morrowlife

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.

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.

Here’s a view from the docks in New Jersey.  See if you can pick out a well-known landmark or two.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Statue series.

Hmm.  I think that categorization may have given away at least part of the answer.  Hopefully, my Loyal Readers won’t notice.

No word from Apple yet on releasing the Brewing Co. app.  Patience, grasshopper.  In the meantime, LRN1 is making amazing progress on the Android version.  What do you think are the chances it’ll be on the street before the iOS one?  I’m giving it about 25-30%, but LRN1 is usually good for a challenge.

Went out to lunch with my colleagues Hai and Thomas today, as is our wont on Fridays.  This time, I invited LRN4 and LRN1 to go with us.  We went to the Thai restaurant in the same strip mall as the Newtown Amish Farmer’s Market.  Except the restaurant is gone.  Closed down.  I guess they needed my business a bit earlier.  So we decided to go to the Amish Farmer’s Market for lunch instead.  Except all the Amish people were taking Good Friday off.  So we decided to go to the Chinese restaurant at the far end of the strip mall.  Except they had a fire a couple of days ago and they’re closed for repairs.  So we went back to the Amish Farmer’s Market and got Mexican and Japanese food from the non-Amish vendors.  Sheesh.  It was good anyway, but sheesh.

Let’s see, other new stuff . . . hmm . . . still thinking . . . nope, not coming up with anything.

Then let’s talk about Linux, shall we?  I’m disgusted with Ubuntu.  I see that shocked look on your face.  Well, it’s true.  I’ve loved Ubuntu for the last few years – and used it extensively – but they’ve jumped the shark for me.  That stupid Gnome Unity interface has got to go.  What a mess.  It’s as bad as Windows 8.

No, it’s not that bad.  Nothing is.

But it’s bad anyway.  A laptop computer is not a tablet.  It never has been and it never will be.  I don’t want a desktop full of icons.  I want a menu.  Give me my menu back, Ubuntu!

Yes, I know, there are supposedly ways to get the menu back.  That worked fine on Ubuntu 11.04, so I used it and was happy, but it’s hopelessly broken on 11.10.

And don’t tell me it’s all Gnu’s fault.  Yes, they’re responsible for Gnome.  But Ubuntu is responsible for caving to them.  And I don’t run Gnu, I run Ubuntu.

Or I ran Ubuntu, that is.  It’s gone now.  My trusty old Averatec Linux Laptop is now running Linux Mint.  That’s basically still Ubuntu (even downloads its updates from Ubuntu’s repositories – I wonder how long the Ubuntu people will put up with that!), but it has . . . wait for it . . . menus!  It also features a bit of non-free software, which doesn’t bother me a bit, and it doesn’t require me to put up with some Stallmanesque guilt trip to enable it.  It appears to have a nice, clean look, and it seems speedy enough for my old, pathetic hardware so far.

So do I have a perfect distribution?  A lot of people seem to think so.  I’ll have to see what I think after a while.

Okay, rant over.  Thanks for listening.  I feel so much better.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: mystery freeway dog!

See you on Monday.

Here’s LRN4 with one of her fellow pirates.  That’s LRN4 there on the right.  She’s the one with both legs.  Also hands.  But no beard.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone 4S-cam, taken in Maui on our recent cruise, and part of my famous Statue and Vacation series.

Greetings from the New Fortress of Solitude East (NFOS)!  That’s right, I’m in Newtown.  This is my second week, in fact.  Never got around to posting last week.  Sorry about that, Loyal Readers.

It’s the New Fortress of Solitude because I’m all by myself.  Poor me.  My TDY hasn’t been approved by the cast of thousands on the signature list yet, so I’m just coming out a week or two at a time on business travel.  Makes it a bit lonesome, although I do have plenty of time to myself.  The moment of silence lasts all evening long.  I’ll be home in Lardville next week, working in Sunnyvale, and on holiday the following week.  Come January 3rd, I’m back here for a three-week stint.  LRN4 will be joining me for that one.  Hopefully, the TDY will kick in after that and we can start looking for more permanent quarters.  Although I’m really enjoying the Residence Inn.  It’s just too small for the long term.  Also too expensive.  But a very nice place to stay.

