morrowlife

Here are Loyal Readers Numbers One, Two, and Three looking at a (surprise!) computer. Hello . . . hello . . . hello! Hello.

Shorter rides back and forth to work today. Maybe the fall/winter traffic slowdown is easing up a little. We can certainly hope so. I’ve been enjoying driving the Sable the last couple of weeks. It’s comfortable and powerful, and it has all the options I really want. With its cassette adapter, my iPod sounds better than in the Honda, in which I have to use my little FM radio transmitter. Too much interference in San Francisco’s radio-rich environment.

I didn’t do anything tonight other than hold Loyal Reader Number Twelve, but it was worth it. And now it’s bedtime. Yikes.

Well, I did do one other thing while I was holding her. Two, actually. I read a few pages from some recent issues of Free Software Magazine, and I watched most of the MST3K version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. High-class entertainment, that. The brilliance of MST3K, of course, was that it made the absolutely worst movies into instant classics – true works of art. This one is highly recommended holiday viewing.

Free Software Magazine is also recommended, especially given its price (free). I haven’t seen an issue yet that doesn’t have something I’m interested in. I just finished a how-to article on RT-Linux and one on FlightGear, a free and very accurate flight simulator. In fact, the reviewer laments just a little that it’s too accurate, making it quite hard to fly. On the other hand, in addition to everything from a Cessna 172 through a 747 and Concorde, they also have Santa’s sleigh and a flying saucer. So there’s a wide choice of aircraft.

Anyway, now I’m working on an article about creating a “managed” website, meaning one that uses a Content Management System (CMS), like Drupal, which currently powers the (pitifully neglected) HRVA website. As many Loyal Readers know, I’m getting ready to redo the Gardenville Software website to make it contain actual software, and I’m looking for the ideal CMS. I want it to be easy to maintain, while making it look all Web 2.0-ish and cool. The plan is to start with the program written the other day by LRN1 that changes the color on his Mac’s screen based on the amount of light the Arduino sees on a sensor. The cool thing about this project is that it contains just a little bit of circuitry on the Arduino, a simple but non-trivial program on the Arduino, and a cool little program on the Mac. I think it would be well-received by the microcontroller community as an excellent springboard for others who want to integrate the Arduino with their computers. I’m also interested in hearing what LRN1’s next project will be.

I may have to start riding the train again. As much as I enjoy listening to podcasts, it has occurred to me that the majority of my free time on any given day takes place during my commute. Maybe I should start using it differently. There are lots of things I want to read, and I could get some writing done too. I wish they would get the onboard Wifi working again (although that might make me less productive, come to think of it). On the other hand, with the new podcasts I added to the iPod the other night, I’m now only on show 12 of 114, with more arriving every day. That’s a lot of catching up to do. Decisions, decisions.

It’s my off Friday tomorrow! Unfortunately, I’ll be spending it at work. For free. With an additional four hours on the road. And I have so much to do right now. Fortunately, I at least enjoy the work, and there’s plenty of it.

And finally, as far as I’m concerned, nothing says Christmas like this. Bon appetit! I guess when Dasher, Dancer, and Prancer start getting a little too slow…

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a group of happy, peppy Loyal Readers in front of the Happiest Ride on Earth. It was the first place we went on Disneyland Day. I can’t say exactly why, though. I guess it was because we found out the Matterhorn was closed for cleaning and repair and we were so confused we simply kept wandering until we found a line to stand in. Could we help it that it turned out to be the sappiest ride there? I can’t remember which Loyal Reader commented right after we got off that one that Disneyland wasn’t turning out to be as cool as he had been led to believe. Fortunately, it was all uphill from there.

I’ve had to resort to the Wonders of Blogger again today. Wednesday evenings can really get busy. I tend to get home from work at about 7:00 and I have to be at my church meeting at 8:30. That gives plenty of time to grab some dinner and visit with Loyal Reader Number Four for a few minutes. I don’t generally get home from the meeting until about 10:00, and then it’s to bed if I want to have any chance of getting up on time in the morning. Poor, poor me. Pity me.

More news on Thursday night. See you then.

Here’s a famous cruise ship, getting ready to ply the dangerous waters of Anaheim. We had a great time on our cruise, although it did seem a little short. Not to mention that the boat wasn’t exactly luxurious. But we did see hippos, elephants, gorillas, and headhunters, which you don’t generally see every day.

I was in danger of catching up with my podcasts the other day, so I decided to try out a few others. I found interesting-looking ones from Popular Mechanics, IT Conversations, Mac Geek Gab, and Inside Mac News. The jury is still out on all of them, but I have high hopes for them all. I have listened to a couple of IT Conversations episodes and one Mac Geek Gab. All three were interesting except for one of the IT Conversations. However, they cover a different subject every week, so I’m not giving up on it yet. We’ll just have to see. At least I have plenty of things to listen to now.

