morrowlife

Here’s a railroad engineer. Taken at the miniature railroad we rode nearly two years ago in Los Gatos. And especially appropriate today, given the state of things (see below).

Well, it was certainly a warm weekend, wasn’t it? I’m pleased to report that our air conditioner is working just fine. And it certainly had plenty of opportunities to prove it.

It was sunny and well over 90 degrees in Lardville both weekend days. The truck’s thermometer reported 95 at about 4:00 on Sunday afternoon. We’re back down into the mid-70’s today and are only expecting to get up to 70 tomorrow. After that, it’ll be back into the 80’s. Very pleasant.

The pool is starting to warm up a little. Loyal Reader Number Four and I were feeling quite warm on Saturday afternoon, so we rolled up our pant legs and waded in about a foot deep. Meaning we were standing on the top stair. That was about all we felt like doing, but you could certainly have swum in it without dying of freezation. You might not have enjoyed it thoroughly, but you wouldn’t have frozen.

Let’s see, how was the weekend spent? Saturday morning, we went over to visit Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve, as scheduled. We picked up the sofa, which LRN5 noted in Friday’s comments isn’t really uncomfortable at all. It looks nice in the room and we’re glad to have it. We also had a nice lunch together and just enjoyed hanging out a little bit. Their place is looking very nice and getting nicer all the time.

Saturday afternoon, Loyal Reader Number Two and I got the pond and pool filters cleaned. LRN4 helped me work on the pond’s plant life a little bit. We got last year’s papyrus plants out of the deep end. We thought they were dead, but there were signs of life, so we trimmed off the dead stuff (which was really most of the branches) and set them back into the shallow end. They may come back and they may not, but they at least have a chance now.

That’s pretty much all the work for the weekend. We watched a movie on Saturday evening and otherwise relaxed.

Sunday was the usual busy day. The good news for the near future, according to LRN4, is that choir practice is finally moving to directly after church. That will save us the frustration of having to rush home after church, grab a quick bite, and then rush right back for choir. It will make the church block four hours long, but it will be worth it to not have to come back right away.

Anyway. I got all the paperwork done and signed for buying the Honda, so I assume that will be taken care of within a few days. I can quit watching the mileage so closely! Although there’s no reason to wear it out prematurely anyway.

I’m out of subjects. See you tomorrow.

— Much later —

Greetings from the train! Still! It’s now 8:45 PM and we’re just pulling out of the stop immediately after mine. This should have happened about two and a half hours ago. It turns out a freight train had an unspecified “emergency” that left one or more cars stranded on the tracks just ahead of us. They’re just getting it cleared now and we’re finally on the way home. Sigh. I don’t expect to be home before 10:00 – and maybe later if things don’t go well. Guess how I’ll be getting to work tomorrow! That’s right – in my car. See you then.

— Even later —

It looks more like 10:30. We’re just pulling up the grade outside of Livermore. Still have to stop at Tracy and then we’ll be home. Well, we’ll be in the Lathrop station, anyway. Five minutes of driving and then I’ll really be home. Just in time for a few bites of dinner and bed. I’ll get this posted, but there will be no links (no wifi on the train today for some reason). See you tomorrow.

Here’s another one in my famous statue series. I think my Loyal Readers will recognize this famous actor.

Fine day today. It was warm, sunny, and beautiful. For the first time this year, I open-air motored in both directions. It was just above 50 degrees when I left the house at 5:20. That’s my minimum departure temperature. With the windows up and the heater on full, it’s reasonably comfortable. I was cold when I got there, but not overly chilled. And the afternoon drive was beyond perfect.

Spent a couple hours this morning in the lab, which I enjoy. We were trying to get one of our new automated products working. It’s almost there. Maybe next week.

Solaris is working! It certainly took long enough. As all my Loyal Readers doubtless know, Solaris is the Sun Microsystems brand of Unix. It’s the Unix we use at work. They’ve made it open-source. I downloaded the most recent version and tried installing it in VMWare on my Mac. I got all the way through the installation process, only to have the system tell me I had installed the 64-bit version of the OS in a 32-bit virtual machine. Oops. Deleted that file and started over again. It appeared to install correctly until I went to reboot it after the install. It just sat there. After a few minutes of non-response, I deleted that file and tried several more times with various installation options. They all did the same thing – either refused to boot because of the 64-bit/32-bit problem or just sat there. Finally, I tried one more option just before I left for work this morning, leaving it to install in my absence. When I got home, I tried rebooting after yet another successful install. It sat there again. This time I just left it and went on to other things. Lo and behold, it booted! Turns out Solaris takes a VERY long time to boot and is apparently non-responsive during that time. So most of yesterday’s installations were actually successful. I’m doing one more install now, this time telling it it’s getting Solaris, so it can add its special VMWare tools. Long process, but success!

Now I just need to figure out what I wanted Solaris for in the first place. As of now, it’s pretty much just a curiosity. But a very pretty curiosity.

I’m listening to this week’s James Lileks Diner. I like all his work. You have to recognize, though, that his free stuff takes a backseat to his real job, so his delightful website is plagued with broken links, missing links, circular links, and just about every other navigational error you can imagine. The design is beautiful and the content is voluminous and highly entertaining, though. Highly recommended, as always.

