Lost In a Cloud

            As with everything, there are always pros and cons to having a cell phone, internet service, cloud storage, etc.  I must be old fashioned in my way of thinking.  I would like my phone to act as a phone and my watch to tell time . . . although the watch has nearly become a thing of the past for me as I refer to my cell phone for the time and since I don't wear my cell phone around my wrist, it hasn't bothered me the way a watch often does.  It's a nice feature - though not necessary.  It is convenient.

             My first cell phone was through Voice Stream.  My mom and I had both purchased a phone plan that came with this Nokita - a phone my mom refused to give up until after she got dementia.

            I had mine for over ten years and may have had it longer but it seemed to have vanished during a day trip that I had taken with Roland and the boys.  The weird thing is, I don't remember having even left the car - so I don't know how my phone would have.  But whatever.  I had to get a replacement.

            I liked the size of my new phone and had asked mom if she would like a new phone also. She didn't wish to give it up because it had good reception. She didn't trust that the new technology would offer a very long. I think she was onto something.   Seems like many electronics that are offered today are meant to break down.  They become relics in less than two years anyway - so what's the point of making them to last? I like Adrian Covert's description here.

             When Roland upgraded his phone, he decided he would need the internet and thus got a touch screen phone.  That's all well and good for him, but I cannot use touch screens for the life of me.  Either it will not recognize that I am touching the screen or it will be hyper-sensitive and disappear altogether.  The touch screen for me, personally, is way more frustrating than it is worth.  Besides, if I am going to write something, I would rather have an actual raised keyboard and not a postage stamp-sized keyboard that is even more challenging to my actually small fingers that have somehow grown to the size of the entire keyboard. Not to mention having to read in such a limited space.  Give me a full blown monitor, please.

            Roland's last phone came with the option of a built in speaker to use rather than typing it out.  It didn't punctuate - not for me anyway.  Plus it is frustrating to have your words misspelled or butchered at "Google" thought you were saying something else.  And so I'd have to proof-read and make corrections - which actually seemed to amount to more work than if I had just typed it all in myself.

            Phones do not think - or do they?

            I hadn't charged my camera for quite some time, but Roland has a camera built into his phone.  The quality of picture is actually pretty good. I took only four pictures at Jaime's birthday party before the battery gave out.  We used Roland's phone to get more.  I was devastated when we took his phone home to charge it and it wouldn't charge.  It has been persnickety about its connecting devise.

            Roland took it to the big city of Roseburg to see if it just needed a new battery - or what the deal was.  It was beyond repair.  Oh, no!  The pictures!  I hadn't even looked at them.

            Roland not only purchased a new phone, but is now on a different plan.  Now I am impressed by the technology of the cloud.  Restored all the pictures not only to his phone, but I had him photo/Google the internet on his work computer - and there they were.  Wow.

             I was able to pull up some pictures from my computer of ones we had taken in 2012 - which were also from his phone.  I don't know why.  I could obtain pics through his phone on my computer until Dec 2015.  Everything more current had to be obtained through his computer.  Not sure how that works.

             And, okay, I get that the GPS thingamabob (gadget) that is located in the phone would know where we were when each picture was taken, but what impressed me was how it labeled the photos.  They were sorted into places and things.  So the folders were labeled "Christmas", "Sky", "Rainbow", "Cars" - how did it know that?  Okay, the folder labeled "cars" was more of houses though I suppose there were cars in the photos - but it certainly wasn't the main focus.  Actually, I don't know what was.  Roland said I had wanted the clouds.  How pathetic.  I have been told that I am "trigger happy" when I am taking pictures with the touch screen.

            So here are some pics that we discovered in the cloud:

Her pose reminds me of her brother, Randy 

How Cool Is That?

          Jenna LOVES it when we sign up to feed the missionaries.  Just a few days after we fed the missionaries, Eva called to ask when we could sign up again.  If it were up to Jenna, we’d be feeding them on a daily basis, I think.  But I really wasn’t ready to make a commitment for the optional dates which Eva had given. 

          She had really been pushing for this past Friday, but Beth had already contacted me to see if Roland and I could meet her and Graham for lunch as they were passing through from Ashland on their way back to McMinnville.  At that time I didn’t really know how late we’d be eating and so said I would just talk to her on Sunday.  Only we didn’t have church on Sunday as it was General Conference.  I think she called five times in less than 24 hours.  One was to fill in for a cancellation the Elders had made for yesterday. 

