Pond revisited

Here's another recent look at the pond. Note that we still need to put in the bamboo water pourers. We've already getten more plants in with more to come. It's looking great and only getting better.

The work week's over! More or less, anyway. I still have to do several work things tomorrow and be on some phone calls and file an expense report and try to hire some people, but I can do it all from the comfort and privacy of my own home.

Which is a good thing. The family is leaving for a week in Utah on Saturday morning, so it will be nice to have the whole day with them before they go.

Let's see, what's newsworthy in my world today? I was pleased to hear that Apple is finally starting to sell some DRM-free music through iTunes. Then I read on Engadget yesterday that they are including the purchaser's name and iTunes account number in the purchased music, presumably to allow the record companies to persecute prosecute pirates. Engadget says they think that sounds like a fair tradeoff, and I mostly agree, but apparently a large swath of the iTunes-purchasing community feels otherwise.

I can sort of see their point. If you rip music from CDs, you end up with high-quality, non-personally-identified music files. Why should music bought over the internet be any different? On the other hand, why should I care if they put my name in my music files? I'm not going to pirate it. On the other other hand, I'm against privacy invasions in any form, regardless of the fact that I'm not up to no good, and this can certainly be construed to be an invasion of my privacy.

In any case, it doesn't matter much. I upgraded iTunes last night and checked whether any of my purchased music is eligible for the 30 cent upgrade. There's one song. I might buy it just to see if I can tell any difference between the lo-fi old version and the hi-fi new. But I might not.

Anyway. The broken toe is even better today than it was yesterday. I still don't like to walk very far, but there's no limp and only minor numbness. I didn't even take any Tylenol today. I even think the allergies are doing a bit better. The nasal spray isn't supposed to kick in for a week to ten days, so the big difference is probably the Allegra I'm now taking as opposed to the Claritin I was taking. Loyal Reader Number Two is now taking the Claritin, though, and it imagine it's helping him out. Is it, LRN2?

That's it for today. I'll see you tomorrow, rested and relaxed.

Recitalists

Here's Loyal Reader Number One and a group of his closest friends perfect strangers of various heights at the end of his recent piano recital. LRN1 is the one over there on the left.

Another crowded trip on the train. There are about 150 eighth-graders up in the front cars this afternoon, and it shows. Practically every seat on the train is taken. They know ahead of time when one of these student groups is coming, of course. It would be nice if they would add an extra car to handle the crowd. Maybe they don't have an extra car. But I suspect they do. Sigh.

In any case, it's still more pleasant to being crowded in here watching video podcasts (Strongbad emails! (link warning: Strongbad sings) dl.tv! MacBreak!) and writing the blog than to be in the car. At least for now.

My world is back in alignment today. The problem was, you see, that I rode the train in to work one day WAY back in September or October. I bought Loyal Reader Number One's car that day, so I drove home, thus leaving my train ticket unevenly punched. This situation propagated across a few more tickets, leaving my cosmic balance seriously . . . ummm . . . unbalanced. Well, I was complaining about this situation to my friend Dan a couple of weeks ago, when he pulled out a ticket with a single ride left on it. A couple of days before Christmas, a friend offered him a ride home. Hence, his world was unbalanced. I bought his single ride today and am using it on this trip. Ahhh . . . balance.

Maybe I already mentioned this issue on these pages. Anyway, I think it was amusing that Dan never used the odd ride on his ticket. He couldn't stand to be out of balance either.

My broken toe is much better today. It's just barely numb and as long as I don't walk much, it doesn't really hurt. I had to call the shuttle bus this morning and afternoon. They actually came! The danger here is that I'll get too used to calling the shuttle bus and won't get any exercise anymore. Must . . . walk . . . between . . . buildings.

Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve headed for home today. We were sorry to see them go. I expect it to be pretty quiet around Chateau Saindouxville this evening. Maybe it will be easier to get to bed on time, though.

And that's about it for today. See you tomorrow.

The pond

Here's the (nearly) finished pond, with the pool forming an exceptionally attractive background. Not shown: three brand spankin' new fellas! I'm finally happy again.

I'm back! There's good news and bad news about the weekend. The good news is that we went up to girls' camp on Friday. The bad news is that we couldn't get the accommodations we needed to make it possible to stay, so Loyal Readers Number Four and Twelve and I came back home that night. Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two stayed up there and had a fun and productive weekend.

The rest of us, on the other hand, also had a busy, fun, productive weekend. LRN4 and I got a bunch of flat rocks and installed them around the edge of the pond. It now actually looks like a pond! We also bought three fellas and stuck 'em in there. They're doing just fine and eating like horses. LRN4 bought some more water plants and put them in there this evening - my Father's Day presents. That pond is really shaping up, as evidenced above.

