We are amazed at what it is like to live in our new neighborhood. Beside the beautiful vignettes of daily life we see out the front window (we loved seeing this cat relaxing on a shelf above the garage of the neighbor across the street), it seems like everyone here knows, or at least knows of, everyone else in the neighborhood. Last night, Lynn walked up to a deposito (a non-chain, neighborhood convenience store–they call them depositos because everyone buys their beer and returns their empty bottles to stores like this) to return some bottles from other renters in our apartment. The guy working behind the counter asked to whom he should credit the bottles. Lynn told him, “the girls from Veracruz” and he knew exactly who Lynn was talking about even though they had been here only a month.
Year: 2024 Page 4 of 12
We are kind of amazed about this. My sense is that this is not a common turn of events.
Lorena and I decided to walk from you apartment up to the house on the hill and found that it is quite a steep walk. I have decided I am going to do that every day for a couple weeks, then gradually work myself up to further walks. If I can get through the pain of not having walked on any serious inclines for years, it will be a great way to get into shape and, hopefully, stay there. The views up there are amazing and only getting better with the work Lynn is doing to make the house more open with more views from more floors. The picture below is of the new picture window in the first floor living room/office.
This is the view from the apartment’s azotea looking toward the Huasteca this morning. If you turn about 60 degrees and look up the hill on the other side of the valley, you can see the house Lynn is remodeling where we hope to be living within the next 4-5 months. The four window balcony is very distinct.
This is the view out the front window (over the kitchen sink) on the side of the house opposite the beautiful valley behind the house. It is amazingly quiet compared to many similar neighborhoods we have been visited throughout Mexico, but in the evening there are lots of people around with kids playing football (soccer) and other games on the street and sidewalks. The smell of Mexican food cooking and the sound of Latin music of a million varieties are ubiquitous. We are truly enjoying it, but realize that the street that runs by our house up the hill is significantly less active. I am enjoying the non-quiet for now.
The running like crazy has now slowed down to the running like mildly neurotic. We are very happy to be ensconced in our apartment where we can see this (and a much broader view) ourselves rather than through pictures sent to us. I took this picture Sunday morning in 75 degree weather with a light, cool breeze blowing. We are still getting set up and, after seeing everything, have changed our plans about what we want to do with the Mexico properties. We absolutely are going to love living here.
Lorena and I spent the night in sleeping bags in this spectacular, now empty house in Godley, Texas that is no longer our home. We have lots of great memories and loved just about everything about the house. Lorena did her exercises on the rowing machine and the treadmill in the media room with the huge windows looking onto the back yard. She took naps there on the sofa in the afternoon and we watched Midsomer Murders there just about every evening for the last six months. We loved the fireplace and used it whenever we could find an excuse–sometimes when it was not even cold outside.
I loved my office with its diploma wall, overstuffed sofa and chair, variable height bamboo desk, three huge monitors, and so much more. The office is where I did the last half of my PhD, met via video conference with my colleagues at Thrive Bioscience, read my Bible first think every morning with a glass of water, a cup of creatine laced coffee, and checked out the news on X and Telegram. Before we got the projector and big screen in the media room, Lorena and I often sat on the sofa and watched the British mystery series we like so much. We never did get around to installing bookshelves in the office or on either side of the fireplace, but we hope to do that at the very beginning in the house we hope to build in Granbury, Lord willing.
All our worldly goods are not safely in short term storage while we wait for our hose to be built in Granbury, Texas. The house is empty, so Lorena and I are spending the night in sleeping bags on the floor for one more night after which we will drop off a few things at our builder’s office (Coker & Company) before our favorite airport shuttle driver picks us up to catch a plane to Monterrey. If every thing works as plan and God is willing, Lorena’s brother Lynn will pick us up tomorrow night and install us in our apartment where we hope to stay for the next four to five months until our house on the hill, five blocks above the apartments is currently being renovated. Stay tuned for pictures!!!
All our stuff is moving into the trucks and, God willing, it will all be safely in storage by the end of the day. We plan to sleep in sleeping bags tonight and then be out of the house and on our way to Mexico late afternoon tomorrow.
This is a little bit of a religious discussion. I always assumed that all of every kind of fruit and berry grown in the Willamette Valley in Oregon was better than its equivalent from Washington. Our experience living in Centralia demonstrated that I was clearly wrong about Washington apples which are clearly superior to those grown in Oregon. I know believe that stuff that grows on trees in Washington (with the exception of cherries–those, in my opinion are a wash) are superior to those in Oregon, but that the berries of the Willamette Valley are superior at the same category of difference as the Washington apples are superior to Oregon apples. Troy is testing that all out right now with jams we sent him as a thank you gift for my graduation events in Lincoln.
The packers came to get everything in the house ready to move. There are three guys and the hope to be out of the house in 3-4 hours. Lorena has been a real champion in preparing and organizing everything so it will be a fairly easy job for the packers to make everything move ready. We got a bunch of snacks, water, and protein drinks for the works and plan to do it again tomorrow. I think we might run down and get some KFC to bring back to the house for tonight because we really do not have any way to prepare food in the house. I cannot believe we are only two and a half days from flying to Mexico. We can hardly wait.
