The Time Sink

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

This is Shelley's last week of pseudo-freedom for the summer. Yep, school is out for the boys at the end of the week. They get to stay home and enjoy Mom's company All Day Long. I need to remind my boss of this; his kids are in the same school district and it's time to start putting in the later hours. ...no point in going home to Bedlam!

I managed to get much of the weekend plans accomplished. Trenches are dug (with some significant help from the two short people); parts are on hand for the plumbing and electrical extravaganza planned for this week; and some of the X-10 is programmed. I'm constrained from finishing the programming until next weekend; I like to program late at night and the upload process to the stand-alone box usually calls for a "refresh" at the end of the upload. ...and no one here really likes the lights cycling at 2359. So, no uploads until daylight hours.

If I can stay on schedule, I may be able to add the cookery portion of the patio in time for Father's Day. I'm putting that off 'til toward the end as I really want to get all of the other main elements done so I can concentrate on learning to cook on a grill again. Fortunately, JHR has streamlined some of that for me.

Shelley update: shot number two went on board Monday evening. We'll give things a B⁺ at this point. She did have a site reaction to Sunday's shot show up Monday: some redness around the site itself. We'll be watching for tissue damage in that area, but so far it looks okay. The big problems that we're leery of (flu-like symptoms: chills and aches) haven't occurred on this med yet. Shelley had those happen quite often on the old medication; it would be nice for her to dodge that bullet.

...and it's an early post for me as I just felt drained last night. Probably too much sun and trenching from Saturday, followed by a non-stop Sunday left me feeling washed out all day yesterday. Time to catch a clue and pack it in early.

I did manage some web digging though. Matt and I had been talking X-10 the other day and I wanted to see what else was out there for Linux. I run a stand-alone controller that allows me to program responses to various inputs rather than the plain vanilla "On-Off" offered by regular remotes. ...and Win32 just doesn't impress me as a platform to run a whole house control system. The embedded stand-alone has been up for ten years with only minor issues (usually my programming<g>).

So how are things in the Linux world? The usual suspects were on the line-up over at FreshMeat; but digging deeper today led me to this guy. ...and I thought I was hard-core on home control? He uses PERL to run an interactive session (much as I do with the stand-alone). The bonus is the ability to run the code on a Linux box. Most of the current Linux widgets allow you to output commands through the BottleRocket program (which in turn runs the Firecracker com port RF transmitter) but do not have any direct provisions to receive inputs. ...and I'm into interactive. So this guy's site looks like a winner. But GPS in your car? ...accessible over the net? ...and voice commands and feedback? "Open the garage door, HAL."

Dave's also racking up the miles on The New Car. ...except for this weekend when the laundry service (oops; I mean his sister) comes to visit. That should allow him to catch up on some family stuff and start next week with a clean apartment.

On the computer front, Dave's playing with XFce as a Linux GUI. Something about how it reminds him of OS/2? ...and he mentioned Mandrake 7.1 includes Xfree86 4.0 in the expert install options. Wow, even when he's down, he's not out! I'm impressed.

I guess I'm not skating when I get home this evening. It's been pouring here today. ...and I'm confused because rain wasn't in the forecast. ...and this morning, the local radar on the Net was still set to 'clear air' rather than 'precipitation' so I couldn't track rain in what looked to be some rather dark clouds. On the way to work, one radio station reported scattered showers but nothing much this far south. Sure was dark outside though... Then I noticed what might have been smoke across the road about a half-mile in front of me; it was a just little hard to tell with the traffic. I slowed down anyway because people tend to do really stupid things near emergencies. That turned out to be a Real Good Thing; that "smoke" turned into a deluge from those clouds that were making things so dark. Scattered showers my tail, it's been raining all morning. Nothing like living in an irrigated desert...

So, no blading if the streets are still wet tonight. I did manage to get out last night. ...first time since the pool gig started. I did okay. My leg muscles wanted me to remember that they hadn't been used in just that fashion for over a month; but the cardiovascular system didn't seem to mind. My heart rate stayed down and my breathing went okay. ...must be something to do with the exercise I'm getting digging those trenches in the back yard.

Yes, those trenches. ...the exposed trenches. ...left open in a multi-hour downpour!

I may never need to make another adjustment to Athena (the Win95 box) again. I stumbled across this place (we've been there before as I recall) and found Gene Wilder's "It's Alive!" declaration from Young Frankenstein. I replaced the Microsoft boot wav... And I am just so darned happy.

...and while I'm in one of my moods, an overclocking disaster. Bob and Dave warned us about this sort of thing.

...and if you didn't get Sunday's User Friendly, take a listen here (requires QuickTime). Interestingly enough, this ad does not play south of the border. ...Tom and John and Shawn's border.

Yesterday turned out okay after all. I did have collapsed trenches and the mud factor was too high to do any meaningful work in the dirt areas, but Bradley and I managed to get several hundred feet of drip line stretched out in preparation for more work tonight. Brad's small enough to fit behind trees and shrubs that I'd need a machete to work through. Not to worry; I tie a rope to him so I can pull him back in case something gets to him. Earlier in the day, I thought we'd have a reprise of last June with Tom sitting on his back porch in the heat downing a brew while I shoveled hail from my front porch<g>.

Remember the other month when some bozo spammed one of Brian's Linux newsletters? ...and Brian wrote back mentioning the spammer was dealing with people who really could reach out and format his hard drive from the comfort of their own nest? Well, this guy got a little fed up with his email address repeatedly being hijacked by a spammer and went after him. ...only it was a them. ...a very professional them. ...professional in that they made money from their spamming. ...not so professional in how they protected their computers. Read along as he finds out who these people are and takes some interesting action against them. Warning: adult content on the payback page. The latest info is located here (John's taken down his mirror but lists others; and his site's a story for another day).

"Sometimes you're too busy living your life to write about the life you're living. But this is a happy problem to have."
Rick Saenz, Upstairs at Dry Creek

I think that says it rather well. Today has the makings of a day that I'm either going to be working full tilt in the yard trying to get things in place, or one where I say "The heck with it" and sit by the pool with a beer. ...or two.

Either way, I think I'll come out ahead. I lost one evening of work due to the rain (0.68 inch) and I'll need about an hour to redig the trenches that were damaged. ...but that's not too bad. As a matter of fact, last night Bradley and I took off the the store to pick up plants to go into the holes we haven't dug yet. We did manage to lay out the drip lines in preparation for trench repair. But I just decided I didn't want to get into the heavy work gig on a Friday evening. So we cruised. ...and sang. ...and refueled the car. ...and did a whole lot of mundane stuff. Shelley didn't even give me one of her "Where the heck are you?" pages; she and Daniel were over at the neighbors also industriously doing nothing.

Ah, yes. Goodnight to one and all. I've spent a computer free weekend (okay, JHR? Excellent Saturday post by the way; very though provoking).

I spent all of Saturday being a husband, father, and homeowner to the extent that all I managed to do was check my email once or twice. Sunday was more of the same. I had no contribution to the backchannel discussion regarding Roadrunner as an ISP; and the one or two emails I received will get answered shortly (I think).

I've sat down at the keyboard for the first time in two days and that is to pay the bills. Ah well, I guess it's best to work my way back into things slowly.