Author: cosmo

Our security camera chimed because something was on our driveway (often that’s the only way we know someone is approaching the house, as we usually can’t see or hear cars coming up). I looked out the window.

There was an entire herd of elk wandering across our yard and into the adjoining forest! I counted eighteen in all. Pretty cool.

When we moved back into our home after our mission time in California, we started finding little plastic animals hidden around the house. Kyra and Hannah had apparently bought a package of them on Amazon, and scattered them about just prior to our return. For weeks, I’d find them atop door frames, in the refrigerator drawer, behind the salt shaker, under the silverware, and on and on. Every day brought new animals and a smile to my face.

Well, that was six months ago and we’ve found most of them. My last discovery, at the end of December, was a little blue brachiosaurus inside the glove I keep stashed in the car in case of emergencies:

Kyra was pretty clever with some of these!

Tonight I found a tiny stegosaurus in the Party House, and it reminded me there are still a few lurking out there.

Then I got to thinking: maybe I could design a kids’ game for Oliver that features these fun little dinosaurs and animals. I already gave him Ofrendas, which is basically Go Fish, and he seemed to enjoy matching the cartoon cards. I gathered all the dinosaurs I’ve found to date…

… and now I’m contemplating how they might make a game suitable for a five-year-old. Ideas are welcome!

Back in 2003 I put two magnets together to form the catchy phrase Thought Monkeys. Over the past two decades I’ve registered a domain, created a fake company, created a real company, and generally had a good chuckle about all of it.

Last month Pepper and I were at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Dillon MT and I saw a sign on the wall:

I immediately knew that was the logo I should use for Thought Monkeys! Today, a little bit of graphics work and voila:

Clearly it’s trademark infringement for me to use this screaming sunglassed howler monkey on anything official. So it’ll just be another fun addition to the 23-year-and-counting saga of Thought Monkeys…

In almost seven years of living in Montana and overlooking Flathead Lake, we’ve seen plenty of amazing sunsets. Two days ago, we were treated to one that was absolutely stunning.

Yes, it was really that color.

Then yesterday, the fog rolled in. Pepper snapped this shot in our backyard as the morning sun poked through the fog and forest.

And today, the fog returned but only hovered over the lake. Because we’re hundreds of feet above the level of the water, we were above the fog and could see it just nestled in the valley. When the sun set, it illuminated the tops of the clouds. Magnificent!

Three days, three amazing displays of light and shadow.

Every month or so, it’s time to make a bunch of pizzas and freeze them. Today it was time.

It’s actually a fun process. There’s enough dough to make nine mini-pizzas, which I put into little pans. They get wrapped and frozen, and for the next month I can just grab one from the freezer, pop it into the oven, and in eighteen minutes enjoy a piping hot fresh-baked pizza! Brilliant.

Well, this is it. The last one.

For well over a decade, I’ve been buying this brand of orange juice from Costco. They’ve recently discontinued it, and don’t plan to re-stock it. This is my last can from the freezer.

I love orange juice, This is a blow to my habit, because now I’ll have to buy it at “regular” grocery stores (much more expensive than Costco) and in smaller sizes.

Hmm. Maybe I should plant some orange trees in my orchard…

It’s been a long time coming, but I finally feel like I’m “back in the saddle” of technical work. For many months I’ve been thinking about how to un-retire and do some meaningful software development. Fortunately I have a long-time client (and friend!) who’s willing to engage me in some projects. It isn’t full-time work– far from it– but it’s enough to keep me busy for a few hours here and there. I’m updating and upgrading their web application, using technologies I’ve been immersed in for 25 years while exploring new technologies to make things better, faster, and easier.

Ahh, editing PHP in Vim…

While much of what I’m doing feels so familiar, there are a few twists. First, I have a triple monitor setup with massive 32-inch 2K screens: plenty of real estate for all of my editor windows, test pages, log files, research tabs, and so on. More pixels are almost always better!

Second, I have an amazing lake view out the window as I work, which beats the basement window well view of my old home office. And third, the pace is much more relaxed: no more 50-hour weeks, constantly checking email, or feeling like I always need to be available for clients. I work a few hours a day, taking pizza and gaming breaks or shifting gears for a personal project for a bit.

It feels good to be back in this groove. I always enjoyed my job, and my clients… it was having to work those long hours that became a drag. Now that I can do it more on my terms, I think it’s going to be a Good Thing.

At church, one of my responsibilities is handling the finances for our congregation. As such, I have a (shared) office area for processing funds, managing reports, and so on. For months I’ve told myself I need to take a day to clean out the office, because there are some cabinets that contain books and things I know are outdated and no longer useful. Today was that day.

