Springin' Into Spring!

Last week, Moody lost 3 teeth one-a-day in a row. Sweet caring Shamsa made the trip all 3 nights leaving behind her fairy dust. The first tooth Moody lost that week was his fourth. We did the gift, the fairy dust, note and everything as usual. The second day, he lost another one, and our thought was: What have we gotten ourselves into! So we told him that Shamsa brings gifts for the first four teeth only. After that, she only brings a silver dollar and a note for every tooth. It is a lot of work to make Shamsa come, especially if we are not prepared. A last-minute trip to the store, wrapping the gift, writing the note, setting them up with the fairy dust in his room. And of course, we have to wait till Moody falls asleep, which he does not do easily when waiting for Shamsa. Every time Shamsa visits, he wakes us up around 2 or 3am to tell us what she got him! That time, he told me the next day that the wrapping paper looks familiar. I didn't comment, so he added, "I have seen it in the storage area. You think Shamsa stole it from there?"

Last week was also picture day at Straub Dance Center. ALicja dressed Tala, made her makeup and hair. I missed being there. Soccer and T-Ball are in full swing. T-Ball is nice, but it means dirt and dirt and dirt riding back home with us. The kids are just fascinated by the dirt and you find them perched on the ground playing with it, or throwing it up in the air to fall on their heads. All that while the coach is talking to the team and coaching them! I was watching Tala playing with the dirt during practice; she then took her baseball hat off, filled it with dirt, and before I could yell out to her, she put it back on her head!

We've been having terrific weather on the weekends, rainy during the week. It works perfectly fine for us. We worked on the yard last weekend. Cleaned it up, spread the mulch, mowed the grass, etc. The yard looks nice now, and the flower beds clean. Of course, it is not spring without rabbits eating my plants and flowers as they sprout off the ground. I used to whoosh them away, but I came to terms with them. The plants eventually outgrow the rabbits, so I let nature take its course.

Work is evolving so smoothly. I have been placed in direct contact with the industrial world for the first time in my life. I'm learning quite a big deal, especially that last week was the suppliers visits to our offices, which involved presentation of their companies, products and history. I now know a lot about forgings, gearboxes, couplings, gas generators, compressors, air filters... A totally new world to me coming from a culture that imports and consumes out of boxes with no second thought to how things came to be. Additionally, I'm taking the Lean Enterprise class and it includes visits to plants and value stream mapping. On Friday, we went to Kaiser Aluminum, and I saw LIQUID metal being poured and casted into humongous rods, then pressed and extruded into billets of hexagonal shape that is later forged into different pieces for use in the automobile industry... and the little buttons on your jeans' pockets. A whole new world!

A new planet! And what do they call it? Gliese 581c! Couldn't they be a bit more romantic. It is in constellation Libra, circulating a red dwarf. Its surface temperature of 32 to 104°F makes it Earth-like and potentially habitable. Very exciting news! A break from the sad news coming from all corners of Earth. The bad news about this planet is that it takes 20 years to travel to it IF we travel at the speed of light. Imagine the possibilities!

It's a beautiful day outside... I'm outta here to enjoy it!

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