Travels and Images
WEEK 50 2006
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Saturday 16 December
2006
Saturday
- a busy day. I decided to get my Xmas shopping done early, so I was up
and out bright and early. And I got most of it done, too, minus a
couple of items. It was busy, but not crazed, which may mean something
about how the economy is doing.
Or the threat of rain and snow was keeping people indoors. There were
predictions of snow down to the valley floor, but all it did was
sprinkle a bit. A friend said she saw snow flakes late in the day, but
it was still 44 at 11 pm.
In the evening we went to see a local production of "Scrooge - The Musical", at the Palmdale Playhouse. It is a musical version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", and was a lot of fun. I'd never seen this particular musical before, so it was all new songs to me.
While driving about I was listening to 1950's oldies station on the
radio. It's a local station, and the dj was going on about the worst
car his family ever owned - a Chevy (which delights my Ford owners
heart). It had, he said, "three on the tree, which would normally be OK, but this was the Chevy".
Apparently while it was indeed a manual gearshift on the steering
column (I've owned one) it had some sort of "vacuum assist" to the
shift - that didn't work well when accelerating. The same vacuum assist
apparently ran the wiper blades, or didn't run them, as the case might
be. And these two items made passing in the rain a duel with death, as
the wipers would stop - so you couldn't see, and the car would refuse
to shift down so that you could pass quickly.
Friday 15 December
2006
Friday - it's
show time for the co-op's and new hire's this week - all the co-ops
that are leaving and all the summer new hires have to put on little
presentations of what they've done. I know several of these, so I went
to several presentations. Geez, today's kids are so smart! Of course it helps to have Powerpoint, which means they can spend time on the presentation content, instead of trying to stick letters and symbols onto transparencies...
I went over to my brothers' place. The kids had tried to install
something on his PC, and trashed it. Registry errors, the whole bit. We
wrestled with it for several hours, but it still has problems. He'd
done the right thing, set himself as a password protected
administrator, and everyone else as users, but they managed to trash XP
with a simple hook up of a MP3 player. Windows XP is junk.
I suggested he get a PC for them, and a separate one for him, so that
work stuff doesn't get affected. Actually I suggested he get them a
Mac, so that there are even fewer problems. He could put Kubuntu on a PC, but there'd be some support required by him again.
I've discovered that my Battlestar Galactica recordings from the last
couple of weeks, that I had finally time to watch tonight, are gone. I've no idea why, they just are. So much for TIVO.
Thursday 14 December 2006
Thursday
- not a particularly busy day. I spent most of it in a FRR (Flight
Readiness Review) for the G-III. Interesting stuff. Critiquing other
people's work is always easier than finishing your own.
This is the same G-III (plus a radar pod) that I was the back
seater in a while back. Probably the only time in my life I'll be in a
bizjet as the only passenger. Certainly the only time with a F-18
flying on the wing. And I was too busy to look out the window...
Life is what happens while you are making other plans.
They are predicting snow for this weekend, perhaps down to the valley
floor. The last good snow was in 1985, so we are due. It's been cold
(my Tomato plants are long gone) but not particularly moist.
The fish tank is still leaking - I haven't had time to mess with it. I
do have a fan and a light near the carpet, to dry things out a bit. The
humidity has been very low, so maybe that'll help.
I need to get the Christmas lights up. The neighborhood has a pretty good set of lights this year - best ever, I think.
Wednesday 13 December 2006
Wednesday
- the fish were happier in the morning, but the tank was down a good
inch or so. Bah. Damp under the tank stand, and a bit of wet carpet
odor as well.
I went out and looked for new tanks - Walmart has a nearly identical
setup, but they were on a high shelf, and with the Xmas rough I
couldn't find anyone to get them down. Bah.
I should probably try to reseal the old tank. $5 of silicone instead of $75 for a new tank.
Tuesday 12 December
2006
Tuesday - I think I have a leaky fish tank - the water is way
down, and the carpet is damp. Someone, probably my cat sitter, turned
up the heat in the tank as well. It (the water) was warm to the touch,
and the fish had stopped eating. Goldfish like it cold. So I turned the heat down, but the leak means I probably need to put in new caulking, or get a new tank. Another chore...
Monday 11 December 2006
Monday - back at work. I'm having a lot
of trouble with Gnuplot 4.0. It seems buggy - some stuff just doesn't
work, and that's annoying when you are in a hurry to do a
presentation...
Sunday 10 December
2006
Sunday - Mike and I stayed Saturday night
on the boat - very cozy, though it rained and there was a leak in the
main cabin above Mike and he had to move.
I stayed in the aft cabin. I'd been worried that I'd feel
claustrophobic, but it was actually quite nice. At one point, during a
break in the storm, I opened the overhead hatch and saw Orion and the
Pleiades overhead, crystal sharp.
I'll post some pics of the Parade of Lights and such soon - this computer hasn't got enough disk space left to download them!
