The Time Sink

Well, Brad's in "his" room and both boys are off school today helping Shelley clean out "Daniel's" room. ...and that's a good reason to be grateful for going to work today, if yesterday is any indicator <g>!

Yep, it's a good day to come in and get a start on getting things under control before the upcoming three day weekend. ...and I'm also glad I'm able to work the 'early shift' today: yesterday I was able to confirm that it was the bearings that were hosed on my blades. After switching to a 'known good' set of wheels onto the suspect bearings and getting similar 'draggy' results, I pulled an older set of bearings I keep as spares and mounted them up on the same wheels. Yep, a short run went very smoothly. Now to pull a full run and confirm. ...and then find some decent bearings, since that series doesn't seem to be manufactured any longer

Hmmm... I guess I didn't publish last night's post... Ah well, give me a coupla' hours and I'll meld this page with the one on the server at home.

...okay, here you go (yeah, I leave warts and all in most of the time <g>):

Well we think we have rain coming... But they sure blew the forecast today. ...only they didn't, they just got lucky.

We're supposed to have some rain tomorrow and maybe the balance of the week, but it's all dependant on on some interaction between systems. This morning was forecast to be above freezing and with clouds covering the valley. ...only I ran into some sprinkles on the way to work. ...and then the news reported the ridge route closed due to snow! WT??? I checked the radar loop and it showed one heck of a band moving up the valley (and kicking tail on the Grapevine a few hours before). Whoa...

So we changed a few plans at work and waited for the storm to hit. ...and waited. ...and waited. Two hours later we had clear skies. ...and not a hint of rain. Afternoon came and we hit sixty degrees; that was good enough to head on home and blade. ...and try out that wheel/bearing combo (it worked fine). Now to see if I can blade again tomorrow. ...or if the rain will show up. ...or stay. ...or whatever <g>!

Rain for sure! We awoke to a steady rain this morning; and although it tapered off during the commute, it came back steady this afternoon. Although...

Yeah, it's a little bit on the light side... I almost thought about walking down to the local Office Depot when the boss needed something. I mean it was almost as light as that steady rain I remember from the Seattle area. Which led me to Keri... Which led me to-- Matt's back!!!

Yeah, a redesign from Herself and some rethunkery by The Man... Coolness. ...and if you're looking to get away from it all for a while, Matt's "Useful Bookmarks" link there on the left is at least an order of magnitude worse than Whitenoise for falling down the rabbit hole and getting lost for a while (Yep, I just lost some unknown period of time there...).

Whew... Talk about your long days at work. There's a project going on that I'm trying to stay one step ahead of as it unfolds. ...and provide some guidance in a area where I have some knowledge. ...but man, it's eating up the CPU cycles on the internal processor! ...and also letting me know it's time to upgrade my machine at work: I simply need more horsepower.

Yeah, a P-200 I built in 1997. In Internet years, that's like the Stone Age. ...but it may be the only stable Win95 machine left on the planet <g>, thanks in no small part to that book Dave wrote! So yeah, I think I only need a part or two to finish the list. Time to schedule in some bench time at home and play with the Tinkertoys^® again...

I think I'm done for the day! So far, the work intensity didn't let up at all today (but the rain did, so I did come home and blade); but after I came home from blading, I ended up catching the feral cat who lived out back (yes, past tense; he's down as his labs came back positive for some real kitty nasties) and managed to successfully order pizza on Valentine's evening when it appears everyone and their brother was being smart and staying out of the over-crowded restaurants and just ordering pizza...

It's probably a good thing this is a three day weekend for the household; we have a very full slate to get through before the painters show up on Tuesday. ...and before the school's upcoming Open House.

Let's see, another multiple hundred pound Captain's bed to breakdown, move and reassemble; several other pieces of furniture to deal with; one closet to empty (into where, I have no clue); one "Monster" to finish outlining, mock up and construct; a book report to finish; a "Mummy Project" to work on... That's just Daniel's batch. Brad has another list.

...and then there's the gasket to replace on the refrigerator door. ...and some serious weeding to be done in two gardens. ...and a machine to rebuild (nope, still no clue). ...and I think it's time to change the paper in the partridge's cage.

That, and a little light reading <g>!

Well, so far we have almost all of the monster created (we're still waiting for a decent lightning storm), the story of his genesis mostly done, and the behavioral and structural adaptations worksheet finished. The rest should be completed in a matter of hours. ...other than perhaps the animation thing.

Unscheduled events for the day (so far) have included tearing apart the undersink pipery to clear the drain (that's always fun work) and posting a pic to Shelley's pages of the cat we put down on Friday.

Click image for larger version

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

    Thanks for visiting!  
All content Copyright 1999->2003 Daniel C. Bowman. All rights reserved.