morrowlife

Here’s a river. With lots of rocks. Taken during our August camping trip at Clark’s Fork. Fear not, Loyal Readers – I’m just about out of Great Art from that trip. Part of my famous Camping series.

Extreme Short Shrift yet again tonight. Home Evening is over, I have to get up as early as usual, and I have a long drive tomorrow morning, followed by a long meeting, both of which I need to stay awake for. As (probably) mentioned previously, I’m heading for Edwards Air Force Base tomorrow morning for a day-and-a-half-long meeting. I’ve been planning to take the Honda, but I’ve started wondering whether I might enjoy the Miata instead. Assuming it can make it that far, of course, but I have no reason to believe it won’t. It wouldn’t be as comfortable, but it does have air conditioning and cruise control, and the weather is supposed to be quite nice down there right now – ideal for open-air motoring.

Blogging will continue as usual, although Wednesday night is iffy, as I’ll be returning home from the meeting and may not arrive until pretty late, depending on when we finish. Time will tell.

Loyal Reader Number Two is still scheduled to have his tonsils yanked on Thursday. We won’t know the exact surgery time until sometime Wednesday, though, when he visits his anesthesiologist. I’ll be at the hospital, of course. Keep those Morrowlife sympathy rays coming, Loyal Readers, and he’ll get through it.

Got several of the planned weekend activities done, although not much on Saturday. Friday was work day and Saturday was goof off day. I did get some programming done, though. The Sudoku program draws its user interface on the screen and can now load a puzzle from its memo list. Lots more to do.

Sunday was restful.

Tragedy! The exclusive RAZR-cam is no more. Well, actually, it’s the RAZR-phone that’s not exactly working. The camera’s fine. In addition to its dead vibrator (which I was just living with in a grumpy sort of way), the speaker portion of its handset has given its last full measure of devotion. I can still use the speaker phone and Bluetooth, but can’t hear anything when I hold it to my head. And I don’t think it’s my ear that’s defective.

I gave it a thorough inspection and declared it dead. Spent several hours last night trying to decide on a replacement, and with Loyal Reader Number Four’s encouragement, I finally decided to order a Palm Treo 680, which I accomplished this afternoon. It ought to be here in a week or so. Loyal Reader Number One has really enjoyed his, and I’ve liked all my Palms so far. So I have high hopes. Plus, here‘s an excellent Christmas gift-giving idea! Also, since some of my software development interest is in the Palm direction, it will be good to have a newer model.

Many thanks to LRN1 for his extra-special high-intensity Miata sympathy rays, which were evident in his earlier comment, as he pointed out on Friday. The Miata thanks you also.

And thanks to many other Loyal Readers for their suggestions for additional significant GM cars. How could those fools have missed such important milestones?

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 a nice bridge over a secluded mountain stream at Clark’s Fork. And it’s covered with graffiti. Sigh. I’m with that guy a few years back who caught a teenager spraying graffiti in the middle of the night, took away his paint, and sprayed his face. Of course, the guy got in pretty serious trouble, but it might have been worth it. Part of my famous Camping series. The picture, that is, not the graffiti vigilante.

Extreme Short Shrift tonight. I’ve been doing other things, and it’s already after 10:00. Besides, after yesterday’s Special Bonus Post (thanks for noticing, Anon!), I think we can all agree that I’m way ahead of the game at this point.

Okay day at work. I found out last night that I didn’t get the appointment as acting manager as I had hoped. However, the person they gave it to is an okay guy who isn’t leaving his old job and therefore really won’t be able to do the job. So I’ll be doing it anyway. Just without the title. As usual.

Comfortable commutes in both directions. I’m at home tomorrow, meaning I’ll only have to attend my morning meetings via teleconference. In my spare time, I hope to replace the Miata’s battery (assuming I can find the special battery it needs, and if not, I’ll at least get the new one ordered), pick up the repaired weed whacker, clean the pool and pond filters, shorten the lawn watering time to its fall-appropriate level, and work on some personal programming. There’s plenty to do.

