sailing the NorSea


x

WEEK 40 2012

Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week

Picture of the Week

MAIN PAGE

Oxnard  Weather Underground
Click for Oxnard, California Forecast
Lancaster Weather Underground
Click for Lancaster, California Forecast
Martinez WeatherUnderground
Click for Buchanan, California Forecast

First Post, 17 March 2002
Ten Years Ago, This Week, 2002 Nine Years Ago, This Week, 2003 Eight Years Ago, this week, 2004 Seven Years Ago, this week, 2005 Six Years Ago, This Week, 2006
Five Years Ago, This Week, 2007
Four Years Ago, This Week, 2008
Three Years Ago, This Week, 2009
Two Years Ago, This Week, 2010
One Year Ago,
This Week,
2011






Saturday 6 October 2012
Saturday - I started the day with making a run to the toxic waste dropoff in Palmdale. Two old PC's, one old laptop, two old printers, a small box of old batteries and the supposedly eco-friendly compact fluorescents, and some motor oil. And the last of my UPS units, which was almost too hot to touch when I was cleaning up - clearly at the end of its battery life. It didn't even beep when I unplugged it, so not only a fire hazard but not functioning!

Then I returned an overdue library book. Went by Harbor Freight, Home Depot, Walmart, and Vons to buy some stuff. I need to get the Explorer's oil changed and the tires rotated, but ran out of time for that.

Then I stopped and picked up a bed frame stand from a friend, and dragged another out of the attic, put the new beds on them. So now I have the old queen still in the master bedroom, the new queen in the south bedroom, and the two twins in the den. So when my friends visit later this month everyone will have a bed, and the kids will share a bath with their parents.

I think last time they visited that the kids ended up in bed with Mom, and Dad ended up on the couch downstairs, but so it goes :-)

After the visit I'll get rid of the old queen bed - like, I said, eighteen years old last month and used when I got it. And maybe the old twin, it's about the same age I think, another gift from friends when I was just moving into this place. I almost didn't get a new one, but it's nice when I have company, and since it was half off with the purchase of the new queen-sized bed, why not?

And there are more chores. But the list is definitely starting to get shorter.



It wasn't on the list, but I finally took the time to program the TIVO remote to run the Vizio Power/Volume/Mute features. Which took all of a minute...

I've been too tired to even watch TV, but I need to clear my queue before the fall season starts. I noticed that Warehouse 13 wasn't in the new TIVO, so I added it. I may have missed some episodes, I don't think it's on the classical schedule.

Friday 5 October 2012
Friday - It's good to be home.

I got up and immediately started cleaning and picking up. And of course the furniture delivery happened early - before 1:00pm, rather than the 2:45-5:45 window they'd given me. I accepted the stuff, had them leave it in the hallway upstairs, and went back to cleaning and throwing stuff out. By late evening I was able to at least sleep on the new twin bed, but it was a pain getting things re-arranged even for that.

Essentially it's been, oh, three or four years since a thorough cleaning/tossing was done. Probably just before my Dad passed away, as a lot of his stuff, books and tapes, were still in boxes. I deleted enough of my own old stuff to be able to shelve (most) of those.

So now stuff to be junked is piling up in the side yard, as the trash can. I worked until 9:00pm on this stuff.

It's good to be home. No, really, it is.



x
x

Thursday 4 October 2012

Thursday - OTR. Another pretty long day.

I work up to the news that I'd made a girl scout cry. Really. There was a phone message from her dad.

I'd ordered some stuff from her and her sister on Wednesday night, except that due to their age and my age, and trying to listen/order over the phone from an incredibly noisy restaurant (Joe's in Santa Barbara, great food but incredibly obnoxious tv speakers over the booth - even complaining to the maitre d' didn't help.) only one sister got an order. Sheesh. I was willing to call and re-order, but the parents said that it was a character-building experience for her.

Hmmm. I remember "character building" experiences. Not among my favorite memories. I can't go against her parents desires, but I'll make sure to do something special for her at Christmas.

Her parents will just have to deal with explaining a pony to the HOA.



About 9:00 to 7:00, then I headed home to Lancaster.

Again, specs and grade/gps calculations. It was annoying to discover that I'd actually forgotten to take one important point, and that another didn't show up in the data, even though I can clearly remember taking the point. Well, that happens sometimes with this stuff, perfection eludes you...

