Time to clear up some of my open Camino tabs by saving them here. From left-to-right:
— Michael A. Cleverly
Monday, December 24,
2007
at 15:21
69 comments
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Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many
days.
— Ecclesiastes 11:1
Last fall, in anticipation of the birth
of our
litter
we had to upgrade from a seven passanger minivan to one that would hold all
eight of us.
Instead of selling our previous minivan I engineered a trade—I gave
our minivan to my parents (perfect for hauling grandkids around) in exchange
for their Nissan Sentra which I gifted to my sister
Eliza and her husband
Paul. Basically the
same sort of trickle-down people often practice with computers, but with
cars instead.
Paul was finishing his final year at the
University of Utah and working.
Eliza was lucky enough to be able to be a stay-at-home mom with Peter. The
car enabled her to have a lot more options during the day.
Fast forward to this winter. My commuter car began making knocking sounds.
I took it in to Burt Bros. to have them check it out (since I'm not terribly
mechanical). The verdict? A new engine (rough guess > ~$3,000) would be
needed now or in the near future. They don't do that kind of work themselves
but they could refer me to other shops that did. Or I could keep the oil up,
cross my fingers, and keep driving it.
Not having an extra $3,000 on hand (and the car not even being worth quite
that) I decided to just keep driving, cross my fingers and hope for
the best...
The car survived precisely one more week. Seven days after I picked it
up from Burt Bros. the engine seized up and died while I was headed southbound
on I-15 going to work. By the time I had the car towed and could arrange
for someone to pick me up and take me the rest of the way to work it was
practically lunch time. Fun day. I'd hoped to eke out weeks (or even months)
of life instead of just days. Oh well.
Luckily I'd been carpooling (though not the morning the car died) and
had co-workers who could kindly help make sure I had a way to get to work
each day so far this month.
Now, in the past year, Paul graduated and
got
accepted into a pharmacy graduate program (beginning next year) in Atlanta.
Since they'll be moving and don't want to transport two cars the nearly 2,000
miles to Georgia they very graciously gave the Sentra back to me as a
Christmas present. It's a huge relief to have a way to get work without
having to assume the burden of a car payment. Thank you Eliza & Paul!
— Michael A. Cleverly
Monday, December 24,
2007
at 20:51
108 comments
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Based on the blog search engine Technorati here is how our Cleverly family ranks in terms of global popularity.
My take aways? I've got good company with Rachael. I'm proud to be Anna's sister (in the top half million!). Why is Mary's old blog so much more popular still
than her new one? At least all of the 4,601,744th place people are ahead of
Mom, Robert and Peter! ;-)
— Michael A. Cleverly
Tuesday, December 25,
2007
at 12:17
64 comments
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Since several people have asked in person whether we ever heard back from
Mr. Sheffield, the Principal of our children's
elementary school...
Short answer: No.
Long answer: No, but I mailed my letter via certified mail with return
receipt (at a cost of nearly $5) and so I do have proof that the school
received it prior to their December 10th deadline. I figure the ball is in
their court at this point.
The fact that my children weren't allowed to go to school last week, and
are not being allowed back to school for the duration of 2007 is, I believe,
entirely coincidental at this point.
;-)
— Michael A. Cleverly
Sunday, December 30,
2007
at 19:22
117 comments
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