Category Archives: Friends & Family

Y’all might not be aware that Mormons, who don’t observe Lent, do observe Mardi Gras. Last night we had a big ol’ Mardi Gras party / surprise birthday bash. Arlene and I had been kicking around the idea of a large party for a few months, even though we’re not really big entertainers. We decided on Mardi Gras as an appropriate occasion and started laying in supplies. Zatarain’s and Tony‘s were prominently featured, along with a large bag of decorations and beads that Betty brought up when she came to babysit for our trip to Seattle earlier this year. Arlene spent all week in front of the stove, and Mom pitched in to help with the decorating, provisioning, and general preparation.
All I did was hang a few beads and boil 4 pounds of shrimp using an ancient family recipe (involving, of course, chemical weapons like this). Arlene made gumbo, red beans and rice, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, and assorted fixings (salad, French bread). Everyone ate hugely, and we had a wonderful time– I have pictures to prove it. The highlight of the evening was Matt’s emergence from the basement (where he’d been lured by our bishop on the pretext of talking to him privately), at which point we all had our party hats on and the candles in the ice cream cake lit. Big fun! (Now, of course, Arlene’s out of town, so I have a whole house full of Mardi Gras decorations to take down and store.)

Except in Devin‘s case, where his castle is his castle. I sure hope my sons don’t see these pictures, or I’m doomed to several hours of cardboard assembly. Worse still, if they see these shots of an elaborate Lego Star Wars diorama, I’ll never hear the end of it.

Sigfried Weber (Exchange MVP, developer par excellence, and gracious host) finally has his own blog. For his most recent trick, he’s made SharePoint emit properly formed RSS. Drop by his site and say hello!

A friend of mine is selling 800-Flowers gift certificates for 65 cents on the dollar. How is this possible? He bought a ton of them during their end-of-the-year promotion, which gave 100 Delta frequent flyer miles for each $1 spent. He’s legit. Contact him at andymo99 AT aol DOT com if you’re interested.

Longtime readers may remember my post about Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines. Now their most famous alumnus, Brian Taylor, has had part of his journal serialized in the Wall Street Journal. It makes for gripping reading, not least because Cpl Taylor has a real facility with the language. Here are parts 1, 2 (“Into Iraq”), and 3 (“The March to Baghdad”). Part 4’s coming this Friday. I understand that he’s working on a book, which I’m eager to read.

Many happy returns of the day! I’ll see Julie’s picture and raise her a blog written by the two Mars rovers.

My friend Bob Thompson accidentally found my Australia travelogue while searching for information on the upcoming solar transit of Venus. He was kind enough to tell his readers to come here, so welcome to all y’all! So, just so it’s not a wasted trip, a few interesting things:

• This blog has lots of details on the SPOT “smart watch” implementation (see also SPOTStop and SPOTbuzz)
• The last chapter for Secure Messaging with Exchange Server 2003 is done and gone. The book will be on shelves in early April.
• It looks like I’m going to be writing the Exchange Cookbook for O’Reilly. Co-writing is actually the proper term; fellow MVP Missy Koslosky and future MVP (and our co-worker) Devin Ganger are working on it with me. There’s a non-working website for the book; I’ll have content posted shortly.
• My lovely wife has some new stamping projects ready for her workshop tomorrow; see the gallery for details.

Since my last post, Mark got enough signatures to file for the March 2 primary. He’s having a “meet the candidate” event this Friday, 9 January. It’s from 6-8pm at Nazareth Hall in Grand Rapids (yes, there is a Grand Rapids, Ohio… that’s your useless information for the day). Come out and meet Mark and find out why he’d make a terrific sheriff for Wood County!

We have a family tradition: every year, on Christmas Eve, we read the Cajun Night Before Christmas to the kids. Some years I do it, but Dad’s much better at it, so he usually performs. This year, Dad recorded it to send out to friends, and I snagged a copy to post here for your listening enjoyment. We’re ready for Christmas now: the batteries are all charged, Santa’s snacks are laid out, and the (white, dead) turkey is in the fridge, ready for tomorrow’s trip to the oven. Merry Christmas to all!
Update: removed the link to the recording at the publisher’s request.

My friend (and fellow Rotarian) Mark Wasylyshyn is running for sheriff of Wood County. His candidacy had to be suspended because of an archaic Ohio law that prevents municipal employees from taking part in most kinds of political activity; because he’s a sergeant in the Perrysburg Police Division, the law prevented him from continuing his candidacy. Fortunately, he had the gumption to ask the Perrysburg City Council to pass an ordinance overriding that law, and eventually they did. Because Mark had to suspend his candidacy until the ordinance took effect, he’s behind in the process of gathering signatures to get him on the ballot. To help fix this, he’s sponsoring a petition drive at Maggie’s Family Restaurant (at the corner of Ohio Rt 25 and Roachton Rd) from 5-7pm on Monday, 12/15.
If you’re over 18, registered to vote in Wood County, and a Republican, please come by and sign the petition. If you’re not, well, come anyway; you’d probably enjoy meeting Mark, who I know will do a terrific job as our next sheriff.

It’s a shame that Julie is better about posting pictures of my kids than I am. No more! I’ve added a holiday photo gallery for your enjoyment.

A brief sampling of the choices I have for allocating my time tonight: football (LSU vs the hated UGA Bulldogs, in high definition), reading (Wilson’s Blind Lake), video games (XIII, Splinter Cell), and work (the book, a competitive battlecard, and a long planning document for Microsoft Consulting Services). So, I’ve compromised: I’m watching the game (and it’s glorious now that my antenna is cooperating) while working on chapter 14 on the laptop. At halftime I’ll break out XIII.

We had a marvelous Thanksgiving, with turkey (Dad: “What kind of turkey did you get at the turkey farm?” Thomas: “A white dead one”), Arlene’s apple pie, rice and gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, peas, and plenty of loud noise from the Three Boys. We missed Julie and Paul (especially when it came time to eat), but they’ll be with us for Christmas.
I was thinking yesterday of the many things I have to be thankful for, but I think I can sum them up thusly: my family and I are healthy and safe. That’s enough all by itself, to say nothing of the many trappings (great job, good friends, clean laundry, electricity, antibiotics…) After watching the new Christmas video we got in this month’s Ensign, I’m especially thankful that God loves us enough to have sent his Son to be our savior and redeemer. (Note to the non-believers: you should still see the video for no other reason than to hear the glorious music of the Tabernacle Choir, especially if you have a surround sound system– magnificent!)

Yesterday I spent much of the day helping to hang up Dad’s 50-1200MHz ham radio antenna. This involved: a cutting torch, large iron plates, the attic, an 8′ stepladder that doesn’t really fit into the closet where the attic door is, two trips to Home Depot (thanks, Tim!), and a Genie stick boom that the boys were afraid to ride on. Oh, let’s not forget the FRS radios (handy for talking between the attic and the boom platform), an ancient Black & Decker 1/2″ drill that’s almost as old as I am, and some hot dogs with chili– the traditional family Saturday lunch during the many years we’ve spent working on cars, boats, airplanes, and various fixed structures. Oh, and the drill press.
The finished product is now on display, but here’s a sample.

I was trying to explain to Arlene that we should move to Salt Lake City and buy this house. She was all for it, until she read the ad and found out it had 13.5 bathrooms. Apparently this historic mansion is currently fitted out as an inn, which is what I’d do with it. Arlene could be the chef, the boys could clean the bathrooms, and Betty could live in the attached carriage house. In the winter, we could all ski. If we knew how, that is. On the other hand, moving to SLC would be a bit too much upheaval, and I can only imagine how many honey-dos a house that size and age would generate.