At least it seems as though it is getting warmer. It's supposed to be in the 40's this week, so things are looking up. Personally though, I prefer 20 degrees with no snow or rain over 50 degrees with rain. That said, I'm looking forward to visiting Vegas in May hopefully it gets into the 90s.

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Bella's birthday was this weekend (pictures are below). She had fun and got 'Yots and Yots' of presents. Perfect birthday for a 3 year old. Saturday night some of the teachers from Judy's Mom's school came over, had dinner and watched our Saturday night movie with us.

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Kicking and Screaming was this week's family movie. On top of that I also watched the Ref. funny stuff.

I also got a DVD from another former student of mine on Saturday. I haven't watched it yet, because it will no doubt be a pretty heavy documentary. You can read a bit about it here:

DEAR FRANCIS

I can't take the slightest bit of credit for his work, but it is nice to see one of your former students take the ball and run with it in ways that you never did. I seriously appreciate his guts and his passion.

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Arrgh, the cold combined with stress eating has pushed my weight up beyond what it has ever been before. I need to take drastic measures.
231.4 -- the diet starts today.

Bella enjoying her birthday cake


Anya where we can usually find her -- underneath a book


This guy was eating the bushes under our living room window, so I took his picture.

When I got to work this morning it was 20 degrees below zero outside. I still don't understand the phenomenon of cold weather because I can't understand how it can be so beautiful, yet so cold. YES, I know it has to do with the inversion layer and if there is cloud cover it warms up so that...y'know

Well, at least I cancelled my trip to Glacier this weekend. I just didn't think I could hang out with a bunch of guys in below freezing temperatures. I would prefer to sit in my hot tub and watch movies all weekend.

Silly me.

...but colder than ice is entirely another.

Let's face it, it really is the humidity that makes the difference. There really isn't that big of a difference between 10 and 50 degrees if there's no precipitation, but if you add in snow and ice on top of below zero temperatures, well then you have the conditions for where I will be this weekend.

The name, Glacier National Park, feels horribly apropos at the moment. That is where I will be going this weekend for the men's retreat at church. It should be around -10 and snowing on Friday night when we arrive.

My testicles should descend sometime the following thursday.

First of all, go to this website and check out the movie Arizona. It's by some of my former students. I am super proud of them.

http://www.vanguardcinema.com/

It will be available on DVD in March, so go buy it!
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Grandma Update:
I saw her the other night and she looked really good. I was actually happily surprised to see her be her old self the other night. She's still a wheelchair, but dang that woman really made a recovery! Thank God!
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Here are some pictures of my office. The first one is the view out my office window to the right (kind of, it's from the road out front) it is full resolution, and the other one is looking away from the mountains and toward the highway so that you can see the whole plant. My office is in the building on the left. These were taken by my coworker Celeste.





There you go!

Man it is beautiful outside today. As I rode into work I just couldn't believe how amazing this area is. For those of you who have been here in the Summer kind of know what I'm talking about.

I need to take a picture.

I am looking for some video and motion graphics work to be done -- and yes I am willing to pay for it. IT is through my company. I need to do some website enhancements and I just don't have the time to do it.

So here's the deal, I know you, I know your work. Email me if you want the gig I will give you the details. I should know by Friday Jan 27 if it is a go or not.

Minimum Required Skills: Videography (including lighting), Flash


***UPDATE: I found someone to take care of this. Thanks

The last 48 hours, which were critical for grandma, have turned out to be good for her physically. The blood has stopped.

That said however, she is still having some problems with being 'all there' mentally. We're not sure if she's stressed from the hospital visit, or something has happened, or what, but last night she wound up calling 911 for some reason and she keeps talking about things that make no sense.

The vigil continues.

Not good. Grandma broke her hip last week. Today they gave her a CT scan because she was losing blood and she was still completely out of it. At this point we're not sure what's going to happen.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. She's out of it enough right now that if she did pass on, she would never even know -- which is how she wanted to go. However, we were kind of enjoying having her around and she was really much happier up here with us than she has been in a long time.

I console myself with the fact that if she hadn't come up here with us, she never would have gone to physical therapy, and she would not have had the strength to make it to the phone to call for help. If she was still in Big Bear she probably would have been too weak and would have painfully died on the floor of the house.

All that said, if it's possible for her to get better, then I'm all for that. It's good to see her happy and she has really been looking forward to the arrival of the new baby. If she has to pass, I only hope for two things, 1) it's painless and 2) She's completely oblivious to what is happening and it happens in her sleep or something. That's the way she wanted to go.

There's a certain peace in knowing that when she sees grandpa again, she'll be free of the anxieties of life.

The view from my office is pretty cool. Maybe not the view of the other building across the road, which looks like a 3 acre steel shed, but I'm high enough that I can easily see beyond it.

My morning commute has been awesome too. I like not having to stop (not even once) between my house and work. Hmm, I just lied, there is a stop sign at the end of Courville Trail before I make a left hand turn onto the highway, but that hardly counts. If I tried hard enough I could probably find back roads the whole way, but what's the point?

The weather has ben nice here lately with just a hint of rain - I was even able to drive my little car yesterday.

I realize I need to put some more pictures up and will do so after I get a little more settled into my job.