Jon's website

7/31/2000 -- Display difficulties

Well last night was interesting. My monitor died on me. There were no pyrotechnics or smoke, but the smell was spectacular. Stunk up my whole room. So I had a fan in there for a while, then just left both the windows open and slept downstairs. I didn't want to put the monitor outside anywhere because it's pretty dry around and I wasn't sure if it would spark. Didn't think it was probable but I didn't feel like taking the chance, living in a tinderbox and all. Also last night, I started reading this really cool book A Rumor of Otters by Deborah Savage. It's about a young teen girl in New Zeland who sets out for a remote corner of the sheep-ranching station on which she lives in search of an otter (all otters are thought to be extinct in New Zeland). It's a cool rite-of-passage story. Today we've all run around on more errands, picking up an ethernet hub to hook our couple aging computers together and the like. I also found out that my uncle found a lead on a web-development job for me, so I'm gonna look into that. During all the excitement of the day, we forgot lunch. So, when we got back home & it was dinner time, I was working on a good headahe. So I slept for a few hours after dinner, and then we three had ice cream. Finally, Gramps and I played with our new toys, the network thing and my new monitor (since the old one had become a fire hazard).

7/30/2000 -- Church adventures for the meek

This is the first day I've actually written a post-arrival journal. So I've done a bit of catching up for the week. Uh, I went to a church today for 11:15 worship and the service was ok. It was Music Sunday there, so there was lots of singing (only knew one of the songs we sung, but it's all good), three people talked about different songs that were sung, and there was some brief praying as well. Not bad, I suppose, and moderately spirit-filled. They had an ice cream social that night, so we ate earlier, after I spent most of the day writing these journal things, and I went back for that. And there were no kids/young adults, whatever you want to call them, there. A pack of teen guys showed up, but they ate some ice cream and left again... One of the people I talked to there said they have pretty good Junior and Senior High school progams, but no college-age kinda thing. I'm gonna keep looking, but I guess I'll come back if all the other options bomb out... Oh, the name of the place. It's, uh, Trinity Heights United Methodist Church. Other than that today, like I said, I spent most of the day journaling. After I got back from the ice cream thing, we had a nice downdraft and a few sprinkles from a passing thunderstorm, but nothing more than that. At least it's a lot cooler now. Supposed to get down into the 40s tonight, maybe. Well, that's it for now. A few things to finish up and I'm off to bed. Peace all.

7/29/2000 -- Uhh... er... Aw heck. No title.

Hmmm... Today I started looking in the phone book for church listings. Holy cats are there a lot of them up here. God help me. Other than that slightly overwhelming event, we went out on some more errands, all three of us this time. I was given another table for my room, so now my lamp is by my bed and my speakers are sitting the corners of the new table, looking as cool as my little stereo mini-tower does down below it. It's pretty homey now. Uh, dinner at home, had a nap after, got a headache, had pie @ Cocos (yum), stumbled into bed early. That's about it.

7/28/2000 -- Dog day

I got up a bit late today, having stayed up a bit late the day before. Uh, Gramps went out for a while to run some errands, but it was pretty warm out, so Grandma & I mostly stayed inside. Not much else to report than that.

7/27/2000 -- Around town

Today was fun. Gramps and I went out to Sam's Club to go shopping for stuff. I was driving (my car). So we wandered around in general high spirits, got all our stuff, stopped by the post office, stopped to see my Uncle at his work, and came home. A good time. Uh, mostly finished unpacking now, just a couple little piles left sitting around, which will probably stay there forever or so. Struggled with my computer more, trying to make it connect to my Psion. I'm about to give up. Also spent some time going through pictures from the trip and labeling them. None will be available online until I get a scanner, tho (that'll be a while). Stayed up a bit late, answering emails and the like.

7/26/2000 -- Dad departs

Well, Dad left really early today. I wasn't even up yet. Oh well. I'm going back for vacations and the like anyway, and I had just spent 5 days in a car with him. But I'll miss him anyway. The day itself was fairly uneventful, as far as I can remember (I'm actually writing all of these on Sunday the 30th). I unpacked some more, struggled a lot more with my computer, with Gramps's help (he's a computer guy too), trying to make my Psion connect to it (an effort in vain, still. And boy, did we try a lot of stuff), and we just hung out some more & talked and the like. Uh, that was about it, as far as I remember.

7/25/2000 -- Psion problems

Second full day. I did some more unpacking and the like. And sometime during the day, Gramps took Dad and I over to NAU and we wandered around the campus. It was kinda funny watching 3 generations of men from my family (myself included) browse the NAU library. Stopped to get me some classified ads too, so I could start looking at jobs. That was about it for the day tho... We were pretty tired after walking around in the heat & all. We did have some good lemon chicken for dinner, tho, and dessert afterwards at the local "pie hole" (same meaning as "watering hole", only for pie. Not like "shut your pie hole"). Oh. Dad & I played catch (the kind w/ a baseball) today too. Good times. One annoying thing, I can't make my Psion connect to my computer, so I've gotta exchange files between the two through an annoying, roundabout manner. Oh well.

7/24/2000 -- Well, we're here

My first full day here. The car had sat mostly loaded in the garage the day before, since we were so tired from all the driving, so I did all the major unloading today. Started loading some of my stuff onto shelves & drawers & organizing it. My room is pretty cool. I've got my own phone (on the same line as the rest of the house, but I'd never had a phone in my room before, so it's worth mentioning), and my own temporary computer that I'm going to use until I get my new one. Other than that, we just hung out around the house & talked. It's supposedly pretty hot for a Flagstaff summer (it's in the mountains), so we weren't outside that much. Went to a good Mexican place for dinner, Gramps & Grandma, Dad, my Uncle & Aunt (who also live in town), and I. Good stuff so far.