there!  I think it was 75° as I was coming back from errands.  Wonderful.

Just as Charlie and I were finishing our walk this morning someone called on the phone, so I ended up setting his leash down on the front porch as I opened the door.  Just now I got back from running several errands, noticed the leash, and picked it up to put it away.  Of course, as soon as I opened the door there was Charlie, who was desperate anyway after having been abandoned at home for 2 whole hours.  When he saw the leash in my hand he immediately knew I was going to walk him again, so he went completely crazy.  The message that I just put the leash away in the closet was not received as clearly as the message about us walking again.

While I was out I happened to buy three Cadbury Eggs (local grocery store always has them "buy two, get one free" this time of year).  I tried to find some that did not have goo leaking out of the wrapping, but was unsuccessful.  I said something to the cashier about it, and he said it was the elevation here that causes them to leak.  I had never thought of that.  Oh well.  Makes sense.  Oh, and as far as the eggs themselves, don't worry - I'm buying them for ... umm, ... For a science experiment!  Yeah, that's it, a science experiment.

How Did I Ever...

Of course, the continuation for the title is "...find time to work?"  It's a cliche, but I really don't know where I found the time to spend 9 or 10 hours at work each day.

Yesterday and today are pretty much consumed by grading exams for my class, so the cabinets haven't progressed at all.  I am substituting at the temple this evening, and tomorrow I fly up to see my mother.

Let me be clear, however, I am not complaining.  I love being retired!

Slight Soffit Hope

Well, after ripping off about half the soffit on the side where I wanted to put the cabinet there is a slight improvement - the drain from the bathroom actually does not extend down into the soffit.  That is at least one thing I don't have to worry about.

I took down all the upper cabinets in the kitchen yesterday as preparation for tearing out the soffit.  It is amazing how much stuff was in some of those cabinets.  My body is telling me that I could have eased into this exercise a little more gently.

The interesting part about taking down the cabinets is that after removing the screws they still wouldn't budge - every single one was held to the wall by the paint behind it.  In general that meant I really had to pry them off the wall, but the largest one (the corner cabinet) came loose all at once and crashed down onto the counter top.  That was exciting.

Great Soffitin' Succotash

Sorry, Charlie - we only walked 54 minutes this morning.

Yesterday I decided to install the first cabinet in the kitchen.  It is kind of off to one side by itself, so I figured it would be pretty straight-forward.  Right.

We decided we wanted to get rid of the soffit so that our cabinets could go up to the ceiling.  When we were ordering the cabinets I even cut into one part of the soffit to make sure there was nothing inside.

As it turns out, there are soffits on two sides of the kitchen.  The one I cut into had nothing in it.  However, I am installing the cabinet on the other wall.  Maybe a picture is worth a few words:

That is looking straight up from where I cut out a section of the soffit covering.  Yes - lots of electrical wires, water pipes, and ... Wait, what is that 1.5" PVC pipe?  I have no idea.  To the left of the picture you can see the joist for the ceiling - it would have taken the builders a lot of work to run everything 6" higher so it was within the joists instead of the soffit, but Noooo!  Also, if we could pivot and look behind where this picture is taken we would see the drain from the upstairs bathroom which also extends down into the soffit.  So this job went from a couple of hours of destruction to days of rerouting things.

Well, it's not like I don't have the time...

New Week, New Walk

Delkys is not feeling well, so she stayed home from school, and I slept in so I got a really late start.  Charlie and I walked for an hour and a half because we went quite a ways from home and, while not lost, didn't know exactly where we were.  When we got back into an area we knew we discovered the trail was closed for work on a bridge, so we had to detour onto some smaller trails that turned out to be very muddy.  It was 60° and I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, but it still got rather hot.

Primary was wonderful yesterday.  The kids are so enthusiastic, and we have a lot of fun.  Yesterday we were talking about the restored gospel, and we had a discussion about what it means to restore something.  I had them pass around an interesting crystal decoration we have, and then told one of the kids to hide it behind his back.  When the others wanted their turn to see it I explained it was lost, and needed to be restored.  Maybe a little corny, but I figure they'll remember what the word means.

