Saturday - Still grinding away on the
GIS stuff. I'm approaching my task hours, obviously, but it took so
long to do the inventory that the actual improvements were all still to
be made. One can't just charge the client for looking at stuff. Well, I suppose some people would, but I like to have more of a deliverable that "Here's a list of problems with your database.". They already know they have problems! The Inventory is up to about 400 items or so.
Anyway, the Open Channel mods, as many as I could make, are done. I've
started on the Underground Channel mods, but there'll be fewer of
those, because many will take sitting down and looking at as-built's,
and that takes a while. I notified our draftsman that we need to me,
and I'll email him a list of problem structures.
Lunch at Mahli's with friends, then back to the grind for the rest of the afternoon.
Friday
8
February
2013
Friday
- Still working away. I did make a flying visit down to Ojai to visit some friends, just a lunch at Agave Maria
(yum!) and then we were back on the road to Lancaster. It was snowing
in the hills on the way back, but the snow level was well above the
valley floor.
Thursday 7 February 2013
Thursday
- Just working away on stuff, not much to say.
Wednesday 6 February
2013
Wednesday
- Not much to say, weather has warmed up, working on this and that.
Book #6 was Into Uncharted Seas, by E.C. Williams. This is a successor to last years #14 and #15.
I would say generally it's an OK action/adventure story, but I think
that the author is pushing the improved technology a little fast,
creation (re-creation) and adoption would probably proceed quite a bit
slower. It's decently written, the characters are a bit wooded, but
with flashes of decent character exposition, even if not up to Patrick
O'Brian (or even C.S. Forester) standards.
I'm feeling a bit frustrated by the MBP again, or rather OSX. The
version of GIMP, which I installed September 4th of last year, will no
longer run. Not from the dock, and not even from the command line. I
haven't done anything to it, and it was working last week.
What I suspect is that adding the external drive (and it's issues)
somehow borked the extended permissions. Which, in any sane OS should not happen.
I did a bit of research, and there are various patches for problems
with the 'launcher', some dating back to 2009/2010. Some people go so
far as to reinstall OSX to fix this sort of problem.
Tuesday 5 February
2013
Tuesday
- I was trying to help some friends out by house-sitting a vacant house
they own during an appointment by the gas people - he was out of town,
she was home with a sick child. I got all the way there, Tehachapi,
then realized I had forgotten the key to the house.
So I drove back to my house, then back to the vacant house, and managed
to catch the technician at the very end of the allocated appointment
time.
He had brought a small water manometer with him, and by setting it up
on the line to the gas water heater discovered that the line pressure
dropped from about 10 inches of water to 1 inch, as soon as there was
flow. This isn't enough pressure to allow even a water heater to run,
let along a whole house central air furnace. So he replaced the
regulator at the tank and all way well, pressure wise. My friends had
asked that I make sure the heater was working, so after the technician
had left I turned it on, set it to 70F since the house was at 58F, and
settled down to eat my lunch. After 15 minutes the furnace shut off,
completely. No heat, no fan, not even a click of the relays. I reset
the breakers outside the house, but to no effect. It looks like they
need to call an a/c person out for that.
Monday 4 February 2012
Monday
- So, the GIS versions seem to match, so I'm proceeding ahead with my edits.
So, guess what happens when you do a "print screen" using dual monitors? Heh.
Sunday 3 February 2012
Sunday
- Warm and nice. The cat was happy enough, but not as perky as he
should have been. Time is catching up with the old guy.
I watched the first three quarters of the Superbowl, home alone, then
went over to a friends for dinner, and caught bits and pieces of the
ending. I'm disappointed that SF didn't beat the Ravens, but so it
goes. I always thought it was a long shot with a rookie quarterback.
I did get a bit of cleaning done in the garage, so that's good.
My associate uploaded the old 2010 version of the GIS files to the PRD server, so I'll
download them and check them against the version I've been working with.
Hopefully the same or nearly identical.
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Martinez fog, Feb 2010.
