Weather to write home about

This is the NOAA image of the day. A 'strong extra tropical storm' is coming to bring some warm April showers. Maybe the snow will really melt. We need some tropical global warming after our cold month of March.












Here is an update of the temperature chart. (There were about a dozen comments last time i printed this.) Notice how cold it was for the whole month of March. The 'North Roaders' played hockey 3 times a week last month thinking each time would be our last chance for the season. Well, last week the weather really warmed up and the sun is staying out longer and longer now. Hockey season is over. PS how about the Minnesota Wild! Their first series with the Ducks will be tough.

Art, Ann, and Linda

Here's a picture of Art from the late '40s. I assume he was well into his 90s. I don't know how many children they had or where they are now...

name from the past?

I assume this is the person we all knew? I also wanted to say that Art Weisenhaus obituary was in the paper which I clipped out and can't find. If anyone wants to see it, I'll look again. I'll keep this short, since I doubt if it will work.

Kind of Blue

It was suggested that we review favorite CDs, books, etc. and it just happened that here I was with a couple minutes to spare! How rare.
First let me catch you up with the job situation. I worked the past 10 days at another place, which went quite well, I think! The superviser said he'd talk to the owner, possibly today, and then we'll sit down and talk. A veteran of the place told me he thinks I'll be hired. We'll see!
Meanwhile over the past month or so I've been contacted by a head hunter. (Resume on Monster) and have talked with Colorado Printing Co. in Grand Junction, CO. They really seem to like me, and I even considered going out and looking around with Denise, but I really feel like we're not done with MN yet. It has been exciting pondering the possibilities though. Does anyone have any Grand Junction memories? I don't think I ever got off the freeway and went to town.

Now, back to an old favorite album. If you asked most jazz lovers for a top ten list of best all-time jazz albums this would be on most of their lists. It's definitely one of my favorites. My only regret is that I didn't discover it until a few years ago. All these years and I only started appreciating it recently. Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. Recorded March2&April22, 1959 in New York. Very innovative for recording sessions in that they were almost entirely improvisational. Just very limited sketches of what they were to play thrown together just hours before the sessions by Miles. Check them out some time!

Book and Album

I just finished My Antonia by Willa Cather. I liked it a lot. I like her writing style. It's about life in Nebraska at the turn of the 20th century. If I wasn't living during the turn of the 21st century, I think I would like living back then. Willa Cather won a Pulitzer for another of her books.

I recently discovered a band called The Magic Numbers. They are a band from England composed of two sets of brother and sister. I'm a sucker for "sweet vocals" that aren't too sweet. You can listen to samples on Amazon. And of course you can see and hear them at YouTube.

Happy Birthday Dan!

My memory is really bad and my record keeping is even worse, but i think that 4-4 is Dan's birthdate. Here are a few photos from last summer.

Hope you have a great birthday.

Book Report

I usually go to the library every 2 weeks and go through the new books to find something to read at work and during spare time (in place of blogging). This title really caught my attention: THE CASE FOR GOLIATH - How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century, by Micheal Mandelbaum. It is not a religious book and i cannot really tell if it was written from a liberal or conservative slant, but is was very interesting. The title really says what it was about. Here is the last sentence in the book: "About other countries' approach to the American role as the world's government, however, whatever its lifespan, three things can be safely predicted: they will not pay for it; they will continue to criticize it; and they will miss it when it is gone." If you click on the title to this blog you can read a professional book review, and amazon lets you see the table of contents and the intro.
Personally, from a christian viewpoint, i think that in the end times there will be a one world government. Maybe someone can help me find those verses. That leads to this question, are we living in the time and the country that is the one world government, now?
Now we have the topics that should bring out lots of commentary; politics and religion.

Vote for the Clever Clue of the Month

This month I recruited a team of experts to help me pare down a large list of clever clues. Here are the six best for the month of March. Vote on what you think is the best one today. Check the Clever Clue page on Tuesday to see the winner.

Bug's midsection ............................SHORTU
Result of foul match play? ..................ARSON
Promise to the chef? ........................OLEO
Decreasing device ...........................IRON
Dash of seasoning? ..........................MRS
Sock menders oath? ..........................DARN

Also, read my interview with Tyler Hinman.

A Modest Proposal for a New Topic

The Yukon trip is almost over (photo-wise) and our per-month posting is woefully below last year's rate. One of the problems with the new round robin is it's too easy to compare the quantity of posts per month.

Anyway I have a proposal. It came to mind when I just read an e-mail from Paul about Celtic Women. My initial response was, "Who are they?" But that says nothing about Celtic Women because I am nearly illiterate in the music department.

