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WEEK 30 2013

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First Post, 17 March 2002

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Saturday 27 July 2013

Saturday - Incredibly humid and hot. Really oppressive.

Of course this was the day I picked to finish putting up the tomato bed trellis structures, and the shade cloth. I thought it might take two hours, it took nearly six. And about two hours to recuperate - even ice water and a cold shower I was still kind of heat struck and just lay on the floor under the a/c for an hour. Sadly it's not really done - it's working, but the dimensions were wrong for the second trellis and a lot of the wood is not yet painted. The old tomato bed, that the uprights bolt too, is rotted out so it will all have to come apart this winter. Still, nice to get it done.

There was a pinhole leak in the 1/4" plastic line to the swamp cooler near the valve, so I cut off that piece and reattached things. Like an idiot I didn't check the entire line, and just happened to feel a little spray on my leg from another pinhole leak while working on the trellis. I didn't have time to fix it, but when I get back in town I'll replace the whole length. I've been meaning to bury conduit for running the flex line through anyway, so it's a good chance. I've given up on copper after the freeze changed the nominal dimensions of the line a few years ago.

Down to Ventura tomorrow, doing some field work out towards Ojai for the big underground repair job coming up.

I'll finish this up, then go and pack.

I'd drive down tonight, but Saturday nights at the marina in summer are ruined by the noise from the bars just across the water, just being probably 1000' or so 790'. The guy who invented the electric amplifier has a lot to answer for.

Friday 26 July 2013

Friday - Still working on the EDR stuff. Mostly done at this point. One issue was a bug with the FileSystemObject. Turns out that it is broken on WinXP. Even after three service packs and innumerable other updates.

I can't recall what the client is running - it used to be XP but they may have upgraded to Vista or Win7 by now. It was too late to call when I figured out what the error was. They want to change the file name format in the new version, and I was going to list the excel files and parse them for the version, to maintain backwards compatibility. The new version would have a hyphen in the fourth place, the older version a hyphen in the third place. But patching the Microsoft bug means editing the registry, and I don't have that kind of access on their system.

Miserably hot. Another little rainstorm, for about ten minutes. The grass will like it. Mowed the back yard mid morning.

I'll probably head down to Ventura tomorrow or Sunday morning for work. Looks like things are picking up. I need to take a confined space training course and get the certificate. You can do it on line, cheaply, now.

Talked to Tim. It's his daughter's birthday, they are going out for laser tag tonight, sounds like fun! I sent her a card with a little bit of cash in it, and also sent Tim a check for the air conditioner, since we haven't had a chance to meet up and he might not be in Ventura to pick it up for a couple of weeks.

I had to look up his address, and the Droid did me dirt again. There are now six separate contacts for him, many blank, none with the street address that I laboriously put in last Christmas. I hate that thing.

S is down to Ventura to visit her mom. I guess there is a new lawyer to deal with the various estate issues, and she texted that he seemed "appropriately bloodthirsty". Heh. Well, hopefully he can salvage the situation for A wrt to the stepchildren, who seem truly nasty bits of work.

You know that nice new place in Cayucos I was going on about last week? S got a letter saying that it was being sold in December, and would be unavailable next year. Talking about stuff like that always jinxes you.... They did include a flyer with a couple of alternatives.

Thursday 25 July 2013

Thursday - Working away on coding up the EDR stuff. Not much to say there. I've been piddling away at is, as time permits, but with other work maybe coming up it's time to clear the decks and finish things. Fortunately I'm a verbose commenter, because it's kind of spaghetti code - VbScript isn't a very structured language and I had just enough hours to get it working, not to make it pretty....

Hot, with a little sprinkle around sunset, which was nice. There was one yesterday too. Mowed and edged and weed whacked the front yard, it looks a lot better. The usual suspects for dry spots are back.

Book #36 was The Red Plague Affair, by Lilith Saintcrow. This is the successor to #35, The Iron Wyrm Affair, another mystery set in an alternate London with steampunk and magic.

Wednesday 24 July 2013

Wednesday - Not much to say. Still hot and humid. No word from the mortgage people. But the costs are creeping up. I doubt I'll be willing to spend $6k to save $200 a month, so the whole thing may not come to any fruition.

Got a call from Tim, saying the boss was wondering where I was. Right here. Haven't heard anything from him in a week, so I'll call tomorrow.

