Trailers, Mold, Snow, Infants and Work

If you guessed “Things that make Chester tired,” then you are correct. I would have also accepted “Inevitable consequences of living at Hume.”

Work
me.jpg I’m tackling the development of the new website at work, and it’s off to a slow start. As a rule, it’s always best to have a clear “plan of attack”, but it’s always easiest to just dive in. mumble mumble mixed metaphors. I’ve just finished up (knock on wood) a freelance gig for Lambesis. It was three banner ads for Tacori. They’ll run on knot.com in a week or two. For the past two evenings I’ve had a vivid reminder of the pace and atmosphere I used to live and breath. One on hand it’s nice to have such strong momentum behind a project, but on the other hand that same momentum can often negate any plan of attack. See previous comment. I also recently made some changes on a project I help La Mer with back in 2006: Cole Muscle Cars and Nicole Lyons Racing. Check her out. I thought I was daring for driving Corin around in the zuk when he was only two weeks old, but she was in a drag race at age two. In addition, I’ve been continuing (albeit insufficiently) to provide tech support for the charter school up here. I can handle trouble shooting and fixing computer issues, but dealing with vendors and purchase orders is a pain. I’m behind on setting up some of the computers for the lower grade levels, but I should be able to tackle that next week. Also, I’ve been doing some consulting for the Shelby Kennedy Foundation. So far it’s just been getting a Virtual Private Server setup with Agathon. SMTP auth has been aggravating, but I think I’ll be happy I went with them. They also host and support the hume site. I believe Mike Atkinson referred Nate to them a few years ago. If so, that referral just keeps on giving. Other miscellaneous web work includes Karley Mase and Kaffee Meister.

Infants
img_5452.jpg Corin is doing well considering that he was circumcised a few days ago and is still quite congested. He’s showing a keen interest in funk, disco and the out-of-doors. He has slept over four hours straight several times now, so that’s exciting. In case you hadn’t put two and two together, working, moonlighting and living with an infant can be an exhausting combination. We also had Laurel and Noah out to visit last weekend, which was a blast. Laurel got a little sick, and I was pretty beat the whole time, but we still managed to watch hours upon hours of law and order as well as do some light hiking and off-roading. Noah and I helped pull out a few vehicles that got stuck back on ten-mile. At one point, my sammy was tethered to a jeep which was tethered to a 8000lbs truck. It took a few tugs, but we got it out. Noah and I also hiked up to the “water source”. I was stoked because after 3/4 of the way there I didn’t see any more footprints or signs of human passage. It was well after twilight when we got there, but it was still a beautiful scene. The last thing Noah and Laurel did while they were here with us was to wait in the waiting room while Corin was circumcised. They then flew to San Diego and waited at a hospital for their Niece to be born. Talk about an exciting 24 hours. Although it did give Noah plenty of time to play with his newly purchased Nikon D70 which we sold to them.

img_5444.jpgSnow
There’s been lots of it. We got another 5-6 inches today and we’re expecting more this weekend. I finally dug the toyota pickup out from the mountain of snow it was buried under, but then the battery was dead and now it’s getting buried again. My back is tensing up just thinking about it. As much as I complain about having to shovel snow, it is a nice way to burn off some of that “office energy” that builds up all day when you’re on the computer.

Mold
img_5291.jpgWe found mold behind our bed and in the closet. This was right before Laurel and Noah arrived. We ended up having to empty the entire room (for those who don’t know, the entire room is half of our house) into the living room so that we could clean it up, which meant we couldn’t really hang out around the house. Being winter and all we couldn’t hang around outside for very long either. Luckily our neighbor was out of town and was kind enough to let us use her place. It’s an identical trailer to ours, so we felt right at home.

img_5449.jpgTrailers
We’re moving! The “new” trailer is about 150 yards away, so it qualifies as a new neighborhood. We’re pretty excited. We’re going down the hill tomorrow to pick out paint colors, and potentially look at some wood flooring. We’re not just excited about the house (even though it’s almost twice the size of our current abode, we’re also excited about our new neighbors, the Ferreira’s. They also just had a baby boy named Jaron, so we’ll be able to sit around and laugh at our kids together which will be fun. Also, the National Forest boundary marker is about 40 feet behind our house. I think that’s great.

I’m outta steam. It’s 3am and Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over” just came on my iTunes. Dunno the relevancy except that it talks about dreaming and things being over… like me dreaming and this post being over.

  1. Mike Lewis’s avatar

    Wow, sitting here reading about you’re life, really seems to put you guys far away, and in a completly different world. It sure sounds like you are very busy.

    shoveling snow sure does’nt seem like much fun to me, but I guess it’s a nessesity up where you are. Anyhow I love to read about what you guys are up to, and its a way to keep in touch.

    Miss you guys. Mike

  2. Chester McLaughlin’s avatar

    If anything, moving here has shown me how similar all ways of life are. Aside from the reactive emotional response we all have towards our environment, we all wake up, take care of the immediate needs of the situation, go to work, come home, relax a little, work a little more then sleep. We just do all those things with more layers of clothes than you guys!

    We miss you too. I miss sitting in on worship rehearsals and listening to you guys rock out. If you ever have the time to get away, you’re welcome to visit anytime.

  3. Jason Buscema’s avatar

    If you lived down here in SoCal still you could just sue someone over the mold, collect your cash and then buy a new SUV.

  4. Todd Watson’s avatar

    Hey,

    Sorry I missed you when we came through Hume, I saw you at church and was hoping to catch you afterward but the little one pulled you out, ah I remember those days. I went by your office on Monday morning but nobody was there and we were on our way out. Anyway, I can see you have quite the load of side projects but I was wondering if you know of any quality Flash/Flex developers that might be looking for some side work. I remember you said you were a part of a Flash user group before coming to Hume so I figured I’d hit you up. Anyway, I hope all is well with you and your family!

    Todd