Mary's Irises are blooming again

My grandmother passed away the day after Easter, 2017,  almost exactly one year ago.  Her backyard was always full of flowers, and the week of her funeral the irises and roses were in full glory.  We spent most of last year emptying her possessions from her house and last winter I removed a few of the dormant iris bulbs to plant in my yard.  Now that it's spring they're doing well,  as this picture shows.  It makes me happy to have them here as a reminder of her.

I think about her almost daily, reflecting on the role she played in so many people's lives and how she approached her own life.  Mary spent most of her adult life looking after other people and took great pleasure in seeing them happy.  Her own needs almost always came second, even at times when she should have looked out more for herself.   I'm struck by how rare it is for a person to be that unselfish.  If forced to criticize her I would say she was not a deep thinking person, rarely read anything, and only had the most basic of education.  She was very face value and enjoyed simple pleasures like board games, cards, and gardening.  Fellowship was also high on her list of interests, with both family and friends.  She rarely discussed politics or abstract ideas like the meaning of life.  If you tried to bring up such a topic she'd shake her head, laugh, and dismiss it as a waste of time. She enjoyed sharing memories, however, and she took pleasure in discussing whatever her family was up to.  Her house was clean but cluttered, filled with a lifetime collection of small things that most people would not value but she kept "just in case I need it someday".  She was just a genuinely good, uncomplicated person.  I miss her terribly.

Mary Petersen, age 16. Taken in San Jose, 1941. 

Mary (Petersen) Evans, age 76. Taken in San Jose, 2000.

Bedstemor's bar

We are almost finished emptying out Bedstemor's house in San Jose.  The bar and piano are the last two significant items of furniture remaining.  The 1882 Weber piano is headed to a restoration shop near Atlanta.  The bar is headed to my hangar until the backyard shed pub conversion is completed.

Back in the day this basement bar was my favorite place in the world.  In the summer we'd play down there to stay cool (and out of the way), spinning Beatles records on the turntable. During the holidays the men gathered there for cocktails.  For weddings, parties, anniversaries, etc., it was the scene of dancing and drinking that continued until dawn.  Hopefully we can continue the tradition.

My grandfather, Cleve Evans, holding court with (left to right)
Gunnar Hassen, Marius Davidson, and Bill Rhuel.

I recently moved some furniture and carpet from my grandmother's house into the hangar.  It's sad to see her house empty out in preparation for sale, but good to know her stuff will continue to be used and loved.  The space is just about ready for the big tear down of Pitts S-1S N599B, and the rebuild of the '56 F250, I hope.

Oak teacher's desk from Bedstemor's office, next to my fastener cabinet.

Dumpster with 50 years of junk in it, mostly out of the backyard sheds.
Growing up in the Great Depression taught her to save EVERYTHING...

Put 1,000 miles on the '64 F-100 the past couple months hauling stuff away
from my grandmother's house. It's running great, but at 13 mpg it's pricey...

San Tomas Elementary, Cambell

I took a drive through my old neighborhood in Campbell, CA this morning.  I haven't lived there since 1980, and it's amazing how different everything appears after nearly 40 years.  It's like a scaled down version of the place I remember, with "new" mature trees, houses where the Food Fair shopping center used to be, a new freeway (CA85), every remaining orchard replaced by new houses, etc. etc.

My elementary school, San Tomas, sat at the corner of Hacienda Ave. and Abbot Ave.  It was torn down in the 90's and replaced by houses. The park just south of the school remains and is now named after Mr. Jack Fischer, principal of San Tomas in the 1950's and 60's.  These murals used to adorn the walls of my school and were saved, as was the memorial for Mr. Fischer.  Nice to see them again after so many years.

Mural of "New California" from San Tomas Elementary School, Campbell

R

Mural of "Old California" from San Tomas Elementary School, Campbell

Memorial to Jack Fischer.  This rock and plaque used to sit in front of San Tomas Elementary school.. 

Honda Odyssey Transmission #2 has failed

Back in 2001 we bought a new Honda Odyssey thinking we were buying into legendary Honda reliability. The first transmission failed 6 years later with only 70,000 miles.  Honda replaced that transmission under warranty.  Just this week, after 6 more years and 70,000 more miles, the second transmission has failed.  We are new car shopping, and we will NOT be buying a Honda.

Apple Time Capsule is junk

For three weeks the Time Capsule has been doing ok, backing up our iMac and networking our printer.  Then today it suddenly loses communication.   Airport utility says "device not found".  Great.   There's a nice shiny green happy LED light on the Time Capsule...obviously it thinks everything is ok.  I click "help" on Apple's airport utility, and enter "device not found".  Apparently nobody at Apple ever thought "device not found" would be a possible topic requiring help,  as the search comes up with unrelated, useless results.

Looking online, I learn more from random forum posters on Apple Support community.  From there I learn how to do a "soft" reset and a "hard reset".  I try both, and.....nothing happens.  Shiny green happy light continues to shine, no reset indicated.

This is ridiculous.

So now I'm forced to do a "factory default reset", since the drive is not responding to the other reset actions.   I had to do a similar reset several times on initial set up as well.  This cannot be how this thing was designed to operate.

We officially started our kitchen renovation yesterday as I began to demolish the old redwood deck in our backyard.  Manual labor like this makes me appreciate higher education...

We're adding 192 ft2 of  space to the kitchen, including a little walk in pantry/office area.  The flow to the backyard should be improved as well, with the back door eliminated from our breakfast nook and a new door added to the expanded kitchen.

We started the process last fall with a refinance, then moved on to an architect for the plans, then engineering work, and finally city permits that just came through.  Spent over $6k so far and haven't built a thing.  Unfortunately that kind of expense is a fact of life in this area of California.  Every cost is double or triple the national average.