Chapman Kids Blog – Page 2 – "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." –John 16:33

Blog status update

By Dad

On Tuesday, April 1, 2025

I have not written a blog status update for a long time. On April 5, it will be this blogs 21st birthday. It is hard to image I have been staying with it for such a long time. I do not really think I am writing about much that is very serious these days, but I hope to get back to that some day soon. Just as a marker, I have compiled a few statistics on my posting. My goal, these days, is to write at least twenty posts per month and I have not been doing too bad except for about four years when I was studying for my PhD. We are going through interesting times right now–Lorena and I are just trying to get our feet back under us, but I plan to at least keep writing “how is the weather” kinds of post for the next bit until I can catch my breath and get back to the next big thing. There is always a next big thing, especially if you count dying as the last one. God willing, that is some years off for me, but in the meantime, I am going to look for one or two more big projects to keep myself out from under Lorena’s feet. Here are the stats:

4259	total posts
199.7	average posts per year
241	median posts per year

Missing Tío Lynn

By Dad

On Tuesday, April 1, 2025

In Family, Friends, Mexico life

Our business partner and Lorena’s brother, Tío Lynn, had a birthday a few days back. We are very grateful to work with him. It is a little surreal for a gringo embedded in American high tech business culture to watch how things operate in Mexico. And it is not just Mexico, it is working class Mexico. Lynn has a law degree and is a practicing lawyer, but he grew up in a middle class neighborhood that bordered on a very much lower class neighborhood. He is burdened by an incredible work ethic and a soft heart coupled with intimate knowledge of how things operate in those rough neighborhoods. He has to deal with people not showing up, paying late, prevaricating, pilfering, and a plethora of other challenges both in his legal work and the construction work he does for our company. I honestly do not know how he does it, especially because in many, if not most, cases he is the last line of defense. He avoids one disaster after another, but with great joy and, I have to admit, style. I really miss being able to discuss the state of the world with him after work every night. It seems like I am operating in the dark a lot more when he is not around.

Kind of a pathetic start…

By Dad

On Monday, March 31, 2025

…but at least it is a start on my exercise program. I still have a legitimate shot at getting down to a reasonable weight and improving my health before I head into retirement–who knows how long that will be. God willing, I would at least like to go until the end of September and at least a couple of years after that before I throw in the towel. For the record, I did five minutes, forty calories, and 809 meters. I remember the first time I rowed on a Concept 2 rower in College Station, Texas when I was 35 years old–I did five minutes, then, too. I honestly wondered how anyone could get past that first-time awkward motion and out-of-gas feeling to actually get some exercise on that infernal machine. But I stuck with it and actually got pretty good. I hope to do that gain at double the age.

Lorena’s office

By Dad

On Sunday, March 30, 2025

We are in the process of setting up and office for Lorena. We ordered the printer from Walmart (cheaper than the same model at Ebay and Amazon) and it arrived today–on a Sunday nonetheless, right after we returned from after-church lunch in town. The most amazing part it that it was ready to print out of the box over wireless without anything other than connecting to the network. I installed the Linux (Xubuntu 24.04) drivers that I downloaded from the internet in about five minutes and then the scanner was up and running. I am very pleased with our new monochrome laser printing, color scanning, wireless Brother HL-L2465DW printer. I hope this is the last printer I ever have to buy.

Mrs. Fixit

By Dad

On Saturday, March 29, 2025

In House and home

I think Lorena is actually going to be kind of sad when the house is all organized. Right now she is playing Mrs. Fixit. First, she wanted to water the lawn, but the hose ends were loose and leaky so we ran down to Home Depot and bought a couple of repair kits to fix that. Then, she wanted to set up her computer desk in the master bedroom so we pulled the beautiful walnut desk we are keeping for Christian and is not, quite happily, putting that together–I get to set up the computer when that is done, but she will not let me touch anything that has to do with screw drivers, wrenches, pliers, and hammers. She is just amazing. Who knew I was marrying a plumber these many years ago.

