We made a quick trip to Soda Springs over the weekend to visit with my mom and dad. We drove up Saturday morning and drove back Sunday late afternoon. It was a good visit in the middle of a business trip to California.

I needed to be in California on Friday, January 30th for meetings with AT&T and then be back in California on Wednesday for a dinner I’m hosting for a number of LSI Logic employees who are attending training in San Francisco. Since the Denver Temple was also closed for winter break at that same time, we decided to make a bigger trip out of the business trip. Nina and I drove to Orem on Saturday, January 24th. She stayed here during the week while I went out to California. I flew back after the AT&T meeting on Friday. That made it possible to drive up to Soda Springs on Saturday. Our granddaughter Stephanie went up with us and we really enjoyed her company and it was good for her to spend some time with my mother and father. After lunch on Sunday we drove back down to Heather’s to catch Michael’s tenth birthday party and the end of the Super Bowl. I’ll work from Heather’s on Monday and Tuesday morning and then fly back out to San Francisco. Nina will pick me up at the airport on Thursday morning and we’ll drive home. It’s been a busy, but good trip.

Mom and Dad are doing very well. The picture was taken with the camera on my phone while they were slicing the roast for lunch. The camera on the phone is only marginally useful. It has no flash and little capability. But, the picture is a keeper. Mother will turn eighty this year; dad will be eighty-three. They’re doing well, are in reasonable health, and are very active. We’ll go on the cruise to Alaska in a couple of months together and I’m really looking forward to the trip!

The week in California was most interesting. On Monday afternoon the fastest spreading virus yet to hit the Internet started coming into the company through e-mail. The vast majority of our employees didn’t click on the virus attachment and thus didn’t get infected. However, the virus did seriously affect our e-mail systems. The attachment was about 22k bytes in size which dramatically increased the average size of e-mail coming into the company. Every one of them had to be scanned for spam and have their attachments stripped. We had to bring on additional computer horsepower so we could begin to catch up and then rewicker the e-mail infrastructure to get ahead of the curve. We’ll be making major changes Real Soon Now. This one cost us, once again, real money.

Late last week my best friend’s mother-in-law passed away. She had been living with them for several years after her husband died in an apartment in their downstairs area. Her funeral will be this Tuesday and we won’t be able to attend. Meryl, I’m sure you are much happier now — no more oxygen tanks, being short of breath, pneumonia bouts, and all the other ailments. And, you’re back together with your husband. God Speed! We miss you, however. It’s a sad time for family and friends.