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WEEK 33 2015

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Saturday 15 August 2015

Saturday - Horribly hot, 107F officially mid-afternoon, probably a few degrees hotter in town.

I was going to go to yard sales with friends, but when they didn't call back by 8am I just did lawn chores for about an hour or so, edging and weed-whacking the grass around the front yard sprinkler heads. Since I'm forced to be chintzy with watering it's necessary to stay on top of the sprinkler head efficiency stuff.

Then I drove over to the vets and picked up a bag of Riley's special cat food: 8.5lbs for $42. Sheesh. Then I cut and installed the insulating foam in various windows.

And it was needed. We went to lunch at the Mahli's in Palmdale, then did a quick trip to Trader Joe's (hello house single malt!) and went home, with the OAT gauge in the car at 106F. I dropped off my friends, and went home, by which time the gauge read 107F - which was also the temperature at Fox Field!

The house is a lot darker inside with so many of the windows blocked, but with the swamp cooler on 'high' kept it at 78F downstairs, a 29F delta from the outside temperature. I did want to work on the app in the office, but it was 85F upstairs. I need to install the other small mechanical a/c window unit to make things livable upstairs - maybe tomorrow.

I did talk to R about hiking Sunday, but he said that as it was supposed to be hotter, he didn't think it a good idea, and I had to agree :-(

I still haven't found a picture of PG-86 USS Action, my father's old WW2 corvette, but surfing the web I did find another excellent picture of her in her later incarnation as the M/V Arne Presthus, taken in Singapore circa 1960:

Friday 14 August 2015

Friday - Hot again, low 100's. It's supposed to get really hot, 106F, tomorrow. Yikes.

I had a bunch of driving to do in the late morning. I drove over to S's, picked up a couple of frozen bones she'd left on her doorstop. I then went to the library, picked up a book I had reserved (Freeman Dyson's new book, Dreams of Earth and Sky) and a Roald Dahl book C had requested for her children (The BFG).

The Lancaster library is even more of a bum haven than it was a year ago, by the way.

I then took the books and bones to C's, dropped them off on her doorstep, and picked up the dog food that her dog can't eat because of allergies. I then went by Home Depot and picked up another sheet of insulating/reflective foam paneling, cut it to 58" long in the parking lot so it would fit in my Explorer (58" being the height of all my house windows). Then it was a visit to the drug store (which like the library was also full of tattooed freakazoids, Friday you know). then went finally home, after dropping off the dog food at Sheryls.

After all that it was time for lunch, then working on the app until evening.

Thursday 13 August 2015

Thursday - Hot, about 100F or so.

I did get out and do the 8.5 mile walk, reasonably early, 7:30-ish, and it wasn't too bad. There were some high clouds at first, which kept temperatures down, but by 10:00am they were long gone. Still, it went well enough, about 3mph overall. My feet were ok-ish, tired and with hot spots, but no new blisters.

While I was out my friend C stopped by and dropped off some chicken soup from Panera bread and played with the cats.

I told her I'd get her a bone for her dog, who had never had a real bone - just the rawhide chewies. I remember when Peg got her first bone: she sniffed it, licked it, picked it up and growled menacing at my father, then hid under the dining room table with it. Quite the reaction since she loved my father a ridiculous amount! With later bones she was a lot calmer.

Then I just worked on the app for the rest of the day. Three main things got done, (1) randomized the layout of the text prompts, (2) turned the game buttons to "long press" style, requiring a 3 second press (because the kids just want to go-go-go, regardless of answer correctness), and (3) changed the logic and animations so that after a wrong guess the incorrect cards go back to the rack: you can't advance to the next hand until you get the current one right!

I also cleaned up the code and logic a bit, it's getting cluttered, but that's what ad-hoc changes do...

My brother's emailed to say that the sewer and plumbing repairs to the Grandview house had completely depleted the household account, over $10k. So no income will be dispersed for a while, until there's enough to pay taxes and insurance, and a bit of a cushion again - probably the end of the year.

I haven't done any "Found CD"'s in a while, here's one from July:

Wednesday 12 August 2015

Wednesday - Hot, maybe a bit more humid than yesterday.

Worked more on the app, got the little demonstration window working. Essentially this is keyframe-tweening. You can even do separate animations and keep things synchronized by using "animation groups" as needed. Kind of nit-picky and tedious, but it works.

S came by late afternoon and I put the newest version of the app on her iPad, and we discussed the stuff still to be done. I've been whittling away at the to-do list as fast as I can, but there's still stuff to be done. She's been researching sound-effects, and has decided on most of them, and is looking at what we need in the way of feedback, + and -, for the players.

Another solid day of work.

Tuesday 11 August 2015

Tuesday - Hot but dry, a/c working well.

I should have gone for my walk, but slept in and it was already hot and I wanted to get to work.

I did a bit of work on the app, as usual. One thing was to create a 'demo' view, to show how things work - a hand touching various controls and playing the tiles. It's been a while, but this is basic layer animation stuff. The tricky bit is that there are several things starting and stopping animation at different times, and they have to be synchronized somehow.

A solid nine hour day at the keyboard.

Monday 10 August 2015

Monday - Average heat, cooling down quickly in the evening.

A fairly productive day, I swapped the two game levels as discussed with S, so that the level the kids found most difficult (not the one we thought!) comes last. It went easier than I'd thought, the PlayviewController is reasonably well written, and I'd spent some time thinking about it (not typing!) over the weekend.

I also implemented Apple's 'Quick Look' document previewer and the Setting page, so S can write as complicated an instruction and description as she needs (remember, this is a therapist's tool, not just a game, so there's stuff to talk about!). It will also have a link to the (notional) web site, copyright notices, credits and all that.

Sunday 9 August 2015

Sunday - Hot.

I mowed the front lawn, it was time. It was also hot, and by the time I was done and replaced a bad sprinkler head it was in the 90's. Sigh. I'll have to edge and weed-whack later in the week too.

I'd planned on taking a hike but never heard back from R, and having stayed up late with friends the night before got up late, so just ran out of time. Oh well.

Maybe later in the week. It's also time for the Perseid's, and a nearly new moon, maybe I'll head out to Red Rock Canyon midweek.

Not much else to say. Not much to do in Lancaster on a hot late summer day.

Picture of the Week

boats in morro bay

Some dilapidated looking boats at Morro Bay harbor.

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