Keeping up with the reading. Book #35 was again kind of junky scifi, steampunk, The Iron Wyrm Affair, by Lilith Saintcrow (I suspect a nom de plume there...).

Which brings us up to this for the year:

#1 Domes of Fire (Tamuli Book #1) #2 The Shining Ones (Tamuli Book #2) #3 The Hidden City (Tamuli, Book #3) #4 The Magistrates of Hell #5 The Snitch, Houdini and Me	#6 Into Uncharted Seas #7 Hide Me Among the Graves #8 The Legion of Time #9 Captain Vorpatril's Alliance #10 The Magicians Nephew
#11 Midst Toil and Tribulation #12 The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors #13 Prey #14 Darkship Thieves #15 Darkship Renegades	#16 Sabriel #17 Lirael #18 Abhorsen #19 Count to a Trillion #20 The Hermetic Millennia
#21 Orphans of Chaos #22 Fugitives of Chaos #23 Titans of Chaos #24 The Golden Ticket #25 The Last Guardian of Everness	#26 Howl's Moving Castle #27 On The Razor's Edge #28 Abaddon's Gate #29 The Mists of Everness #30 Hellhole Awakening
#31 On Whale Island #32 Retreat and Adapt #33 Antiagon Fire #34 The Alecto Initiative #35 The Iron Wyrm Affair	#36 The Red Plague Affair

Tuesday 23 July 2013

Tuesday - Hot and humid. I really need to go down to Ventura and get the new-to-me mechanical unit. The current 5000BTU unit can't quite keep up with the afternoon heat. The new one is 10K or 12K, which should be fine.

Working on the app a bit. I've pretty much broken the logic functionality and need to restore that.

Book #34 would have been Bowl of Heaven, by Niven and Benford ... but I just couldn't get into it. So it will go back to the library mostly unread.

Instead we have as #34 The Alecto Initiative, by J.L. Hunter. Eh.

Monday 22 July 2013

Monday - So, website access is back, without any explanation from the hosting company except a vague comment about the firewall. Well, I don't really care that much. Some sort of glitch probably, no big deal. Not too many people look at this blog I suppose.

While at the library the other day, returning things, the librarian suggested that if a book is refused renewal because it's on hold, that I keep on trying, every day until it's due or the renewal goes through. There is apparently a pretty good chance of a requested book being sent from another branch, at which point the hold will go away and you can renew. I've a book on Access 2007 due tomorrow and am trying this, though so far I haven't had any luck despite attempts the last several days. It's not that big a deal, but it'd be nice to not have to drive across town.

So "Keep Trying" is a strategy for dealing with libraries, as well as the rest of life.

Hot and muggy. The little mechanical a/c unit doesn't seem to have a drain, which is odd, but good because it'd be draining inside the house... Condensation seems to be building up in it, down in the pan, but the fan just blows it outdoors. I was able to run it in the morning to early afternoon, and then the swamp cooler when the humidity dropped, then back to mechanical alone when the humidity picked up and we had our early evening showers, then back to swamp at 10:00 when I went upstairs to bed.

Book #33 was Antiagon Fire, by L.E. Modesitt. Eh. Weak and derivative, even by the formulaic standards I usually apply to his books.

Sunday 21 July 2013

Sunday - Still getting a "server not found" error. I left a message with the hosting company. It's possible it's on the DNS side too, I suppose.

It's getting very humid. There is a bunch of moist air coming up from the south-east, and even a chance of thundershowers. I have the little mechanical a/c running in the downstairs family room window to take the edge off things. At 65% humidity it isn't worth turning the swamp cooler on.

Went and visited with friends for dinner. It was pasta night, and we had some extruders and a little ravioli maker. Both of the extruders broke, but the ravioli was nice. It's always fun to visit with L&E and their three boys. Polite, intelligent, friendly and smart: well brought up teenage boys...

I also spent some time on the tomato plants. A couple were dead - mites, and some of the others looked bad. So there was poison spray, plus poison granules, plus fertilizer, plus mite oil to be applied, at intervals during the day. I did pick off a lot of small cherry tomato's beforehand, and a couple of larger ripe tomato's, but it's going to be a few days until the poisons (sulfur, really) wears off the plants and the fruit is safe to eat.

No work on the app and no work on the pavers :-(

Picture of the Week

Photo Notes: Jolly Roger the Bubble Pirate!

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