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WEEK 30 2007

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Saturday 28 July 2007

Saturday - Book #50 is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bet you didn't expect that! I didn't actually plan to read it this week - I was going to wait until I could get it for free from friends or relatives, but there was this stack right next to the checkout line, and before I knew it I was a chapter in and had no choice but to bring it home.

Anyway, no spoilers here, and the book is recommended. I need to see the HP phoenix movie one of these days.

So, the table now looks like this, with fifty books read much earlier than other years. I'm not sure why.

#1 The Island at the Center of the World*
#2 Enders Game*
#3 Constructional Steelwork Simply Explained
#4 Riding the Bullet*
#5 Sea Change* 		#6 Dykstra's War,
#7 Six Frigates*
#8 The Green and the Gray
#9 The Hills is Lonely*
#10 Hell's Gate
#11 The Voyage of Kristina
#12 Wyrms
#13 The Worthing Saga
#14 Expiration Date
#15 John Paul Jones* 		#16 Dinner at Deviant's Palace
#17 By the Wind
#18 Skeletons on the Zahara*
#19 Blue Gold*
#20 The Androids Dream
#21 Some Golden Harbor
#22 Beautiful Just
#23 Godforsaken Sea
#24, The Professor and the Madman*
#25, Thomas Jefferson		 #26 Earthquake Weather
#27 Killers Wake
#28 Desolation Island*
#29 Academia Nuts
#30 Sorcery and Cecelia
#31 Rainbows End
#32 The End,A Series of Unfortunate Events, Volume 13
#33: Building Harlequin's Moon
#34, Undaunted Courage*
#35 The Presidents House*		 #36, Rocket Boys*
#37 The Ghost Brigades
#38 The Fortune of War*,
#39 The Wallet of Kai Lung
#40 Xena and the Magic Arrow of Myx
#41 The Map That Changed the World*
#42 The Machine's Child
#43 Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War*
#44 Dark Chant in a Crimson Key
#45 In the House of Secret Enemies		 #46 Airship: The Story of the R.34 
#47 The Death-Bringers*
#48 Outerbridge Reach*
#49 Nightlife
#50 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows



Mowed the lawns, cleaned a little bit. Mostly I just read HP. My tomato's look pretty good and are tasty (particularly the little sweet green cherry tomato's) - my friend sprayed for horn worms last week while I was gone, but there is some other leaf blight that needs goop that I don't actually have in hand today.

Friday 27 July 2007

Friday - back from Oxnard.

I decided to take the 126 through Canyon Country (or whatever they call it) from the I-5 to the I-14, to avoid that little jog south and then north again. I'd heard that it was fixed up and a quicker way to get back to the I-14. Hah. After an hour of fooling around on busy suburban streets I found myself back at the I-5, only a few miles south of the 126 overpass, at Magic Mountain. And the I-5 south was, by that time, stop and go traffic. So instead I went north, through Gorman, and thence to Lancaster. But a two hour trip turned into more than three hours, over a steep grade in heavy truck and RV traffic.

Bah.


How Google Earth (probably) works. [via Geekrant]

Thursday 26 July  2007

Thursday - I had a scare. A friend, checking up on the cats while I was away couldn't find one of them. She looked everywhere, even opened a can of tuna and carried it about the house, to no avail, Phoebe wasn't to be found. Not in a closet, not in a closed up bedroom or bathroom.

But then, decidedly unfairly, Phoebe doesn't like her, because she's the one that usually takes him to the vet. So we figured he was hiding. But there was that little nagging worry...

Another friend, less associated with the vet and more associated with food and fun was dispatched to the home. And Phoebe met her at the door.

Stupid cat or smart cat?

It's about time for another veterinarian visit.


There was an explosion in Mohave today, with deaths, at Scaled Composites. It sounds like an industrial accident, related to the engine development of Space Ship Two.

Wednesday 25 July 2007

Wednesday - I imagine KJIL will get old after a while, as there are only so many songs from the late 1960's to 2000's to play, even the including decent b-sides and stuff from LP's.

I miss The Voice of Clayton Valley High, from my high school years. Entire LP sides, played on low power radio.

