Saturday - I've been getting a lot of virus emails
lately, email from mysterious people with attachments that are almost
certainly viruses and trojans. I delete them without reading, of
course, and I've never gotten a virus, but it's sure a rotten thing to
do! I'm sure there
are people out there who open these things and have their systems
wrecked. Even those that don't get infected are paying a price, in the
form of antivirus software purchased. This morning my antivirus
software told me that it had run overnight, checked about 110,000 files - and found nothing. Peace of mind I guess.
The neighbor's had a party last night. I think there were actually two parties going on, at different houses,
and it was pretty noisy. Did I, with my hatred of noise, complain? No.
Everyone is entitled to the occasional merriment - I've had a party or
two myself. Though with the cars, and music, and people it sounded like
the pit at a race track out there. (A quick check for blondes in tank tops found none, alas.) By eleven, it was quiet and I
went to bed.
Another neighbor has sold his house. I think of him as "the good neighbor",
though this is perhaps somewhat unfair to the others. His house is
immaculate, the yard pristine, and his kids under control. (Though they
do practice skateboarding on the curbs, a harmless but noisy exercise
in futility because by the time they become adroit at it they've moved
on to puberty, cars, and girls). So, of course, he's moving. He wants
his kids to be near a better high school, out Quartz Hill way. What a guy.
Spirit has finally made it to Bonneville crater. The scientists were hoping for more rock layer outcroppings, I think, still: wow!
Friday 12 March
2004
Friday - despite it being a "work day" I went for a trip down to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Some friends were going, so why not?
It's an interesting structure - stainless steel panels and swooping
lines. There is a self paced audio tour that one takes, walking about
and listening to the architect and others discuss the structure.
Unfortunately the concert hall itself was in use for rehearsals
and we couldn't go in there. The exterior panels are bolted to a
frame, and thus "floating". Metals expand and contract a great deal, so
the individual panels are made to overlap rather than abut each other,
and allowing expansion without warping or wrinkling. My camera was
absconded with by the fourteen year old - who has more art in her thumb
than I do in my entire body - so the pictures should come out nice.
I'll post a couple when I get them...
We had lunch in a nice restaurant - in shorts and tennis shoes I didn't
really feel appropriately dressed, but that's not a first. The staff
were courteous and the food good, and we got a complimentary desert
because the service was a tad slow. I didn't see - or recognize, rather ("You see but you do not observe Watson!") - any movie stars.
Thursday 11 March 200
Thursday
- the planet Earth, as photographed from the surface of Mars:
Wednesday 10 March 2004
Wednesday - still unpacking. Arrgghhh. There is a lot
of old stuff not really needed right now, but my packing wasn't as
orderly as I imagined it. Some things still unaccounted for. Bad
day, that last day. I pulled some old file cabinets out of the garage
and began to fill them. Did a bit of real work as well, but not as much
as I wanted, and I worked until nearly eight in the evening. I may turn
out to be my own worst boss. Fortunately I had a helper:
Reilly helpfully files himself under A for Annoying
Went to see "Hidalgo"
with some friends today. A fun movie. Horses, cowboys, gunfights, sand
storms, sword fights, horse races, knife fights, seductresses,
untouchable princesses, locusts, bandits, daring rescues, Indians, cravenly betrayals, Buffalo Bill,
battles against impossible odds, and more... Ok, there'll be no Academy
Award for this movie but it was more than passable for an afternoon's
entertainment!
Tuesday 9 March 2004
Tuesday - working away. Trying to find my old notes
and stuff for the most part. I contacted my friend who had worked on
part of the project and we're going to try to get together on this
later.
It's been very warm and sunny. I took the opportunity to do a bit of
painting to touch up around the columns in the front of the house - a
few holidays, runs, and rough trim lines. It looks better, but trying
to paint rough surfaces is hard!
Talked to my dad. He is learning Word, and a new spreadsheet at the same time! Sounds like fun ;-p
Monday 8 March 2004
Monday - working, or trying to. I had to
go get a DVD reader, to read some backup's I'd made. But none of the
DVD-ROM's I could find mentioned being able to read data DVD+R format,
and the clerks weren't much help. So I just bought a version of the CD
burner that I'd used to make the backups with! Ya gotta do what ya
gotta do.
In the evening there was a birthday party for a friends daughter.
Fourteen. Sheesh, where does the time go? I gave her some "movie
bucks", which can be used for movies, and popcorn and whatnot at the
concessions.
Sunday 7 March 2004
Sunday - did some minor cleanup about the
house and some reading. Some David Gerrold - I hate to say it, but he
seems to be slipping a bit. His two latest books are just not as
tightly plotted as I recall his earlier books being.
In the evening we went to listen to Craicmore
at the LPAC. They were fun, but not as energetic as some of the
bands we've seen previously. Still, many of the stories that went along
with the songs - often sung in the Irish or Scots dialect - were
entertaining!
Picture of the Week
Photo Notes: Obligatory cat picture. Sometimes I join them down there in the sun puddle, with a book and a cushion.
