Archive for August, 2008

Road locomotive

Monday, August 11th, 2008


Here’s a locomotive without any tracks. Picture taken at Greenfield Village. Part of both my famous Train series and my famous Machinery series. You’re welcome for the twofer.

Well. There’s been quite a reaction to Friday’s Great Art, starting with Loyal Reader Number Three’s suggestion that Grandma teach the kid to skitch and ghost-ride (whatever those are) and going right through Loyal Reader Number Twenty-Four’s non-written comments to me regarding knowing who the friend was on Saturday afternoon. Or was that yesterday? Time goes so quickly on weekends, doesn’t it?

Anyway, if I can figure out what skitching and ghost-riding are, I might start doing them. Probably not, though. Just guessing there.

Update: I found out what ghost-riding is. I had suspicions. I don’t think I’ll start doing it.

Another update: I found out what skitching is. I also had suspicions about this. Ditto on starting to do it.

Those things sound like so much fun, don’t they?

Thank goodness for Wikipedia, Loyal Readers.

Anyway. Fast-moving weekend. It was over before we knew it. The Loyal Readers got home from the Scout encampment on Saturday. They had a great time. Emphasis on the great. I’ll let them tell about it in the comments. If any.

Loyal Reader Number Four and I didn’t do much while the boys were away. Quiet few days. We had our young friends the triplets over to play games and swim on Saturday. Their house had suffered a broken pipe and their parents and LRN24 needed to get some work done around the house. We had a nice time.

Since Saturday was one of the six most special days of the year, we celebrated that evening. What was the special occasion? Loyal Reader Number Two’s birthday, of course. He got a razor. And not a moment too soon.

We had a power outage later Saturday evening, right while we were watching Psych. The power stayed out for about an hour and a half. After the first five minutes, Loyal Reader Number One and I went out and started the generator. We plugged in a light and played some games. Had a nice time. In some ways, it was even better than watching television.

Sunday was quiet and peaceful. Just like I like it.

Took the Honda to the shop this evening. They’re going to try the front-end alignment one more time. Wish them luck, Loyal Readers. Really. I need them to be lucky.

Hope your weekend was as good as mine. Time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Sleeping friend

Friday, August 8th, 2008


Here’s a young non-Loyal-Reader friend having a little nap on the sofa in our loft. He obviously needed the rest. That’s a kid who knows how to spread out. The pillow and blanket look to be doing him a lot of good, don’t they?

It’s (obviously) time for more Great Art. I’ll take the camera on the camping trip and to Utah, of course. I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities both places. I could probably do a little more mining of my current stash of photos as well. Have no fear, Loyal Readers. The Great Art just keeps on coming.

No post yesterday. It was Thursday Meeting Night and I ran out of time. Sorry about that, Loyal Readers. But I guess it wasn’t much of a hardship for most of you, since I haven’t heard from Anon for quite a long time. Although I was gratified to see some lasagne-related comments the last couple of days from Loyal Readers Numbers Three and Five.

Disaster! The Blog went down again today. I know what’s going on, but I don’t know why. Comcast seems to be changing my IP address daily. Maybe they’re doing it in an effort to discourage web servers. I have to admit it’s a bit discouraging to be brought down two days in a row. But I have instituted a fix that will (or won’t) prove itself when the IP address changes again. My server is now automatically checking the IP address every fifteen minutes and updating my DNS server when it changes. So the blog shouldn’t go down for more than fifteen minutes from here on out. We’ll see how well it works, won’t we?

Well, today was possibly the most interesting day of the year, date-wise. It was 08/08/08. Won’t see another one like it. Until 09/09/09. I made sure to date everything I signed today.

Controversy of the day: did this woman deserve to be arrested and charged with child abuse? After all, she was going at “snail speed.” And she was holding the kid’s arm the whole time. What could be more caring than that?

Have a great weekend.

Powerhouse controls

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008


Here’s the control panel in Henry Ford’s powerhouse. I guess if I had enough money to buy literally anything I wanted, I might get a power generating plant. Why not?

Greetings from the train. I’ve been riding a lot lately – it’s so much cheaper now – but haven’t been doing much writing onboard. I need to make better use of the time, though, and maybe reduce some evening computer time at home. There’s lots of writing to be done – stuff for the HRVA, articles for Gardenville (working on a short one now, in fact), to name just a couple – and I could stand to fritter just a little less.

