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Travels and Images

WEEK 46 2003

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Saturday 15 November 2003

Saturday - morning: coming downstairs little chevrons of cat ears are peeking around the corner as they run ahead and then check behind to see if another feeding awaits. It does, why not?

It is sort of a grim day - gray, cold and threatening rain - a good day to stay inside, clean house and watch a bit of tv. As usual I've brought home work, as usual I don't feel like doing it. I certainly can't paint outside...

I'm going to go see 'Master & Commander' this evening - and am really looking forward to it. I'll let you all know my opinion afterwards.

Yeah, you can hardly wait, can you?

Friday 14 November 2003

Friday - not a lot to say. Researching for and writing code modifications is not a particularly glamorous or interesting thing to describe. The weather is dull - mixed sorts of overcast.

Thursday 13 November 2003

Thursday - heh. Somewhere there must be a "bad astronomy" page, I imagine this header from Yahoo! will turn up there:

Bad headline from Yahoo! Science about Moon's Dark Side

As Pink Floyd once said: "There is no dark side - it's all dark"

Wednesday 12 November 2003

Wednesday - back to work. Not a lot to say, coding and researching...

Tuesday 11 November 2003

Tuesday - Veteran's Day. Or, in many countries, Rememberance Day.

Drove back to Lancaster in the afternoon evening - the road around Mojave is a bit confusing, but I picked the correct exit, and made it home. I listened to a couple more tapes of Fellowship of the Ring. It really helps the miles pass quicker.

Monday 10 November 2003

Monday - not a lot to say. Went to the store and bought a few odds and ends for my Dad. It's rather quiet today. And, despite the weather forecasters, rather sunny. It'll probably rain tomorrow...

I can print over the network here with my Win2k laptop but my father's WinXP machine won't. No clue as to why, some sort of access protection I think. But the error messages and help functions in WinXP are completely useless - some things never change I guess. Given that these ways have made Bill Gates the richest man in the world, why would he change things?

I took the Gender Genie Test last night, out of curiosity (via Virginia Postrel). You insert some text that you have written, then it uses an algorithm to see if you are male or female (it gives you a score). My first results were quite alarming... Reading a bit further I discovered that you need a significant amount of text, 500 words or more. Thinking quickly I cut and pasted the blog entries from Week 43, which were lengthy and just happened to included references to space, airplanes, computers, construction, and JAG!

Result: I'm a guy. Whew...

My father got an advertisement for cable internet today, from his current provider. It offers an introductory rate of $19.95 for two months, then the rest of the year at $49.95/mo, which comes out to...let's see...taking my socks off...about $540. He took the $29.95 for six months, plus six at $49.95, which is...um...need to clip those toenails...$480. Way to go DAD! The thing is, I've heard of this before, different prices for the same product. The seller is trying to establish a "sweet spot", a price that gives him the best return on his product. One problem is the deadbeats, i.e., people that might take a lower rate might also be prone to a higher delinquency rate. Sampling is always the problem with this stuff.

This just in, at the bottom, in fine print: "...this offer expires in September 30 2003..." Expired offers: that's one way to perform sampling I suppose.

Sunday 9 November 2003

Sunday - I took the dog for a walk. There is a lot of construction along the streets where I delivered newspapers many years ago. Most of it is remodeling or reconstruction. The old Judge Bray house is one of these - old Mrs. Bray used to give me a candy bar when I collected for the Martinez News Gazette, many years ago. Then it was rather a spooky place, with trees and hedges to sky, so that the house itself was nearly invisible from the street. Now that foliage is mostly cut down, and the place is painted, new and bright, in sort of a Craftsman/California Stucco style ( I don't really know what else to call it).

Generally, in this town, it is much cheaper to "remodel" rather than to "rebuild" because of licensing fees. If you leave even one wall (never mind about roofs, floors, and such) standing you are remodeling, and save big bucks. The house next to my father's place was redone that way.

It was a "by" week for the San Francisco 49'ers, and a blackout for the Oakland Raiders, so we watched Dallas and the Bills. It was actually a pretty good game. We did see the very end of the Raiders game, in which they lost to an overtime kick. So it goes.

My brother came over, so we fooled about on line a bit, checking out the speed a bit. It is phenomenal.

Picture of the Week

Photo Notes: The first new bay area suspension bridge in many years, the Al Zampa Memorial Bridge opened this weekend. Well, sorta, kinda. Workers apparently were ordered to work overtime to allow a opening by the outgoing governor, but, despite his ceremonial 'opening' and the allowing of masses of foot traffic it still isn't ready for automotive traffic! )

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