Sadly, this week’s Diner has no MP3 link, so I can’t download it to the iPod. It’s available only from Lileks’s .Mac page and can’t be saved unless you have QuickTime Pro. Which I do not have. So I’m listening to it online, which is my very least favorite way to hear it. But listen anyway.

As mentioned before, we’re going to visit Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve tomorrow morning. They got a new sofa and we’re getting their old one, which Loyal Reader Number Four and I really love. We got rid of our small blue sofa yesterday or the day before. it was extremely comfortable, but LRN4 never liked it. We only had it a few months, but I believe it irked her every single time she walked into the house. So we’re getting a beautiful, if slightly less comfortable, green one. Looking forward to the visit.

Otherwise, not much planned for the weekend. I need to do a few church things – make some phone calls, talk to some people, etc. That’s about it, though. Oh, I also need to get some sleep. Only got five hours last night, which was not enough. So if you need me, I’ll be relaxing.

Have a great weekend.

Here’s a pretty little town not far from Pisa, Italy. Taken at something of a distance, but all the better for it.

Greetings from the train. I have a Wifi connection again, so I’m daring to actually compose today’s post live.

Had an okay day. Got up at the normal time and came in by rail, as mentioned in the previous paragraph. Also got out at the normal time. I’m sincerely hoping we don’t run anybody over tonight. So far, so good. And the train’s not been overly crowded either. Maybe everybody’s been scared away by the late night the other day.

I’ll be in the car again tomorrow, though, which is not my favorite thing on a Friday. I have to be in the office tomorrow by 7:00 again, and I place an extremely high value on my beauty rest. So would you.

At least it will be warm tomorrow. Perfect open-air motoring temperature.

Let’s see, what else is going on? I’ve been watching a few episodes of Victory by Design from the Speed channel. Mine is the three-minute podcast version, of course, and we don’t get Speed on our cable, so that’s all I’ll be seeing. Still, it’s always interesting. The host shows a significant old car – or at least a beautiful example of the type. He gives interesting background information and drives the car. And he doesn’t baby it either. Very entertaining and highly recommended.

The warm, beautiful weather is upon us! I left my jacket at home this morning. And regretted it. It’s still cold in the morning. It wasn’t so bad at the train station – it was the walk from the bus stop to my building that froze me. Pity me, Loyal Readers. But have no fear, I thawed out in the first hour or two.

Time to read my book. See you tomorrow.

Here’s a close look at my mighty steed on the Great America carousel. Pretty serious-looking fella there.

Not much to report again today. Left for work at 5:00 again and got there a few minutes after 6:30. I did manage to get back on the road shortly after 4:00 this afternoon, so I was home by 6:00. It felt so early!

Visited for a few minutes this evening with my friend Bill and his wife Carol. He and I are in the group leadership together now. He’s leaving tomorrow on a 10-14 day vacation with his 9-year-old grandson. The length of the trip is flexible because he’s not sure when he’ll get fed up with the grandson. I wished him well and assured him things are in good hands while he’s gone. Carol said the house will be quiet with Bill gone. And she didn’t seem overly upset about that. Hmmm.

We’re expecting a heat wave! It was 65 degrees here in Lardville yesterday, 70 today, and it’s expected to be 78 tomorrow, 86 on Friday, and 88 on Saturday. It’ll cool back into the 70’s a few days after that, but I’m looking forward to at least a brief taste of summer. Maybe we’ll be able to use the pool a little. Probably not, though. Still too cold. Loyal Reader Number Two will probably jump in, though. He likes cold water.

I’ve been fiddling around with VMWare again. Tried to install FreeDOS and couldn’t make it work. It can’t seem to boot from a virtual CD-ROM. It had problems booting from a real CD-ROM too, come to think of it. Maybe it wasn’t a properly bootable CD, though. I located and installed an online version of that OS, complete with abandonware DOS versions of Turbo Pascal and Turbo C. It ran, but extremely s..l..o..w..l..y. I dumped it and gave up, seeing as how I’m not really interested in DOS. Now I’m downloading the free version of Solaris and will try that one out. It’ll be cool to have that OS available, assuming I can get it to work. It’s pretty big, though, and I’m not sure I want to dedicate the disk space to it permanently.

On the other hand, I’m still not sure I’m happy dedicating my entire 80GB internal hard drive to Time Machine. On the other other hand, I still have about 280GB of empty space on my 500GB external boot disk, so what’s the worry? Other than that disks tend to fill up over time, no matter how big they are. Maybe it’s best to leave the backups where they are.

Time for dessert and bed. See you tomorrow.

Here are Loyal Readers Numbers Two and Four hiking up to Pfeiffer Falls at Big Sur a couple of weeks ago.

Extremely Short Shrift tonight. It’s almost 10:00 already and I need to be at work at 7:00 again tomorrow, which means up no later than 4:30.

Loyal Reader Number Five pointed out in yesterday’s comments that I failed to mention her family’s visit on Sunday. It was indeed a high point of the weekend. We’re going over to their place on Saturday morning, which will also be a high point.

Traffic was very quick in both directions today – less than an hour and a half each way. Thus making up in a small way for yesterday’s disaster. Incidentally, newspaper reports today confirmed that three separate trains hit three separate pedestrians in the Bay Area yesterday. The guy hit by our train was the only one who wasn’t killed. Very sad for all the people involved.

On a happier note, we’re all slim, smart, and happy. See you tomorrow.