morrowlife

Here’s the little train we rode yesterday getting ready to leave the station. It was a fun ride and a pretty little park.

We had a nice Fourth today. Spent the morning at home and went over to the Santa Clara City celebration in the afternoon. We’re at home watching The Long, Long Trailer on DVD. Nicky and Tacey are just buying the trailer now. We’re planning to watch the Great America fireworks from The Privacy of Our Own Home at 9:30. We’ve seen the shows for the past few nights and they were very good. Tonight’s show ought to be great.

We were introduced to Lawn Bowling this afternoon. It looks like a lot of fun. There’s a beautiful bowling green at the Santa Clara City park and a club that plays four days a week. They tried to get us to join up. We might have done it – it looks like a lot of fun – but we’re not going to be in Santa Clara much longer. Maybe there will be Lawn Bowling in Lardville.

I used my new Palm development system to create an actual program last night. It calculates the CRC checksum of a given string. I know that’s not much, but it was good practice. I got everything working right – forms, buttons, menus, an about-box, and the application itself. It works great! Now I just need to decide what to write next.

Speaking of programming, in a minor tragedy, I appear to have deleted the source code for all my previous programs when I left my job in Newtown. I somehow failed to get them copied onto my new computer. That includes that famous classic, Tapeworm, along with some other highlights. I may have to resort to reverse engineering some things. I’m very sad. On the other hand, this is the perfect opportunity to recode and improve performance.

I finished Tales of St. Austin’s a day or two ago. Can’t really say much more than I’ve said before. It’s a bunch of unrelated short stories centering around common characters and locations – a boys’ school in England and the upper-class twits that inhabit it. It’s fun, light reading – perfect for carrying around in a gadget and reading in spare moments. Highly recommended, especially at the price.

Added my embedded system programming book to the book club list. Its one review on Amazon is pretty unflattering. The jury is still out for me on this one. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone but programming junkies in any case. I also added a fun little 19th-century book about camping. So far, it’s really interesting. Check it out.

I’m going to pay attention to the movie now. Tomorrow’s back-to-work Wednesday. See you then.

Here’s a picture of the kitchen at the Secret Undisclosed Location. Compare and contrast with the Dream kitchen posted a few days ago. I think I like this one at least as well. I might as well, since this is the one I’m getting. Thanks to Loyal Reader Number Two for today’s picture. I turned him loose in the house with the camera the other day and he took numerous pictures.

I’m cheating just a little on today’s post and typing it on the Fourth. Don’t tell anybody.

Time for lunch. I’ll be right back.

I’m back. I had chicken and rice, with a brownie and ice cream for dessert. It was delicious.

Anyway, the activities of the Third of July include a trip to a park in Los Gatos – a lovely little community – to ride a small railroad (pictures to come later) and an antique carrousel. Cool.

See you tomorrow with much more content. Happy Fourth.

Here are a couple of trees a few steps from the Fortress of Solitude’s front (and only) door, as they appeared this evening at about 8:00. Those ones with the purple flowers are all over the place, and they’re dropping their petals at an alarming rate. They’re everywhere. Loyal Reader Number Four is pretty much constantly sweeping them up from in front of the FOS door.

Worked about three and a half hours today. I went in much later than usual and was home by 12:30. Can’t complain. I even got a thing or two done.

The rest of the day was spent pretty much slacking. We did go to the grocery store this afternoon, and Loyal Readers Number 2 and 4 washed the dog, but that’s about it. We read our books and I checked out an online magazine called Free Software Magazine. It’s pretty interesting – has something for people at all levels of Linux expertise. They have twelve issues out so far. Check it out. Maybe even think about subscribing, although I don’t think I will.

I also read most of the rest of the PocketC Architect manual. That led to a pleasant nap just before dinner. Oh, I also went outside and took a few pictures, one of which is above. Look for some actually interesting ones after the weekend. Or not.

I’m tired, so will head for bed. We’re looking forward to LRN1’s return home tomorrow morning. Travel safely!

Here’s my sister enjoying some roses in downtown Philadelphia during Memorial Day weekend. It was a beautiful day, wasn’t it? By the way, Sandy, you should really become a Loyal Reader.

I have to admit that I’m out of good blog pictures. There are lots of good ones on my Mac in Gardenville, but my Mac’s not here, so I’ve been relying on what was in my camera when we came out here and whatever I’ve been found the time to snap since we got here, and I’ve pretty much used all the interesting ones. Some readers might suggest that I’ve already gone past that point. I hereby absolutely promise to take some more pictures this weekend and I furthermore absolutely promise that at least some of them will be worth looking at. Really.

