Monday
- NEWYEARSEVE. A long last week, 9 days, of the blog year. It wasn't a good year for me, it wasn't a bad year...just kind of a "meh" year I guess.
I had dinner at R&S's house, then fell asleep on their couch. About
five minutes to midnight I awoke, and we listened to a fairly energetic
volume of fireworks and gunshots, the loudest I have heard in several
years.
Then I headed home. Where a neighbor was having a loud party. So I
ended up sleeping on the downstairs family room couch with the Tv on until about 2:30am, when it quieted down
enough to let me go to bed for real.
It was also very cold, predicted to be 14F, so I covered the sprinkler
manifold in front with a towel. I really need to finish making the box
there, it's a small job but I just haven't gotten around to it.
Book #101 was Megatokyo: Volume 6, by Fred Gallagher. So, I did OK book-wise this year, finishing the season at #101. (It's easy to win when you make the rules up as you go...).
Sunday
- Another quiet day, and cold. There was a 40% chance of snow
overnight, supposedly, but it was rather clear in the evening and we
didn't get much, if anything.
I watched a bit of football, and some other TV, but didn't do much
else. I've work to do, but was dealing with a bit of a headache and
just decided to take it easy for a bit. Not that I've been exerting
myself this Christmas...
I was moving stuff around a bit, and in his old sea chest found a picture of my grandfather, at Guadalcanal:
That's him, at the far right, holding a cigarette, the wreck of the Kinugawa Maru in the background.
Another photo from the chest, the USS John Penn under attack and sinking, at Guadalcanal.
Saturday 29 December2012
Saturday - It was snowing, very
lightly, when I opened the patio doors to let the cat out this morning.
Just a few flakes, and they were melting when they hit the ground, but
it was cold and mildly damp so the cat was wanting to be let in and
out all morning.
Friday
28
December
2012
Friday
- Not much to say. Working on this and that.
Someone gave me a Brookstone Rover,
a little tank with a video camera that you can run from an iPad app.
It's pretty cool. It runs via WiFi, so you have to disconnect your
internet connection to run it, but that's pretty easy, and the iPad
then found the Rover easily and everything worked right off the bat.
You can even take stills that are automatically saved to the iPad.
The first thing I did was to chase my cat around the patio...
Riley watches the Brookstone Rover from a safe distance...
Heh.
The Wifi thing brings to mind a bit of research earlier in the week.
One issue that S&I were talking about for the iOS app was
assistance for the disabled. I knew there was a set of iOS Bluetooth
interfaces and just assumed that they'd be comprehensive and that we'd
use them, but it turns out that they are pretty feeble. There are a
couple of problems:
Apple insists that Bluetooth device manufacturers adhere to Apple's
implementation, not the standard, and that they actually buy and
include a special chip from Apple. So, given the annoyance and costs I'd expect fewer assistive learning devices for iPads.
They did the absolute minimum
implementation of any assistive device help in GameKit. Voice Over, for
example, apparently only supports left/right movement, so that you can't, for
example, go up and down on a virtual keyboard - if you want to write the word "one" you have to tab through 34 characters.
Now, this was just some quick research, and it's possible I'm
overestimating the problem - for example, the bluetooth dongle and
mouse worked just fine with the MacBook Pro, but it's a bit worrisome.
We could build interfaces through repurposing existing inexpensive
Bluetooth devices, but becoming a hardware company is a whole new game.
Since Gamekit also supports
WiFi and AdHoc networks, that might be an alternative. I'll have
to check, but it seems unlikely that even Apple could force people to
make Apple-proprietary versions of the wifi protocols.
Thursday
- Dinner at Miso's, the sushi/bar/restaurant place here in town that is our new
favorite. Excellent as always, though there was a bit of a wait (maybe
no-one else could face leftovers either?).
Didn't get much done during the day, it feels like. Cleaning up around the house. Dishes, vacuuming, clothes washing.
Even dumped out a junk drawer in the kitchen and tossed a bunch of odds
n' ends that dated, in some cases, to years back.
Book #99 was Megatokyo: Volume 4, by Fred Gallagher. I've never been a cartoon fiend, but I've enjoyed this.
According to Wikipedia the two original authors, Caston &
Gallagher, had a falling out and Caston sold his share to Gallagher,
and is no longer an author after Volume #3. Gallagher later got
married, and new strips are apparently coming out slower and slower.
