T Minus One Week

 Well hello Joseph!

How’s the week?

Well, we’re down to one week and a day with your brother Ben. I’m sitting in the movie room right now listening to your brothers play their music. Jake’s coming around on the drums and Ben has really developed his voice. They sound good, really good. I’m really going to miss it, to the point of sadness. Please take up playing with Jacob when you come back, i need you to. I don’t look forward to a quiet house.

It’s about two hours later now. We watched the first hour of Jaws, but everyone around here but me has a job to get up early for (martyr dad?). 

Let’s see, what happened this week? I guess it was pretty normal, my freelance is a little busier, I could use more. I’m still talking to that lady about businesses to buy. She sent over four to consider. A restoration company that mostly takes care of water damage in houses, like when a pipe breaks or something. One is a house painting company, I’m not sure I’d want to deal with homeowners. One is a home inspection company. That might work. And one is a large scale sign company. I’m not thrilled about any of them. I may still be under the delusion that someone is going to hire me for my expertise and experience.

Speaking of which. I had hoped to hear back from that place I interviewed with last week. I didn’t heard back from them last week, which I guess could either be a good or bad sign. I fasted today that I’d get some sort of good news this week, like a next interview or something. I’m not sure how confident I feel about it, mostly because I’m old, not because I can’t do it. I think all-in-all there’s enough going on that it’s easy to see Heavenly Father taking care of us…He’s answering so many prayers.

I’m making good progress on the bathroom. It’s 95% done. I got it painted, and I got all of the hardware up—a new blind, the hooks, towel bars, toilet paper holder, and the shower curtain up. Mom helped with that last one. Left to do is some touchup on the grout and tile, clean the messy paint off the floor (my roller kept falling off the handle), I want to add some small trim around the vanity to close up some small gaps near the wall. I’m also hoping to build some shelves above the toilet that mom wants. I hope I can get to that, but we’ll see.

In addition to the bathroom stuff I did a little maintenance on Ben’s car for his big trip. Yesterday I changed the oil, checked the brakes, installed new wiper blades, and rotated the tires. It seems in good shape with the exception of the center brake light. I got the old one working off a battery but it doesn’t work in the car. I tried fixing the old one with and LED strip I broke out of a cheap generic brake light. That doesn’t work with a battery. I ordered a used one, but I’m afraid it won’t get here in time. I hope Ben doesn’t get a ticket, especially on the way out.

I did get a new toy this week. I can’t remember if I wrote you about this but a month or so ago I sold my lathe. I never used it. I had also given my cheap, crappy 3d printers to the DI. They worked only well enough to be frustrating. Last year a new, high speed, high quality one came out that I really wanted. It got great reviews and it was built more like an appliance, not some sort of science fair kit. But that one, the Bambu Labs Carbon, cost $1200, which was unobtainable even with employment. This year, a knock off came out that has also got great reviews. So with my lathe money I ordered it. It came this week and I’ve been printing on it ever since. So far I’ve only printed doodads and tools for my other hobbies, but wow does it print nice. I don’t think most people could tell the items are from a 3d printer. Uncle David sent me some files of the Helmets from the Bad Batch Star Wars series. I don’t really want helmets, but I thought it would be cool to print the front halves, paint them up in the same cartoony style from the animated series, and mount them together on the wall in the movie room. That’s pretty ambitious, but it would look cool. I think it would be cool too have the whole wall filled with 3d art from the movies we like.

Today was Ty Marchant’s mission farewell. Bishop told me today that there are six missionaries coming home before the end of October in our ward. He asked if we had a preference for yours. I told him either the 19th or the 26th of October since you’ll be going to see Ben in November. I assume we’ll be getting your travel information any time now. 

Before church it was my week to attend ward council. I love bishop Snarr. Today everyone was asking about you and how soon you are coming home. I told them how much I was looking forward to having you back but that there’s a tiny part of my that will miss having a missionary out. I don’t know how that sounds, but brother Rowland, our neighbor across the street joked to bishop that he should recommend me for the job. That’s a mean joke if you ask. Luckily, I’m not rich, so chances are nil.

Well, that’s about it for this week. I look forward to hearing from you tomorrow. I truly love you kid.