Author Archives: bilborg

About bilborg

I am who I am, there's plenty of data on this site to tell you more. Briefly, I'm a husband, computer geek, avid reader, gardener, and builder of furniture.

Snow? SRSLY?

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First snow of Winter 2011-2012

First snow of Winter 2011-2012

First snow of Winter 2011-2012 – it ain’t much, and it ain’t sticking to anything, but I’m still impressed with the can-do attitude expressed by this weather system. We started off with rain in the middle of the night, and were just shy of an inch of rain today when it flipped over to the snow delivery system about an hour ago. Right now the occasional flake is still falling, and it’s hovering around 35-36°F (~1.5°C)…

I guess it’s a good thing I winterized the watering systems yesterday. We might get our first frost tonight, eh?

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I made a big dent in the paper that’s due next Sunday – the organization and cited documents are all in place, and I’ve begun on the prose. I also want to get a head start on the Java project that’s due next week, but first it’s time to roast some coffee and bake some cookies! Ciao!

 

 

Healthy Choices

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Tim O’Reilly twittled about a talk at a conference, regarding “systemic” change to cities and food choices to enhance health. Really? We can’t afford healthy, long-lived people! What this country needs is sick people, real sick people, people with low cost, short time-to-death diseases and infections. That’ll solve our employment problems and our long-term social welfare funding issues, all in one go. It won’t be as effective as the big rock from the sky with our name on it, but disease has the advantage of not damaging much in the way of physical infrastructure. Fewer people, faster commutes!

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After the busy weekend, I had a long day Monday, too: 14 hours at the office. I could take the rest of the pay period off, and still be over on hours. But there’s too much work to do, I’d just fall further behind if I stayed away. The last couple of evenings have been eaten by schoolwork, catching up on 3 days missed due to work, and one new class starting. I’m learning to program in Java! So far, it’s a lot like C, except syntax heavy and slower.

I did validate a regular polygon area calculation algorithm by using an approximation of the unit circle (a 100-side regular polygon, sides of length 0.0314152965 – it matches to three decimal places. A 1000 side polygon matches to 6 decimal places). That’s fun!

Long Week

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It’s been a very long week. A lot of work and planning went into two big multi-system transitions at the office. One took most of the day on Friday with follow-up work Saturday morning and today. The second was a bigger job, and we had most hands on deck from 5PM to nearly midnight last night. So far, everything seems to have come off as well as can be expected. Everything that didn’t come off according to plan had contingency planning already completed – our checklists were really good. Yeah … meetings are good for that. Sigh, I really didn’t want to say that.

I also got the lawns mowed, and most of the leaves in the front are mulched down into the lawn. Many of the trees in the back yard are still holding their leaves. The oak in the back corner is just now turning color:

The backyard oak tree is coming into fall color.

The backyard oak tree is coming into fall color.

It also turns out that sometime Lexi doesn’t want her picture taken. Unlike our Lucy, who was a camera hog, Lexi seems to often make an effort to not be a good photo subject, and other times tries to beat a slinking retreat:

Lexi retreats from the camera

Lexi retreats from the camera

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Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Staff Sgt. Houston M. Taylor, 25, of Hurst, Texas, died Oct. 13, in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms fire.
  • Spc. Michael D. Elm, 25, of Phoenix, Arizona, died Oct. 14 in Khowst, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. James R. Leep Jr., 44, of Richmond, Virginia, died Oct. 17 in Babil province, Iraq.
  • Staff Sgt. Jorge M. Oliveira, 33, of Newark, New Jersey, died Oct. 19 in Paktika province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Chief Petty Officer Raymond J. Border, 31, of West Lafayette, Ohio, died Oct. 19 while assessing a route in Paktika province, Afghanistan.
  • 1st. Lt. Ashley I. White, 24, of Alliance, Ohio, died Oct.22, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked her unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer B. Domeij, 29, of San Diego, California, died Oct.22, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc.Christopher A. Horns, 20, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, died Oct.22, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Sidewalks, Ringtones, and iOS5

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Thoughtful neighbors fill the sidewalk with trashcans

Thoughtful neighbors fill the sidewalk with trashcans

Time for the last walk of the evening for Lexi. Up the street we go … and a couple of nights a week, we actually go up the street, rather than use the sidewalk, because some neighbors can’t help but block the way. I’ve even spoken to them about it, to no avail. Either they can’t remember that I asked, or they’re malevolent. Grrr. I really *want* to tip that stuff all over their lawn in response, but I’m too bloody nice to do that. They do the same thing, only more sprawled out, with bags of lawn clippings. Sigh.

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So, iOS5.

After a bit of finagling, I got it installed on my iPhone 4 last week. I’ve been poking and plinking around the interface in my not-so-spare time, and finally discovered that you (and I) can assign ringtones as Alert sounds. Huzzah! It’s more than just the ability to do that, but now I can create custom loops and assign them to SMS alerts … which is good. The default Alert loops suck for waking me up in the middle of the night when I am on call. So now I have an Alert sound courtesy of The Who, and a default ringtone from Van Halen’s Eruption. Empirically, it appears that the loop length cutoff for using a ringtone as an alert is 30 seconds.

