Chapman Kids Blog

"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." –John 16:33

Month: November 2024

The kids arrive for Thanksgiving

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On Tuesday, November 26, 2024

In Family, Mexico life

Kelly arrived here Sunday afternoon and then Christian arrived last night. There amazing Tío Lauro ran to the airport both times (and hour each way, plus and hour to get from his house in Santiago to here). Both times we went to Rincon Sonorense in El Centrito de San Pedro to eat tacos. That is turning into somewhat of a tradition. Afterward, everyone, including Tío Lynn, slept at the apartments. It is just an amazing gift to have everyone here in one place. Today, we are going to head out to do some shopping and to show some parts of San Pedro to the kids.

Grandma Conchita in the hospital

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On Friday, November 22, 2024

In Family

Grandma Conchita has been in the hospital for the last three days. She is OK. Lots of tests were performed and the prognosis is good, but the doctors said she needs to exercise more and eat both less and better. I am so impressed with the support she received from her children. Tío Lauro dropped everything he was doing and ran to take her to the hospital when her fever rose and she was feeling bad. Lorena and Lynn dropped everything and ran to the hospital to provide moral support. They are good children. What a gift.

Surprised by Surprised by Joy

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On Tuesday, November 19, 2024

In Christianity

I finished C.S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy a couple of days ago. I liked it by it was different than I expected it to be. I do not know why, but after Mere Christianity, I had expected more of a mystical, deeply spiritual and emotional finale, but got what seemed to be a the idea that C.S. Lewis’s conversion was a dispassionate and coldly logical affair. I have no sense that I have the right take on that, but that WAS my take. That being said, there was one specific concept in the book that had to do with prayer and the concept of God–I think it was addressed in two different places, that were hugely impactful and worth the whole read. It was the idea that trying to analyze the nature of one’s conception of God gets in the way of praying to God as a person and focusing on the communication rather an analysis of the conception was what lead to a more fruitful relationship with God and a better prayer life.

The house as seen from the apartments

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On Monday, November 18, 2024

In Family, Mexico houses

I know I put up an image like this yesterday, but I went out onto the deck and decided to take another that was zoomed in a little more. We are VERY much looking forward to moving up there. We just got notice from the kids about when they will arrive for Thanksgiving and we are very excited to both see them and show them the improvements to our new places!

Our view of the house on the hill

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On Sunday, November 17, 2024

In Mexico houses, Mexico life

You can see the house we are remodeling up on the hill from our apartments in San Pedro, but just barely. Tío Lauro took this picture this afternoon. We have such a great view from where the picture was taken, we are excited to get move up there to an even better view. Tío Lynn is, little-by-little transitioning from the work here on the apartments to work on the the house on the hill. Lorena and I have not been up there for a few weeks, but hope to run up there to see the progress.

Programming like crazy

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On Saturday, November 16, 2024

In Post-doctoral research, Software

The last couple of weeks has been nothing but programming around the clock. We are getting ready for a product release and a trade show at work so I have been going through the weekends at my computer, but in addition to that, I decided to do some major upgrades to the GRIME2 software I did before and during my doctoral research. The game plan is to write one more serious journal article, then move on to start working on the use of the GRIME-AI software package being developed by my friend and fellow PhD student, John Stranzl. I probably won’t get to start doing that until January or February of 2025, God willing, but that is the plan.

Back to working out

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On Tuesday, November 12, 2024

In Exercise

I hurt myself lifting weights about six weeks ago so I was out from getting any kind of real exercise from then until yesterday. I have decided I will start back at a low level and slowly increase the weight I lift. I am a little sore today, but it really does feel good to be back working out again. Lorena has been extremely consistent since we got to Mexico. She was doing mostly weights until a couple of weeks ago, but really missed the cardio so she has increased the time she spends on the elliptical at the gym to close to what she had done previously in all the other places we have lived.

Another night with the family

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On Saturday, November 9, 2024

In Mexico life

Grandma Conchita brought me a brilliant new Caterpillar coffee/travel mug tonight as a surprise. I was really night expecting it. She is the best mother-in-law in the world. I will use it DAILY! After she got here, Tío Lynn grilled us up some milanesa (thinly sliced steak) to make sandwiches. Loren had previously purchased bolillos from the drive-by bread truck that were perfect for that application. Now we are waiting for the elote cart to drive by so we can by some fresh corn-on-the-cob for desert. It does not get much better than this.

