It
was a typical Saturday, I got up, did some chores around the house, got
a call from friends to go out to lunch. They suggested Lee Esther's,
but I didn't really "feel" like Cajun, so we settled for Thai.
After
I didn't feel good. Blaming it on lack of exercise I went out for a
moderate walk, 3.5 miles. I was so tired at half way that coming home
was difficult. By early evening the aches and pains had started and I
canceled dinner. By mid evening the other symptoms associated with the flu had arrived - I won't go into graphic detail - and I was up until nearly 3am.
A
miserable night, the aches and pains kept me awake, and I couldn't keep
so much as an aspirin down to mitigate them (I tried). Eventually I
remembered reading that one could put an aspirin under the tongue and
it'd be absorbed there through the mouth tissues. That worked, and I
finally got some sleep.
Both
kitten's are like zombies after their shots. Which is fortunate,
because I didn't have much energy for dealing with them....
Friday
1 November2013
Friday
- Got up, then made a quick trip by my place to check on kittens, then
went grocery shopping with S: Ralph's, the 99-cent store, and WinCo,
and a quick trip to Hemme's to get some booster shots for the two
kittens.
I
dropped off S, then went home and put stuff away, showered and took a
nap myself. Then I called the Angel Dog people about getting Suzy
"fixed". She was a bit young they said, it's better to wait until she's
four months. In the late afternoon S came by and we gave the kittens
their shots while they were distracted by some nice oily tuna.
Then
I worked on the KML stuff for a bit, and sent it off to Tim. It's a mix
of old as-built coordinates and some stuff that one of their guy's
mapped with a hand held GPS, but it's not really too important, it's
just for the Park Service's historical record apparently. No one wants
to pay for a centimeter accurate survey...
Thursday 31 October2013
Thursday
- Got up late, then headed back to Lancaster. I did stop in Palmdale at
Trader Joe's, to pick up a bottle of their house brand single
malt...only to find that the local store didn't carry it. Sheesh.
Took
a shower, then a nap, played with the kittens a bit, then headed over
to Roger's in late afternoon to help with the Halloween setup. It was
amazing as always.
There
was a pretty good turnout of kids, about 150 or so, which is pretty
good for a school night! The smaller children were terrified, a couple
actually started crying. One little princess "lost" her mom, and I had
to escort her across the street to her family, her little hand firmly
grasping my index finger...
Slept
in their guest bedroom, since the street party in my own neighborhood
was already in swing - with lots of bass - by 4pm, and it usually goes
to midnight and beyond.
Wednesday 30 October2013
Wednesday
- OTR.
Down to Thousand Oaks to do a quick look at the channel. The contractor
and inspector seem to have a handle on things, no questions for the
spec writers (us), which is good.
Then I went over and gave a
copy of the updated EDR to the person that implements it, she seemed
pretty happy with it, which is good.
I also got tasked with a
small job in creating/updating a KML file for the demolition job
earlier this year. This should have been a lot easier than it turned
out to be, but it was made difficult by various incompatibilities
between Google Earth and Excel files. GE in particular did me dirt,
crashing and costing me about an hours work, at about 8pm in the
evening. A long day....
I
went to dinner at Dave's place, a very nice meal with a half glass of
wine. But I was totally exhausted by the time I got back to the boat. I
slept well, between the wind and the cold weather - I actually had to
turn the little electric heater on, for the first time this fall.
Tuesday 29 October2013
Tuesday
- Spent most of the day working on the EDR stuff. It's pretty much
licked into shape I think. A couple more small changes and I'll have a
deliverable. Also need to update the documentation a bit.
Down
to Ventura tomorrow. The contractor has started up in Thousand Oaks, so
I'll do a quick site visit and see how things are doing. Then I have a
visit with Tim at noon for lunch, and maybe a quick review of some
Google Earth stuff for one of the clients. Then I'll burn a CD with the
EDR stuff on it and drop it off for them to test out.
The
kittens are now best buds, so I can leave everyone to their devices in
the house. My friend T will put them in their carriers overnight if I
don't get back. Probably not necessary, but I don't want any trouble in
the evening.
A definition of perpetual motion: "A piece of string with a kitten on each end!"
Monday 28 October 2013
Monday
- No trip down below today, since the contractor (at the last minute)
decided not to mobilize because of the chance of rain. But they
supposedly finished in Ojai, and will be working in Thousand Oaks, a
bit closer to Lancaster, which is good for me.
It did sprinkle in the morning in Lancaster, so there was probably something going on in TO too.
Worked
on the EDR stuff most of the day. Found an old bug, and essentially
created two new versions of the code, one for Excel 2003, that the
client is using now, and one using Excel 2007, which is what they
should be using in a few months time.
Book #43 was The Element of Fire,
by Martha Wells. I just picked this off my shelf at random, to read
while sitting in the bathroom with the kitten in quarantine. I had no
recollection of reading it before and was pleasantly surprised. It is
not quite sword & sorcery - think more like Three Musketeer's style
technology and politics, with a dash of human sorcery and elf magic.
Not bad.
So,
the kittens are getting fairly used to one another. After several hours
they can even be in the same room, next to each other, and not fight
(much). A huge improvement.
Riley, on the other hand, seems
under the weather. Bowel issues again. And he was throwing up in the
evening, and there was some blood in the vomit. Not good.
Sunday 27 October2013
Sunday
- Doing various chores around the
house, playing with the kitten(s). I have started letting them out of
their kennels at the same time. For limited periods - a half hour of
the running, snarling, climbing, crashing scene that ensues is enough
for me. And them. They pass out for a good hour or two after the
non-stop play/fighting. Suzy is more aggressive, but Jim has the weight
and speed, so it's mostly an even match.
I
haven't seen any scratches or blood, so the snarls are apparently
mostly for show. My two older cats would do the sound effect thing, but
not to the extent that Suzy does. Like I said, she was probably feral.
It was another beautiful day, so I took the opportunity to finish
edging and weed whacking the front yard, then mowed and edged the back
yard as well. I really should finish with my pavers and bricks before
the really cold weather starts.
Worked on the EDR stuff a bit. There is now a weird error where the
month's folder isn't being created properly. Thanks to the lousy error
messages it took me a lot longer than it should have to figure it out...
I see that DreamChaserhad
a good
flight, marred by a landing gear malfunction on the landing, and a supposed
flip over. I haven't seen any good pictures, but it doesn't sound
like it's anything that seriously affects things. Except, possibly, the
subsequent test flight schedule. My impression of the alt-space industry is
that they don't quite realize how important it is to have a LOT of test
flights, so that's not good.
Dream Chaser from a Wikipedia picture.
From
talking to an engineer that still works out at Dryden the Saturday
Flight was to allow closing of the South Base complex while DC was
flying over it (no human pilot was on board). The Sierra Nevada corporation had to pay for the lost
time there, so that was cheaper. I'm not sure how they'll cost the
closure of the main runway due to a wreck at the end....
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Channel
Islands Harbor sunrise, October 2013.
