morrowlife

Here’s a second look at the Coco Palms lagoon.  I’m pretty sure I offered a first look at it quite some time ago, although that one was the view to the left as you exited the (hurricane-destroyed) main building going towards the cabanas.  This is totally different.  This is the view to the right as you exit the (hurricane-destroyed) main building going towards the cabanas.  Great Art taken on our cruise to Hawaii during shore leave at the (hurricane-destroyed) Coco Palms Resort on Lahaina and part of my famous Vacation series.

I really wish I had been able to see the Coco Palms when it was actually open.  It looks like it was a really cool, if possibly somewhat dated, place.  I was born too late!  Or at least I traveled to Kauai too late, anyway.

Although it might not be too late after all.  It’s for sale!  I’m looking for partners.  You bring the money and the work, and I’ll provide the ideas.

I’ve take lots more Great Art recently – just need to get it into iPhoto and select the Greatest shots for the blog.  Real Soon Now, guaranteed.  In the meantime, Hawaii pictures aren’t all bad.

Now for the excellent news: we’ve submitted the Brewing Company app!  It went in to the App Store System yesterday and heaven only knows when it’ll come out.  When it does, I’ll let my Loyal Readers know.  In the meantime, why not check out our company website?  I put up a shell on Saturday and have been gradually filling in the blanks.  It think it’s moderately presentable at this point.  Criticism (constructive or otherwise) appreciated.  You can’t polish a gem without knocking off the rough edges.

Over the weekend, we went to a place called Northlandz.  It contains the most amazing model railroad in the world.  I think that’s a pretty accurate statement.  The thing is in a gigantic building with 8 miles of track.  It took us three hours to walk through it.  Just for grins, there’s also a fairly large dollhouse, a bunch of dolls and other toys, and a huge pipe organ, along with several other organ consoles.  Why?  Who cares?  I’m not sure I’d go back again and again as I would will to Longwood, but I’m really glad I went once.  And I’m not a big model railroad fan.

Although I do like trains.

I mentioned the Beagle Bone single-board computer a post or two ago.  I finally got around to ordering on the other day from Adafruit and . . . they were out.  They have plenty of them at [amazon asin=B006X35EN6&text=other vendors], but nobody else seems to have the cool starter kit that Adafruit offers, so I’m waiting.  Impatiently.

I’m reading [amazon asin=1590593898&text=Joel on Software] right now, along with a couple of other software books that maybe I’ll talk about in a future post.  The Joel book is a fascinating book for software developers that really makes you think.  The guy has very good instincts about the industry in general and the art of developing software on either a large or small scale.  I don’t always agree with everything he says, but I suspect I do so at my own peril.  Highly recommended reading.

Time for a couple of other thing before I head for bed.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity:  angry elves!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s some happy, peppy zoo attendees, featuring LRN4, some non-Loyal-Reader grand-nieces, and an extremely rare appearance by LRN16.  That’s LRN4 there in the foreground, pushing the stroller.  Great Art courtesy of my old exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Vacation and Machinery series.

A [amazon asin=B002WB2G9I&text=stroller] is machinery, isn’t it?

Extreme Short Shrift.  It’s way past my bedtime and I have a lot of boring meetings to attend tomorrow.  Need my sleep.

Worked on the Brewing Co. app again.  I finally figured out how to the Contact page.  LRN1 and I had figured out this extremely complex way to do it, which was sort of working, but it finally occurred to me to look at how I had done it in my old Morse code apps, and I got the behavior I wanted with a simple UIWebView.  Duh.  It’s easy to implement, very controllable with CSS, easy to change, and it looks very nice.

In the meantime, LRN1 made amazing progress on the Calendar tab for the Android app.  It’ll be done before you know it.  Also, [amazon asin=0553386603&text=we’ll be rich] before you know it.

Otherwise, worked, ate, and slept.  Oh, I also went to Young Men this evening and we had the missionaries over for dinner.  Otherwise an uneventful day.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: renegade math freak!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the most beautiful indoor lawn I’ve ever seen.  Great Art taken at Longwood Gardens, courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, and part of my famous Event and Hiking series.

Well, it was sort of a hike.  We went to this amazing place here in Pennsylvania called Longwood Gardens.  It’s the old early-twentieth century estate of Pierre du Pont and it’s unbelievable.  The grounds are exquisite and huge (over 200 acres), but the most amazing thing we saw was the conservatory.  It’s an indoor garden featuring a total of 4 acres.  It just goes on and on and on.  The building itself is extremely ornate but beautiful and tasteful, and the gardens are just indescribable.  So I won’t try anymore.  Just go.  We’re going back.  We have to.  We bought a year-long membership.

Been a nice few days.  LRN3 was here from Monday to Monday.  We had a very nice visit.  He rode the train up from Quantico to Trenton and really enjoyed the ride.  Went back this morning/afternoon and reports it was equally enjoyable on the way back down.  Thursday, LRN3 and LRN15 are coming back for the long weekend.  We’ll be celebrating LRN15’s upcoming birthday.  Ought to be even more fun.

