Lorena and Christian hung out in Salem, MA one of the days I had to work in our recent visit to Boston. The town was overrun with visitors celebrating the somewhat dubious October activities that occur there yearly. I call it my Gandalf hat because I am unwilling to acknowledge it is associated with some other loathsome identity!
Lorena and I flew to Boston on Monday so I could make a customer visit at Mass. General Hospital and then spend a day in the corporate office. Christian came up from Brooklyn to hang out with us and celebrate our (Christian and my) September birthdays and Lorena and my 34th wedding anniversary. I have an amazing wife, work for an amazing company with an amazing group of people and have an amazing son and an amazing daughter. Lorena and I both came back from Boston, highly invigorated.
Both Christian and Lorena were offered a two dollar bill on their train ride fro Peabody to Boston for allowing someone to swab their nostril to test for viruses in some kind of public health study. What a deal! Some say it is a sign of good luck. I like to think of it that way. I did not know there were still two dollar bills in circulation.
Lorena took me out for a 12 oz. ribeye steak for my birthday. It was a couple of days late, but well worth the wait. We made the short drive from Granbury to Weatherford and had a wonderful afternoon.
My seventieth year was a spectacular year for me. We spent most of it in Virginia. It was particularly nice to have been able to meet the kids in Washington, D.C. at Kelly’s apartment and for them to easily run down from DC and NYC (Christian) to spend a few days with us. When Kelly moved out of Washington, D.C. we decided to downsize a good bit back in Texas to be a little closer to Grandma Conchita in Monterrey and still be an easy plane flight to connect up with the kids from/to DFW airport.
Lorena and I went on a health kick at the beginning of 2026. Both of us are down a good chunk and are excited to continue down to our target weights, hopefully, God willing, before we move into the new house here in Texas. I personally, have about 30 lbs. to go, need to stay consistent on my weight-lifting, and increase my walking/cardio.
In some ways, I have been going through a late-life crisis trying to figure out what to do with the years I have left. This (new) blog reflects some of that angst. I figured out I did not want really want to do a second PhD, not because it would not have been a rewarding enterprise, but because of the general toxicity and politicization of the higher education around the world. My short term plan (and my long term plans are getting shorter with the years) is to keep working for Thrive Bioscience in the job that I love and continue supporting the GRIME Lab with software over the next few years. Not only can I live with that, I love that I still have a job where I am needed and an avocation that I love.
We are still working on our houses down in San Pedro. That turned into much more of a longitudinal project than we expected, but it is going extremely well. We hope to have a spectacular apartment completed by the end of 2027 that we can visit for a few weeks a time and to which we can invite friends and family to that spectacular city.
Above all, Lorena and are at more peace in our walk with Jesus than ever before. There are so many people who share that with us and we are truly grateful for it.
It was at or near 100° Fahrenheit all weekend long, but we had the best and most relaxing weekend in a long time. Saturday morning we ran down to Stephenville to see a little of the very beautiful Tarleton State University campus. Today, after our worship meeting, we ran down to the Kroger grocery store (founded in 1955, the year of my birth) and had a piece of fried chicken–the best in town and way cheaper than a restaurant. After lunch, I drank a couple glasses of Bread and Butter Pinot Noir and worked on the GRIME3 water level measurement software package that now has a couple of places waiting on it in both Nebraska and Idaho. Then I took a nap and now I am waiting for the steak Lorena is cooking for me. Life is good today.
Christian flew down to Virginia to help us drive to Texas and get into our apartment. It is a great little apartment with a view of the lake within walking distance of a ton of good restaurants. James, Jan and our builder and his family cooked hamburgers for us the night after we arrived and it just felt like home. We definitely made the right choice in coming here. Christian was really the champion of the whole affair. He drove Lorena and navigated a ton of minutiae. We ate way to much food and sat in the car with no way to get any exercise for way too long. Our health program took a hit, but now we are here.
I so this picture of the kids on social media this morning and it gave me great joy. They were inseparable as kids. I am not sure where this was, but fine dining with friends is definitely one of their things. We are glad Christian has tickets to fly to Virginia in a week or so to help us drive to Texas. We plan to stop at the Trump Winery and a few other places along our leisurely way.
In the middle of our move while Lorena was sorting through stuff to throw away and stuff to pack, she found this old picture of my brother, Doug, and I. We really did have a wonderful childhood. It got a little rougher as we moved into Jr. High School and High School, but the older I get, the more I realize how important it was that we had parents who loved us and were trying in every way they knew to do well by us. There were some things that could have gone better, especially in terms of how much time they spent with us, but they were scrapping and working hard just to get by. I am truly astounded by how much better we had it than the majority that surrounded us–not talking in terms of money or creature comforts, but in parents that loved us and instilled values in us that still persist.
Dad and Mom (Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah) got married 73 years ago on the 4th of July. I think of July 4 as Independence Day in the USA, but first and foremost, I think of Dad and Mom. Now it is a time for reflection and gratitude. They were not perfect and suffered significant trauma in their lives, but none of us kids ever doubted that they loved God, they loved us, and they frequently made big sacrifices for each and every one of us. I miss them a lot. Here they are in front of Grandma Jenkins house. It could not have been too much after they got married.
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