Recently I've been trying to remedy that (in my old age) by working harder at listening to music and noting when something strikes me and then pursuing it on the internet, learning more about the artist and artists who are similar. Finding the CD's at the library etc. etc.

I'd like to be introduced to more music ideas so here's the proposal. . .make a post about some musician you like. Tell us why. If you're computer savy make links to where we can learn (and hear) more.

Don't make a list of 30 artists in one post. . .the goal is more posts. Rather, make a bunch of posts each about one or two that you have recently discovered or have liked for a long time. Who are they? Why do you like them? Tastes differ, of course, but I would enjoy hearing other people's opinions. It doesn't have to be a lengthy treatise. . the goal here is more posts. Get our numbers up any way we can.

By the way I really enjoyed Tyler's comments (below). We actually talked about his comments in church last Sunday. The point being. . .neices and nephews are always welcome here. The more the merrier!

Cold March

It has been so cold outside that we just want to stay inside all the time. Here are some graphs of the temperatures. I tried to find some similar graphs for Minnesota but could not find anything. Yesterday it was a little warmer, but this morning it is -5 out there again. We have not started the plant yet because of the temps. Maybe next month. Hope this doesn't come down to all of you in Minn. The sun is staying out longer now with daylight savings - it was light across the inlet by the mountains at 9:30PM!

Fort Life

There were numerous establishments still intact.

Here is "Father Fink" in front of the Anglican Church.

Here's the front of the church.

Here's the school house.

Life is Exciting

Hey Round Ones, I post so seldom you prabably think I don't know how! But I still drop in from time to time. Love all the pictures---I don't have any today. Why is everyone so busy or are you so low you don't have anything to say? 'Never bored with the Lord' I always say! Although at times I don't have a clue what's going on, I think these are the most exciting days to be alive (in Christ)!
On January third I was laid off! It was a bit of a shock, but looking back I could see the potential of it happening. "Greg, it's been really good working with you but we are making some changes in the bindery and we just don't need you any more!" In other words business just isn't good enough to keep you around, we're cutting everywhere. Five others besides me were laid off, some of the highest paid in the place. Some of the most experienced, best, etc. It's just business! Got to keep the bottom line, above all else. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter. Stuff just happens and the Lord provides, so "don't worry"MT6!
I took a couple days off to pray and think and then started looking over my prospects. A couple of friends suggested a place that was looking for someone like me. So I went and got another job. I was working again on Jan 11! Same pay; I just lost vacation time that I had built up over the years.
Then after working there about 6 weeks, it was the same thing again. "Greg, we're going a different direction with the bindery, It's been nice having you around, See ya!"??? What in the world is going on? I'm a good worker with lots of experience, enjoying my job, doing it right!
So I've been out of work almost two weeks now, but next week I'll be starting at another place, on a trial basis. It's like the guy wants to be sure we both like me working there. I always just like to bloom where I'm planted, so we'll see if I bloom.
That's a little of what's been happening with me. Those six weeks I was doing a bit of overtime, pretty busy! Now I'm busy with other stuff.
The most exciting thing for me during these same couple of months has been a new friend! A young man who we've known since he was a baby; we lived in the same building at Bethany for a few months before we went to the Phils; we have pictures of Amy and him hanging out, they were best friends; came to church. Long story shortened; he got done sowing his wild oats; came back to Jesus; we got together mutually wanting to form a disciple/apprentice---mentor/discipler relationship. We've been having a great time!!! We get together one evening a week for a couple hours. Everyone should try it! Why haven't I done this more over the past 33 years?! I'm almost as excited as a new convert! I could say so much more. Any questions just give me a call!
God bless all you busy people, love ya'all. Greg

Life is tough

I was on Ericka's e-mail list for some reason. I'm assuming some got the following message but perhaps not all. But as for the lack of participation at the site recently here is an example that would explain why Jean, for one, has had much bigger things on her mind. If the siblings are all aware this will at least make sure any nieces and nephews "peaking in" will know what happened. Ericka wrote. . .


Hello. This is being mailed to several people at once so if there is something that doesn’t make sense to you that may be why.

I haven’t told you about the terrible yet wonderful week I’ve had so far. Monday morning Rhiannyn woke up late with a fever of 101 and I watched her decline throughout the day getting to 103 at nap time. She slept for several hours and I decided that I needed to get her up around five. I went up there and found her laying in her vomit and in a deep seizure. I called my neighbor over to help me and decide what we needed to do. She is a ped. Nurse and part of my small group at church and she lives just three houses over! So she helped me and we had to call 911 because she wasn’t coming out of it. She had been in a seizure for 7-10 mins that we knew of by the time the paramedics arrived. They thought that she probably had stopped, but when we arrived at the hospital around 5:50 they thought that she was probably still in a seizure. (at least 50 mins!!!)

