morrowlife

Here’s another look at the Big Sur waterfall featured in this space last month. I’m pretty sure the camera was horizontal when this picture was snapped. See what you think.

Wednesday meeting night tonight, so there will be little time to do things at home. I’ll be able to grab some dinner and maybe feed the fellas. And maybe set the papyrus plants back up yet again. And maybe pet the dog for a minute or two before locking her back up again for another couple of hours. Poor thing.

I’m hoping Loyal Reader Number One and his friends are having a good time at EFY. Do you have computer access, LRN1? Probably not. How about you, Loyal Reader Number Two? Any other Loyal Readers out there? Why?

Today was a Very Important Day at work. I’m free of my indentured servitude! I started work here in Sunnyvale exactly one year ago, and I no longer have to repay my move expenses if I should choose to quit. I have no desire to quit, but it’s nice knowing I’m free, Just In Case.

I’ve been fooling around with getting a Ruby book on my Palm. I saved all 520 pages of a web-based version of The Practical Programmer’s Guide to Ruby as a PDF file last night. Today I converted it to the Palm version of Adobe Acrobat and copied it to my gadget. It took a very long time to convert but seemed to work just fine. I wondered, though, if there was a better way. I use a neat open-source program called Plucker that grabs web pages and puts them on your Palm, allowing you to decide how many levels deep it will go and which pages it will include and exclude. The advantage of this program is that it preserves hyperlinks, so you can jump around on the downloaded site as you choose. I ran it on the Ruby book site and it worked! I copied it to my gadget. It worked just fine for a little while, but then it seems to have made the Plucker application on the handheld go bonkers. I grabbed control back and deleted the document. The PDF version is back on there. Stupidly, I had deleted it when I installed the Plucker version, so I had to convert it again, but I survived. I don’t know what went wrong with Plucker, so I just might try it again. I’ve used it for fairly large websites before without any problems.

Anyway. Yesterday’s windy, cloudy day seems to be over. Loyal Reader Number Four told me it’s pouring, blowing, and freezing in Utah today. They have my pity.

And why try my Loyal Readers’ patience any longer? See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number One creating some rock-based Great Art. We don’t confine ourselves here strictly to photographically-based work. Astute Loyal Readers will note the bird in the background. So I guess this picture could be considered part of my highly-respected Bird Series.

Nothing much to talk about today, especially since I used the Wonders of Blogger this morning to make Monday’s post. Well, there is one thing: my eyes are fine. I’ve ordered some new reading glasses (alas, the depredations of age continue their relentless advance) that will allow me to see short-range things a little bit better, but I’m otherwise doing great. Combined with my outstanding tooth quality, it was a good day, medically speaking. It was also nice to be around the old homestead most of the day, dogwise if for no other reason.

What a windy day! A front blew through this afternoon, pushing some clouds further east. The wind was strong enough to blow the two boogie boards into the pond, one of the noodles into the pool, and the barbecue cover and the covers of two torches onto the ground. Sigh. Even though it was quite cool, I’ve kept the windows closed today, thus minimizing the impact to my allergies. Not to mention the dust level in the house.

Just a minute – the discussion of the pond reminded me that I still need to feed the fellas today. Be right back.

I’m back, having fed the fellas (they’re just fine, thanks), chatted with Loyal Reader Number Four on the phone (she’s fine too, thanks, and having a nice time in Utah), transferred the guacamole to a more secure container, eaten some ice cream, ordered some nice in-ear Bose headphones for my birthday, and shut down my work computer. Whew.

And now I want to spend a little time studying Ruby before I go to bed. Must prepare to open the software company! See you tomorrow.

Here’s the Big Sur river. I’m using this picture as the desktop on my work computer.

I need to figure out how to sell some of my Great Art. There must be people just begging for Quality Photography such as mine. I’ll be rich! Comfortably off! Socially secure!

Wonders of Blogger. Excuses: none. I’ve simply been goofing off. It’s been great.

Home from work on Tuesday – I have two medical appointments UPDATE: No cavities. Eye quality remains to be seen in the afternoon.

The weekend was fine, if somewhat quiet. The family left for Utah and EFY early Saturday morning. I stayed home to work, although maybe I should have taken a week’s worth of vacation and gone too. Doesn’t make any difference at this point, of course. I swam, started building a Mousey the Junkbot (still need to order a few parts, so it’s not done yet), and puttered. And ate an appealing selection of frozen foods. Yum.

