The week before I began my 44th trip around the sun I was in a bit of a funk. In July my doctor told me it’s time to lose weight “or else.” I didn’t read nearly as much as I hoped to over the summer, nor did I finish writing either of the books I started. It seems like all of my projects gained more cobwebs than traction. In regards to my personal goals, I was feeling pretty unsatisfied.<\/p>\n

Last weekend Susan signed up to volunteer at the TED<\/a> conference in Kansas City, Missouri, and talked me into riding along. We stayed at a nice, new hotel and ate dinner at a local casino. Even though we were gone less than 24 hours, it was a nice way to end the summer.<\/p>\n

After we returned home, Susan gave me my first (of what turned out to be several) birthday gifts: a new leather chair for my office. I must have forgot how many times I’ve complained about my thirty-year-old computer chair (which was a hand-me-down when I got it). The chair hasn’t had any padding in at least a decade, and I dread sitting it for any length of time. “I hope you write a great book in your new chair,” she said.<\/p>\n

Over the past few days, Susan and the kids have presented me with a steady stream of small gifts. A few months ago I mentioned to Susan that while I loved our new coffee mug tree, it was a shame we never saw (or used) the mugs stored on the back side. Monday, she bought me a lazy Susan to put underneath the tree. Now, it spins freely! My doctor told me I need to be drinking more water; Morgan bought me a new water bottle that’s the perfect size. Mason came home after school on my birthday with a gift bag filled with my favorite drinks and snacks from the convenient store. <\/p>\n

On Sunday, I visited Science Museum Oklahoma with my mom and her husband and saw the Ray Harryhausen<\/a> exhibit (I’ll be writing more about that shortly). On Tuesday (my birthday), I had breakfast with two of my great friends (Scott and Andy), ate steak for lunch with Susan and my dad, and sushi for dinner with Susan and the kids. <\/p>\n

I went to bed very satisfied.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The week before I began my 44th trip around the sun I was in a bit of a funk. In July my doctor told me it’s time to lose weight “or else.” I didn’t read nearly as much as I hoped to over the summer, nor did I finish writing either of the books I started. It seems like all of my projects gained more cobwebs than traction. In regards to my personal goals, I was feeling pretty unsatisfied. Last weekend Susan signed up to volunteer at the TED conference in Kansas City, Missouri, and talked me into riding along.… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10565"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10571,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10565\/revisions\/10571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}