Archive for May, 2012

Green statue

Thursday, May 24th, 2012

Here’s a green statue we noticed during our recent trip to New York.  Apparently, it’s French or something.  The statue itself is beautiful, and it’s on an equally impressive pedestal.  It’s not often you see such a thing.  Interestingly, it was set up in the middle of an old fort.  Who would have guessed?  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Statue series.

Just checking in tonight.  Been a busy but pleasant week.  Worked hard, ate hard, slept hard.  That’s how I roll.

LRN4 and I went to dinner tonight with our friends and my colleagues Hai and Thomas.  They’re going back to Sunnyvale tomorrow – their TDY is over.  I’ll miss them.  It looks like they’re keeping me here for the duration, though.  We’re glad about that. We’re enjoying Pennsylvania quite a bit.

On the other hand, our Las Vegas home project is moving forward smartly.  We’ve signed the papers, they’ve signed the papers, we now have an appointment to pick out the house’s options, and they’re starting to shovel the week of 4 June.  Can’t wait!

The Loyal Readers at college are both doing well.  They’ve just taken midterms with mostly very positive results.  Keep up the good work, Loyal Readers!

My trusty old router is no longer so trusty.  It’s gotten to the point of crapping out pretty much once a day.  So I ordered a trusty [amazon asin=B002HWRJY4&text=new router] tonight.  My two-day Amazon shipping will get it here by next Wednesday.  It’s the same brand as the old one, so it’s likely to have all of the old one’s good points (dual-band wireless, guest network, attached storage capability, etc.) and probably all of the same bad points as every other consumer-grade router.  Namely, that it will probably last a year and then be ready for replacement.  Such is the way of routers.

Nothing much else going on.  It’s the four-day Memorial Day weekend!  We have little to no plans, other than finishing the Brewing Co. app on the Android.  I’m going to do it!

I polled the Loyal Readers this afternoon for iOS app ideas.  I got several excellent suggestions, all of which are going on my list.  I was looking for things to work on after I go out on my own and when I’m between paying customers.  I am SO ready to get started.  Which I’m doing in my copious spare time.  When I’m not wasting that spare time, that is.

Anyway.  It’s already way past my bedtime and I must obey the call.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: hospital-invading monkey!

See you tomorrow.

Train platform

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

Here’s a closer look at the train platform I hinted at in my last post.  Maintenance required.  Looks a little rugged now, but just imagine how beautiful and exciting it was when it was filled with old steam-powered trains and people just coming to America and anxious to get to their new lives.  There were lots of really pretty architectural details as well – they just don’t make stuff like this anymore.  Well, maybe they make it like this, but not like how it used to be.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at the ferry/train station for the Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty tour, and part of my famous Train series.

Been a pretty nice few days.  First, the biggest news: LRN1 has been accepted to Cocoa Camp!  That’s an Apple thing where they invite a few college students for a week or so between Summer Term and Fall Semester.  They bring them to Cupertino and give them some intensive schooling.  All expenses paid.  Sounds like a great time!  Congrats, LRN1!

Now the other biggest news: we signed the contract for the new house this evening!  That’s right, they’ve opened up the new section where our place will be and they Fedexed us a contract yesterday.  It got here today, LRN4 and I signed it in about a million places, and she’ll Fedex it back tomorrow.  Of course, the price went up by a few thousand dollars.  What did you expect?  Our real estate agent in Las Vegas tells us the market there just might be starting to turn around a bit, so it might be the perfect time to buy!  But probably not.

Anyway, I’m excited to get the house building phase started.  Both our real estate agent and our salesman have promised to keep us well informed of the progress, and I expect to send LRN4’s sister over there fairly often too.  I’m doubtful I’ll ever see the construction in person, sadly.  I was out of the country for most of the time when we last had a house built (in Virginia, of course), but I at least got to see a bit of the work being done.  And LRN4 was there for the whole thing.  This time, probably nothing.  And that’s half the fun!  Sigh.

In a fit of fitness-induced madness, LRN4 recently purchased a set of [amazon asin=B000VCDXNS&text=adjustable dumbbells].  They seem like really great quality, come in their own sturdy-looking plastic case, and are really heavy.  Or not, depending on whether you want them to be.  Highly recommended, both by LRN4 and several people who reviewed them.  And the price was pretty good.

In other news . . . umm . . . I don’t think there is any other news.  Oh yeah, LRN4 gave a bookmark for her website to a few friends recently.  They’ve all given very positive reviews.  One said she had her graphic designer husband look at it, and he was full of praise.  Pretty impressive!  I’m counting on her (free) website to make us rich one of these days.  It could happen!

