The Big Chill

    December 23rd, and a very cold front has descended on Indiana, and the rest of the US.  Cathy is in the kitchen, frantically preparing desserts and other Christmas-related items.My dog Gracie is huddled next to me in the sun room trying to keep warm.  The temperature dipped to -8 last night and when I put Gracie out this morning, she had to be rescued from the cold.  She definitely did not like the extreme cold.  I think this cold front is good because it makes us all slow down a little.  I also hope and pray that when we all slow down, we give a thought to what Christmas really means. 

   On a family note, we have some issues going on with the relatives.  These are issues that everyone with aging parents must deal with. I pray very hard during this time, as it takes a lot of Holy Spirit guidance to get through these trying times.  I've also been praying for several family members and friends this season too.  Getting older is not for the faint of heart. My mom once said that when all these family things are happening, she never understood how anyone could get through it all without God.  I totally agree.

  On a personal note, I got a contract to work at Yellowstone again this summer.  I am looking forward to that as I will be there when winter turns to spring.  I miss the mountains every day, but I get messages from my mountain friends, and I probably don't miss the cold.  If I think -8 degrees is tough, they are dealing with -30 degrees and high winds.  That is cold. I also have been watching my South Dakota friends, and I-90 has been closed down for quite some time.  They had a blizzard last week, and the weather has not gotten any better.

  I hope that anyone who reads this will have a merry Christmas.  I also pray that Jesus will be the main focus this season.  It is so easy to get distracted from the real meaning of Christmas. 

My 15 Minutes of Fame

    If you go to the link Tony Kornheiser Podcast Archive and listen to the 11/30/2022 episode entitled "A Hat Full of Hope". Then you will hear an email I sent into Tony Kornheiser.  I got my 15 minutes of fame for sure, but the sad thing is no one in my family or my friends even noticed.  I need to get a better class of friends and family.  :)

Yellowstone 2023 (Lord Willing)

   Today I got my official offer to return to work at Old Faithful Upper General Store in Yellowstone National Park.  I accepted the offer and will get paid $15 an hour, which is a raise of $4 per hour.  They raised the hourly rate trying to get more people interested in working.  The problem is that it is a temporary summer job and there are not too many interested in working for a short period of time, when other places pay more and the work is not temporary.  So most of the employees are retirees or foreign workers.  There are some that are truly temporary workers.  Some call them Nomads, but some I know work at Yellowstone in the summer and work close to Yellowstone in the winter.  The issue is they have no car and no real home.  They have to take a job that will house them. That is why Yellowstone is good for them, as they provide dorm housing. 

   The offer wants me to report April 24th and my last day is July 30th.  I will get to open the store up and see Yellowstone just coming out of winter and into spring.  The rivers will be running high and fast I am sure.  I can't wait.

Well COVID Has Hit the Hobbs' Household

    I avoided COVID for quite sometime, but it has finally caught up with me.  I started to feel bad on Tuesday with a nasty cough and by Wednesday morning I was chilling so bad I could not stop shaking.  I went to the local clinic and took the COVID test and it came back positive.  Cathy has now tested positive also.  The hardest part of this is having to stay in the house.  If you know me you know that I can't stay in one place very long.  So this quarantine is killing me.  :)  The other bad part of this COVID issue is that Cathy and I were set to go to Tennessee on Monday and the place has already charged me.  The good news is that my brother and sister in law will be taking the condo and I won't lose the money. I am hoping that the effects will not last long, but from what I hear the effects may stick around for a few weeks.

   I was also supposed to be preaching this Sunday at the Lyons Christian Church. Zack Clifford was nice enough to fill in for me.  God is good.

A goodbye message from Bret Hobbs CORP Administrator (I sent this out when I retired)

 

I was a programmer at Data Processing for about 4 years when I was asked by my boss to help a Crane group called NAPEC with some issue pertaining to the overseeing of ammunition. I worked on the specific issue and they must have liked my work because it was not too long later that they offered to pull me out of indirect programming work to direct funded programming work with them. I accepted the offer and have stayed with that code ever since. The branch name and code designator has changed many times over the years as well as the programming languages and computers I was tasked to work with, but what has never changed is the dedication of the people to ensure that the ammunition they built was safe for the duration of its life cycle.  I have been given a rare opportunity to be involved with a computer system from its creation to its maturity and an even rarer opportunity to be a programmer since the day I hired in as a CO-OP here at Crane.  CORP was started when those paying for configuration management at NAPEC decided that the bill for services from the CADMSS System out of Point Mugu was just too high. So I was sent to Point Mugu to retrieve our data, bring it in-house and to create our own configuration management system.  It is from this one module that CORP started and has blossomed into the 25 modules it is today.  CORP started on an NCR Tower 68020 running Unix operating System and had 2MB of total memory, 8 communication ports, 4 344MB internal disk drives, 1 Nine Track Tape Unit, 1 60MB cassette tape drive for backup and a laser printer for reports. CORP data was stored using a Unify Relational database management system and the application was programmed in C.  It has since transitioned to more computers and programming languages than I can recall. NMCI forced CORP to transition from a desktop application to the web where it is today.  The dream of the 2T program office was to create an application that the engineers could access that would be a one-stop-shop for all their ammunition engineering needs.  I think the program office's dream is about 98% complete.  Along the way CORP has picked up many other users outside of the 2T COG community who see CORP as a better tool than some official systems out there.

               As I retire on May 29th 2015, I look at what I have been working on for the last 26 years and I can say with pride that it is a great system. I pray it will continue to be a great system.  I will also pray that those taking over for me and those in the program office will be granted wisdom and discernment to make the right decisions to keep CORP active for another 28 years.

