Saturday
- the hummingbirds are back, after taking a couple of weeks off. The
inside of the feeder was dirty and had algae buildup so it was
time to use the white vinegar and rice method of cleaning the feeder.
Only, upon checking the cupboard, there was no white vinegar.
After a bit of thought I settled on rum. It would kill the algae buildup and sterilize the inside of the feeder. It worked like a charm.
Except...have you ever seen a drunk hummingbird?
Heh. Just kidding. I washed it all out.
In other news...uh...got the oil changed in the Explorer. The little
change notice had fallen off and the receipts in the glove box were all
for the Probe. Still, it was time, and what with
driving up north next weekend, a good time. I mentioned the receipt problem to the station manager and he was adamant
that their receipts weren't mixed up, that they printed out by license
plate number, and computers never make mistakes. I didn't argue, what's
the point?
And indeed, the receipt he issued me was for the Explorer. So, how did three or four Probe receipts end up in the Explorer? My guess is that his help has been printing the receipts wrong - he did yesterday's paperwork/computer entry himself.
He's been manager there for years, but his help changes completely from one visit to the next.
Friday
- so, I get home and try to check my email - no luck.
Stupid Google. What sort of engineers do you suppose they employ?
Custodial? Sanitary?
The wire to Lancaster...Lancaster, uh, let's see, was that third from my left or your left?
There's your problem - that cheap bituminous coal is causing your UDP packets to stick together -
what you need to do is clean out port 80 and always use anthracite from now on!
Not much else to say. A long tedious drive home, I got stuck for a while behind the
only delivery van driver
in all of Southern California that wasn't in a hurry,
driving 5mph to 10mph below the legal limit. The rest of the delivery
drivers are insane.
True story: yesterday I was on a job and had to stop to use an
electronic keypad to open a gate. I entered it wrong (well,
actually, I had been given two
different codes by two different people and the first was
wrong) and before I could retry it the delivery guy behind me had
jumped out of his van, run up along side my car, and punched his code
in. Jeez.
When I got to Lancaster I had to mow my grass as the sun set,
trying to get it done before dark. And I did, just barely.
An interesting take. American's have been paranoid since the Revolution
- Adams was convinced that Jefferson was going to give the United
States to the French, Jefferson was convinced that Adam's was a closet
Anglophile, wanting to bring a royal to the throne. Both thought that
Alexander Hamilton was scheming to become Caesar of the United States.
And so on, and so on, down through the centuries.
Then again this psychology of economics is a bit like biological psychology, capable of generating hypotheses explaining almost anything, but not very amenable to test and experiment.
Wednesday 23 April 2008
Wednesday
- watched a helicopter pilot practicing down towards the river. He'd
come in from the east, high and fast, then slow and drop almost to
levee height, then accelerate up and away again. Fun to watch - but
noisy. It looked a bit like a military assault landing - there really
isn't much call for private maneuvers of that sort, so at $$ per hour I
have to wonder what he was doing.
Did some shopping in the evening - the cupboard was nearly bare down
here in Ventura. Sometimes I lose track of which house/refrigeration
has the food, and coffee...
Tuesday 22 April 2008
Tuesday
- keeping busy. There was biplane practicing acrobatics, for hours. Fun
to
watch, but noisy. It'd irritate me if I lived in an otherwise quiet
country location.
I think I saw an old bench lathe, laying on it's side, near a channel.
About 10 feet long, half buried. I suppose that ways are warped and
rusted. Still, I'm tempted to ask the farmer what he'd want for it. I
have no idea how you'd move something that heavy, or where I'd put it.
Oh well.
Monday 21 April 2008
Monday
- back to work. Decent weather, but one of the mapper batteries was
dead.
It's always something
with that abomination. Did it not charge Friday night? Did it discharge
over the weekend? Did the power button get pushed somehow, despite
being it it's protective padded case? I've no
idea, but it's not the first time a battery I know I've charged
has shown up DOA in the next day or two. And this is the loaner mapper,
so it's a design issue. (Ours hasn't come back from Magellan yet.)
Bah.
So, just an 8 hour day.
I guess that's OK, for a Monday.
Sunday 20 April 2008
Sunday
- sort of crashed. I did go to the Antelope Valley Poppy Festival. The
weather was OK - I wore a denim jacket and didn't feel overly warm, but
a lot of people showed up in t-shirts. There were food booths, craft
booths, and various displays of one sort and another. The SCA was
interesting - the sword fighting was fun to watch, particularly as I
knew some of the participants.
Then I went home and napped, with two cats on my chest.
