Retirement PhD candidate in Natural Resources at University of Nebraska Lincoln. Married Christian man with two children, homeschool graduates working as (hard) scientists at national labs of renown. Oregonian (family arrived in 1846 along the Applegate Trail). Living and working from home in Washington state. Lived in North Carolina for seven years, Texas several times and South Florida among other places--kids graduated from NCSU, LOVE North Carolina and NCSU, Texas and South Florida). Judo Shodan. Graduate of Oregon State University (B.S. Business Administration, Marketing), Oregon Institute of Technology (A.E. Computer Systems Engineering Technology), University of Texas at El Paso (M.S. Industrial Engineering). Computer Vision Research Consultant. Bilingual English/Spanish.
Another house across the street from our first remodel in San Pedro has started a remodel. That is the second one that has done this. Those two houses and the one we purchased, honestly, were the trashiest on the street. These three remodels will very much upgrade the general feeling of the neighborhood by a lot. Lynn says people are keeping things a lot more orderly, too–sweeping the sidewalks and street in front of their houses. Very, very cool result.
Lorena visited the houses with Lynn, his three boys, Lynn, Jr., Marlon, and Bruno, Tío Lauro, and Grandma Conchita last night. It was cloudy and rainy, but Lorena reported the nighttime view from the balcony was still pretty spectacular although the clouds got in the way of the mountains so all you could see was the city lights. The apartments a little further down the hill are pretty much complete except for some details so Lorena got the final set of pictures we will be able to get until the renters move in. Lorena’s internet connection was pretty spotty, so she was only able to send a few pictures. She and Grandma Conchita are on their way to the airport to come home right now, so I will wait until she gets her and I can download them from her phone before I put anything up.
Tío Lauro took Lorena and Grandma Conchita to an art show in Guadalupe last night. The show featured engravings and Tío Lauro was one of the invited artists. The mayor of the municipality opened the show which served wine and other drinks. There was live music (saxophone, of all things–played well enough so people danced) and a good attendance. A great time was had by all. After the show, Lauro gave Lorena an incredible book on the art and techniques of throwing pottery on a pottery wheel. Now Lorena and I are scheming about how to get here a wheel and a kiln to get started after she takes some classes in Fort Worth.
Lorena had to get some paperwork done at El Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE). My understanding is that her “official” residence is whatever is on her voter credential and has an impact on how property taxes are assessed and also for how much sales tax has to be paid when you sell the house. We are going to make the apartments our official residence until Lynn is able to finish up the remodel on the house up on the hill, at least to the point where it is livable. We are really looking forward to spending some time down there.
Later today, Lorena is going to take some pictures of both places that I will try to put up if any of them are any good. Not much progress has been made on the house on the hill because Lynn has been finishing up the apartments so renters can move in over the next few days.
There is a new restaurant in San Pedro Lorena claims is the best one yet. It is just down the hill from our places and the believe it is better than our previous which is, honestly, very hard to imagine. The name of the place is Tacos Atarantados. That, I am sure, will be my first stop the next time I am in town. The last think I need right now for my current nutrition plan is another place that makes tacos I cannot resist.
The CEO of the company where I work, Thrive Bioscience, often sends gift packages out for different holidays. They are amazing. We get authentic Vermont Maple Syrup and Harry and David’s pears from Southern Oregon often. I never want to take these for granted. They are great gifts and fun to share with others. The pairs arrived this morning, quite unexpectedly and we are grateful again!
Lorena and I drove into Granbury yesterday for lunch. It was a spectacularly beautiful day. After lunch, we drove over to the public library and visited the bookstore there. I bought a couple of audio books on CD for $6 each and, on a whim, bought a couple of Louis L’Amour books because I had not read one for decades and thought it might be fun. Lorena wanted to do some antiquing, so she dropped me off at the Oz Coffee Bar right off the historic town square. I sat there for a couple of hours, read my book, drank my coffee, and enjoyed the day. It truly was relaxing. After I had been there for awhile, an old guy (maybe my age) showed up, just another customer, and proceeded play the piano right beside me and sing. He was there for maybe half an hour, was very talented, and everyone in the place applauded and was sad when he stopped.
Month 2 WEIGHT: 203.7 lbs. BMI: 31.9
Last night, Lorena made me beef stir fry, but replaced the rice (or sometimes noodles) with sauteed cabbage and onions. It was nothing short of spectacular. We are planning to try something similar tonight, but this time with chicken. It makes great sense for my current nutrition goals, too, with not so many carbohydrates and a good bit of protein.
My gifted brother-in-law Lauro Pedraza was invited to show one of his engravings at an event in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Here is how it is described:
76 artistas y sus creaciones gráficas en exposición. Están cordialmente invitados a la III Edición de la Reseña de la Gráfica Nuevo León – 2023. Inauguración el jueves 9 de noviembre a las 7:00 p.m. Museo de Guadalupe N.L. Mtro. Israel Cavazoa Garza
Lauro is getting invited to these kinds of events more and more often and at a higher and higher level. He did the above ink drawing of our son, Christian, when he finished his Ph.D. at Arizona State. I hoping to commission him to make it into an engraving for our house in San Pedro.
Christian gets in a well-deserved day of hiking at Big Sur after his big presentation on Monday. I hope he gets a chance to see the aquarium in Monterey (the other, less famous Monterey with only one r). That is truly a beautiful part of the world. He is getting together with friends for a few days next and then head on back to Boston.