I am very grateful to my brother because he reminded me and reminded me until I got the Living Trust, Last Wills and Testaments, Financial Powers of Attorney, and Medical Powers of Attorney completed, signed, and notarized before we head down to Mexico for a (relatively) short stint. It was just not that hard. We have the hard copy version of all these documents in a safe place along with soft copies for everyone involved. Our good friends, James and Janet Coker were kind to take the time to witness a bazillion signatures and their son, Brad’s, administrator notarized them for us. To top it off, it gave us an excuse to take James and Jan to Baked for lunch. It has been a busy, but amazing couple of days.
Troy (my professor at University of Nebraska), John (my old buddy from the Bronx, colleague, and fellow student), and I have big plans going forward. My main contribution will be to perform research on water level measurement with ground-based cameras and the use of the GRIME-AI software package from GaugeCam to detect and measure as yet undefined “things” of interests to ecologists and hydrologists. But first, I need to work with Troy to finish an in-progress article based on the fourth chapter of my dissertation, then gather data and write a second paper on our efforts to reduce the footprint of the calibration target we use in our water level measurements to the same size as a typical staff gauge used by the USGS. If that second paper is successful, we plan to extend the GRIME2 software package to accommodate those smaller calibration targets. Troy has a grad student who is currently writing code and running data for the second paper. It has been an enjoyable process working with him.
Lots of good and interesting minor events happening right now. My name got added to the Adjunct Professor list on the University of Nebraska–Linclon website, I got some cool new Thrive Bioscience bling for Christian and I (a winter vest from Land’s End with the Thrive logo, and I got a title change with new cards that feature the title change and the PhD suffix. Small favors can be nice.
Big changes are about to occur in the lives of Lorena and I. God willing, we will be living in Mexico this time next week. Things will be be hectic until we finish the move and have some time to setup our household. The time spent at the Thrive Bioscience corporate meeting was excellent though very manic. The picture above is of the whole team sailing around Salem Harbor. It was a nice event with time to talk about things other than just work. A good number of my colleagues are close to my age and we talked a lot about what we will do as we move toward retirement. It was interesting that our consensus was that we wanted to keep working, at some level, as long as possible. I reflected on that and on all the projects I am doing as I move toward my 70’s on the flight home. I had no huge epiphany in all this, but operationally, it dawned on me that I need to do things that will not require a lot of ongoing maintenance when my projects are complete for very obvious reasons. It also came clear that all the things I read in my Bible in terms of my personal relationship with God, what is required of me at a personally level, and the scope of world events are immutable and good. I can either go along with His will and plan or suffer. Those are the only two options. That the former leads to joy and peace is a hard won truth in my life. What that means at this new stage will become apparent according to His timing and I am good with that.
I am flying home froym Boston to DFW after three days of corporate meeting with new Thrive Bioscience Branded Vests for Christian and I, a new title (Vice President of Algorithms), and new cards with my new title and PhD appended to my name on the cards. I ate way too much but came away with new energy and optimism about our company. I am working with a group of very nice people. Hopefully, I can continue to make myself useful for a few more years.
Kelly and Christian took Lorena to eat at Pastis in New York City. I am so grateful for them. They have been confronted with some difficult obstacles with which I have been almost no help to them. We are all confused about the time and place or our existence, but here we are and the kids truly make their own decisions. I have every confidence they are on the path where God has taken them and they are still listening to Him. They are kind to their mother and they are kind to me, even though Lorena and I are at a different place and struggling with some of the same battles–we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. The very best we can do is pray and depend on God to lead them where He want them to be.
I am sorry that I am not with Lorena and the kids in New York City right now. This is Lorena’s first time there and she is ecstatic, mostly because of the kids, but also because New York City, for all its foibles and failures, is a magnificent place. The did a lot of things today, but the highlight was almost certainly the visit to MOMA and the spectacular Starry Night painting by Vincent Van Gogh which she has no seen, in person, and I have not. I cannot wait to go there myself. Tomorrow, Keith McNally’s equally spectacular Pastis Restaurant is on the schedule and it is killing me that I cannot be there.
This is the view from the top of Christian’s apartment building in Brooklyn, New York. Lorena flew in this afternoon to spend the week with him. Kelly is taking the train up from Washington, D.C. for the weekend. I am so sad that I cannot be there, too, but I have a business trip to Boston–that actually should be a phenomenal time with the Thrive Bioscience team. Honestly, it is very exciting to me that the kids have taken their own paths and are living in places that, while I might not have chosen to live, are spectacular, storied places. It is a chaotic time, not only in terms of the lives of our children, but in the world writ large. The kids are doing the best they know to do and, I believe, loving Christ and trying to do what God gives them to do.
This view is from the same location as the first image. My Finnish great grandparents arrived in America and were receive on Ellis Island (the island in the image) in the late 1800’s. This is a powerful image and one that evokes a sense of gratitude in me. God put me at the time and place that was in accord with His plan. And now Christian lives within view of where they arrive. I am humbled before God.
I have used Linux exclusively at work for seven out of the last eight years and at home for around 15 years now. Xubuntu is my distribution of choice because it is lightweight and uncomplicated. Also, it is a pain in the neck to change distribution although I might be forced into it as there are rumors that Xubuntu will no longer be supported for the long term. I hope they are just rumors. I bring this up because of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) pandemic that hit Windows computers worldwide. Linux and Mac users are crowing loudly about not getting hit–although if I were a Mac user, I would be too ashamed to admit that to crow about it. I am absolutely a huge Open Source software fan, with a free (as in beer), open source software project for measuring water level with cameras called GaugeCam GRIME2 that I maintain on GitHub. I hope the reason Linux was not hurt by this problem is that is just better because it is Open Source.