         I told her that we would be at the Pizza Palace between two and four as we’d be having a birthday party for Jenna and had actually planned on mentioning it to the Elders anyway.  Jenna was ecstatic when I told her that the missionaries would be coming to her party.  I think she had invited over 20 peers – some friends, some just acquaintances.  We ended up with 14 people total - six were adults. 

          Annette had spent the night so that she would be sure she made it to the party.  I really don't enjoy when Jenna has sleepovers as she doesn’t sleep and therefore I don’t sleep either.  And then I am grouchy.  Jenna, on the other hand, is always happy.  She says that’s what she is known for by many people – and they admire it.

          Savannah's mom went wild with the birthday gift – or giftS rather.  In case Jenna didn’t already have a stuffed animal collection going, the gift bag came with a collection starter – five animals I think – not counting the other three or four that Savannah had won for her after they had finished eating.

          The first at the top of the bag was an angry faced emoji pillow with a note explaining that “The happiest girl needs to know what ‘mad’ looks like."

          Jenna enjoyed the company of her friends and shared her wealth.  When she presented the Elders with coins, they declined and said not only was it against the rules to play the electronic games, but  they couldn’t in good conscience accept the money either.  That went for the huge stack of coins that Savannah’s mom had placed in front of them – possibly passing out more coins for the entire teenage crew than Richard had.

          Roland played chauffer to several of Jenna’s friends.  Kylee spent a few hours with Jenna before we took her home.  She would like to do a sleepover.  I don’t want to deprive her.  Perhaps if I have enough notice, I can take a nap before she comes.

          Jenna did not get her rainbow on her birthday, but did get one on the day of her birthday party.  For after we returned from taking Kylee home, we found a rainbow at the end of our street.  Battery in my camera decided to quit at her party and Roland’s phone needed to be charged.  So Jenna took my cell phone to take pictures.  When we were viewing them on the monitor, I realized that it had been a double rainbow as there was a faint mirrored image in several of the pictures.

Damaged By Hard Water

        Roland was flipping through the stations one Saturday morning when all that was available was infomercials and landed on one for Nevo (here).  The informative non-actors told about a water filter for getting rid of hard minerals and replacing the antique water softener that ended up corroding your pipes more than did the minerals.  It was interesting to hear the details as it made perfect sense.  If we were living in West Valley still, I would definitely invest but the water seems to be more purified in Oregon.

        Our fridge has a water source and filter and had to be changed every 2-3 months at the West Valley house.  Although we had used our fridge at first house we lived in upon arriving in Oregon, we had never hooked up water dispenser. I have also noticed - even without Wen (which my hair has not seen for over a year now) that my hair is softer than it ever was in Salt Lake.  My scalp is also not as itchy.

        Another plus in Oregon vs. Utah.

The Things We Learn

          In these two posts (here and here) I mentioned how much Jenna loves learning about her family members. Until we had played Chatter Matters, she hadn't known that Roland used to play the trombone - or anything about his childhood really.  Usually it's just her and I, but she did manage to rope Roland into playing with us between conference.  After she won the game, we continued to go through the "family room" and "my room" cards so that Jenna could know Roland a little better. It reminded me of when my sibs and I would force the Ungame questions upon my dad.

          My parents actually did three listed on the card - hiking was more of a seasonal activity  or annual thing - and it was usually a part of either a daytip or full vacation so the specific places we hiked were Yellowstone National Park or Timpanogos Cave in American Fork, Utah.

           I don't know that shopping was ever restricted to just the weekend.  Movies also occurred on days other than the weekend.  I chose number one for myself as they took us to church which falls on the weekend.  By process of elimination, Jenna and I guessed that Roland's family would go shopping choosing from just those four.  Church was definitely out and they didn't seem like they'd be much for hiking. His parents (well his dad in particular) liked to have drinking parties - but that wasn't on the card.

          I remember going to the drive-in theatres when I was younger.  Mom and Dad had taken Patrick and I to one drive-in theatre called the Woodland.  The walls that surrounded the theatre were decorated in colored bubbles - like on a loaf of Wonder bread - but with more colors. 

There was a playground area for children to play before the movie started or even during intermission (because there was usually a double feature or sometimes movies that actually had an intermission; but we may have been asleep by then. 

