00100	october 3, 1973, wednesday morning
00200	
00300	this week i shall try to write my weekly letter on the computer. that
00400	way  i  can  write  a little each day and then at the end of the week
00500	have the terminal here in don's office print out the whole  thing  at
00600	once.   i  can also write individual paragraphs to any one of you and
00700	have that portion put on only one print-out.     i started to do this
00800	the  other  day, but the system at stanford broke down in the middle,
00900	and i lost what i had typed in at that point.    it's also taken me a
01000	little  time  just  to  learn how to get started so the computer will
01100	accept what i'm typing.   .
01200	
01300	thursday night
01400	
01500	don and i went to school last night for the teachers to explain  what
01600	they  will  be  doing  this  year. jenny's teacher (whom john had for
01700	first grade too,) is a traditional type of teacher.  she expects  the
01800	kids  to  sit still and be quiet. she teaches everyone at once though
01900	she said she would like  to  do  more  individualized  teaching  with
02000	reading.   on  the  other  hand,  john's  teacher has a very informal
02100	classroom with no desks, but has learning centers instead. she  seems
02200	to feel at home with this type of situation and have everything under
02300	good control.   also, third and fourth  graders  and  more  ready  to
02400	discipline  themselves and take more responsibility for getting their
02500	work done.   john seems to like this system very well, and  is  doing
02600	well with it.
02700	
02800	we've  had  carpool  this week, so it seems like we haven't done much
02900	else.   don drives in the morning, and i take the kids  home  in  the
03000	afternoon. this means that don must get up earlier than usual, and by
03100	this time of the week, he's kind of  a  wreck.   i  usually  use  the
03200	opportunity  when i'm out in the car to do shopping. some of the kids
03300	in the car pool live near two big shopping centers, and  as  long  as
03400	i'm  in  the  area,  i might as well take advantage of it.   but that
03500	cuts down on the number of things i can get done at home.
03600	
03700	we've all had all our physical and dental check-ups now, and everyone
03800	is in good shape.  john and i each have one cavity to be filled.(this
03900	is the first one for john.) the doctor looked at john's finger today,
04000	and  felt  it was healing well.   its been ten days since he hurt it,
04100	and its about half healed.  the doctor put on  a  different  kind  of
04200	splint  today  that will let the wound get more air.  it was a little
04300	oozy today when he took the  bandage  off.   it  will  probably  take
04400	another  week or two for the finger to be completely healed, and john
04500	will have a scar, but he should have normal use of his finger.
     

     

00001	
00101	this is don now, adding a short p.s. (disregard the  numbers  at  the
00201	left)  this computer terminal is a real nice machine, it is portabble
00301	and only a little bigger than a briefcase, yet it easily hooks up  to
00401	our  home  phone.   it  types  30  characters  per second and is much
00501	quieter than an electric typewriter.
00601	
00701	mom, i'm typing this sunday night and i know that tomorrow is the big
00801	day for your tests.   but i am not worried about the outcome, since i
00901	have been praying for you and I'm sure God will make things work  out
01001	right.
01101	
01201	now  to  finish this letter, i will try to do the following things if
01301	the machine works.  first i will ask it to justify the lines  i  just
01401	wrote,  and to correct one of my typing errors.  then i'll ask to see
01501	the result of the justification. finally I'll try to show you one  of
01601	the  other  things we can do with this terminal, namely to connect it
01701	up to the associated press wire! if that works, we'll see  the  story
01801	that  is  coming over the wire at that moment.  sometimes the current
01901	stories are silly, but there are all the serious news stories too. we
02001	can recall any story from the last 24 hours and have it typed out.
02101	
02201	so that is the way this letter will end, if it works.
05800	a week or so ago we heard a chewing noise in the wall.  we  tried  to
05900	find  out what it was, but couldn't see anything.  we heard the noise
06000	a few more times, and monday night finally discovered it was a mouse.
06100	just  as  the  kids  were  finishing  their  piano lesson, we heard a
06200	loud scratching noise, and a mouse ran out of the  heating  register.
06300	i'd  turned  on  the  furnace for the first time that day, and he was
06400	probably getting hot. we tried to catch him right then, and set traps
06500	later,  but  he  is  still in the house somewhere.  we almost went to
06600	conns and borrowed our cat back again. she is a very good hunter, but
06700	we  thought  she  would be too frightened in a strange house to think
06800	about catching mice.   i haven't seen any signs of the mouse being in
06900	the kitchen, fortunately.
07000	
07100	sunday, october 7, 1973
07200	
07300	this has been our first night and day of a steady, drizzling rain. it
07400	will be very good for the garden. i never feel that the garden really
07500	gets a good watering when we have to sprinkle.
07600	
07700	Jenny  went  to  a  birthday  party  yesterday afternoon, then stayed
07800	overnight with conns.  janet conn said the girls didn't go  to  sleep
07900	til  10:00  p.m.   and were up at 6:30 this morning.  so jenny (along
08000	with everyone else)is taking a nap right now. i'll try to  finish  my
08100	computer  letter,  and  edit  it  for  typographical errors and funny
08200	spacing.      this  program  will  justify  all  the  lines  for   me
08300	automatically,  but  i have to learn how to correct errors, and get a
08400	clean  print-out  without  a  lot  of  line  numbers  and  extraneous
08500	characters.   this method of writing letters hasn't saved me any time
08600	this week, but I hope that once i'm familiar with the system it  will
08700	be more efficient than using the regular typewriter.