My neighbor took Gwyn for the night while I went to the hospital with Rhi. She didn’t respond to anything. She stopped breathing at the hospital so they intubated her. She was given a CT scan and all her other blood work came back normal. She was moved to pediatric ICU and was very heavily sedated. They tested her for RSV, the Flu, and gave her a spinal tap for menigitus (sp?), and everything came back negative! But they still didn’t really have a reason for the fever.

They kept her intubated and heavily sedated through the night thinking they would give her an MRI at 3 PM on Tuesday and she needed to be sedated for that. They decided not to do the MRI after waiting until 1 PM so she could now be unsedated and extubated. This was scary because they hadn’t seen her try to breath on her own much, but they figured she was just too comfortable to breath more than what the machine was providing for her. After the extubation she did breath on her own well. She was very hoarse and congested and in a lot of pain. She still had a high fever, and was extremely uncomfortable and limp like a noodle. She fought with all the devices connected to her, which actually was a good sign.

She was either fighting sleep or unable to sleep because of her pain and fever all day. Finally, my mom and I (who were staying at the hospital decided to go to sleep at around 11:30 PM and see if just leaving the room would help her settle down. It turns out she was awake talking, kicking, and sitting up all night until around 4 AM! I think her sleep schedule was a bit off!! Wednesday they were suppose to have had her off all her sedation meds so that they could do an EEG to see her brain movements. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been set in stone and so she didn’t have the test. She was able to eat and drink a lot throughout the day. She sat up, talked, pooped, peed, and even wanted to play in the play room a little bit. So the doctors thought she was well enough to go home. So we waited all day to be discharged. Armed with some special anti-seizure meds and an antibiotic they sent us home. They told us that she had a virus and that it wasn’t important to pin point which particular one because there are 1000s. They said that there is a virus that seems to lower the seizure threshold in young children that they have been seeing a lot of in the past couple weeks. So that was presumed to have hit her too.

She’s started to walk a bit today and is still eating well. She is still very weak and pale, but seems to be taking great steps toward full recovery. God was so gracious!!!! I thought that I was seeing the last of my dear child for a couple hours there. But she’s coming around so well!

Have a great blizzard!! Ericka

Zippy

Dean, your friend, Zippy, made it into the Washington Post crossword yesterday:

A great comic Tyler introduced us to is "Get Fuzzy" - about an evil cat who torments the household dog. Are any of you familiar with it?

I can't believe how awful we've been about posting lately. Nobody's even commenting. This must be everyone's busiest winter ever...

grandmajean

Look at the pictures of our beautiful grandchildren, Rhiannyn and Gwyndolyn taken at Christmas time. I couldn't repeat this post because Ralph actually got on the computer and it worked! This is the way it works around here. He has magic fingers!

grandmajean

test comment

Winter busy-ness

These trees are getting tired of winter now. The three in this bunch are all leaning on other trees. Sorry that i have been as lazy as these trees when it comes to blogging.








Agrium stock is doing real good even with our plant shut down from a lack of natural gas in the cold winter months. We have had a pretty relaxing winter at work. That will stop soon when we start back up. All the farm related stocks are doing good due to a mandate for ethanol. Gold, silver, uranium and oil are doing well also.




The Ice Dawgs midgit team had a tougher time this year than in the past, but it was fun for the kids anyway. The Blue Flames team that i play on has a tournament this weekend. (Remember to get out of the stock market when hockey season is over.)







Here is a photo of the house that Heidi and John are trying to buy. It is on the road that goes to the ferry.

I've enjoyed the Yukon trip photos.
Have a good SPRING

Fort Selkirk

I've been really busy and stressed lately but I'm back. Looks like everybody else is preoccupied too. I know Jean is having some trouble getting on the new site. I'm trying to help her. On with the Yukon trip. . .

The river is very wide now. This is our first sighting of what had been the largest settlement between Whitehorse and Dawson, Fort Selkirk. It had been wiped out by indian raids from the coast and re-established as a RCMP post about the time of the gold rush.

As people abandonded Selkirk, many of the cabins were burned for firewood, but there was still lots of really interesting stuff.

Our Fairy Godmother

It didn't rain much, and when it did the rain was more like a mist.

January's Clever Clue of the Month

Once again I've narrowed it down to six nominees. Vote today. Check the Clever Clue page tomorrow to see who won.

Loses one's balance? ........................SPENDS
Don't go fast? ..............................EAT
Incapable of littering ......................NEUTERED
Break fluid? ................................TEA
Recovered from a bad stroke, say ............SHOT PAR
Shape shifters? .............................GIRDLES