          I also remember going to different movie theatres with my family both as a child and an adult;  Roland says the one and only time he'd ever gone to the movies with his parents is when he was an adult and had paid for all three of them to see "Kelly's Heroes"

 

Not all multiple choice, but once again Jenna and I had both predicted that Roland would answer "Watching TV".  I don't remember actually ever sitting down to watch TV as a family - unless it was something like "The Wonderful World of Disney" 


Mostly we played games or talked.  I don't know any families who read together.  Unless it's the scriptures - which I don't imagine would amount for "more" time spent.

          I don't know that Roland's family watched TV together either.  It was long before cable, and the TV offered only three stations.  There were no remotes and so the kids had to act as the remote and turn the station to whatever dad wanted to watch. 

       We learned that his father had only a fourth grade education and would often get drunk and come home and line up his children and say, "Your mother and I don't owe you a living".  I think my mom's dad may have been that way.  She said she was scared of him and when he would get drunk he would smack her mom around.  She was determined to give her children a  family environment different from the one in which she had been raised. 

         Roland's family didn't believe in families like mine - nor did I have any clue that families like his existed.  As I grew up, I realized that my family was not the norm. when we had all worked for Snelgrove's, for example, (each of us having worked there except for my dad) we would take the change out of our pockets and Kayla's would remain on the kitchen table for a few days.  None of the rest of us would take it as we knew it did not belong to us.  The money would have been gone in a heartbeat with many other families. The older I get, the more unrealistic my family seems.  That's too bad. 

          I don't know about Roland's side, and I don't believe he knows either.  But he counts Uncle Ted as family, and so with this question we all answer Uncle Ted - who celebrated his 100th birthday in February (I don't know why I didn't post about it to my blog; I did to facebook)

          My parents met at a Church dance.  I was surprised to learn that Roland's parents had met at a dance also.  He said his dad had been going with another girl at the time but had told his mom that someday he was going to marry her.  I think she just laughed it off - probably rolled her eyes as I did when Roland proposed to me.

          It had surprised us all when Roland said his favorite movie was/is "Oh, God, you Devil"  He received it for Christmas one year because he had said it was his favorite.  I have only seen him watch it one time.

          It's great how some memories will trigger others.  I think these questions are great conversation starters and I am happy that Jenna prefers this interaction over spending time on electronic devices.

Chocolate Chip Cookies for FHE

          Jenna said she wished to give the lesson in family home evening last night - but she needed to bake some chocolate chip cookies before she could give it.

          I had stopped by Rip-Off Rays to make a cookie dough purchase before Jenna returned home from school. 

When she came home, I told her that she and Roland could bake the cookies while I went to a meeting - or if she didn't want me to go (because it was her birthday) I would stay home.  But if I went, I would stop by Ray's on the way home to pick up some fried chicken that she has been craving.

          Her lesson was quite short, but awesome.  She started out by introducing us to the concept of something good as a result of an accident. To demonstrated her example, she asked me to relate the story of the Nestlé's Toll House Cookie as found here. 

          I got to the part in which the "chocolate chips hadn't melted . . ."  She stopped me before I could continue.  She held up one of the chocolate chip cookies and explained that each of us should be like the chips inside the cookie and be "in the world but not of the world" - don't blend in and melt but stand up for what is right.

          Wow!  I may have had that lesson before.  She had actually allowed Conference to spark a trigger.  I was impressed.  Jenna really is awesome!

I Hope You Find Your Rainbow

          Today is Jenna's birthday. It is also "Find a Rainbow Day". She now starts life off as a teenager although she has absolutely no desire of growing up.  She tried watching conference yesterday.  I admire her for trying.  And I know she really was trying to make comments each time she made an off-the-wall comment that brought a smile to my face.

          The first was during the morning session yesterday when the camera had swung around the men performing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  The view was from behind and two the side.

          "Is that Donald Trump?!?  That guy [in the choir]'s hair looks like Donald Trump's!  Why would anyone want his hair to be like Donald Trump's?!?"

           I think it was during Ronald A. Rasband's talk in which a picture was shown of two missionaries.  Jenna's comment: 

          "I like their suits.  It looks like they're going to prom."

         Don't know that's really the image that the Church would want to be portrayed.  I guess that's why the dress code has more restrictions now.

