What a terrific San Francisco evening! Becky and I at Kim’s place, along with her roommate, Katy. We did a little Costco shopping after sleeping late; then Becky and Kim did some Safeway shopping. Then Kim and Becky put together a great meal – pasta, salad, garlic bread, cantaloup and peaches, wine. We sat around the table with this fantabulous meal, made perfect by Jeffrey’s new second CD, “Pick It Up”. Wow, Jeffrey! The food and the music, a truly memorable San Francisco evening. After the meal we sat around in the living room, Jeffrey’s music still playing. I thought a cappuccino would top it off nicely, but Kim and Becky reminded me we have to get up early in the morning for Kim’s doctor appointment. So, I decided to at least post a little article here about a terrific San Francisco evening. Can’t get much better than this. And, wow, Jeffrey!

Here are two firework pictures.

And of course Doug dancing with his daughters!

Turns out most of what I got was video and I have yet to upload those. Mostly because I haven’t checked out how to store photos on my website. But I have all the instructions ready to go.

I had a great time that weekend. I haven’t seen a fireworks display quite like that one since Disney World. I’m getting ready for Mom and Dad to come visit. I’m trying to tidy up the place and get rid of all proof that there was ever a cat in the house from all those cat-sitting weekends. At least it will be cooler than it’s been. 100 degrees in San Francisco, plus 65-70% humidity. Just like early summer in Kansas. Only we don’t have air conditioning at this old house.

Without going in to particulars, I’ll just say that I was recently struggling with a dilemma that was escalating to undesireable levels of psyhchological distress. It was a situation where I was trying to decide whether to ask for a special favor. I knew that asking would not only be futile, but would also be embarrassing and demeaning. On the other hand, if I could get the favor, it would be really great.

In the course of some number of days during which I agitated over whether to ask for the favor or just let it go and move on, I stumbled across a collection of “quotations” I had saved once upon a time in an obscure subdirectory on my computer. It was a pretty pithy and amusing collection, and included this:

“The person who asks may be a fool for five minutes. The person who doesn’t ask will be a fool for life.”

So, I picked up the phone and asked.

Turned out, my premise was totally incorrect. What I was asking for was routine and did not even amount to a favor – it was freely available to anyone, simply for the asking.

So, there y’go!

One of my projects for the day was launching the Chappell Famly Calendar. Google launched its Calendar feature a few weeks ago, touting it as useful for groups such as clubs, teams, organizations, etc. It immediately struck me as holding great potential for families. We’ll see. I fear it may turn out to be about as popular as the famly blog. However, for those who already have a Google account, such as Gmail, and who already have their own Google Calendars, this synchronizes very nicely. Although I’ve been playing around a bit with my own Google Calendar, I haven’t actually adopted it as my main calendar, yet. I can see, though, that I might eventually do so. Besides sending “alerts” of upcoming events via email, it can also send text messages via cell phone. I gotta say, those Google folks are going places. I may even switch from Yahoo go Google for my browser default home page. Maybe it’s not actually too late to buy stock and still see impessive gains. However, if I buy their stock, it will be the kiss of death.

Speaking of browsers, I’ve been using the Avant browser a lot lately. It runs off the Internet Explorer engine, but has features that give Firefox a run for the money (it’s free, BTW). If nothing else, it seems to me to be a bit faster than Firefox.

And speaking of genealogy, there haven’t been any developments along that line for some time now. Hmm. Mayhaps I should renew contact with a few of those newfound relatives that cropped up a while back.

It’s June 22. No, wait! Oh my god, it’s July 22! Cripes. I was looking forward to watching the Indy 500. Er, one moment, please. Hmm. I think I did watch the Indy 500. I mean, the one for the year 2006. Last May, wasn’t it? The thing is, I feel un-synced. Would people know to pronounce that un-sinked? Maybe I should say “un-synchronized”. I’m just totally amazed about the way things I was looking forward to are history. Like, I must have been thinking about something else when they happened. Actually, that could be it with regard to the Indy 500. I probably had the laptop on my lap, either doing something for work or something for some website. But, still. Take Steve and Kathie’s wedding. I’m sure I didn’t have a computer on my lap then. But, it seems like it was a couple of months ago. I was thinking about Christmas, staying part of the time at Steve and Kathie’s and part of the time at Kim’s, and had to remind myself this wasn’t last Christmas, but the one before that! There’s no doubt in my mind that the time continuum has, indeed, shrunk. I used to think this was a function of just getting older; however, I’ve discussed it with younger people and they’ve noticed it, too. I’ve decided that this is a consequence of the slowing down of the expansion of the universe. At the point when it actually reaches complete expansion, people will notice that everything happens in an instant. I’m not sure what the effect will be when the universe then starts collapsing, whether we’ll run into ourselves on the way back, or if people will start noticing that time seems to slow down the older they get. I think probably the latter.

Wow, can anybody (not I!) imagine since the last article, Kim has been here and visited and gone back, has had her birthday and sprained/broke her ankle, Becky has “retired” with a messed up back of her own and got an epidural steroid shot just like Kim (she’s still waiting for the promised improvement but I think she looks better), summer’s arrived along with Superman, and I’m not sure but I’m afraid Jeffrey might’ve been washed out to sea.

Of course, people are already shooting off their stupid firecrackers and (here comes the really sad part) the first thing I thought of was how Cinnamon isn’t here refusing to go outside and pee and running into the bedroom after we’ve gone to bed or walking in circles with her head down trying to find a safe place. How can anybody miss a dog this much?

Supposedly a four day weekend but already today (I mean Saturday) three clients have asked (via email or cell phone) if I’m going to be in the office Monday. Looks like I probably will, since I have another friggin’ brief due on Wednesday.

Well, let’s see, what can I finish up with?