Grandma Lula passed away 11/28/07. Most of us were able to attend the funeral (Juliette, Polly, and Andrew couldn't make it), and it was very nice to see everyone. Some of the anecdotes that were told:

Gigi told of staying with grandma and having lots of fun with her as a teenager. Grandma would stay up late with them and giggle like a 13 year old. Grandpa would call from the bedroom "Lula, quit acting like a teenager and come to bed!" She would continue to giggle as her false teeth would about fall out.

After Gigi snuck out of her window a few times, she tells how grandma never confronted her about it, she would just do an "end-around", and she nailed her window shut.

Gigi's and her friend kept sneaking out the front door to the freezer room to eat ice cream -- straight from the container. After a few times, one night they found two bowls and two spoons sitting on the freezer.

Everyone told of how hard she worked and saved. She was supremely frugal with money and learned to do without and to make something out of nothing. She was a good example to all of us how to live simply.

We drove 24 hours total to get there and back, but it was worth it. We had a good time together as a family on the way, and it really wasn't too bad. I'm sure it was a memorable experience for everyone.

There are some pictures of our trip here: http://www.meteorbike.com/2007_12_04

Thanksgiving cometh. Looking forward to some time off. In preparation for T-day, both the dishwasher, and the refrigerator decided to quit working. Long story short, I called the service people, who promptly came out and told me they hadn't a clue on the fridge. They fixed the dishwasher (a simple heating element) for $220. Seems steep. The fridge was not defrosting, but worked fine other than that, until the repair man came. After he left, it wouldn't even turn on. I figured his poking around the motherboard had loosened some wires.

I googled the problem and found numerous solutions posted. After the barely educated tool jockey put the fridge back together (the second visit) and left declaring no joy, I promptly went to work, pulled everything back apart, re-seating all the connectors that he loosened, and then fixed the original defrosting problem. The fridge is currently regulating and cooling like brand new.

Why we have "professional" technicians who don't seem to have the first clue when it comes to their own business, I have no idea. It would seem to me that if I went around repairing appliances and such, that I would want to know more about appliances than your average doofus. Apparently, this just isn't the case. If it isn't really obvious what's wrong (like it's not plugged in) they are clueless. My guess is they go around pressing the reset button on grandmotherly type's refrigerators and collect a pretty good living.

In all fairness I'm pretty much a jerk when it comes to technology.

So, looking forward to T-day. Julie's sister and husband are coming with their three kids. Should be a blast. Full house, for sure, but nothing I can't handle. The weather looks to be really bad, too, so getting out of the house might be more difficult than usual. I'll find a way, though, for sure. I don't know him very well, but he seems like a very pleasant chap. Julie's sister stayed with us several years back for something like a year. It was nice having her around, she's very helpful.

So, here's to long naps, sleeping in, and over-eating.

Juliette has kept an amazing blog of her family here: Julie's Blog

Check it out. I think this is the best way to keep a scrap book.

Wow, it's been a long time since this thing has been updated. Frankly I'm surprised it even still exists. If Andrew hadn't created a BLOG on blogger I wouldn't have remembered I had one here.

General Conference was awesome. Julie especially liked Sister Beck's talk because it basically validated her entire philosophy as a mother. Read it. Live it. You know it's true.

Life here is great. Teaching seminary is a riot. Tough to get up that early every day, but we're all managing.

Work is going great. Lots of cool new development going on right now. The coolest new thing are "hybrid" disk drives. You know what FLASH is, right? Like those memory sticks you put in your computer? Well, we're making hybrid disk drives that are half flash, half normal spinning disk. You can store your OS (like Windows) on the flash portion and everything else on the disk. That way Windows boots and runs like a ton faster. They are the future of computing, for sure. Lots of cool new projects going on at Seagate right now. It's pretty cool to be developing this stuff. When I first started here, three years ago, the stuff I worked on is just now beginning to go into real products.

Just posted some new pictures on my website. Enjoy. I've actually had a few people come to me asking for me to take their portraits. I think they turned out nice.