Archive for March, 2009

Liberace’s harpist

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009


Here’s Liberace’s harp-playing statue. Taken at the Wedding of the Century and part of my famous Statue series.

Well, March has come and gone. It was a beautiful day today, so it must have come in like a Lion. I don’t recall that, though. But it must be true – old wives are never wrong.

Fairly standard day. It’s Meetingless Tuesday this evening for me, although Loyal Reader Number Four is out doing a Girls Camp first aid training session.

Loyal Reader Number Two has been feeling pretty sick the last couple of days. Pretty much cold symptoms and a bit of a fever. He has my pity (link warning: sound). Fortunately, he was able to go take his two-day state-required tests yesterday and today in spite of his discomfort. Didn’t sleep well last night, though.

I ordered the Apple TV for our bedroom today. I sure hope we love it. It’s actually pretty reasonably priced, considering what else is out there. And it’s very hackable. I already have my Boxee installation thumb drive loaded and waiting. I’m excited to get it. Should be here about the time the new TV arrives.

Thanks to the Loyal Readers for their comments. Loyal Reader Number One and I have started planning a summer project, as he mentioned. We’re going to turn his RC truck into an autonomous vehicle, hopefully with GPS navigation and active collision avoidance. I think it’ll be a lot of fun.

Or did I mention that yesterday? Don’t remember and don’t want to look it up right now – the train’s in the mountains and internet connections are spotty. So it stays and my Loyal Readers have to suffer. As usual.

No toilet news or food violence today. We do have a food-related controversy, though. Would you buy this? More importantly, would you eat it? Could you eat it? My answers: probably not, possibly, and definitely.

See you tomorrow.

Traffic control

Monday, March 30th, 2009


Here’s a great big box that was at the entrance to the camping loop at Dos Reis. No traffic lights. No flashing lights. No traffic control of any kind. Just a big box. Part of my famous Camping series.

Okay weekend. The Saturday trip to Great America was fun, and the weather cannot be described as anything but ideal. I’m glad we went. As soon as we got home, I threw on a suit and went immediately to the Young Women dinner and broadcast. Got home pretty late.

Sunday was pretty much as usual, although I didn’t get together with the Branch. Did Girls Camp work instead. There’s a bunch more to do.

Also found some time Sunday to put Ubuntu on Shemp and get him set up in the family room. Had a couple of disappointments, though: the Linux version of Boxee doesn’t have Hulu access like the latest Mac version does, and I can’t seem to make the machine play a DVD. Sigh.

I think I’ll put Windows back on and try to be as happy as possible until a better solution comes along. Which will probably be AppleTV, the only solution I’ve seen so far that Just Works.

Anyway. Loyal Reader Number One and I are working on plans to build an autonomous vehicle this summer, based on LRN1’s RC truck. Seems doable. We’re pretty excited about it.

Loyal Reader Number Two is feeling under the weather today. Best wishes for a quick recovery, LRN2! And don’t heal like your sister, who is still sick a month later. Yikes.

Let’s have a look at the world of food violence, shall we? If ever there was something not worth shooting over, it’s this. Today’s controversy: Do my Loyal Readers think it’s worse than this? My answer: The shooting was more dangerous, but the tackling actually hurt someone. In any case, they ought to be settling these disputes peacefully.

See you tomorrow.

Egyptian statue

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Here’s Liberace’s Egyptian statue. Additional comments are unnecessary. Part of my famous Statue series.

Well, another work week lurches to completion. Pretty good week, all things considered. Got a few things accomplished, left a few things out.

Loyal Reader Number Four cut the TV cable today, at least figuratively. No actual cords were cut in the making of this blog.

Anyway. We’re tied to the intertubes for our electronic entertainment now. Fortunately, LRN4 was able to negotiate a sweet deal on higher-speed internet for about the same price we were paying before for lower-speed service, and much lower than that lower-speed service was going to cost us without cable TV service to provide a package discount. We should be running at high speed sometime tomorrow. Woo hoo!

LRN4 is quite the negotiator. She should be in sales. Or maybe purchasing. I think I know what her job will be when Gardenville takes off.