And of course trying to rewrite the Specifications and forcing Word into numbering and bulleting the way I want, rather than the way it wants to do it, was as painful and frustrating as always.



It's interesting, driving home from Santa Barbara last night there was this light flickering against the clouds (marine layer), reminiscent of Mt. Doom in Lord of the Ring. But rather than the demonic fires of a fallen angel's forge it was just flare gas from the oil fields in the hills above the Ventura River.

Wednesday 3 October 2012

Wednesday  - OTR. Working on the specs for one job out in Thousand Oaks, and on the repair calcs for that job down in Murrieta as well.



Dave kindly asked me out to dinner with his family, and we had a nice meal at Joe's in Santa Barbara, and strolled about State Street for an hour or so.



The boat looks OK. I haven't gotten a chance to really get down and work on her as I'd planned, let alone do some sailing, but I'm resigned to that not happening until November now. So it goes.



California is still running in the red. There is a huge tax increase on the ballot in November, and Sacramento just passed a law that all business owners with four employee's or more must have a 401k plan - and set it up so that it's easy to put them into the (bankrupt) state pension system and hard to put into a (solvent) fund. Way to drive even more business out of the state!

One reason California is bankrupt - ridiculous spending - isn't addressed. We all hear about things like a half billion dollar high school, and ten billion dollar "trains to nowhere", but what about what should be a simple roadside stop bathroom:

x

The square footage of the buildings at this "rest stop" on the 101 probably exceed the size of my home.

Tuesday 2 October 2012
Tuesday - So, another day of work about the house. With new beds coming in, Friday, it was (past) time to start cleaning upstairs. It's funny how one gets used to things (dirt, clutter and debris), and then your eyes are opened by change. I worked all day on that stuff, filled the trash can, and am still not really ready for Friday. The store called and asked if they could deliver Thursday - Hah! Not a chance.

Because, you know, I'm down to Ventura tomorrow and at least part of Thursday. All day Thursday if experience is any guide, but I'll try to get out in early afternoon if I can.

Monday 1 October 2012

Monday - It would have been my Mom's 88th today.



It's strange, when I went downstairs the house had a strong scent of  roses. I went outside, it smelled normal. I checked the roses in front - nothing happening there. As I said, strange.



My friend, the one who survived Carmageddon (he emailed to say it went well,, by the way, rather less traffic than usual) was at a birthday for a 2-year old on Sunday, though the birthday was actually today, so it seems that little S and my Mom share a b-day.



I decided to sand the french doors and paint them, before winter comes. I had considered varnish, but they're in pretty bad shape. Paint will be OK. It was Monday all morning long though, with everything I attempted taking twice or thrice as long as it should. Still I got the east door off and sanded. I was going to fill the various holes and cracks with wood putty, but realized the stuff I had on hand was interior, not exterior.

"No problem!" I think to myself, and go out to the car and get the tube of stuff I bought for the boat a week ago.

Which also says "Interior use only". Oops. By this time it was nearly noon, and about 100F, so I put the door back on it hinges so I could run the A/C. I'll finish up later in the week I guess.



For my birthday present I bought a new bed for the master bedroom. I've had the current one for 18 years, and it was used when I got it. About time I think, though I could have gotten a nice radar set for the boat for the same price.

Sunday  30 September 2012
Sunday - Working around the house and yard mostly. The garbage can is almost full again, lots of debris from my den. I have visitors in a few weeks, so it was a good excuse/reason to spend a few hours tossing stuff. It sure looks better empty, though I stuck a lot in the closet.



Riley has turned into quite the grasshopper hunter. He treats them like they were mice, capturing them, letting them go, catching them again. Sometimes they surprise him, by flying away rather than the smaller jumps.


Got some good work in on the iOS stuff. It's a bit like jumping in a pool, once you overcome the initial hesitation it's easier to forge ahead. So I'm carefully storyboarding all the windows we need - the actual work view, the splash screen, the setup and record pages. Probably I'll use either popup or split-view view controllers, I haven't decided. Probably whichever is easier to keep track of...


Picture of the Week
A hot air ballon flying over the house, Sept. 2012
Photo Notes: Another hot air balloon, floating over Lancaster.


Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week