morrowlife

Here’s the view outside the Miata’s window this evening.

Welcome to Morrowlife Post 585. I should be hitting six hundred exactly three weeks from today. Wow.

Speaking of blogs, here’s a shoutout to Loyal Reader Number One’s new blog. He appears to be chronicling his experiences at BYU, which ought to be interesting. Check it out, Loyal Readers.

I’m back from Lancaster. The meeting finished almost exactly on time, and it took almost exactly five hours to get here. The Miata ran perfectly again, this time with the air conditioning on. I realized this evening that today was the first time I had ever used the A/C with the top up. It works great. Fortunately.

Speaking of Lancaster, thanks to A Different Chris (was it Loyal Reader Number Twenty Three or really a different Chris?) for the cool musical road video link. Now I’m really sorry I didn’t get to try it out. They’ll have to make another one somewhere. Maybe right here in Lardville! We could put it on the mile-long private driveway to the Elvis Is Alive Museum.

I got word last night that the Treo has already shipped. The case arrived today (AT&T is so prompt!) and the SD card should be here in a day or two also. I’m on pins and needles! Or something!

Time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Here’s the view from my hotel room. Better than a parking lot. We’ll have to accept it as Great Art, since it’s the only picture I have on this computer today.

Greetings from Lancaster, California! It was warm and sunny today. I had a pleasant ride up here (the Miata did end up getting the nod, and ran perfectly) and today’s meeting went well. And tonight’s sushi was outstanding – much better than usual for my favorite Lancaster-area Japanese place.

Important Tonsil Update: Loyal Reader Number Two’s doctor is out on a family emergency all week, so Thursday’s surgery is off. It’s rescheduled for October 6th. Put those Morrowlife sympathy rays on ice for another week and a half, Loyal Readers.

Important Morrowlife Financial Juggernaut Update: I now have $4.77! Nothing can stop me now! I checked after Loyal Reader Number One’s Juggernaut-related question the other day, which I forgot to answer. Here’s my answer: Click away!

I believe that Loyal Readers located at the same IP address as me are prohibited from clicking. Anybody else is fair game. I certainly encourage my Loyal Readers and their friends to check out and purchase the fine products advertised on this fine blog. At least I encourage them to follow the links, anyway.

Enforced Short Shrift tonight. I forgot my computer’s power cord, so this is a self-limiting activity tonight. Fortunately, I also forgot my VPN key, so I can’t get into my work email anyway. Blogging will be my only computer-oriented activity today.

Well, not exactly. I also have some computer-oriented reading to do. I’ve started rereading the Pocket C Architect manual. I’m thinking it’s essentially as easy to use as the Pocket C/Ccontrols combination, and it’s way more useful, so I’ll start Sudoku Solver over with it. Special question for Loyal Reader Number One: Does Pocket C Architect produce code that’s usable on the Treo?

Anyway. I have plenty to read tonight, and then I hope to get to bed early. We’re starting tomorrow’s session at 7:00 tomorrow morning, so I need to get up no later than 5:15, which will allow me to get cleaned up, dressed up, packed up, breakfasted up, and onto the base in plenty of time for the meeting. I was a little late today, and I don’t want to repeat tomorrow.

As all my Loyal Readers know, I’m a fan of museums, including some of the smaller, more offbeat ones. Well, I’ve found a great career opportunity! Of course, I’ll need to have all my Loyal Readers chip in to be able to afford it, but I’ll definitely make it worth your while – discounted admission and free parking for one year for all Loyal Readers who contribute at least $1000. And they’ll be first in line to become docents (unpaid, of course). Who will be the first to contribute?

I missed this by mere hours! I just read about this cool stretch of pavement, I’m currently staying in Lancaster, and they paved over it today. Sigh. I would love to have driven on it, and I would have taken the opportunity tomorrow afternoon after my meeting ends. Double sigh.

Time to get reading. See you tomorrow.

Here’s a very poorly composed exclusive RAZR-cam picture of the Salt Lake temple. It was a pretty day when we visited and I like the picture anyway.

Nice day today. Seemed like Saturday, since I wasn’t at work. I tried to get all of my chores done, with mostly good success.

The very best news is that the Miata’s problem was indeed the battery. I was able to find the right part at my neighborhood Autozone. The old battery was relatively easy to get out of the trunk and the new one slipped right in. The car started immediately and ran perfectly (well, as perfectly as it normally runs, anyway – it didn’t learn to play the violin or anything). Thanks to all my Loyal Readers for their Miata Sympathy Rays. They really did the trick.

Got the repaired weed whacker back. It turns out it wasn’t running because the head bolts came loose, eliminating compression, which, as many Loyal Readers know, is essential for combustion. Anyway, it works fine now and didn’t cost too much to diagnose and fix. Also cleaned the pool filters but decided to let the pond go for another week or two. Or maybe I’ll feel bad and do it tomorrow. Also fixed the pool timing.

