Category: General commentary

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A long weekend

As I sit here Monday morning, I have little twinges to remind me of the weekend.   I almost feel like we got some things accomplished.   Kim & Stu called yesterday morning to invite us along on a motorcycle ride, but we decided to stay home and get some much needed work done in the yard instead.   It was perfect weather for either, and we really needed to get ready for winter.   The roads will still be there next time it’s a beautiful day.   We did see them Friday evening, went over for wine and cheese and some great conversation.   We really need to do that more often.

My shoulders and arms are feeling a little used from the leaf raking, as well as from pullig the cord in futile attempts to re-start the leaf blower that I’m afraid I killed.   Rob had filled the 2-stroke gas can, and I forgot that he’d done that and I had not not yet put the oil in it.   As a result, the leaf blower ran at full throttle with no oil until it croaked.   Twice.   Now it has no compression to speak of and won’t start.   Crap.   The rest of the leaves got raked the old fashioned way, and of course the back yard is already covered again.   Got the lawn mowed, Lisa did the front and side flower beds, Rob cut the spirea bushes out back down to the ground.   We have 14 or 15 bags of yard waste now.

With Rob’s help I got the work shop more or less cleaned up, at least the half with the work bench.   I can see the top of the bench now, and have it cleared off so I can assemble keyers again.   There is a lot more work to be done, of course, but it’s looking a lot better.

Pete was home for a few hours, and we got the new tires mounted on the Cougar so he can get around this winter.   Sent him back to Hastings with a load of food, of course.   The new tail light is on the Vespa, and I got to take it out for an extended ride around the neighborhood.   It’s running great now, started on the first kick once and doesn’t take more than a few any time.   All I need to do now is get the plate and I can ride it outside of the neighborhood without worrying about the gendarmerie.   I think, though, that I may be re-wiring the little guy this winter.   I suspect I may not have things quite right yet.

All in all it was a long, but very productive weekend.

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We need a new TV.

So last night I decided to try out the new whiz-bang Linux box running MythTV, connect it to the big screen in the family room to watch a couple of movies.   As it happens, though the PC has DVI and HDMI outputs and optical sound output, it’s just not going to play.   The TV’s available screen resolutions and interlace modes just don’t match up with what the computer tried to shove at it.   Though it was sold as “HD ready” at 1080i (or maybe 1080p, I don’t remember) there are severe limits on what it will do.

So, I finally gave up.   Disappointing, but I know all the new LCD panels will handle whatever mode I can throw at them…   and use the HDMI interface for the sound as well, making it a one-cable proposition.   I like that.   Maybe two, if we use S/PDIF for the sound.   Of course everything needs to go if we make the switch.   The receiver (aside from a dead remote receiver) has no HDMI switching, only component or S-video.   The DVD/VHS combo won’t read CDs, and has been a little finicky with some DVDs as well.   Maybe Santa will drop a nice new Samsung LED flat panel down the chimney this year.

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A little bit of early snow

We got a little surprise yesterday morning.   Fortunately the roads to Hastings were clear, so we were able to get out to Pete’s game without any problems.   Unfortunately, they lost to Morningside.   The Broncos are now 5-2, with their two toughest opponents behind them.

A shot of the back yard
A shot of the back yard
This one shows how deep it was...
This one shows how deep it was...

By the time we got home last night most of the snow was already gone.   We still have some hanging on in the back and side yards where it’s well shaded, but the rest is dry.

Hopefully it will get warm enough today that I’ll be able to get the sprinklers blown out.   Temperatures are supposed to be in the 40s for the next several days, with no freezing lows, but of course you never know for sure.

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Busy day!

Got up early this morning to make it out to the Ak-Sar-Ben Amateur Radio Club’s hamfest.   It was pretty much a bust as far as sales, and to be perfectly honest it was about as small and sparsely attended as any I have seen.   Still, it was nice to see some of the guys, and I did pick up a couple of cheap LED flashlights.

Got home and put a coat of clear polyurethane on the new desk.   I hope it’s the last coat, but I’m not too confident about that.   It’s looking pretty well, the 400 grit sanding between coats of clear satin are doing wonders for the finish.   I’m hoping to get it brought up and put together tonight.

