Saturday, April 25, 2009

Part two of my Utah trip

Part two of my Utah trip was visiting dear friends (whose family were already providing my accommodations).

My hosts were Tim & Erin, a young couple who recently purchased their own home. As yet, they have plenty of room for house guests ; ). Andrew and I each had our own room by each other. (As we were officially companions which usually means always being in the same room or in sight of each other, we slept with our doors open.) They had prepared the rooms nicely for us - including, in my room at least, a carafe of water on the bedside table (which I appreciated), and postcards, stationary & pens in the bedside table (some which I also used). They were gracious and hospitable (and so cute).

After leaving Andrew at the MTC, I spent a very short quiet time alone and then went to the Larsons' to visit with Melanie who was in semi-isolation, having fallen ill early in the week with an undiagnosed ailment and wanting to safe guard her newborn granddaughter. (AJ, Stephanie, and now little Maddie live with Kent and Melanie, AJ & Erin's parents. There are also seldom seen 16 year old Sean and Steven)

As the new father AJ (Erin's twin) had to return to work and Melanie was in isolation, Erin spent most of the days helping Stephanie who is still recovering from complications of the pregnancy. I mostly hung out with Melanie in her room.

Lots of comfortable happy old friend visiting - not much earth shaking to report.

Thursday, Melanie was doing particularly poorly and rested all day. Erin, Stephanie and I went to a mall and had "Japanese" food at the food court. oh, Erin and I had Japanese, Steph had Arby's. We had Teriyaki Chicken over vegetables and noodles. Probably not authentic. I liked it better than other teriyaki I have had and better than the authentic Japanese restaurant my office likes.

Friday, while Erin & Steph took Maddie for her 2 week appointment, I went with Melanie for her appointment where we found out that in addition to whatever else has been going on - still not identified, she now has pneumonia.

As has happened almost every day since the theft, Wednesday I lamented the loss of my Palm and that I still didn't know with what to replace it. Melanie waxed enthusiastic about her iPod Touch which Kent got her because she didn't want to hear about how much he loved the one he got through work anymore. At least the two young husbands in the family have one as well. And this is what my son David told me he uses much as I used my Palm. I was getting sold. By this time Kent was home, and my next lament was that I wished I had gotten my new techno-tool before coming to see them, because I knew that he would help me set things up. (Or rather he would set it up for me.) He said he would be happy to take me to Sam's Club where they got theirs. I was so excited I didn't even think to ask if there was a Costco nearby (where I could have gotten points on my cards). (Of course, you never know if an item will still be there.)

Anyway, Wednesday I got an iPod Touch! I am hoping that Joseph will be able to figure out how to get my Palm information from the computer to the iPod Touch, affectionately known as Winnie the Peg in honor of entering the family the day Andrew entered the MTC. Do you think the emotions of experiencing the latter influenced my actions? Probably.

Kent set me up with a lot of useful applications, some fun games, and audio books - among them Eragon, Pride & Prejudice, Holes, & Ender's Game. I downloaded more free games - and some Satellite Sisters podcasts!

I used Winnie the Peg to map my course to KFC to buy dinner for my gracious hosts on my last night. I listened to an audiobook all the way on my drive home today which made it much shorter-seeming and safer. I just hope I can use her for my contacts, memos & calendaring which made my dear Palm so indispensable.

Of all the books Kent put on Winnie, I decided to listen to Twilight as it is the only one I have not read. (The others, are definitely worth re-reading time and again) It certainly made the trip easier, but, sorry Sariah, it is not a book I would 'read' otherwise. Much like on one road trip, I checked out The Travels of Marco Polo from the library and listened to it. Good on a trip, but I don't think I would have ever ploughed through it on my own. I am not even sure that I am going to finish this one. Oh, probably on light rail on the way to work.

When I got home I saw that the (remaining) boys - mostly Ben!) had accomplished a lot of work. Massive amounts of weeds had been pulled in the front yard and another mystery pile of junk (on 'the bricks') decimated. And only 1 pet had died. - One of the cockatiels dropped dead Tuesday morning - too soon to be from neglect on the boys part! ;

Things to do; things to do! I need to record all my credit card purchases for the week (!!), pay bills, and maybe the boys - who just got back from helping Ruth & Tom work on prepping their 'new' house - and I should eat something - like I didn't also 'graze' all the way home from Utah!

5 comments:

  1. You don't have to "love" Twilight, but I think it's good that you gave it a try. :)

    Glad you had such a great visit and are home safe. All your talk about your new ipod touch makes me wonder if I'd want one, I've never really been tempted before, but now... lol We'll see. I'd have to look into it more and I don't really know if I need it. Probably not since I don't have one now and I'm surviving. lol

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  2. The iPod Touch isn't quite ready to serve as a PDA, but it is getting closer. This summer Apple should release the third version of the operating system which will make some important improvements (Copy & Paste being the most important for PDA use). Apple will charge $10 to upgrade the software when the upgrade is released.

    Unfortunately the road to getting some of you Palm data to your iPod Touch will probably be a bumpy one. To sync with a Mac the Mac requires OS X 10.4 or later, so you'll need to upgrade the OS. When we visited in March, I was able to confirm that your eMac can boot the current OS X 10.5; however, it is not supported so you will have to jump through hoops to get it installed. Once you have a version of OS X that allows syncing, you will need to get your data into Apple's apps (Address Book, iCal, etc.). Once the data is in Apple's apps, on an install of OS X that the iPod Touch will talk to, iTunes will be able to keep your photos, contacts, and calendar items in sync (as well as your iTunes media files). You may also be able to sync some things with Google services. Currently notes on the iPod Touch cannot be easily synced with the desktop (though all the iPod data is backed up) and Apple provides no To Do lists for the iPod touch (but 3rd party software available in the App Store might).

    In the App Store, there are many free and inexpensive Cocoa Touch applications. (Many paid apps have free 'lite' versions).

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  3. I am glad you had a good trip. I hope Andrew has a wonderful mission. I am thankful that gone are the days of waiting months for a letter. Now, you can email on P-days. How blessed technology can be.

    I wonder how easy it is to interface the Itouch with Windows?? I know they have made great strides with the ipod, as my computer doesn't crash anymore when someone walks in with it in their pocket.

    We splurged and bought bill a BlackBerry this weekend. If it worked correctly, it does a lot of amazing stuff. Mainly we needed it so he could access his email at any time. How convenient it can be.

    He is thinking of getting me one for Mother's Day. I won't be opposed to it.

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  4. I thought about a Blackberry, but I don't think I could afford the ongoing cost, Tempting though!

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  5. I played with Google Earth on my husband's iTouch last night. I am not much of a gadget girl, but that is one fun machine.

    I love "Ender's Game"! That is one of my absolute favorite books. "Twilight" was okay, and I read the whole series, but it doesn't touch Orson Scott Card.

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