Update: Jeez, it still exists: KVHS A different playlist, naturally.

Oxnard, fortunately, has a surplus of Spanish speaking radio stations, so there's always that to fall back on.


I tried out one of those Bluetooth headsets. My friend had one and wasn't using it.  It was very easy to set up, essentially I just told the Bluetooth Manager on the XV6600 to look for it, and it found it, put in 0000 as a code, and it was working. So that was a plus. And it works pretty well for me, up to about 30 feet or so range, through an interior wall or window to the exterior of the house.

The downside:
  1. I called my Dad and he said that I sounded like I was in a well. I told him that it was because I was in a hallway and went outside. Apparently I still sounded like I was in a well. Later I called a co-worker from the car. He said I sounded like I was in a well. Hmm. I called another friend. He mentioned a deep well. Hmm.
  2. It also turns out that the XV6600 doesn't support voice commands over bluetooth. So you have to pick up your phone and manually scroll through the contacts to place a call. Weird - why would it work with a wired headset and not an RF set? The network stack doesn't interoperate with the analog input portion?
  3. Most of the time a call messes up the phone, and it can't place another call until it's reset (a two handed affair). That's pretty much a deal breaker.

Tuesday 24 July 2007

Tuesday - a busy day.

On my way down I stopped at der Wienerschnitzel for lunch (it's the last fast food joint before the freeway on ramp). In front of me was a Lincoln Town Car cab, with a passenger. That's just weird... Does the meter keep running when a cab is stopped?


There is a radio station in Lancaster that has "Bob" as their play list director, supposedly. "Bob plays what he likes!" the ads blare. "Bob doesn't listen to anyone about what he plays!". Down in Oxnard it's "Jill". "And up in the Bay Area it's "Jack", as in "You don't know Jack.". All very similar in tone. So, my guess is that these stations are all  connected by an ad campaign. I like KJIL, it's got a lot of b-list stuff I haven't heard in a while.

 Monday 23 July 2007

Monday - Book #49 was Nightlife, by Thomas Perry. It was enjoyable and fast paced, but much in the vein of his last few books, missing something. Recommended, none the less.

On the road, back to Ventura today. Light posting until I get a secure (non-work) connection. Right now I'm thinking about a Verizon EVDO card, but T-Mobile Sprint is also a possibility.

Sunday 22 July 2007

Sunday - the cell phone picture of the boat aground is below. Not much of a picture I'm afraid.

It turns out that my 'good' camera was in the glove box all along (OK, the mediocre Pentax WP). But the batteries were very nearly dead, as I found out on Friday, trying to sightsee in Ojai. I went to Target this morning and bought a 100 Watt car inverter that plugs into the cigarette lighter outlet, which should be enough to charge a camera or laptop on the road.

I don't really need it, as there is plenty of wall power at my boat and at the friend's place that I've been staying at, but it might be nice on a long trip. I considered buying the 200 or 400 Watt units, but am not sure that the stock wiring in the Explorer would support the amperage required -

100 Watts / 12 Volts = 8.5 Amps

Which, as continuous duty, is as much as I'd care to put through a 10A or possibly a 15A, circuit.


I felt lousy yesterday afternoon, but OK today. Did some bills, went to the post office, Target, and had the SUV washed and waxed. I wanted to do that because of the salty corrosive air in Ventura, but just didn't have time to do it myself this weekend. It looks better, but they don't do as good a job as I personally (if rarely) do.


The only radio station I can pick up on the boat carries the John Tesh radio show. Which is full of clues for a better life. Except that there isn't the faintest hint in the show and statistics that "correlation is not causation". It drives me nuts. Logic, apparently, is not one of the clues.

I'm going to get a better radio. I stole borrowed this one from my Dad years ago, after the radio in my car failed and I needed something to get me back from Martinez to Lancaster, via driving the I-5, sane.

update: A new radio that receives more stations would give me a choice of stations to listen to, and to use in drowning out the Friday night noises at the marina. Obviously it wouldn't help with Tesh's logical fallacies...

Picture of the Week
boat aground in oxnard
Photo Notes: A sailboat aground in Oxnard, Ca..

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