Learning to Dance in the Rain

Posts Tagged ‘Family news’

I have accepted a new position within Microsoft with the Visual Studio Platform & Ecosystem team.  Rather than working on the .NET Compact Framework I will be working on "VS10".  I’ll start work at my new office in a few weeks.

So I got up this morning at around 6:05 AM as I usually do.  I got dressed, putting on my new .NET Compact Framework coat that I got yesterday, ate breakfast, and headed out the door at 6:40 AM.  I unlocked my bike and headed toward the bus stop.  This is my usual routine.  I aim to catch the 277 bus that shows up near my condo anywhere from 6:42 to 6:50, hoping that it’s in the earlier of that range so that I can make a connection with the 644 bus in time to get to work by 7:30 AM, and before traffic on the freeway slows my 15 minute ride to 40 minutes.

Before my bike got around the first curve in our parking lot, my wheels lost traction on ice that I forgot I was supposed to be watching out for. My bike immediately slammed me to the ground.  Ouch.  Fortunately I didn’t have my laptop in my backpack today so I didn’t have to worry about that damage.  A quick inspection (in the dark) didn’t show any damage to bike, limb, or clothing, so I continued, walking and slipping, to the bus stop. 

The 277 bus, on the 6:43-6:50 schedule, is driven by a very new bus driver, who has tended to be a few minutes late.  But she never showed up.  This was unusual but not unheard of.  I find the 277 to be unreliable.  I waited until around 6:55.  I knew I completely missed the connecting bus by now, and deliberated going back home and coming out again in 20 minutes to catch the 277 on the next scheduled stop, but decided to just wait it out.  It was very cold out, probably below 32 degrees, but I still had my nice new coat on and imagined I could bear waiting for the next route outside.   Going back inside risks my missing another bus, and the pain from the accident wasn’t that severe.  Bad idea.

Eventually another route (not the 277) came by and I just took it to where my connecting bus would be driving by.  While on that first bus I took the opportunity to remove my coat and just see if there was any damage to coat or limb.  The first thing I noticed upon pulling out my left arm was that there were two huge bloody spots on my arm.  Wow.  I guess my coat hadn’t protected me as much as I had thought.  Upon completely removing my nice new NetCF coat I found black tar marks all over one side of it.  Rats!  What’s worse, I knew that the bus I was on was taking me to where I’d get off into the open, freezing air to wait 30 minutes for the next 644 to go by.  I’d either freeze in my short-sleeve shirt, or bleed inside my new jacket to keep warm. 

Now it happened that the bus stop where I got off to wait for the 644 was on a bridge directly over the freeway that the 644 would be getting onto.  As I waited for the next 644 to come, I watched as the freeway got slower and slower with building traffic — traffic I had meant to get in front of by leaving at such an early hour.  And all the while I’m freezing even though I decided to wear my coat, bleeding and all.  There weren’t active drops of blood coming out of my wounds, so I hoped the damage to the internals of the coat wouldn’t be too bad.

I’d been waiting for 30 minutes now, and the 644 hadn’t shown up yet.  "Great!", I thought sarcastically, "now the 644 won’t show up, or will be late."  Then I saw not one, but two 277’s go by in a row.  That’s right, that new driver was apparently 30 minutes late on her route, so that she was now only a minute or less ahead of the next scheduled 277.  My gosh!  Here I am trying to be a good citizen and take public transportation in Seattle where traffic is so bad, and the bus gets away with being 30 minutes late.  !!!

The 644 bus that I was waiting for ended up being 8 minutes late.  More time to freeze outside.  By now the carpool lane (which the 644 uses) was almost at a standstill.  I boarded, inspected my wound again to find that it hadn’t been actively bleeding in my coat, for which I was thankful. 

We actually got to Microsoft in surprisingly good time considering the traffic.  Once there I had to still ride my bike the few blocks from the bus stop at Microsoft to my office building.  I used the first aid kit at my building to bandage myself up.  I’m going to look great today in my interviews for my new job at Microsoft.

I wonder what my ride home on public transportation holds in store for me.

I’ve just been called to serve as the first counselor in the ward Young Men’s Presidency.  The whole presidency is newly called, and I’m looking forward to working with all of them.

