WEEK 31 2008
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Saturday
- lots of chores to do, bills, etc. It's been almost a month since I was home (and healthy), stuff is really building up.
I was going to mow the lawn, first thing, but by the time I dragged
myself out of bed, showered, had some coffee and a bagel, it was
already in the 90's and the grass was still wet from the sprinklers. I
turned them off, and will mow tomorrow, Sunday morning, though not too
early; I don't like to bother the neighbors.
I did get the Explorer smogged, and the bills all paid. So that's done.
I was moving data around today, for some reason, and discovered that I had nearly 1300 images for the blog. Some are just random junk that snuck into the /images directory, but most are for real. But it's actually only a little bit of disk space, the images are mostly pretty small.
The reason for moving that data was that I was going to put the new
video card into the Linux system, and wanted a backup of everything.
Then, when I went to actually put the video card in, everything was
working OK. After a reboot or two. Which was good, because I have been
using the embedded Intel graphics on the old D845GBV motherboard, if
that didn't work, then I wouldn't be able to see the screen to change
the bios (F2, by the way) settings to get the new Nvidia PCI card to
work. I was then distracted by trying to move some files onto an
external drive, without any luck. I'd forgotten the NTFS
not-recognized-by-Linux issue.
In the end, I've not yet put the card in. I think I'll do it, but now
I'm thinking of upgrading to Hardy Heron, which has NTFS support, first
or simultaneously. But there are horror stories about trying the
upgrade path rather than replace Kubuntu, so I'm undecided.
Also the correct Nvidia driver seems not to be the one in the default
distro, but rather a proprietary driver. I don't care that much, but I
like to know ahead of time.
Friday 1 August
2008
Friday
- OK, done with Zone 2, or very close to it.
On the road, back up to Lancaster after a ten hour day. Stopped at my
friends and bummed a home cooked meal, the first since before the 4th
of July. One gets very tired of restaurant food and teevee dinners
after a while. Even dining at IHOP begins to seem less attractive...
A friend tried to lure me into staying in Ventura. "Let's hike or go sailing!"
he said, but there is just too much to do up in Lancaster. Phoebe is
beginning to miss me - I can tell by the odd places he has started
peeing in. Bah.
I finished the (audio) Book #39, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay*,
by Michael Chabon, on the way home. I wasn't sure I'd like it, and am
still not quite sure what I make of it, but it was interesting.
I've the hard copy somewhere and will have to look at because I just have to know - how doesJosef
get away in Marie Byrd Land, marooned at the Nazi camp, everyone
else dead, Nazi reinforcements on the way, and with with his
plane crashed and in pieces behind him? I assume that part was in
there, the audio was abridged and a bit...choppy. Disconnected.
Thursday 31 July
2008
Thursday
- another long day, 12 hours or so. Trying to get everything done before the end of the month. I won't quite do it, but should finish tomorrow.
Cool Link: NASA's Earth Observatory Natural Hazards
page shows, on a map of the Earth, natural hazards such as volcano's,
fires, floods, etc. There is a page for each type of hazard, and the
earth map with icon's you can click on for more detailed
information/pictures.
Wednesday 30 July 2008
Wednesday
- a productive day. But long.
Two years ago I wrote about the Antikythera Mechanism, now there is an Olympics connection via some new info.
Another 'found' CD:
Some kind of game?
Tuesday 29 July 2008
Tuesday
- got the tire fixed. Interestingly the first place I tried, Firestone
Tires, refused to fix it. It is
seven years old, and it seems they have a five year limit on
patching tires, saying that fixing a nail or flat on a tire is an
implicit guarantee of a tire's overall fitness for duty. I think I
sense the
fine hand of the Trial Lawyer's Association...
They did tell me, unofficially, of a place across the tracks that would
fix it, cheap. So I went there. But an hour of driving about in
Ventura/Oxnard during rush hour after a full days work takes it toll. I
stopped for some
groceries and then went home feeling pretty tired.
Of course, the big news today is the earthquake. I felt it, but at
first thought it was just dizziness or disorientation of some sort. In
Oxnard it was a gentle roller that lasted about a half minute. Diamond
Bar and the epicenter is about a hundred miles from Oxnard:
I finished Book #38,
The
Broken Worlds, by Raymond Harris. It also dated from 1987,
and the paperbacks' pages fell out when I opened it. So it's history,
another empty spot on the bookshelf now. A
bit of a mishmash of this and that. Not badly written, but not
particularly well done either.
Monday 28 July 2008
Monday
- back to work. It was a fairly productive day, but I picked up a nail
in my tire sometime during the morning. I left it too late in the
evening, and was unable to fine a tire place to fix the tire. It was
probably a roofing nail, fairly short, and the tire was holding air, so
it'll keep until tomorrow.
Nice cool marine layer weather to work in.
An interesting link: a YouTube video of a MK48 torpedo breaking the back of the hulk of
a naval destroyer.
Sunday 27 July 2008
Sunday
- an interesting aside to the moving story. My printer gave up the
ghost, or possible W2k was choking on something. At any rate I couldn't
print out the directions
from the Mohave home to that in Tehachapi. I couldn't use the Linux box
because the video card is dead on that.
Luckily someone there
(thanks Larry!) had a spare copy. I was looking over them before
leaving ...take
the 58 to the 148 exit...go right on Red Apple...rt on
Tehachapi-Woodford...left on Golf Club Rd... and realized:
These are the directions to some other friends in Tehachapi! They live
about a block away, so I called them and they stopped by and
helped with the unloading! Also NASA personnel.
Small world. Indeed, two more sets of co-workers at NASA showed up,
that lived nearby. M's comment was "I've met
more neighbors in 8 hours in Tehachapi than I have in 5 years in Mojave!"
I'd forgotten how nice the evening was in Tehachapi; Golden Hills has
no street lights and the 4000 feet of altitude made the stars and
planets just blaze
down from a moonless sky. Maybe I should move there. I'm tired of the
noise and traffic in Ventura and Lancaster.
Sunday I was beat.
Ten days of work, followed by an even more strenuous
day of moving, took their toll. I laid about the house, played with the
cats, and read a bit. Not enough energy to go to the movies (and did
you know that Mystery of the Crystal Skull is already gone from the
theaters?) or to watch teevee.
So Book #37
is Roger Zelazny's A
Dark Traveling. It is, it turned out, a juvenile and quite
short. Apparently I read it last in 1987, judging from the date on the
flyleaf - I've no memory of it. It's a fairly unmemorable book.
I should donate it to the library - I doubt I'll be reading it again in
2038.
