To each his own

I'm sitting here reviewing the pictures Carolyn & I have taken this past year for the purpose of selecting those that relate to our ward and ward activities. We're still in charge of those - the next one being tomorrow morning at 8:30 am. This will be the 3rd Annual La Sierra Ward New Year's Pancake Breakfast and the second time we'll be in charge of it.

As I said, I'm pulling pictures from our collection because one of us is usually taking pictures at these ward events. However, there are a lot of ward activities that we don't get to - primarily the youth programs. So Carolyn asked Sister Harper to submit a sampling of pictures that she's taken of ward activities.

Looking at the two sets of pictures, you'd swear that we belonged to two different wards. There is virtually no overlap of events and very little overlap of people in the pictures. That got me to thinking about how each of us really does live in our own world. What I see and experience is not what you see and experience even if we're twins or a married couple who spend a great deal of time together. I think it's something I have to remember when I'm tempted to criticize.

On a more positive note, we only have 5.5 hours left of 2008! We're not planning to stay up until midnight so this will have to do as our Happy New Year greeting!! May the New Year bring you and yours even richer blessings than you enjoy now.

Psst! Hey, Buddy.

I have just one word to say to people who notice an unintentionally open fly or an unintentionally open garage door: THANKS!

Last night we got a call from our neighbor saying our garage door was open. My first reaction was "mind your own business" but milliseconds later I realized that Wayne cared enough to let us know. So, please, if I have a bit of spinach on my teeth, a crumb on my tie, lipstick on my bald head (there's a story behind that one), or my garage door is open much longer than it should be -- tell me. I really will be grateful.

From Fence to Retaining Wall - Part 4

With the act of putting our house numbers back in place we officially complete the Retaining Wall project. Although the front yard fence between us and our neighbors to the north looked okay when we bought the house, it had become a bit of an eyesore. Carolyn and I had looked at several alternatives but we would probably still be looking if a section of the fence hadn't crashed down on the driveway. We promptly knocked down the rest of the fence so our place wouldn't look like a 6 year-old's mouth. It didn't take many days until we decided we liked he open design.



Our neighbor Wayne designed some fences and we made some decisions. Our other neighbor objected to our initial choice of block and we're glad he did because we really like what we subsequently went with. We also like the way it drops away as it nears the pole giving almost no obstruction of sight.


Wayne claims that our streeetlamp makes it more difficult for potential troublemakers to see his RV. I'm certainly not opposed to that. On the other hand, the lamp has certainly improved the light to our house - front door and garage especially.


Wayne used this opportunity to shore up a section of our driveway which appeared to have no earth support at all. Wayne rammed wet concrete under the driveway before placing each course of block. We probably would never have gotten around to it until that corner of the driveway snapped.


Although we had promised our neighbor that she could use the extra dirt, by the time Wayne filled everything back in, there was no extra. And the runoff should be as much on the neighbor as my driveway.

Facebook - part 2

I'm still trying to figure out a place in my life for Facebook. Admittedly, with only 12 friends in my database to this point, I'm not what you would call a heavy user.
This is what is called a Friend Wheel which shows in this case all the persons who I am a "friend" with and how they are related to each other. Not surprisingly, aabout half the group know each other well and the other half are only involved with a limited number of connections. It is also the case that the average age of the non-connected points is significantly higher than the connected side.

Two people have contacted me sort of "out of the blue" and Facebook helped facilitate that. It's sort of like having a gigantic, fantastic, calling card that you can give to someone or point to it in your letter. This blog works in a similar way but without the uniform format it is more difficult to work with.

Tax Time

Well, actually it isn't tax time for everyone but it is time I started prodding the Treasurers from the Branch Friends of the Library since I will again have to prepare the 1099's for performers paid by the Branch Friends. I'm really excited about doing it this year because apparently the Library is going to take over that function starting tax year 2009.

I usually mail out the notices to the treasurers on January 2 after I have closed out December and prepared the quarterly dues share for each branch. Then I realized that I have the e-mail addresses of 24 of the 28 branch treasurers. I could get a good start just by notifying those 24.

The other tax time in my life is to buy Turbo Tax Deluxe and install it on my computer to begin planning cash flow. We had a rather large tax payment last April that caused us to have to shift money around. This year shouldn't be such a large payment because I've been paying estimated taxes during the year.

The Day After Christmas

'Twas the day after Christmas, and all around here,
It looked as if everyone had enjoyed the good cheer.

