Julie Gets Her Transfer

What wonderful news! Julie will be transferred to Fort Worth South starting Monday! That means we get to live together for the entire week now. She's been transferred for a year initially. But we're hoping she will be able to stay.

This is something for which we and a lot of people have been praying and God has answered our prayers. Thank you everyone who interceded for us.

An Evening in Redbank, NJ

I've come to this old harbor town just south of New York and Newark to lead a workshop for one of our clients.
I won't be here long. I fly back tomorrow night after I finish my presentation. Michael and I have worked hard to try to come up with some business intelligence that we might share with these senior managers about how to improve their sales organization.


This is where I'm staying and where the seminar is being held. It's a pretty place on the little inlet that reminds me a lot of Annapolis. Molly Pitcher was the name given to a woman who suffered along with her husband at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War. Her real name was Mary Hays McCauly or maybe not. Historical debunkers now say she was probably a legend compiled from a number of sources. I think they say the same thing about the Bible. Who you gonna believe?

Bad Technology Day

I depend on my technology a lot. It runs my business. I had been waiting anxiously for July 11. In spite of the fact that July 11 is my sister's birthday, it was also the day Apple was to release the software upgrade for my iPhone. Like millions of people around the world, at 8:02 am I plugged in my phone and launched iTunes (the program that connects the phone to the computer).

Things started out fine, but then error messages began appearing. It turns out I wasn't the only person looking forward to the upgrade. In a move that can only be described as Microsoft-esque in hubris and strategic stupidity, Apple had not planned for the tremendous load that would hit their servers. You may have seen it on the news -- thousands of people who had stood in line to purchase the new iPhone couldn't get their phone activated. But what was worse -- far worse -- were those of us who were upgrading our previous phone and suddenly realized we were the proud owners of an iBrick, a useless piece of technology that wouldn't work.

It took two and a half hours of clicking and re-clicking a link in iTunes before my phone was finally operational again.

But that wasn't the end of my technology hell. Late in the afternoon I couldn't access my email for two hours and we were in the middle of having 500 people complete our online assessment. I was supposed to provide technical assistance. After three calls to Yahoo I was finally put it touch with the right person who had no idea what was going on. But they must have eventually found the error and I was able to get back to work. Thankfully, no one had a problem.

As Alice Kahn once said, "For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three. "

Views

This is the view of our place when you enter our subdivision, called Bentwater. Our house is at the very top of the rise.


Driving up the street, this is the view from the south. The driveway is our neighbor's.

This is the lake view side of the house. The upstairs apartment opens out on to the balcony from which you get great views of the valley below and spectacular sunsets.


This is looking south toward the lake. The blue-roofed building is the marina for boat owners in our sub-division. The butte in the background is Comanche Peak. Julie says this is the view she lingers over when she leaves for work on Monday mornings.

A Mystery Rock No More

It's time to solve the mystery about the orangish-brown rock I discovered just over the edge of the yard in the rubble of the upper cliff.
It is a piece of coprolite -- what scientists call petrified dinosaur poop (from the Greek word for dooty). Michael and Jill both went for the excrement angle and were very close. I don't know if this is sloth pooh, but I'm fairly certain it was a medium-sized plant-eater. You can see fossilized bark or something inside. The hole was probably made by a dung beetle.
This area is known for its dinosaur remains. Just down the road in Glen Rose they have unearthed dinosaur tracks left in the river bed.


When they put in the septic system (pictured here), they had to dig down about 15 feet into the solid rock. They dumped a lot of the detritus over the cliff. That's how I think I was able to find the coprolite laying on top of the scree beyond the grass.

Knowing how much they love dinosaurs, I'll give this rock to Trevor and today I found another piece I'll share with Ty -- two guys who really know their dinosaur pooh!

Good Summer Reads

I just finished reading (actually listening on an audio book) to a pretty good story -- a real page turner -- Jeffrey Archer's Prisoner of Birth.

Another good read was Hold Tight by Harlan Coben. Both are very entertaining fiction.

For non-fiction, Julie and I liked Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, No Ordinary Time. Jeff Shaara's Glorious Cause was a good history of the Revolutionary War written like a novel that made the characters come to life.

All time favorite so far this year was Ken Follet's World Without End.

Groomed

I finally was able to get the dogs in to see the groomer. Places are booked up months in advance around here. Ollie got her summer "do."


Katie got clipped and looks five pounds lighter. She has been shedding so bad that I'm hoping her grooming will cut down on the number of Swiffers I have to use in a week.


They were glad to be home and played together in the back yard after being gone all day.


But when it's dinner time, they head for the trough.