In case you, the reader, hadn't noticed, I have found out the problem I often read about on other blogs I follow or in podcasts I listen too, keeping up with them!!!!!!!!!!!
You'd think it wouldn't be so hard, just writing something noteworthy or not, every so often and press the "Publish Post" button. But with this blog it's been most of the summer since the last, not even full, blog post!
So to my friend Robin, thanks for the call Sunday to ask why I haven't posted lately!
Well, so what have Stacy and I been doing since our return from the Dude Ranch week in June?
First off it has been a fairly busy summer work wise. Stacy has been traveling from once to three times a month to Boise and for two days to a week for state level meetings. She also had her week in Boise at the Police Academy as an Instructor and found out she'll have to take another class, this time only one week long, for Supervisor next month. It is really too bad they wouldn't allow the Supervisor Classes Stacy and I had taken and passed at San Bernardino to count and be adequate for this County too.
Stacy continues to excel in her duties and in her state level contacts and assignments. For my end of the job it has been off and on busy. With the rest of the staff off for their own Police Academy training, at a month each, it has made my covering for them and still work on the paper pushing my position primarily entails a bit busy! It also seems like more people than last year have been "bad" and gotten caught doing it!
The Dude Ranch week in nearby Cranbrook, Canada was a great time for us and we made some very good friends while there too. Matt from Australia and Sonya from New Zealand, were great to meet and to be able to stay in touch with. We are very lucky to live so relatively close and so have gone back up a couple of times and taken them some USA treats they'd heard about but not been able to try in Canada. And to give them US traveling information as they are planning to see some of the USA they've heard about on their trip to the east coast before their trips home. It's a 'once in a lifetime' trip, why not see all they can?
We've had very nice visits with them and got to hear more about their lives in their home countries. They are living quite the adventure flying across the world, first time both had ever been away, to work in a place they had never been too before over the summer. They both had been living and working on cattle and sheep stations (ranches), of the size that used to exist in much of old west America, but not much anymore.
They both have had quite the life experiences in their mid twenty years, and their summer working here on this continent, with winter back home for them, will be really great memories. Plus it will be spring for them on their return to their homes in October.
Although I haven't been updating this blog like I wish I was, I have been working off and on, on my other blog about the career in Animal Control. Thanks to Stacy, from November 1988 and on we've had video camcorders and while not nearly as much as I now wish there was, included in the hours and hours of family home videos and trips, there are several video segments taken when out on various Animal Control calls that I had converted to DVD from VHS, 8MM video, and Digital 8 video tape. Then it was, and still is, convert to digital file the video and post some of that on my YouTube channel and then post the video with a bit of a back story, on the blog page.
I truly wish that I now had taken more of the video that back then I thought would be 'boring' in the "future" because it turns out not to be boring at all. Even after all these years.
Another thing I used to do, and mainly because I really got tired of seeing it on TV shows of the era like "America's Funniest Home Video's". I got in the habit of turning off the time and date "stamp" that still shows up on peoples videos.
Well as I said, it used to really bug me seeing all the videos with that info on the screen, so I would just turn it off, something I'm guessing most people could never figure out how to do on their own camcorders.
But it turns out, the joke's on me!
In constantly turning off that date stamp much of the video from 20 plus years ago can only be approximated in time, like the year, maybe month etc.
Nowadays it isn't a problem, the "metadata" is saved on the digital file itself, but in those 'analog days' if it wasn't written down on something, and kept with the video cassette, it wasn't remembered very often!
On to other stuff. When both home over the summer, Stacy and I have been working at getting the property cleaned up and junk gone, either to the auction or to the dump, but gone!
As I'm writing this, oldest daughter Sandy and her husband are in the third day of a three week European trip and by itinerary, in Helsinki, Finland. Her husband has dual citizenship with that country and they are checking it out as a possible home in a few years because of that fact. And since Sandy had never been there before, they're incorporating the visit there with the overall trip. Other destinations are Austria, France and Italy. On their return Sandy will start in earnest with her new job as a lighting sales rep since they moved to the San Jose area so her husband could take a new job with Netflix.
