WEEK 39 2014
Last
Week-
Sun-
Mon- Tue- Wed-
Thur-
Fri- Sat-
Next
Week
Picture of the Week
MAIN
PAGE
First Post,
17 March 2002
|
Twelve
Years Ago, This Week 2002 |
Eleven
Years
Ago, This Week, 2003 |
Ten Years
Ago, this
week, 2004 |
Nine Years
Ago, this
week, 2005 |
Eight Years
Ago, This Week, 2006
|
Seven Years
Ago, This Week, 2007
|
Six Years
Ago, This Week, 2008
|
Five Years
Ago, This Week, 2009
|
Four Years
Ago,
This Week, 2010
|
Three Years
Ago,
This Week,
2011
|
Two Years
Ago,
This Week,
2012 |
One Year
Ago,
This Week,
2013 |
Saturday 27 September
2014
Saturday - A busy morning. First I gave
all the shelves another coat of varnish, on the other side. Since you
can't really see that upper sides for most of them it may seem a bit
pointless, but the first coat was so thin that the varnish was still a
bit porous, this seals things. And it didn't take much. I'm tempted to
do a third coat, for wear and abrasion resistance, but am reserving the
rest of the can for the upright side, which will require about 16SF of
coverage, done twice, so 32SF.
After that I can assemble things and reclaim my garage!
Then
I mowed the front and back yards, did the dishes, and some other
chores. By lunchtime I was ready to head out and have a hearty Thai
meal with friends.
In the afternoon I worked on the app, working
out a way to highlight things during a gesture pass, sort of a
home-rolled "hover" to hint to students where the drop area is. I think
I have it, a delegate callback thing again, and it doesn't, so far,
seem to interfere with the start/end of gesture itself.
In the evening I went over and watched Season 7 of The Big Bang Theory with friends.
Book #42 was The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis. This ends the series, with the destruction (and re-creation) of Narnia,
and the death (and resurrection) of the various (good) characters.
Friday
- Book #41 was The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis.
I
think that I mentioned taking Suzy's old and shredded white ribbon away
(choking/eating hazard) and replacing it with a new scrap of red
ribbon. It excited her so much that I ended up taking that one away
again as well for a couple of days, before returning it. She treats it
much like Phoebe treated his treasured boa, carrying it about in her
mouth, wanting me to play with it and her. After a few days she has
calmed down, but it's still her favorite item in the house.
I'll
hear a sound and look over to see her crouched on the carpet or coffee
table, ribbon between her paws, looking at me wistfully.
I
varnished shelves in the morning, six of them. Hopefully another coat
will improve their appearances. Indeed, I'd put the thinnest coat I
could apply on (to avoid runs), so maybe that's part of the problem.
Fortunately this stuff covers well on the second application, I
probably used 4 ounces to cover 24 square feet today. I was concerned
that there wouldn't be enough for the shelf side, but it seems like
I'll have enough.
Update: I guess they're OK, looking at them in the evening. Not perfect, or even good, but "good enough".
S
called, but as she was pretty busy, and I was pretty busy, and the
computer lab was only open for a couple of hours anyway: we blew off
lab. I'll have to get more hours next week I guess, but I can do the
assignment at home this weekend.
Thursday 25 September
2014
Thursday
- Book #40 was The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,
by C.S. Lewis. I had forgotten all of the various adventures prior to
them reaching the end of the world, and even the details of
Reepicheep's departure, though I'd remembered he'd gone on alone (to
Aslan's country).
I assembled the roto-rooter unit with A,
not much to do there actually, and we did a brief test on my line to
check out the motor and the power feed. I also cut a piece of scrap
flat bar, 1/4" x 2" x 8"long, to use as a tool to open flush-height
cleanouts, such as the kind you find in garage's like mine.
I'm
a bit behind in bonehead computer graphics at school, so I again tried the
old XP box that overheated last week and: success. I guess it just
shutdown then via a thermal switch. I can put Photoshop on it and take
the side off and use an extra fan to cool it I guess. I still need lab
hours, and have agreed to go over to the school with S tomorrow, when
it is (briefly) open.
I also checked and Gimp will export a Photoshop (.psd) file, so I think I'm OK.
I
also started up on the shelves again, getting all of them in one place
and cleaning them, polishing with steel wool, cleaning again, and
getting them ready for varnishing again. I'm rather unhappy on the
quality of my varnish work, it's kind of spotty, with runs here and
there. I'm not usually so bad, but this stuff is neither fish nor fowl,
both lacquer and clean overlay mixed up. And, as I keep reminding
myself, it's just a garage shelf!
Wednesday 24 September
2014
Wednesday - Book #39 was Prince Caspian,
by C.S. Lewis. I'd forgotten how short these books were, but I was
probably in my teens or early twenties when I last read them.
I
happened to read this on the Kindle, and it had the original color
illustrations, which, outside of texts, I don't think I've seen done in
an ebook.
Riley seemed a bit better, but not exactly bouncy.
S
had called on Tuesday night and asked if I'd go with her to look at a
power drain cleaner at Harbor Freight in the morning. She's been
battling plumbing issues at her properties, mostly sewer related, and
those mostly tree root related, and the expense this year alone would
easily pay for a unit. So we went over and looked at them. The one in
the ad was fine, 1/2" and 50', but for more money you could get one
with a power feed and a wheeled cart, and I suggested she get that one.