That’s it for tonight. See you tomorrow, with a report on my many off-Friday activities.

Here’s a pretty little lake up in the mountains near — you guessed it — Clark’s Fork. Part of my famous Camping series.

Greetings from the conference room! Drove to work today. As mentioned earlier (yesterday?), there’s a Team Dinner tonight that precludes my use of mass transit. Since there’s no train-based post possible, I’m meeting-room blogging today in the hope of not disappointing my distraught Loyal Readers.

We had some discussion this morning on Lessons Learned. The group pretty much decided that term is overused and carries connotations we weren’t anxious to imply. We needed another name. I suggested “Incidents and Accidents.” I believe the term comes from an old Paul Simon song, although for the life of me I can’t remember which one. A little help, Loyal Readers?

Nobody liked my idea.

By the way, did anybody ever come up with Loyal Reader Number Five’s movie quote from the other day? Was the promised money delivered?

Slight disaster early this morning. I decided to drive the Miata – it’s a perfect day for open-air motoring. Got my briefcase into the Miata’s trunk, got myself into the Miata’s seat, got my iPod plugged into the Miata’s stereo and playing music, and turned the key. Nothing happened.

Well, that’s not entirely true. One thing did happen. The electrical system went utterly and completely dead. Not just regularly dead, no. Automotive death was utter and complete.

I suspect it’s the battery. We’ll find out for sure on Friday, which is my Really Off Friday.

Otherwise, all is well. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Two doing a little rock hopping at Clark’s Fork. Taken at approximately the same time as yesterday’s picture. Another luminous part of my famous Camping series.

Greetings from the train! I need to figure out how to spend less time in front of the computer on an average weekday evening, and blogging on the train seems to help. Since there’s no link, I still have to get the text into Blogger and add the Great Art and links, but I might be able to save at least a few minutes this way. It’s either this or watch TV shows.

I’m typing this on my trusty old Palm and its nifty folding keyboard. It’s a lot easier to get posts on my Mac from this thing than from the laptop, since this one connects directly to the Mac and dumps it guts. The keyboard/Palm combination doesn’t work all that well, though. I can type a lot faster than this thing can accept data, and a few of the keys seem to be kind of intermittent – either I’ll have to type a key several times to get it to “take” or a single key press will repeat the character five times. It’s been that way since new. Sigh.

Happy Birthday to the Loyal Father! I chatted with him on the phone this morning. He seems to be happy, healthy, and doing fine. I hope to be in his shape at that (extremely advanced) age.

How nice to hear from Loyal Reader Number Eight again. Welcome back! Read all you want – I’ll write more. Unfortunately.

Today was Day Two of my work-related Offsite Planning Event. We’re starting to make some progress, but it’s slow and I’m still not sure how we’re going to achieve our Stated Goal. Time will tell. Only a day and a half to go.

Probably no blog tomorrow. We’re having a Special work-related Offsite Planning Event Dinner, which I’m planning to attend. In exchange for free food for me, my Loyal Readers will have to endure yet another Morrowlife-free day. You have my pity, as always.

I’ve pretty much definitely (how’s that for a firm commitment?) decided to port my Sudoku puzzle-solving program to Android. The first step to is come up with some kind of lame-o user interface capable of displaying a puzzle. I’m hoping to accomplish that part sometime this week. Next week’s task will be to make it solve puzzles, after which I’ll add all the doodads and geegaws. Like opening, closing, and saving puzzles.

Anyway. It seems like a pretty easy first project on that platform, and Loyal Reader Number Three and I are thinking very seriously of having spinfo.info develop some etertainment content for it. It seems like a great opportunity to get into a new platform on the ground floor.

Let’s see, what else is going on? Not much news from Loyal Reader Number One. He’s apparently doing well at school and finding all kinds of useful and enjoyable things to do. Drop a line sometime, LRN1!

The rest of us are fine. See you Thursday.