Archive for May, 2009

Family portrait

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009


Here’s a nice family portrait of LRNs 5, 6, and 12. Taken several months ago when LRN12 had substantially less hair. And wasn’t quite as cute as she is now.

Slight correction from yesterday: the Great Art should have been credited to LRN1’s roommate. Or somebody. Nice photo.

Three days of Morrowlife goodness and no comments. Sigh. Speaking of which, the financial juggernaut is up to $14.77. But no clicks yet this month. Double sigh. Riches are so close, yet just out of my reach.

Busy day. I had my quarterly PPI with my leader. Had to leave for the church a few minutes after my (early) arrival home. Fortunately, the visit was short. And pleasant. Also had a very nice dinner in those ten minutes at home.

Day otherwise normal. Much cooler weather than the weekend, but absolutely pleasant. No complaints.

Took the late train this morning. Got up a bit early for it, so I had a little time. I fixed the bug in the Arduino simulator and implemented another instruction. Daily small progress is probably the best I can hope for. Fast and steady wins the race, but slow and steady gets there too. I really want to get this program working and published. Need to spend some train time documenting requirements and conceptual design.

Speaking of which, I need to expand the MARV documentation a little too. We’re making some changes for economic and experiential reasons. Also learning more and making decisons that need to be written down.

Also spent a few minutes looking at web writing style guides with an eye towards making it easier for LRN2 and LRN1 to create some new content for Gardenville and the HRVA. Found a good one at A List Apart, which I think we’ll use as the basis.

Also made a financial proposal to my writers. I’m hoping to get something settled soon and get some content up.

Let’s check for today’s food violence news: No violence has actually broken out yet, but there’s certainly potential.

See you tomorrow.

Standing reader

Monday, May 18th, 2009


Here’s LRN1 standing on a rock. A big rock.

No Friday post. I got busy.

Nice weekend. We celebrated LRN4’s birthday in a low-key-but-dignified way. Happy Birthday, LRN4!

Had the family get-together on Saturday because of our busy Sunday (her actual birthday) plans. The Loyal Readers came over and we had a nice day.

LRN1 and I have been working on our MARV project and making some progress. We have the accelerometer and the SD card holder. LRN1’s working on reading and writing files on the card – can’t do anything with the accel yet because we need another little board to convert 5-volt electricity to 3.3 volts. That should be here Any Day Now.

Meanwhile, I’m working on my Arduino simulator. It will run under Linux. So far, I have the basic framework set up and can process two of the unique Arduino library functions and can nearly do a third. From here, it’s pretty much a matter of cranking through the library routines.

Still don’t know how I’m going to allow the user to plug in virtual devices to the sim. I’ll try to provide virtual LEDs and other common devices, but the users need to be able to define their own too. I have some ideas but need to let them percolate a little.

Hot, hot weekend. It was well over 100 Sunday and just about as hot on Saturday. Strangely, we never got in the pool. It was still quite warm this morning and during the day, but I was surprised to discover that it had cooled way off when I left the office, and some clouds had rolled in. We even had a few large raindrops at the platform just before the train arrived.

My father reported they had frost on the ground in Michigan this weekend. I expect they’ll get our heat wave within a few days.

Let’s see . . . what else is going on? My talk in church on Sunday went pretty well. Two members of the Stake Presidency were there, so they had an opportunity to judge my abilities, for better or worse. Fortunately, I’m more interested in doing my best as long as I’m needed than in keeping my “job.”

Also spent plenty of time working on Young Women camp and other YW topics.

We have some important food violence news today: if the bank robbery doesn’t work out, you can always eat the evidence while you wait for the cops to come.

Plus, this just in: if ever there was a vegetable not to fight over, it’s this.

See you tomorrow.

Spaceman

Thursday, May 14th, 2009


Here’s LRN2 getting ready for his upcoming trip into space. Need to get a less casual spacesuit to go with that helmet. Taken at the Chabot Science Center and part of my famous Camping (we were on a camping trip, after all) and Machinery series.

Normal day at work. Busy evening last night, making YW camp phone calls. Many more phone calls tonight. I’m making progress, though.

The work week’s over! Lots of stuff on the agenda – birthday shopping for LRN4 (highest priority), washing one or more of my many cars, attending a camp-related meeting on Saturday morning, setting up tables and chairs for that meeting, writing a talk (also a high priority), celebrating LRN4’s birthday, working on my Arduino simulator, working on the robot, and . . . umm . . . a bunch of other things. Ought to be a busy weekend.

It’s supposed to be quite hot this weekend, with temperatures in the 90’s on Saturday and hitting 100 on Sunday. We might want to spend a little time in the pool. And crank down the A/C. I’m looking forward to it.

Let’s check today’s food violence news: Finally, there’s some good news.

See you tomorrow.

Cache finder

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009


Here’s LRN4 finding a cache at Mt. Madonna. Part of my famous Camping series.

No post yesterday. Didn’t get out of Massive Meeting Tuesday until about 10:00 and then had to write several Camp-related emails and make a phone call before I could go to bed. No time for blogging, especially when we consider the fact that I drove to work today, so there was no time for writing.

LRN5 seems to think I should expand my current events horizon beyond food violence and toilet news. I don’t know – there’s so much going on in the FV&TN world. However, when my Loyal Readers cry out, I must respond. I will find an additional topic Real Soon Now.

More Camp phone calls tonight. A lot more. I got several additional names last night, and we need to have as many people as possible ready to start serving by Saturday morning. Fortunately, I enjoy making the calls.

Today’s food violence news: Don’t send your waffle back. The great thing about this incident is that the perp is already back at work. Now that’s a tough restaurant.

See you tomorrow.

Big tree

Monday, May 11th, 2009


Here’s a fairly large redwood, spotted on Mt. Madonna. Part of my famous Camping series.

I have lots of Great Art in the queue, but not in my Great Art folder on Curly the Computer’s desktop. So I can’t use it yet. Need to get that done soon.

Went home way early from work today to go to the dentist’s office. I got two fillings replaced. They tried to talk me into spending more money to get non-amalgam fillings, right up to the time they started drilling. I stood my ground. Spent the afternoon with a numb face (insert your joke here) and feel fine now, with a slightly sore jaw. Next set of fillings: May 28.

The weekend was nice. Weather was beautiful and warm, we got some things done on Saturday (full-service lawn care, washed LRN4’s car, cleaned filthy pool and pond filters, did a bunch of programming) and had a nice peaceful Mother’s Day on Sunday. The Loyal Readers came over for the afternoon, which was pleasant.

LRN1 is ready to order a few supplies for the MARV, so it’s time for me to go. Food violence and/or toilet news tomorrow. See you tomorrow.