morrowlife

Here’s my new transportation. I’ll definitely be stylin’ on that thing. Part of my famous Machinery series.

Wow. Is it Thursday already? The long, long weekend has begun. And not a moment too soon, says I. There’s tons of stuff to do. I need to do the filters, get new tires for the Miata (and that will be the last car to get new tires for quite some time, fortunately – I can’t afford such an expensive habit), do a bunch of stuff for my church job, get some laundry done, and a whole bunch of other things. Fortunately, they’re all written down in my beloved iPhone.

Besides, I’m ready for five days off. Really. I’m also ready to get together with LRN4 and LRN2 and other family members in Las Vegas on Sunday. I’ve truly enjoyed the solitude, but it’s also been a bit lonely around here all by myself.

Nothing much else for tonight, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting, soon-to-be-a-major-motion-picture toilet news: toilets in space (link warning: autoplaying video)!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s LRN1 with his previous companion standing on . . . umm . . . I think that’s their roof. That’s LRN1 over there on the right. Part of my famous Guatemala series.

Good day today. LRN2 and LRN4 got to LRN3’s house in good shape after a relatively pleasant journey. I got a few things done at work and attended a good leadership meeting at church in the evening. And not a whole lot else.

Oh, I did notice over the past couple of days that I had gotten a virus on the little Averatec laptop LRN1 gave me just before he left on his mission. So I did the only rational thing – I installed Linux. I had tried installing version 9 of Ubuntu before I installed Windows on it, but without any luck – it wouldn’t even install, let alone run. I’ve had a lot of luck with Ubuntu 10.04, though, so I thought I’d give it a try. As expected, it installed perfectly – and very quickly. I did it during my lunch break at work, in fact. Had to wait until I got home to have it install its updates, but that was quick and painless too. Now I’m working on getting additional software and tools like Java installed. Should have it nicely configured before I go to bed.

I’ve been using Ubuntu 10.04 on the other Averatec laptop I got from LRN6 – the one with the bad-but-still-barely-limping-along-if-you-know-what-to-do hard drive and the dead battery. It works great, so I’m using it always plugged in as the development machine for my little Arduino project. My good laptop is older and slower than the development machine (let’s use their names here: the development machine is Buddy and the other one is Ted), but its good battery means it works perfectly for name indexing on the train. That has already been proven to work fine under Ubuntu, so it will continue to serve its purpose. Just without viruses. And a lot cooler. Sorry, Microsoft.

Let’s see – what else is going on around here? Umm . . . nothing I can think of. Oh yeah, LRN4 reports that LRN3 and family are doing well. LRN3 has been really suffering from what appears to be fibromyalgia, which is quite debilitating, but he’s getting along well all things considered and his spirits remain high. They’re getting ready to move into the apartment two stories directly beneath them, but they’re not quite ready to start yet, so LRN2 and LRN4 won’t be able to help them. They’re not quite sure what’s on the agenda for the next couple of days – maybe just visiting. I’m certain LRN2 would be more than happy to do just that. And play a few games while he’s there.

So that’s about it. I’ll leave you with this tragic toilet news: exploding outhouse! I guess boys will be . . . umm . . . homicidal toilet-bombing maniacs.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a big red bus in Guatemala. Love those lightning bolts. Part of my famous Guatemala series. Of course.

Extreme short shrift – it’s late and I promised myself I’d be in bed about an hour ago.

Got a couple of emails from LRN1 today. He got transferred this week, which was totally unexpected. In fact, nobody found out about it until he got to the transfer meeting. So he’s in a new place with a new companion, who was also transferred there this week. Hopefully, they’re meeting people, getting settled in, and getting to work. I’m sure they are.

Otherwise uneventful around here. With the Loyal Readers gone, it’s quiet. I’ve been working on my Arduino project again. I got it creating and saving files to an SD card, so now I need to get another Arduino interfacing with my accelerometer and passing data to the SD card reading Arduino via a network. Won’t take too much work, actually.

And I’ll leave you with this exotic toilet news: a throne fit for royalty.

See you tomorrow.

Here are some flowers on a bush outside of my building at work. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam.

No posts the last couple of days. I was at Edwards Air Force Base. That’s right, we finally took our trip. Had a very good meeting and got to go aboard the aircraft for the first time. I’m glad I went. It was a long day, though, and I’m also glad to be home.

LRN2 and LRN4 leave very early tomorrow morning on their trip to San Diego, Mesa, and Las Vegas. It’s going to be kind of quiet around here without them. Real quiet. Too quiet. To ease my pain right at first, I’m going on a camping trip with the stake young men tomorrow night. I’m taking the trailer (of course), so it ought to at least be comfortable. Still trying to decide whether to fill the water tank and use the bathroom facilities, etc. I have roughly 20 hours to make up my mind. Is the convenience worth the extra effort to drain the holding tanks afterward? How badly do I want a shower on Saturday morning? Decisions, decisions.

Otherwise, I expect it to be pretty peaceful here in Lardville. I’m hoping to do a lot of reading, maybe work on an electronics project or two (candidates: a programmable guitar pedal, an Arduino-based sound file player, finishing the robot car with or without resorting to a GPS receiver and a compass, and/or something else), do a little programming (candidates: some iPhone app, a Linux-based assembler and/or compiler – possibly Fortran for the Arduino, and/or something else), watch a bunch of TV shows and video podcasts I have saved up on Larry’s hard disk, do a little jacuzzifying, and neaten up my office and workbench. Also a bunch of other things, probably. My fondest desire is not to spend the entire time websurfing. Which would be way too easy.

I’ll also need to remember to change the snake’s water daily, feed the fish daily, and clean the pool and pond filters at least weekly. I’ll also undoubtedly have a bit of laundry to take care of, and maybe even a bit of cleaning up after myself. Oh, the humanity.

Anyway, it’s time for bed, so wish me luck in my solitude and enjoy this shocking toilet violence news: mayoral toilet theft!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s LRN1 on a city bus in Guatemala, preachin’. On a bus. Go unto all the world, you know. Good work, LRN1! Part of my famous Guatemala series.

Missed a day or two there at the end of last week. Sorry about that. Fortunately, nothing happened. Not much, anyway. Let’s see if we can remember anything, shall we?

Ummm . . . Thinking . . . Still thinking . . . Oh, yeah. I prepared a talk and gave it on Sunday. Went pretty well. Oh, and we also celebrated LRN4’s birthday, which was fun. LRN5 came over, brought gifts, and made some good food. We enjoyed her company. And we really enjoyed LRN12’s week-long visit. She and her mom headed for home this morning.

And I’m sure I did a whole bunch of other stuff. Just can’t remember it right now.

Anyway. It’s LRN4’s birthday today (happy birthday, LRN4!) and we’re spending our home evening activity time watching The Rocketeer, one of our favorite old (but not too old) movies. The disc is a little dirty or scratched or something, so we’re having a few problems with it, but we’re hoping to muddle through to the end. LRN2’s working on cleaning it right now. Optimism reigns.

And I’ll leave you with this tragic toilet news: watch who you shake hands with.

See you tomorrow.