The day after is a weird sort of day. It feels like it should be a holiday, but it really isn't, at least in the USA. In our household it is the day to put away as much of the holiday trimmings as you can and getting ready to host the annual New Year's breakfast over at the ward meetinghouse. Accordingly, there are boxes all around in various states of being filled and various Christmas lights and decorations waiting to be sorted and boxed.

The day after Christmas is a time for working on the presents you got that require some assembly. You might have started on them on Christmas day but with everything going on around you, some of the just had to wait.

And finally, its a time to contact people who sent you a Christmas card out of the blue when you haven't heard from them in 20 years. Or, a time to realize that you never got around to sending out your letter even to the people who faithfully read your blog. Click HERE to get your very own copy of our Christmas letter this year.

Now let's everyone get back to work and get ready for 2009!

Merry Christmas!!

I'm sure I'm beginning to sound like a broken record but having children around on Christmas morning certainly gives the day a more festive atmosphere. It's especially nice if the children so mentioned are well-behaved and have a good night's sleep on the night before Christmas. You'll note Gavin's shirt which says, "All mommy wants for Christmas is a Silent Night".It was a rather low key Christmas as Carolyn and I tried to surprise one another but not with a bill for hundreds of dollars. That kind of surprise we don't need until Carolyn's health is more assured.




Thanks to all of you who sent Christmas wishes.

Christmas Eve

When you're young you want to be home for Christmas. And as you get older and have children of your own, you want all the children to be home for Christmas. But as your children marry it suddenly isn't always feasible to have the children home for Christmas. The in-laws' traditions count as much as yours and it just may be more favorable to visit them. They might have better weather, more things to see and do, or just more family in the area to visit.

In any case, this year we are going to enjoy our 5th child and his family while at the same time we won't have our oldest child and his family. Ed and family left yesterday to spend the holidays with Grandpa and Grandma Miles.

Tiffany thought it would be less stress on her nerves if the boys weren't always asking, "When are we going to Grandma's?" so she told them several weeks ago that they wouldn't be going south this Christmas. Then 2 days ago we had a little "mini-Christmas". One of the first "gifts" the boys opened was the above pictured ticket. It was Tiff's way of announcing the trip. Since the boys already knew (they were being told to pack) they couldn't understand why they needed a ticket. Oh well, it was a cute idea anyway.

Carolyn and I got to see the boys expressions when they opened our gifts to them.


We gave the two older boys the same thing, a Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center.


While Camdan still enjoys playing with the wrapping material.



We knew our present was a big hit whem the boys started using them immediately.

And just a couple of hours before Ed and family headed south, Philip arrived with his wife and year-and-a-half old Gavin who immediately tried to steal our hearts.


He is growing so fast. He talks a mile a minute but no one can understand him. We really feel fortunate that Philip and family could make it up here for Christmas.

Cookie Exchange

I think we've been to our share of parties, Christmas and otherwise, but I don't recall being invited to a Cookie Exchange party. It does involve a little more preparation than usual, at least for those who prefer to bake their own cookies.

Carolyn prepared two kinds of cookies:

Jelly Belly cookies and

Spritz cookies.

I had forgotten that she had picked up a power cookie press at a garage sale in the past couple of years. We hadn't used it until today.

Sampling & socializing

While everyone is arriving, we just sample some of the cookies and sit around enjoying the company.

Cookie table

There were still people arriving when I took this picture. By the time everyone was there, there wasn't a place at the table to set any more cookies. As we left we took a sample of all the cookies we were interested in. As long as you didn't take or eat any more than you brought, it should all work out. Carolyn, of course, brought almost twice as many as we ate and brought home. That way, there were extra cookies for those who left last.

I'm fairly tall at 6' 1 " but as we arrived I could help noticing that I was one of the smaller men in the crowd. Turns out Micki, the daughter of our hosts, invited several members from her club - the local tall people's club. Entrance requirements are 5' 10" for women and 6"2 for men. IOt was a good party even if I did have to strain my neck to talk with some of he guests.

Here we come a caroling....

About 8:00 last night someone knocked on our door with the urgency and familiarity that we expect from family or good friends. Turns out it was a bunch of carolers consisting mainly of Pinegar boys and a few other young adults thrown in. This was not your usual choir. But they were enthusiastic and loud.



We just happened to have dozens of cookies on hand because of the neighborhood cookie exchange we had been to. They enjoyed the cookies and we enjoyed seeing them go to a better place than our bellies.

