On to 2024. May yours be full of hope and love.
For a change it felt like I had a somewhat productive weekend. I managed to get a site I’d been working on for awhile up and running. The people I was building it for seemed happy, so that’s cool. Went to a winery on Saturday night and watched Third Stream Giants, a funky band from Fredericksburg. Gail and her mom (who has been visiting since Tuesday) sampled the wine and declared it ‘crappy’, but we had fun regardless.
Sunday they decided to take the kids to an all-you-can-eat ice-cream festival. Figuring I didn’t need to be party to such debauchery (as I would probably partake to a degree that would leave the sponsors of the event wondering what they were thinking in having an all-you-can-eat event), I hopped on the Harley and went down through the countryside towards Culpepper. Ended up putting about 125 miles on the odometer. It was a great day for a ride and I enjoyed the heck out of it. I have the ‘biker’s tan’ now: white hands (from the gloves), burnt forearm, and white biceps. Gonna look like a barber pole at the end of the summer.
With the one website out of the way, I’m going to try and keep the momentum going and finish my writing critique site. My friend Treva said she’d help, as she has more experience with Drupal than I, so here’s to hoping we can actually accomplish something. I don’t have a layout, but I want to get the back end working properly and site flow to make sense before throwing it into a layout. That’s probably doing it ass-backwards, but I’ve never been accused of making sense to begin with.
Since my last post describing how I was getting into Drupal, I’ve worked on it a total of once. Not exactly going to get me closer to my goal of figuring out how it all comes together. This seems to be the way I operate; I get excited about something, I start working on it, I build a few pages, get a very low-level basic knowledge of whatever it is I’m working on, and then I let it go idle for a period of time. I’m trying to overcome that, but not having a lot of success at the moment. Too many other distractions.
One of those distractions is back – soccer season has swung into full gear. Our team had its first game of the season this past Saturday, which we won, 1-0. It was a great game, and we had some great plays by our keeper. After the whistle blew sounding the end of the game, we were all giving each other high-fives and congratulations and lining up to go shake the other teams’ hands when I noticed Sarah was in tears. I asked what was wrong and she said she couldn’t breathe. Turns out she’d been trying to get my attention the last part of the game because she needed a break and was having a hard time catching her breath. I asked why she didn’t just run over and tell me or the other coach that she needed to come out and she replied with “I was worried the ball would come my way and get past me and they’d score.”
Talk about making dad feel like a heel!
After being able to rest for about 10 minutes, she was back to her normal bouncy self and was happy they’d won. It didn’t seem like asthma or anything, she was just wiped out.
The rest of the weekend was spent doing the normal weekend-suburbanite chores. I did manage to wipe out the front page of a website I’d been working on. That was lots of fun. Thankfully because I had the page still loaded in a browser, I was able to create it with minimal fuss and had it back online within 20 mins. Hopefully the owner of the page didn’t notice.
And hopefully this will make me start doing backups more often!
I’ve been meaning to write about our most recent trip back to Arizona for my grandmother’s funeral service, but work, along with other miscellaneous things, kept getting in the way. As usual.
The service was very nice. My Uncle Eddie got up and talked about my grandmother’s life, and much of it I’d never even heard. How she eloped with my grandfather. How she wasn’t allowed to be married while in Nursing School, and when word reached the administration that she was married, how she was expelled. It was like discovering a whole different side of my grandmother.
My cousin Kim, being the oldest of the grandchildren, was next to speak. She took all of our memories of summers spent at Nana’s and recounted them to the people at the service. It was wonderful and emotional and I miss her even more after listening to everything I’d forgotten. If I can get Kim to send me what she wrote, I’ll post it here.
Aside from the services, it was really a nice time. It was great seeing all my family together again, and I had a good time catching up with everyone. My in-laws were coming through town on the day of the service, so they brought the kids (who have been staying with my in-laws since the end of June) and Gail and I got to visit a bit.
I also got to drive my Aunt Nadine’s Mercedes SL 500. Ooooh my. Talk about a damn cool car. It’s a hardtop convertible, and when the top is down, it’s just sweet.
Gail and I also made it to Chandler Harley-Davidson, where we got to see some of the new models. She also sat on a Duece again, and is now looking at accessories for one like she was getting it. Just the fact that she’s thinking of getting one makes me all a-tingle. First thing’s first: the Motorcycle Safety Foundation class!!!
Looks like I’ll be heading back to Arizona a lot sooner than expected. My mom called last night to let me know that my grandmother had passed away.
I can’t tell you how grateful I am that we got to spend time with her just this past month. It was wonderful to see her, and she seemed in great health and spirit. I guess that’s why when my mom called to tell me the news, it came as such a shock. I think I’m still in a bit of shock. It certainly hasn’t sunk in yet.
After the service, my mom and aunt (and uncle I’m assuming) will be taking my grandmothers ashes, along with my grandfathers (who died 18 years ago) to South Dakota, where she grew up. There they’ll bury her in the Black Hills, which is beautiful country indeed. It’ll be a good final resting spot.
God Bless Nana. I sure will miss you.