We went to our friends the Crocketts' house yesterday for their Big Memorial Day Pool/Barbecue party. It was fun and relaxing. They have a giant backyard by any measure, but especially huge for California. There's a very large pool with spa, a huge pavilion, a large grass area, numerous planting beds, a trampoline, a large play yard/swing set, motorhome storage area, and many walkways connecting them all. There were probably about fifty people there and it never really seemed crowded. Except when they had about twenty people in the spa.

The Crocketts had just purchased a Costco inflatable waterslide, which looks just like the huge things you rent. It could handle even people as corpulent as me, so I climbed up there and slid down. Very amusing.

Went to the doctor's office today. I had suffered a nasty allergy attack a couple of nights ago, and I hurt my toe at yesterday's pool party. A very nice doctor whom I had not met before gave me some new allergy medication and said I may have broken my toe. I'm welcome to come back for an x-ray, but they won't do anything about it anyway, so I'll just always have to wonder whether it's broken or not. It's been pretty achy and numb all day today, but it could certainly have been worse. I'm going to have to stop walking back and forth to my office for just a little while, though. Fortunately, there's the shuttle bus to fall back on.

Otherwise, the weekend was calm. How about yours?

See you tomorrow.

The beach yet again

Here's yet another picture of the Big Sur beach. Lovely.

Not much going on today. I was plenty busy at work and didn't even get half of my must-do items done. Must . . . work . . . harder . . . tomorrow. But I'm definitely going home at going-home time in any case - we're going camping!

Well, sort of camping. We're going to the local girls' camp to help get it ready for the summer season. There's a (motel-like?) lodge there, and the plan is to snag a couple of rooms. Our friends the Hepworths are going pretty early in the day and will reserve the first-come/first-served rooms for us. I suppose if they're unsuccessful, we can always get the trailer and bring it up. The only question is how we'll know whether they have rooms for us. I'm hoping I can convince them to go somewhere where there's an available cell phone signal and call.

We really hope to get the rooms, as we'll have Loyal Reader Number Twelve with us. Civilized quarters would be worthwhile. Although I'd really rather be in the trailer myself, I think.

We're coming home on Monday morning so we can go to a Memorial Day party at another friend's house. Sometimes it's so exhausting to be popular.

With the campout, it's unlikely that there will be any blogging on Friday. My Loyal Readers will just have to deal with the disappointment. You have my pity. Blogging will resume on Monday.

See you then. Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Organism

Here's Loyal Reader Number Two being organic at a recital last October. That's his teacher there on the left.

Wonders of Blogger today. The train was about half an hour late getting home because of a ground fire near the Tracy station. Doggone nicotine addicts. I was home just long enough to get part of my dinner and then went off to my church meeting. Got home too tired to post. Anyway, here's what I wrote on the way home:


Back on the train today, thank heavens. I'm not tired of it yet, in spite of the length of the trip and the occasional invasion of my quite ample personal space by careless strangers. In fact, I bought another twenty-ride ticket this afternoon, as my current one only has a day and a half left on it. I'm still planning to buy the single-ride ticket my friend Dan has. Need to remember to do that tomorrow.

The family is getting ready to be gone in a couple of weeks. They're going to Utah so Loyal Reader Number One can go to Especially for Youth at BYU. The other Loyal Readers will visit family and friends for the week, and I'll work. Not to worry, though. The Loyal Pets will be there to keep me company, and we'll have a grand old time. Watching The History Channel during dinner, probably consisting - appropriately enough - mainly of TV dinners. Reading for hours. Maybe working on my websites. Maybe working on the Miata. The possibilities are endless.

Speaking of the websites, this is the only one that's had anything going on for at least a few weeks. I have plenty of content I'm planning to create for the others, but I never seem to get around to it. There's always something else to do. I guess I need to either decide to work on just one site or drop some other things. The trouble is, I can't decide which one(s) I care the most about. I really want to get the HRVA off the ground, of course, I also want to turn Gardenville Software into a viable family business for after I retire. I also want to figure out what to do with Spinfo. It's such a good website name. Decisions, decisions. Which of these has the best chance to really become something? Sigh.

On the minor good news front, I accidentally discovered the other day that the only good show on NPR - Car Talk - is now being podcast for free. I guess they finally decided their three subscriptions were never going to make them any money, so they got a sponsor and moved to iTunes. I've listened to the three most recent shows and still enjoy those guys. Check it out, podcast-loving Loyal Readers!

Time to watch some TV shows. See you tomorrow.

Cave

Here's a cave in a rock at the beach at Big Sur. That place was just full of interesting things. Don't worry, Loyal Readers, I still have several pictures left!

No train ride today, so I'm going to keep this short. I had a little eye trouble when the alarm clock went off - just couldn't see getting up that early today. So I slept in for about 45 minutes and drove the sports car instead. The traffic was heavy enough that I want to ride the train again tomorrow. But I did enjoy driving the car again today, after a few weeks of only taking it around town here in Lardville.