Setting up the offices

By Dad

On Saturday, March 29, 2025

Christian helped me pick out a new printer/scanner today. I found a Brother wireless monochrome laser printer/color scanner with Linux drivers on Walmart for $4 less than the cheapest thing on eBay. It comes with a 700 pages toner which means there is some very good chance we will never have to buy another one.

With our new plan for Lorena to start taking over a bunch of the financial management stuff, we have decided to set her up with her own office/desk/computer in the bedroom. To that end, I got the little i3 Windows laptop running that I use for those few things I cannot do on Linux (do Windows builds of the GRIME2 Open Source software package and update the firmware on our Garmin watches). Hopefully I will be able to get our file server and a Linux computer running so we can implement the plan. With our Starlink setup I am still pretty sad with the upload speeds, but very happy overall with the service.

We are getting close to having a somewhat cluttered but operational house.

New Garmin VivoActive 5 and the postal service

By Dad

On Friday, March 28, 2025

I wanted another Garmin Instinct 2 watch after my old one died. I had it for six or seven years and absolutely loved it. The only issue I had toward the end was that it only held a charge for about a week during my normal usage. When I checked out the pricing, I found that the VivoActive 5 did everything I wanted it to do and more, had way better battery life, cost quite a bit less than the Instinct 2, and was on sale. When I ordered the watch, I accidentally entered my Health Savings Account debit card rather than my regular debit card, but it was accepted. That means I was able to buy the watch for pre-tax dollars! All and all, I was quite pleased. Lorena has that same watch and I was already pretty sold on it. Actually having it on my wrist was further confirmation.

When the post office tried to deliver the watch to our mailbox it was just marginally too small, so the mail carrier took it back to the office which is only about a half mile away. I had a nice talk with the post office lady who told me that if the mailbox was less than a half mile to the house, the mail carrier would be able to deliver that oversize stuff directly to the house, but they are required to “officially” do that. We are less than a quarter mile away from our mailbox, so we are glad for that!

Happy birthday Kelly!

By Dad

On Thursday, March 27, 2025

Lorena and I are grateful for our beautiful daughter every day, but on her birthday, we love to reflect on that spectacular spring morning drive to the hospital and the events that followed. She was born with a full head of dark hair and the bright blue eyes that have never changed. We like to think we did our best as parents, but really, Kelly’s optimistic and energetic disposition made it easy. We pray for daily and thank God that he gave us such a beautiful gift. We are so much more thankful that her love of God continues to grow along with her kindness and good will toward others. Kelly, we love you so much and are so proud of you, not so much for what you have accomplished, although that is pretty spectacular, but for who you are and that you continue to face your challenges with vigor and thoughtfulness.

Starlink installed and running

By Dad

On Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Our Starlink internet is now installed. We are getting 15-20 megabits upload speeds, but an amazing 350-400 megabits. We hate to be paying half again what we paid for fiber-to-the-house in Texas and about four times what we paid in Mexico for the same speeds, but we are thankful we had any option at all and also thankful not to be using Comcast or Xfinity.

Star Link

By Dad

On Monday, March 24, 2025

Lorena and I drove to the Gum Spring Dollar General on the way home from the train station to pick up our new Star Link antenna. A guy is coming to the house tomorrow to put it up on the roof, run the wire into the house, and set up the modem. I really need good broadband to do my job well because there are such large amounts of data involved. Star Link is kind of a bare minimum, but I think it will be fine. We have heard lots of good reviews from people we trust that it works great.

