I thought y'all might be a tiny bit impressed that you are acquainted with someone who has been published in a nationally distributed periodical of the up most quality and distinction.

I don't know if you will be able to see this or not, but the tip about overheating your router is from some guy named Bruce Glade from Beaumont, TX. If you click on the image it will blow it up screen size and you will be able to see all the details.

SOSDD

This has been a pretty regular week, busy but regular. Monday we had Bro. Ward over for supper as his wife was out of town. Tuesday we went home teaching to an elderly (in their 80's) couple. She is a non-member but always very kind to us. They are both originally Cajun folks and they have quite some stories to tell. Wednesday we had the Elders for supper and that was nice. They both seem to be hard working good missionaries. We have a new mission president in our mission and it is always interesting to see the changes that come along with that. Thursday our home teacher came. Friday we just chilled. We have been spending too much time in front of the TV watching the olympics, but I do enjoy them very much. I think we have all over-dosed on Michael Phelps, but despite is inability to string two sentances together that don't include "I really don't know what to say", his performance in the pool is pretty amazing. Then the sprinter, Bolt from Jamica who actually pulled up the last 15 meters and still set an Olympic Record in the 100M - that was amazing too.
We have had a lot more rain this week. It has trashed our pool and Saturday evening I spent an hour and scrubbed the sides and added chemicals to get it cleared up. I also spent some time in the shed working on the frame for the cork board. I think that it will be cool so I'm excited to get it done. Making it out of rough ceder, usually I spend my time working to make wood smooth, so it is sort of funny figuring ways to keep it rough while I work it and not let any smooth sides show. I have some old saw blades from Grandpa Glade and I picked out the worst looking one and put it in my table saw to rip the boards to width and it put a "perfectly rough" edge on them. There is an argument for never throwing any "junk" stuff away, you never know when you need a tool that doesn't perform perfectly. I ordered a new drill press table that should facilitate the ability to drill 2 holes in the same spot, which sounds easy enough to do, but from frustrating experience is actually pretty hard. I think the quill on Grandpa's old drill press doesn't have the tight tolerance needed for really precise work. Maybe I will have to someday look at a new one, and then I can keep the old one in case I need to drill an oblong hole.
On some of your blog lists, I see that you have them set somehow to tell when the last posting was. If someone could tell me how to do that I would really appreciate it. Also we want to get rid of our old ATT dial up service to save some money on our bill (should have done it months ago), and with that we may loose our "sbcglobal.net" addresses. So to be prepared we are going to switch our mail addresses to Road Runner in advance and I'm not sure of all the consequences of that yet like with this blog if I can change my account name without loosing my old postings, so we will have to see how all that goes. I hate banging on a keyboard all the live long day and then coming home at night and doing it for some more.
Hope you all have a wonderful week. Hugs and pats -- Dad

When I was a kid it seemed like the circus would come to town most years in August. So every few years we would go to celebrate mine and Grandma Glade's birthday. We thought we would continue the tradition this year and go see it here in Beaumont. Ringling Bro's has various shows that are sized for the particular town they are visiting. Our circus only had one ring, but you are able to focus on a single act and it had a very personal feel to it. I guess there is still part of a kid in me as I enjoyed it very much and was pretty mesmerized for the entire two hours.

The muscular Gunther Gable Williams (the Lion Tamer of my day) has been replaced by a woman in a purple cape. She didn't put her head in a tiger's mouth or anything too dramatic but it was still better than the guy that got in a tank of water with an alligator and threw it around a few times.

The tigers were pretty, but they sort of acted like they were bored and wanted to go to sleep. I'm sure the heat and humidity has it effects on the animals too.

This guy was a funny Frenchman that kept showing up the entire show. He had a trick bikes that did all sorts of crazy things. OOOlala!

This picture doesn't reflect it, but it was the act that looked like the most dangerous. One of the guys went on the outside of his cage and jumped rope while it was going around. He kept pretending to fall, but it was pretty wild. They had mom screaming several times and grabbing my arm. I am happy to report that we all survived. Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Just to let you know in the event that you were oh so worried about us, Edouard went right over the top of us, but we have regular thunderstorms that were a lot worse. It has stayed rainy and windy most of the day, but looks like it is lifting this afternoon. We lost power here at the house for about 4 hours which I think was due to the power company protecting their sub-stations rather than a real power loss. Mom and I went to work and had a pretty much normal day.
Ciao

It is a wonderful country we live in!!

Thought y'all would enjoy this.

This has been a pretty normal week. We continued to move furniture around the 2 bedrooms and have finally pretty much got things set. Mom now has a nice sized sewing room (Sarah's old room) that she will be able to spread out a bit. It will take her a while to get it organized like she wants.



We are accumulating various pictures and have had a debate about what to do with them, so I am making a 3' x 5' cork board to hang that will provide 15 square feet of picture posting space. I am making a frame for it out of rough cut western cedar which will give me some practice for some picture frames that Benjamin and I need to make. Over time I have seen a bunch of patterns/methods for making picture frames. Some seem pretty easy to make, some seem overly complicated. Anyway when I get it done, I will take a picture.



We are contemplating a trip in September that would have us loop around the west to visit non-Texas family domiciles. To do it all will mean that we can't land in any one spot for very much time, but it would be fun to see everyone. We will get it mapped out and request the days off and let you know as plans develop.



I put a new set of blades on the lawn mower this spring while I was replacing the rear wheels and drive rachets, and I have been so disappointed in how un-even it has seemed to cut. I even went to the effort once of cross-cutting the front lawn and it seemed to make little difference in how it looked. This week when I started a couple of rounds around the back yard I stopped and looked and it was just horrible. There will all kinds of scalp marks and stuff that made it look like I was picking it up and dropping it every few feet. I stopped and took a closer look at the mower and found that all four wheels were set at different heights. I guess they had been bumped around over time, and I hadn't paid any attention to it. I sort of laughed at myself and straightened it out, and guess what, it cut the lawn as smooth as an ice rink. Mom did the front whilst I trimmed and when we were done it looked like a putting green. I was asking a brother in our ward who has a teacher-aged son, if his son would be interested in earning money by doing some yard work. He said that the son hates yard work and that a sister in the ward this spring had offered him $100 to help her plant some flowers and he had told her no. Another teacher aged boy's father is an OBGYN and they spend the summer at a lake house. Another one I'm not too sure if I would trust, and the last one would probably cut something off his person and I would get sued. Anyway it seems kids are of a bit different mentality than when you kids were chasing lawns around every week.



I guess that is about all my rambling -- y'all have a good week