About ten years worth of strips only covers about two months in strip time... But hey, free ice cream and all that...
Christmas, via this blog. It's surprising how many events and objects repeat themselves, over the years.
2002
- Up at Dads. It was a 9-day week for the blog, like this year.
Notes include having troubles with graphics cards, internet browsers,
and so on.
2003 - Up at Dads. P. Jackson & The Hobbit were in the news.
2004 - Up at Dads. Having trouble with the website composer, had just gotten the new-fangled Gmail account.
2005 - Up at Dads. Playing with the new smartphone, doing the first "50 book compilation".
2006
- Up at Dads. Messing with a website composer, doing the book
compilation, worrying about a boat, cursing the NFL for not
broadcasting a game we wanted to watch.
2007 - Up at Dads. Made Xmas dinner, watched football. Worked on the book list.
2008
- Didn't go to Dads. His health was fragile, and I had a nasty case of
the flu, and of course no-one could know that it'd be the last chance.
Spent it with my friends, Roger & Sheryl.
2009 - The first Christmas with Dad gone. Down in San Diego with friends.
2010 - Here in Lancaster. Dealing with boat problems, got my first streaming stuff at the house, via a new Roku box.
2011 - Up at mys sister's place in Reno. A pretty good time was had, but the driving was brutal, as always.
2012
- Here in Lancaster. Spent Christmas eve with R&S & their
family. Still dealing with nvu/kompozer issues, garage cleaning, having
trouble with graphics cards, working from home and cursing the NFL for
not getting the 49'ers game..
Wednesday 26
December
2012
Wednesday
- MERRY Day After CHRISTMAS!
I went shoe shopping, with some friends, but without much luck. The crowds weren't a problem, despite
after-Xmas sales the stores were only moderately busy around noon.
I
wanted some new tennis shoes, and tried Big 5, Ross, Payless Shoe
Stores, and Target. The selection was awful everywhere, and the shoes
they had were bad. Big 5 had the biggest selection, but the shoes themselves were
terrible - poor arch support, poor fit, poor colors (pure white or day-glo!) or
obvious poor build quality. My friend had the same issues, so it's not
just me being picky. Ross was ludicrously bad - no name brands and horrible knockoffs, Payless just a small step up (heh) from Ross. I was really surprised at the poor selection at
Target though, we left it for last thinking that if we couldn't find shoes
anywhere else in town that it'd be a sure (if expensive) thing there. But the
selection was small, mostly just their store brand, and again, nothing
I'd want to wear.
And my friend said one of the Target store brands was actually made by slave
labor in China; not a joke, but a company known to use political
dissident labor.
I wonder if the poor selection is because Lancaster is moderately poor
& depressed and no-one wanted to be left with overstock after
Christmas? Ventura will probably have something, when I head down there
next week.
In the evening I watched some TV, thought about work stuff, and read some more graphic novel: Book #98 was Megatokyo: Volume 3, by Rodney Caston and Fred Gallagher. Zombies, mecha, gamers, magical girls, what's not to like?
Tuesday 25
December
2012
Tuesday
- MERRY CHRISTMAS. Over at my friends' place all day.
Monday 24 December 2012
Monday
- Christmas Eve. Over at my friends, having a nice dinner and good
conversation.
Sunday
- A fairly busy day, doing this and that, though with my sister &
family no longer coming down the urge to clean and decorate has
subsided. I seem to have lost the string of red lights that I
usually put up around the porch column, but found a cheap string of
blue lights at Walmart, and added that.
I had looked at (artificial) Christmas tree's, but even small trees were $50, and it just doesn't make sense for me to get one.
I didn't do much TV watching, no 49'ers football being televised around
here - same as last week. I don't even know what the standings are, or if they switched back to Smith as quarterback.
Book #96 was
Megatokyo:
Volume 1,
by Rodney Caston & Fred Gallagher. Yeah, a
graphic novel, but it helps make up for the damned iOS books I've read
twice... I'm not sure how to categorize this, SciFi, Fantasy,
or what. The plot is so involuted that it's hard to be sure what is the
characters fantasy and what isn't. Amusing. And free, online, which is nice.
And, hey, I don't have much time left to get to that 100 books this year...
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Christmas 2012, fireplace with cards.
WEEK 52 2012
