morrowlife

Here are the ruins of the Alcatraz lighthouse way back there in the background. As far as I know. Photo once again courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One.

Ouch! My back is killing me! I seem to have pulled a muscle in my upper back a few weeks ago and it hurts like crazy. Not all the time, but whenever I twist or tense that muscle in any way, it feels like I’m being stabbed in the back. Come to think of it, maybe I actually am being stabbed in the back. Better check into that.

Otherwise, it was a quiet day. I have an employee problem or two, but nothing to write home about. The morning drive was a little slower than usual, making me slightly late for my first meeting of the day, but the afternoon was right on schedule.

Only one more commuting day this week. I’m taking a vacation day on Thursday and Friday is my off day. We’re going camping at a place called Clark Fork. It’s supposed to be very nice, although it appears they don’t have any hookups. I need to find the time Thursday morning to buy a new trailer battery, and we’ll be just fine with that and the generator. No air conditioning for us, though. On the other hand, we could always choose to stay at one of the many commercial campgrounds in that general area if Clark Fork doesn’t work out.

I’m delighted to hear about Loyal Reader Number Five’s weekend job. Congratulations! I’m sure something good for weekdays will turn up soon too.

No progress on the Gardenville front today. I’m trying to rest my back and The Dukes of Hazzard are on TV, so there just wasn’t any opportunity. Maybe I can get a few things done during the vacation.

Here are some birds in the ruins of Alcatraz. Note the cute little baby. Photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One.

Well, my boss is back and things are pretty much back to normal at work. Which is both good and bad. It’s been nice being in charge, but it’s also nice not to be in charge anymore.

Good weekend. Remember all those things I needed to do? I did manage to add chlorine to the pool and even swim for a little while. Otherwise, pretty much nothing got done from that list. Loyal Reader Number Two and I spent a couple hours Saturday morning helping a ward member move, and then Loyal Reader Number Four and I bought a pavilion for the deck and she, LRN2, and I put it together on Saturday afternoon. We’re delighted to have it and hope to make the deck a little more hospitable in warm weather.

Which we’re getting this week. It’s supposed to be in the low hundreds pretty much every day this week, and it’s only going down to the mid-sixties at night. Not so cool.

I noticed last night that I had forgotten to turn Larry’s Samba server back on when I updated the operating system. It turned out to take about three hours to get it working again. When I tried to turn the server on, I discovered that the configuration tool had disappeared from the menus. Searched around for it on the Interweb and discovered how to launch it from the command line, which I did. It appeared to work until I tried to save the configuration, at which time it gave an error message and didn’t set anything up. I tried for quite a while to make that work, including trying to manually set up Samba’s password file, but none of that worked. During my deep web searches, I learned about a tool called Swat, which is a web-based Samba server configuration program. I downloaded it and spent about an hour getting it to work. During one of my numerous web searches on the subject, I discovered that it comes configured to not work. You have to go into its configuration file and set a flag to enable it. Now why do you suppose the people who made this tool would assume people would download and install it but not want to run it?

Anyway. I finally got Swat working and then had to search around in its documentation for how to get it to set up a Samba server. It was extremely non-obvious, of course, but I finally got it working properly. The really frustrating thing is that Samba configuration was simple, straightforward, and reliable two versions ago, but it’s a nightmare now. This is causing me to have serious second thoughts about using Linux, I must say. It’s a constant uphill hike.

Anyway. It’s working now and things are once again fine. Except that I don’t have Cron jobs updating Larry’s software on a regular basis. And I don’t have the HRVA’s email set up either. Maybe those two items will be a little easier to get working. But I doubt it.

I’ve been reading a couple of books about starting a company. The first is titled, “You Need to be a Little Crazy,” by Barry J. Moltz. Moltz is apparently a Zen Buddhist (or Zen Buddhist wannabe) who has started three failed companies and now writes books about how to start companies. It has some interesting moments but also is a little heavy on both trite and discouraging comments.

The second book is called “How to Start a Business in California,” by the editors of Entrepreneur Magazine. It was written this year and appears to have some pretty solid information on navigating California’s unique requirements, along with some basic how-to and why-to stuff for potential entrepreneurs. There’s also a CD-ROM (which I haven’t looked at) containing a bunch (199, to be exact) of forms. I expect to find this book a little more useful than the first, but I can’t say I haven’t gotten anything out of the other.

