morrowlife

Here’s a closer look at the train platform I hinted at in my last post.  Maintenance required.  Looks a little rugged now, but just imagine how beautiful and exciting it was when it was filled with old steam-powered trains and people just coming to America and anxious to get to their new lives.  There were lots of really pretty architectural details as well – they just don’t make stuff like this anymore.  Well, maybe they make it like this, but not like how it used to be.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at the ferry/train station for the Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty tour, and part of my famous Train series.

Been a pretty nice few days.  First, the biggest news: LRN1 has been accepted to Cocoa Camp!  That’s an Apple thing where they invite a few college students for a week or so between Summer Term and Fall Semester.  They bring them to Cupertino and give them some intensive schooling.  All expenses paid.  Sounds like a great time!  Congrats, LRN1!

Now the other biggest news: we signed the contract for the new house this evening!  That’s right, they’ve opened up the new section where our place will be and they Fedexed us a contract yesterday.  It got here today, LRN4 and I signed it in about a million places, and she’ll Fedex it back tomorrow.  Of course, the price went up by a few thousand dollars.  What did you expect?  Our real estate agent in Las Vegas tells us the market there just might be starting to turn around a bit, so it might be the perfect time to buy!  But probably not.

Anyway, I’m excited to get the house building phase started.  Both our real estate agent and our salesman have promised to keep us well informed of the progress, and I expect to send LRN4’s sister over there fairly often too.  I’m doubtful I’ll ever see the construction in person, sadly.  I was out of the country for most of the time when we last had a house built (in Virginia, of course), but I at least got to see a bit of the work being done.  And LRN4 was there for the whole thing.  This time, probably nothing.  And that’s half the fun!  Sigh.

In a fit of fitness-induced madness, LRN4 recently purchased a set of [amazon asin=B000VCDXNS&text=adjustable dumbbells].  They seem like really great quality, come in their own sturdy-looking plastic case, and are really heavy.  Or not, depending on whether you want them to be.  Highly recommended, both by LRN4 and several people who reviewed them.  And the price was pretty good.

In other news . . . umm . . . I don’t think there is any other news.  Oh yeah, LRN4 gave a bookmark for her website to a few friends recently.  They’ve all given very positive reviews.  One said she had her graphic designer husband look at it, and he was full of praise.  Pretty impressive!  I’m counting on her (free) website to make us rich one of these days.  It could happen!

Not much else to report and it’s slightly past my bedtime, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: bratwurst assault!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s where the Queen of the Valley stops.  Good old Track 5.  Based on the appearance of the platform back there, though, I suspect the train is running a bit late.  Great Art taken at the Ellis Island railroad/ferry terminal and part of my famous Train and Machinery series.  Sort of, anyway.

Had a nice weekend.  Didn’t do all that much – we went to the Bristol Amish Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning.  Had a nice time.  It’s much roomier than its equivalent in Newtown, but not really all that much different otherwise.  Fun trip!

And we also did . . . umm . . . not that much.  It was great!  I’m feeling rested.

I did, however, get some pretty big stuff done this weekend.  I finished revision 1.1 of the Brewing Co. app!  Got it submitted to Apple this evening.  It ought to be available for download within a few days!

Next project: finishing the Android version.  LRN1 got it off to an amazing start.  I just have a little bit more to do.  And I’ll do it!  I’m studying up as we speak.

Actually, I’m really watching Catch Me if You Can.  We’re only a few minutes into it, but it’s pretty entertaining so far.  Not necessarily happy, but entertaining.  So I’m going to get back to it.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: rampaging kangaroo!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a statue of a Chinese lion.  Or is that Japanese?  Thai?  Something like that.  Anyway, it appears to be guarding some highly-maintained bushes.  Great Art taken at Longwood Gardens and part of my famous Statue series.

Lots going on.  LRN1 is back at school and rooming with LRN2.  They’re also working at the same place and they have a class together too.  Plenty of togetherness there.  Don’t get on each other’s nerves, Loyal Readers!  LRN27 is also at BYU right now, and they were surprised to see each other in their common class!  So there are three Loyal Readers taking a religion class together this term.  Pretty cool.

LRN4 went with LRN1 to California to check on the house, pick up LRN1’s stuff that didn’t get sent out here, and get my beloved pickup.  They drove it to Utah where, in addition to getting LRN1 and LRN2 set up, LRN4 visited her brother and father.  She had a nice visit.  Next, she flew down to Nevada to see her sister there for a few days and do a bit more house-hunting.  My Loyal Readers may recall that we’ve been toying with the idea of buying a retirement home there.  We keep making offers, but we keep being outbid by foreign “investors.”  Very frustrating.

Well, she stopped by a new housing development, saw a nice place, and bought it.  Well, she technically put a small deposit down on an empty lot, but we expect to be buying a nice little house a bit later this year.  The place will have 1700 square feet with three bedrooms and a loft (office space!), two and a half bathrooms, and a two-car garage.  Just about perfect!  There’s a community swimming pool (important in the desert heat) and the community plants and cares for your front yard.  You don’t get much say in what’s out there, but I don’t care about that all the much and LRN4 will just have to stifle her front-yard creative urges.  She can do whatever she wants in the back yard, which we hope to make attractive and maintenance-free.  Bit of a big challenge, that, but we’ll come up with something.  Oh, also low cost, of course.  We’ll be on a fixed income until the iOS programming bucks start rolling in.

Anyway.  I’m excited to have the search done.  Now we can pick our options and try to manage construction from a long, long way away.  The house is supposed to be finished in September, which ought to be just about right.  It’s in Las Vegas, not Henderson, but it’s right on the border and is about five minutes away from LRN4’s sister.  Also very close to Costco and other great shopping.  I can’t wait to become a Nevadan!