Facebook

I guess it had to happen sometime. Someone invited me to join Facebook. I should clarify that. I finally responded to someone's invitation to join Facebook. This is probably my third invitation in as many months so I decided that I would respond this time rather than ignore it. I'm not sure that was a good move.

Of course I already knew much about Facebook: that it was a network of people and connected these people in ways that facilitated their talking to one another, sharing information with each other, even playing online games with each other. And the relationships between members of Facebook could be almost as complex as real face-to-face relationships can be.

Things I didn't know was how much information a person is encouraged to add to his/her profile and how much is shared with members of your own network or is public. I didn't expect the system to somehow encourage adding new friends by searching e-mail databases. I went from 1 friend to 7 friends in a couple of hours. I didn't know how time consuming it could be just trying to keep up with what your friends are all doing.

According to an outdated article in Wikipedia, Facebook leads the pack of networked friends worldwide but My Space is almost double Facebook in the States. I will report back in a couple of weeks about this friends network.

The Scottish Rite Christmas Party

Mom and brother Camdan with Tim

The members of the local Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge have taken on as one of their charitable projects the operation of a speech and language diagnostic and treatment center. Probably because our daughter-in-law Tiffany is enrolled as a graduate student in a Speech Therapy program she recognized in our grandson Tim a need for some remedial therapy. Tim is a bright, personable young boy and has taken to the extra "tutoring" very positively.

If you're interested in knowing more about the program, the Sacramento Scottish Rite Language Center has a decent web site here. This quote is a nice summary:

The Sacramento Scottish Rite Language Center provides diagnostic and treatment services for children with delays in speech, language and literacy. The Center is one of more than 165 Scottish Rite Language Centers throughout the United States. Services are provided free of charge. Masonic affiliation is not required. Additionally, the Center serves as a training site, providing internships and practicums for university students studying the field of Speech Language Pathology.

With all that they do, we were surprised to find out that the lodge also hosts a Christmas Party for all the family members of kids in the Center's program. Edward described it to be like the Kiwanis parties that we used to take the kids to with all these old men doing their best to entertain all the kids.

Clowns entertaining the families

They had goodie bags, crafts, clowns, face painting, Santa Claus, a decent $15 age appropriate gift, and a stuffed animal for each kid. For the adults there was a drawing for door prizes and enough prizes so that 50% of the adults ended up with something ranging from a tin of cookies to a basketful of wine. In addition everyone was treated to a decent spaghetti dinner. Truly a nice gesture over and above all that the Speech and Language Center does every day.

Each boy gets his time with Santa

Back to Physical Theraphy

I note that it is 1.5 years since I was first acquainted with Kaiser's Physical Therapy unit in our area. At that time the purpose for my PT visits were to reduce the pain I was experiencing in my lower back. I stopped going when I found that none of the exercises helped.


Now, I'm again visiting the PT department with the goal of regaining and maintaining flexibility in my activities of daily living. I still have back pains but they're so minimal in comparison with the feet and leg pains that I'm not even sure which is which.
Jeanine always has an interesting agenda of exercises which we're hoping will allow my muscles to gently stretch into place each day or when I need them. Jeannine has taught me how to do most of the exercises in our bedroom, utilizing the time I'm still waking up. The exercises are more to help me limber up than to strengthen my muscles. One that I really needed was the methods used to get up from the floor, from a chair, or out of bed. It almost becomes like a martial arts class learning how to make your body work with you rather than against you.

"Calming" Our Traffic

I saw a sign, no make that 2 signs, today that I've never seen before. In fact, I was so surprised that I turned around to see if I had really seen what I thought I had and to take a picture of them for this blog.

In three locations on our little street between Fair Oaks and Garfield there six signs, three in each direction, indicating that something is finally going to be done about the people who feel authorized to break the 25 mph speed limit because it isn't a high priority place for the police to patrol for speeders.

But I was struck with the manners and even the softer terminology of the "traffic calming" sign. Because both signs were used along the same stretch, I'm assuming that a speed bump is meant in both cases. Usually speed bumps aggravate me but the way they do them in this area reduces the aggravation considerably. They are 3 to 4 feet along the direction of traffic and low enough that if you are going 25, you probably don't need to slow down. But if you're going 45 or 50 mph, you can expect some serious bouncing. I'll be back with further information as soon as we see some progress.

Oh, Fudge!