I took the Suburban to Sunnyvale today to leave it at the station on that end. That’ll allow me to get to work a few minutes more quickly in the morning, leave the office about half an hour later in the afternoon, and have an emergency ride home in case I miss the last train. Or if I choose to take the late bus, for which there is no shuttle service. Plus, it’ll be nice to have a car at the office when I need it. I’m hoping it turns out to make the train trip much more pleasant. If it does work out, I’ll swap it for the Taurus after Loyal Reader Number One abandons it.

Speaking of which, I definitely want to make one of these. And definitely check out that website.

In spite of the need to get more done on the train, I do enjoy my podcasts. I’ve been enjoying a couple of new ones – one is a vodcast called Jigsaw. It’s a difficult-to-describe sock puppet comedy show. It’s better than it sounds. Have a look.

LRN1 is off to the LDS encampment. It’s being held on a farm a little more than an hour away from Lardville. He took off this morning, and Loyal Reader Number Two is going up tomorrow. They had the priests go up a day early to help finish setting up. LRN1 was able to call this afternoon to request that LRN2 bring him some additional equipment, and he reports that the place is really cool. They’ve got high-adventure stuff galore: scuba in a pool, rock wall climbing, horseback riding, a water slide, and tons of other stuff. They’re going to have live musical entertainment (an LDS group, but still), at least one motivational speaker, and an apostle. LRN1 sounds really excited about it. I’m looking forward to hearing about it when they get back. Have a great time, Loyal Readers!

In the meantime, Loyal Reader Number Four and I will be on our own for a few days again. Just us and the eleven Loyal Pets. We have no exciting plans. In fact, I have to work on my off Friday this week. Still, it ought to be quiet again.

Not that it’s particularly noisy when the Loyal Readers are at home.

We have a camping trip scheduled. We’re going up to Clark’s Fork again. We’ll go a couple of Thursdays from now, stay through Saturday, have a little birthday party for LRN2 Saturday evening (two weeks after his birthday, but it’s the only opportunity), go to church on Sunday, and leave for Utah on Monday for our fun-filled week of dropping LRN1 off at school. We’ll come home on Saturday and go to church on Sunday. Then it’s Labor Day. That’ll be twelve days away from the office, including the weekends, at a cost of only six days of vacation. Pretty good deal.

Anyway. I’m looking forward to the campout. We were up there last year and it was beautiful. Probably will be again this year. This time I’ll remember to write it up for the HRVA.

Morrowlife controversy followup: It looks like Kirby’s getting a little fallout. He can’t say he wasn’t warned. Assuming he reads the Morrowlife blog, that is. But everyone does, of course.

The blog was down for part of the day today. The server got a new IP address and I needed to update my DNS server. Things are back to normal. No comments on yesterday’s controversy, though, so I’ll let it stand for one more day. What’s your opinion on the Lasagne Registration issue?

See you tomorrow.

Tram view

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008


Here’s the view from our tram ride through Yosemite. That place is just dripping with Great Art.

Short Shrift again tonight. This time I spent the evening listening to 70s music. It was worth it. They made some pretty good stuff back then. Of course, they made some pretty bad stuff too. Loyal Reader Number Four and I heard some stuff we hadn’t heard in a long time. Also some stuff we don’t want to hear again for another long time.

So I’m already out of time. Fortunately, there’s nothing to report.

So I’ll leave you with a lame controversy: should lasagne be strictly regulated by the government?

See you tomorrow.

Ford’s fireplace

Monday, August 4th, 2008


Here are Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two in front of Henry Ford’s fireplace. Pretty nice piece of wood. Picture taken in the ballroom at Fairlane.

Short Shrift. I had time to blog and watched this week’s Monk instead. It wasn’t bad. Natalie became the Lottery Girl. And a couple of people got murdered. Fortunately, Natalie and The Captain weren’t guilty. You’re welcome.

Saturday was as bad as predicted. I spent much more time in the car than at work, my folks weren’t in the lab when I was able to be there, and my arms and neck got sunburned. Pity me, Loyal Readers.

Sunday, on the other hand, was restful.

Oh, the good thing that happened on Saturday was that Loyal Reader Number Four got back from camp. She had a medium time, which is not as good as hoped but better than feared. Next year needs to be better, though.

Other news later. See you tomorrow.