As I began going through the cabinets, drawers, shelves, and file folders, the weight of history gradually became apparent. I’d already seen the old WordPerfect software manual (I used WordPerfect back in the mid-1990s and it was a great word processor). But then I came across some 3.5″ floppy disks with backups dated 1992:

I was pretty sure we didn’t need these any more. I chucked them into one of the trash bags I was filling.

Deeper in that cabinet was something even older: a set of four 5.25″ floppy disks used to install church financial software!

Sheesh. Into the trash.

I kept going. I went for some more trash bags. The pile was getting bigger. Tucked in the back of a cabinet was a box of paper rolls for adding machines…

Oh, and three adding machines. Because everyone uses those, when we’ve had calculator apps on our phones for at least twenty years. I wondered if they could be used for an interesting hobby project, but decided that a literal mile of adding-machine paper probably wasn’t going to come in handy any time soon. Trash.

Let’s not forget the replacement letter wheel for a Brother typewriter! Sadly, the typewriter was nowhere to be seen.

There were so many things like this: artifacts from thirty and forty years ago, stashed in file drawers or stuffed in a box on the back of a shelf behind twenty massive three-ring binders filled with policy documents with dates in the late 1980s. It was staggering. I think sometimes people are afraid to throw away things because… hey, they might be useful one day! But as I shook my head at each new discovery, I felt like no one would ever miss these things.

At the end of the day, I had at least a dozen trash bags filled with stuff, as well as boxes and binders and assorted things that filled the back of our Honda CR-V. I drove straight from the church to the dump and that was the end of it.

My little archaeology expedition was both shocking and fascinating. And now the office has shelves and cabinets that are completely bare. But maybe in forty years, a few things from today will be tossed out by a future financial clerk, and the cycle will repeat…

When Kari came out to visit a few weeks ago, she forgot to bring some homemade candy. To my surprise and delight, a little box showed up in the mail today… she’d packaged up some turtles and bon bons, and sent them to me!

I love these things. Thanks, Kari!

Alex and Kaitlyn recently bought a townhome, and they were very excited to finally be able to host Christmas. It’s one of those rites of passage as an adult: finally having a place with enough room to invite your family over, rather than having to go to Mom and Dad’s place to celebrate the holiday season. It was great to have everyone together (again!) and we enjoyed a few days relaxing and playing.

William is about a month old now, but he’s still so small. Zack– who’s not really a baby person– spent a surprising amount of time with the little guy on his chest. There’s something about holding a sleeping baby.

We swung by Tara and Trent’s place for an exciting game night. It included Secret Hitler and Catch Phrase, both of which involve a lot of yelling. With this crowd it was a lot of fun.

On Christmas Eve Kaitlyn prepared her family’s traditional “Bethlehem Dinner”, which is a cool reminder of what it might have been like two millennia ago. We ate flatbread, chicken, cheeses, and grapes by candlelight.

Later that evening, it was time for The Presentations. This was Hannah’s idea: a few weeks earlier, she’d proposed that all of us make short 5-10 minute presentations about anything, and then have someone else present them. I thought it should be something educational, so I put together a handful of slides about the Great Emu War. Kyra drew the lucky straw and presented it. She did a great job, remaining serious and professional even though she had no idea what slide would come up next.

After that, Alex was able to present “The Science of Eye Contact”, which Kyra had written. It was actually quite informative, discussing how humans react to eye contact. However, her slides all featured gigantic horrific AI-generated eyeballs.

Things took a turn when Zack presented Alex’s topic, “The Art of Sacred Pooping”. It claimed to be “An Exhaustively Researched Report” but not surprisingly it was full of inside jokes (like the title itself) and plenty of scatological humor.

We finished with me presenting Zack’s deck, “Understanding Jeff: Meeting the Real Me” which turned out to be a scathing (but frankly hilarious) mockery of me. Where’s the respect in kids these days?

It was a riot, and will probably become a weird family tradition.

It will shock no one to learn that we played a lot of board games together. We even had a round of Wingspan with the highest scores I’ve ever seen.

The weather was freakishly warm, and we went on long walks every day in the 65-degree weather. Oliver loved riding his bike along the sidewalks in their little neighborhood.

When Christmas Day dawned, Oliver was naturally the most excited. He did an admirable job of holding back from tearing into his presents, waiting over two hours for everyone to be up and ready. It’s fun seeing how excited kids are about gifts. I don’t think he was prepared for the custom shower curtain I made for him, though:

I took a photo of him in a car at a carnival, added an outdoor background, and printed it in six-by-six-foot glory. It’s hanging in his bathroom now.

Oliver adores his Uncle Zack, probably because he’s like the crazy funny uncle who does things like make weird gang signs in photos.

Yeah, it was a hoot to be together. Merry Christmas to all.