Gallafent Family Blog

One of my long-standing pet peeves is that caller ID is not voicemail. I'm OK with someone who calls right back because they missed a call, but anything over a couple of minutes doesn't meet my definition of "calls right back."

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There was a pretty significant fire in Spokane Valley that started last night. There were 40 MPH winds when the fire started and the humidity was below 10%, so it grew quickly.

We're not affected, except for some smoke overhead. The fire is about five miles from our house. I spent the night at the county emergency operations center answering phones — mostly telling people that they couldn't go home.

After almost fifteen years there are still things you never knew about your spouse.

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The Kirby vacuum folks have been calling for a while about the free prize we won: free shampooing of one room of carpet. Actually, it turns out there were two different offices running the same promotion. I had made arrangements with one office to call back on Monday at 6:00pm a couple of weeks ago and someone called at 4:45pm, so we made an appointment with them. When the original office called back at 6:00pm, she was surprised to find I had already made an appointment.

We had a big event at church on Saturday, so we didn't get Jenny her cake and present until tonight.

The vampire was at our stake's emergency preparedness fair this afternoon, so I gave a half liter (and some change). Evidently the blood bank has gone metric.

It was a lot better than I remember, but it's been a while since I've given blood. They did have this fancy T-shirt as part of my parting gift package.

Who could ask for anything more?

Happy Father's Day to our dads and grandpas.

We had our first thunderstorm of the season today in the middle of what Jenny is calling "Junuary." It has been cold and rainy for a couple of weeks and generally not spring-like. WSDOT even ended up getting the snowplows back out this week.

Today the weather held long enough for play day at the elementary school (which Jessica called "fantabulous") and then the thunderstorms moved in late in the evening. It was a pretty serious storm -- there were 11 separate notices from the weather service in two hours. We had one bolt of lightning within 1/2 mile (two second count) of the house. The flash was bright enough you could see it with your eyes closed and the thunderclap rattled the walls along with the windows.

Here is a picture I got from the front yard just before the rain started:

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Music

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More Music 

YAY! I am so happiful! I am posting this from school!

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Flat Garrett was sent by my cousin Garrett's first grade teacher. They read Flat Stanley and my first grade class read it, too. But we didn't send flat ourselves, we sent Flat Stanley.

You are supposed to send Flat Stanley to four people. They are supposed to take pictures with Flat Stanley and send it back with pictures and a note telling about their trip.

I took Flat Garrett to Riverfront Park. It is in downtown Spokane.

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I got the scooter back at the end of last week. It needed some work done on the carburetor. Tonight I finished running the first full tank of gas through since it came back.

The scooter draws comments. One of the guys I work with calls it my "angry mosquito," referring to what it sounds like at about 35 MPH.

I occasionally get people asking what it costs to fill up. Tonight: $3.85.

I also decided to keep track of the mileage and see what kind of gas mileage I'm getting. I got 95 miles out of 1.013 gallons of gas: 93.8 miles per gallon.