The Loyal Readers had a combination book club/pool party today. Interesting combination, that. Their report is that a good time was had by all. The pool is still not quite warm enough for comfortable swimming yet, but that doesn't stop hardy young people. It's supposed to be in the 90's every day this week, so the water warming trend continues.

My boss is out of the office for the rest of the week, so I'm in charge here! Things are really going to change now. Or not.

And I'm tired of writing for this evening, so I'll see you tomorrow.

Cabin road

Here's an inviting pathway. Doesn't it just make you want to walk down that road and find out what's down there? No? Well, it did for me. Although I didn't actually walk down that road when I had the chance. So never mind.

Pretty good weekend. The big news, of course, is that the pond has water in it! Also a liner, pump, filter, assorted pipes, and a few fish. Although I seriously question whether any of those fellas are still there. We got about 12 or 14 of the Wal-Mart ten-for-a-dollar goldfish (none of which were actually gold - those feeders are getting worse every year) and tossed them in on Saturday evening. As of yesterday morning, I could only find one, and I couldn't find any yesterday evening. I'll have another look tonight when I get home.

Anyway, we went to the high-priced pond store way out in the country and bought some really good equipment. I think the new pond is slightly smaller than my old one, and my new pump and filter have WAY more capacity. That pond is gonna be really clean. Which is how I like it. We still need to add rocks around the edge, some gravel on the bottom, and the real fish in a week or two, and then it will be just . . . perfect. Ahhh.

The rest of the weekend was normal. I got a lot of rest yesterday, but at the expense of not doing a couple of things I really ought to have done. Alas, but the world continues to turn and I'm feeling much more rested.

Spent a lot of time yesterday downloading a bunch of new podcasts, with the emphasis on video stuff for the train. I found a few classical-music podcasts and a couple of new tech ones. I'll reserve comments until after I've watched a few of them. So far, so good, though.

Work managed to survive without me on Thursday and Friday. We have our plates full this week, as usual, and I'm still under a lot of pressure to get a bunch of people interviewed and a few people hired (link warning: amusing video with sound). Busy, busy, busy.

I want to get to some of those videocasts now, so so long for now. See you tomorrow.

Surfer

Here's a truly hardy surfer. That water was freezing cold. He and everyone else like him were covered from head to toe in neoprene.

I'm back from the south! Things here were pretty much the way I left them. Except that the hole for the pond is essentially complete. And Loyal Reader Number Five is gone, leaving Loyal Reader Number Twelve behind. So she'll hopefully be returning soon.

We're ready to finish the pond, probably tomorrow. We just need to buy a bunch of pond liner, a pump/filter combination, and some fish. The fish will probably be delayed by about a week, giving the pond a little bit of time to settle in. I'm excited! Loyal Reader Number Four has done a TON of work to dig it for me. Thanks awfully, LRN4!

She also made arrangements for us to get a large pile of rocks from somebody down the street and around the corner. They had ordered four yards of large-ish river rocks and had a bunch left over. We borrowed our neighbor's wheelbarrow (he wasn't home, but he had previously offered to let us use it) and our friends' utility trailer (they weren't home, but they had previously offered to let us use it) and went over and picked up a large pile of free rocks. All in all, a pretty good deal. As long as we don't get arrested for having a stolen wheelbarrow and trailer. We still have both of them - we plan to buy some dirt and/or smaller rocks tomorrow too.

Both boys are out right now. Loyal Reader Number Two went camping with the scouts. It's a quick trip - they're planning to be home before noon. Loyal Reader Number One is out at a stake YM/YW movie-watching activity. He'll be back later tonight.

I'm incredibly sleepy, so I'm out of here for tonight. Have a great weekend.

On the beach

Here's Loyal Reader Number One on the beach. Looks like he's having a great time down there.

Happy birthday, Loyal Reader Number Four! We've known each other for roughly two thirds of our lives now, and they've definitely been the best two thirds.

A big Morrowlife welcome to Loyal Readers Numbers Five and Twelve. They arrived at Chateau Saindouxville on Tuesday night and are here for a couple of weeks. We're glad you're here. And I'm planning on shooting some more Gratuitous Great Art. Gotta bring those Loyal Readers back in.

No post yesterday. Couldn't do it. Had to come down to Edwards. I got home from work, wolfed down some (delicious) dinner, did my YM/YW presentation, packed, and left for Down South. Got here about 1:30 this morning. Yikes. At least I managed to stay awake all the way. Had to switch from podcasts to music about an hour out, but I made it without napping along the way.

The upside: I got here so late they counted me as checking in today, not last night. So I'm only being charged for one night. Well, my company is only being charged for one night, that is. There are a couple of downsides, though. First, they serve a free breakfast, but I'm only "staying" one night so I only got one coupon, so there's no free breakfast tomorrow. No real problem, though - the breakfast isn't really very good anyway. Actually, it's bad. Real bad. The second small thing is that they didn't make up my room, since they think I just checked in today and therefore didn't need maid service. No made bed, no clean towel. Horrors! Fortunately, I expect to survive even this indignity.

