Read on Facebook:

J: It’s almost 4:00 so this day is like so over. Three more days to Mexico….nothing sucks about that!

C: I’m in the future…past six here.

J: Honey – you live in Alabama. You will never be in the future.

C: LMAO!

Nina has known Bri for several years having met when Bri was incarcerated at the Pocatello Womens Correctional Center and Nina was the Relief Society President there. Bri wasn’t there very long, but faithfully attended all the meetings and cheerfully took part in every way. Nina and the other women serving in the presidency just came to love her … and that was reciprocated.

Several months ago we received a “Save the Date” card letting us know that she were going to be married on April 29th in the Portland Temple. Of course we were going to save the date! A few months later an invitation to the sealing and to the reception arrived. The date was solid!

We left Pocatello early yesterday morning (April 28th) and drove the 12 1/2 hours to Hillsboro, a town a bit west of Portland. This morning we were at the Portland Temple in plenty of time. When we were ushered into Sealing Room #12, some 27 people where there to participate and witness this event. It was clear that Nic and Bri had a lot of friends and supporters! A couple of the young ladies there had driven over to Pocatello to see Bri when she was there. Many more were faithful letter writers. She had cleared up everything with family, with Nic, and with the Lord. She was so pretty sitting on the couch with her husband-to-be Nic ready to be married in the Temple and sealed for eternity. I have great confidence that this marriage will make it for at least that long.

After the sealing we met them outside for pictures. Then Nina and I went back into the Temple to do an endowment session. The Portland Temple is beautiful and quite unique. We had a delightful session. A visit to Barnes and Noble followed, then we went to the reception.

Bri and Nic are both converts to the Church. As such, their families were not able to be in the Temple with them this morning. Consequently, they arranged to do a ring ceremony, complete with groomsmen and bridesmaids at the beginning of the reception. The area was packed with a couple hundred family and friends. They are obviously well liked and very popular!

It’s been a lovely day and a great experience being here. Tomorrow we’re headed north from Portland to Seattle where we’ll spend some time with Jared, and with Wendy and her family. TTFN!

I’m staying home from work today as I have a splitting headache that is refusing to respond to Tylenol. After a bit I’ll switch to aspirin to see if that makes any difference. In the meantime I’m not interested in doing very much at all. The house is quiet as Nina is down in the Ogden area doing some clothes shopping. We’re headed next week to a wedding in Portland, one of the very special events for Nina. The ceremony will be in the Portland LDS Temple. The bride was an inmate at the Pocatello Womens Correctional Center when Nina was the Relief Society President in the branch that serves the prison. She’s one of the real success stories of people changing their lives and making the most of the new opportunities.

So, new clothes for the event are definitely appropriate. Meanwhile, I can be feeling lousy here at home and not be affecting anyone else. I do need to be at the office tomorrow, so I’m hoping this is a one-day thing.

Spring is trying to establish itself. The snow is mostly gone and the temperatures have moved up into the mid to upper 40’s during the day. I’m not sorry to see winter end! It has hung around long enough. According to the hydrologists, we have had abundant snow in the mountains throughout the region and the snow melt is filling up the rivers and the reservoirs. Hopefully the aquifer underneath us is getting nicely recharged as well. The grass can turn green anytime it wishes.

With the relentless increase in gasoline prices, I’ve joined a van pool to ride back and forth to work. The cost per day is about half of what the gasoline alone would cost for the trip up and back. While that is saving money and wear and tear on the car, it cuts down on the independence! I need to figure out some hybrid method … a way to ride the van up and back as well as a way to have transportation up there. Maybe I need a beater pickup or something I can just leave there parked overnight.

That’s the blathering for today. TTFN!

Nina occasionally watches Ophra. A couple of weeks ago she told me she had seen the coolest thing and just had to tell me about it! MC Hammer was a guest on the show and it turns out he’s pretty much into technology. He had with him a Zagg keyboard / case for his iPad2 and demonstrated not only how nice the keyboard was, but how indestructible it was.

I ordered it. The package arrived today. I’m using it to type this blog entry. It’s pretty incredible.

Thanks, Nina!!! Thanks Ophra!! Thanks MC Hammer (although I’m not into your music…)!

it’s lunch time and I’ve got a few minutes. The picture above is a part of the cubicle I work in when I’m actually in the office. This is a very slow week. It’s Spring Break in the Idaho Falls area so many folks are gone this week. Also, the project I’m managing is in a wait state until some senior management decisions can be made and a contract negotiated with the proposed supplier. I have a couple of meetings today, so I came in to work. I’ll probably work from home tomorrow.

I have been getting a huge amount of comment spam on my blog. I finally sent a message to the folks who maintain the software and they asked me to send them some data. In rounding up the data I discovered that the spam blocking software had been turned off! I don’t know how that happened, but it occurred about three weeks ago. I turned it back on and the spam has stopped.

The picture was taken by my iPad2. I’m writing this post from my iPad2. I’m interested to see how it looks. TTFN!

I’ve had this application on my iPhone a while called Dragon dictation. Now that I have an iPad it’s on my iPad as well and it actually seems to work OK. I like it, actually, and it seems to do a pretty good job of recognizing everything I say.

It’s actually easier to talk than to type, particularly on the iPhone because it’s not very easy to type on the iPhone. I have to stop and think every once in a while. I’m not exactly sure how this thing handles my pauses and my other things like clearing my throat.

I’ve kind of figured out that I need to have a bit of an outline about what I’m going to say before I tried to dictate it. Without an outline I have to do a lot of stopping and thinking and I don’t have my thoughts very well together. There is a whole vocabulary associated with this dictation thing as well. For instance, special words to put in punctuation or in order to get paragraphs or other kinds of things.

I haven’t quite figured out some of the nuances but the workflow. Being able to put together a new post is a bit more complicated than I’d like for it to be. For instance I have to dictate in the Dragon application and then copy it and paste it into the blog post.

Corrections are kind of interesting as well. It does have a bit of an editor capability by tapping on a word after the recognition is finished. I get the option of being able to delete the word or sometimes it’ll suggest a better word particularly if the word I got there is quite misspelled. I want to try this on occasion but not probably a method of doing blog posts very often.

Every other Friday is a day off for folks working at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in the Idaho Falls offices (the folks working out in the desert at the “Site” have every Friday off). Today is one of those “off” Fridays for me. The intent is usually to catch up on my sleep while Nina gets up a little after 3 am to go to the Idaho Falls Temple to work. As usual, it didn’t work out that way today and sleep was quite illusive. I’m worried that sleeping in is becoming too much of a rarity in my life.

Yesterday afternoon my mother went into the hospital having some kind of cardiac problem. They admitted her into intensive care. So, Nina and I drove over last night when I got home from work. Mother was doing much better. The doctor planned to keep her in overnight for observation. Hopefully she’ll come home today. My favorite brother is on his way over from Green River, Wyoming to Soda Springs for a couple of days and will be with her when she gets home.

Likely the problem has a lot to do with hydration. The nurse was putting a lot of fluid in her through an IV and was going to continue that through the night. Mother was feeling much better when we were there.

Not much on the agenda today, perhaps a few errands. I’ve been listening to the Idaho State Police on the radio. They just broke up a fight at a bar in Lava and the County Sheriff has one in custody. Listening to the police frequencies certainly gives me quite an appreciation for how often their lives and well-being are on the line. TTFN!!

There is finally an updated app for managing my blog from my new iPad. I might actually post a little more often (hopefully). The app on my iPhone kept crashing but this one seems to be more stable.

I’ve been working from home today and have gotten quite a bit done. Sometimes being away from the office where people can’t just stop in and talk is a good thing.