Millions of peaches... and tomoatoes... and melons...

It's been a rather busy couple of weeks around the old Brown home.

Last weekend we drove up to Cheney, Washington to deliver our precious girl to Eastern Washington University. Tara has studied hard and is thinking she will probably major in Physical Anthropology. Eastern is one of the best colleges for this. We are so proud but it is very hard not having her around the home... she is sorely missed but we are extremely proud of our lovely daughter...go Eagles!

My job has been somewhat exciting to say the least... first the announcement that HP was thinking of spinning off the PC business after not meeting forecast (but still turning more profit than anyone else in consumer PC market)... and then second, CEO Leo steps down and HP gets a new CEO, and then 3rd, I hear important news regarding my immediate manager which has important implications to me (which I cannot divulge at this time).
I did very well in HP's experts day. Work was a little too busy that day with a video shoot and a couple of fire drills that I only got to spend a few hours answering customer questions on the support forums, but I still came in 8th (out of about 200) .. but the best part is that I got several solutions and kudos from happy customers --- I love helping people.

The garden! It is spitting vegetables out left and right. The peach tree gave us hundreds of the best peaches I have ever ate in my life. We gave bags away, dried many of them, made peach cobbler, and grandpa even made up a yummy peach pie (of which I have not had a chance to eat). At the same time we harvested cantaloupes - the last one came off today. They are mostly smallish with only 3-4 getting store size - but they are juicy sweet and yummy. I have 11 watermelons on the vine and they should be absolutely yummy this next weekend. We also have about 30 pumpkins some of which will probably be too ripe by Halloween (and some will be too green). Of course we have thousands of cherry tomatoes. The normal sized tomatoes are mostly still green, but we are still getting about 5 good ones a week (I think the dogs are eating them). Lastly, I do live in Idaho and I am especially happy to have been able to harvest potatoes today. Digging up taters can be very rewarding and fun... i think taters are about my favorite plant to pick (but peaches taste better).

 Pets: we have a new addition to the Brown family home - meet Arrow the arrowana. Anyone who knows me well knows that a silver arrowana is my favorite fish, but they are hard to keep. We lost a few in the past due to them jumping out. Well, this time I fully enclose the top canopy of the tank by adding a wood back with cutouts for the filters, pumps and hoses. The little bugger can't jump out because their is no "out". He should live a long happy, healthy life in our 120+ tank. We also added a bristlenose algae eater and a pearl gourami to Tara's tank (which is being kept up by Jordan while she is away).

Other things:

• Had a lovely time reading Hosea with my friends in Care Group (church).
• Tammy is working with Jesse on a new program that is more flexible and has several advantages over his previous one.
• Enjoyed having Jesse's friend Tobbe Friday night and Saturday for fun and games.
• Took Tobbe and the boys out Saturday for a car wash and some KFC.
• Cuts more rocks, but nothing really special jumped out at me.. rock saw gave me a little grief but it wasn't anything big.
• The clothes dryer and I duked it out. I ended up winning, but not before I took the whole thing apart and put it back together again. I give it two weeks max before it starts growling again.
• Jacob, Jordan, and Jesse are into magic cards and

That sums up this last week's life in Brown town. Enjoy your life on this planet and see you soon.