Last year at one of the parties at our house Linda Karoly brought some Key Lime Fudge. It was so good that I asked for her recipe. Turns out that she has two recipes but one was infinitely easier and almost foolproof. The secret is Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk and white baking chips.

What you see here are the six batches I made using the basic recipe and 6 different variations: dark chocolate, walnuts, cheery flavored cranberries, peppermint, coconut, and cinnamon. You can download a PDF version of the recipe from my web page: http://home.surewest.net/arnoldvl/fudge.pdf


We made little bags of two pieces of each flavor, an index indication which color is which flavor., and the address to the recipe on out home page.

How to cause a heart attack

It was getting close to bedtime the other evening and Carolyn was getting ready to shut off the computer. I asked her to leave it on so I could check my email. She exited all her programs then got up to let me sit in front of the computer. As she did so all the icons disappeared from the desktop! I'm pretty sure I didn't tell the computer to shut down, she said.

Now I use the desktop a lot - for storing temporary files that I don't want to have to look 3 levels deep to find, shortcuts to often used programs, shortcuts to often used folders. Since the Start button and the Taskbar were visible and appeared to be intact, I was optimistic that nothing had wiped out the whole computer. I accessed Windows Explorer through the Start, All Programs menu and found that Desktop was still a top level folder and all the things that used to be there were still there.

But where were the icons? In the Windows File Explorer window, I clicked on Help and got the Help and Support Center knowledge base. Typing in "desktop icons missing" in the search window found 15 results. Entry number 3 was "Your Desktop Icons Are Missing in Windows XP" My exact problem!

About this time Carolyn says that she saw a text pop-up box which went away when she clicked it but she didn't think it could be that. Turns out it was exactly that. When you right click on the wallpaper (not an icon) you get a pop-up box whose first line asks "Arrange Icons by...." which you wouldn't normally click unless you wanted to rearrange your icons. But, if you do select that option, another pop-up box appears which has an option listed 8 lines down "Show Desktop Icons". That option is normally checked. But if you click on that option, you remove the check mark and the icons on your desktop disappear - not necessarily immediately if your computer is working hard.

Problem solved. Probably cause of problem determined. New appreciation for the Help and Support Center knowledge base gained.

C-day plus 77 THE END

This is a picture of a Baxter IV pump, a device that has become commonplace in hospitals and wherever Intravenous (IV) solutions are given. It measures with some precision the amount of fluid which the patient is receiving, along with the rate and the amount remaining. Prior to using these machines, nurses would estimate the fluid rate by using a drip tube and counting the drops during 15 seconds or a minute.

The significance of this particular readout on this particular screen is that it represents the alarm sounding as the last drop of chemicals of Carolyn's chemo therapy passed this pump. In other words CAROLYN IS THROUGH WITH HER CHEMOTHERAPY TREATMENTS!!!!!


Because part of her prescription included a relaxant, she slept through most of the treatment today and was still slightly groggy as the nurse began removing all the tubing and I suggested she shout for joy so I could take the picture.

If this treatment affects Carolyn the same way the past treatments have, she will not be up to doing much this coming week. Fortunately, there isn't much she needs to do and she does have some good support from church, family, and friends. Again, we'd like to thank all of you who have kept Carolyn in your thoughts and prayers and those who have made this journey bearable.

She's expecting to have three weeks of radiation therapy starting the middle of January. "Just to make sure we have [killed] all the cancer cells," the doctors said.

Working the warehouse

One of the main things that the Friends of the Library do to raise money for the library is sell books. Therefore, it is rather ironic that as Treasurer of the overall Friends organization for the Sacramento Public Library, I so rarely work at the Book Den or the Warehouse. I keep track of tall their expenses, all their sales income, and now even the books needing repair. But I have never participated in their Wednesday morning sorting of newly acquired books, never worked regular Book Den hours, and only seldom have I worked at a Warehouse Sale. So when I couldn't come up with an excuse for yesterday's warehouse sale, I ended up volunteering to cashier.

It's hard to figure out why we even had a sale because there were never more than 15 or 20 customers in the warehouse at any time and usually it was more like a half dozen. Several people chose this time to donate used books so it is possible that we actually took in more books than we sold.

The problem with such a situation is that during each lull in the sales, I would get up and explore a new aisle or section of books. I bought and brought home 6 videotapes, 12 audio tape books, 4 music books and a couple miscellaneous . Four large grocery bags full and all for less than $20. Now where am I going to put them?