The Brewing Company app is coming along very nicely.  We have a fully-functioning app at this point, with a few refinements needed to existing views.  We still need to add contact information – both for the band and for us – as well as credits for open source code we’ve used.  LRN1 is busily working on the Android version and is making good progress.

LRN4 got her previously-mentioned Android tablet the other day.  It’s really cool!  And it was dirt cheap.  Could it be possible that my fanboy loyalties might change?  Doubtful.  But I’d like an Android tablet too.

I’ve been a big Arduino fan for quite a while, but I think I’ve found something even better – the [amazon asin=B007KW80M6&text=BeagleBone]!  It’s a whole lot more powerful than an Arduino, it runs Linux, and it only costs about two to three times as much as an Arduino.  Totally worth it.  I’m pretty sure I’ll be ordering one in the next few days.  Amazon has it, but I think I like Adafruit’s starter kit even more.

Work is busy and enjoyable.  Life here in Pennsylvania is great.  All’s well.

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: adopted French gorilla!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s LRN4 in a slightly very dark picture of our Oahu-based scooters, posing beautifully in a beautiful location overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean.  It really is pretty in Hawaii.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive (and new that day) iPhone-cam and part of my Machinery and Vacation series.

Not much new to report.  We all got disgusted with our hosting service, so LRN1 finally called them (impersonating me – I wonder if there’s a reward for turning someone in for that) and asked what’s going on.  They told him we’re sharing a server with a busy website, so it’s slow for us.  The didn’t offer to move either us or the offending individual to a different server, but they did offer their new cloud-based service.  I have no idea whether they even know what the “cloud” is, but we signed up for it anyway.  The price is the same and they promise to scale up as we (and all their other clients, presumably) need more bandwidth, so it’s supposed to go from very slow to very fast.  It appears to be faster already, although GoDaddy’s account manager tells me the change is still pending.  Maybe that just means they’ve move some stuff over already but not other things.  In any case, it’s supposed to be totally transparent to me, so I have high hopes.  Not necessarily borne out by experience, but there you go.

Let’s see, what else is going on?  We’re making good progress with the app for our non-Loyal-Reader (ahem) friend Cliff.  LRN1 has had way more time than I have to work on it, so he has written a bunch more code than I have.  I haven’t been exactly sitting on my hands, though.  I have the Music Samples and Slide Show pages up and running, although they both need quite a bit more polish.  But they’re functional!  I expect we’ll have the app done within a week or so.  Then LRN1 is going to try his hand a porting it to Android.  Good luck with that, LRN1!

Speaking of LRN1, he was just informed today that he has a full-tuition scholarship for the Spring and Summer terms at BYU.  That’s in addition to his existing full-tuition scholarship that kicks back in for the Fall semester.  Congrats, LRN1!

Time for some shameless commerce.  LRN4 is thinking of buying an [amazon asin=B003NRWJR4&text=Android tablet] pretty soon.  She thinks she’d enjoying having one, and it would be very useful for us to test our Android apps, since we have no other Android devices in the house.  LRN3 has one, as does LRN5.  That’ll be very helpful too, but not as easy as having one right here.  So she might buy the one at the link.  What do you think?  If any of my Loyal Readers buy it (or anything else at Amazon after clicking on it), I’ll get a little kickback!  Buy, buy, buy, Loyal Readers!

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this combination shocking food violence news and exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity:  gorilla-attacking banana!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the pilothouse on a sunken ship.  Or something like that.  With some great big turtles.  Great Art taken at the bottom of the ocean with my trusty old Minolta camera during our Oahu submarine ride and part of my famous Machinery and Vacation series.

Hey!  Another two-days-in-a-row post!  Not that there’s anything to tell.

So let’s see if we can think of anything.  Hmm.  Had a nice day today.  Worked some more on our app.  Worked, ate, and commuted (briefly) (the commute part, not the work part) (or the eating part).  Watched a couple of Netflix movies, including [amazon asin=B000059ZWQ&text=The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown], starring Jane Russell.  A bit strange, but funny.  Recommended.

Also saw the end of [amazon asin=B00009VTZX&text=How to Frame a Figg], an early-70s Don Knotts flick.  Also [amazon asin=6301302931&text=The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend], starring Betty Grable.  Both amusing.  Both recommended.  Maybe not highly recommended, but recommended anyway.

In the Jane Russell movie, she’s a self-centered movie actress (is there any other kind?) who’s kidnapped on the very night of the premiere of a movie where she gets kidnapped.  Nobody will believe it’s anything but a publicity stunt.  Comedy ensues.

Anyway.  Sadly, it’s already time for bed.  So I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: thieving photographer monkey!

See you tomorrow.