Saturday - After several days of warm
and calm weather I awoke to winds. So I just painted the back doors 'in
place', and didn't add any thinner to the paint like I'd planned. Then
I sat around, did some small chores, and waited for the paint to dry so
I could close the doors.
Some friends came by mid afternoon, their car had a rattle and we had
made plans to look for it. We assumed a loose heat shield, maybe an
alternator bearing or water pump. It actually turned out, after a bit
of searching, that the front right quarter panel was loose. That's an
easy fix, my friend is going to get some new clips and screws and that
should fix it up. Then we went over to their house for dinner, and a
little bit of computer software upgrades, his old Win2k PC needed
network and video drivers, and her Mac needed an OS upgrade to be able
to install the latest version of Xcode.
Then I got home, well after 10:00pm, and crashed.
I guess they capsized one of the new America's Cup catamarans, an
AC-72, on San Francisco Bay. Broke the sail, or 'wing' as they call it
now. Actually, looking at the video they 'pitch-poled' rather than
capsized, i.e. dug the nose in and rotated about that. You can see them floating, nose down, in the picture below, in the shadow the Golden Gate Bridge. Yikes.
A nice scenic spot for a boating adventure...
Friday 19 October
2012
Friday
- I decided to give the French doors another coat of paint on the
outside. First I sanded, and by the time that was done (all those
little ribs between the panes take time!) it was too late to paint. It
was warm and calm, but mid afternoon and the exterior paint is
Rustoleum and takes forever to dry. Tomorrow is soon enough.
Then I battled with iOS some more. I just couldn't get things to work
properly - the iPad canvas would not resize to the correct pixel
dimensions, then the various controls and outlets didn't want to work.
And Xcode kept crashing. Finally I checked the control panel and there
were some updates available - about 2GB worth. After installing those
everything started working properly. Sheesh, hours of frustration gone
through for no reason.
In the early evening I went to a showing of Madagascar III with some
friends. I guess it was a fund raiser for their school. It was fun, a
fast moving and very positive sort of movie. Clearly designed for 3D,
though the projected image wasn't actually. Fun.
One of the things I did earlier in the week, and forgot to mention, was
converting some old State Plane coordinates to WGS-84. There were 54
sets, and unfortunately not in electronic form, so I had to type them
in and check them. Then I had to convert them, and while there are
various tools around it was easiest just to use an online conversion
tool, one set of coordinates at a time, from the NAD27 State Plane
(0405) in survey feet to WGS-84, copying and pasting to an Excel
worksheet. Then I exported that to a cvs file, made a KML file with cvs2kml,
and finally plotted the KML points on Google Earth. The larger objects,
Air-vac's and manholes were usually visible and near the GPS point, 'near' being a couple of feet to 20+, but the smaller objects aren't visible.
Thursday 18 October2012
Thursday
- Still working on the iOS stuff. There is always such a gap between
reading about doing something, then actually trying to do it on your
own. Still, it's coming along.
I did a little house work, but to be honest my hands hurt from that and
the programming, so I mostly just took it easy on that stuff, which was
frustrating since there is a lot to be done.
A little photoshop humor:
Wednesday 17 October 2012
Wednesday - Not much going on, did
some iOS stuff. The book I'm using is out of date, which is annoying
but also good, in the sense that it makes me think more about examples,
why they don't work like the book says they should....
Book #79 was The Galactic Mage,
by John Daulton. Um. Well, it was inexpensive, $0.99 I think. My reading lately has
been of individual chapters of various iOS books. So, odds are I won't
make 100 books this year. Which is also good, because that particular achievement is a sign of way too
much free time...
House stuff is more or less wrapped up. I did put a new latch on the
closet door downstairs. If I get the energy and time I'll repaint a
couple more doors upstairs, which are still the original Navaho White.
Tuesday 16 October 2012
Tuesday
- I rehung those doors.
And no, my old cutoff jeans did not fall down around my ankles while I
was holding the heaviest door (upside down) at arms length and trying
(and failing) to set it on it's hinges. That would be silly.
I miss Sears Weatherbeater paint. The Behr from Home Depot dries slower
and is a lot softer, and is therefore easier to mar during handling. Oh
well.
Monday 15
October 2012
Monday
- Working away on this and that. Still painting doors and working on iOS stuff.
Painting was just a quick coat with a foam roller on some interior doors. After
I finished I realized I should have used TSP to give the door some
'tooth'. Oh well. I'm glad I haven't shredded those boxes of documents,
they make great stands to lay the doors on.
I was trying to pass a touch through an iOS view, and eventually got it
to work. I'm not sure if it's the approved Apple way, because the
documentation is a bit opaque... And, now that I've done it, I'm
actually not sure that I need it ;-) Anyway the bits are coming
together.
Felix Baumgartner did his jump, from about 128,000 feet, yesterday. He
actually went supersonic in free fall. Pretty amazing. I've heard
people just discuss it as a simple 'stunt', and Chuck Yeager (as usual)
was dismissive. I disagree, it was an amazing feat and the act of a
very brave man.
Felix Baumgartner at 128,000 feet.
Sunday 14
September 2012
Sunday
- Hard to believe there are only 10 weeks left in the year!
I'm trying to relax on the weekend, but it was lawn mowing day, so I
did that, front and back. It kind of needs edging, but not badly, it
can wait a couple of weeks.
I also continued cleaning up the garage. I managed to clean it up
enough to get both cars in a few weeks ago, but it was still almost
impassable in the work areas.
So I started tossing stuff. Flying Magazine and Kitplane from the 1990's, and Scientific American's
of the same vintage. The space that I freed up on the shelves could
then be put to use storing stuff that was sitting on the floor!
Generally I made good progress, and the waste bin is full again, and
the wheel barrow in the side yard is full of antique Nasa Tech Briefs and old Circuit Cellars, awaiting their turn in the bin.
I think I'll bite the bullet and take some boxes of old personal
documents in for shredding. I started shredding one box while watching
the 49'ers game, and was still shredding when it (the game) was done
(the Giants won, the 49'ers essentially not showing up). So, three
hours per box, ten boxes to go, I don't think so....
There was an LPAC performance in the evening, Chinese acrobats/martial
artists. It was pretty good - a few moves I hadn't seen before, and
done in the form of a little play, with a novice learning the various
skills and eventually leaving the dojo. There were also a couple of fun
scenes, where they invited audience members up (by show, no-one spoke
English, or even spoke much at all) to try some of the stuff. The
cutest was where they had a stage full of small, mostly enthusiastic
kids, trying stuff.
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Moon and Clouds, 2012.
