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WEEK 4 2020
Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week
| Oxnard
Weather
Underground |
Lancaster
Weather
Underground |
Martinez
WeatherUnderground |
Saturday - Another nice day.
I spent a bit more time on the little block wall, adding some brick toppers. Again, not permanent, but it does make the place look better.
R&S were doing their yard sales and found me a bunch of plastic bins. They also found a set of small metal lockers that they suggested could be used for shelving, but I declined. I haven't put the shelving I have to good use.
I went into town and went by Walmart and Lowe's and picked up a few things. Aspirin, surgical masks...they were already out of N-95 respirator masks, though I might have a few in a toolbox somewhere.
In the late afternoon I went into the front yard to do something and found out that my right rear tire was flat on the Ram. Gahhh. It was after 4pm, way too late to find anyone open to fix a tire, but if I wait until Monday America's Tires will fix a flat for free.
With Aaron's help (and his floor jack) I took the bad tire off, and put the spare (a big tire, but still an 'emergency' tire it turns out) on, and will take the flat tire into town on Monday.
Friday - A bit windy.
The issue of the "Corona" virus in Mainland China is starting to look ugly. Apparently the Government is simultaneously quarantining entire areas, while all the time proclaiining there is no problem - while admitting to something like 2,000 cases already. This isn't good. There is a lot of travel to and from China, this could spread like wildfire.
Thursday - Nice.
Book #4 was The Sea Without a Shore (RCN #10), by David Drake. These are very formulaic, as I've said, but reasonable reads.
I'd purchased some new numbers for the house ID a while ago, and made up a little wooden signboard for them. I painted it with good enamel (and it took forever to dry in these cool temperatures). I'm ready to apply the numbers, but have been mulling over where and how to attach the signboard itself to the house. The clapboard means anything directly fastened will tilt inwards. I had bought some shims, and glued them together to offset this if attached to the back of the signboard, but it will then leave a gap for bugs and dirt behind the board.
I also realized that where I was thinking of putting it, to one side of the garage door, is where I want to put a some carriage lamp, eventually.
Wednesday - Decent weather.
I downloaded the Corona SDK for Windows and started working with it. Mostly just working through some tutorials. So far I'm impressed, though tutorials are always easier than 'the real thing'.
There have been a couple of big OSX/Xcode updates for the Macintosh lately. Annoyingly huge. And for some reason GIMP can no longer access any images in my usual folders for image manipulation. Some sort of permissions error with Catalina. Sigh. I'll have to research that, but for now images are mostly just done via the Mac Preview tools...
Tuesday - OK weather again, getting near 60F, average winds.
I think I mentioned that I was surprised to discover that most slide-in cab-over campers are too heavy for the Ram 1500. It's good for 1400 pounds officially, and many of these campers weigh in at 2000-3000 pounds! They are mostly for 1 ton and 1 1/2 ton long bed trucks, the size of the F-250 and F-350.
There are a few models that are lighter weight. The best I've found is the Outfitter Caribou Lite 6.5, which is kind of a pop-up cab-over. It only weighs about 850#, base. Sometimes pop-ups are kind of yucky, but this is actually quite nice, the popup is just the roof and wind resistance is much reduced when its down, and it has good reviews. Among other things it can be used when off the vehicle - many slide-ins have such a weak floor that you can't use them when removed from the truck bed.
The down side it that it costs about $20k, more than a small new car...
Monday - Decent weather.
I was thinking about how to approach the app again. Years ago, when I started, I thought about using a service like Corona SDK or Xamarin. I decided that I needed to learn the underpinnings before taking short cuts. Fast forward about 5 years and "short cuts" are starting to look good. I think that will be my next plan of attack: Xcode and Objective-C just isn't cutting it.
I'll start with Corona, it's free, open source and it's what I was looking at many many moons ago...
Sunday - A pleasant day here in the valley.
Did the usual shopping with S. It's been a while...
I watched the football playoffs; it will be the 49ers and the Chief's in the Superbowl. The Niner's look good, but Mahomes is a once in a generation phenomena. It should be a very close and very exciting game!
I took the opportunity to dry stack the cinder-block wall at the front of the property, to the south of the driveway. Even dry stacking it on sand makes things look a lot better...