Still need to come up with task lists for both the web side and the gaming side of the business. Not to mention getting WaterLogger online. There’s plenty of Business to do.

I also want to start doing a little swimming a few times a week before it gets too cold to get into the pool. I could enjoy a little aquatic exercise. I’m thinking Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with a possible Friday bonus. Strong like bull!

Past time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Indians welcome! I don’t think I’d necessarily feel all that welcome if I were pulling into the Dock at the Rock. Even if I weren’t an Indian. Which I’m not. Mainly. Photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One.

Greetings from the train! It’s Fairly Empty Friday, and I’m enjoying the trip. No idea whether the freeways are good or bad, and I don’t care. I’m seriously thinking of talking to my boss and volunteering to permanently make the Monday and Tuesday evening charts for her on the train. I can post them to the server when I get home. I kind of doubt that she’ll be willing to let go, but I think she should.

Anyway. We have a bunch of people coming over this evening for a Small Group Dinner. Loyal Reader Number Four signed up to host if needed, and they finally called her on Wednesday evening with an assignment. Too late, but she got to work immediately and made the arrangements. Next time, we’ll just go to somebody else’s house.

We’re just passing a golf course, and I’m reminded that we still need to hold the First Annual Gardenville Software golf tournament. Need to get Loyal Reader Number Three out here for it. He’s watching plane fares and when something unbelievably cheap comes along, we’ll do it.

The weekend promises to be relatively busy. There’s a Sunday School lesson to prepare and present and … ummm … lots of other stuff. If nothing else comes along, I’m sure I can find some work to do on the Miata. And there are a lot of filthy cars. And I still haven’t put together Mousey the Junkbot (or is that Junkey the Mousebot?). And I absolutely need to get a version of WaterLogger working on the net, whether we can host it on the remote server or it has to be on Larry for now. And I need to make some progress on learning Ruby. And I have one and a half library books to read. And I need to buy another charger for the iPod that I can keep at work, since there’s just not enough battery life to watch TV shows on the train in both directions. And I need to clean up a mess or two on my side of the bed. And the pool needs to be checked and chlorinated. And swum in, for that matter.

Yeah, I guess I’ll be able to think of a few things to do.

See you on Monday.

Here’s some nature-based Great Art. Hopefully, I haven’t used this picture before.

Just call me New Haircut Boy! My hair had gotten so long it was starting to hurt, not to mention look less than optimal. Thank you, Loyal Reader Number Four! As soon as blogging operations are complete tonight, I’m off to the showers to remove the residuals before I hit the hay.

But first, a brief message from our sponsor – me.

Fine day at work today. I went to some meetings, scheduled other meetings, ate lunch, and talked to people. How much better does it get than that? Taking care of business, baby. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Bad ride home, but it was offset by the fact that we had sushi as an appetizer for dinner. So it all works out. Besides, the morning ride was fairly short, and the Law of Freeway Equalization states that the sum total of the round-trip commute hours on any given day is a constant. I have no idea how that works out, but it pretty much always does. Tomorrow is Train Day, so the LoFE doesn’t apply.

Well, the Creative Muse is done for the night and my neck itches, so it’s time to hit the showers. See you tomorrow.

Here’s some of Loyal Reader Number Two’s old artwork. Very cool, LRN2. Photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number Four.

Pretty quick post tonight. I left work a few hours early just because my afternoon meeting was canceled and I wanted to go swimming. I came home and went swimming. Very nice. Otherwise, not much has happened. I have to leave for my Wednesday evening meeting in about half an hour, though, so the time is actually fairly short.

Loyal Reader Number Five did some more interviewing today. She generated some interest from an entomology museum or some such place. I don’t think she’s spoken with them yet, but I think she should watch Night At the Museum before she takes the job. Just a thought.

Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two went to an ice-blocking party tonight. I wonder whether anybody other than Californians ice-blocks. Somehow, I doubt it. For my Loyal Readers who aren’t familiar with the concept, you buy a block of ice at the grocery store, carry it to the top of a hill, sit on it, and ride it to the bottom. Also break your arms and legs some of the time. Sounds like fun, no?

LRN5 was looking over my shoulder and mentions that it’s not just a bug museum. It’s the California Academy of Science, and they do lots of things besides look at dead bugs. Dead animals, for instance. Watch the movie first, LRN5.

Better quit now. See you tomorrow.