Intuition - book review

I think it's a rare novel that can take on the dual tasks of character and relationship development while at the same time describing and critiquing a societal institution. But in Intuition, Allegra Goodman has managed to pull it all off. The only thing I didn't like about the book is the title. It could certainly be made to fit the story but then almost any random word would work the same. I think a much better title would be Naked Rats or R7 Virus. But that's beside the point. It's named what it is, counter intuitive though it may be.

The scene will be familiar to anyone who has worked in a research lab, especially one that is funded by federal grants (and who isn't now?) There is a mixture of Directors, post-docs (students who have earned their PhD sstudies but want to complete one to 5 years of good research before taking a faculty or other position where research may not be full-time), graduate students, and technicians. There might even be an undergraduate or two if the grant is generous or the lab forward-thinking. There are also several projects being worked on, each with it's own funding source and the status of the project proportional to the current funding or the number of papers that it has produced because funding and papers are what it's all about.

Cliff, a post-doc who has strained the patience of the lab directors by not coming up with useful data suddenly starts getting results that are almost too good to be true. Rather than be suspicious or skeptical, the directors immediately divert resources to the now "golden boy" rehabilitated post-doc. No one seems to notice that many of his results are obtained when he works alone which is often. His results are praised but his methods not reviewed. Only an ex-girlfriend Robin finds what appears to be Cliff's picking and choosing his data so that his results look promising. This is a time-honored practice of scam artists who can prove anything by selectively discarding data. But it is not science.

Goodman has Robin and the lab directors each following protocol and chain of command in the whistle blowing process. Thus we are treated to an analysis of the structures which attempt to ensure that good science is practiced and rewarded while bad science is de-funded and scorned. But of course these are man-made structures which often have unintended consequences. Robin ends up the pariah rather than a heroine.

There are few cliff-hanging moments in the book but there are some surprises and humor. Again, those of us who have worked in a research environment will recognize the characters in Intuition that must have been modeled after people in our labs.

Definitely worth reading.

Outdoor Christmas displays

We don't go overboard with lighting our house for Christmas. With some people going to such great lengths, we decided the best niche was "modest" and tasteful. Here's what we've come up with for this year. The spiral Christmas trees and Santa & friend are leftover from our ward Christmas party. That is, we bought them for us but then loaned them to the ward to use for the Christmas party decorations.

From Fence to Retaining Wall - Part 3

Probably since the day we moved into our current house, Carolyn has wanted a lamp post at the end of our driveway. Although we have a nice street lamp at the end of our cul de sac, between that lamp and our little garage carriage lights there isn't much to light the way.

So, when we were discussing the plans for the retaining wall, Carolyn insisted we also look at wiring down to the end of the wall and putting in a lamp at that point. You've seen the lamp during the daytime in previous posts. Tonight our neighbor Wayne connected the power so you can see what it looks like in the night.

My son Ed is showing me one of the uses for the 4 x 4 left over from the old fence. We're going to use it to display our house numbers.


Trying to find a good switch for the lamp led me to Home Depot and the above pictured switch. As you can see it has a built-in clock. One can, of course, use it like any normal switch - press on, press off. But in the automatic mode one can program the lamp to come on at dusk and turn off at dawn. It doesn't do that by light sensors but by using your approximate latitude , date, and time. If you'd rather use it manually or set specified on/off times, that is possible. It's even possible to have a different program for weekdays, weekends, all days, or specific single days.


Such flexibility comes with a price. The installation instruction guide was four pages long and the "simplified" programming guide is almost 2 pages. As the days get longer, it will be intereseting to see if the lamp keeps up with the time.

The Omnivore's Dilemma - book review

Somehow, the Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan reminds me of some essays I have written that cover lots of ground but have little or no unifying thread. The subtitle of this book is "A Natural History of Four Meals" but the book is divided into three sections. I can't even remember how he came up with 4 meals.

The three sections are Corn, Grass, and the Forest. In the first Pollan talks about the great prevalence of corn in the American's diet and the industrialization of this crop which has changed the face of the land from the Mississippi to the Rockies. The meal most representative of this section was the fast food meal. Pollan shows that virtually every item in a fast food menu will have some element of corn. He also goes to great length to explain how the industrialization has removed all the taste and goodness of this food staple.

