Archive for September, 2010

Parking lot

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Here’s the sign for the parking lot at Calaveras Big Trees Stake Park.  You can’t go wrong, as long as you want to go to the parking lot.  Part of both my famous Camping and Vacation series.

No posts the last couple of days.  Thanks to LRN4 for noticing.  Don’t know what I said to make her think I was posting yesterday.  Should have done and all that, but didn’t do.  Didn’t even get started.

Not that things aren’t just fine.  They’re . . . umm . . . just fine.  Nothing to complain about.  Work’s busy and pretty good.  The iPhone project is going well.  Home is getting less and less cluttered all the time and is going well.  I’m eating well – a bit too well, in fact.  Must . . . lose . . . weight.

Speaking of the iPhone project, I made my first actual code change yesterday!  It was a one-liner, but the important thing is knowing what one line to write and where to put it.  Seems to work.  I’m hoping for feedback from my colleagues as to whether they’re happy with it.  Hope reigns supreme.

Otherwise, situation normal.  So I won’t belabor the point and will end with this exciting GOOD food violence news: the zucchini defense!  Finally, there’s an actual use for zucchini.

See you tomorrow.

Williams steamer

Monday, September 20th, 2010

Here’s LRN4 in front of Old Number 29 – the steam locomotive that, until recently, was used to pull the train we rode to the Grand Canyon.  Such a pity we missed out on that neat experience.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of both my famous Train and Vacation series.

LRN2 mentioned sometime over the weekend that I’ve only posted three times so far this month.  Not my best record.  Of course, some Loyal Readers might think this is the best month of all here on the blog.  Not that they’d think such a thing, of course.

Fairly peaceful weekend.  Wish I could remember what happened.  I do remember working pretty much all day on Saturday.  Friday too, come to think of it.  Oh, wait – I know: I cleaned up my office.  It looks beautiful.  The Loyal Readers and I also got a whole bunch of junk out of the garage – either moved it, threw it away, or got it ready to sell.  Either way, it’s not cluttering up the front of the Taurus or impeding the way into the Ranger.  Much better.

Did a whole bunch of other things too, and I’m sure they were important.  Also very productive.  LRN4 and I spent some time in the jacuzzi Saturday evening, which was nice.  LRN2 was at a priest/laurel activity at the time, which he enjoyed.

It’s less than four months before good old LRN2 is off to college.  At least that’s what we expect to happen – his application to BYU has been submitted.  Now we wait for acceptance, which should be no problem.  We’ll see how it goes.

Not much else in the news department, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: cornbread pan attack!

See you tomorrow.

Evening beach

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

Here’s the beach at Santa Cruz around sunset.  That was a long but enjoyable day.  I think I may have mentioned that my favorite part was the four hours LRN2 and I spent together waiting for the rest of the people to come.  The low point – cleaning up the Dutch ovens afterwards.  Never again.  Check out that old concrete ship at the end of the pier.  World War I relic.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam.

Short shrift tonight.  I want to work on a bit of iPhone programming before I go to bed in about an hour.

Lots to do at work.  It’s kind of hard to stay productive right now – I suspect it’s because many of the things I need to do are things I don’t exactly want to do.  Must . . . put . . . shoulder . . . to . . . the . . . wheel.

Plenty to do at home too, but the schedule isn’t quite as tough.  LRN4 spent a good portion of the day cleaning out her hobby shelf in the garage.  Most of the stuff is in the trash can now, but she found some pretty good things there that she’s hanging on to.  Maybe she’ll be able to find a little time to work on hobbies after the house isn’t so full of time-consuming junk.  We can only hope.

Otherwise, not much.  Oh – our iPhone app came out today!  I have no idea how many downloads there have been, but we’ve had about five people already that can’t get it to download their data.  Sigh.  I suspect the database people may have chosen today to make another change, which would be unfortunate, but my contact at the church can easily get that fixed.  Or it’s something else we’ll get figured out.  My iPhone- or iPod-Touch- or iPad-owning Loyal Readers are invited to go to the Apple App Store and search for LDS Tools.  Let me know what you think.  Even bug reports are welcome.

Been watching the videos from iTunes U of the Stanford iPhone Development class.  It’s very well done, with good, clear lectures and quite good production values.  Highly recommended for budding iPhone developers such as myself.  I’m also working through the Big Nerd Ranch‘s iPhone Programming book.  Also highly recommended.  Between the two, maybe I’ll be able to figure this thing out.  I think I’m making progress.

So today was my all-iPhone blog.  Some days are just like that.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: let’s just say I’ve had this problem before too.

See you tomorrow.

