Author: alohawild

Working backward tonight, Susie and I returned from dinner with Mariah at the Golden Valley Brewery. We sat outside. The place was packed and had no limits, and mostly no masks were in use. Susie and I kept with our norm of using a mask until seated. I find that people now are having no thought of social distancing when getting into place. I am not ready to be that close. Not sure I ever will be.

Susie had a steak, Mariah had the steak salad, and I had the chicken pot pie. While the pie is nice, those steaks looked good. So we had the kitchen slice Susie’s steak for us. I still had to make smaller pieces for her, but it was easier this way. I am with the Asian belief that food should come ready to eat. Don’t even get me started on Lobster (it takes a biology textbook to eat one).

Work was ongoing data conversions and endless Zoom meetings. We are having some issues, so there was a lot of explaining and rechecking, and redoing.

Lunch was drive-through Burger King as I was rushing a bit today with all the fixes and following along.

I was asleep around midnight with broken sleep and back at it 7ish. My first meeting was at 8AM, so I could go a bit slower this morning.

I had to cancel gaming plans on Saturday with Casey and Richard, and friends. It is Casey’s birthday, but our conversions are running on the weekends. So I will need to help.

The first hymn I turned to is Love Devine, All Love Excelling.

After I published yesterday’s blog, I still worked until 1AM doing a status meeting at 12:30 Wednesday morning. That made 6:00 come rather soon. I managed to get going about 6:50ish and was ready for all the status meetings beginning at 7:30 and running into 10:30 for Zoom calls. I had a break and took a short walk, and talked to our neighbor.

I returned to more information on data conversions and some new challenges. I then slipped out to lunch at BJ’s Brewhouse for lunch. I had their chicken and noodles and iced tea, resisting a very nice red ale. I got a full rack of ribs for Susie for lunch to-go.

I did a few more status meetings and took a short nap between meetings as the lack of sleep caught me. Corwin made dinner Jambalaya from a box with kielbasa and ham. He also added a can of stewed tomatoes (Mexican style).

I am following along with the data conversions. I am much more blurry today.

I will include a new picture of Mister Lincoln with the next flower opening. It is my only hybrid tea and has a nice smell. I inherited a 50+ years old tea rose that smells of musty tea with the house. I like hybrid tea roses better.

I have all these fences. I think that climbing roses, maybe white ones, would be nice.

I picked In The Garden for today for my flowers.

My mother asked me if we were OK. The fire is in southern and easter Oregon. The smoke is blowing east into the Rockymountain states. It was a sunny hot day.

I started the day about 6:45ish and did more normal emails and Slack messages. The issues found in the data conversions were worked overnight in India, and the move of the fixes was started as I was getting going.

I was dressed in time for the start of hours of Zoom status and alignment meetings. I went to about 10:15 and then took a short rest. After that, I was back monitoring the progress of the data conversions until about 11:15.

I did manage a short walk. My legs are very sore, and I am having trouble bending my right leg. I figure exercise will help. I walked my shorter walk and felt much better after. The pain in the right leg is still there, but the left leg is better. Use it or lose it!

The local school is serving meals and now on summer break.

Next door and sharing a parking lot with the school, Reedville Presbyterian serves free dinners every Thursday. There is real hunger here in Reedville (Reedville was not incorporated and was part of Aloha before Beaverton decided to take us). With all the changes and consolidations, Reedville is only remembered now in the name of some places.

I drove Air Volvo to Pastini’s in the Cedar Hills Crossing mall near Beaverton’s Powell’s Books. This is a chain, but this one seems just a cut above the rest. The garlic bread is to die for. So I had spaghetti carbonara with garlic bread extra, and I ordered to-go ravioli for Susie. Tiramisu was also ordered to go. I skipped a dessert for myself as I had work to do and did not want a nap. Also, instead of their fine wines, iced tea for me.

I spoke to Pastini’s manager. They are only partially staffed as they are not getting their full set of customers. Nike WHQ is just a few minutes away so they are hoping the Nike WHQ will reopen soon. A lot of their regular customers worked at Nike WHQ. He told me that even with the limited opening, they cannot keep staff. They are “constantly hiring” is what they told me.

Back at it this afternoon and watching mostly and taking status meetings.

My Mister Lincoln rose has fully bloomed. A second bloom will soon start.

I had a ham and cheese for dinner after the large nice lunch. Susie had her dessert for dinner. I think she got the better deal!

I am still online watching the data conversions.

I returned to my Hell War Machine model for Dungeons and Dragons. I have repaired the breaks caused by the glue spill in the model, and I will return to working on it this evening.

No death counts as the totals are not being updated by many states, mostly Republican governed.

