Good News on a Monday

So I see I managed to drop a couple of pictures out here during the last week, but that was about it.  It was a busy period of time, that is for sure.  I entered Monday after the weekend with the feeling that I had enjoyed the weekend, but I certainly had not achieved anything.  That is not entire true, but that is the feeling.  So, let me catch you up on what has been going on.

Let’s start with the biggest news first.  I do not have to relocate to South Dakota.  After examinations, x-rays, and consultations with a hip surgeon it was decided that my step-father did not need hip surgery after all.  The root cause of his intermittent pain and “hitch” in his hip was tendon based, so they are going to go down the path of cortisone shots (for the pain) and physical therapy (for the hip). 

That was good news for both of us. He doesn’t have to go through the hip surgery and I don’t have to go back to SD for an extended period of time - at least not now.  Of course, with aging parents, that is subject to change at any given moment, but the longer the inevitable day is delayed (the longer they stay functionally independent), the better prepared I will be, both psychologically and financially, for that day.  All in all though, that was good news on that front.

I had a nice weekend and saw a pair of movies.  Let’s just say they were very different movies.  I saw Tom Hanks in “Captain Phillips” and I saw Danny Trejo in “Machette Kills”.  Inside of their genres they were both very enjoyable. I am sure I did other recreational related things during the weekend, but I feel as if the days passed to quickly and I never got the chance to relax as deeply as I would have liked.  Not that it was a bad weekend - just not the weekend I particularly needed or wanted.  I have to accept that some of that is directly related to the choices I make, so there is no blame to be assigned.

I did upgrade to the iPhone 5C and, finally, in the face of the inevitable tide of history, abandon my beloved Blackberry.  I was a huge fan of the Blackberry devices and platform, but the writing is clearly on the wall.  The King is Dead.  Long live the King. The iPhone 5C is pretty nice and there were a lot of misadventures wrapped into actually getting it, mostly involving store clerks for whom the smallest complexity was show stopper. 

But, eventually, I found a store where the sales person knew what they were doing and I was able to get into the phone.  I’ve done a partial set-up, put my key contacts in place, but I still have a lot of information that I need to move off the Blackberry on onto the iPhone.  I’ve had bad luck with the automated processes that the cell phone vendors use, so it is something I prefer to do myself.  That will be my evening entertainment for the next couple of days I think.