Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 15:17:32 -0500
Subject: Weekend Update: January 11-13, 2001

I spent much of the weekend on the couch with a stomach virus that
was really weird. My middle abdomen had a pain that would come and go. 
I had wondered if I picked up the flu bug, but no other symptoms were
evident because my respiratory and digestive systems seemed to be okay.
I was a bit dragged out so I took it easy for most of the weekend.

Andrew participated in a quiz meet at the church Saturday morning, so
Joy and I dropped him off and headed to Friendly's for breakfast.  I
left food on my plate; a sure sign that something wasn't right.  
Nevertheless, we took the time to test drive a PT Cruiser, for which
Joy has expressed a fancy.  The van is getting on in years and we are 
considering its replacement, but we haven't decided whether we
still need a "people mover" for a few more years, or move to a
multi-car family when it comes to family treks to Maine, or elsewhere.
Addressing Joy's hankering is the first step in a long process
of assessing our needs, wants, resources, and all that goes into
such a decision.

Emily went off on a winter weekend retreat with some local school 
friends who attend a local Pepperell Christian Fellowship.  By all
accounts she had a great time.

Jessica, and her friends David and Tabitha joined us for the weekend.  
Ol' Lazarus needed to come home to have its brakes checked.  I drove
the '90 Acclaim to the shop Monday morning and wondered if the brake
lines needed to be replaced. Turns out that the front pads are gone
and the back brakes are leaking.  Add to that the bent front wheel
that happened on the way back from dropping Miranda off at the 
airport last week, balding rear tires, and the taped-on directional
signal, it makes passing inspection in April a miracle or a 
money pit. So this may be Ol' Lazarus' last curtain call. We let 
Jessica take the van back to college.  

Miranda sent email from London.  She is having a grand time and
said she may need three days of sleep to recurperate from her
exhaustive pace.  But she only has until the 24th and she wants to
do and see as much as she can.  I hope she has a great time.
She logged in at an internet cafe in London to send me email.
She apparently also got on Instant Message because her screenname
was still showing when I got to work on Monday. "Miranda?" I pinged,
and got a distinctly uncharacteristic reply from the other end.
IM told me that her screenname had been on for over 20 hours so I
sent email to AOL to try and get it fixed.  At a pound per hour, I
wonder if Mandy was being charged for the whole time.  We'll try to
sort that out.

We had a snow event on Sunday, but neither the snow or my virus kept
me from church where I was to deliver a message in song.  The weather
prognosticators forecast 6-10 inches north and west of Boston to
come down during the morning and afternoon hours and by the time that
the second service of church rolled around, we believed them.  The
pastoral staff cancelled the evening service.  Not long after we
got home on well-scraped roads, the weather improved and I would
estimate that we got less than 3 inches of sloppy slush.  Tough
call, but you can't win them all.  New England hasn't been wallopped
by snow yet this season.  That ain't a bad thing.

Mark
-- 
+---_-----------+ Mark Metcalfe, metcalfe@cadence.com
| c a d e n c e | Cadence Design Systems, Inc.    Phone: (978) 446-6451
+---------------+ Manager, PCB Enterprise Publications