Archive for ‘October, 2009’

It’s the Jeep’s fault

Several weeks ago, I pulled up to a shop and noticed that one of the Jeep headlights was out. When I went to open things up and see what kind of bulb was needed, I discovered that the headlight had taken a rock. I don’t often go out in the dark, but there is a lot more dark lately and I finally made an appointment to get the headlight replaced.

That appointment was this morning.

Tomorrow morning I have an early morning appointment in Whitefish – so early that I would have to leave well before sunrise and cruise the 2 lane with commuters…and deer and the forecast is calling for snow.

In about 15 minutes this morning, I decided…

Karl and I are in Whitefish in the motorhome – Bob stayed home. The Jeep has new headlights. The drive to tomorrow’s appointment is about 2 minutes.

We have this RV park to ourselves.

The view is not bad and includes some Fall color.

This mini-trip gave me a chance to hook up my latest gadget – a WiFi router…so very cool! My Verizon aircard plugs into the Cradlepoint Router and I have Wi-Fi in the motorhome for both laptops and my wi-fi capable printer – all with one aircard. Cookin’ with gas!!!

Office and home on the road.

Rainy day mini-trip: It’s the Jeep’s fault.

Night light: “For the weary”

The steeper the ridgeline
The hotter the sunshine
The sweeter the alpenglow*

It’s a long way over this mountain
A long long way to climb

There’s a song that I must keep singing
It’s a prayer and it moves me through time

The things that will hurt you
The ones that desert you
They’ll help you more than you’ll ever know*

The steeper the ridgeline
The hotter the sunshine
The sweeter the alpenglow

The more the resistance
The greater the distance
The sweeter the alpenglow*

*Lyrics from “For the weary” written by Allison Sattinger, Sunny Rising Music Allison’s Steady Heart CD

Photos taken 10/24/2009, 6:10-6:30 p.m. Sunset was approximately 6:27.

What Karl and I saw

Karl and I took a run to town for supplies – solo – the man is hunting in Eastern MT…actually – chaperoning a youth group hunt.

On the way for supplies, I stopped at the dump and the road out of the dump provided a bit of Fall flavor.

I’ve shot from here before.

From the same spot, but to the West – a snow squall moves south with a bit of sun showing the golden larch in front of the squall.

That’s what Karl and I saw.

Regrets

Fridays are extremely busy these days at BearDog Consulting. The mega-project involves a lot of meetings and Friday has a standing one. We – the programming team – usually find ourselves coding madly up until the last minute, then the meeting and then we laugh, make our notes for the coming week and wish each other well for the week end.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. I am blessed to work with two other people who are both professional and personable, good humored, decent, caring, family people who I feel priviledged to both know and work with. They work as many or more hours as I and have spouses and 4 children each. We are located in Los Angeles, Kalispell and Nashville – hoo rah 21st Century.

Today, we finished at just after 5:00 p.m. my time which is 4:00 in Los Angeles and 6:00 in Nashville. We started early this morning. And Los Angeles has twins, who turned 11 today AND have THE flu.

It poured rain all afternoon. As often happens during times of intense work periods, I was not really aware and also not aware that the temperature in the house had dropped. I finished the work day a bit chilled. Karl had been inside most of the day. We both needed to be outside. Starting a fire in the woodstove and collapsing in front of it sounded like the best idea, but instead I donned raingear and then convinced Karl to get out and into the Jeep. Off we went to Wayfarer’s by the lake for a walk.

And I didn’t take the camera. It was pouring and gray… But as I drove down “the Road Home” – there was light to the West. I should have gone back for the camera… Despite the rain and gloom – the larch, the dying leaves of Aspen, Birch and Cottonwood – all of the colors of Fall – they were there. And there was a beautiful, western light.

It is a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but today, not taking the camera, regrets.

Above – Flathead Lake – from my phone.

A little color and more to come

The early, very cold (to 8F) temperatures we had a week or so ago did a number on our Fall color. The leaves of the deciduous trees that were in the process of turning mostly shrivelled up and started falling off. That red-brown tree is a birch or aspen and not normally as red as that. At any rate, it is different this year.

But the larch pine, they are getting ready for their show of gold. They are mostly turning to chartreuse, with hints of the gold they will eventually be.

Today, a little color, but there is more to come!