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WEEK 20 2018

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Oxnard Weather Underground

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Sixteen
Years
Ago,
This
Week
2002,

Fifteen Years Ago, This Week, 2003

Fourteen Years Ago, this week, 2004

Thirteen Years Ago, this week, 2005

Twelve Years Ago, This Week, 2006

Eleven Years Ago, This Week, 2007

Ten Years Ago, This Week, 2008

Nine Years Ago, This Week, 2009

Eight Years Ago, This Week, 2010

Seven Years Ago This Week,
2011

Six Years Ago This Week,
2012

Five Years Ago,
This Week,
2013

Four Years Ago This Week 2014

Three Years Ago This Week, 2015

Two Years Ago This Week, 2016

One Year Ago This Week, 2017

Saturday 19 May 2018

Saturday - Reasonable weather.

I worked on the fence with P for a bit, and went into town and bought some 2x4's and some fencing material. We were back by mid afternoon, but I was too tired to do much.

For some reason SFTP isn't working for uploads. Sometimes the hosting company is doing stuff on the weekends and things don't work, so I'll try again in a day or two. I don't think it's the new version of OSX or the new drive, but I suppose it's possible.

Book Read So Far

#1 Dreadnought (Lost Colonies #2) #2 Star Carrier (Lost Colonies #3) #3 Atremis #4 CNTL ALT Revolt #5 Hammer of the Witches	#6 Superluminary #7 Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours #8 The Wright Brothers #9 Adapt and Overcome #10 Stand Against the Storm
#11 Stoke the Flames Higher #12 Hunter Killer #13 The Circle #14 The Med #15 The Gulf	#16 Oregairu Vol. 5 #17 Oregairu Vol. 6 #18 #19 #20

Friday 18 May 2018 Friday - Warming up in the afternoon. Mid 80's I'd say.

The cats are still enjoying the grass, though not as obsessed with it as they were the other day. I started some for S's cats as well.

I did more work on the new bench in the garage, only to run into a roadblock. The 2x4's that I bought the other day, that aren't even nominal 2x4's in cross section, also turned out to be 92" in length, not 96! I need full length for the shelves underneath, so it was a show stopper.

I was unwilling to go into town for just a couple of 2x4's. I could always just cut some short pieces and join them with a doubler, but I need to go into town this weekend for other stuff, so it will keep until then. I could return the existing lumber, but I'm sure I'll find a use for it.

The tax lady is done with stuff, and I can pick it up and sign for it on Monday.

That abscess in my jaw was hurting again in the late afternoon and evening. Bah.

Thursday 17 May 2018 Thursday - Nice weather. I went for a 3.5 mile walk in the morning, dropping off that letter to K at the market mailbox. I suppose I could use the "flag" to send from my own mailbox, but apparently there is a issue with mail theft around here, on occasion. This also happens in town, my friends with individual mailbox's say, so this is no reflection on the honesty of AA people specifically but rather on the general decline of the morals of the US.

Speaking of mail and missing things, it's been a while since I sent my change of address into the DMV, and I haven't heard a thing. I guess I need to check into that next week.

I did finally install the new solid state drive into the Mac Book Pro. After a minor issue, due to my not plugging the connectors in firmly enough, it seems to be working just fine. In particular the Simulator for Xcode now boots in 13 seconds, instead of twenty minutes!

There was a nice new crescent moon in the west in the evening. Also a very bright Venus in the west and Jupiter in the south-west.

Wednesday 16 May 2018

Wednesday - A nice day, not even particularly windy (for the AV anyway).

The wheat grass I planted last week was three inches high already, so I brought it out of the closed off bedroom and into the house for the cats. They were so happy. I think they ate the whole planter down about 2" by the end of the day. There was the usual vomitus afterwards, but in a day or so they'll be used to it and that shouldn't be a huge issue.

Met up with S for a quick overview of some of the stuff she's been doing on the app. She's got some nifty artwork going, using sprites, for the hemi-spheric neglect cases, and has finished up the privacy policy stuff.

We had lunch out at Dickies, then I dropped her off and went and picked up the rest of the 2x4's that I need, and another piece of plywood.

She gave me K's new address, so I'll mail that letter off tomorrow.

I went by Harbor Freight and picked up a set of small screwdrivers: what I needed specifically was a Torx T6, so that I could get the hard drive out of the Mac Book Pro laptop. I started, but couldn't proceed without it, but now I can finish up tomorrow.

For future reference, the software I am using to clone the Mac Book is the free version of Super Duper, by Shirt Pocket. It's excellent, I recommend it. There was a version of Acronis included with the hard drive purchase from Crucial, but it seems to be only for Windows.

The cable I used is an Anker brand USB3-to-SATA, and it seems quite spiffy. It took hours to move everything from the internal spinning platter to the SSD, but the laptop then booted from the external version (hit the option key when the MBP chimes on startup) just fine, indeed, maybe even a little faster than the internal drive! We'll know soon.