Hungry bear

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

Here’s a hungry-looking bear waiting for its prey – group campers. Fortunately, this bear is technically just a statue, making it highly unlikely to actually catch any campers. Part of both my famous Camping and Statue series. Let’s throw in my famous Vacation series for good measure, for a very rare Triple Series Great Art day.

Well, I’ve certainly been negligent again, haven’t I? Must . . . post . . . more . . . regularly.

Good weekend. My dad was here – had a great visit and had a chance to talk about a lot of important things. I really appreciated his advice on several things. LRN12 was also here, and was as fun as ever. If only that girl would sleep. Sheesh. I wonder how her mom functions. LRN4 is still exhausted.

Otherwise, not much is new. The Miata is finally officially gone, after spending several days at the mechanic (and several hundred dollars!) getting fixed so it would pass its smog test. Finally passed yesterday and got picked up by its new owners today. Hopefully, they’ll really enjoy it. I know we did. My next convertible: a Corvette. It’s either that or a Porsche, and the Corvette will be way cheaper to keep running, I suspect. Not for a while, though. I’m happy with the four cars I have.

Speaking of which, LRN4 canceled the Miata’s insurance today and put LRN2 on as my beloved pickup’s driver. We’re saving a thousand bucks a year! I think they were charging us way too much for the pickup in the past. I doubt we have any way of getting the overcharged money back at this point, but at least it appears to be fixed now. Let that be a lesson to us all. Check your insurance bill. Carefully.

Let’s see, what else is going on? I really can’t think of anything. And it’s time for bed, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: McNugget punch!

See you tomorrow.

New haircut

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Here’s LRN1 and his new haircut.  What do you think, Loyal Readers?

Wow.  It’s been a long time since I last posted.  Some journal, huh?  Maybe I need to get another hobby.  But what would my long-suffering Loyal Readers do for entertainment?

We had a great weekend at Lake Tahoe.  The cabin was cute.  A little older, but neat and in great condition.  It was nice being there.  I’ll get a few photos onto the blog Real Soon Now.

In other big news, I’m writing this on my new computer!  It’s a beautiful MacBook Pro.  Nothing too out of the ordinary, but I really like it.  LRN2’s machine looks identical to it (although his hard disk is a bit smaller), and LRN4’s also looks almost identical – she has LRN1’s old unibody MacBook from a year or two ago.  It’s still a great machine and seems just like mine except for a smaller hard disk and no backlighting on its keyboard.  I’m guessing its processor might be a bit slower, but not so you could notice.  We’re all in computer heaven around here.

And we’ve been busy getting rid of old computers.  I’ve thrown away six or seven desktop machines in various states of repair, along with my old semi-broken laptop.  My trusty, still-working right Linux machine is in storage in my office – I’ll probably get rid of it soon, but I can’t quite bear to do it yet.  I think I’ve thrown away enough computers for one week, don’t you?

We’ve gotten rid of a whole lot of other stuff too.  Most notably, we’ve said goodbye to our camping trailer (as previously mentioned) and my beloved Miata.  Got pretty good money for both, although the Miata’s final departure has been delayed by difficulties getting it to pass its smog test.  It had to have its timing adjusted and now it’s getting a new catalytic converter and a fuel filler pipe.  We’re having to put a substantial portion of the purchase price back into it, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

We’ve also gotten rid of a ton of unneeded books, jillions of unneeded computer parts, unneeded stereo equipment, an unneeded semi-working laser printer, and who knows what else.  Progress is steady, but I fear we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the tip of the iceberg.  Much more junk awaits the axe.  And it can’t be gone soon enough.

Speaking of being gone, LRN2 has decided to graduate from high school in December and start college in January!  That’s pretty big news around here.  He has started the BYU application process and has until October first to complete it.  I think he’ll make it on time without too much trouble.  I’ll be really sad to see him go, but I think it’s a great idea to get out there and get going on college.

LRN2 has started driving my beloved Ranger, since my beloved Miata is gone.  We had to get a bunch of things fixed on it this week, including getting new spark plugs, spark plug wires, coil, and fuel filter (basic [but expensive] tune-up stuff), new brake rotors and pads, and a new steering wheel (paid for this week but not to be installed until next week).  It’s running great now.  I have the Suburban at work again, which passed its smog test (finally) last week.  Hopefully, we’re at least temporarily finished spending half our money on auto repairs.

Anyway.  LRN12 is here for a few days – she arrived last night and is staying through Monday.  In other visiting news, my father arrives from Michigan tomorrow.  He’s also staying until Monday.  Hopefully, this town will be big enough for the both of ’em.  I’m really looking forward to my dad’s visit, and I always love having LRN12 here too.  Should be a good weekend.

Well, it’s past my bedtime, as usual, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife employment opportunity: snake wrestler!

See you tomorrow.