Then I mowed the lawn, front & back, and trimmed some tree branches that were hanging too low to suit me.   Our grand-niece Natalie was over for a while, so I pulled the Vespa out & we went for a little putt around the neighborhood…   her first time on a scooter, I’m sure!   The Vespa ran surprisingly well, and started right up the second time after I fixed a bad fuel line.   I think I’m going to put historical plates on it so it stays registered.

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Weather sucks.

Well, it looks like the weather forecast was off by a day. I had been hoping to get the bike out this afternoon for a little while, but it’s nasty and has been raining off and on since last night. I suppose if I were really dedicated I could gear up and ride in it anyway… but I think I’ll stay in and work on the new desk instead.   I’ve got about one more day before it’s ready, I think, just the clear coating and final assembly left to do. That sucker is huge.   I have emailed the pearl supplier to see if I can use the pearl treatment in brush-on clear, or if I need to spray it.

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“ME”-ligion

Pete sent me a picture message this afternoon; apparently there are some flavor of quasi-religious nutbars on campus there, advertising their views with signs of some sort and, no doubt, flyers and noise.   I couldn’t quite make out the writing on the sign in the picture he sent me, so I asked him what it said.   His response was, “Well, we’re all going to hell, basically”.   Nice.

This is one good example of what I like to call “ME-ligion”.   It’s kind of like religion, but more personal.   In a ME-ligion, your belief system boils down to this: “Everyone in the entire world is going straight to Hell.   Except ME, of course, because obviously God agrees with ME.”   And, one assumes, those who agree totally with and are willing to be completely and unquestioningly subservient to the individual in question.

There are ME-ligions based loosely on Christian beliefs as well as Muslim, Jewish, and some really oddball beliefs.   Wherever you find arrogant, self-aggrandizing megalomaniacs you’ll find a new and more nutty flavor of some religion.   And, hey, once you’ve convinced yourself that only YOU have the answers and that everyone else is going to be smitten by God anyway, it’s not a big leap to realize that it’s OK to shoot them or blow them up.

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The office is coming along

We went to Ikea while we were in Minneapolis for a wedding.   I had heard a lot about Ikea, and most of what we saw was some fairly good quality stuff.   There was some dorm room quality stuff I wasn’t too impressed with, but for the most part it seemed to be an excellent value.

We settled on a Galant desk system for the office.   Unfortunately, one piece of the desk top is too big to ship UPS, so the shipping cost was going to be $300…   and we had driven Lisa’s car instead of the pickup.   Oh well.   I have ordered all the frame and leg pieces, and will be making the desk top myself out of some birch plywood.   The only part giving me any concern is a large radius cut for the top, and how to treat the edges.   I’m leaning toward some hot-glue veneer edge band, mostly because of that radius.

In the mean time, the floor is looking good and my buddy Stu tells me some satin polyurethane will touch up the finish if I need to do any trimming or sanding.   Have not gotten on the air yet, but it’s coming one of these days.   Oh, and the Fusion averaged about 36 MPG for the trip.   38 on the way up with a tail wind, 34 on the way back with a headwind.   It was getting around 36 each way on the east/west legs, with a slight crosswind.

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A new office

It’s nice to get out of the basement!

For the last couple of weeks I have been working on a new home office.   We took the carpet out of one of the empty bedrooms, painted the ceiling (thanks, Rob!) and walls, and I put in a bamboo wood floor.   After putting the trim is back in place, I ran phone, Ethernet and coax cable to a wall jack and moved my work laptop up here.   Now all I need to do is find some suitable furniture, as the computer table I am borrowing is really not the right height.

It’s looking like I may finally get a working ham station too.   There is a good sized window over the back yard, with a good run to two maple trees.   I had plans to run a number of end-fed half wave wires to the trees, but have decided to just run one end-fed wire instead and use a tuner.   I managed to toss a temporary run of around 70′ or so into one of the trees, and the rig’s internal tuner managed to match it OK on several bands.   Haven’t tried any contacts yet, maybe if I get a chance today.

Of course now I have to clean up the basement area where I had been working.   Ugh.

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Spammers suck.

This morning I came downstairs to find over 100 SPAM comments had been posted to my blog overnight.   None of them were ever visible, of course; I don’t allow comments to be seen until I have seen them first, and that is the exact reason why.   So far I have had one real comment (thanks, Lisa!   I love you, too) and several hundred spammers trying to publish links to God only knows what.

Screw ’em.   I have a delete button, and I know how to use it…