Another of Scott's Homes on the Web

We were supposed to head out of town Thursday morning.

We left our house about 9:15-9:30am, and stopped to pick up breakfast at a new bakery (new as in just opened Wednesday). We got breakfast, went out to the car, I started it, it stuttered and died. Not good. Tried again - it kind of ran when I gave it gas. We decided that we did not want to be on the freeway with this happening, so we nursed it up to our favorite service station. They were busy, and not certain they'd be able to get to it that day. They gave us a loaner car, we went home to wait. I called Dad about 12:30 to tell him we were delayed.

We got a call shortly after 1:00 that they'd gotten it in, read the error codes, and discovered a dirty Mass Air Sensor. (I think it should be called an Air Mass Sensor, personally.) They cleaned it, and the car was running fine. We went and collected the car, and got out of town about four hours behind schedule.

We had planned on stopping at up to four quilt shops on our way south to Sioux City, IA, with the possibility of picking some of them up on our way back. We actually only made it to one on our way south. I called Dad while Irene was in the shop, to let him know we would be getting to Sioux City on Thursday, but would not be getting together with them until Friday.

We got to Sioux City about 8:00, got checked in to the hotel, and found dinner.

Friday we spent the day with Dad and my Aunt Paula.

Saturday we had a late breakfast with Dad and Aunt Paula, and left Sioux City about 12N. We stopped at two quilt shops on the way home, getting home shortly be 7pm.

if a touch short. We drove down to Kansas City, MO on Thursday to visit my father and step-mother, and drove back on Sunday.

On the way down, we stopped at the Calico Hutch Quilt Shop in Hayward, MN, and Crossroads Quilting in Cameron, Mo. iraunink spent her Newtonfest & Valentine's presents between the two of them. We left about 8:30am, and got there about 6:30pm.

Saturday Dad took us to Leila's Hair Museum. Absolutely fascinating, about the use of human hair to make various kinds of ornament.

We spent a lot of time talking about family histories.

On the way back, we stopped at the Amish Country Store in Lamoni, IA - bought a couple of candles, some snack stuff, and had lunch (Maid-Rites! haven't had those in years!). We left about 10am, and got home about 7pm.

Today is recovery - I slept late, and now I'm doing laundry.

OK, maybe a couple of weeks.

Friday two weeks ago we picked up the grand-son. Saturday morning (4/27) we took him to see one of the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies perform selections from Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky. We took him home Saturday evening.

Last Saturday (5/4), we went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Chanhassen Dinner Theaters. Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber - hard to go wrong! We enjoyed it immensely. Then it was off to the Minn-StF Meeting at Eric & Rachel's - that was fun too.

Coming up we have The Friend's School Plant Sale tomorrow morning, and step-son gets married Saturday evening. The grand-son will be coming back from the wedding with us, and we'll be dropping him off at his mother's on Sunday afternoon.

I'm driving up to Duluth as soon as I've showered and had breakfast. My brother is visiting from Iraq - he's the one who's driving a semi over there. This is an R&R visit - he goes back the 23rd, and is supposed to be done sometime in August.

Gee, it's been a while since I posted anything about life in general. Here's a catch-up post.
( Details under the cut )

azurelunatic associates Bujold, the IT industry, dogs, family, and The Frozen North with me.

Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold, most well-known for her Vorkosiverse books. I've been a fan of her's since Joel H. talked me into reading The Warrior's Apprentice within a couple of years of it coming out - I got to read it, Shards of Honor and Ethan of Athos very quickly. And I've been devouring anything new by her ever since. This one of my two on-line fandoms (the other is the Liaden Universe), and I've been hosting in-person get-togethers ever since norabombay came to Minneapolis to look into maybe coming up for school.

The IT industry
I've been doing computer support as my job since June 1990. I've done it for a professional engineering firm, an IT hardware company, the Federal Reserve, a manufacturing company, and a non-bank money services company. I try to keep track at least superficially of what's going on the industry as a whole. I've done a lot of stuff - maybe just about anything - that involves x86 hardware. I've been running a Debian/Linux system since January 2000 at home that serves the domains fireopal.org & ytilaer.com, with e-mail, web, ssh & mailing list services. I want to get into a server/network admin role - my next step on that goal is getting an RHCE certification.

Dogs
I'm a dog person. I grew up with chihuahuas. As much as I like chihuahuas, I won't buy one - they're too territorial for my life-style, we'd drive each other nuts. My first significant purchase after I bought my house was a dog - that was Ben, my first Shih Tzu. I've had three Shih Tzu's die on me - Ben had a car accident, Chela died of old age, and Gizmo's liver started eating his red blood cells. I've currently got Mac (Macguyver), a prize-winning former show dog, Josie, who is half-Shih Tzu/half unknown terrier, and Precious, a former puppy-mill mom who is all carbonel's fault.

Family
Wife, Mom, Dad, "The Evil Step-Mother", brother, sister-in-law, three nieces, three step-sisters, two step-brothers (TESM's kids - I've only seen two of the step-sisters and neither of the step-brothers in the last 10+ years), mother-in-law, two step-daughters, one step-son, two sons-in-law, three grand-kids, and a host of relatives of my wife. The step-kids each had one kid - the boy had a boy, the two girls had girls. My brother's in Iraq driving a semi for an obscene amount of money. Dad & TESM are currently living on the road. Mom lives in Duluth. The step-brothers/sisters live in Duluth, Duluth, North Carolina, Oregon & Missouri. Wife's brothers & sisters mostly live in the Twin Cities - the one exception is out on the Left Coast. We get together with my wife's family more frequently than mine.

Oh, yeah - the family fast track. I went from single with no prospects to being a grand-father in 729 days. My first date with iraunink was 5 April 2000. We got married on 5 October 2000. The first grand-kid was born on 4 April 2002. If someone had told me on Valentine's Day 2000 that I'd be celebrating Valentine's Day 2001 with my wife, I would have told them they were nuts!

The Frozen North
I live in Minneapolis, MN. I moved to Duluth, MN to start first grade. I went to college at MTU, in Houghton, MI. The first year I was there the previous snowfall records were broken, possibly shatterd, by 300" inches of snow. There was a spot 20-30 miles north of Houghton that got 360" of snow - yes, 10 yards. I like my snow and cold, and complain bitterly about the summer heat. For that matter, I've been known to complain that we only get a real winter here in Minneapolis once every four or five years! If I were to move away from Minneapolis/St. Paul, the only likely place would be the Pacific Northwest - I'll trade the lack of snow in winter for the low summer highs.

I'll give a try at if I know you, you've just to ask and I'll come up with five things I associate with you. If I don't know you, I may amuse myself by picking five arbitrary things (or not).

The wake was Friday 4-8pm, the funeral was Saturday at 11am.

It was an Irish wake (minus the alcohol) with a short Catholic prayer service towards the end. The funeral was a full Catholic funeral mass, followed by interment in the parish cemetery and then lunch back at the church. Everyone seems to be coping at this point.