Son Sean and his wife are continuing to enjoy living and working on Hawaii. He's been there now since last November and has settled in to the 'island' lifestyle nicely he says. Sean's wife actually had her first job for a few months, working at a florist until the work slowed to where the small business didn't have the work to keep her on. Maybe with the upcoming holidays she'll get going again.
Not much news for daughter Laura except last week was grandson Tyler's last day of preschool and yesterday was his first day of Kindergarten. He's growing up fast! Too bad he's too far away to visit.
Other news extended family wise, brother Mike is in China for his company, and his wife should be there by now as I saw on Face Book she was on her way out to be with Mike. I'd been told that Mike had been asked to stay in China for a longer time than the 3 months he was originally sent out for. Well his doing another 'tour' will be contingent on his wife being able to adjust to living in China with him for the duration. So far from all Mike has been writing, he doesn't love being there. But he and Brenda both thought his traveling days were pretty much behind them before all this started. He had talked about being assigned to England for about a year, then China came up. To be continued!
I don't hear directly from too many relatives, and there's a LOT of them on my fathers side, but then they don't hear directly from me either. Several I can keep up with on Facebook, but I'm hoping Google Plus will continue to catch on. I like that it has the ability to keep things directed to certain people or groups of people (your circles), and not instantly public as most of Facebook is. I like Google + myself, kind of a cross between Facebook and Twitter. Yes, I tweet too! Mainly I follow people I read and listen too in their blogs and podcasts as well as some comedians on Twitter. I like the more 'instant' information. Most of my own 'Tweets' are photos taken with my Android phone or iPad2 that I'll post and make a brief comment about.
Now the worst news last.
My father isn't doing well at all. I remember mentioning that in previous posts, but what I'm being told recently is it is down to a matter of time now. Cascading failures internally and with so much having been done already it has made it to where nothing else can be done now. It is down to making him as comfortable as possible in what time is left. I was told Hospice was advised, but with over 30 years nursing experience Carolyn feels she can deal best with the situations as they arise.
Till next time.
You'd think it wouldn't be so hard, just writing something noteworthy or not, every so often and press the "Publish Post" button. But with this blog it's been most of the summer since the last, not even full, blog post!
So to my friend Robin, thanks for the call Sunday to ask why I haven't posted lately!
Well, so what have Stacy and I been doing since our return from the Dude Ranch week in June?
First off it has been a fairly busy summer work wise. Stacy has been traveling from once to three times a month to Boise and for two days to a week for state level meetings. She also had her week in Boise at the Police Academy as an Instructor and found out she'll have to take another class, this time only one week long, for Supervisor next month. It is really too bad they wouldn't allow the Supervisor Classes Stacy and I had taken and passed at San Bernardino to count and be adequate for this County too.
Stacy continues to excel in her duties and in her state level contacts and assignments. For my end of the job it has been off and on busy. With the rest of the staff off for their own Police Academy training, at a month each, it has made my covering for them and still work on the paper pushing my position primarily entails a bit busy! It also seems like more people than last year have been "bad" and gotten caught doing it!
The Dude Ranch week in nearby Cranbrook, Canada was a great time for us and we made some very good friends while there too. Matt from Australia and Sonya from New Zealand, were great to meet and to be able to stay in touch with. We are very lucky to live so relatively close and so have gone back up a couple of times and taken them some USA treats they'd heard about but not been able to try in Canada. And to give them US traveling information as they are planning to see some of the USA they've heard about on their trip to the east coast before their trips home. It's a 'once in a lifetime' trip, why not see all they can?
We've had very nice visits with them and got to hear more about their lives in their home countries. They are living quite the adventure flying across the world, first time both had ever been away, to work in a place they had never been too before over the summer. They both had been living and working on cattle and sheep stations (ranches), of the size that used to exist in much of old west America, but not much anymore.
They both have had quite the life experiences in their mid twenty years, and their summer working here on this continent, with winter back home for them, will be really great memories. Plus it will be spring for them on their return to their homes in October.