I turned to My Faith Looks Up to Thee in the Methodist Hymnal.

I started this morning at about 6:30 as I had a 7:30 status meeting. I was dressed and ready for the Zoom call. I then proceeded with hours of status calls, all on Zoom.

Next, I had a review of new Vision or tracing tools and software now working at Nike. This had me then chat with the architect on Master Data and see if we can use some of them. It was nice to be back to architecture and design. I will need to draw some pictures and make a presentation.

Susie has her normal Spa day at 9ish. Her driver picked her up, and she had a nice time with Zerida. Susie got her fav at McDonald’s. A happy meal with apples plus a hot apple pie for lunch.

Lunch was out. I drove Air Volvo to the Gyro House. They were happy to see me. I did wear a mask out of respect for folks who still need them. I was the only masked person. I ordered my fav of lamb kebobs. Lamb kebobs remind me of Istanbul and India.

There they gave me back my hat. Apparently, I left it behind last time I had kebobs! So my Indian Jones hat is now back here in the house!

I brought back baklava for Susie (and maybe one for me).

I took a break and a rest. I am still tiring during the day. I also found time to walk to the end of the street this morning. Not a great walk, but I wanted to do something.

Back at it for the next meetings. More status, and we get a signal to start at 7PM. So I am now online watching, and so far, so good as we begin one of the hardest data conversions I have ever been part of in my career. I am watching until midnight or later. It has been years to reach this point.

While waiting, we served up yesterday’s leftover pizza for dinner. We had that with store-bought egg potato salad.

While all this was going on, Mister Lincoln, my newest roses, has started to bloom. The plant has two blooms starting. They are smaller as it is mid-summer, but they still have the wonderful tea rose look.

The plant is mostly long canes and nothing more than a collection of sticks if you cut the flowers. But, I am happy to finally get multiple flowers this year. Next year it should be huge! Grows to eight feet tall, if you let it.

I have noticed that certain states, all Republican, are not reporting infections or deaths. So I will make this my last time to report as the numbers are wrong now. 129 people are reported to have died in the USA today from Covid-19. Six states are not reporting.

I turned to The Prayer of Saint Francis today in the Methodist Hymnal (#481).

The words:

Lord make Me an instrument of Your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness joy.

O Divine master grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood, as to understand.
To be loved. as to love
For it’s in giving that we receive
And it’s in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it’s in dying that we are born…
To eternal life.

Amen

I slept poorly, and thus the 6AM alarm on Sunday morning was received without welcome. I turned off the alarm and rested for a few minutes but was up and moving early.

I did not get dressed and watched some Game of Thrones, season seven, and noticed I was late! I managed to be in a Zoom meeting, no video for me, late, and it was a tiny gathering.

This was followed by the general status meeting at 8:30. There we reviewed what is happening on the data conversions. One was running way over and, to get it done, they were using nearly 90% of the system. This meant that our data conversion might not go forward tonight. We did at 4PM have a go-no-go meeting (go!). And that this was followed by the general status meeting, where our data conversions, even with the go decisions, were delayed until Monday noonish.

Before the afternoon events, we got dressed and made it to church again. This is Aloha Methodist nearby. Unfortunately, our church, Beaverton First, is not yet open. Wayne reminded me of the church in reply to the blog email, so I managed to remember and get Susie and us there on time.

Masks are required, and strict distancing is maintained. No singing but humming was suggested. They were happy to see us twice in a row. We will not make the next Sunday there as we will help open Beaverton this coming Sunday.

We then took Air Volvo to lunch at Applebees. Wayne and Anne Weld-Marton had not been there in over a year, and Susie and I had not been back to this Applebees in over four years!

Even with four years, the menu was familiar but slightly more expensive. My Southwest Salad is still missing. I used to order it every Sunday. I believe the Applebees in Lansing, Michigan, still make the salad for my mother-in-law Leta. She has a special deal on iced tea and salads with the managers. Before the pandemic, Leta ate there and had a Southwest Salad most days. They were happy to see her. She has been picking up a salad there now a few times a week.

Our waiter told us that they are having staffing issues. Every day she comes in to learn who decided to quit that day. She explained that somedays she might be working with only a few people. She said it was hard, but they make it work.

Our food was good, but the delivery of drinks and food was slow. We even ordered a dessert, and their blondie brownie with ice cream, apples in sauce, and walnuts was great. We shared it three ways.

After dropping Wayne and Anne off home after an extended lunch, I was only 90 mins away from my meetings. So I took a short rest and started.

Once the conversions were delayed, I closed my Nike laptop and took a nice nap. I ordered dinner from PizzaHut and had it delivered. I did not wake up until 8ish at night, so I ordered out. It was too late to work something out at home.