Things are otherwise pretty normal. We’re heading out to Great America tomorrow morning and then I have the General Young Women Broadcast and Dinner to attend in the evening. Not much else is likely to happen, although the pond really needs to have its filter cleaned. It’s Spring Algae Bloom season big-time right now, and I need to give the fellas every advantage they can get. Maybe I’ll find a few minutes to get that done. Some of the cars are in desperate need of a wash and/or wax, but that’s simply not going to be possible. The following weekend promises to be busy too, but I think there’s a much better chance of getting washage done then.

Maybe I should be offering Loyal Reader Number Two a financial incentive to wash a car or two.

Let’s have a quick look at today’s food violence news: These hamburgers might kill you. I think that counts as food violence, don’t you?

Here’s an interesting website for my Loyal Readers who are searching for a name for their rock band and a title and artwork for their next album. Here’s my first effort:


What do my Loyal Readers think? Try one yourself. It’s fun!

I’m struggling to decide whether to keep saving for my English estate or to just buy this. There would be less travel, and I’m sure it’s a nice place. Plus, I’ve always wanted my own gift wrapping room. Still, the English place has its own cricket wicket, and that’s certainly worth something.

See you tomorrow.

Holidaire

Thursday, March 26th, 2009


Here’s a great Historic Recreational Vehicle. It was right across the street from us during our recent Dos Reis trip. Quite a piece of work, no? The people had Colorado license plates on their truck. Although I didn’t see the plate on the Holidaire, we can assume it also came from Colorado. I have no idea how it got here. It definitely needs to go up on the HRVA website. I didn’t speak with the owners for the Holidaire’s vital statistics. They were kind of odd. And kind of scary. Part of my famous Camping series.

Sleepy day today. I was up until about 1:00 this morning working on Larry. My stuff arrived via UPS sometime yesterday. I got the memory installed into Joe pretty quickly. It didn’t make him run any better, but it will definitely improve things once I get the machine’s instability resolved.

Larry was a little more difficult. I got the new drive installed with no problem, but everything I fixed seemed to mess up two other things. Two major problems surfaced – I loosened a couple of connectors up and lost my H.264 codec. The connectors were easy to fix, but the codec was quite hard. Took quite a bit of research and a bunch of trial and error. But it’s fixed.

As a special bonus, I discovered that the codec fix for Larry is exactly what I needed to fix Joe’s video problem. Well, one of them, anyway.

Anyway. Work was otherwise normal. My boss is expecting to be out next week. His father-in-law is dying, it appears. He and his wife both lost their mothers last year, so this is especially difficult for them.

Let’s have a look at today’s food violence news: While not exactly mano-a-mano violence, this still has a chilling effect on the entire snack food industry. When I think of what those snack cakes went through, I can’t help getting just a little emotional. They probably had no seat belts and airbags, to boot. Oh, the humanity! Or the snack-cakery. Or something.

I need sleep. See you tomorrow.

Five mph

Thursday, March 26th, 2009


Here’s the river at Dos Reis. Keep it slow, folks. Part of my famous Camping series.

Another normal day. My intention was to attend the branch’s Elders Quorum presidency meeting this afternoon. Sadly, a late meeting was scheduled at work, and my attendance was required. Hence, no presidency meeting. Went home on the late train instead.

On the positive side, I got a lot of work done.

Loyal Reader Number One reports he still hasn’t heard from Apple, either on the application or the internship front. Maybe tomorrow.

As I write this on the train, I don’t yet know whether my new SATA cables and other Newegg stuff have arrived at home today. The UPS people said it ought to be here by now. I’m looking forward to trying out the Lightscribe feature.

Otherwise, situation normal.

There’s some encouraging Space Toilet news! I definitely think they should follow through with their plans. Someday, I hope to have a famous toilet named after me.

Speaking of famous people, Loyal Reader Number Five has nominated Loyal Reader Number Three as Village Idiot in the English town I’m planning to buy. I would of course censure LRN5 for her impertinence, but I think LRN3 might actually want the job. So I’m just keeping quiet about it.

Other job applications?

See you tomorrow.