Research collaborations

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On Saturday, November 9, 2024

In Post-doctoral research

There are interesting things happening in my avocational, post-doctoral academic pursuits. We did a couple of projects with an important AI/ML research professor at ITESM Guadalajara during my PhD at UNL. When we ran into a Biology professor at Gannon University in my work at Thrive Bioscience who had a need for our instruments, but not a lot of resources, we were able to work together to produce results for all three parties: Thrive ran images for an experiment at Gannon which were sent to ITESM for analysis with AI. Gannon and ITESM received academic benefits in terms of research suitable for publication and student projects while Thrive was able to demonstrate that third parties were uniquely able to produce meaningful results from the outputs of the Thrive instrument used in the experiment. We are hoping we can do more projects like this with these and other institutions in the near future.

Cabinet doors and neighbors

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On Thursday, November 7, 2024

In Mexico life

Lynn contracted with our neighbors, Richie and Chuy to install the doors on the cabinets below the kitchen counters in our apartment. They did a great job. Richie introduced himself to me as “Richie” and now everyone in the neighborhood calls him “Richie the gringo” and laughs. Before that, they called him Ricardo and think that Richie sounds extremely pretentious. Actually, it is kind of not Richie’s fault because he spends a lot of time building houses up in the States and that is what they call him there. I LOVE this neighborhood.

Missing Warren

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On Wednesday, November 6, 2024

In Friends

Election time and Thanksgiving are two of the times my now passed on friend Warren Bone and I talked. Maybe it is the time of year or maybe I am just getting old and nostalgic, but I have been thinking about him a lot the last few weeks. This picture was taken on a sloop in a bay on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. I hope to see him again someday.

2024 USA Presidential Election

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On Tuesday, November 5, 2024

In Family, Mexico life

I am grateful for my family. Grandma Conchita and Tío Lynn bought a steak and are bringing it over to grill and listen to the election results. We are ALL Trumpistas tonight! The dynamic down here in Mexico is VERY interesting. With Trump putting pressure on Presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum to stop the human and drug trafficking of the cartels or he will impose huge tariffs on Mexican imports, she is in a really tight spot because no one has a lot of control over the cartel. If the tariffs don’t work Trump says he will send the Marines which changes the equation dramatically. Interesting times.

Helping a PhD student

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On Monday, November 4, 2024

In Post-doctoral research

I spent a few hours this evening running some measurements on images captured by a PhD student as University of Kansas using the GRIME2 software advanced during my doctoral research at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She did a great job gathering the images. I actually acknowledged her in my dissertation defense and used a couple of picture of wildlife (bison and deer) that wandered in front of her camera during the course of her research. It truly is a joy to be part of this greater community of Natural Resource Sciences research in the Midwest–could not find a nicer group of people anywhere. Jessica plans to use these results in one of the chapters of her dissertation.

Hanging out with family

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On Saturday, November 2, 2024

In Mexico life

One of the nicest things about living here in San Pedro is the opportunity we have had to just hang out with Lorena’s family. The one’s we see the most are Grandma Conchita and Tío Lynn with Tío Lauro a close third. We now have a couple of really nice places to hang out–the living room of our apartment and, when the weather is nice, the main terrace where Lynn usually grills us something. It is amazing that we are now in November and the weather is still just amazing. It is currently 83° and is expected to drop to 73° at about dinner time.

The entire apartment building is really taking shape. We really could be at the point where we need to move out from the apartments and up the hill to our house remodel so that Lynn can rent out what where we are living now. We have been accumulating all the little things needed to just live daily life like an electric tea kettle, art (mostly from Tío Lauro), house plants, a small oven (no of the apartments have one) which also serves as an air fryer, etc., etc.. We have never had an air fryer before and we are honestly amazed by the thing. We are getting to like the neighbors so much here that is hard to think of moving. We are not sure if the culture of the neighborhood will be as friendly, but this is Mexico so it probably will be.

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