Our updates for all of you

Here's what's going on so far this week. Sandy made it back, jet lagged but OK, last Sunday from India. Her project is progressing along there, she can't take any photos on site so just have to listen to the description and imagine a 26 story mansion. Yesterday she took another test on her way to getting her own Architectural License. She has a USC Masters Degree in Architectural Lighting Design, but still wants her very own certificate. Sandy also teaches classes at both USC and UCLA in Architecture in addition to all the other things she does. And she doesn't see how Stacy and I did all we did with work and all when they were all growing up! I don't see how she does it all and still has time to sleep! Movie Time Stacy and I have been coming up to Bonners Ferry since 2001 and have lived here full time since 2006. We'd never been to the small movie theater in town. Actually the last time we went to a movie theater was back in 2007 in California when we were bac...

Most of the morning yesterday (Thursday 6/26) was spent with the news stations on XM talking about Farrah Fawcett. Then all afternoon, through the night and by how it sounds now, for the next few days, weeks and beyond its all about Michael Jackson. They often talk about the "rule of threes" and even this morning on the local TV news were talking about Ed McMahon the beginning of the week and now Fawcett and Jackson yesterday, yup that's 3! At least Ed McMahon got some good tribute time in I think. I'm listening to 'Showbiz Tonight' on XM, a special live morning edition on CNN Headline news, and The entire hour except for about 8 minutes was all about Jackson. Kinda feel sorry for Farrah Fawcett fans. I'll agree with what I've heard, Michael Jackson will now become bigger in death than could ever be imagined in life. And as Elvis, over time all his eccentricity and court actions will be forgotten or put way down the line on written memories, and he...

Since my last post was some more old Animal Control memories, I forgot to mention some other noteworthy info. Brother Mike has settled into his new home near Seattle. He sent most people a very comprehensive photo tour of the house, looks pretty nice! Monday the 15th was "Ride to Work Day" a day to show your support and enthusiasm for motorcycles by riding to work. Well' I'd fully planned to ride that day, I was looking forward to it actually since I had to go to Sandpoint for an all day class. Unfortunately that morning it decided to literally P O U R! It rained very hard all the way to Sandpoint then went to off and on rain the rest of the day. Oh, the class? It was to learn to fill out a new state form to try to get everyone "on the same page" for records that follow 'clients' as they move about the different counties in the state. Today Stacy is down in Coeur D' Alene for meetings with the department supervisor. It's a very windy summer ...

I was watching a show on TV about people that hunt Rattlesnakes for venom research. It brought back some memories of my experiences with snakes in animal control. My very first snake call was way back in 1983. I was still a very new Animal Control Officer working in the county area of Chino Hills California. It's all incorporated and a big city now, back then it was mainly some tracts of homes surrounded by dairy farms and open fields and hills. I got to the house that had called and found that the snake was still curled up right by the back patio sliding door. Aspects of what happened next are why I can recall this call so clearly. I had not had any experience with snakes before and this was still years before millions would see snakes all time with people like the Crocodile Hunter. I thought I knew important facts about snakes like only Rattlesnakes are poisonous (not entirely true), Rattlesnakes always had rattles (also not entirely true), and all snakes are mute and make no s...

I've been listening and catching up with my backlog of 30 Podcasts the past couple of days while here at work. The title of this post is referencing what I've been listening to on several shows about people getting rid of their cable or satellite TV subscriptions and getting most or all of their TV shows via the Internet only. Here at work I'll often watch shows missed on HULU or even watch some collections, like season one of The Office, via our Netflix account and the 'instant view' option. So what would you do? It is not always a "great" experience trying to watch the shows on the web. The picture is clear, nothing like most You Tube content, although there is good quality video available now on You Tube. But stutters and stops for buffering so the feed can catch up to the signal demand often make it time consuming. Even with the DSL here at work. And we have Hughesnet Satellite Internet at home and it often suffers from buffering issues when we try to...

With schools out in many places and the warmer weather it's interesting to see all the travelers out and about again. Lots of RV's are going though the town. The main road through town in Highway 95 and Highway 2. Highway 95 goes to/from Canada, 35 miles away, or all the way down to Mexico. We've been on it from the Las Vegas area to here on several trips. Highway 2 which runs along with 95 from Sandpoint where it merges after coming in from the Spokane area and splits off East just outside of town and then goes all the way through Montana, North Dakota and out towards the East coast. Right now gas/diesel is still cheaper than I think it will be in about a month as it keeps going up about every week. Regular gas as of this morning was $2.65 a gallon and Diesel was $2.45. But seeing all the travelers makes me think of living back down near I-15 in California. I'd be out on a call and see all the cars and RV's heading out to the river or Las Vegas. If I was on a cal...

While Stacy has been off to Boise for those state meetings most of this week, she ask me to water the garden plots she got. So I took these pictures this morning on my way to work after I stopped to water the three plots we have in this section of the areas three community garden plots. We were told this is the first time the community has gotten together and set up areas for residents to rent these garden plots. Stacy got into to it last March in the beginning as an idea our supervisor had for our job. But the job end of it fell through so we paid for the plots ourselves and Stacy planted seeds of things we'd like, such as corn and veggies like that. It was started in conjunction with the group we'd never heard of called "G.R.O.W.". The plots are 4 feet by 20 feet, and like I mentioned, this is only one of three or four of them at various locations around the city. This one is the most visible because it sits almost next door to a local church. This started out as a...

I remember hearing that phrase when I was a kid. You'd be looking at someone, what they thought was for too long, and they might yell out "take a picture, it lasts longer!". Well it can be true, but it might not, at least not anymore. In all I've been doing to scan in all photos, convert all 8 MM film, VHS tape and Analog 8MM and Digital 8 tape home movies to DVD, I've found out that for a lot of it, its to late. The 8 MM film has held up well. The VHS tape has help up really well, for our tapes actually better than it was predicted to back in the early 1980's when it first became the medium of the future. The big disappointment, and I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, is the Analog 8 video tape. Most of those are now difficult to watch with large bands of 'noise' across the bottom third of the video on playback. VERY disappointing because in addition to going to the 8 MM camcorder for its smaller size and lighter weight than the very heavy ...

I've been pretty busy in the last few weeks. Since my last post we'd been asked to record the memorial service for a friends wife that had passed away from cancer. The service was on May 16th and Stacy and I recorded it with two camcorders and I took some still photos also. I transferred all the video from both cameras onto DVD and then into my laptop and started to put it all together. Most all last week was editing, it was important that the entire service be on the final product as this was to be for all the family that couldn't travel and attend. Got it finished last Friday morning, a demo made and taken to Ernie. He liked it so over last weekend it was make the copies, labels, box them up to deliver to him today. So this morning I'm looking at random copies of the 16 made and I can't believe it, somehow from the smoothness of the first copy, and even with most made straight from the laptop, there are areas of some breakup or jumpiness in scenes on the sample di...