Saturday - Just as I was leaving for
San Diego the arborist showed up and gave me the quote for the tree
removal. Not too bad. Now I have to send a note to the city, and then
they will tell the arborist to go ahead, and then he will get back in
touch with me to set a date. Gotta luv the gov, and their bureaucracy.
Friday 16 March
2012
Friday
- Down to San Diego for the weekend. Little or no posting...
Thursday 15 March2012
Thursday
- Did a bit of work on the boat, then met with T and discussed various
work issues that we are having/will be having. It's always surprising
the amount of trouble and grief some people will pile on top of the
folk actually trying to get something done. There is a lot of NIMBY, and what to me looks like just
plain cussedness.
In the afternoon I headed back to Lancaster. No sign that the arborist
had been by to check on that tree that needs removing. Which didn't
much surprise me, given the evasiveness of the person on the phone
earlier in the week. They have a sole source contract with the city -
why should they worry? The money is guaranteed, so customer service is
not a priority!
Book #36 was Pandora's Legions, by Christopher Anvil. The was a free book from Webscriptions.net - now renamed Baen Ebooks,
that I downloaded a while back. It is essentially Pandora's World (ca.
1972) with the John Tower stories added in. Essentially a novel created
from stories in the 1950's and 1960's.
Wednesday 14 March 2012
Wednesday - down to Ventura. I
talked to the boss a bit about some (hopefully) upcoming and
in-progress work. Various non-technical issues have been dogging us,
but there may be some stuff starting/re-starting in the near future.
The boat looked good. One aft hawser was worn partially through, which
isn't good. The other had a canvas sheath that protected it. I
shortened it and retied, but I need to get a bit of canvas sheathing
for them all. One more thing to do... I did pick up the new tiller
pilot that I order a while back. It fits pretty well on the existing
support. It could use a 1" extension, and the electrical connection and
bulkhead pass through is different, but I'll need a drill and largish
bit, 1.25" to install it. I also picked up the rail antenna mount for
the GPS unit as well.
I also added some distilled water to the batteries, and plugged the
shore power in again to charge them. I have a little hygrometer battery
tester that I'll use to check on the battery state when they are
charged. Tiller pilots draw a fair amount of juice, and at least one of
the batteries came with the boat, circa 2006, and may even be older.
Tuesday
13 March 2012
Tuesday
- Looking at the graphics handling elements in iOS. Looks like there
are two possible libraries, Quartz for 2D and a version of OpenGL for
2D and 3D as well. Lot's of handling of views and events, but nothing I
haven't done before. Mostly it's the still rather opaque language it's
all written in. I'm looking for a good online guide, but I may have to
buy another book...
Cleaned and vacuumed, the house really needed it.
Book #35 was Into the Hinterlands,
by David Drake and John Lambshead. Not bad, but not great either. I
think there were a lot of ideas there, but the characters were rather
wooden. The main character is somewhat modeled on George Washington, I
think, and there are various quotes from the Napoleonic wars era
scattered through the book.
Monday
12
March 2012
Monday
- not much going on, still warm.
Called the arborist people, they'll send a guy by to estimate the cost
of removing the tree "in the next few days". It's good to have a
contract and no competitors, isn't it?
Lunch at the Thai place.
Sunday
11
March 2012
Sunday
- Pretty weather, again. Warm, in the 70's. I did some cleaning up in the yard, and
started making plans to do some more work in the front yard. Weedblock
and gravel in the front flower beds, perhaps a nice brick border. And I need to start the work with
pavers in the back.
I forgot to mention, but the peach tree had its first blossoms
on Monday. Hopefully they get visited by the bees for pollination,
despite the early start. I was over at someone's house and the bees
are back, by the way, there was an old willow that was humming with hundreds of
them.
Book #34 was Temeraire:
Crucible of Gold, by Naomi Novik. This time Laurence and Temeraire find themselves
visiting the Incas, who are actually ruled by their dragons, as
opposed to England they are considered somewhere between beasts and slaves. The
English want the Incas for allies, but so do the French - Napoleon himself
makes another appearance.
One of the characters makes a remark to his dragon about investing
prize money in the "funds" in the London stock exchange. It's a casual
comment, but given that dragon's are notoriously long lived and
avaricious - we may be seeing the beginnings of dragons and stock
market profiteering and pirating here!
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Gull at twilight, Channel Islands
Harbor, 2012.
