Stuff & things

[fbhjr]

As is so often the case whenever a hurricane comes near me, I can’t help but think about my first memories of one, Hurricane Gerda: http://www.fbhjr.livejournal.com/88703.html
When I was 5 a type 2 could lift me off of the ground. Let’s hope we don’t get one that can do it for me 45 years later.

Sunday we didn’t do much. I put an effort into cleaning up the bedroom. That’s mostly trying to get rid of the dust. Especially on the stuffed animals. They are dust magnets.
So are the books, and we’ve got three full bookracks in the bedroom alone. (And, three more in the second bedroom and three more in our office. And, I don’t know how many more books in the closets or storage that aren’t on shelves.)
Anyhow, it was a lot of dust. Whole clouds of it shaken away on our balcony to go visit other lands.
Sadly much has remained in my lungs as well as I’ve been coughing up a storm ever since.

It was a perfect day for it Sunday. Pollen season is over so it was OK to open the windows and use a big fan to pull out all the old dusty air. The weather was dry and warm so I could stand on the balcony and shake things out without me or the items getting soaked.
And, because of the big holiday, we didn’t do sword practice, so I had all day to get it done. (And the laundry and the shopping.)

Starting the new job has gotten me back on caffeine. I had given it up for some time as it upsets my stomach. But, the longer drive in and fairly intense work schedule made me feel like I was dragging. So, a bottle of diet Pepsi once in a while has turned into 2 a day regularly.
Sad. I’m sure I can give it up again if I need to, but it will mean a couple of days of feeling really run down. Not something for a work day, and most of my weekends are pretty busy too.

Today is 7/7/14. Not a square root day, but at least an addition day. (The next Square Root Day will be 4/4/16.)

My wife wants to go to the grand canyon for her 50th birthday this December. I’m trying to work that out with our traditional trip to visit my cousin for her birthday, also in December. So far is isn’t working out well. It is almost easier to come home to Boston in between than do a triangular trip.
But, we’re still months away and there is plenty of time to work it out.

We did miss our traditional trip to Kentucky this weekend. For the past several years we’ve gone out to visit friends there over the holiday weekend. This year with new jobs, car repairs and lots going on we weren’t able to manage it. (One of the very few advantages of the old job was they made the 4th of July a 4 day weekend instead of the more common 3 day weekend. 4 days gives us enough time to do the 1600 mile/2500km round trip. 3 did not.) My wife and I were both sad about that, but that’s the way things happen.

Three years from now is the big solar eclipse that is going to cut across a large portion of the USA. I’ve never managed to see a full eclipse, so I want to be under the path of this one.
The strip of total eclipse will stretch from Oregon to South Carolina. The question is: where will be the best place to see it?
The areas in the south east have lots of roads and access. So, you can move to another area if needed due to the weather.
The problem is it will be late afternoon there and that is often a time of clouds and rain in the summer.

There are some areas out west that are pretty dry and shouldn’t have the problem of clouds and rain. But, they don’t have as many roads and such. So, if you do need to move to another area, that isn’t as easy.

I’ve got 3 years to optimize this. I just need to look at the info for a while.

This weekend at the museum I found some very nice note books. They were kind of pricey, but I still thought they were worth it to use at work.
But, my boss says no.
Not high tech enough.
“Use your iPad,” he told me. “That’s nice and high tech.”
“But, the laptop you tell me I have to bring to the meetings is the size of a Star Destroyer and I can’t fit it and my iPad on the table.”
“Put, the iPad on the laptop as an iPad stand,” he said. “But, don’t use paper. This is a robotics company.”
Pisser.

I can still use the note pads elsewhere. Troupe things come to mind.
But, this does annoy me.
It is something that came up when I worked at the furniture company too. I used to take notes on a Palm V. Eventually the keyboard I used for it broke and I started using a paper note book again.
I was told my commitment to the company had lessened as I clearly didn’t care enough to be high tech.
That time I bought a laser keyboard. It didn’t work well, but everyone thought it was high tech.
Maybe I need to look at the new models of those…