Archive for the ‘electronics’ Category

Patricidal reader

Monday, July 27th, 2015

electrocution

Here’s Your Humble and Obedient Blogger just before being brutally fried by his son. Note how Andy remained in the shadows to try to escape being recognized. Fortunately, I got better. Great Art courtesy of Joanne’s exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at the Mob Museum last Christmas Eve (I think), and part of my famous Electronics, Las Vegas, and Machinery series.

It’s been a pretty good few weeks since I last wrote. Joanne and I just got home from Temecula, California. We spent the weekend there to do a bit of wine tasting and attend a wonderful concert. Gerald Albright and Jeffrey Osborne performed. Gerald was very good and Jeffrey was amazing! Go see him if you get a chance, Loyal Readers. He was full of energy, his music catalog is excellent, his performance was spectacular, and it was a beautiful evening. Really, go see him.

Let’s see, what else has been going on? Ryan spent a couple weeks at Joanne’s place. He came out to celebrate his birthday. It was great having him here! He’s really a great guy. Get to know him, Loyal Readers!

I’ve had a few more flights in the glider. I’m starting to get slightly competent as a pilot! I think I’ll get it figured out before too much longer. My next flight is Wednesday of this week.

This coming weekend is one I’ve been preparing for the past eighteen months. On August 2nd, it will be eighteen months since Shannon’s death and the date the children and I go to Clarks Fork and scatter her ashes. It’s a bit difficult for me to finally let go of her remains. But it needs to be done. I need to let her go. We all need to let her go. We need to keep her in our hearts and our thoughts and our memories. We need to talk about her and think about her. We need to keep loving the alive Shannon and let the dead Shannon go in peace.

I’m looking forward to being with all the kids. Joanne has gotten us a beautiful place to stay in Angels Camp. That’s so kind of her. She opted not to go with us, which I’m sorry about and which I understand completely.

Anyway. I expect it to be an emotional weekend.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: video game-playing chimp!

See you tomorrow.

Edison’s shop

Tuesday, April 28th, 2015

edisonshop

Here’s Thomas Edison’s shop. He developed the lightbulb here. Nice work, Tom! Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken last July at Greenfield Village in beautiful Dearborn, Michigan, and part of my famous Architecture, Electronics, Vacation, and Workbench series.

It’s only been five days since my last post! That’s a new record in recent days here. So there’s not so much to report about. However, we are not without news here.

Joanne and I went back to the Bay Area on Saturday morning. We came home Sunday evening, so it was a bit brief. Joanne attended Katy’s bridal shower and appears to have enjoyed it quite a bit. My in-laws-to-be are wonderful folks and Joanne loves them too now.

In the meantime, Clifford took his stepdad James and me out for the world’s fanciest donuts, the world’s fanciest coffee, and the world’s prettiest wedding venue. It was a great morning! The big wedding will be beautiful. Sunday, Katy, Cliff, Mia, Joanne, and I went to the Berkeley Kite Flying Field. Surprisingly, while we were there, we flew kites! Never saw that coming, did you, Loyal Readers? In the afternoon, Joanne and I went to visit Ryan. We had lunch together and went over to visit with Junior, Joanne’s former dog and Ryan’s current dog. Then we came home.

Anyway, it was a pleasant weekend. San Francisco was beautiful. And we missed the big Las Vegas rainstorm on Saturday.

Joanne and I went to the 51’s baseball game last night. Our team won! We enjoyed the game. Plus, they gave everyone in our row free Big Foam Fingers! For keeps! Now that’s something.

I may need that finger. I sliced my thumb open this morning on Joanne’s mandoline. Oops. I wasn’t even cutting with it. I was just trying to put it back in its box. It was bleeding badly enough that I decided to take a trip to urgent care. They put a butterfly bandage on it and told me not to get it wet for a week. So it’s not a big deal. Still, it’s nice knowing I have a spare foam finger around the house just in case.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: crime-fighting parrot!

See you tomorrow.

Quadrotor selfie

Tuesday, January 20th, 2015

IMG_0138.JPG

Here’s our mutually favorite blogger taking a very artistic selfie from his hovering quadrotor. Great art courtesy of the exclusive quadrotor-cam, taken this afternoon at the great big soccer park across the road from my neighborhood, and part of my famous Electronics and Machinery series.

The park across from my neighborhood may be huge, but I managed to find one of its few trees with my quad. While I was trying my hand at a few expert maneuvers (while not yet quite an expert, by the way), I managed to get disoriented with it and fly it into a tree. It was pretty well stuck and I couldn’t get to it by climbing, so I decided to try throwing it a line. After extremely numerous attempts, I managed to snag it and bring it back to earth!

Sadly, it fell hard on one of its arms and snapped it right off. Luckily, Bob, my flying-buddy, had spares to replace the broken frame and LED lens, which he gave me in exchange for new ones I ordered tonight. I’ll tear it apart Real Soon Now and get it back in the air.

Anyway. No post yesterday evening. I was up in Summerlin for the evening. Joanne had an important appointment there this morning and didn’t want to risk being late, so we stayed there. Had a nice dinner together and a lovely evening.

Her appointment went very well, apparently.

Mark and I went for sushi with the sushi group this evening. We went to a restaurant I hadn’t visited previously. The people were fun and the food was passable. Not great, but passable. Mark and I agreed we probably won’t go back there again, but we didn’t hate it.

Today was the first day of Mark’s semester! He reported some good and some bad, so I’m taking that as average. Good luck, Mark!

Nice weekend. We had a couple nice meals out and spent most of the day on Saturday working on Joanne’s house and yard. We got a few things fixed up and a few others straightened up and a few more ignored completely. Maybe some other time.