Loyal Reader Number Four has pointed out that I failed to mention the cool GE Advantium microwave/speed oven in yesterday’s Dream Kitchen post. So noted. Unlike the goofy heating shelf, we’re getting one of those.

Our loan for the Secret Undisclosed Location got final approval today. Nothing could possibly go wrong now! Of course, we still need to sell Chateau Pathetique, but that will happen. We’re exercising faith, and we encourage all our Loyal Readers to join us, along with a healthy dose of prayer. Please.

I think we’ve decided to go to the Alameda County Fair on Monday. Sounds like fun. Hopefully, it will be. Pictures and a report will be provided in Monday’s Morrowlife. Look for Independence Day ditto on Tuesday.

A quick update on the new job, from the one-month-point prespective. I’m really enjoying it. The challenge is huge, the technology is really cool, the people are friendly and interesting, and it’s great to be doing software again. I’m really glad we came here.

Speaking of work, the layoff notices are supposed to go out in Newtown in the next few days. We’ll never know if I would have been hit, will we? It really doesn’t matter, though. I’m much happier in Sunnyvale. I’ll be interested to see which of my friends are getting the old heave-ho.

Tomorrow’s my off Friday, but I have to be there to chair a meeting in the morning. I’ll try to stick around less than three hours or so. That cuts my five-day weekend down to four and a half days. No problem.

I bought an update to the development system I’ve been using on my gadget. This one has a lot more system interface options and will generate much more professional-looking programs, but is also small and well-defined enough that the learning curve is pretty small. I really like it. The upgrade cost me fifteen bucks. Quite a bargain. I’ve only produced a “Hello, World” program so far, but I hope to come up with something interesting soon. Suggestions from Loyal Readers are more than welcome. What would be a useful/fun/interesting/worthwhile Palm program?

Loyal Reader Number One is keeping in touch during his vacation via Morrowlife comment posts. Check ’em out. Yet another example of the impact of the modern blog. Thanks, LRN1!

That’s it for today. See you tomorrow.

Here’s the kitchen in the model for the Secret Undisclosed Location. That hood over the stove is fascinating – it contains a McDonald’s-like heat lamp. Perfect for those dinners when you get home late from work. Fortunately for me, our house doesn’t have one. I’m not quite sure what Loyal Reader Number One is up to there. Maybe he’s pretending to be a Famous Chef, looking down his nose at all the little Sous Chefs. Maybe he’s just about to sneeze.

Not a lot to report today. Loyal Readers Number Two and Four and I sat in the spa for half an hour or so this evening – quite relaxing. We had it all to ourselves tonight, so it was almost like having our own. I’m looking forward to having another one of our own in a few months, along with a neato pool too.

We’re trying to decide on the Funnest Fourth of July Activity Ever. Loyal Reader Number Four looked on the internet tonight and discovered several attractive options. We’ll probably end up going to the Santa Clara celebration. There’s supposed to be a lot of music, food, and other entertainment. Of course, the fireworks start at about 9:30. It’s close to home, so we can get there pretty quickly and even come and go if we like. It’s free, too. We don’t know about the parking situation, but we can probably work it out.

LRN4 also found a few other interesting places to visit on non-holidays as a side effect of tonight’s research. We might check one or two out sometime during the weekend. We have a meeting with the Pool People on Saturday, but that’s about the extent of our commitments for the five-day weekend (assuming I don’t end up having to go to work on my Off Friday). We’ve decided that we should be taking more advantage of the fact that we have practically no responsibilities for a couple of months, so we hope to go visit a few more cool places in the upcoming days. I’ll try to take some pictures for Morrowlife.

There’s been a very positive response to my idea of adding the comments to the front page. I’m still looking for a way to make it happen. Thanks for your comments, stay tuned, and feel free to send me any ideas for software to do the job, or any other suggestions. I may not implement everything, but I just might.

We’re watching an interesting History Channel show on barbecuing. Right now, we’re looking at the Weber Grill factory. Fascinating. I love the History Channel almost as much as I love the Discovery Channel (Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, and – of course – American Chopper), which I love almost as much as I love HGTV (Design on a Dime and several others). Of course, nothing beats Rocky and Bullwinkle, but they’re pretty hard to find these days.

Time for bed. See you tomorrow.