Otherwise a quiet day. No new Arduino programs – although I’m still contemplating pretty seriously getting FreeRTOS running on it. It would require me to make a programmer, which prefers to talk to a PC parallel port, which a Mac doesn’t have. I have some machines that could talk to it, though, so we’ll see.

Rough commute for everybody in town this morning. It was raining. I left home early enough that I still got to work on time, but I wanted to be a little early. Not too bad on the way home, though.

And now it’s already late. See you tomorrow.

Here are Loyal Readers Numbers Three and Fifteen outside the Las Vegas temple on their sealing day. What a great day.

It’ll have to be a short post today. It’s already really late and we haven’t even started Home Evening yet. At least the formal portion – we are at home and it’s evening, so you could say it’s been going on for hours already. Anyway, we’re going to watch (part of) the First Presidency Christmas broadcast that we had to miss when we were traveling home from Las Vegas, we’re jacuzzifying, and then we’re eating newly-baked sugar cookies for treat. Sounds like fun.

Busy day at work, as usual. Mondays are especially packed because of all the things that go on over the weekend. They’re testing on the airplane pretty much every day, including weekends, so we always have a bunch of things to check out on Monday. No huge emergencies today, but plenty to look at.

I had a little surprise on the way home tonight. When I was just a few minutes away from home, a pickup truck in front of me had a blowout and sprayed rubber bits all over me. I think there may have been something in the road he hit, because there was a pretty loud bang from my wheels too, right around the time I started getting pelted with tire bits. I have no idea what it could have been, though. I certainly didn’t see anything. I checked the car out as well as I could in the dim light of the garage when I got home and couldn’t see any damage, but I’m kind of surprised at that. I’ll look more carefully tomorrow in the light of day. Anyway, it certainly got my attention.

– Later –

Just got out of the jacuzzi so Loyal Reader Number Four could give me the baby and get in herself. Did I mention how lovable Loyal Reader Number Twelve is? Well, she is. She’s just the sweetest thing.

It turned out we didn’t have time to watch any of the broadcast (link warning – First Presidency broadcast sounds). Need to find the time to watch it soon. We did everything else on the agenda, though, except for eating sugar cookies, which will take place very shortly. And then it’s off to bed – the perfect way to end the day, if you ask me.

I found the ultimate gaming system online today. Forget Xbox, forget Playstation, even forget the Wii. This is what you want for the truly realistic gaming experience. I’m planning on asking for two.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twelve showing off her neat little stocking cap. She looks a little pensive there. Also very cute.

There was no Thursday post. I got too busy playing with my new Arduino. When it got here the other day, I thought I couldn’t use it until I found/bought a 9-volt DC power supply. It turns out that it can get its power either from an external power supply or directly from the USB connector. After I got home from work, I plugged it in, uploaded the “blinking LED” program, and watched its glorious blinkishness. Very cool. I’m hoping to try some of the more advanced tutorials this weekend.

Which promises to be extremely busy. We’re going to decorate the house tomorrow, and I personally need to put away a bunch of stuff before that happens. I also need to check my library books for overdueness, do a little car cleaning (the Suburban’s floor mats are disgusting and the Sable is too dirty for words) (although it will probably rain tomorrow, thus getting me out of both the car cleaning and any lawn mowing that needs to be done), check the pool water, prepare a Sunday School lesson, and do a multitude of other things that I can’t remember right now but that are detailed in my gadget’s to-do list.

I unpacked and installed my new Logitech S530 cordless keyboard and mouse tonight. As my more astute Loyal Readers know already, my very cool Apple keyboard wasn’t working any more – the keys would stick at random, which is not conducive to Serious Writing. That just might explain my blog, huh? Anyway, the new one is very comfortable, has great key action, and has a bunch of little configurable buttons that open the web browser, open email, open iTunes, open iPhoto, open Spotlight, turn the sound up and down, navigate back and forth on web pages, and power down the system. The mouse has three buttons, a scroll wheel that goes up, down, and sideways, web page forward and back buttons, and volume controls. It feels pretty comfortable in the hand. They’re both white and brushed aluminum (well, brushed aluminum-looking plastic anyway) and go perfectly with my Mac Mini. And the cordlessness is totally cool. I really like them. Highly recommended for the Mac-loving Loyal Readers. I’m sure there’s a Windows version as well for my PC-loving Loyal Readers. If you’re in the market, check it out.

Well, it’s late, so I’ll quit. Have a great weekend and I’ll see you on Monday.