Today's meeting went well. Most of it didn't really apply to me, but I got some great insights into how they do things here and what their plans are. I have some ideas now for how to support them better.

Had sushi for dinner tonight. Not the best in the world. Far from it. However, the worst sushi is better than, um . . . never mind. I can't think of anything worse than the worst sushi in the world. Anyway, it was passable and I don't regret having it.

Driving home tomorrow morning. Ought to be there around noon. LRN4 has some rocks for me to move. I can hardly wait! See you then.

Waterfall

Here's Loyal Reader Number Two checking out the waterfall at Big Sur. We were NOT responsible for all that graffiti, of course.

Another sunny, warm, perfect day. Had some clouds in Sunnyvale in the morning, along with a fairly chilly wind. No such problems in Lardville. Worked, ate, worked some more, and went home. I'm still trying to hire a few people - we had another phone interview today. Most of the people turn out to be somewhere between a B- and a C. Today's guy was B-. He's been with the company for a couple of decades but has only been developing software for a few years. And he told us he gets bored every couple of years and starts looking for something more interesting. Not our favorite characteristic, that. He sure does like to talk, though. We couldn't get the guy to shut up, to put it frankly. Maybe he won't be getting an invite after all.

Too many things left undone at the end of the day. I need to bear down a little. At least my renewed train ridership has eliminated the hundreds of unread emails, anyway.

We're a few minutes north of the office now and it's gotten cloudy again. These clouds look like they have a little rain in them too. It won't happen, though. It's clear in Lardville.

My boss was out sick today. I tried contacting her several times and got no response. I hope she's okay. I found out she may want me to travel down to Southern California tomorrow for a Thursday all-day meeting, but couldn't get her to respond. I can go if needed. Otherwise, I'll gladly (would rather) stay home. Whatever.

I want to start reading my Ruby book again, so it's time to quit. See you tomorrow.

Deux chevaux

Here's my next new car. Very cool.

Tiring weekend. Can't explain why, other than that I was up too late every night. I slept in every morning, though, so I still have no explanation. The sad thing, though, is that not much got done around the old household.

We had four couples over for dinner on Saturday night for a "small group dinner," sponsored by the ward. It was great to get to know a few people a little better. Friday night, Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two went to the Aaronic Priesthood commemoration barbecue. It was nice and the food was really good. The only strange thing is that we held the barbecue at the church's pavilion, which is in the middle of a large dirt drainage bowl. The place would definitely benefit from some grass. Not to mention a few trees.

Loyal Reader Number Four bought the floating pool cover. We tried it out and I really don't like it. It's big and bulky and therefore hard to put on, remove, and store. It gets jammed into the skimmer. It doesn't protect the pool from leaves and junk either. In fact, it seems to attract the stuff. It certainly does warm up the water, though - at least the first foot or so of it. The bottom line is that I think LRN4 is going to return it.

Mother's Day was fine, but there were no gifts, which I regret. As mentioned in this space before, LRN4 had bought all of her own presents, so we gave her a few cards and worked on meals. Not very exciting. There will be presents on her birthday later this week, regardless of what she says, by golly!

Oh, and there will be presents on Father's Day and my birthday too. That goes without saying.

Time to quit. See you tomorrow.

Rock field

Here's another look at that rock field in the state park in Pennsylvania. That place was really cool (please note that I didn't say it rocked).

Short day at work today. I took the late train (slept in until 6:00!) and am currently riding home on the early train. It's quite crowded today because they have about 150 kids riding home from Great America. They're confining them to the front two cars, but that still leaves many more adults in the rest of the cars. They were there this morning too, but it didn't seem as crowded as this afternoon. Right now, there's a woman sitting across from me reading the newspaper. Her paper keeps falling down and covering my computer screen. It's really getting bothersome. Harumph.

Not much to talk about today. Loyal Reader Number Four called and told me she bought a clear plastic "bubble wrap" cover for the pool today. I'm a little worried about it - it may be difficult to store and a pain in the neck to put on and take off - but it will hopefully warm up the pool a little. We probably won't need to be using it by the end of June anyway, and if it extends the swimming season by a month or two, as friends have told us it will, than it'll probably be worth the hassle.

Ah, the middle-class blues. How ever will we survive?

The boys and I are going to the annual Aaronic Priesthood barbecue this afternoon at 6:00. We're having tri-tip and hot dogs, along with various salads, condiments, and accessories. Sounds like fun. I'm hoping it stays warm enough late enough to be comfortable - probably won't be a problem.