Kelly’s birthday party

By Dad

On Sunday, March 23, 2025

In Entertainment, Family, Friends

The main reason Lorena and I traveled to Washington, D.C. this weekend was to attend a birthday party for Kelly thrown by her amazing friend group. It was an amazing assembly of highly credentialed and connected people of great good will. The amazing part was the goodness of the will rather than the highness of the credentials and connections although that was impressive, too. We left the party at an appropriate time in concert with my advanced age and Lorena’s predilection for smaller groups, but not before we got a chance to talk to many. We were grateful for her friend group before the party based on the little we knew about all but a few of the attendees. We were much more grateful after the party because we saw that Kelly is very much far from being alone and lonely. That has not always been true in her short life. We arrived home with a great sense of gratitude for that new knowledge.

To D.C. and back by train

By Dad

On Sunday, March 23, 2025

In Family, Travel

We just returned from our first train trip from Richmond up Washington, D.C. to visit Kelly and back home. It went swimmingly. We are looking forward to doing it again soon. The next trip, though, is a plane flight up to New York City to visit Christian. So far this is all working out well.

Ashland to DC: First trip

By Dad

On Friday, March 21, 2025

In Family, Travel

Lorena and I got on the train in Ashland, VA just now and are headed to DC. We are both convinced it will probably be easier next time to start from Richmond. Really looking forward to spending the weekend with Kelly and her friends.

Making some important connections in Virginia

By Dad

On Friday, March 21, 2025

In Cooking, Entertainment

We found a spectacularly good Italian restaurant right up the road from us. We hope to be there often.

Happy birthday Tío Lynn

By Dad

On Thursday, March 20, 2025

In Family, Mexico houses

Christian took this picture from the front of the house on the hill in San Pedro, looking out through what we hope will be a two-car garage at Tío Lynn’s car parked on the street in front. It should be noted that that the car is just as beautiful on the inside as on the outside. We loved our time in Mexico with Lynn and love working with him on the houses. Here is wishing him a very happy birthday!!!

First floor up the hill

By Dad

On Wednesday, March 19, 2025

In Mexico houses

Here is an image of the first floor on the house “up the hill” in San Pedro in its current state, just for reference. The plan is to finish that first floor to the point where it is livable and safe from the weather, then move down to the basement to finish that off so we can both have a space for ourselves and for visitors while the rest of the house is being completed.

The house on the hill

By Dad

On Wednesday, March 19, 2025

In Mexico houses

Tío Lynn is working hard on the house on the hill to the point where the first floor is almost livable. Really, this has become and art project for him and we could not be happier about it. The range of skills to create this project is broad and, by the nature of the building, sometimes it is necessary to go back a step or two when unforeseen things are discovered or when a new idea requires some adjustments to previously complete elements of the house. We have figured out that this project is going to take two to three years to accomplish, not so much for lack of resources, but so there is time to think and let the ideas percolate between steps. I will put up some images of the house in progress over the next few blog posts.

Lorena la plomera #2

By Dad

On Saturday, March 15, 2025

In House and home

Lorena has moved from fixing toilets to installing washing machines and she owes it all the the fact that I am too fat to sit on the washing machine without denting it. She did a fabulous job.

Missing México

By Dad

On Friday, March 14, 2025

In Mexico houses, Mexico life

Man, I miss México. It was an awesome thing to have Lynn with us many if not most evenings to describe México and cultura Mexicana. From life in the working class Mexican neighborhood of the apartments, to the doings of the cartels in places like Culiacán, Durango, Jalisco, and the individual neighborhoods close to us, to the culture of the albañiles who remodeled the apartments and are remodeling our house on the hill to the neighborhood convenience store that was willing to sell us a single egg or a single stick of celery. We are grateful for our seven months in México and are very much looking forward to spending some months every year with our family in Nuevo Leon.

Tío Lynn and chuletón

By Dad

On Thursday, March 13, 2025

We are missing México right now. Especially we are missing Grandma Conchita, Tío Lynn, and all the really cheap red meat. That one inch thick steak Lynn is holding is all of the ribeye and an additional strip next to the ribeye that we bought for around $5/pound. Most of all we miss Lynn’s stories about his legal work and his encyclopedic knowledge of all things related to the culture and current doings of the Mexican narcotrafficantes.

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