          In the afternoon session, she didn't think Joaquin E. Costa's  voice matched his face. When he showed his wedding photo, we both agreed that he looked like John Francis Daley who played Sweets in the TV series "Bones"

          We did watch conference and did get more out of some talks than others.  She said her favorite talk had been given by Joy D. Jones.  I think she related more to the youth centered talk and finding examples among her friends.  Plus she has always liked the story of Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego.  

          I don't know if Jeffery R. Holland's (from Saturday morning session) was my favorite or not.  I did enjoy his illustration of being a part of a choir to our very existence all while interweaving "sunshine in my soul" - I enjoyed his analogy.

          I hope Jenna may find a rainbow like the one that shown on March 30.  Perhaps it will have to be a metaphorical rainbow. Her party won't be until the 8th.  Happy Birthday, honey!

Last Day - With a Rainbow of Promise

(I Thought I Would Need a Sad-Face Icon but Received a Rainbow Instead)

             Thursday was the last day for checking out books.  The library is closed now.  All checked out media is to be returned to the drop box by April 25.

             There was a rumor going around that a film crew would be there interviewing patrons as they have at many other libraries across the nation.  Nobody knew what time.

             Jenna and I left the house just after 12:00 and headed to the library with books and games in hand.  Someone sat at our regular table; she was using the Wi-Fi - I think. The mayor had come with his wife and had taken several pictures before the film crew arrived. 

             As volume in the library seemed to increase, Jenna and I decided to move outside.  The sun was shining in our face as we neared the bench between the parking lot and front door.  I suggested we move across the street from the parking lot and read while sitting on a bench over there.  Quite a gamble as the element switch had been tampered with all day:  pouring rain, no - sun, no - rain, no - sun . . . 

               Jenna saw the camera crew from Serendipity Films pull up and we went back inside.  It was just after 3:00.  Meanwhile, Carisa Cegavske, a reporter from "The News Review" had come to interview the librarian and patrons as well.  She started with our librarian before the film crew was fully set up.  Jenna spotted a man with a glowing blue stick over his belt. 

            "That's a blue mike," she announced.  The technician was quite impressed that she knew that and asked her if she was planning on getting into film.

            Turns out the "mike" he held looked more like a dust mop that had seen its fair share of cleaning. 

             After her conversation with our librarian, Carisa moved on to the mayor's wife.  We were sitting at the table nearby and I could see Jenna's wheels turning.  I literally had to h0ld onto her.  Jenna and I are friends with the mayor and his wife and I was not willing to lose that due to Jenna's silliness and disrespect.

             "Absolutely no photo bombs!"  I loudly whispered.

             The mayor's wife had tons of information.  She has been through this before when Redding closed down its library.  She wasn't going to move to another location unless there was a library.  After she had fulfilled her years being on the library board, I filled out an application and took her place - well sort of.  She's a pro and I'm still trying to get my feet wet.

             I found it amusing that those who were filming decided to incorporate Carisa's interviews into their film.  Perhaps it had been pre-arranged, but it didn't sound like it had.  When Jenna started answering Carisa's questions, the camera immediately turned on us.  Jenna was thrilled.

             It hadn't been my intention to stay at the library all day.  I had to return at 6:00 for the last board meeting - which evidently the film crew knew about and asked to be a part of it - although I had not known that at the time.

            Jenna and I returned to the car.  Just before I was about to pull away, I told Jenna that we had to go back into the library as we had not signed a release form. (I hope Serendipity got a release form from Carisa as well, as I think she was in all the patron shots - or at least her voice was) After we got that taken care of, we returned home to eat.

             The vehicle in which film crew had arrived was still in the parking lot.  Jenna asked if they would be at the meeting too.  I didn't think they would, but they were - along with an additional amount of public which actually doubled our usual attendance.  That was kind of different.

             After the meeting had ended, everyone went outside so the film crew could take one final shot of the librarian closing the doors.  Once we were all outside, we found a rainbow right over the library.  Instead of fading (as rainbows often do) the colors became more vibrant.  It looked to us as though our library was "the pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow.  We all stood outside the parking lot to get pictures.  Unfortunately my camera wasn't able to capture the awe. 

             The Serendipity cameraman was out there filming.  I made a comment that it would make a great ending to their documentary, as for me, the rainbow represented hope.  He then turned the camera on me.  I wasn't expecting that.  I wish I had made the same profound comment.  It was cool to have such an awesome ending to the tears we all felt for that day.

I came home to find Jenna also taking pictures of the rainbow and the sunset - her pictures came out way better than mine

Here is the article found in News Review.