Tomorrow night, we’re going to see the UNLV basketball team play. Joanne got a couple of free tickets at work. I’m looking forward to the game. I wonder where our seats are.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: exploding baked bean tins!

See you tomorrow.

Airborne entertainment

Wednesday, November 26th, 2014

airplaneentertainment

Here’s the view from my airplane seat last August, on my way to Detroit to see my mother for the last time. Live baseball on my iPad at 30,000 feet! I like how Southwest does some things. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at altitude in a Southwest 737 in August, 2014, and part of my famous Electronics, Food, Machinery, and Vacation series.

I didn’t know it was my last visit with my mom. But it was. She was sick by then – very sick indeed – and in the hospital when I got there. They moved her to a rehab place while I was there, but she didn’t make any improvement and she left that place for hospice at home shortly after I came back to Las Vegas at the end of the week. I’m so grateful I got to see her one more time, in spite of the terrible shape and low spirits she was in. She was a wonderful mother and a truly good person and I miss her.

There are a few new things to discuss today, but it’s very late so I’ll try to keep it brief.

Paul’s here! His two-week stay is up tomorrow. We’ve had a very nice visit and I’m sorry to see him have to go home. A few hours after Paul’s departure, Andy arrives for Thanksgiving. I love having the company!

Mark got a new phone yesterday. His iPhone 4S was getting very old and its battery wasn’t holding much of a charge anymore. So we got him a new 5S. Yes, I know that’s an older phone, but it was what we could afford and it’s a whole lot better than what he had. Besides, a few short weeks ago, it was the coolest thing on the block. I think he likes it.

I finally finished the first draft of the website I’ve been contracted to produce. I thought it was probably pretty far from what my client wanted, but it turns out I was wrong. They love it! I have a bit of cleanup work to do, the client needs to provide me a bunch of text, and he needs to get hosting arranged before we can go live. But I’m truly excited about having a design they’re happy with.

I think I’m ready to start working full-time again. Currently, I’m planning to concentrate all my efforts on PhotoDoc for at least a few months. Maybe once I get things under better control and feel that I’m providing my customers and potential customers a product and customer service we’re completely proud of, I can turn my attention back to iOS apps, but this is the thing that’s currently most likely to provide me a living, so that’s where my effort is going.

Speaking of working on iOS apps, I’ve been thinking about an iOS app to complement PhotoDoc. I don’t think we’ll try to put the analysis tools on an iPhone, but I’m toying with the idea of using the iPhone/iPad as data gathering tools, with photos, audio files, interview forms, growth chart data, and even possibly traumagrams being captured on the iDevice and transferred automatically to the user’s copy of PhotoDoc. I need to talk to my partner and our odontologist advisors to see if there’s any interest in pursuing this. The idea is that customers could use the device they always have in their pockets to gather information whenever it becomes available and get it into PhotoDoc immediately. It’s already possible to use those devices to gather data, but it currently requires a tiny bit of work to get it into the app on your computer’s desktop. We could save that bit of effort and make it a free or low cost add-on to the program. Just a thought.

Ken came over today to visit before Paul leaves. It was good to see him. We’re getting together again on Thanksgiving afternoon and again on Saturday for a couple hours for me to help him set up his Christmas village in their living room. I enjoy hanging out with Ken.

Joanne and I have a bunch more travel coming up soon, which I’ll discuss here at a later date.

And that’s about it for today. Things are great.

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: crime-fighting fake fish!

See you tomorrow.

Electronic organ

Monday, May 19th, 2014

electronicorgan

Here’s a bit of a modern take on the organ console. This thing appears to be made entirely of standalone electronic keyboards. Kind of an interesting idea. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in March 2012 at Northlandz in beautiful Flemington, New Jersey, and part of my famous Electronics series.

Great weekend! Joanne and I went for dinner and swimming at the home of her (and now my) friends Phil and Rosie on Friday night. Had a great time! They are such kind, friendly people. All of Joanne’s friends have just latched on to me as if I was their oldest and best friend. It’s such a gratifying feeling. Saturday afternoon, we went to a little party at her friend Kim’s home. Another very nice visit with more new best friends. We had lunch together today.

They aired an interview done by the 11-year-old girl behind Abby’s Million-Dollar Dream today. Abby’s raising a million dollars for leukemia and lymphoma research in memory of Shannon. My Loyal Readers will recall that Mark and I marched in the recent Henderson Heritage Day parade to support Abby. The interview is pretty sweet. Have a look, Loyal Readers! And please donate, even if it’s just a couple dollars. I think it will make a difference.

Got a little bit of infrastructure work done here in my office today. The hard drive containing my media files had outgrown its backup drive. I knew it would happen, as the media drive is 1.5 terabytes in size and the backup disk was only 1 terabyte. So it was just a matter of time until the media drive got full enough to result in failed backups. Well, that time came a few weeks ago. After deep contemplation on the subject, I decided to take another 1 TB drive that was underutilized and add it to the existing backup drive in a JBOD array, resulting in a 2 TB virtual drive. Got that done today and all my computers are busily backing themselves up once more. Life is good again.

Spent some time on the phone with John today, talking about recent progress on PhotoDoc. We have no conference registrations yet, which was troubling both of us. Found out on Sunday that our colleagues who are identifying candidates for our October seminar hadn’t sent out any invitations yet. No problem – there’s still plenty of time. John also showed me some very useful additions he’s making to the app. We’re going to release them sometime in the next few months.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: car salesman-biting spider monkey! It’s your chance to be a hero!

See you tomorrow.