The weekend looks to be busy too. I need to work on Loyal Readers Numbers Two and Four's computers. As mentioned before, LRN2's machine is totally dead. LRN4's computer is just acting strangely. It can't seem to keep its sound card working, for example. I think I need to reinstall the operating system. I've been casually trying to find a Windows XP upgrade on the extremely cheap - I don't think LRN4's ready for Linux yet - and avoid having to install Win2K again, but I don't think she can wait any longer. It's been warning me that it's not healthy and I really need to heed that warning. If I can't find a cheap copy of XP on Saturday morning somewhere, I'll just go ahead and rebuild the system and upgrade later. The machine wouldn't be a good candidate for Vista and I had been hoping that XP would be dirt cheap by now, but it strangely seems to be just as popular, expensive, and in-demand as ever. I wonder why.

I'm done. Have a great weekend and I'll see you on Monday.

Another dino

Here's another one of those bizarre sculptures in Monaco. Your guess is as good as mine.

It's cooler today. I don't think it got much above 65 degrees in Sunnyvale, and only into the mid-80's in Manteca. It was a little chilly at the train station this morning, but I really hate to take a jacket during warm weather unless it's going to rain. It's inconvenient to carry it home and uncomfortable to wear it home.

Loyal Reader Number Two took a dip in the pool today. I keep meaning to do it and then not finding the time. Maybe tonight. The water's still only in the mid- to upper-70's which, while certainly tolerable, isn't exactly bath water. I need to cowboy up and just do it. It'll be hot by summertime and I'll be wishing I had been swimming while the water was cooler.

The work schedule was busy today but not as bad as yesterday. I got a couple of things done, although not nearly enough. Need to keep pushing on it. I wish they would get the wifi working on the train - I could spend at least part of the ride time in the morning connected to work, allowing me to do much more than just email. I could also get the blog not only written but also published. Maybe someday soon. It would probably make me cut down on video podcasts, though. On the other hand, maybe web access would make me less productive than I am now. Who knows?

Loyal Reader Number Two's computer died yesterday. It appeared to be a hard disk failure. Loyal Reader Number One downloaded the best hard drive tool in the world - SpinRite - and tried to fix it. It didn't work. The tool seems to think his BIOS is goofed up, which just might be true. That motherboard has been slowly dying since it was fairly new. Functions just stop working. I'll probably find some time over the weekend to work on it myself and see what I can figure out. It just might be time for a new motherboard on that machine. Trip to Fry's!

Yesterday's home schedule was worse than predicted. The train was about 45 minutes late. That's unusual these days, I think. We got stuck behind a couple of freight trains and just had to go slow. Two trains before mine, some idiot farmer left a cow trailer parked partway over the tracks. They came around a curve and there it was. Couldn't stop in time. They hit the trailer. Killed a couple of cows but didn't harm any people, fortunately. They were only delayed about 45 minutes; it could have been much worse.

And on that cheery note, I'll end. Oh wait, I wanted to mention the Cocoa Dev Central website. I found lots of very good tutorials there - I think I'll follow a few. There's probably a lot more stuff there too; I need to look around a little more. I recommend my Mac Programming Loyal Readers have a look if they haven't already.

Now I'll really end. See you tomorrow.

Soyuz

Here's a Soyuz rocket on its way to the International Space Station a couple of years back. I thought it might be nice to not have a picture of Big Sur for a day or so. The viewing area for the Soyuz pads is way too close. It's pretty cool to be right there, but there would be big trouble if there were a failure close to the pad. Big trouble.

Wow. Busy day. Let's have a look at today's schedule, shall we?

9:00 - Short standup meeting
10:00 - Hour-long daily meeting
11:00 - Hour-long weekly meeting
11:30-1:00 - Luncheon for departing employees
1:00 - 30-minute phone interview
1:30 - 30-minute phone interview
2:00 - 30-minute weekly meeting (I skipped it)
2:30 - 30-minute interview
3:00 - 30-minute meeting
3:30 - 30-minute phone interview
4:00 - 30-minute daily meeting
4:30 - Short standup meeting

Otherwise, I didn't have much to do today. Oh, except that I'll be home for about half an hour tonight and then off to my Wednesday PEC meeting. After that, I hope to post the blog and then go to bed. What a glamorous life.

A couple of today's job candidates were okay. One was outstanding. We're going to invite him out to see us. One was simply unqualified, but he was so enthusiastic and so hopeful and has had some really bad breaks and I really wanted to find a reason to hire him. I just can't. Very sad.

The luncheon was nice. Lots of people came, which hopefully made our departing colleagues happy. We saw a few previous colleagues, which was nice. We went to a pretty good Mexican restaurant. Not real good, but pretty good. I had mole. It was nearly authentic and the tortillas were quite good. I went with my usual Theory of Luncheons, which states that since we're splitting the bill, order large. Today it backfired. It turns out our colleague who figured out the bill decided to charge everybody for exactly what they ordered, plus a surcharge for tax, tip, and honoree meals. Oh well. At least the speeches were nice. Come to think of it, I gave the only one.