The second section, Grass, seemed to be devoted to showing how much better it was to eat organically grown, free-range items. Or not. The author shows how the label "organically grown" has been compromised by the USDA and stripped of any meaningful value for labeling food. Pollan describes a farm that is almost completely self-contained so that no unnatural chemicals are needed for ferilization or elimination of bacterial and pests. As such, this farm is a leader in "organically growth" vegetables and meat but can't use that phrase because of possible USDA sanctions. The farm even has difficulty getting their food to market.

The last section bounced back and forth between the value of "hunter gathering" and dangers of purely natural foods. Woven into this essay is one about the conflict of hunting, killing, and then eating another animal, one likely to have as much concept of its existence as a young baby or a senile man. Do we have the right to shoot deer so that we can have meat during the winter?

The book makes some great points. However, the author writes like he's being paid per word. You could probably make a book of the first two sentences in each paragraph without losing a great deal of meaning of the book. Otherwise I enjoyed the book immensely.

Rest in Peace, Florence

Several days ago I blogged about a dear old woman on my Meals on Wheels route with whom I was privileged to walk for the last several visits and sit on her front porch and talk with her. One of the things she repeatedly said was that she didn't want to go to "that nursing home". She could take anything but "that nursing home".

Well, she got her way. When I saw the delivery schedule for this past week's meals, her name was crossed out and the notation "passed away 12/2" written in. I'm sad to lose a friend, happy that Florence is not suffering any more. Good-bye, Florence.

C-day plus 70

Today was to be Carolyn's last chemotherapy treatment but, as you can see from the above graph, her White Blood Cell Count was significantly below the normal level. So, as happened in November, her therapy has been delayed exactly one week. We thouroughly expect the count to bounce back up like it did in November. Then we'll be able to celebrate the end of this phase of her treatment.

This time we saw the results before the doctor did and were pretty sure this was going to happen. That allowed us to plan our day better and actually get something done.

Christmas Program

I think this was the first Christmas program of any length I've attended where no one read Luke 2. There were lots of pictures of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and dramatizations of the birthday of Christ but I felt it all had a fresh look to it.

The invitations asked people to pretend that it had snowed in Carmichael (something it does every 10 years) and they had just eaten a good Christmas Eve dinner. They were gathered around the fireplace (and we actually had one of those realistic portable ones) on pillows and blankets to listen to the story of Christmas as told with several different media.

We got the whole Santa thing out of the way at first by making it a photo op while people were still arriving.


And while the kids were sitting on Santa's lap getting a candy cane, the adults were at the desert table getting brownies and cookies and other sweet lumps of calories. With the food and Santa out of the way, we could get to the program.

First there was a story "The Crippled Lamb" read by one of the best storytellers in the ward. That was followed by singing of carols with the choices shouted out by the congregation. And instrumental number followed - a saxophone solo of "What Child is This". I think it's a good opportunity to let someone show their talent this way when they can't play in Sacrament meeting. The Primary Children sang a couple of numbers ending with "Picture a Christmas," which led right into a brief presentation of Jesus's birth and life. About 12 people had various speaking parts like Mary and Joseph and John the Baptist. I was responsible for showing slides that illustrated the various parts of the story. It ended with the congregation singing 'Silent Night".


During the Santa and dessert part of the program, I had a slide show of snowy landscapes while music played in the back. And I also displayed the illustrations of "The Crippled Lamb" while it was being read.

Carolyn, of course, was running the evening but Tonya (left) to MC so she could be the chorister for the carols as our original chorister came down with laryngitis. Carolyn Troyan (right) directed the dramatization of Jesus's life.

All in all we thought it was a good evening.

Good neighbor, bad neighbor

Our neighbor Wayne had his tools and cement mixer out early this morning starting on the first row of the retaining wall that we had commissioned him to build for us. He had just started and had 3 or 4 full blocks down when our other neighbor (or their son actually) and told him to stop, that he was using the wrong blocks. Wayne, of course, not wanting to get into the middle of this fracas asked Carolyn what she wanted to do. Carolyn wanted to keep the peace even though it is customary that if the neighbor gets a say in the materials, they also participate in the expense. Carolyn and the neighbor apparently agreed on a color and type of cement block quickly enough that we were able to buy the replacement blocks and still give Wayne 3 or 4 hours of sunlight to work with.

Carolyn and Wayne unloading Wayne's trailer with the new blocks.

Getting the old blocks ready to take back.

Actually, to tell the truth, I think we're going to be happier with the upgraded cement blocks so the neighbor actually did us a favor by insisting on the upgrade.