Weekly Update 08/15/26 – 08/21/26 (Puppies, Jack Hathaway in Space, and Office Progress)
This week's Weekly Update covers six new puppies, lunch with some old friends from DM2 Software, a frightening fall that sent Dawn to the hospital, my disappointment in discovering that there is now a Hathaway in space (and it's not me), and continued progress on my office remodel.
Well, while I was working on my Weekly Update last week, Maggie May, one of Dawn's breeding dachshunds, was busy having babies. Maggie had six wonderful little puppies. Each is doing well, and we are looking forward to the next eight weeks as they age and get ready to find their forever homes.
As far as Storm is concerned, the puppy with the heart defect, she is recovering wonderfully and has an appointment back in Corvallis next week to see how she's doing. We are looking forward to her and her mother moving to Canada, where they will have their forever home. Dawn feels that little Carolyn, the mother, did not do well with her pregnancy and should no longer be used for breeding. Also, with Storm having been born with a heart defect, Dawn feels it is better not to continue Carolyn's line.
Otherwise, we are still working on getting the dogs trained, or housebroken, but with the number of puppies we have, or the number of dogs we have, housebreaking becomes exponentially more difficult. I have very little hope that we will see a day when we are accident-free.
Friday, I got together with several friends from my time at DM2 Software and had lunch at Thai Time restaurant here in Vancouver. I don't often have Thai food, and despite having it many years ago while I was attending the University of Phoenix and spending time with one of my classmates who liked it, I have not had much of it since then.
I found the food here to be quite good. I had the Pad Thai chicken, and while I was disappointed in the amount of chicken included and a little disappointed in the serving size, the taste itself was quite excellent.
It was a fun meeting. We discussed basically the end of DM2 Software, as the company that purchased it moves forward and has discontinued development on the DM2 system. We also discussed how I have transitioned and am now using AI on a regular basis to help me develop code.
All of us are getting older, and they expressed the idea that they did not want to learn a new skill that they would only use for a few months or years. I, on the other hand, am very interested in learning new skills and, frankly, don't see a time in my life when I will want to (or be able to) stop working or stop learning, so I have wholeheartedly started working with AI to build on legacy systems.
When I got home from my lunch, I was working in my office when I heard the sound of something falling and glass breaking. At first, I assumed that the dogs had knocked something over and thought about leaving it alone. But I decided to go and investigate just in case the glass was a danger to them.
When I went into Dawn's room, I found her trying to stand up and holding her head, with blood dripping on the floor. She had taken a very nasty fall and hit a glass-top table with her forehead, breaking the glass and severely lacerating her forehead. Dawn thought that we should call 911 and get an ambulance to transport her to the hospital.
We ended up spending over six hours, mostly in the waiting room. They did a CT of her head and found that there was no damage apart from the laceration, and then they sutured her. I think she was lucky. I don't think there will be much of a scar, but it was a scary event, and now she's home resting comfortably.
Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to be an astronaut, to fly in space, frankly, to get off this crummy little planet. I mainly gave up that dream back when I went to high school and, while trying to take driver's education, found out that I needed glasses and have worn them ever since. I assumed that needing glasses would eliminate me from consideration to become an astronaut.
So I refocused my life and maintained a constant love of space travel but did not think about making it to space myself. I must admit I was shocked several years later when watching video of the first flight of the Space Shuttle and seeing the astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen both wearing glasses in orbit. But by then, I was no longer looking for a career in space, no longer hoping to be the first Hathaway in space.
So I was more than a little surprised to find out that I'm no longer capable of becoming the first Hathaway in space, as at the moment there is a Hathaway in space. Astronaut Jack Hathaway is currently serving aboard the International Space Station.
Jack Hathaway is a NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy captain. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2004 and became a naval aviator, flying F/A-18 aircraft. Before joining NASA, he accumulated more than 2,500 flight hours, made more than 500 carrier landings, and flew 39 combat missions. NASA selected him as an astronaut candidate in 2021.
Hathaway became the first person with the Hathaway surname that we have identified to travel into space when he launched as the pilot of SpaceX Crew-12 on February 13, 2026. The crew reached the International Space Station on February 14, where Hathaway joined Expeditions 74 and 75.
I was, of course, interested in the question of whether he was the first person in my family to go to space, so I worked with ChatGPT to find out. We traced Jack's paternal family through his father, Jeff Hathaway, his grandfather, Robert L. "Bob" Hathaway (1932–2023), and his great-grandparents, Arthur and Margaret Hathaway. Robert was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, and the family had connections to the Saratoga and Schuylerville area.
We then compared that family with my own Hathaway line. My family also has long-established roots in New York State, particularly Newburgh and Middletown in Orange County, with my documented Hathaway ancestry extending into the early 1800s. We searched for a genealogical connection between the Saratoga County Hathaways and my Orange County Hathaway family, but we were unable to establish one.
That does not prove that Jack and I are unrelated. A common ancestor could exist farther back. For now, the accurate conclusion is that we share the Hathaway surname and both families have New York roots, but after extensive searching, we have not found a documented family relationship between us.
Of course, I'm continuing work on my office remodel. I've made some significant progress this week, as I now have most of the artwork I want to display mounted. It is a collection of items depicting phoenixes rising and is located directly behind me, so when I'm on a Zoom or video call, it is my backdrop.
I hope it's not too vain to admit that the backdrop is important and that I want to provide a professional but clear image of what I'm about. I thought about adding a picture here, but I'm still missing one piece and want to display the way it looks when finished.
I have worked a lot on getting the woodwork paint-free but find it a slow process, particularly trying to get the doors ready for finishing. But I'm moving forward. I hope this weekend to continue my work on the doors and to start the removal process for the carpet and padding, getting ready for Labor Day weekend when I hope to install the new flooring.
Well, I hope you all have a great week. Talk to you later. Bye.
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