How I See It: Reflections on spirituality, technology, and the art of everyday life

This week has been one of endings and beginnings. Little Storm is finally home after surgery, I learned that my childhood home has been reduced to bare earth, and I found myself reflecting on memories stretching back more than fifty years. Along the way, I also share a unique Christmas in July tradition from Bryce Canyon National Park, an update on my office remodel, and what's happening at work.

  Weekly Update 05/16/26 – 05/23/26 (Medical Week, Dog Fight, Hematoma Recovery) This week’s Weekly Update was dominated by medical appointments, an unexpected dog fight, and continuing problems with my right leg. Despite all of that, work is going well and there were at least a few reassuring medical results along the way. This has definitely been a medical week, but I managed to get through it. While I was in Irvine I was walking about four miles a day without pain. I returned to Vancouver on May 6th after a 2.5-hour flight. I did not notice anything immediately, but sometime during the following week, around May 10th–15th, I started noticing pain in my right calf. At first it felt somewhat like shin splints along the ridge of my leg below the knee. Since I thought it was a shin splint, I decided to take a day off from my usual one-mile morning walk to give the leg a chance to heal, but that same day the pain started getting worse. I checked with Astra (ChatGPT), and she sug...

 Well, the big news this week has all been around the arrival of the new puppy. I do not yet know the puppy’s name, as Dawn likes to give her dogs “special names,” like Boudica, Gurta, and Bouraged, and I cannot promise I will either remember or spell the name of this dog correctly. We picked the puppy up on 05/10 in The Dalles and drove her home to Vancouver. The puppy is what Dawn calls “dapple,” which apparently means having dappled spots on her coat. She is a nice little puppy and very affectionate. This brings the number of dogs we have up to seven, I think, not including the two puppies from Carolyn, who are now about four weeks old and growing fast. Unfortunately, on the evening of the 10th, Dawn noticed that the new little puppy was coughing a lot. It looks like the poor little thing has kennel cough, a highly contagious condition. So now we have the dogs broken up around the house and are quarantining the new little girl. Otherwise, it was a normal week of going to w...