               Thanks again to all who have been with me and CORP for these many years and I wish you all the best.

               I want to leave you with a piece of advice and that is to get to know Jesus Christ in your life first, then work each day as if you were working for the Lord.  The blessings you will find as you look back over your career will be truly wonderful.

 

Bret Hobbs

Soon to be retired CORP Administrator/Developer

And Life Continues to Get Complicated

    Dealing with aging parents is very tough in deed.  Every person who has a mother or father will one day have to deal with aging parents.  You were raised by them and you love them, but as they get older they get younger mentally.  There are days you have to treat them like a 5 year old and there are days they act like a 5 year old.  This process tests your patience and your love completely.  It takes a whole family to care for one aging family member.  There are times you want it to stop with their death, but you know that is just Satan trying to pull the love out of you.  All I can say is during these times to pray and lean on each other.  Try not to take things personally and work as a family team.  Also get plenty of rest and eat nutritious food, as you will need the strength to mentally and physically deal with the every day trials.

   I long for the mountains and solitude everyday.

A Very Hot 4th of July

    The weather here has been very hot and humid. I long for the mountains more and more.  The 4th of July brought a proud moment for me.  My grandson Oliver asked if he could walk in the parade with the local food pantry and help with donations.  I asked the food pantry group if they could use an eleven year old and they said yes. I also asked Oliver if he would be OK walking with the group by himself, as I was driving my truck for the Family Life Center.  He emphatically said yes.  After the parade was over I asked the food pantry group how he did and they all said he did great and was a big help.  I told him, and his Mom and Dad, that I was very proud of him. He also said he would like to help again next year.

   I recently checked with the grocery store in Yellowstone and the park seems to be back to somewhat normal operation for the general stores.  Jack told me that business has picked up quite a bit.  Tourists cannot come into the park via the North or North East entrances yet, but the West, South and East entrances are open with tourists coming through.  Since tourists cannot enter via the North entrance, there is a real hardship for the town of Gardiner.  That town depends on tourism to survive and many hotels and businesses have never opened up because of lack of business.

   The rains finally came on July 7th and it is needed.  Not just my lawn but the farmer's crops are in need of rain right now.  We do not need a massive pouring rain but a good gentle soaking rain for the next three days.

   I have continued to pray for my friends with cancer and our cancer list at church keeps getting larger.  It is always a praise to have a person taken off the prayer list as cured.  We pray every week at the church for a cure for cancer.

  My son sold his house in West Virginia and are presently looking for a house in Indiana.  He starts working at Crane once again in August. Cathy is getting some very serious grand-baby time and the cousins are loving holding their new cousin.  

   It wont be long before Cathy and I are planning for our September vacation out west.  We have ordered a new Toyota and we hope it comes in before we leave, but the way the supply chain is working it may be November before it arrives in Terre Haute.

It is too hot and I long for the mountains

    A sustained heat wave has arrived in Indiana. We are going to see temperatures in the high nineties and high humidity for the next several weeks.  I cannot stand heat and humidity and I wish I could transport myself to South Dakota or the Beartooth Pass.  Cathy knows that I don't like just staying in one place now that I am retired and these temps really get my feet to itch.  But I have several obligations here and Cathy has a few obligations too, but I keep telling her that we need to travel while we are still young and healthy because before you know it we will be hit with something big that causes us to be anchored to a doctor and limit our getting around.  I have seen that happen time and time again with my friends and family and it is sad to regret not doing something.

   I have been watching Yellowstone and other areas be decimated by flooding.  The pictures from Red Lodge Montana are heartbreaking.  Yellowstone is closed to all traffic until at least Wednesday because of roads being flooded and disappearing as well as rock slides.  I have tried to contact Jack Hade to see how the store is faring during this tragic event but have yet to hear from him.  The pictures and videos I am seeing make me sad because the places that are being affected are places I have hiked or driven through.  It will take some time to fix the issues caused by the floods for sure. Last year when I saw the drought I prayed for more snow this winter to get the lakes filled back up, but it seems that my prayers went overboard.  The rains are increasing the snow-melt and the water is raging down the Yellowstone and other rivers in the area.  Houses are disappearing into the river and bridges are getting wiped out.  Very sad.  I am sure when Cathy and I head there this Fall we will still see the effects of the flooding.  It will be years before healing will be completed.

  Looks like my son Jacob and his family will be moving back to Indiana.  He has accepted a job at Crane and my wife is very happy about that.  I am happy that I don't have to drive that direction anymore.  I was hoping that he would get a job out west, as I would love to take that trip anytime.

   Next week our church's VBS will begin.  It is a great time of spreading the news about Jesus and also a great time of fellowship with the brothers and sisters in Christ.  This year's theme is Jonah and titled "Big Fish, Bigger God".  I love all those that plan for a year to get this event together.

  My very intelligent daughter-in-law Emily, has got all the kids enrolled in swimming lessons.  She wants them all comfortable in the water and I whole heartily agree with her.  She also said that all the kids will be able to ride a bike before the end of summer.  I agree with that one also.  They need exercise and bike riding as a family is a great thing.

   Keep Jesus in your heart even when Satan is beating you down with the news of the day.  John Prine said it best when he wrote the lyrics:

    Blow up your TV

   Throw away your papers

    Go to the country

    Plant a little garden

    Eat a lot of peaches

    Find Jesus

   

A New Hobbs Enters the World

    My new granddaughter Adalee Hobbs entered the world April 18th.  She came a little earlier than expected, but is healthy and well.  She will be covered daily by my prayers, along with her brother and cousins.  Cathy got a lot of snuggle time, as well as her brother Marek.