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WEEK 7 2007

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Saturday 16 February 2007

Saturday - drove up to Dads' place. Gorgeous weather. A nice drive, I think a lot of the holiday traffic left on Friday. Unlike my last trip at Christmas I only had a small load to pack - a bag, the laptop, a few books.

Coming up I was listening to country western radio, and then switched to Skeletons on the Zahara, by Dean King. It's OK, not all that well written, but decent enough. It's an account of seaman cast away on the shore of Africa about 1815, and their various travails. The captain of the ship, reading between the lines, was not particularly proficient - he'd been ashore for years before the voyage and managed to run aground twice in this voyage, the second time disastrously. And he and his mens planning and small boat skills left a lot to be desired.

There is an amusing passage, where due to various reverses in business he has to sell his big house in Connecticut. He makes a deal that his unmarried sisters can continue living in the third floor until they marry. The result:

"In what might be considered an excess of Yankee thrift neither sister ever married, and both lived to be over 100."

Friday 15 February 2007

Friday - we went to the LPAC for the San Jose Taiko group. They were great. I was a bit concerned about big drums indoors, but the LPAC has great acoustics and wasn't overpowered. SJT was a professional group, wonderfully in synch and with tremendous enthusiasm. The crowd gave them a standing ovation and they came back for one more song...

"Oh won't you play,
just a little bit longer..."

One advantage to cleaning the garage is that you find things. I found a couple of gifts I'd received at Christmas, and hadn't been able to locate since returning. The reason being that they were in a box that somehow got tucked away behind the bookcase. One of the gifts was the newest Stephen R. Donaldson book, which I'd started already.. So that's a big plus for this whole cleanliness thing...

The paint on the bookcase has quite dried everywhere, there are a couple of damp spots. It was down around 40F outside last night, and probably only 50F in the garage. But it has this long weekend to finish curing.

riley
Cat on a winter lawn.

Thursday 14 February  2007

Thursday - I took the day off, to try to get some tax papers found. I see my tax person next week, and I want to be prepared.

After that (and I still haven't found everything for the taxes) I sat outdoors, reading, and "watching" the cats. It was a nice warm day, blue skies, no wind. So we enjoyed the gift of the day for a couple of hours. Then it was time to do some errands: I took the Explorer over to get the oil changed (it seems like I just had it done, but it was mid November) and filled it with gas for the trip up to Dad's this weekend, bought a new garbage disposal at HOME DEPOT, a bag of cat food at PETSMART and some kitty litter at COSTCO.

I started to clean indoors - I was going to invite someone over a few days ago and realized that it was starting to resemble a pig sty. I ended up cleaning the garage instead.

I needed space for some books, remembered the free but dirty-and in-need-of-paint bookcase sitting in the garage, and then had to start moving stuff just to get to the bookcase. So, as long as I was picking junk up, I started throwing junk away, filling a trash bin, got the bookcase out into the middle of the garage, and then cleaned it and sanded it. I then painted it as well. I'd a couple pints of white enamel, but it only took one since it was already painted (peach, ugh).

It doesn't have to be beautiful, just serviceable enough to stick in the spare room.

bookcase
It's amazing what you can accomplish while avoiding tax stuff...

Wednesday 13 February 2007

Wednesday - it was necessary to update my PDA, or it would stop working shortly (this Thursday, supposedly). So, I went to the web page and downloaded the instructions and software. It was a 37 Megabyte patch. And it required an update to Activesynch to run, another 7 Megabytes.

So I installed the new Activesynch, and it messed about with the PC, including, horribly, the USB drivers. Why did the laptops' USB drivers need to be updated? It's bizarre, they've worked find for everything else - but apparently that wasn't good enough for the PDA - so updated they were. I hope it doesn't screw up my PC too bad. Then I installed the new ROM in the PDA.

After backing up the PDA first (and, by the way, the new ActiveSynch breaks the laptop backup of the PDA files) and installing the new ROM exactly what do you suppose I got out of a an hours work and 44 Megabytes of downloads (and not even from Microsoft or Verizon, but "UTStarcom", whoever the hell they are)?

x

AKU 2.0, I have no idea what it is[*].  WM-10, which is a horrible DRM ridden piece of cr*p I don't use. I don't use a bluetooth headset since I'm not convinced having a radio transmitter, however weak, always on and placed next to the brain is a good idea.

But an improved ring tone, yeah, that's worth an hours work.

Morons.

I suppose we'll find out tomorrow whether the update works, or not.

[*] update via Widipedia:
AKU 2.0 Accelerated scrolling...wow...almost as impressive as an improved ring tone! I take all my negativity back.

Too bad they couldn't have squeezed in a better browser, you know, one where you could edit your favorites, or perhaps a file explorer where you could see and move files. Nah, too much to ask for from a couple of the biggest and richest company's on the face of the earth.


I've been looking for a paper, on error propagation, and haven't been able to find it. Even the new librarian at work couldn't find it. But I noticed that the author worked for the Navy at Port Hueneme in the 1970's, and on a lark, checked the local white pages. Yep, someone by that name still lived there. So I called, on the gov'ts dime, and it was the author! Or rather, second author. He was the principal author's supervisor at the time (1973), and has only a vague remembrance of it, but is going to look through his garage and see if he can find a copy.  He didn't seem put out (at my call), but, rather, pleased. So that was cool.

He said the principal author got out of engineering, entered the world of finance and made a fortune playing business hardball. I guess it takes all sorts.

Tuesday 13 February 2007

Tuesday - some said at lunch: "NASA owes Anna Nicole Smith a debt of gratitude". Heh. Well, the made-for-tv movie may not be happening, but it still drove NASA's own little episode of Dallas off the front page.


A balanced budget soon? The Skeptical Optimist thinks so, though he also thinks some debt is a good idea.  (Which reminds me, I need to get my tax papers collected together, soon.)

x

 Monday 12 February 2007

Monday - back to work, not a lot to say there. The weather has turned cold and blustery - the Lancaster winter weather that I recall from the 1980's.

That might make sense. If the current hoo-raw about global warming is false, as I suspect it is, then we are at about the same point in the solar cycle as we were back when I came to the Antelope Valley.

The Eternal Golden Braid, a science web blog by Fred Kiesche, is gone. Looks like Fred decided to call it quits. Dang, he was a daily visit of mine. Best of luck to him, hopefully it's something good and positive in his life that doesn't leave room for a blog right now.

Sunday 11 February 2006

Sunday - not a lot to say. Stayed home, did laundry, read bad SF. Watched a bit of TV - the TIVO was getting full.


Book #10 was Hell's Gate, by David Weber. This is sword-and-sorcery type of novel, but of a 'hard' variety, if that makes any sense. It shares a lot of the same style of characterization and development that his Honor series does - sort of a disappointment really. Oh well. If the sequel comes to the local library I'll read it, or perhaps if I have to take a long trip on a plane and it's out in paperback...

Picture of the Week
duck in water

Photo Notes: A Different Desert Bird.

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