morrowlife

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twenty-One during his recent week with us. Congratulations, LRN21, it’s your Very Special Day! Photo courtesy of . . . some Loyal Reader. Could have been One, could have been Two, could have been Four, could have been Twenty. Who knows? In any case, it’s a good picture.

The internet’s working pretty well on the train today, although I can’t access the blog. Need to call the family shortly after I get to work to have them check on the server. I also can’t access spinfo or the HRVA. Server problems suspected. Reboot prescribed.

(Special Evening Update: Server fine. Comcast service down all day, for the second time in a week. Unable to find alternative service at this time, but actively looking.)

I’ve been having more and more frequent hard crashes of my gadget (my formerly-trusty old Palm M515), each time requiring a hard reboot, which loses everything on the Palm. That’s not a complete disaster, of course, since all I have to do is sync back up with my laptop and everything is restored as good as new. Well, almost everything, anyway. I do lose everything that’s been added or changed since my last sync, which usually happens just before I leave work on either Thursday or Friday afternoon. The crashes usually happen on Sundays, which leads us to ask what is different in my Palm usage on Sundays. The only thing I can think of is that I use the MarkMyScriptures application much more on Sundays than on other days of the week. On a normal day, I read a chapter, update my bookmark, and close the app. On Sundays, I tend to jump around from document to document, update verse markings, and open and close the app multiple times. It’s already proven itself to be buggy and have memory leakage problems, so maybe I need to reconsider my usage of that app. And maybe the hardware is just fine after all, which would be good.

I’ve been thinking yet again about going back to a paper calendar anyway. But every time I do, I miss my Palm. What to do? As things at work get more classified, I may have to abandon the electronics anyway, so I’m looking around.

And we’re all sick of hearing me rattle on. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twelve just being herself. Isn’t she just the most adorable baby ever? (Apologies to Loyal Reader Number Three, but this is really a cute picture and she’s really a cute baby, although he was one too, so there’s not need to get your dander up) Watch for Loyal Reader Number Twenty-One’s Very Special Day tomorrow. Today’s photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number Five.

Speaking of LRN3, I spent some time on the phone with him Sunday evening. Like many students, he’s in the unenviable position of having to make important decisions about his future based on very incomplete information. I don’t know what to tell him to do, other than to follow his feelings on the subject and choose to study something that will be enjoyable and will support his family. Of course, if he knew what that was, he wouldn’t need to talk to me about it. Sigh. You have my pity, LRN3.

What I really want to have happen is for LRN3 and his brothers and sister to get great technical and business educations and come help me build a Really Cool software business. Starting in roughly five years. I think we have the desire and the talent. All we need now is the Great Idea. And to start developing something right now so we can be in a position to start making money in a few years. Sounds simple, no? Great Ideas are now being accepted. Call now! Operators are standing by.

Spotty connection on the train again this morning. I’m struggling to see what’s so hard about buying, installing, and operating commercial off-the-shelf satellite internet componentry. But apparently it is. I have no idea whether I’ll be able to publish this. In any case, I’ll save it off to a text file and will publish it when I get a good connection.

Pretty good weekend. Loyal Reader Number Twenty-Two left early on Saturday morning. We were sorry to see him go – it was a pleasant week. Loyal Reader Number Four and I went to Home Depot and bought everything we need to build the Massive Structure to hide the pool equipment. It should be a thing of beauty. It better be a thing of beauty, based on how much the materials cost. Which was a whole lot less than it would have cost to have somebody else do the work for us.

I also did a little work on the pond. While we (well, mostly LRN4, if you have to know the truth) were digging it, we had a minor cave-in where the Pool People had buried some water lines. We filled it in and continued digging. Well, it caved in again a little bit several days ago, forcing the water level to be lowered by six inches or so. I got a bucket of dirt and shoveled it into hole again and was able to fill the pond back up. It seems fine again. While I was digging dirt, I decided to bury the filter too, which got rid of some of the clutter. LRN4 planted some more greenery around the edges. It’s close to being a Real Pond now. We just need to find some pieces of bamboo to be the filtered water return system, hide the hoses and wires a little bit better, and enjoy the Beauties of Nature. Well, the Beauties of Man-Made Nature, anyway.

This week is scheduled to be fairly quiet, and then we’re off on a week-long vacation. Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two are scheduled to spend next week camping while LRN4 and I go to Arizona, but scout camp is in jeopardy. It seems that the camp officials had to make extensive and expensive modifications to the fresh water system over this past winter, based on a health department finding. They opened back up this spring and things appears to be fine – until the health department came back and checked the water again. They’re shut down again this week. They’re hoping to be open again in a week, but it’s far from a sure thing. So we don’t know whether the boys will be coming to Arizona with us or not. I’d be really sad if they missed out on camp, especially since they missed it last year in the middle of our family move. On the other hand, I’d enjoy their company on the trip. Either way will work.

Better end now. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twenty squinting into the bright future, as promised yesterday. That’s San Francisco there in the background. Congratulations, LRN20 – it’s your Very Special Morrowlife Day! Even though your picture has appeared a time or two in conjunction with other Loyal Readers, you’re today’s star of the show.

Another busy work day today, with little else to talk about. I showed up at the train station at about 6:30 this morning, only to discover three school buses there. Oops. No train ride for me today. The drive was tolerable. At least I was able to stay a little late at the office. Not that I wanted to.

I’m right in the middle of one of the more interesting books I’ve read lately. It’s called The Life and Death of Classical Music, by Norman Lebrecht. The subtitle is “Featuring the 100 best and 20 worst recordings ever made.” It’s not really about music as much as the classical music recording industry. Although it’s certainly not what I expected when I picked the book up, it’s really a fascinating story. Recommended to all my Loyal Readers. Or at least the classical-music and/or recording industry ones.