Not All Time Is My Own

Friday illustrated another truth about retired life - sometimes being retired means being available for things that others simply cannot do.  A friend needed someone to provide transportation to and from the hospital for some "minor" surgery.  So most of Friday was spent at the hospital.  Hopefully I can always remember to make myself available to help.

My mother also called to tell me she has Parkinson's disease.  After accompanying my father on his way down the Parkinson's trail she knows what she is in for, but is trying to keep herself on an even keel anyway.  She is a remarkable example of a good person.  She will have to make a number of decisions in a fairly short time, which is not her style, but no matter what she chooses I know she will do well.

Freezing Rain

It is not very common in Denver to get freezing rain, but we got some last night.  When I went out to walk Charlie I quickly realized it was very slippery.  I had my vibram-soled boots on, but before I made it two houses down the street I slipped and fell.  Ouch.  So we walked our full hour, but what Charlie noticed was that we didn't go as far as normal because I was walking on the grass or whatever next to the sidewalk the whole way.  He has 4-wheel drive, so he really does not understand the limitations under which I labor.

Being in the temple yesterday was wonderful.  There are plenty of things to remind me how human and fallible I am, but I also enjoy the opportunity to give service.  At one point I was talking with a young couple who were there, and he told me that I taught him in Primary many years ago - for three weeks before the ward was divided.  I was amazed that he would remember.

I have just had two phone calls from people needing help at odd times, and it is really wonderful to be able to say "Sure, I can do that!"  Being retired is a really good thing.

Temple Day

For quite a while I have officiated at the 6:30 a.m. session at the temple on the first Wednesday of the month.  This month I asked the coordinator if I could stay and work the entire shift.  Once he learned about my employment status he asked if I could work every Wednesday morning, which was what I was planning anyway.  For the moment I am not working the second shift on Wednesday so that I can come home and do a little during the day, but even that might change.

Yesterday I undid what I had done the previous day in connecting the island cabinets together because I realized I didn't like the way I had done it.  I made some improvements to my technique, and now the island is all joined together in one giant block of cabinets.  Still need to attach it to the floor, but first I need to decide exactly where it is going to be located.

I got a USB disk enclosure yesterday so I was able to remove the hard drive from my (water damaged) computer, but for some reason I can't get it to mount correctly, so I still haven't recovered any data from the drive.  I will work on that more as I get time.

Walked Out

Charlie and I walked just barely further than usual this morning, and I am completely worn out.  Not sure why the 10 extra minutes made such a difference, but it did.

I finally got something done on the kitchen yesterday.  Not much, mind you, but something.  Some time ago I took out the old island in the kitchen and then set the new cabinets in place.  Well, yesterday I started connecting the cabinets to each other.  I still have to figure out how to connect them to the floor, and there used to be an outlet in the side of the island, and I am trying to put that in the new island.  Oh well - after doing so much nothing on it I am glad I got something done.

New Week, New Computer

A couple of people asked me if I was having troubles adjusting to retired life.  The short answer is "No", the long answer is "No".  I feel like this is what I should have been doing all along.

In preparation for my retirement I poured a glass full of water on my computer.  It is amazing how quickly and how completely that can kill a computer.  I had been getting by with an old computer that I had not yet discarded, but it turns out that it was not able to run some applications that I am used to using.  So I went out and bought a new one this morning.  So much for living on a budget!

The newer computer has a much higher-resolution screen than any of my previous computers, so everything looks really tiny.  However, I like having more pixels, so I shan't complain much.

Well, let's see if I can get some work done on the kitchen.

Sleeping In

Last night I stayed up late helping Delkys with some grading, so I did not get up when she did this morning (I know - she still had to).  So I slept until 9:30.  I probably would have slept longer except the phone rang.

Since I got such a late start I only walked Charlie for about 40 minutes.  I don't know how finely he is calibrated, but he was still very antsy after we got home.  Can he really tell it was a short walk today?

