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Optimist / Pessimist / Realist

Too often I hear people make snide remarks about this politician, that superintendent, a boss, coworker, friend, family member, church leader, etc. We focus on how a particular President is ruining the economy or going to send our young out to war. I hear remarks that we're killing the earth and others are standing on the corner proclaiming “the end is near!”

Jen and I went in today to check up on the general health of the baby. A bonus was that we found out the gender and we can also add them to the little guy's photo album. (Got to start stocking up these embarrassing photos for a little leverage ... you know ... blackmail ... got to have something to make him behave) (o_-) Just kidding ... Gosh! Don't take me so seriously! :D The digital copies can be found at the link below.

http://everettpilling.com/photoalbum/babysultrasound20100125

Today another concern about society in general was brought to my attention. When people face a little bit of resistance or hard work they abandon it and try to accomplish their goals a different way that doesn't APPEAR to be as difficult. I think that some people spend so much time trying to get out of doing something difficult that they just make that task harder by exponential orders of magnitude and compromise the quality of the work they are doing.

Jen and I have recently bought a house and consequently moved into a new ward (congregation) for church. Since we've been in this new ward, one of the teachers has been giving me an unsettled feeling every time this teacher gives her lesson. The first thing is that lessons should be more of a discussion. Secondly, it should be based off of and have the same or at least similar goal or purposes of the material provided by the First Presidency.

I just realized something. Generally speaking there are political and lifestyle stereotypes that can be correlated almost directly to where you stand on Windows vs Unix. (Unix includes Macs and other operating systems like linux etc.)

First baby pictures are often so cute but I think we jumped the gun a little on this one. The baby embryo is only 9 weeks along and a total of 2.42cm short ... long. Today was Jen's first doctor's appointment and she brought home our [soon to be] baby's first portrait.

So on the 6^th of this month I had made a post about a mortgage broker giving me a call and saying that Jen and I were approved on the loan for a house that we had put an offer on and was accepted. So, since everything else was done, we asked them if we could close early and they said, "Sure!" It's now the 26^th and we are having an extremely difficult time getting any information from our loan officer / mortgage broker and we and everyone else concerned has been trying to contact him, leaving messages and such and he doesn't respond at all.

Palm Pilots USED to be the bomb, but now they are a different sort and they are going off. Currently I'm working with a woman who has kept her life journal on her Palm Tungsten E hand held. A couple weeks back her grandchild found it and destroyed it, quite literally. That wouldn't have been too bad but the problem is that we can't get the data from her Palm Desktop calendar to her M.S. Outlook calendar. The file formats are incompatible and Palm hasn't released any conversion programs to convert the information to an industry standard.

The mortgage broker called today and let me know that Jen and I are approved on the loan amount that we requested. We already got the offer on the house. Meaning that it's pretty official, Jen and I are moving into a house that we are buying. So, it looks like we'll have a break from renting. Hopefully a really long break. If all goes well Jen and I want to be able to get it paid off in 15 years. But that's supposing that we can be strict with our spending.

I've really enjoyed our garden this year. I've eaten quite a number of cucumber sandwiches and fresh tomatoes and there aren't very many foods better (Mmmm, grilled cheese sandwiches of course might take precedence though). I took some pictures of Jen's and my garden earlier this summer and they can be seen at http://everettpilling.com/photoalbums/2009garden