WEEK 38 2008
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Saturday 20 September 2008
Saturday
- Apparently the stock market crashed, or nearly so, and today we have a trillion dollar bailout ready to go. Remarkable. I
wish I actually understood what was happening, but there are so many
theories and explanations.
Here is some information. [via Megan McArdle]
For some reason a sentence I once heard keeps coming back to me: "During
the Great Depression the only reason there wasn't mass starvation was
because 90% of Americans lived on family farms and grew their own food,
or had family members that did".
I suppose the number is 1% or less now.
In other news, Bob has arrived, and we are ready to sail tomorrow!
Friday 19 September
2008
Friday
- a nice day, decent weather. And a fairly short day - a piece of
equipment broke, so it was only an 8 hour day. I went down to the boat,
again, looks OK.
I talked to my brother, and he is definitely coming down tomorrow. So
I'll clean up the boat a bit, replace cabinet doors and such, and make
her 'in all respects ready for sea'.
Thursday 18 September
2008
Thursday
- another warm day, bah.
Looks like my brother is coming down this weekend - sailing is on! Weather permitting of course, but it looks like it'll be OK. The cats will have to get by without me this weekend...
Verdict on the foam roller: it actually seems to work. The light was
bad when I looked this evening, but it seemed like a nice, smooth,
run-free coating. Maybe a bit thin (a second coat would fix that). This
interior paint really been bugging me, so it's nice to have something
work properly.
'Course the exterior brightwork is in dismal condition. I'm considering
painting it. I just don't have the time to maintain it, or redo it, and
winter is coming on.
Wednesday 17 September 2008
Wednesday
- I saw a couple of F-18's go over, on approach to Mugu. Due to the
humidity they had some clearly defined vortex's off their wing
tips, neat. I tried to take a picture, but the camera boots so slowly,
several seconds, that they were too distant to bother by the time it
was up, running, and focused. Oh well.
NASA Dryden uses F-18's as chase, I've seen them a lot in flight, but
we don't get the wing tip condensation trails in the low desert
humidity.
Found CD:
Tuesday 16 September 2008
Tuesday
- not much to say, another day of work. They claim I'll get the same
helper from now on...but he tells me he's going on vacation next week.
So it goes.
Warm out, but not brutal. Except for the mosquito's, which were
terrible in the morning.
Driving along the Calleguas Creek levee I happened to look down...and
there was a coyote pacing me. I watched in astonishment for a moment -
I was only going 10mph or so, then braked. I think he was trying to get
away from me, because he then paused for a moment before jumping across
the five or six foot waterway near the bank and disappearing into the
brush covering the dry centerline..
Checked out the boat after work (only 10 hours of work - the GPS
satellites decided to combine against me!) and glared at the
interior paintwork. That enamel is horrible stuff: every brush stroke, every holiday, indeed every
speck of dust shows up like the full moon. Still, it's better than the
dingy off white that was there. I've tried a normal brush and a foam
brush with equally miserable outcome; I think I'll try a roller next,
then switch paints ;-)
Speaking of full moons, yesterday we had an astonishingly bright full moon.
It was still sailing among the clouds when I left for work this
morning. Shortly I'm going to have to start adjusting my morning hours,
6:30 is getting pretty dim. The autumnal equinox is coming up, it's
usually about the 21st of September, and that'll be a rapidly shortening day. I think the rate of change is, in fact, fastest at the equinoxes. Equinoxi? Whatever..
Hmmm. My calendar says the Tuesday 22nd September is 'Equinnoccio de Otoño',
so I was pretty close.
Heh. I inserted an umlaut via a HTML special character code.
Monday 15 September 2008
Monday
- Tax Day.
You think April 15 is bad? Try running your own business - every three months your
quarterly taxes are due!
Today, September 15, is just another day to most people, but
on this day it's the sticky hand of the welfare state I feel
in my
pocket.
And I meant to do them early (it's an estimate, so it's easy, really),
and then I meant to drop them off on my way to work. But I forgot the
drop-off part and had to leave work early (only 9.5hrs or so on the
job) and go to the Camarillo Post Office. I parked, got out, deposited
them (pickup is 5:30, plenty of margin!), and walked back to the car.
Where I noticed that they had a guy, standing in the parking lot,
collecting the stuff, so that people didn't have to get out of their
cars. Nice.
I watched for a while. There were a lot
of people, a constant stream of cars - this is, after all, America and
there are a lot
of small businesses.
I was near a park the other day. A minivan pulled up and a bunch of
kids climbed out, running towards the swings. And past them. "Let's
throw rocks! Yeah!" I heard them say, as they came to the
channel. Heh. One should never underestimate the attraction of mud and
rocks over brightly colored expensive playground equipment.
Sunday 14 September 2008
Sunday
- had Sears replace the battery (sheesh, they were slow!), fueled the
Explorer (20.05 gallons in a 20.0 gallon tank, go figure!), bought some
groceries for the house, and for next week ($100+), and got the new
Neal Stephenson book (in printed form, since there was no sign of it on
CD or tape), got a haircut and a new hose for the boat.
No time to start reading it, too many chores to do.
I lost, badly, this weekend, in football. Incredibly both the Forty
Niners and the Raiders won!
Fifty of my hard earned cents, off to Scrooge McHahn
my loving father.
Acckkk. There is no justice.
But it could have been worse - I could have bet on the Chargers.
