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WEEK 18 2017

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Saturday 6 May 2017

Saturday - Nice weather.

Met up with J. Meek midday, did a bunch of work with FreeCAD. We met up at the Quartz Hill library, and used one of their study rooms - very nice. Wall power, USB power, an HDMI overhead projector and whiteboard...

Friday 5 May 2017

Friday - Cooler.

Working away on various things.

Took the cat into the vet's again. They are very worried about the infection - concerned that it's MSRA or the feline equivalent. They've sent a sample out to be cultured, and warned me to be very careful to use gloves and wash thoroughly after any contact the little guy. It'll take a few days to get results. I'd like to irrigate with Betadyne and such, but they've recommended against it for now.

I have a preliminary version of an Ideas-to-Stars converter working. Just does one element, but that's all I have as a sample file right now anyway. The documentation on the nodal winding of the tetrahedron element seems incorrect.

Thursday 4 May 2017 Thursday - Warm in the morning, but starting to get some clouds and humidity in the afternoon.

More distractions.

S called and wants to make the top level a bit easier for the kids - she's been watching them and they are really struggling with how big a leap that last level is. It shouldn't be too big of a change, though Xcode still isn't quite right. In fact it's starting to lose track of even more files....

When I checked on the cat in the morning he had some open sores on his legs that weren't there yesterday, so I called the vet, and took him in again. It's not good - it's a massive bacterial infection. They washed the sores, gave him more and stronger antibiotics and fluids, and gave me more pain meds and ABs for him, and a collar, and I took him home again.

Poor guy. He's a trooper, hanging in there, but I had to tell C that it wasn't looking good.

Wednesday 3 May 2017

Wednesday - Hot. About 100F. Glad to have the swamp cooler going.

The injured cat really doesn't seem to be coming around, but he's eating and drinking, so that's good.

Worked on some STARS stuff, since I couldn't bring myself to battle with Xcode all day. I wrote a small translator to take the FEM file generated by FreeCAD and turn it into a sample STARS file. Not a big deal, but the document ion on the nodal ordering of tetrahedral elements was wrong for FreeCAD, and some issues with the Windows version of Cream/Vim, and so on. But I got a rough version working and sent a screengrab off to somebody to show I'd done it.

My brother had his surgery, is home, and doing well he says.

I really need to start my Kaiser stuff. As long as I'm being forced to pay for it I may as well take advantage...

Tuesday 2 May 2017

Tuesday - Warm again. They are actually predicting a front passing through later in the week - hard to believe, it feels like summer already.

Working on various things, though a bit distracted.

My brother texted to say he's going in for some minor surgery tomorrow. I offered to come to sit with him after for a few days - it's outpatient - but his GF has offered to do that for him.

I found an injured cat curled up on my wet lawn in the morning. I assumed he was a car strike victim - he was barely moving - and took him into the vet. To my surprise they diagnosed him as having fallen from a great height, landing on his legs, and spraining three of the four. So I made him comfortable in the garage, in a pen, with lots of food, water and some painkillers. They gave him an IV and ABs at the clinic, so hopefully he'll recover. He's a pretty sorry looking fellow right now...

Monday 1 May 2017

Monday - Warm, hot even. Glad to have the swamp cooler going.

Working on this and that. Xcode and GIT are getting strange again... It's rough when you can't trust your tools for this sort of complicated task...

S stopped by with sandwiches, tamales, and a punch-list of stuff for the app. Sigh. I informed her of the Xcode issues, and that I was attempting to fix them without creating a new version.

Sunday 30 April 2017

Sunday - Another warm day.

Some minor yard chores, and shopping, but mostly working on prepping the swamp cooler.

It is supposed to be hot this coming week, so it was time. I bought pads at Home Depot, and put them in. Then I oiled the bearings and cleaned out the bottom of the cooler and fired it up. And....the water pump was dead. Apparently it died over the winter. I had a spare, though used, pump in the garage, so I swapped it out. This time it worked fine, and the pleasant scent of aspen filled the air inside.

There was a bad leak at the fitting from the main, so I took it off and re-taped it. And...it still leaked, even worse. I tightened it, no joy. Finally I took it off and inspected it closely, and discovered that the barrel had a crack.

A hard failure to see. I just assumed poor QC on the thread cutting at first.

So I made another trip to Home Depot and picked up a new fitting, and things were finally copacetic, except for a little leak due to a bad washer on the valve. So I replaced the washer as well.

Actually I do need to get another inline calcium filter - when I removed the failed unit late last year it was amazing how much buildup occurred in just the last month or two of use of the swamp cooler.

In the afternoon I finally cut wood on the solar oven. I've been dithering for a while, but want my garage back for the Explorer, and this an another project are taking up space. So I pulled some dimensions out of the air, sizing it big enough to fit a big pot, but small enough to just use one 4' by 4' piece of 5/16" plywood I had. Then I did a preliminary assembly with screws, and knocked off about 6pm.

I'll sister some of the internal supports, to get a bit more width than the 2x2's I used as a frame, then insulate with some free fiberglass batting that a friend says they have.

I'd been vaguely aware of noise in the neighborhood, but when I took off the ear protection, yikes. Mariachi and hiphop or something, echoing through the neighborhood. The usual noisy neighbor has been conspicuously absent lately, so I guess these guys are picking up the slack.

I want to move so bad...

Book #20 was Onslaught, by David Poyer. The US and China get into a shooting war in the China Sea, there's a rapist aboard, the on-board disease is still raging, they are running low on fuel and only using one engine, and Dan and the Savo Island are trying to defend Taiwan all by themselves, American battle groups are getting nuked...and more.

Picture of the Week

Hi-Vista and Saddleback Butte, looking east from the Poppy Reserve.

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