morrowlife

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twelve showing off her birthday gifts. She’s looking not too anxious to see the flash.

No time to post. I’m actually using the Wonders of Blogger at a little past 2:00 on Saturday morning. I’ve been mucking around with the Mac and it’s late.

Mac mucking is going well, though. I have VMware installed, and it’s really cool. I have virtual copies of Windows 2000 and Ubuntu Linux running. They both run pretty much perfectly. The only problem I’ve seen is that the Palm emulator doesn’t beep right – I get a default Windows sound. That’s a little bit unfortunate, since I’m working on my Morse code program, but I’ll figure out a way to work around it. It may not be VMware’s fault anyway – Windows has been known to be a little funky too.

I also have everything installed and working on the Mac itself. Printers are installed and working, all the applications are functional, and I’ve even replaced several of the PowerPC versions of apps with Intel versions. On top of that, I have the Android development system installed on the Mac and it’s working great too.

One other thing I got accomplished this evening was to finally get Loyal Reader Number Four’s old email messages onto her Mac. When her old PC was about to die, I copied her Microsoft Outlook files – mail and contacts – onto Larry. I was able to get the contacts imported into Entourage by bringing them into Mail and exporting them from there into Entourage. The emails were a much tougher nut, though. Outlook saves everything into a single file, and they don’t offer any kind of migration path from there to Entourage (both products were made by Microsoft, by the way). I was finally able to import the Outlook file into Outlook Express on my virtual W2K machine. From there, I copied the files into a folder on which I ran a free converter some kind soul wrote to change them to MBOX files, which Entourage likes. I just had to change the file endings from .mbx to .mbox and then run an Applescript some other kind soul wrote that changes the .mbox text files to .mbox-style text files. That script was actually written for MBOX files exported from Thunderbird, but it worked here too. Then it was a simple matter to import the files directly into Entourage (transferring them from my virtual W2K machine to Larry to LRN4’s machine first, of course). Whew.

It rained and blew like crazy today. The pool was full nearly to overflowing, so we spent a few hours draining it out. The pond‘s full too, but I’m not planning to go out there to drain it until the lawn dries out a bit. The rain’s supposed to stay here for a few more days, but I think the high winds are over now.

Have a great weekend. See you on Monday.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twelve opening one of her many birthday cards a couple of months ago.  Having a good time.

Here’s an interesting sign from the railroad museum. The photographs were great, but the sign was merely facinating.

Back to work day. Things were fine there, if a little bit slow. Most people appear to be extending their holiday through this week. My boss was home with a broken house, so it was just me in charge. I responded to the challenge by going home a couple hours early. It was that dead.

Anyway. The commutes in both directions were the best they’ve ever been – an hour and fifteen minutes each way. I had seriously considered riding the train this morning, but things definitely turned out for the best. Still don’t know what will happen tomorrow. How exciting!

The Mac is scheduled to arrive tomorrow! Oh, the excitement! The suspense! The honor! The valor! The buttor! (Link warning – SBemail sounds and animation.)

And since I don’t expect to get much sleep tomorrow night, I had better get to bed tonight. See you tomorrow.

Here are Loyal Readers Numbers Two and Twelve enjoying each other’s company. LRN12 may be having more fun than her uncle, though.

Happy 2008! It was another pleasant day. We got all the Christmas decorations down this evening and I got the two new motion-sensing switches installed in the hallway upstairs. Otherwise, very little productivity.

Our New Year’s Eve with friends was fun. We talked a lot, ate some goodies, played a couple of games, and set off a bunch of fireworks at midnight. Then we came home and went to bed. This morning, Loyal Reader Number Four got up and turned on the Rose Parade. We enjoyed it.

Loyal Readers Numbers Three and Fifteen are heading back to Arizona tomorrow. Sigh. We had a great visit with them and are sad to see them go. Happy trails, Loyal Readers!

And tomorrow is back-to-work day. Double sigh. I’m not ready to go back yet, but nobody asked. So I’m back to work.

Better get some sleep. See you tomorrow.

Here are Loyal Readers Numbers Two and Fifteen, inadvertently revealing their true nature as zombies. Frightening. Picture taken Christmas Eve in a dimly-lit room at the Railroad Museum.

Happy New Year’s Eve! It’s been a beautiful Monday – sunny and relatively warm. We enjoyed it. Loyal Readers Numbers One, Two, and Three and I went shooting this morning at a range that turns out to be just about ten minutes down the road from us. We were hoping to borrow a shotgun and shoot some trap, but it turns out they don’t have any guns to either borrow or rent. So we used my .22 and had a fun couple of hours. I still need to clean and oil the rifle, which I hope to accomplish either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Happy anniversary to Loyal Readers Numbers Three and Fifteen. It’s been three whole years. Congratulations! And many happy returns. They’re out watching a movie or two and eating lunch. Presumably. I believe they’ll be back for the evening. Although it’s already after 6:00 and dark outside.

It was a nice weekend. We didn’t do much. We planned to go to a museum down in Modesto on Saturday but fortunately checked before leaving. They’re closed between Christmas and New Year’s. Sigh. Well, at least we’ve gotten to two museums this vacation.

We listened to an impromptu organ concert by Loyal Reader Number Two this afternoon. He and Loyal Reader Number Four went to practice for a performance at the upcoming stake conference, and the rest of us went over there a little later. Good concert.

The new Mac has shipped! The FedEx website reports that it should be here on January third. I need to rest up between now and then, since I’m practically guaranteed to be up all night that night.

Pretty much everybody but me around here has a cold right now. Wish me luck avoiding it.

We’re going over shortly to spend the evening with our friends the Hepworths/Englands. Looking forward to it.

Update – LRN3 and LRN15 just got back. Perfect timing, since it’s dinner time.

And it’s time for me to quit. Stay up late tonight! See you tomorrow.