Personal programming has been light at best. I’m discouraged about Android again. I’m pretty much convinced that the cell phone providers are going to take this cool platform and lock it down so they can charge for everything you try to do. I’m just reluctant to go through the learning curve, only to be unable to do anything truly useful with the platform. Cell phone providers ruin everything they touch, but they do seem to be remarkably successful at ripping people off.

Anyway. So I’m writing a Palm version of my Sudoku Solver, but that’s pretty much a dead end too. I like the platform and I continue to love my trusty old Gadget, but I don’t think there’s any money to be made there anymore. I’m doing it anyway. At least I can send a copy to Loyal Reader Number One and get him to test it a little for me. I’m going to use my pitifully slow PocketC development system, so we’ll see if I can make it run fast enough. It sure runs fast on Linux.

Lots of interesting Loyal Reader comments lately. Thanks, Loyal Readers! I just love it when there’s actually some discussion.

Today’s Morrowlife controversy will only appeal to those Loyal Readers who are interested in cars: Do you agree with GM’s list of their ten most important cars in the last 100 years? My answer: For the most part, but where’s the Corvair? The Vega? The ’59 Caddy? The Nova? How about these ones? Or these (many of which, to be fair, aren’t GM cars)?

Time for some shuteye. See you tomorrow.

Here’s another work of Great Art from the BYU professors’ show. In fact, this one was painted by the same guy from last Friday. I don’t know whether the perspective is goofed up or the painting just isn’t square. The background looks straight, doesn’t it? In any case, I’m sure my Loyal Readers will agree this Art is Great.

This will not be a good week for blogging. Short Shrift is the order of the day today, as it probably will be on Thursday (meeting night) and Friday (Loyal Reader Number Three’s arrival). I’ll just have to find ways to pack the maximum amount of content in the minimum amount of space. And time. Especially time.

Good weekend, notable for nothing. Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve visited us – it was murderously hot both at their place and at ours. The chief difference, though, was that we have air conditioning and a swimming pool. Anything to get them here. We had a pleasant weekend. Relaxed, goofed around, read to LRN12, played with legos with LRN12, etc. No complaints.

I should have been washing cars and working on things, but I didn’t. They’ll wait. It’s supposed to cool way down this week – it’s not supposed to be above 93 during the day and will be getting as low as 56 at night. If you believe the Weather Channel, of course. Fortunately, the Weather Underground is largely in agreement.

I always feel a little bit shady when I look something up on the Weather Underground. It sounds just a little too much like some kind of Sixties Radical organization. I half expect to see the forecast for peace marches and love-ins there. It’s just the weather, though. Far out, man.

All’s well otherwise. I’m sorry to hear that Loyal Reader Number One wasn’t quite ready when the people from InfusionSoft (no link to their site – it plays music) called, but I hope he’ll get another chance with them. I’m just delighted they called in the first place! It proves there’s a market for the product. I’m sure he’ll be devoting some time to getting the project in shape, and maybe they’ll still be interested.

Today’s Morrowlife controversy: Do you believe this? My answer: I’m still working up to the “caring” stage before I even consider the “believing” stage.

Time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Here’s some true Great Art. Well, at least a photo of Great Art. Taken at the Harris Fine Arts Center on the BYU campus. Part of a faculty exhibition. Reproduced here without permission. But with the best of intentions. And I’m sure my Loyal Readers know Great Art when they see it. That’s why they’re here, after all. Picture ever so slightly touched up to eliminate a perspective anomaly.

Short day at work. Which is fine with me, since it was also a free day at work. I’m not too crazy about the off Fridays I have to spend at the office. But I do it anyway. The bright point was that I got to drive my new pickup. Did I mention it yet? Did I say anything about its stunning pickupish beauty?

Spent most of the afternoon installing, updating, and configuring Windows XP under VMWare. It’s working fine, although it does seem a little less stable than my Windows 2000 installation.

The cool thing, though, is that I was finally able to install the music server for our built-in Sony music player in the kitchen. It came with the house. The software only works on XP, which I didn’t have until now. It allows you to connect a music collection on your PC with any number of music players throughout the house, of which we have one. The software’s a little buggy, but I think it’s really cool anyway. I can control it from either the PC or the wall unit, including being able to turn it on downstairs from my desk upstairs. That’ll keep Loyal Reader Number Four on her toes.

Oh, I also downloaded the new Google Chrome browser. As with all things Google, it’s simple, elegant, and cool. I have no idea how they do that.

Good weekend planned. I’ve decided to actually learn Android, which will require me to become a competent Java programmer, which shouldn’t be too hard. I also need to get familiar with the Android API, but that’s doable too. I hope to find some time tomorrow to study and maybe run through a tutorial session or two. I found some excellent Android introductory videos, which I’ve started watching on the train. Maybe I’ll see some more tomorrow or Sunday. Otherwise, plans are nebulous.

It’s way past bedtime. See you Monday.