November 1 is not too early to start planning for Thanksgiving. We are hoping, God willing, that this year’s Thanksgiving will be one for the ages. Our expected visitors this year include Grandma Conchita (Lorena is flying down to pick her up in Monterrey next week), Tio Rigo and his family (driving up from Austin for a couple of days), our dear friends Ralph and his beautiful and talented daughter Olivia (flying out from Atlanta), and, of course, Kelly and Christian (flying in from Washington, D.C. and Boston). Most of the crew will be here to visit some of the amazing Fort Worth offerings (The Kimbell, The Fort Worth Zoo and Botanical Gardens, etc.). I found this photo of Lauro and Conchita from almost exactly 20 years ago when we all visited Cabo San Lucas together. It would have been great to have them both here for this Thanksgiving, but having Conchita is a huge blessing on its own.
We love that we get trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood here in Texas. The last several places we lived were isolated enough that we would get between zero and less than you can count on one hand. Lorena LOVES to hand out the candy and hovers by the door to make sure she misses no one. Tonight it is pretty cool so most of the kids are bundled up enough that it is hard to see their costume. What is also pretty cool is that a lot of the people in the neighborhood have golf carts with trailers so they are able to haul the kids around to all the houses.
I went to check out the house we are remodeling on the top level of streets on Cerro de las Mitras in San Pedro. When I went to the street view, it showed a new image of the house (taken June 2023) that includes some of the work Lynn has done on it. Pretty cool. He plans to start working on it a lot more now that the apartments a few blocks down the hill are almost complete.
Christian is scheduled to present the research from his work to at the 2023 Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers (ACSSC 2023) this morning. The title of his presentation is “Online Null Adaption on a Digital Controllable Reflectarray Receiver.” He has been working on this work for quite a while now, but it is finished and he has now moved on to something new. He took the seven hour flight (SEVEN HOURS!!!!) from Boston to San Francisco, then drove down to the conference center in time for the first plenary talk yesterday. Of course, he stopped by In-N-Out for an “animal style” hamburger on the drive down.
The temperature has stayed in the forties all day with lots of wind and abundant rain. Lorena thought rightly that today would be a good day for a fire in the fireplace. I concurred completely. I am working on an assignment for my professor, Troy, at University of Nebraska so am not getting the total benefit yet, but am looking forward to reading my book and warming my feet with a hot cup of decaf (cocoa would be better, but that is definitely not in my nutrition plan. We have plans to use the fireplace a lot this year.
Maybe it is because we are approaching Halloween that I am thinking about these things, but it is magnified by a spiritual decline in the west and around the world that provokes a strong sense of foreboding. The spirit of the current age is very different from anything I have experienced in my lifetime. Paganism is on the rise in the west, even to the displacement of the Enlightenment informed atheism that was in ascendancy for so many years. Cultural Christianity is in steep decline. The war in Ukraine is/was disconcerting, but the new war in Israel has distinct apocalyptic overtones–especially with the saber rattling of Turkey and Russia in conjunction with the already heavy Iranian involvement that evokes remembrances of Biblical prophecy. The response around the world to all this seems demonic. Right now I am reading through the Old Testament, just finishing Joshua and starting into Judges this morning. The Old Testament narrative arc culminates in a cataclysmic end and new beginning with fierce spiritual warfare. Now is not the time to be complacent.
One of my favorite parts of Lorena’s trip to Cambridge to visit Christian was that they went down to a pumpkin patch and the liked it so much they went back again. Christian got a pumpkin and carved it up for Halloween. It came out great. We used to do this every year and we really ought to take it up again. The art of pumpkin carving is way underrated. But that was not all. When Lorena showed me the pictures I remembered how cool he has his apartment set up. It is pretty small, but also pretty amazing in terms of both style and utility. The best part was the end product.
We ate the three figs we thought were the yearly harvest of Christian’s very pathetic little fig tree about a month ago. Lorena was out looking at it this morning and hollered at me to go out and look at it. It has more than doubled in size and now has an additional four figs growing on it. We are pretty inspired with the thing right now. We still miss our apple, pear, peach, and plum trees from Washington, but boy are we enjoying this. We need to trim it up a little so it looks more like a tree than a bush, but it seems like we are on a good trajectory.
Lorena brought me this spectacular linen shirt Christian got me for my birthday. LOVE it. It looks OK now, but will look even better when I am down another ten pounds. I am going to show it off for the first time at Thanksgiving, but my main plan is to get some nice, new jeans and wear them to my graduation in December. Christian truly is a thoughtful man. I am just thankful he is my son. Can’t wait to see both Kelly, Christian, Conchita, and our old friends Ralph and Olivia from Atlanta via Sweden. Maybe Ralph will not look down on me for my lack of Euro-trash clothes!!!
Lorena flew home from Boston this morning. I have no idea how I survive when she is gone. She flew JetBlue on a frequent flyer miles ticket which is a leftover from when I was flying between Portland or Seattle and Boston every 4-5 weeks until the pandemic hit and I got told to just work from home. WiFi is free on JetBlue so we could message each other. When they got to the airport the pilot came on and said they were going to do a loop around the airport and try again because the landing window was too tight. Loren was irritated by that, but I told her it is better to have to sit a little longer and land safely than take the risk. It is actually something for which to be thankful. We are already planning her next flight down to Monterrey, God willing. This trip should be just a short one as the whole purpose is to sign some papers on the real estate and pick up Grandma Conchita to come spend Thanksgiving with us.
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