The plan is for a handyman to do her four properties up here several
times a year, and then to take it down to San Diego and use it at her
mother's property. So ease of use was a priority and I think the $100
extra would be worth it.
We dropped it off at my place. Tomorrow
the handyman will come by, we'll assemble it, try it out on my lines
(plastic and in good shape), then he'll start on S's lines.
I reiterated my suggestion that a free video inspection of her lines might be worth doing.
I
worked on the app in the afternoon, updating the prompts and animating
them. S had some more suggestions for user feedback - highlighting the
drop frames when the user is hovering over them, so that's another
animation and logic set to deal with. Gestures return their location in
views, and I could use the location to highlight a frame with a
semi-transparent layer, but I'm not sure if I can communicate between
the gesture method in the stamp object and the main screen. Collection
Views highlight automatically, so possibly I could put one of those in
place of my own home-rolled UIView collection. Something to think about
anyway...
Tuesday 23 September
2014
Tuesday
- Hot, but not crazy hot. A nice day, really.
In the morning I made an afternoon appointment at the vet for Riley. He
was still being needy, and off his feed, so it was time. The Vet didn't
find any obstructions in his bowels by palpitating, but gave him several shots, and
some new vitamin drops for me to give him. They also took some blood for tests, and
I'll get the results in a day or two. He didn't seem remarkably
improved in the evening.
Other than that, kind of a wasted day. Vacuuming & housework in
the morning, some app work, a visit to the vets, then a bit of reading
in the evening.
For
some reason the cats, rather than relaxing in the afternoon, have taken
to coming into the office and bothering me. What's that about? I may
have to reinstall the cat proof door addition I had a few months ago.
Book #37 was
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Book #38 was The
Horse and His Boy, both by C.S. Lewis. I'd read the first,
decades ago, but not (I think) the second.
It's Week #39 and I'm
behind in my reading (four weeks of no new books!) - I leave it
to the reader's imagination to guess what I'm reading next (hint: it was recently made into a movie).
Monday
- Up in the morning, and off to class. I hadn't started one of the
five(!) assignments, and of course that's the one the instructor wanted
to review. S had reminded me by text, but I didn't understand which
assignment she meant. Well, so it goes I guess.
The
instructor gave a decent lecture on color, and how the old Goethe
Color Wheel that we are all taught in school is WRONG, and how Young's
Color Wheel is CORRECT. Interesting. He also discussed additive and
subtractive color. Wish he'd started lecturing a few weeks ago... Then
he spoiled things by showing a video on the history and power of
advertising in America, post WWII. Interesting, but not particularly
relevant to the class IMO.
The
afternoon, despite modest efforts to work on the app, was taken up by
this, that, and the other thing. Well, I was pretty tired, so no big
deal.
Riley seems a bit
under the weather, so I might just take him to the vet tomorrow. He's
licking his lips, which generally means he's dehydrated, and was
standing by the litter box meowing, which generally means constipated
(bad in an old cat). He was also nuzzling me for affection. I
was
only gone two days!
Sunday
- Out at Red
Rock Canyon State Park, Ricardo Campground, Friday evening,
and
back mid-day Sunday.
As I had mentioned, we were down to two scouts, but still needed just
two adults. The Scouts operate on a buddy system, no scout is ever
alone with just one adult. If I had ducked out there would have been no
trip...
I had a great time. I didn't have to drive, T ferried me to/from the
pickup
point and Mr. B did the driving.
We arrived at the campground just a bit after local sunset on Friday
and had plenty of light for setting up tents. The camp sites are
located along the base of some eroded sandstone bluffs, and we picked
one relatively near water and outhouses, but not too near, and not
where any latecomers would shine headlights on us.
It turned out that the tent Kirk loaned me was the wrong tent - it was
huge, a
generously sized four man tent! Well, whatever, I wasn't
carrying it anywhere and the Scouts did most of the setup. We had a
sack dinner, then did some star gazing (the skys were so dark that the
skies
were amazing!) then hit the sleeping bags.
Saturday morning I got up before sunrise and took some photographs of
the morning sun on the bluffs.
Mr.
B, thankfully, had the smarts and experience to bring coffee, so we
sipped that and talked until the scouts arose a bit later. The
deal is that they do the labor and make the menu, so they made
breakfast for everyone - potato's and sausage's. It took a while, which
made it all the more tasty.
After everyone was
awake and fed we went off for a nice day hike up in the hills behind
the
campsite. It's a pretty desolate view from up there - rocks and scrub,
and the occasional hawk.
Around lunchtime we headed back, and the scouts rustled up
lunch for everyone, then we all washed up and found shade to huddle in
for the afternoon. It was hot, generally, but nice in the shade of the
rocks.
There were clouds in the east, that alternately advanced and retreated
towards us. At one point in early evening we had a very light sprinkle,
just a few drops, and everyone put up their rain flys and made sure
everything was staked down.
As evening fell we had an interesting sight - clouds and lightning to
the North and East, and stars overhead. I took some timed exposures
and caught some of the lightning strikes.
Eventually we all went to
bed, expecting a desert deluge at some point, but it never happened.
In the morning we arose, put up our gear, policed the site and local
area, and headed back to Lancaster, arriving a bit before noon. It was
a great trip.