I have a Ford Crown Victoria as my rental car this week.  I have always liked big cars, and I had hoped I would like this one.  It is indeed large, although the interior isn’t really roomy by current standards.  It’s moderately comfortable and handles okay.  The big V8 engine doesn’t seem all that powerful, though.  Also, there’s no Sirius radio or steering wheel radio controls.  And it just seems so … dated.  Last week, I had a Ford Flex and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I’ll be fine with the Crown Vic the rest of this week, but I hope I don’t get another one.  Blasts from the past should probably stay in the past.

Besides, the car has over 14,000 miles on it.  That’s pretty ancient for a rental car.

Speaking of cars, LRN4 sold the Honda last week.  She’s the best salesperson I know.  I’ll miss it, but it was time to let it go.  I’m happy with my Taurus.

I’m certainly cranking up the airline miles and the hotel nights again.  Hotel nights especially.  Will have ten nights this month and I’m scheduled for another 17 next month already.  And there will undoubtedly be more after that.  The Marriott people are going to LOVE me!  Even though I’m going 2500 miles each way, though, I’m still not traveling enough for the airline miles to amount to a hill of beans.  Not like when I was going to Europe week in and week out ten years ago, racking up 20,000 miles a month.  Those were the good bad old days!

Anyway.  I’m enjoying the job.  It’s all quite new, so it’s a bit of a struggle to learn everything I need to know to be productive, but that will come.  I’ll also get to know the people, which I’m looking forward to.  They seem like good folks.  And east coast people just dress better than their counterparts in the west.  I don’t exactly know why they do, but it suits me just fine.

Heard from LRN1 today, rather than yesterday.  They had a Monday conference with their mission president and didn’t get to write until today.  We’re almost exactly two months away from the day he comes home!  I’m getting really excited to have him back.  And it’ll be fun to spend a couple of months together before he’s back to school.

It’s past time for me to get to bed, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: spaghetti spat!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the famous Detroit Zoo bear fountain.  Great Art taken this summer at the Detroit Zoo and part of my famous Statue and Vacation series.

Extreme short shrift.  As usual.  It’s already just about 10:00 and tomorrow is a work Friday (boo!). (I mean yea!)

Stayed home from work today.  Wasn’t feeling well.  For the last day and a half, our water purifier at work has been on the fritz, so I’ve been drinking tap water.  I’ve always firmly believed in the complete safety of tap water – heck, it’s tested and bottled water isn’t.  So it has a much better chance of being completely safe to drink, right?

Well, maybe that is right.  Maybe something else did it.  All I know is that I drank work tap water for a day and a half and I got REAL sick for a day and a half.  By mid-morning today I was feeling pretty much fine.  So I’m off work’s tap water from now on.  Just in case.

Worked anyway – just at home.  I probably got more done in less time than usual, but let’s not jump to conclusions.

I also got some LDS Tools work done.  Also read part of my book, watched a couple episodes of Mythbusters, a couple of Futurama, and one of Dilbert.  Good old Netflix streaming.  I’m not happy about their outrageous price increase and I’m definitely worried about their recent inability to negotiate contracts with content providers (and don’t even get me started about the Hollywood Luddites who can’t figure out that their environment has changed), but I’m not cutting off my nose to spite my face.  I’m keeping both streaming and my one-disk-at-a-time service.  Always willing to have another look at it, though.  I just wish Amazon on-demand streaming worked on my new Apple TV.  Maybe it will, eventually.  Since I became a Prime customer, it’s free!  Well, at least it’s paid-for, anyway.

Happy birthday to LRN16!  Had a nice long talk with her today.  She’s doing well!

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

See you tomorrow.