The Time Sink

In honor of the return of my lovely assistant this fine morning, I think I'll spend a moment or two talking about one of the toys I picked up to help her out with the steadily increasing stream of projects she's been taking on.

I've mentioned her photographic talents before; and lately, they've been getting a workout. We've always prided ourselves on doing whatever we can in-house, and the GM has given Janeen a solid vote of confidence over the last few months. To give her the proper tools, we've bought her a Sony F707 camera to work with and upgraded her computer to accomodate PhotoShop (and sent her to class). ...and it's paid off: she's worked up Christmas cards for both the ground and the air operations and delivered camera-ready copy for several local advertisements. Her 'biggest' job so far has been the deisign and proof work for the large signs posted at the construction site showing what our new building will look like (I really need to get some of her work up in a gallery).

Well, after the latest project, I picked up an Epson C-80 for her to use as our local printer. She'd read up on various printers, and I'd had some interesting discussions about this particular model with a Mac guru of my acquaintance, so we went for it. I'll let you read the reviews; but I'll simply say this is as close to photo quality as you're going to get for under $200US.

There's no point in taking a picture of a picture; but if you happened to notice the picture Flat Stanley was leaning against last week (over in LaLaLand <g>), that's a snapshot Janeen took up in the hills about a month ago. She printed it out for me before she left and I framed it while she was away and put it on display. It's received lots of compliments; and when I show it to people, they are very surprised to find out it's a printout and not a photographic print.

So, short version: Do you have a need for a so-close-to-photo-it-doesn't-matter printer? ...and think you could handle $169 with a $30 rebate (Costco/Office Depot depending on area)? You could so worse! Oh, yeah: separate color cartidges at about $11 each; the black goes for $26 (Office Depot). ...and those are wax-based inks supposedly good for thirty years, now that they have the kinks worked out from last year's problem.

Another day, another procurement crisis... Yep, for the sixth or seventh time in the last year or so, it appears yet another medication commonly used in both the pre-hospital setting and in-house patient management is on the backorder list. I got confirmation last night from an on-line friend and today I get to try to figure out why one supply channel appears to be open while several others are closed. Ah, well...

...and if that wasn't enough to make life interesting, late afternoon yesterday I found out that I have another immediate need to visit the local DMV office. That one rates at least a 'swell'!

But you know what? My partner's back and that means I can dive into some of this stuff knowing things will be covered until I get it handled.

Okay, let's start the day off with some humor from the FBI. Wait... No... That can't be; can it? Nevertheless, there's a gap in the reporting lately; and to fill the void, SatireWire steps in with 5-DAY TERROR FORECASTS! Yep, now you can plan trips and outdoor gatherings with The AccuThreat Five Day Outlook... Thanks, Ciara!

My outlook for today? More work, but hopefully not as intense as yesterday. The DMV thing went well, and the units that were pulled from the mothball fleet will be sailing along with all their pennants flying as they should be.

...and after an early morning phone call to the East Coast (from my house, while I was still trying to confirm I was alive), the med problem is confirmed as a non-problem for me. Not so for some others, apparently.

One of the small pleasures we look forward to during our summer trips to the Central Coast is reading Neil Farrell's police and fire logs in the Central Coast Sun Bulletin... If it weren't for the cost, we'd subscribe just to follow the goings on in Morro Bay as the gendarmes deal with the locals and the tourists.

Yesterday, while trolling though dangerousmeta, I ran across a link to the police logs as published in the Arcata Eye. One sample:

The temperature was in the seventies yesterday, but I'm not really sure if it's spring yet... It's cold and clear at night, but the morning fog is coming in more dense every day. I put two shots up on the blog, one from Wednesday morning with the fog just rising and another from Thursday with the fog dropping visibility to a quarter mile. We should have more of the same this morning. With any luck, I'll have enough fog pics to put up another fog gallery...

...and as I was blading last night past one of the rural properties that's set lower than its neighbors, I could feel about a fifteen degree drop in the temperature. That's makin's for some serious driving concerns this morning.

TGIF! Heh. If I played my cards correctly, today will be a catch up day for a change. Usually I try to leave Fridays open to plan out the next week and tidy up some; that hasn't worked out lately (like for months <g>). ...but this week, the plan has actually survived contact with reality. Cool. Maybe I can even get away a bit early; I'd like that since there's a testbed at home that hasn't been tweaked in over a week.

Welcome to the weekend. Maybe... It seems there's a science fair project to be completed today or we'll be working on it instead of heading off to the snow tomorrow morning. Shelley says Daniel has finished his portion and she and I have about four hours work to do. Hello??? Did I miss something here? I love my wife; but every so often we seem to be working from a different data set.

I would like to get up to the mountains before the snow leaves. Normally I wouldn't be too worried, but yesterday we hit 77F here on the valley floor. Too much of that and we won't find snow until 14,000 feet. Right now, I'm betting 8000 will do it.

Whoooeeee... With any luck, we'll be off to snow country for the day. That is if anyone in the household gets any sleep...

The good news: the Science Board is finished. That means the pressure is off for the weekend: if the guys slept, we're gone; if they didn't, Shelley and I are taking turns napping while the world goes on without us.

I suspect the reason both guys ended up awake last night had to do with the windstorm that started late Friday night and continued for much of Saturday. Our temperature dropped from 77F Friday to 64F Saturday; and to effect those kinds of changes, there has to be some air movement. They've lifted the warnings though, so maybe we'll have it okay today.