![](\"\/images\/journalpics\/082026\/laurens_pool_complex.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nAnd then it was back to work for me on Monday and Adam got his turn for a summer day camp. While Aaron went with a more traditional day camp at a nearby nature center, we brought Adam over to a nearby university where they were hosting iD Tech camps. We enrolled him in an introductory Minecraft creator camp. It’s a topic he’s comfortable with, and I remember how overwhelming camp was for me as a kid, so I figured the fewer new things we had to pile on for this new experience, the better. It all worked out better than we could have expected for him, aside from having to drive through some gnarly Philadelphia suburban traffic for pick-up and drop-offs, which Ana (drop-off) and MJ (pick-up) handled throughout the week. On Friday he concluded the program and I took a half day off from work to head down along with MJ and Aaron to see the worlds he built and attend a little graduation ceremony that they held outdoors.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\nAfterwards, we stopped at Microcenter to pick up a computer mouse for him, now that he was comfortable with using Minecraft on the computer and wanted a more comfortable way to interact with than the trackpad on my HP laptop that he’d been using.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\nWhile on the topic of computers, it’s become a kind of a tradition that I attend a present at the Philadelphia area Linux Users Group once a year or so when my visit overlaps with a meeting. This year I gave an updated version of my open source on mainframe talk that I gave last year, spurred on by the porting of rpm and dnf5 to IBM z\/OS Unix System Services. To prepare, I met with a couple of my colleagues who were working on it and they also got me access to a USS environment where I could do a demo. It ended up being quite the successful talk, and I always love meeting with my old friends at PLUG, and new folks who have joined since I moved away.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\nThe second to last weekend we were in town we got to meet up with my friends Laura and Brian and their teenage daughter who were visiting from Pittsburgh. We had them meet us at our place and then drove downtown for a lovely lunch together and then a tour of the US Mint in Philadelphia. It was really nice catching up, and getting to talk all things nerdy from 3D-printer projects to open source home automation. I’m also glad that our plans came together, between weather risks spanning excessive heat to thunderstorms, and the added complexity of wildfire smoke sweeping down from the northwest, it definitely put our plans in peril! All that chaos meant we couldn’t go to the zoo as planned, but the US Mint ended up being a lot of fun.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\nOur last full week in town had Matti visiting. MJ spent time with her during the day on the weekdays, and one evening the five of us went out to Dave and Busters.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\nOn Saturday MJ and Matti took the boys downtown to The Franklin Institute. I stayed home to enjoy some much-needed solo time after a whirlwind summer of work and activities. My first stop was to a storage unit near the train station where I dropped everyone off to take care of some last minute things for my sister, we’re finally shipping three boxes of her things up to her in Canada! So part of my afternoon was also spent itemizing and weighing things for her. The good news is that we’ve made good progress, and she’s willing to part with a lot of the larger items that are ultimately just too bulky to justify shipping. Among her things was also her old Game Boy and games, which I was very pleased to see still worked when I got it home to test out. Now the zip drives and floppies she had stored? How they did remains to be seen, I’ll bring a portable floppy drive into town during our next visit to start checking those out. I did take some time to relax too.<\/p>\n
That Sunday was spent back over in New Jersey with my friend Mike and his kids having another pool day! We picked up pizza and snacks along the way and made it there around midday. I’m glad we got back over there on a day that wasn’t a full blown birthday in order catch up with Mike and have the boys play with his kids, who are a couple years older than ours. I’m also happy we got so much water time this summer! We all love swimming, and it definitely left them tired by the end.<\/p>\n
Our final little adventures before we few out on the Thursday before school began included spending one evening at a nearby trampoline park with MJ’s sister Irina and a few of their cousins. We also celebrated my father-in-law’s birthday, and had some final meals with relatives before our departure.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\nSome house things started coming together as our visit progressed into late July too. When we first got into town, I set up the deck chairs and couch with cushions, along with an umbrella for shade. It took some time to get the base<\/em> for the umbrella, so it was somewhat precariously set out there for a while and I’d just bring it in when the wind looked like it would pick up. MJ and Adam eventually got the base filled with sand and brought up, and we got it installed for the duration of our trip, making a nice spot for some lovely breakfasts and lunches outside on the deck. I also moved two of the six chairs to storage, since they were making the deck too crowded.<\/p>\n The couch is working out nicely too, the boys had I had several evenings where we’d read a bedtime book out there. It took a few years, but I’m really, really glad we finally have furniture out there. It’s a nice deck, and our ability to enjoy it was quite limited before.<\/p>\n MJ also got some final final re-wiring behind the TV completed. We had to replace a couple in-wall cables and get our soundbar fully set up, but now it’s beautiful! No visible wires for anything! A few little things here and there like repairing a split floorboard on the stairway and some routine-ish tightening of fixtures and faucets were also done. Houses! MJ was able to get a bunch of car maintenance done too, which was a relief for me since I’m usually hauling my work laptop out on an afternoon adventure for that.<\/p>\n The last house-y project was making progress on the replacement for our home servers there, which is steadily coming along, even if it’s slower than we had expected. It is nice to see drawers installed on our cabinets, maybe next time we can do all the doors! Aaron even helped me out. Zara was less helpful.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n