Not much else to report and it’s slightly past my bedtime, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: bratwurst assault!

See you tomorrow.

Track five

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Here’s where the Queen of the Valley stops.  Good old Track 5.  Based on the appearance of the platform back there, though, I suspect the train is running a bit late.  Great Art taken at the Ellis Island railroad/ferry terminal and part of my famous Train and Machinery series.  Sort of, anyway.

Had a nice weekend.  Didn’t do all that much – we went to the Bristol Amish Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning.  Had a nice time.  It’s much roomier than its equivalent in Newtown, but not really all that much different otherwise.  Fun trip!

And we also did . . . umm . . . not that much.  It was great!  I’m feeling rested.

I did, however, get some pretty big stuff done this weekend.  I finished revision 1.1 of the Brewing Co. app!  Got it submitted to Apple this evening.  It ought to be available for download within a few days!

Next project: finishing the Android version.  LRN1 got it off to an amazing start.  I just have a little bit more to do.  And I’ll do it!  I’m studying up as we speak.

Actually, I’m really watching Catch Me if You Can.  We’re only a few minutes into it, but it’s pretty entertaining so far.  Not necessarily happy, but entertaining.  So I’m going to get back to it.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: rampaging kangaroo!

See you tomorrow.

Chinese lion

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

Here’s a statue of a Chinese lion.  Or is that Japanese?  Thai?  Something like that.  Anyway, it appears to be guarding some highly-maintained bushes.  Great Art taken at Longwood Gardens and part of my famous Statue series.

Lots going on.  LRN1 is back at school and rooming with LRN2.  They’re also working at the same place and they have a class together too.  Plenty of togetherness there.  Don’t get on each other’s nerves, Loyal Readers!  LRN27 is also at BYU right now, and they were surprised to see each other in their common class!  So there are three Loyal Readers taking a religion class together this term.  Pretty cool.

LRN4 went with LRN1 to California to check on the house, pick up LRN1’s stuff that didn’t get sent out here, and get my beloved pickup.  They drove it to Utah where, in addition to getting LRN1 and LRN2 set up, LRN4 visited her brother and father.  She had a nice visit.  Next, she flew down to Nevada to see her sister there for a few days and do a bit more house-hunting.  My Loyal Readers may recall that we’ve been toying with the idea of buying a retirement home there.  We keep making offers, but we keep being outbid by foreign “investors.”  Very frustrating.

Well, she stopped by a new housing development, saw a nice place, and bought it.  Well, she technically put a small deposit down on an empty lot, but we expect to be buying a nice little house a bit later this year.  The place will have 1700 square feet with three bedrooms and a loft (office space!), two and a half bathrooms, and a two-car garage.  Just about perfect!  There’s a community swimming pool (important in the desert heat) and the community plants and cares for your front yard.  You don’t get much say in what’s out there, but I don’t care about that all the much and LRN4 will just have to stifle her front-yard creative urges.  She can do whatever she wants in the back yard, which we hope to make attractive and maintenance-free.  Bit of a big challenge, that, but we’ll come up with something.  Oh, also low cost, of course.  We’ll be on a fixed income until the iOS programming bucks start rolling in.

Anyway.  I’m excited to have the search done.  Now we can pick our options and try to manage construction from a long, long way away.  The house is supposed to be finished in September, which ought to be just about right.  It’s in Las Vegas, not Henderson, but it’s right on the border and is about five minutes away from LRN4’s sister.  Also very close to Costco and other great shopping.  I can’t wait to become a Nevadan!

The aforementioned Beaglebone arrived on schedule.  I haven’t written here much lately, partly because I’ve been messing around with it.  It’s a real Linux computer on a board that fits inside a mint tin.  Very cool.  It’s powered up right now and sitting on my network serving its sample website.  Not very exciting yet, but there are definitely possibilities.

My tennis elbow has improved but has not yet healed.  These things take time.  I’m trying to be as careful as possible with it, but accidents will happen.  I’m telling people it’s a polo injury.  Nobody believes me.

I’m finally working on the first update to the Brewing Company app.  We have 64 downloads so far, which isn’t exactly a record-setting pace, but at least it’s out there.  Check it out, iPhone/iPad-owning Loyal Readers!  It’s free!  And worth at least twice that much!

Okay, time for bed.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: condiment theft!

See you tomorrow.