The cable guy...

Hey, Dad. Remember a former student of yours named Nate Stroh? He would have been in Bill's grade at Franklin. He came over to work on our broadband connection today and recognized the last name. He had a good laugh as he asked a much younger technician at Sjoberg's (a 23-year-old) if he knew whether the Mr. Hustad at 716 Duluth was an older or younger type and the other tech said I looked "older." I guess in relative terms I would be "older." As is usual around here, he said you were probably his favorite teacher. He got a kick out of recounting how proud you were of the new stereo system at Franklin that was like four-channel with an 8-track and you would play the sound from one speaker to the next to demonstrate, etc.

We had a good time at Trinity last night for lent. They had a chicken noodle soup and homemade bread dinner before the service. No communion, so it ended a bit faster than usual. We had a great choir practice singing my new favorite piece, "I'm Going Home." We're apparently singing this Sunday in the balcony. We also found out they apparently still have the robes we all wore in the 70s and 80s. We had a good laugh as there was an argument on whether they were really blue. Everyone thought they were purple, I think, except Marilyn Wigness. The boys had a great time during the practice too like I used to a long time ago with Jennifer. Daniel pretty much explored every possible nook and cranny in the sanctuary and up in the balcony area. At one point we were all singing in the front four pews on the right side with Cathy Hagen at the grand piano off to the front right side. Daniel walked right up to the piano off to Cathy's left in the middle of the song with his hands in his pockets much like an old farmer might pose when inspecting a tractor engine and stuck his nose right in the open top of the piano to see the parts moving inside. Cathy was obviously amused, but I was just hoping he wouldn't break her concentration as I was laughing to hard to keep singing myself. He then headed up to the balcony to do some accompaniment of his own on the piano up there.

I asked Ormand how he liked the CD and he told me it's apparently "on it's way to California with another daughter." Speaking of Ormand, I noticed for the first time last night that our nice black choir music folders are stamped in gold with the words, "In memory of Iola Johnson" who passed away in 2003. Shirley Grochow was feeling much better and returned to the fold whereas Donny is still laid up a bit at home. Scott Grochow's wife, Kristi, invited the boys over for a playdate on Sunday and from what Shirley was saying last night, they want to get together with us to head to the Seven Clans Casino so the boys can go swimming, etc.

In more mundane news, I finally got the Blazer parked in the garage the other night. A couple days later, though, the garage door opener conked out and even after changing batteries in the controller it still wouldn't work. I may have mentioned it earlier, but when we first moved in, I was unable to get the stupid door open and waited several days to get a hold of the remote, thinking it wouldn't work without it. Last weekend, though, I reached up and pulled on the rope to disengage the drive on the opener and sure enough, it slid right open... Go figure.

I've been keeping busy with transcription this week, training by day and working by night. Tomorrow is the last day of training it looks like and I'll be thrown to the wolves. My personal coach, though, teaches transcription at a local community college and has been a very valuable resource and mentor thus far. She said the quality of my work indicates I'll go as far as I want in the field.

Hope everyone's doing well out there. I don't know if you're on the internet at all in Japan, Mom and Dad, but figured I'll keep updating the blog as much as possible just in case you check in now and then.