Although I haven't been updating this blog like I wish I was, I have been working off and on, on my other blog about the career in Animal Control. Thanks to Stacy, from November 1988 and on we've had video camcorders and while not nearly as much as I now wish there was, included in the hours and hours of family home videos and trips, there are several video segments taken when out on various Animal Control calls that I had converted to DVD from VHS, 8MM video, and Digital 8 video tape. Then it was, and still is, convert to digital file the video and post some of that on my YouTube channel and then post the video with a bit of a back story, on the blog page.
I truly wish that I now had taken more of the video that back then I thought would be 'boring' in the "future" because it turns out not to be boring at all. Even after all these years.
Another thing I used to do, and mainly because I really got tired of seeing it on TV shows of the era like "America's Funniest Home Video's". I got in the habit of turning off the time and date "stamp" that still shows up on peoples videos.
Well as I said, it used to really bug me seeing all the videos with that info on the screen, so I would just turn it off, something I'm guessing most people could never figure out how to do on their own camcorders.
But it turns out, the joke's on me!
In constantly turning off that date stamp much of the video from 20 plus years ago can only be approximated in time, like the year, maybe month etc.
Nowadays it isn't a problem, the "metadata" is saved on the digital file itself, but in those 'analog days' if it wasn't written down on something, and kept with the video cassette, it wasn't remembered very often!
On to other stuff. When both home over the summer, Stacy and I have been working at getting the property cleaned up and junk gone, either to the auction or to the dump, but gone!
As I'm writing this, oldest daughter Sandy and her husband are in the third day of a three week European trip and by itinerary, in Helsinki, Finland. Her husband has dual citizenship with that country and they are checking it out as a possible home in a few years because of that fact. And since Sandy had never been there before, they're incorporating the visit there with the overall trip. Other destinations are Austria, France and Italy. On their return Sandy will start in earnest with her new job as a lighting sales rep since they moved to the San Jose area so her husband could take a new job with Netflix.
Son Sean and his wife are continuing to enjoy living and working on Hawaii. He's been there now since last November and has settled in to the 'island' lifestyle nicely he says. Sean's wife actually had her first job for a few months, working at a florist until the work slowed to where the small business didn't have the work to keep her on. Maybe with the upcoming holidays she'll get going again.
Not much news for daughter Laura except last week was grandson Tyler's last day of preschool and yesterday was his first day of Kindergarten. He's growing up fast! Too bad he's too far away to visit.
Other news extended family wise, brother Mike is in China for his company, and his wife should be there by now as I saw on Face Book she was on her way out to be with Mike. I'd been told that Mike had been asked to stay in China for a longer time than the 3 months he was originally sent out for. Well his doing another 'tour' will be contingent on his wife being able to adjust to living in China with him for the duration. So far from all Mike has been writing, he doesn't love being there. But he and Brenda both thought his traveling days were pretty much behind them before all this started. He had talked about being assigned to England for about a year, then China came up. To be continued!
I don't hear directly from too many relatives, and there's a LOT of them on my fathers side, but then they don't hear directly from me either. Several I can keep up with on Facebook, but I'm hoping Google Plus will continue to catch on. I like that it has the ability to keep things directed to certain people or groups of people (your circles), and not instantly public as most of Facebook is. I like Google + myself, kind of a cross between Facebook and Twitter. Yes, I tweet too! Mainly I follow people I read and listen too in their blogs and podcasts as well as some comedians on Twitter. I like the more 'instant' information. Most of my own 'Tweets' are photos taken with my Android phone or iPad2 that I'll post and make a brief comment about.
Now the worst news last.
My father isn't doing well at all. I remember mentioning that in previous posts, but what I'm being told recently is it is down to a matter of time now. Cascading failures internally and with so much having been done already it has made it to where nothing else can be done now. It is down to making him as comfortable as possible in what time is left. I was told Hospice was advised, but with over 30 years nursing experience Carolyn feels she can deal best with the situations as they arise.
Till next time.
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Robin