The aforementioned Beaglebone arrived on schedule.  I haven’t written here much lately, partly because I’ve been messing around with it.  It’s a real Linux computer on a board that fits inside a mint tin.  Very cool.  It’s powered up right now and sitting on my network serving its sample website.  Not very exciting yet, but there are definitely possibilities.

My tennis elbow has improved but has not yet healed.  These things take time.  I’m trying to be as careful as possible with it, but accidents will happen.  I’m telling people it’s a polo injury.  Nobody believes me.

I’m finally working on the first update to the Brewing Company app.  We have 64 downloads so far, which isn’t exactly a record-setting pace, but at least it’s out there.  Check it out, iPhone/iPad-owning Loyal Readers!  It’s free!  And worth at least twice that much!

Okay, time for bed.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: condiment theft!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s LRN1 enjoying a quiet moment with a very special visitor a couple of weeks back.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at our apartment complex’s clubhouse, and part of my famous Event series.

Been a few days again, and lots has happened.  First (and worst), LRN4 and LRN1 left for California on Saturday morning.  Boo hoo!  They’ve had a great time visiting LRN5, LRN12, Cliff, and many other friends.  The house was in great shape and everything is going well.  They got my beloved pickup’s strange blinker problem fixed, they packed everything up and loaded the truck, and they’re ready to head for Utah tomorrow morning.  Drive carefully, Loyal Readers!

I’ve been living the bachelor life again, although LRN4 correctly points out that I’m definitely not living like a hobo this time.  I’ve got furniture, dishes, food, and all the comforts of home.  That part’s just fine.  I’m still a bit lonesome.  However, I have my sushi to comfort me in my time of trial.

Also had a hamburger last night and a really nice plate of pork paprikash tonight.  Tomorrow: sushi again, most likely.

But I’m suffering.  Suffering, I tell you.

Let’s see, what else has been happening?  We went to an interesting place on Friday called Bryn Athyn.  Beautiful old buildings.  Very nice people.  Perfect day.  It was all good.  Recommended.  I don’t think we’ll be going back again and again, but still recommended.

Ordered my Beagle Bone over the weekend.  It’s finally in stock at Adafruit!  They shipped it out of New York City yesterday.  It arrived in Philly today, so I expect it’ll be delivered tomorrow.  Can’t wait!

I bought some instant ice packs for my poor, sore tennis elbow the other day.  They work – sort of.  See my brilliant Amazon review here.  Try another brand.

Time for bed already.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: attack turtle!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a view from the docks in New Jersey.  See if you can pick out a well-known landmark or two.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Statue series.

Hmm.  I think that categorization may have given away at least part of the answer.  Hopefully, my Loyal Readers won’t notice.

No word from Apple yet on releasing the Brewing Co. app.  Patience, grasshopper.  In the meantime, LRN1 is making amazing progress on the Android version.  What do you think are the chances it’ll be on the street before the iOS one?  I’m giving it about 25-30%, but LRN1 is usually good for a challenge.

Went out to lunch with my colleagues Hai and Thomas today, as is our wont on Fridays.  This time, I invited LRN4 and LRN1 to go with us.  We went to the Thai restaurant in the same strip mall as the Newtown Amish Farmer’s Market.  Except the restaurant is gone.  Closed down.  I guess they needed my business a bit earlier.  So we decided to go to the Amish Farmer’s Market for lunch instead.  Except all the Amish people were taking Good Friday off.  So we decided to go to the Chinese restaurant at the far end of the strip mall.  Except they had a fire a couple of days ago and they’re closed for repairs.  So we went back to the Amish Farmer’s Market and got Mexican and Japanese food from the non-Amish vendors.  Sheesh.  It was good anyway, but sheesh.

Let’s see, other new stuff . . . hmm . . . still thinking . . . nope, not coming up with anything.

Then let’s talk about Linux, shall we?  I’m disgusted with Ubuntu.  I see that shocked look on your face.  Well, it’s true.  I’ve loved Ubuntu for the last few years – and used it extensively – but they’ve jumped the shark for me.  That stupid Gnome Unity interface has got to go.  What a mess.  It’s as bad as Windows 8.

No, it’s not that bad.  Nothing is.

But it’s bad anyway.  A laptop computer is not a tablet.  It never has been and it never will be.  I don’t want a desktop full of icons.  I want a menu.  Give me my menu back, Ubuntu!

Yes, I know, there are supposedly ways to get the menu back.  That worked fine on Ubuntu 11.04, so I used it and was happy, but it’s hopelessly broken on 11.10.

And don’t tell me it’s all Gnu’s fault.  Yes, they’re responsible for Gnome.  But Ubuntu is responsible for caving to them.  And I don’t run Gnu, I run Ubuntu.

Or I ran Ubuntu, that is.  It’s gone now.  My trusty old Averatec Linux Laptop is now running Linux Mint.  That’s basically still Ubuntu (even downloads its updates from Ubuntu’s repositories – I wonder how long the Ubuntu people will put up with that!), but it has . . . wait for it . . . menus!  It also features a bit of non-free software, which doesn’t bother me a bit, and it doesn’t require me to put up with some Stallmanesque guilt trip to enable it.  It appears to have a nice, clean look, and it seems speedy enough for my old, pathetic hardware so far.

So do I have a perfect distribution?  A lot of people seem to think so.  I’ll have to see what I think after a while.

Okay, rant over.  Thanks for listening.  I feel so much better.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: mystery freeway dog!

See you on Monday.