Time to catch up with the past, which is what this site is really meant for.  I had a great opportunity to travel to Scottsdale AZ, just outside of Phoenix.  This is a great time of the year to go down there, still swimming pool weather but not 100++ degree summer heat. The scenery is all that sort of brown and dusty look, but at least no snow.   So, why not go? The reason for the trip was to give a talk at an industry conference. I enjoyed the honor of being a guest and got the opportunity to meet some old friends.  At company expense, no less, what a deal!!

In November I went to see the electric utility people in Ontario Hydro to discuss mutual interests.  I like Canadians, always have;  Toronto is very impressive as well. A side benefit (how sly of me) was to visit my sister and family

Laposa family 2016

in Ancaster, Ontario which is near Hamilton not too far from Toronto. we don’t get together very often and this was a special treat.

November 13th was my 40th birthday.  Does life begin at 40?  A book of a few years past said so, but is there anything magic about 40?  I suppose it is a marker of sorts, particularly if you measure life by ambition.  Not that I have no ambition, but I was not cut out to be the back-stabbing personality that I have grown to associate with ambition.  I wanted to do the best I could at what I trained for, that is being an engineer and technical manager.

PP&L Allentown – Google

I have reached that point At PP&L and am satisfied with myself. What will another decade bring? Perhaps another job, another home, hopefully, some more wisdom and maturity at home and at work.

The Mustang convertible is painted now and looks new, perhaps better. It is a metallic blue color used on Lincolns and really suits the car.

1967 Blue Mustang

We have been extremely careful being wary of scratches and scrapes, at least until the paint has hardened.

Marge and I have almost finished a community college course in auto repair.  It has interested us and even if Marge never tunes an engine, she will be educated if her car has to go to a garage for a problem. I thought it might be too basic for me, but I can always learn something, and perhaps correct a faulty belief I had.  So, good for both of us. the second half of the course, unfortunately, is on Mondays, not good timing for Marge. I have stayed home with Louise while Marge and Ingrid were otherwise occupied so I won’t go to the next class.

I now have my amateur radio operator license, but no equipment.

Heathkit Logo

I have looked around and talked with operating hams and a Heathkit mobile transceiver looks just what I want, though no major rush on this, maybe in the spring.

Trailer travel and camping ended the first weekend in October.

Aristocrat Trailer

The photo is from a Google image search and the little girl is not mine, I’m sure of that. Cold weather has come and I drained the trailer and took the collision insurance off. It sits that way until April. The camping club meets monthly and we had our Xmas meeting party in early December. I made my specialty, PA Dutch style funnel cakes.  they are sweet, especially with powdered sugar sprinkled on them.  Yum!!  This will call for a diet in 77, just maybe.

Thanksgiving was exceptionally nice.  My Mom was able to come and I did not want her to be alone on the first major holiday after Dad’s death.  I loved my Mom and respected but did not understand my Dad. He was very quiet and not very communicative.  I suppose this was partly due to his upbringing in an immigrant Scandinavian family and an almost lifelong job in a maximum security prison.

Clinton Prison & Dannemora composite

Prison security is of the highest concern, not that I understood that in 1976, but  I have a better understanding now in 2017. In 76 we expect to be home for Xmas, as I  have one day of vacation left, might as well take it then.

Louise is coming along well with violin lessons; I am so glad that we let her follow her own pathway in this direction. She and Ingrid practiced a piano and violin piece and presented it at a little show that the Campers Club held for an old people’s home, as then called. Ingrid is active in the chorus at high school but isn’t taking lessons anymore.

Flu season is here again, surprise? I was fortunate in getting the shot in The ER room of a hospital I passed on the way home.  Marge stopped in at a clinic in a local armory and waited longer.  What a change from then to now.  All you have to do is drop in at one of the many drug stores at each corner.  But that was then and I guess prevention has taken a step forward.  We are now in good health and hope to stay that way, I think we will.

I was feeling like getting back into woodworking, which I really enjoyed as a hands-on skill. I made a picture frame clamp and frames for 3 pictures that needed mounting. It was so long ago that I enjoyed this hobby that, naturally, I made some mistakes,  correctable though with some time and effort. In the hobby world, Marge is starting her round of making her annual print of the family Christmas Card.  Similar to me, it took longer than remembered but we worked together on this and made our deadline.  Things should and did work out.

The weather report after the fact: November was cold, but really typical, though not the same every season. There is a little snow on the ground, I don’t like shoveling it, but it makes the roads slick and accident prone.  I put collision insurance back on after last years collision with the station wagon.

I have got back into my radio/TV correspondence course, via the VA benefits program for education. Finishing this course should make for a nice pastime in cold weather.

We have started to think about next year’s vacation.  We have some brochures about sailing school activity holidays. I have had some sailing experience in the Great lakes but none in salt water. Maybe this will happen and maybe it won’t, just daydreaming of all the glowing possibilities (in the ads). So a great family Christmas again and of course we never forget Marge’s birthday on the 27th.

Nor for a change of space and time to 2016:  I have had my second of two diagnostic spinal injections for a possible “nerve burning” treatment for my disk trouble.  The pre-treatment paperwork was not all correct but we (Janet and I) made it there in time and the treatment went well.  I have no pain now but am a bit unsteady and disoriented.  Not bad but no time to drive a car, especially as it looks like rain, not like Harvey in TX.Sorry Marge did not add an addendum but she leaves me with this task; that’s it for family history in December 1976;