This is a Wednesday night that actually feels like it should be a weekend already. We’ve had winter weather for the past week — except we haven’t had the snow and rain that comes along with winter. A few flakes will fall and nothing more. Dang. If we’re going to have the weather, I’d just as soon have the rain and snow that goes along with it. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of writing at work. Policies and procedures and such. Consequently, I’ve been neglecting the blog. I actually need to write in the blog much more often as it is quite theraputic. I’ve also been quite caught up in the Wheel of Time series from Robert Jordan. I’ve just started Book 10 and am still enjoying the series. These are all huge books (800 to 1000 pages each) and they all take some time to read. As a result, I haven’t been writing very much and I’ve also got several thousand e-mails unread from the Prop Wash Gang. These are folks that have been involved in the Air Force reconnaissance program as I was some forty years ago. Most of them were Russian linguists. A few were Chinese, Korean, or Vietnamese lingusts. A couple are Arab linguists. The commentary and stories are quite interesting. So I can’t just delete the e-mails, I do want to puruse them. I’ll catch up one of these days!

I’m listening to a podcast as I write this. Richard lives in Japan (works in Tokyo and lives about two hours north of the city not far from Tsukuba) and has put out two podcasts. The URL for his blog is www.herroflomjapan.com. Both of his podcasts so far have featured a “soundscape” from Japan. He has a couple of binaural microphones that look like earphones. He plugs these into his mp3 recorder and walks through neighborhoods in Tokyo. In this case, he’s walking through Kabukicho which is the red-light district on the west side of Tokyo (I’ve never been there). It’s quite interesting listening to all the sounds and action as he walks along, records the sounds, and comments on what he’s seeing. Sounds just like the Japan I remember.

All of the birthday cards have arrived. It was indeed fun getting a whole stack of birthday cards and all who were assigned came through with their assignment. Very cool. We’ll be going to some Chukars baseball games, buying some more books from Amazon.com, and enjoying goodies. A very nice birthday and thanks to all. My dad will have his 85th birthday in a couple of weeks, so it’s time to plan a birthday party for him. Birthdays are still good — as the unattributed quote says, “the more you have, the longer you live.” Keep ’em coming.

Nina has been struggling with a lousy cold. We’ve got some very good friends from Colorado Springs arriving tomorrow evening for a short visit on their way to Salt Lake City for General Conference. In about 9 days Nina’s sister from Ohio will arrive for a two-week stay. A few days later, Nina’s niece (daughter of the sister from Ohio) will arrive for a week. Then Ashlyn heads back up to Rexburg to start her next two semesters at college. Ashlyn’s been away on Spring Break and got back this evening. We miss her when she’s gone and will miss her when she leaves to go back to school. She’s a lot of fun to have around (and I’m sure that a couple of old farts like Nina and I make life interesting for her as well!). Ashlyn also came home with a cold. I’m doomed. So far I’ve gotten through the winter with no cold and no flu. My luck looks to be running out. But, I’ve written in the blog!