I worked a little on the clock-timing application yesterday, but Delkys asked me to go to her class to help with a minor emergency, and I ended up spending the rest of the day there.

I have realized that I do not miss work in the least.  I still feel pressed for time, and I am trying to analyze why I feel that, but I definitely like this new life-style.

Routine

After nearly a week of retirement I am thinking about the (more or less) routine I have developed.  I get up, walk the dog for an hour, shower, eat breakfast (during which time I also do my scripture study) and then move on to whatever needs to be done.  Yesterday that was school work and programming, although I spent about an hour working on the kitchen.  I also graded some papers for Delkys and took my computer to a repair shop to see if they can revive it from the water damage it suffered.

However, the bottom line on that is that I am not in vacation mode.  For me vacation means sitting and reading books endlessly.  As it stands now I may read a little in the evening before going to sleep, but that's it.  Sigh.  Maybe at some point I will have to give myself completely over to a day of reading.

I also had meant to spend more time in the temple, but our temple is closed for maintenance, and I have not planned far enough ahead to drive up to Fort Collins to attend there.

As Charlie and I walked this morning I was watching for rocks to be polished.  Found some very promising areas.  However, at 7℉ I was not too inspired to take off my gloves and pick any up.

Snow Day!

Well, not quite.  I was impressed that with almost 1/8" of snow out there everything remained open.

I spent way more time on school yesterday than I meant to.  I ended up re-investigating a charge of copying from last semester, and that required a lot of work to recover everything that would have been easily available on my old system.

Yesterday also included my first trip to Home Depot since retirement.  It is a lot less crowded during the day than it is at my normal times.  Of course, I bought the wrong size heater filter, so I will be going back today.

When I got in the car yesterday I realized that I had always listened to conference talks in the car, but now I spend very little time there.  I will have to come up with a new routine for listening to conference talks.

Wasting Time

Many people asked me what I was going to do with my time in retirement.  Unfortunately, yesterday revealed one answer - Waste a day reading news.

So today I am working more diligently.  I have walked the dog 4 miles, taken care of one phone call, and have graded a bunch of assignments for my online class.

However, avoiding wasting time may be one of my biggest challenges.  *Sigh*

First Day

So this really is my first day of retirement.  I got up to see Delkys off to work, then I went back to bed until 10:00.  I got up meaning to take Charlie (the dog) for a walk, but before I could do so there was a friend at the door.  He had a carton of chocolate ice cream and said he had come to celebrate my retirement.  So we sat and talked for an hour.  It turns out that he is between jobs, and so had the time to do this.  Amazing.

Why is this day different from all other days?

Apologies to the seder for appropriating my title, but today is different.  I have done all the things I normally do in preparing for work, but when I conclude work today I am done with work ... forever!

All of this provokes different thoughts in me: How will I use my time wisely in retirement, what sort of a daily schedule will I follow, how will I budget my money with half the income I used to have, etc.  But I realize at no time do I ask myself if this is a good or appropriate time to retire.  Apparently I am pretty sold on the idea that this is.

I did think about the pictures we have of the children dressed for their first day of school, and briefly thought about how I was dressing for my last day of work.  But I have never yet taken a selfie, and I don't think today is the day to start.  You will just have to take my word for it that I am dressed pretty much as I was for every day of work before this.

Quick Introduction

John D. Reading - Husband, father, grandfather, son, brother, software engineer, Primary teacher, adjunct professor, home teacher, friend, neighbor.  Seems like there are quite a few titles I can claim.  Tomorrow I am going to add another one to the list: Retiree.  After some 35 years of employment with four different companies I am leaving work - hopefully for good.  No more going to work every day, no more paycheck.  We'll see how those two realities balance out.

Since leaving work also means leaving behind pleasant associations that I have formed over the 20 years with my most recent employer I decided to start this blog as a sort of a window into my day-to-day life.  I really am not sure what will end up getting included, but I hope at least to give some idea of how life is treating me, what I am accomplishing, and some of my thoughts on life.  It is not, of course, just for former coworkers, but anybody who has enough excess time to wonder what I am doing.

Let the adventure begin!