Doing some shopping, and errands. I needed a few more fire logs for the
holidays, and a little bin to put the ashes in. The fire logs don't
leave much residue, but they do leave something, and it's good to have
a metal pail to put them in. I also looked at getting a gas firestarter
accessory, for real wood, but Home Depot was out of the kind I need.
I'm a little unclear on whether you can use them with the fake logs,
that is, are the flames big enough to look nice and is it rated for
continuous duty. They look like galvanized pipe with a bunch of holes
drilled in it, so I don't see why not. Real fire is nice, but a bit of
a pain.
I also picked up some more catfood from the vet. I could get a 4lb bag for $20, or an 8lb bag for $25....
I also raked and mowed the front yard. As mentioned, we had high winds
and my leaves blew down the street. Unfortunately this means my upwind
neighbors trees blew into mine - I don't have any darn maples... It
wasn't too bad, I made a point of taking ibuprofen first, then taking
my time, then taking a hot shower afterwards. So, while a bit sore and
stiff later, it wasn't the crippling exercise it sometimes is.
Cleaning and rearranging beds in the house, again. Still need to clean
the bathrooms and kitchen floor, and vacuum. Gahhh. All hard on the
back. I'll just spread that stuff over the forthcoming week.
In the evening I also signed up for a Hulu trial membership. I figure
that if there is a decent amount of stuff there, and it's endurable -
and the HULU commercials are really annoying
when you are used to zipping by them on TIVO - then I might drop the
cable next year. Paying $8 instead of $80 is a no-brainer. Netflix and
Hulu should do me for a few years.
As usual everything seems to stream best on the Vizio Blu-ray player.
Both the TV and the TIVO tend to drop/stall when streaming, but perhaps
the Blu-ray has a better processor - it's fairly rare (though when it does
stall I usually have to unplug it). Or, perhaps it's because it is not
doing anything else in the background, unlike the TV and TIVO. My Roku
rarely dropped anything, either.
Started on my Christmas cards...
Didn't get any "work" done. I wonder if I'll bother going down to Ventura next week at this rate.
I still need to finish the Zone 3 inventory, then resurrect the scripts
to re-interpolate stuff. Since a lot of it was on the old laptop it
shouldn't be too hard. As I recall, over short distances, you can just
interpolate linearly between latitude and longitude in decimal degrees.
But since I've already written the VbScript I'd rather not do it again.
So, closing in on the end of the year. The free time meant there was a
fair number this year, though not so bad as last year. Looking it over
I can see that my resolution to read more non-fiction has gone by the
wayside (again). Well, whatever, I guess. Some of it, Objective-C texts,
was pretty tough, and should probably count as 2x!
Friday
- I had to go by Home Depot to pick up some screws for the oven handle
- it was falling off. For some reason I thought they were long machine
screws, but on removing one of the remaining screws discovered that
they were, in fact, were just #8 1/4" sheet metal screws (stainless
steel). I also picked
up a bolt for one of the feet on the queen sized bed (a weird metric
size), a couple planks for shelves, and some Duraflame logs. I talked
to
the neighbor and he uses Duraflame and regular wood in his, with no
problem. His hearth insert is the same, but he didn't even know that it
was
supposed to have a blower, so I'm no better off there.
Anyway the real
fire was nice, the chimney seems to draw properly, so that's nice.
Riley was interested in the fire, but cautious...
I should say, my first thought upon waking was "I've lost a week",
because of being sick. Work on the "real" job and my iOS job are way
behind where I planned to be, the house is dirty, I've done almost no
Xmas shopping. Company iscoming for the holidays.
But what the hey. It's not the end of the world.
I was going to put out my Christmas lights, but it was so cold and
windy by the time I got around to it that I've decided to wait until
tomorrow.
Thursday13 December 2012
Thursday
- I have no idea where this day went. Little stuff, even a bit of work. Cold and pouring rain!
So, while laying in bed I the last few days I did some reading. Old
stuff I had on the shelves, since I wasn't really up to going out.
Wednesday
- Feeling a bit better finally. Up and around, though I didn't get a
lot of work done. I did get out of the house for the first time in a
few days, so that's something.
S and I went over to the local community college to post an
advertisement for a graphics artist for the iOS art. The people there
were helpful and thought they could screen the crowd and get us a few
decent candidates by the new year.
I also went by the gas station and
put some fuel in the Explorer, I've been driving around on fumes since
getting back from Marina del Rey and the check engine light was on.
This time it took 18.8 gallons, which means there were about 2 gallons
left. How much of that is usuable I'm not sure. I've run out of gas at
411 miles, but that was back when I was commute driving in the AV,
these trips over the Angeles Mountains use more.
I do know (now) that if I park nose-down on my driveway when it's on
"empty" that there isn't enough left in the tank to cover the inlet.
This is where the gas left in the little 5 gallon gas can for the
mowers comes in very useful...
Tuesday 11
December
2012
Tuesday
- Sick.
Monday 10 December 2012
Monday
- Still sick. Aches and pains, the usual stomach upset, etc. Bah, Humbug!
Sunday 9
December 2012
Sunday
- A decent day, but not feeling well. I did arouse enough to go out to
dinner with friends for K's belated birthday dinner at a local sushi
bar. Very nice, and I felt OK while I was there, but not so good later
at night. I don't think it was the food, just some flu thing coming on.
I didn't do much of anything on the work front, too nauseous and tired.
And no Christmas preps or shopping, which is really annoying, there's
not much time left for all that....
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Havasupai waterfall.
WEEK 50 2012