I started listening to a new podcast today, called "Late-Night Cocoa." It's for Macintosh developers, hosted by a guy who wants to learn Cocoa and couldn't find anything out there in podcast form to help him, so he decided to start one of his own. He interviews various developers, each of which is more or less an expert in some area. As our host learns, we learn. Because it emphasizes methods rather than actual examples, the audio-only format seems to work. The only downside is that you really need to pay attention. I find it much easier to pay attention to the podcast while I'm driving than when I'm on the train/on the bus/at the station/walking to the office. Still, I think I'm getting something out of it.

I continue to enjoy watching video podcasts on the train. I get through five or six every day. I have several episodes of Command-N, MacBreak, and dl.tv on the computer now. When (and if) those ones get caught up, there are many more to try, including a large number of Make magazine podcasts and who knows what else.

And I think I'll watch one now. See you tomorrow.

Loyal Reader reading

Here's Loyal Reader Number Four at our recent campout doing - what else? - some reading. She always manages to find a sunny spot.

Well, it's Tuesday, it's hot, it's sunny, and the living is pretty easy. Busy, busy, busy at work. We've decided we want to hire one additional person on top of the four I'm already trying to hire. It's hard to find enough qualified people and it's equally hard to get them scheduled in to see us. And there's lots of pressure to get people in here. Sigh.

On the upside, I managed to delegate one of the things I was doing that was very time-consuming and not related at all to my managerial duties. Yoo hoo! It was kind of rote work, so it was kind of soothing, but it kept me from doing the stuff they're paying me to do. So I'm glad it's gone, at least for the present.

We had dinner on the patio last night - it was about 84 degrees when we went out there. The back yard is shaded in the afternoon, and it was perfectly comfortable at that temperature. I never did get a chance to go swimming, but I might jump in this evening. I waited a long time to buy a pool and I really want to use it. Time is the only issue.

I'm not sure why, but yesterday I received three test emails I had sent to myself back in December. Strange. Maybe the Computer On a Dime suddenly got its configuration figured out on its own. That makes no sense, of course.

We have a going-away luncheon tomorrow for two people who work for me. One is just moving upstairs to another program and the other is leaving the company. The latter guy is quite junior and was trying to take another job within the company that would have been a promotion, but HR nixed it. So he went and found a job at one of the numerous little software companies in the Sunnyvale area. Of course, those little companies come and go, so they don't offer much security, but this guy is young and has very little need for security. Besides, it's much easier for junior people to find their next job when things go bad, and my company doesn't offer pensions to young workers anymore, so there's actually very little reason to stay. And his new company is paying him much more than we are. So we're wishing him all the best and saying goodbye. Cheerie-bye!

I'm pleased to report that the train's air conditioning works quite well, even on a hot day. It's extremely comfortable in here, even though I'm sitting by a window directly in the sun. As some of my Loyal Readers may be aware, I like to be comfortable. Very comfortable.

Enough typing just to hear my keyboard rattle. See you tomorrow.

The beach

Here's yet another picture from the Big Sur campout. That was sure a pretty place. And so photogenic.

Happy start of another week! It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day today - in the mid to upper nineties here in Lardville, as a matter of fact. It's supposed to stay warm and sunny for at least the next week or so. Loyal Reader Number Four told me she measured the pool's temperature and it's somewhere between 78 and 80 degrees. That's swimmin' weather! I'm seriously thinking of taking a little dip when I get home.

Implying, of course, that I'm writing this on the train again. The rail commute is still not getting to me and, since the drive was starting to get to me, I'm on the train again. And getting a lot done, including keeping my unread emails down to zero, watching a bunch of video podcasts, listening to a bunch of audio podcasts, writing the blog, reading a bunch of books (both electronic and old-school), and sleeping. Wow! I'm just a paragon of productivity.

Although I'm still mourning the loss of the rolling briefcase. I really like the temporary replacement I'm using, but it's pretty hard on the back to haul it back and forth across campus. Fortunately, there was a shuttle bus pulling up just as I got off the railroad bus this morning, and a kind colleague offered me a ride to the stop this afternoon. So no exercise today, but no sore shoulder/back combination either. I hope I can hold out until next month.

We got just a few things done over the weekend. I got the barbecue repaired on Saturday - it turns out the old burner was completely rusted away - and even got the self-lighter working again. It was pretty full of grease and grime, so it was simply a matter of cleaning it up. I also went to the library and checked out a little pile of train-based reading material, including a couple of Dave Barry books and a couple that should help me improve my chess game. There are also a few other random selections in there, along with a few classical CDs for my listening pleasure.

Perhaps the most interesting thing from Saturday was when LRN4 and I went to the pond store in Escalon. They have lots of sample ponds, numerous kitschy pond accessories, and very high prices. I got some ideas there and will look online for better prices. Sorry about that, Escalon store.

