The Time Sink

Here's one for Dan Seto and anyone else who's likes something more under the hood other than the hamsters supplied in recent years:

That's a 1974 Jensen Interceptor... I saw it when I took the boys across the street for some ice cream. I came back a few minutes later with the camera. Then I got to talking with the owner and forgot to get more shots. Well, two:

...and when he fired it up, all the memories came flooding back: they're powered by Chrysler 440cu engines.

I doubt he gets fifteen miles to the gallon. ...and I doubt he cares!

Remember Brent Glass? ...used to write for InfoWorld? Got a streak of cynicism in you? Have a read...

I can vouch for one related tidbit: I was a DR-DOS user during the Windows 3.1 introduction; Redmond did include code that prevented running 3.1 on Digital Research's DOS (it only took a few hours for the hack that cleared the problem to make the BBSs).

Vacation? Yep! We dug our first hole today. ...and watched the ocean knock down our work and leave no trace of what we did. Tomorrow we'll go back and do it again.

Independence Day. Somehow it seems apropos that I canceled all my subscriptions to all my Microsoft newsletters and bulletins yesterday.

There was a day when I kept up pretty well with their goings on with OSs, Office Suites and the development stuff... Those days are long gone. I doubt I'll be doing any home purchases that aren't included with the box. ...and that will likely be for the kid's school computers.

They did send me a nice email inviting me to return anytime and asking me to fill out a survey... Somehow, I just don't think that's a good use of my free time.

...and free time here is late at night after a long day at the sand mines and too much sun and sea exposure. I did manage to finally archive the Blog page (a week or two late) and convert another rant to a story. ...but that's about it for the moment.

Just two shots from last night's show. Well, the one in the sky...

I'm getting a little better with the camera; the latency is still enough of an issue to limit what I try to do with it. But I did manage an air burst and one from the pier...

The real show goes on later as several thousand people try to use the two single-lane roads that lead away from here. Local law enforcement had a light evening, probably because of one heck of a presence.

...and no one dumped the contents of their Weber into the roll-on dumpster this year. ...and no one was talked into using a sparkler as a night light in the port-a-potty (yeah, that was a winner). ...and no one set the hillside on fire. ...and, and, and. Actually it was much calmer than normal. Daniel was in his element watching the local S.O. deputies take care of business. ...while Bradley slept. ...and Shelley and I worked Private Patrol.

Weather or not we were expecting it, we awoke to a heavy overcast that soon turned into a light rain. ...and the first email of the day was from my sister in the Central Valley saying the thunderstorms around 0500 had awakened her.

...but when Shelley called her father, who's located about forty miles south of my sister, he wondered what was going on as he had clear skies.

The radar showed a band of precipitation from the central coast toward the Sierra Nevadas. That left only one thing to do: Road Trip!

...off in the rain to Santa Maria to see if the local Costco had a boogie board for me. ...and lunch. ...and a stop at a mall for some new sleeping bags for the boys. ...and some stuff for Shelley. ...and a new cage for the partridge.

No one told me boogie boarding was a contact sport! Oh, my... Sand in places there shouldn't be sand...

I think the part I liked the best was as I was taking a break warming up on the beach: as my eyebrows dried, sand would fall out. The part Daniel liked best was when I misjudged a wave and somersaulted over the front of the board. ...in time for the wave to catch me full force as I was in mid air.

...and I suspect my blood chemistry is a bit out of whack from that and several other incidents of unscheduled salt water lavage.

Cleanup time. Shelley and the boys are off to feed the squirrels at Morro Rock leaving me some free time to start the process of gathering and packing.

The good news is that not everything needs to make the trip back home: the boys' winter clothes can stay here as can the non-perishables and a few other items; we'll pack them home on the next trip later this summer. The bad news is we'll pack them home on the next trip later this summer. ...that's always a fun job for the cargomaster.

Ah well, there's lunches to make and towels to gather; we'll be hitting the beach as soon as they get back...