WEEK 7 2012
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Saturday 18 February 2012
Saturday - I put the compass in, with
some stainless steel screws. As always, it took longer than I thought.
I'd meant to get some painting in, but had to head back to Lancaster
where I agreed to check on my friends' house over the long weekend.
I did notice a bit of damage to the boat, a port side Bimini pole had
it's attach screws pulled out. Not sure if this was the wind storm or
it's prominent and useful location as a handhold. I'll have to fix it
next time. If I can I'll through bolt it.
I also brought down the GPS Chartplotter which I got as a present
several years ago, and am scoping out where to place it. I can fix it
to a bulkhead outside, where it is handy to read and use, but I had
putting electronics, even those supposedly waterproof, outside. Inside
is easier on it, but not as useful. A compromise might be some sort of
swing-arm mount, usually inside but capable of being swung out. Also
where to put the antenna. My first thought was on top of the mast, but
apparently the motion at the top will foul up the heading and speed
information. Some people mount them on the aft rail, or on a short pole
mounted to the aft rail.
Back in Lancaster, pets and fish were fine, and I settled in for a reasonably quiet weekend evening.
Book #22 was Old Tin Sorrows, by Glen Cook, which would be Garrett P.I. #4.
Friday
- Cleaned up about the house a bit, then headed down to Oxnard overnight.
I hadn't been down to the boat in a couple of weeks, and we've had
several storms come through. No damage, at first glance, everything
fine. It was a little overcast and windy, so the usual Friday crowd
wasn't out, which made for a quiet evening. I had a compass to install
- I bought a pack of stainless steel nuts and bolts, but the compass
was better fitted with screws, so I went over to West Marine and bought
a pack of those. By which time it was dark, so I left the install until
Saturday.
Book #21 was Cold Copper Tears, by Glen Cook. This was #3 in the Garrett P.I. series, and similar to the others. You can see the title methodology, a metal and some descriptors.
Thursday 16 February 2012
Thursday
- Windy, cold and damp.
Book #19 was Sweet Silver Blues, by Glen Cook. This is an old paperback from my shelves, 1987, and is the first in the Garrett Files
series. This is a series set in a fantasy world, told from the
viewpoint of a private investigator in a big city, with somewhat dark
overtones, kind of noir realistic fantasy. We have P.I.'s, trolls,
elves, humans, war, crime, theft, etc. It's an odd mixture, but Cook
actually makes it work. The P.I. part draws strongly on Travis McGee
and Nero Wolfe themes.
Book #20 was its sequel, Bitter Gold Hearts.
Wednesday 15 February 2012
Wednesday - This would my parent's
sixty first anniversary. They married in San Francisco, then
honeymooned down on the California Central Coast.
Fifty years together still ahead - how young they are - such a tentative embrace.
Tuesday
14 February 2012
Tuesday
- The Foofawraw over the new Gnome 3 interface
continues. Essentially the developer's ('devs') of the most prominent distribution are hellbent on
completely redesigning the windows that Linux uses, essentially getting
rid of most of the last twenty years functionality and advances. In my
opinion, and those of many others, it's simply a 'dumbing down' to the
smartphone level, a poorly thought out effort to be different and
relevant in a world where their old product was mature. Most people in
the know are probably going to have none of it, but it's sad to see so
much work deliberately designed to make the user experience worse, not better.
A friend stopped by and dropped off some nice Valentine's Day cupcakes for me last night. Mmmmm. Cupcakes.
Monday
13
February 2012
Monday
- Cold, windy and rainy. Generally just doing chores around the house.
Book #18 was G.K. Chesterton's
The Man Who Knew Too Much. It's a bit odd, the protagonist being one
Horne Fischer, a 'hobby' detective who is not particularly religious or
dutiful, he actually lets murderous criminals go, rather than cause a fuss. It's
a bit odd, having bits of the super smart upper crust detective protagonist popular in the 1920's, and
echoes of the Father Brown stories, but overall a little despairing in tone. In the end
Fischer redeems himself with an act of bravery, during an invasion of England. Odd.
Played about with streaming Amazon in the evening. It works pretty well
- I opted for Amazon Prime when buying some items at Christmas, and you
have a (smallish) selection of free movies and TV shows that you can
watch for free when a member. And of course you can pay for stuff - I
see that Transformers #3 is available, in HD, for example.
I opted to watch the first episode of Firefly,
Serenity, which I had never seen. When the show debuted it was moved
around several times in the lineup, and episodes were shown out of
order and the series didn't last more than one season, more's the pity.
Nice to see it in HD. Unlike NetFlix there doesn't seem to be a user
queue or 'last watched' option, which means each time one logs on there
is a need to search for content again.
Sunday
12
February 2012
Sunday
- Helped some friends pick up a freezer from Sears, a small
upright unit. I wish I'd known beforehand, my sister has an unused
freezer sitting on her carport - though it's been there for years (late 2008) and
perhaps doesn't work any longer.
Later in the evening I helped with other friends at a baking party - the helping this time being limited to
tasting and making appreciative sounds.
