The weekend
Gotta love 3-day weekends! Gotta love getting a holiday most private businesses ignore even if I spent the whole thing doing homework.
Saturday was spent in Lab working on Network Security I labs with my mentor from NASA. How fun! We are good friends at this point. He and another classmate, one I encouraged to take an internship last Spring, are both in the class. They both spoke in wonder of touring SOFIA, the newest NASA infrared observatory last week when it landed at Moffett Field. SOFIA is a modified 747 with a hatch that opens to reveal the telescope after they reach the upper atmosphere. It was originally developed at NASA-Ames but was transfered to the Southern Calif. branch of NASA to finish up.
Sunday we got bagels and kitty litter. Eric was still searching for headphones so we checked out the Longs Drug store near the pet supply store, then went to Circuit City and had no luck there, either. I prepared the gifts for my oldest friends and the son of one of them and spent the late-afternoon and evening with them. We took the gifts to Joyce's house and saw the latest addition to their house. Joyce's other half, Bob, has a compulsion to build. His 90 year old dad moved in with them last year and because he wants the "Train Room" for his bedroom, They built a 1200 square foot room where their side yard used to be for the new "Train Room." Bob has Garden scale trains. His little landscaped track area was destroyed for the new building, so most of the plants have been moved to new garden beds on the hillside. The buildings are indoors now. He's building a historically correct landscape around the edges of the room to represent the last narrow gauge railroad in our area. I'll post pictures later. I don't have time to unload, resize and upload them now. It's pretty amazing. Joyce was huffing about it saying things about train fanatics and how there's a steady stream of them visiting all the time. lol
She and Bob have fires burning in two fireplaces all the time when it's cold. The whole house smelled of cedar woodsmoke. At first I thought it was incense, it was so strong. I was OK while we were there, but my lungs have been reacting ever since. Eric noticed I wasn't feeling well before I did. Stupid asthma.
Karen gave us each a resin stretching cat sculpture that reminded me of Lee-Roy. It reminded Eric of Lee-Roy, too. He cried when I showed it to him. She has it easy, buying for three cat lovers. Elaine send us each nesting nutcracker-type guys and a massager. Joyce gave us each a bear hug t-shirt and a little Mrs. Santa bear. I got them each a Santa nutcracker and some chocolates. We agreed the gift thing is getting hard and our trinket shelves are overloaded. Next year we'll each buy something for Elaine and nothing for each other.
We went to dinner at Sonoma Chicken Coop. Yum! My entire dinner only cost $10.01! Cheap and delicious!
Then we went to Karen's to give Woody his gifts and visit some more. He loved the Rubik's cube and 20 Questions game I gave him along with the chocolate covered apricots, cherries and blueberries. Joyce gave him a fart game and fart toy she got at McDonalds.
One thing that disturbed me was when Woody started talking about his friends. One is at the boy's ranch for setting a fire at another high school that caused $20,000 in damage. He says his friend isn't a bad kid, even though he did get arrested for armed robbery at age 13. When I asked Woody to describe what a bad kid was to him, he smirked. I told him to watch who he was friends with. He was in danger of being dragged into whatever they did. He scoffed.
His whole goal in life is to piss his mother off. I'm not sure what to do. I'm seriously worried. They're in dire need of counseling but she doesn't believe in that. Woody is in danger of being lost. He's so very bright, if only he had a positive direction, there's be no stopping him. But he has had his goal set since he was a toddler. There doesn't seem to be any weakening of it as he ages.
Saturday was spent in Lab working on Network Security I labs with my mentor from NASA. How fun! We are good friends at this point. He and another classmate, one I encouraged to take an internship last Spring, are both in the class. They both spoke in wonder of touring SOFIA, the newest NASA infrared observatory last week when it landed at Moffett Field. SOFIA is a modified 747 with a hatch that opens to reveal the telescope after they reach the upper atmosphere. It was originally developed at NASA-Ames but was transfered to the Southern Calif. branch of NASA to finish up.
Sunday we got bagels and kitty litter. Eric was still searching for headphones so we checked out the Longs Drug store near the pet supply store, then went to Circuit City and had no luck there, either. I prepared the gifts for my oldest friends and the son of one of them and spent the late-afternoon and evening with them. We took the gifts to Joyce's house and saw the latest addition to their house. Joyce's other half, Bob, has a compulsion to build. His 90 year old dad moved in with them last year and because he wants the "Train Room" for his bedroom, They built a 1200 square foot room where their side yard used to be for the new "Train Room." Bob has Garden scale trains. His little landscaped track area was destroyed for the new building, so most of the plants have been moved to new garden beds on the hillside. The buildings are indoors now. He's building a historically correct landscape around the edges of the room to represent the last narrow gauge railroad in our area. I'll post pictures later. I don't have time to unload, resize and upload them now. It's pretty amazing. Joyce was huffing about it saying things about train fanatics and how there's a steady stream of them visiting all the time. lol
She and Bob have fires burning in two fireplaces all the time when it's cold. The whole house smelled of cedar woodsmoke. At first I thought it was incense, it was so strong. I was OK while we were there, but my lungs have been reacting ever since. Eric noticed I wasn't feeling well before I did. Stupid asthma.
Karen gave us each a resin stretching cat sculpture that reminded me of Lee-Roy. It reminded Eric of Lee-Roy, too. He cried when I showed it to him. She has it easy, buying for three cat lovers. Elaine send us each nesting nutcracker-type guys and a massager. Joyce gave us each a bear hug t-shirt and a little Mrs. Santa bear. I got them each a Santa nutcracker and some chocolates. We agreed the gift thing is getting hard and our trinket shelves are overloaded. Next year we'll each buy something for Elaine and nothing for each other.
We went to dinner at Sonoma Chicken Coop. Yum! My entire dinner only cost $10.01! Cheap and delicious!
Then we went to Karen's to give Woody his gifts and visit some more. He loved the Rubik's cube and 20 Questions game I gave him along with the chocolate covered apricots, cherries and blueberries. Joyce gave him a fart game and fart toy she got at McDonalds.
One thing that disturbed me was when Woody started talking about his friends. One is at the boy's ranch for setting a fire at another high school that caused $20,000 in damage. He says his friend isn't a bad kid, even though he did get arrested for armed robbery at age 13. When I asked Woody to describe what a bad kid was to him, he smirked. I told him to watch who he was friends with. He was in danger of being dragged into whatever they did. He scoffed.
His whole goal in life is to piss his mother off. I'm not sure what to do. I'm seriously worried. They're in dire need of counseling but she doesn't believe in that. Woody is in danger of being lost. He's so very bright, if only he had a positive direction, there's be no stopping him. But he has had his goal set since he was a toddler. There doesn't seem to be any weakening of it as he ages.