The last few days have been interesting. I have a little work to do (good thing) and some attention from the lead technician. So I’m able to move my project forward. I did the cross section layout for a set of HEC-RAS models this morning and passed it on for processing. I should have my cross sections late today or first thing tomorrow and can get started building the models.

The models are complicated because there will be loss from the system through lateral structures. It’s critical to model the lateral structures properly to account for the flow loss so I can size the proposed structure and evaluate the potential impact on the floodplain.

In the midst of this I find myself deeply missing Wife. It’s been something like 35 weeks since she died. The deep pain of the first month or two is abated, but I want to have that time we shared over breakfast — talking about things and watching the birds outside or looking at the Carson Range. I miss the telephone calls at noon asking about lunch and the goofy voicemails she left.

I am reading through my journal from 2012 as the days pass, trying to recall how everything developed and processing my thoughts. Reviewing that time is important because there is insight there. I don’t know if it provides insight into my now, but I don’t want to lose that connection with my past.

Over the weekend I processed a couple more boxes. I found a box of Wife’s planners, most of them empty but some with her writing in them. The wallets went into the donate box and the papers went to the grinder. I processed another box of old records as well. I put another three or four bags of grindings into the dumpster.

There are still a few more boxes of fossils to process. Then I have another 11 book boxes to go through. The papers and reports I’ll scan. The books I’ll have to decide about. I feel another book purge coming on and will be doing that this fall.

Once I get through all that, I’ll feel free to pursue other things. Saturday afternoon I spent some time with Jimmy at Comma Coffee. There are often interesting people to photograph there. Alisha was particularly engaged when she was talking to Jimmy and provided a number of wonderful expressions. Jimmy said “Shakespeare in five expressions” and I think he’s right.

Edit: The frame was captured with the Chinon 135mm f2.8 wide open at ISO 3200. The high ISO explains the grainy texture of the image and the color balance was awful. This capture begged to be black and white anyway.