While we were in Escalon, we stopped at a new neighborhood to walk through their models. The floorplans were pretty unexciting, the workmanship on the models was pretty bad (boding extremely poorly for how they build the non-show houses), the yards were pathetically small, it's another half-hour away from work, there's not much shopping, the neighborhood is right by the railroad tracks, and the prices were high. Other than that, we loved the place. Not moving there anytime soon.

Sunday was another busy Sabbath. Our church meetings were nice (my Sunday School class was a little short on participation, since there were only two people there, but was otherwise fine) and other meetings went well too. Loyal Reader Number One performed at his Honors Recital, as discussed previously, and did quite well. I mentioned to LRN4 that the quality of the recitals we're attending these days has gone WAY up - it's more like going to a concert than a piano recital. Every performed was hand-selected and excellent. The recital was at the college down in Turlock; what a pretty campus! Loyal Reader Number Two has organ lessons there every week, so I'm the only one who wasn't familiar with the place. Turlock might be a nice retirement location.

That's about it for today. See you tomorrow.

Sculpture

Here's Loyal Reader Number One's rock sculpture, as mentioned in yesterday's comments. Now isn't that about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? Kind of like a statue. Yeah, a statue. Ralphie!

Greetings, earthlings. How was your Friday? Pretty decent around here. I worked for about four hours - 8:30 to 12:30. It took two hours to get there and an hour and a half to get back. So that's a grand total of 7.5 hours away from home. It certainly shortens the day up, but that's okay - I didn't have any particular plans anyway. So there was a lot of relaxation this afternoon.

Unfortunately, that schedule won't hold tomorrow. I need to prepare a Sunday School lesson, fix the barbecue (replace the burner and I think I'll go ahead and put in new lava rocks while I'm at it), and, um, I'm sure there are plenty of other things I could do. Oh yeah, the Sable is filthy, my nightstand has become somewhat cluttered, and I need library books to read. I'll probably find a way to stay busy.

Loyal Reader Number One is taking his SAT test tomorrow. Good luck, LRN1! Loyal Reader Number Two is at the scout Jamborall tonight and all day tomorrow. So it will be a bit quiet around the old homestead.

There was so much goofage today that I'm out of time for writing. So I'll see you Monday. Have a great weekend.

One last bird picture

Here's yet another in my famous seagull series. If you look really carefully, I'm sure you can see some birds in there somewhere.

Another day, another small fortune. Gee, it's great working for a big company. Sunny this morning, cloudy this afternoon, with scattered showers predicted for right about the time I'll be getting off the train. Fortunately, it's only about a one minute walk from the train to the car, as opposed to the ten minutes required to get from the bus stop to the office.

Speaking of which, I wimped out and took the shuttle bus this afternoon from the office back to the bus stop. One happened along just as I was leaving the building, so I hopped on. No exercise for me this afternoon. It turned out to be a good thing; I had a small personal luggage disaster this morning. Years of abuse finally took their toll on my rolling briefcase. Half of the handle fell off. It gave its life for commuting. This afternoon, I moved everything over to the briefcase that came with my computer. It's nothing special, but it's not bad either. It does not, however, have wheels. It must be carried. Which gives me even more health-giving exercise twice a day. Maybe more than I really want to get. We'll see. At any rate, both my birthday and Father's Day are coming up next month. I now have something for my wish list. Unless I just go ahead and buy myself a new roller before then.

Nothing much else to talk about today. We delivered the product that was planned for today on schedule, so it will be a quiet weekend, work-wise. My people are happy.

Loyal Reader Number Four was introduced today to another person who got ripped off by the Landscaping Idiots. They're working with the local prosecutor to get these people prosecuted. Which, it turns out, is what prosecutors do. It seems they have no license and they've become somewhat well-known in certain circles for doing a little bit of incredibly shoddy work, grabbing as much money as they can get, and disappearing. The prosecutor is looking for additional people to file complaints. Sign us up! We feel very fortunate to have gotten as much out of them as we have. The cement isn't the finish we contracted for (they turned out to be incapable of applying the salt finish they contracted for), but attempt number two appears to be of sufficient quality that it won't fall apart within the first six months.

The house people were working on various warranty items today - that's how LRN4 heard about the other ripped-off homeowner. Hopefully, they will have fixed my sink, which has had a very strange problem since we moved in. When you get enough water into the sink to cover the drain, air bubbles get trapped in there and it won't drain quickly. If you lift up the stopper higher than usual, the air comes out and it drains immediately. I've been guessing that the sink's vent is blocked, but that's just a guess. I hope to find out the truth when I get home this evening.

Enough blabbering for today. See you tomorrow.

Gratuitous baby picture

Here's a slightly sick Loyal Reader Number Twelve and her Loyal Grandma. I know how to bring those Loyal Readers in, don't I? Gratuitous baby pictures, that's the ticket.