One of the things I’ll be doing in my new calling is teaching the Teacher’s Quorum.  I’m really excited about that.  There are only 2-5 youth who will be there each week.

Cheryl and I just celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary.  After a few unsuccessful attempts at romantic getaways in previous years, we decided to enjoy the comforts at home this year.  Our friends the Leafty’s babysat Luke overnight and we made a fancy dinner at home.  We had shrimp cocktail and salad for an appetizer, followed by twice-baked potatoes and steak for our entrée.  Of course we had apple cider along with it. 

Although we missed Luke, we hear he was pretty good at the Leafty’s and enjoyed himself.

Luke, Cheryl and I celebrated Christmas Eve twice this year: once on December 24th and again (tonight) on December 26th.  The first time we were with Cheryl’s family in Colorado.  We spent the last few days with them and flew back to Washington on the afternoon of Christmas Day. 

Our time at the Mackrory’s (Cheryl’s parents) was very enjoyable.  Andrew & KaraLynne Mackrory (with their two kids Lyman and CoriLynne) were also visiting.  We celebrated Christmas Eve with lamb, ham, squash, broccoli and other great food.  Christmas morning we opened presents.  We had left most of our own presents at home so we could open them after our own traditions when we got back.

Christmas Eve at our house tonight consisted of a quick reading of Luke 2, followed by a "Mary & Joseph supper" consisting of cheese, crackers, grape juice, beef jerky and dried fruit.  Tradition would have it that we re-enact the trek Joseph & Mary took looking for an inn in which to deliver the baby Jesus.  In interest of time and a lack of actors we just read Luke 2, and quickly so that we’d have time to put Luke (the baby) to bed at a decent hour.  The food was good.  We added sliced oranges (compliments of dad Arnott) to our meal because it might have been dad’s offering if he were there in A.D. 1.

Tomorrow we will open presents from our extended family and to and from each other in our immediate family.  We’ll likely blog again tomorrow.

With at least 3 blogs from branches of the Arnott family keeping the rest of us up to date, I thought I’d help you "subscribe" to these updates so you know when someone posts to their blog and can read it easily.

First, let’s review the family blogs thus far (that I know of):

• http://blog.mysideoftheweb.com/ (Andrew + Cheryl)
• http://hancockarnott.blogspot.com/ (Sarah + Sheldon)
• http://danwebbfamily.blogspot.com/ (Rebecca + Dan)
• Not listed here?  Get your blog started so we can keep up with what’s going on in your life.  Here’s a good place to start your new blog (it’s free): http://www.blogger.com.

Gmail

Here’s how you can add these blogs to Gmail so you are more likely to notice when someone posts something while you’re just reading your Gmail:

1. Get into your Gmail account.
2. Click Settings
3. Click Web Clips
4. Fill in the "Search by topic or URL" box with the blog URL you want to stay up to date on. (one of the ones listed above)
5. Click Search
6. Click Add
7. Keep repeating the last few steps until you’ve added all the blog URLs you want.
8. Click the "remove" links next to any web clip lines you’re not interested in seeing.
9. Click Inbox.

Then you can click the Right button on the end of the Web Clip bar until you see some recent blog posts.  You won’t always have to click that arrow.  When new posts are added to a blog you’re interested in, they’ll just show up in that ticker.

Google Reader

If you’d like an app that helps you subscribe to all these updates where you can read through lots of past entries at once, try Google Reader. 

1. Visit http://www.google.com/reader
2. Click the "Add subscription" link
3. Type in one of the blog URLs listed above.
4. Repeat to add each of the blogs you’re interested in.
5. Click the "All items" link to read entries from all of your subscribed blogs, in chronological order.

Luke has been standing with the help of steadying nearby objects for a few weeks.  He has recently been trying to free stand but only managed to do it for about a second at a time.  Tonight, he stood without any assistance several times for 10-15 seconds.  How exciting!

We’ll share a video when we can get him to do it for the camera.

An internal change at Microsoft forces me to find a new job (within the company).  Microsoft is making the transition as easy as possible.  There are lots of internal jobs available to me to apply for, and I have at least a few months to find a good fit.

Still, I will miss working on the .NET Compact Framework.

Here are some pictures of Luke climbing his first stairs, and eating his first Thanksgiving meal!