Sunday was stake conference. It was a nice meeting – no new doctrine and plenty of reminders to do what we ought to have been doing all along. So it was fine.

I’m having trouble with the papyrus plants in the pond. They keep falling over. I have to go out there every single day and set them back up. I’ve started putting rocks in the pots, but it still doesn’t seem to be helping. I think they need heavier pots. Loyal Reader Number Four has suggested repotting them with rocks in the bottom. Might work.

More on Tuesday. See you then.

Here’s another recent look at the pond. Note that we still need to put in the bamboo water pourers. We’ve already getten more plants in with more to come. It’s looking great and only getting better.

The work week’s over! More or less, anyway. I still have to do several work things tomorrow and be on some phone calls and file an expense report and try to hire some people, but I can do it all from the comfort and privacy of my own home.

Which is a good thing. The family is leaving for a week in Utah on Saturday morning, so it will be nice to have the whole day with them before they go.

Let’s see, what’s newsworthy in my world today? I was pleased to hear that Apple is finally starting to sell some DRM-free music through iTunes. Then I read on Engadget yesterday that they are including the purchaser’s name and iTunes account number in the purchased music, presumably to allow the record companies to persecute prosecute pirates. Engadget says they think that sounds like a fair tradeoff, and I mostly agree, but apparently a large swath of the iTunes-purchasing community feels otherwise.

I can sort of see their point. If you rip music from CDs, you end up with high-quality, non-personally-identified music files. Why should music bought over the internet be any different? On the other hand, why should I care if they put my name in my music files? I’m not going to pirate it. On the other other hand, I’m against privacy invasions in any form, regardless of the fact that I’m not up to no good, and this can certainly be construed to be an invasion of my privacy.

In any case, it doesn’t matter much. I upgraded iTunes last night and checked whether any of my purchased music is eligible for the 30 cent upgrade. There’s one song. I might buy it just to see if I can tell any difference between the lo-fi old version and the hi-fi new. But I might not.

Anyway. The broken toe is even better today than it was yesterday. I still don’t like to walk very far, but there’s no limp and only minor numbness. I didn’t even take any Tylenol today. I even think the allergies are doing a bit better. The nasal spray isn’t supposed to kick in for a week to ten days, so the big difference is probably the Allegra I’m now taking as opposed to the Claritin I was taking. Loyal Reader Number Two is now taking the Claritin, though, and it imagine it’s helping him out. Is it, LRN2?

That’s it for today. I’ll see you tomorrow, rested and relaxed.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number One and a group of his closest friends perfect strangers of various heights at the end of his recent piano recital. LRN1 is the one over there on the left.

Another crowded trip on the train. There are about 150 eighth-graders up in the front cars this afternoon, and it shows. Practically every seat on the train is taken. They know ahead of time when one of these student groups is coming, of course. It would be nice if they would add an extra car to handle the crowd. Maybe they don’t have an extra car. But I suspect they do. Sigh.

In any case, it’s still more pleasant to being crowded in here watching video podcasts (Strongbad emails! (link warning: Strongbad sings) dl.tv! MacBreak!) and writing the blog than to be in the car. At least for now.

My world is back in alignment today. The problem was, you see, that I rode the train in to work one day WAY back in September or October. I bought Loyal Reader Number One’s car that day, so I drove home, thus leaving my train ticket unevenly punched. This situation propagated across a few more tickets, leaving my cosmic balance seriously . . . ummm . . . unbalanced. Well, I was complaining about this situation to my friend Dan a couple of weeks ago, when he pulled out a ticket with a single ride left on it. A couple of days before Christmas, a friend offered him a ride home. Hence, his world was unbalanced. I bought his single ride today and am using it on this trip. Ahhh . . . balance.

Maybe I already mentioned this issue on these pages. Anyway, I think it was amusing that Dan never used the odd ride on his ticket. He couldn’t stand to be out of balance either.

My broken toe is much better today. It’s just barely numb and as long as I don’t walk much, it doesn’t really hurt. I had to call the shuttle bus this morning and afternoon. They actually came! The danger here is that I’ll get too used to calling the shuttle bus and won’t get any exercise anymore. Must . . . walk . . . between . . . buildings.

Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve headed for home today. We were sorry to see them go. I expect it to be pretty quiet around Chateau Saindouxville this evening. Maybe it will be easier to get to bed on time, though.

And that’s about it for today. See you tomorrow.