There's a beautiful afternoon outside the train window. As opposed to this morning. It was dry on the way to the station, during the wait for the train, during the train trip, during the walk to the bus, and during 99.5% of the bus ride. It started raining hard just before the bus door opened. I made the ten-minute walk to the office and got pretty well soaked. It stopped raining not long after I got inside. Oh well. I kind of enjoyed the very wet walk and eventually dried out. No harm done. My briefcase, lunch, and I were certainly wet, though.

I listened this morning to a LibriVox Mark Twain story that I had never read before! I thought I had read everything he wrote. The story's called Taming the Bicycle. Very amusing. I invite my Loyal Readers to see if they can find a copy online. If so, read it!

As my Loyal Readers may have guessed, yesterday's discussion of LibriVox led me to take another look and download some more Twain books. I downloaded The Innocents Abroad and a few short stories. I've started working them into my podcast list. Along with all those old-time radio shows I downloaded a couple of months ago. And my backlog of about a hundred other podcasts. And my backlog of another hundred video podcasts. Can't watch those ones on the iPod, it not being video-capable, but I may copy them to the laptop soon and watch them during the train ride. Great idea!

More train rides are going to happen, by the way. I'm enjoying it more than I thought I might, so I bought a new 20-ride ticket yesterday. At fifteen bucks a day, those rides need to be used. I'm going to start driving on Fridays for a little while and riding the other days. And I might ride on my "on" Fridays as well; Friday afternoon traffic can be a real bear. Less wear and tear on the cars and on me.

It's Wednesday-go-to-meetin' night. I need to add a picture and a few links before leaving home, so don't look for much of a serious effort tonight. Linkage will be sparse. Great Art, however, will be as impressive as usual. I think we can safely say that.

We had telephone interviews with three people today. One seemed like a really good candidate. One was so-so. And one was a space cadet. We still have several more people to speak with, so we're not ready to rule anybody in or out yet. I certainly hope my boss doesn't push for the space cadet, though.

Nothing else to mention tonight. See you tomorrow.

Through the window

Here's Loyal Reader Number One on the outside looking in. Taken in the homesteader's cabin at the Big Sur state park.

Another busy day. I spent a good part of it working on hiring some people - I have requisitions for four people right now. Several people have applied, and I need to start getting several of them in for interviews. I have phone calls scheduled with a few over the next couple of days. We really need the people now - a few of our current folks have already left and there are a couple more going in the next week or so. Busy, busy, busy.

I noticed earlier today that I failed to include any links in yesterday's post. Such an oversight usually results in Loyal Reader complaints. Apparently, yesterday's post was so enthralling that nobody noticed. I'll try to do better today.

The problem, of course, is that I'm once again typing the text on the train, which still (grumble, complain, etc.) has no WiFi, so I have to cut and paste when I get home. I got a picture added yesterday but was in a hurry, so no links. I'll probably be in a hurry again tonight, but one must take the time to do the job right. On the other hand, why start doing it right now?

Congrats to Loyal Reader Number Seven on her team's excellent showing at the competition. Keep up the good work!

Note to Loyal Reader Number Five: my art dealer will be more than happy to discuss selection, availability, and terms. We are certain we can reach an advantageous (possibly not mutually advantageous, but advantageous nonetheless) arrangement.

I've been reading several of Mark Twain's short stories the past couple of days, compiled in a book called Sketches New and Old. Hilarious. I recommend to my Loyal Readers anything by Twain. With the possible exception of Life on the Mississippi. There's some good stuff in there too, but it's intended to document history, rather than to be amusing. There's plenty of detail, though, for budding Mississippi riverboat pilots.

Recommended Twain books: Roughing It (the story of Twain's extended trip to the western territories, during which he road stagecoaches, mined for gold, worked on mining town newspapers, and generally enjoyed himself), The Innocents Abroad (the story of Twain's extended trip to Europe and the Holy Land, which he took for the express purpose of writing this book - his descriptions of the absurdities of travel are side-splitting), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain's fictional tale of a runaway boy and his friend, a runaway slave), and just about every newspaper column he ever wrote. There are also some obscure works, such as Extracts From Adam's Diary (I've seen two versions; the "Adam and Eve" version is best), Extract From Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, Puddinhead Wilson, and The Double-Barrelled Detective are also excellent.

We listened to an audio version of Huckleberry Finn on our way to and from Big Bear a few weeks ago. It was a free version I found on LibriVox, read by an amateur. At first, her interpretation was a little, um, amateurish, but she grew on us as the book went on. We thoroughly enjoyed the book and I'll look for others for our next family trip.

The train's moving unusually slowly right now. This doesn't bode well for an on-time arrival. I'm hoping for a near-term speedup.

Somebody sitting near me is apparently eating a hot dog. With ketchup and probably mustard. Also possibly relish. It smells delicious! Which just shows how very hungry I am right now. Must . . . concentrate . . . on . . . blog.

Okay, I'm fine now. Let's see, what else? Nothing comes to mind, so I'll quit. Have a great rest of the day and I'll see you tomorrow.