Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 13:30:15 -0400
Subject: Weekend Update: April 30-May 4 2002

My week in California was light in the schedule but significant
in the face-to-face time I had with people.  I had several
meetings with people; some of it business, most of it pleasure
(including the business portions). 

Being on the road also affords me some times of reflection.
I took my own advice that I gave to our cruise friends,
John and Rose, by starting to write up some of the memories
of early years, beginning with the story of how Joy and I
got together.  It isn't ready for the open journal crowd
just yet, but perhaps someday I'll start a separate email
list and create a new section on my home website to recount
the things that have happened prior to the advent of this
forum.

My father-in-law has come to visit once again.  He arrived on
Tuesday of last week. Miranda's college graduation is this
Saturday (May 11).  That means that Jessica, too, is coming
home on Friday for the summer.  (Her boyfriend, David Young,
is one of several college students that our church has
hired part-time for the summer.  He will be staying at the
Magnuson home.)  Emily and Andrew will move up to 11th and
9th grades, respectively, inching us closer to the empty nest
in 3 years, except for any "coming home" adults that need
shelter for a time. I know that Joy especially likes to have
the kids home for the summer and is not joyful when the Fall
routine returns.  I love having everyone around.

You don't get many better days than we got in New England on
Saturday.  Joy and I inspected the yard that morning to see
which of the many tasks we wanted to tackle for the day. 
I suggested that we move stone all day, and by the end, we
felt as if we knew Sisyphus(*) pretty well.

When we first boxed in the garden, we bought three-quarter
inch stone to put down in the pathway.  From the start, we
spread it thinner than we had hoped and it turned out to be
hard on the feet.  So we decided to rake up most of it and
move it to the far side of the house, to create a 1-foot
border along the house where the living room and dining room
meets with the kitchen.

After a dozen or so wheel barrows full, we started to shovel
the pea stone into the wheel barrow from the area out back
that used to hold the swing set (since dismantled and disposed
of).  Pea stone, as it's name suggests, is smaller and has round
edges that are easy on the feet, and I had several tons of
it to dump thicker layers on each of the garden paths.
Twenty-eight barrow-fuls later and I think I am two-thirds
done with the garden.

We stopped at 28, not because of the muscle strain and physical
exertion - pushing a wheel barrow full of stone up hill feels
like doing a stairmaster on Jupiter - but because the Papes
and the Clarks invited themselves over for a cookout.  They
know that we're always up for a party, and we used them as an
excuse to knock off from the work for the rest of the day.

When I get back and finish the stone job, we will begin the
task of opening the pool and getting the pool area ready for
its summer workout.  The pond needs to be cleaned and stocked
with feeder fish, too.  Sounds like a lot of work, but it is
a labor of love and unlike Sisyphus, we don't mind doing this
over again.  New England is blooming and the leaves are almost
all out.  For the next five months, there is no better place
to be on the planet.

Mark

(*) Sisyphus, in Greek mythology, was cursed to spend eternity
rolling a heavy stone up a hill only to have it roll back down
so that he would have to continuously start over.  (I hope I
got that right; at least it is how I remember it.)

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