Interestingly enough, while reading up on the new hard drive in reviews I ran across a comment by someone who mentioned they'd increased their ram to 16GB. I was surprised (as were other readers) since Apple claims 8GB is the max, but apparently that was just a marketing move by Apple to push sales of their more expensive 15" Mac Book Pro. Had I known I would have tried that first, since I regularly hit 6.5 to 7+ GB with Xcode, Simulator, and Safari running at the same time. Add in Gimp and it's swapping to disk. And the new OSX uses a solid 250MB more than the old one even when nothings happening - I guess it's Spectre/Meltdown preventative changes to the code and all for the good, but RAM is getting precious.

The tax lady called back, and we discussed things. Fortunately I had already sent her the documents she needed, as the Mac was not operational. But it sounds like I'm going to have to pay back some of the health care premiums - all the house sales to help buy this place jacked my income up, via capital gains, so it can't really be helped.

Book #17 will be Oregairu, Volume 5, by Wataru Watari.

Book #18 will be Oregairu, Volume 6, by Waturu Watari. I actually read fan translations of these, as Yen Press is very slow in releasing, but they follow fairly closely to the anime from a couple of years ago. The novels are a bit darker than the animation, with more Japanese style ambiguity.

Apparently a new volume has been released this year, after a very long hiatus (years), but there aren't any translations anywhere (even by fans) yet.

My brother mentioned he is flying first class on a 737 to Connecticut. Hmmph. I offered to send him some light reading, copies of the current Airworthiness Directives for 737's (lots of wing and fuselage crack advisories) but he declined.

Tuesday 15 May 2018

Tuesday - It has cooled off, but the winds are back.

I did a 3.3 mile walk in the morning, about 9am. The start time is late enough that my muscles aren't tight, early enough it isn't too hot. But I needed my bandanna, nonetheless. So far I haven't needed that #4 iron I've been carrying.

I'd left the trash bins by the southwest fence, and I noticed on walking back that the wind loading was enough to bend the conduit the posts are made out of. I am supposed to kennel my brothers dog for a few days next week, I'll have to fix that. Also get some shelter out there. The old bench from the garage could be re-purposed as a dog house I think.

I worked a bit on the new bench in the garage, cutting the legs to the correct height and so on. I ran out of lumber to do the lower shelves, so I need to make another run to the store.

Starting the second season of Stranger Things...

Fiddled with the scope a bit, got the eyepiece adapter working again. The eyepieces themselves are filthy, so I'll have to clean them.

Monday 14 May 2018

Monday - Temperatures were just below 80F, some wind in the high teens. Not bad.

Spent the morning looking at some tax things, talked to Tim about it, tried calling my tax people without success. I'm a bit disappointed in them. The big problem is my own, and really wasn't their fault, but they aren't helping.

I planted some of the wheat grass seed last week, it's already about two inches tall. The cats will be happy I think.

Working on the app in the afternoon.

Sunday 13 May 2018

Sunday - "Happy Mothers Day!" It's twenty years now since I could say that in person - make sure to tell them you love them if you still have them around!

Happy Mothers Day Mom!

A nice day, not particularly windy.

I woke up about 4am yesterday or the day before, to a waning crescent moon rising in the east. The new moon is next week I would think. I need to find out what's wrong with the telescope. It may just be that multi-eyepiece adapter and not the whole scope. Jupiter is high and bright in the sky, just pass opposition. They say the Great Red Spot is getting smaller, it could disappear any decade (or century) now...

I really need to get blinds on that window, the sunshine in the morning is also waking me up early these days.

Apropos of solar angles and timing, I looked up how far north the sun rises and sets. It's approximately equal to the tilt of the earth divided by the cosine of your latitude, so 23.5 / (cos 34) = 29.5 degrees north of due west. So if I was to put a pergola or sun blocking wall out front for the office and bedroom windows, it would need to block sun from a maximum about 30 degrees north of west, on June 21st.

I did go grocery shopping in the morning, as I was out of a lot of stuff.

I wrote another letter to K, away at OCS, but he's changed addresses again, so I need to get that from his mother next week sometime.

Again, trying not to do a lot around the house.

Book #16 was The Lawdog Files, by D. Lawdog and Larry Correia. This is a collection of short stories (mostly true according to the author) of a sheriff's officer's experiences in Bugscuffle, Texas. Obviously the name has been changed to protect the innocent (and guilty). Fun, if occasionally a bit sad.

I did go over for dinner with my neighbor A. I'd picked up some pie and stuff as a gift in the morning. Walking over I saw when looked like (to me and to others) the tracks of a sidewinder snake in the dirt road. And a big one! I knew we had Mojave Greens, but was surprised to learn that sidewinders are also native to the Antelope Valley.

We watched the final episode of Season 1 of Stranger Things. Fun.

Picture of the Week

April greenery

In April the ground was green and flowered in the yard,
but it wasn't grass but rather stickers and burrs -
getting ready for the summer!

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