The second experience with a different shipping company, although this is probably not their fault, we recently bought a new computer system for the office. We have been receiving the system, one box at a time over the last three years. I felt I needed to apologize to the delivery person after the third daily delivery in a row and even offerred him something to drink for his trouble. Based on his comment, it appears it is not unusual and he told us a lot of computers are being delivered over the last few days!

Rising humidity increases blackout risk

Punished by heat and humidity, metro Phoenix pushed its weakened power grid to the limit Monday, and utility officials fear continued muggy weather will push the system to the point of collapse.

The high temperature Monday was 112 degrees, with the dew point at 64 degrees. Demand for electricity from APS and Salt River Project peaked at 11,967 megawatts Monday.

So these last few days, we all have been asked to conserve power when possible.Our office is completely dark except for a few desktop lamps and the AC has been set to a higher temperature — something that never happens around this office.

• Sarah’s new job. That is correct, she will be starting a new career this coming Monday morning with a company here in the valley. The new position holds great potential for her, a career path where professional growth is not only encouraged but also facilitated by upper management, and a new challenge to meet her professional goals. After 5 years with her current employer, today is her last day with them. We’ll keep you posted on the new gig.
• I’m going back to school. As if I needed yet another degree, I have decided to go back to school for a new Master’s degree. The oppourtiny was just too good to let it pass by. I know that it will be hard to go back to school but I am certain that it will be worth it at the end.

So you can say that the extended weekend was more like a change to fully charge our batteries and enjoy some time away from it all. We have received emails from friends encouraging us both with these changes and we certainly appreciate the words of courage. A year and a half we started a new phase in our lives when we moved to Arizona and now you can say we are starting yet something new. The only thing that really matters is that we are doing it together, otherwise I am not sure that I would’ve done it to begin with. For that, Sarah, I thank you.

So, stay tuned since we pretty much hit the ground running starting next week.

It was nice to be away from the computer for a little while, I would say the only thing that I missed during this break, was the lack of information about what is going on in the world around you. I guess that is a side-effect from disconnecting yourself from the www, something that I am quite happy to do once in a while.

Clinton is in town for a week-end of golf and a few days to relax under the sun. I’ll be back after a few days.

The form asked for the usual contact information. Things like name, address, email, phone number and credit card information. The form intself did not tell me what fields were “required” so I completed the form in its entirety. Clicked the submit button, waited a couple of seconds and suprise!

The information you entered is not correct. Please try again.

Not a big deal since I expected the vendor to give me a way to go back so that I would know what information was not entered properly. Having developed several forms in the past, I have learned to provide the user as much information as possible as early as possible. The error message did not tell me where I had made a mistake so I went back to the form and tried again. Every time I would see the same error, regardless of what I had changed.

This was a mess and I was just trying to update our contact information. Guess what happened when I tried to pay the company to renew the domain name? I will leave that for another time but rest assure that it was not a pretty scene either.

I also made it to the driving range for some practice before Clinton gets here in a couple of weeks. I did not want to stay home and waste the great weather so I thought this would be the best way to take advantage of it while doing something to improve my game.

Sarah is going out of town for business so I am in charge of dinner tonight. I think we are the only people that get a kick out of eating home-baked pizza and corn dogs for dinner — I am so lucky, I know.

Les deseamos todo lo mejor en esta nueva etapa en Peru. Un fuerte abrazo y esperamos tener noticias de uds. cuanto tengan la oportunidad. Que por cierto todavia estamos esperando fotos de Lucianita y ese video del re-encuentro con el flaco.

Now you can carry a “tripod” with you all the time without lugging cumbersome gear around. Made of heavy-duty die cast aluminum alloy, the ClamperPod mini tripod is strong enough to hold even the heaviest cameras, but weighs only 2 ounces.

Not much bigger than a business card, it fits into pocket, purse, camera bag, backpack or briefcase with room to spare. Attaches to any still or video camera with a standard 1/4×20 tripod socket.

And if you’re a professional photographer, or just have lots of gear… slave flash, strobe, diffuser and reflector, or any other accessory that has a tripod socket, a few of these are a lot easier to handle than a bunch of tripods and light stands

Arizona is thought to be one of the dryest and hotest states in the southwestern United States, yet it seems like whenever we are getting ready to host friends or family, a series of storms decide to come through town.

We moved to Scottsdale in December of 2002, around this time last year we thought we were ready to receive friends and family to come visit. By ready, I mean that we only had to make 1 u-turn regardless of where we were going. So, Sarah’s sister came to spend a few days with us. The weather turned horrible just the day before she was supposed to arrive. A few weeks later, Sarah’s mom and younger sister came to visit just to experience the rainy and cold Arizona desert.

We were sure this had been a fluke, part of a “weird” winter year and not to be repeated again. Certainly this is not rainy season considering how much attention is given to the “monsoon” season during the summer, so we were ready to host people once again. Melanie is coming to town on wednesday and right now it does not look too promising. It started raining today and it sounds like we’ll have clouds and rain for the rest of the week. I am starting to believe that local news stations need to update their monsoon season calendars.

The only good thing is that at least it is much much warmer here than in Amarillo, Texas where she is coming from.