The Time Sink

Memo to self: On days when it is known that you'll be playing an early afternoon LaserQuest game with a group of hyperkinetic fifth-graders (heck, any age group, but particularly this bunch as you are on your own big time!) it is not a good idea to get up and go blading the first thing in the morning.

Note two: especially if you aren't quite current on your exercise level and are in need of new wheels and bearings and are having to work just that little bit more to cover the usual distance...

Note three: most especially if there has been an accident over by the snail lady's house that has closed the main downwind drag and will force a re-route that is, sure enough, uphill and against the wind.

Note four: ...and darned well after two days of basketball tournaments and when the family doesn't get home until nearly 2300 the night before. On the other hand, I didn't do too badly <g>...

Well, there's much to be done, but I'm opening up TimeSinkViews today:

As explained in the entry titled "Colophon", and in the post the other week, this is an attempt to bring some of the things that have been floating about the land of the TimeSink under one general area. There have been galleries and images used elsewhere, at places that simply are no longer; those can be brought back home. ...and there are all the cemetery posts, some with poetry or stories; those would fit nicely in their own area where they can be easily reached instead of sprawled out across the archives and hidden here and there.

...and things like the story of the snail tree and how that came about that didn't quite fit in either here at daynotes or over on the photoblog. ...and ... well, you get the general idea. If you've been following my work for any length of time, you know there's just so much going on in my brain some days it's hard to keep it confined within any one or two areas. Hopefully, the work Sheila has done to set up the basic framework at TimeSinkViews will allow me to 'just go with it' from time to time and be able to drop the finished product into one of the categories we've established...

Thank you (we both thank you) for all the nice compliments on "Views". ...and for the linkage correction, Paul!

There will be more pieces coming over there as the days go by: any time I have an urge to "well, I wonder how this will work", I can just do it and then fit it into one of the slots that are now ready. I'll generally link new posts in the blog, and I'll post to the RSS feed also.

So far the short list includes ... well ... here's the thing: the 'short list' has something like six sub-categories and fifty-some-odd items on it.

It's the end of the work week for me: we're adding solar heating to the pool tomorrow, and with the crazy schedule we have with the kids' and Shelley's schedules it'll just be easier to have me at home. ...and yeah, I want to check out what it is they're doing as they do it <g>!

A brief update: the solar is mostly done and we're home from the first basketball game of the weekend...

Oh, you'd like more? Well, the solar would be completed by now if it weren't for the matter of a errant auger bit catching a water line under a chunk of walkway. ...said walkway now cut with a concrete saw and sledged to bits for removal. They should be done by mid-morning or so...

...and the game? Hey, they played strong and hard and held together and won in double overtime in a 'first to score' situation. Not bad at all for a new team...

Okay, the solar guys are slated in around 0700 or so; that's the same time Shelley is supposed to be at a women's conference with a friend of hers. I suspect my 'sleeping in on Saturday' may be in jeopardy <g>...

The good news is that Brad's first game isn't until 1300; the bad news is that the second is at 1500. Yeah, darned near back to back. That'll be one tired kid when we get home. ...and a frazzled dad and brother if things are played as close as last night's game. This is a 'young' team that has only had two weeks of practice going up against teams that have been formed up for about a month; so yeah, it's a bit of a battle...

Two losses... Well, three, counting the solar gig... Brad's team played hard and improved greatly against a team that flat waxed them last weekend; I can see where they can easily catch up to the level of play in this league just given a little time and a little practice. Yeah, I'm seeing improvements every game. Here's hoping today's consolation game turns out to be a victory for them!

...and the solar install took another twist yesterday morning; the crew manged to get in early enough to get things done, but when we were going over the final operating instructions it turned out one of our basic specs didn't make it to the field crew: I wanted a separate fractional horsepower pump to handle the flow of the water though the heat exchanger rather than using the main pool pump; that wasn't how things turned out. Yeah, the work order stated "booster pump", but they'd plumbed it in line with the main pump. Nope, that's not what I speced!

Click image for larger version

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

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