Loyal Reader Number Four bought a bunch more plants to go around the pond. She got several nice ones for just a tiny bit of money, which is always a Real Good Thing. We need to spend a little time planting them tomorrow. And also fix the leak. And also dig the filter into the ground. And also a lot of other things. Probably.

Loyal Reader Number Three has some interesting ideas building on my boring video game idea. I’m particularly taken by that curling idea. As the link shows, curling has been done before, but not on the Wii, which will make all the difference. I think we can corner the boring sports market. I’m looking forward to seeing your preliminary designs, LRN3!

Loyal Reader Number Twenty-Two goes home early tomorrow morning. It’s been a nice visit and we’re sorry to see him go. Sayonara, LRN22.

And I’m off to bed. See you Monday.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twenty-Two displaying the “project” he and Loyal Reader Number One have been working on. Photo courtesy of LRN22 via his MacBook and Photo Booth.

Explanations may be in order. First, as you can see over there on the right, we have yet another new Loyal Reader! The Amazing Unstoppable Morrowlife Juggernaut rolls on. Welcome, LRN22. Today’s your Very Special Morrowlife Day.

I still owe Very Special Days to Loyal Readers Numbers Twenty and Twenty-One. Stay tuned for those.

And baby picture lovers can take heart – I got several exceptionally cute pictures of Loyal Reader Number Twelve today. They’ll be featured in this space Real Soon Now.

A few words about the “project.” As a highly-valued member of a cross-country team, LRN22 has an obligation to run for a certain period of time each day, with evidence of this activity recorded by his personal heart monitor. Presumably, the results of this daily monitoring will be submitted to a coach-like individual at some point as evidence of ongoing devotion to the sport. He and LRN1 got to wondering whether it might be theoretically possible to somehow make the heart monitor believe its owner was working up a sweat out on the highways and byways, when in fact he was relaxing in the comfort of his own home while a computer-based device generated realistically-simulated heart rate data for the monitor to record. Just as a Technical Demonstration, they hooked up the monitor to our Arduino, wrote some software blending multiple sine waves (I think they should have thrown some random data on top of the blended sine waves, but nobody asked me), and took some Scientific Measurements. I’m sure they’re not actually using this ingenious device for fraudulent purposes, of course.

Anyway. Drove to work today. It took two hours to get there, but only about 1:10 to get back. How can this be? Easy, I left work at about 8:00 this evening. Got a lot done, but it made for a long day. Which went by incredibly quickly because I was so busy. But I’m tired tonight.

I got a great idea for a new video game tonight. Tell me what you think: Blimp Racing. Two players (with two separately licensed copies of the game, of course) would go head-to-head to see who could travel from Bangor, Maine to Los Angeles, California the fastest. Wind currents would hold your blimp back for hours at a time. Frequent landings for food, candy and gum, restroom breaks, and changes of clothing would break up the nonstop action. Some shorter races would finish in as little as a week! We could have a really accurate simulation mode as well, for those aspiring blimp pilots. You could take off from Akron, Ohio, travel a thousand miles to the site of the Super Bowl, and hover overhead, displaying advertising slogans and filming a bird’s-eye view of the game. Wow!

I’m also considering America’s Cup sailboat racing as a follow-on game. I think I’ve invented a whole new video game sub-genre. The Loyal Readers are calling it “Boring Sports.” I’m going to start coding immediately. Gardenville Software employees, get to work!

So I’m going to cut this short. There’s so much to blog about, but my pillow calls out to me. Besides, the internet connection is scarily slow tonight, so I ought not to press my luck. See you tomorrow.

Here are some hardened criminals lined up in front of their cell block. They’re known on the street only as Loyal Readers Numbers One, Two, Twenty, and Twenty-One. Very frightening. Photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number Four.

Spotty internet connection on the train this morning. There’s never been a good enough connection to connect to work email, but I’ve been doing pretty well getting into Blogger and a few other websites the last few days. Not today, though. Today, I have no idea whether what I’m typing will ever get onto the blog. Let’s hope.

I agree with Loyal Reader Number Four’s comment last night – it was pretty cool in the old neighborhood last night. It’s about 6:45 AM as I write this, and it’s still only 56 degrees in Lardville, so the heat of the past several days has certainly broken. It’s only supposed to get into the upper eighties today. Brrr!

I’m working harder than usual at work and still feel like I’m not accomplishing much. I have one colleague who’s struggling with feeling expendable, and he’s occupying an unnecessarily large amount of his and my time with it. He’s no more likely to be gotten rid of than the rest of us, so he might just as well learn to relax and go along for the ride. I think his only alternatives are to find something else to do that he can enjoy (a path I’ve taken before) or keep worrying, which I don’t think is a good choice.

Had a couple of good interviews yesterday, once again with people who are about to be laid off from Northrup Grumman in a plant closing. Our only problem with these folks is figuring out how to hire all of them – they’re excellent, and their experience is directly relevant. I’m hoping to make offers to at least a couple of them.

The Loyal Family went to the Apple store yesterday and got themselves some souvenirs – t-shirts and the like. They also got me an Apple badge reel, which I like very much. Thanks, Loyal Readers! Speaking of which, maybe we should try to talk Jonathan into being yet another new Loyal Reader. Think about it, Loyal Reader Number One.

Did I formally announce the addition of Loyal Readers Numbers Twenty and Twenty-one? There’s already been a picture of LRN21. In any case, I’ll try to have a Very Special Morrowlife Day for both of them Real Soon Now. I think there are pictures available of both.

Might as well end at this point. The train is about half an hour away from my station, and I still have emails I want to look at. See you tomorrow.