Saturday - Mowed the lawns in the
morning, lunch with friends, napped, went afternoon car shopping with
other friends, had a very late dinner with them, and home about 10pm or
so. A long day.
Friday
11 July2014
Friday
- Still very hot. Doing various chores in the morning.
Late
morning I went over to watch S work with one of her clients on the iPad
(with the guardians permission and presence). It was interesting. A lot
of the faults and issues with iPad apps that she had told me about, but
that I hadn't yet seen in person, were readily demonstrated!
Some
friends were going out of town so I watched their dog, Samantha, for
the afternoon and early evening, when they came by and picked her up
again. She's sweet, and after five or six hours the kittens were
downstairs and lurking outside her little travel cage. When I let her
out, on her leash, they retreated to the stairs.
Riley didn't particularly care, in fifteen years he has seen any number of dogs come and go....
The cage is mostly to protect Sammy from the cats needle sharp claws...
One
of the things mentioned the in Mobile Learning For All book was iBooks,
because they support a variety of assitive technologies. I needed to
download a book, just to try it out, so I downloaded the manual for "Swift",
the new programming language for iOS, which might replace Objectionable
C. I glanced at it, and maybe it is better. I'll try to research a bit,
but I don't plan to change horses in midstream. But perhaps on the
other side...
Book #32, which I actually read over vacation, was A Sword Into Darkness,
by Thomas Mays. This was again an almost amateur effort, redeemed by
(except for the propulsion system) some space ship design and
enthusiasm.
It's answer to the Fermi Paradox is of the "there are a lot of species, and those that incautiously make their presence known (broadcast radio!) get whacked"
classification. And it has an interesting reason for while aliens might
come in person, rather that just send a robot armada or relativistic
speed world killing asteroid.
Anyway, easy mind candy.
It's been warm, but the swamp cooler is working admirably.
An
old client called with a question about the EDR system I wrote a while
back, and I was able (after looking at it for a bit) to answer her
question. No bug, just a protocol item for adding a new equipment entry.
Wednesday 9 July2014
Wednesday - Working away on things.
Lots of chores and tasks to do after a long vacation - I should have
done them earlier in the week, but...
I did get a bit of work done on the app, but mostly just read about assistive stuff. S bought a book on iPads for people with special needs, so I'm working my way through it...
The
good news is that the great and glorious State of California says that
the corporate business name we chose is available to us.
Still
playing Abble-Dabble with friends, but the poor selection of letters is
getting to me. Far more than chance I seem to get all vowels - this
occurs only rarely in Scrabble but virtually every game in AD. S says
she seems to get mostly consonants, which makes sense if I'm getting
all the vowels.
Tuesday 8 July June2014
Tuesday
- Feeling better. Some energy is back and I'm working on things.
I just
missed the garbage man this morning, I was actually walking to the door
to go put out the can when the pickup truck drove by. Bah. On the other
hand, I wasn't home last week so there shouldn't be much in there,
apart from some used kitty litter.
My
brother in Martinez sent me a picture of the old house, with a flag out. He
says the flag Dad used to display had gotten too threadbare, so this is
a newer one.
It looks OK. Maybe the eaves could use some paint.
Riley
might be a bit dehydrated, so he's getting 5cc of water with his
vitamins, morning and night. He isn't happy, but that's just the way it
is. When he starts licking his lips a lot I now know there's a problem.
He's also wandering around, "meowling" ( a cross between a meow and a
yowl ), so if that persists I'll take him into the vet.
[He does this every single night when I go upstairs to bed, annoying enough in itself, but this was during the day.]
Our
Bluetooth switch transmitter from RJ Cooper arrived, and some switches
from another vendor, so I'm fiddling around with it. The documentation
is not too well done - the information is (mostly) there but you kind
of have to dig and jump around for it. I am not, for instance, sanguine
that the internal battery is charged. You connect it via a USB-mini
cable to an iPad USB transformer, but should the transceiver be ON or
OFF when you do that? Will it charge while operating in Bluetooth mode?
I've emailed them about that.
So
far I've been able to make the basic switch option work, which enters a
"space", which can be used to move between options in an App. I haven't
gotten the "enter" option to work just yet. Apparently this emulated
the "Volume UP" on the iPAD, when paired, but there doesn't seem to be
any way to do a "Volume DOWN".
S says there are reviews of switch assisted apps on Pinterest, which is interesting. I'll have to see what's there.
Monday 7 July 2014
Monday
- Back in town, but pretty darn tired. I tried to do things, with limited success.
Sunday 6 July2014
Sunday
- Enjoying a last walk the beach. I put a band aid on the now shrunken
blister and went for stroll with my friends, walking the dogs. Grey and
foggy, just the way a beach should be in the morning.
Then
it was back to the rental and packing the cars. This went pretty well,
we were actually done by the 10:00am deadline. Partly it was because we
had pre-packed a lot of personal stuff the night before, partly because
we aren't taking quite as much stuff, partly because with two largish
vehicles it's easier to load things.
Kirk volunteered to drive
the first leg of the trip home - who am I to argue. We took the 41 to
Atascadero, then the 46 to the I-5 where we swapped, and then I drove
the rest of the way home, via the 46 to the 99 to the 58 to the 14.
My
a/c in the Explorer may have an issue: there isn't much air coming
through the vents. I think the fan isn't working, rather than a major
compressor or freon issue. I'd noticed last year that I had to set it
to "2" to get the fan to push through a reasonable amount of air, now
it's "3" or "4" and that is, apparently, only working sometimes. I'd
suspect a blockage, but it's intermittent, which seems more like a fan
motor issue. It's not a huge expense, but in my experience it's a PITA
to take apart stuff under a car console.
Home about 4-ish.
It was hot, 101F, in Lancaster, but my house was a cool 78F inside - the new-to-me swamp cooler is working well.
The cats were happy - but not ecstatic - to see me, which is exactly what I want to see. T and C took really good care of them!
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: The "pelican rocks" in Cayucos, 2014.
