Travels and Thoughts

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WEEK 33 2006

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Saturday 20 August 2006

Saturday - I was going to visit the boat, but got up and decided to get the brakes done on the Probe. I've been driving the Explorer for the last week, after hearing a grinding sound in the little coupe's rear disks. So I took it over to a place in Quartz Hill, one that is open on the weekend. Scott's good, but only open on weekday's, and he said he was just too busy this week to do it.

The other place wasn't there. After driving the correct stretch of road a couple of times I realized the building was gone. Weird. So I went over to my brothers' and complained. He had the scoop - they'd moved across the street.

Huh.

Who'd think of looking over there?

Anyhow, I got in, just in under the wire, and spent a couple of hours at Mike's, doing this and that. It's an all new shop, seven bays instead of the old two, but they were decent hard working folks and got it all fixed up.

When I got home I decided to take a quick shower before heading southwest. Then I decided to take a quick nap. Bad decision - I woke up and it was going on midnight.

Or maybe it was a good decision - obviously I needed the sleep.

Friday 19 August 2006

Friday - a visit to the dentist this morning. I was hoping for a short stay in the chair, but instead it was another hour and a half reclined. It was not all that painful, to be honest, but it does take it out of you. I'd intended to head north in the afternoon, visit Dad, but was just too exhausted. By noon I called and let him know. Next week I guess.

The presentation was canceled - at 3:30, after I spent most of the day working on it. Oh well. It does concentrate the mind and force you to think about your process and end product. And I'm sure I'll have to do it eventually, so I may just continue working on it (albeit at a reduced intensity).

My powerpoint skills are improving...

Duke, impatient for his walk...

Thursday 18 August 2006

Thursday - working away on the presentation. It's going a lot slower than I had hoped. Ten slides a day seems my limit, then I find myself just staring at the monitor, making no progress.

My brother says he has a cat toy of some sort for me - his cats love to scratch on it, and perhaps mine will enjoy theirs, and stop destroying my furniture. I've no great hope, though, for the future of the armchair here. I was thinking of a walk, but at 9:30 it's really getting too late.

No internet connectivity tonight for some reason, and I'm too lazy to walk around recycling power on the modem and router and PC. Maybe it'll magically be working tomorrow and I'll upload this page.

Wednesday 17 August 2006

Wednesday - Book #35 is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain. A fun book - read by a good narrator in this particular case, which makes it even more fun. About the first half is character studies of the people of the 'little village', very amusing. Clemens' clearly had a sharp eye. Tom himself would be almost unbearable - always in trouble, no matter what. A little hellion. I'd forgotten a lot of the details - I probably read this book last in high school. I probably 'get' a little more of the cynicism too. I am not sure that is a good thing.

Not a lot to say. Worked, went out for a couple of beers with a couple of co-workers. A long time since I did that.

Tuesday 16 August 2006

Tuesday - work. There is a little design review next week, so I need to come up with some slides. Bah. Also need to give some other people my results (so far), so they can do slides. I've been doing coding and research too long, these project deadlines seem to come much too quickly. And it's a bit weird to see a couple months of (admittedly only part time) work condensed to a page of numbers and a couple of powerpoint slides.

Book #34 is The Know-It-All, by A.J. Jacobs. This is a guy who decides to become "smarter" by reading the entire Encyclopedia Brittannica. He doesn't really succeed, barely getting into Mensa, doing poorly on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, losing in a debate with high school kids, and generally annoying his wife with endless factoids (she starts charging him a dollar for each useless fact he recites). But it was a fun read.

Monday 15 August 2006

Monday - back at work. The CEV project has now been renamed, it's now "Project Orion". It doesn't use nukes, more is the pity, but it does has a spiffy new logo, the blue triangular patch (I'm too lazy to create a transparent gif for the black):.

Sunday 14 August 2006

Sunday - hiked Mt. Baden-Powell with my long time school friend and hiking buddy Roger. The other guys couldn't make it. Too bad for them because it was one of the best day hikes I've ever done. Perfect weather, no bugs, plenty of water, not too many people, long enough to give exercise and short enough that my knee didn't give out. Pretty amazing.

Picture of the Week

Photo Notes: The trail up Mt. Baden-Powell.

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