 

The Duty

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A busy weekend – the second paper for the Social Gerontology class is submitted. We got down to the District yesterday, and saw the new Degas exhibition at the Phillips Collection. A very nice day, and great weather for wandering about. Marcia’s knee wasn’t too happy about that after the fact, more’s the pity. Today, mostly shopping and chores and whatnot.

 

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Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

Capt. Joshua S. Lawrence, 29, of Nashville, Tennessee, died Oct. 8, in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with a rocket propelled grenade.

Capt. Drew E. Russell, 25, of Scotts, Michigan, died Oct. 8, in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with a rocket propelled grenade.

Chief Warrant Officer James B. Wilke, 38, of Ione, California, died Oct.10, in Doha, Qatar.

Staff Sgt. Nathan L. Wyrick, 34, of Enumclaw, Washington, died Oct. 10 in Kandahar province.

Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Michael R. Tatham, 33, of University Place, Washington, was involved in a fatal motorcycle accident, Oct. 12, while on rest and recuperation leave from supporting Operation Enduring Freedom in Bali, Indonesia.

Lance Cpl. Scott D. Harper, 21, of Winston, Georgia, died Oct. 13 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Robert B. Cowdrey, 39, of Atwater, Ohio, died Oct. 13 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, from injuries suffered during combat operations.

Spc. Jeremiah T. Sancho, 23, of Palm Bay, Florida, died Oct. 13 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

School blues…

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So, I took Monday off entirely. Well, almost entirely. A patch of ceiling needed primer, but other than that, I did nothing but read, relax, watch Mythbusters, and take care of the dog. That’s unusual for me – usually I take time off and break myself with chores and whatnot. So, that was different. Then, Monday night, Marcia returned from a four-day Michigan trip, where she had a good time.

However, we have a busy weekend planned, so I needed to knock out all of the school work, leaving precisely nothing to do later in the week. The last two days, I took a half day off each, and got all the reading, (virtual) classroom work, and the paper done. Yep, a five-pager is now done, I think. I just printed what I consider to be the final draft, and backed up the file. I’ll read it again tomorrow, and maybe change a word or three, then turn it in.

The downside of all this is that I’m really not enjoying the class. I’m not a social sciences kind of bloke. But this one or a class very much like it needed doing for the general education requirements, so here I am. Three and a half weeks to go in this course, and I’ll be taking a Java-based programming course in the latter half of this Fall session. That’ll be more interesting to me, I suspect.

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Garden beds turned and dressed for winter.

Garden beds turned and dressed for winter.

Mostly chores and a bit of school work defined this weekend. I turned over the garden this weekend, and mowed the lawns. With a warm-ish week, the lawns both grew quite a bit. Washed the car, cleaned and organized in the house today. Tired and a bit sore, and debating whether to clean out the front beds, or wait for the first frost. I’m leaning towards the latter right now.

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Our condolence to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Pvt. Danny Chen, 19, of New York, died Oct. 3 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan.
  • Lance Cpl. Benjamin W. Schmidt, 24, of San Antonio, Texas, died Oct. 6 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Ricardo Cerros Jr., 24, of Salinas, California, died Oct. 8 in Logar Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire.

RIP Steve

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Steve Jobs was an insanely great dude. He pushed his people and his company to innovate and create in ways that would not have been possible without him. Rest in Peace.

Is Not and Is … Insanely Great

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Some of the folks I know are really disappointed that today’s announcement was only for an iPhone 4S + some new iPods and release dates for those and for iOS 5.

I pointed out that if all the features and guts of the new phone were in a angular new skin (like some of the “leaked” photos showed) with a bit more screen resolution and it were called an iPhone 5, they’d be drooling. There was general acknowledgement of this, yet and still, “it’s just an iPhone 4S, argh!”

There’s no pleasing some people. Of course, it doesn’t please me either, at least not enough to even remotely think I need a refresh. The bloody phone has far more capability today than I ask of it. What I do need is a new case, since the old bumper is disintegrating, and I’ll find one I like someday.

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I want to point out Bitter Ruin, a “new” band out of the UK that pleases me and a great number of other people. They’re another of the leading edge of unsigned, self-promoted, highly talented people that really define the modern music scene for me, along with folks like JoCo, Pomplamoose, and Zoe Keating. The new video for Trust is cool, the song is insanely great, and they’re worthy of your attention and your dollars.

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A mid-week-ish visit from Linda tonight, and pizza for supper (Yay!). So it’s time to get organized and feed the mutt. Ciao!

Day and Duty

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The day was successful, in that everything that needed doing got done. Shopping, coffee roasting, further research for school project, school work, lots of dog walking. Additionally, more of Marcia’s wall-mounted shelving started auto-detaching. So I pulled the balance off and patched the holes. I purchased two more 4′ wide x 6′ tall wire rack units (6 shelves each) to put into that space, and assembled them. Marcia’s already started reorganizing all that fabric onto the new storage.

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I was looking at the flow chart that SF Signal created for the NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books. It turns out that on the SF side, I only missed the top marks by not reading any of the Star Wars fiction (Really in the Top 100? Really?) and, it appears I’ve missed Connie Willis. So there’s an author to add to my reading list. I’ve read 85% or so of the rest of the books on that chart, too. Of course, I only just recently read the Vorkorsigan Saga, and Bob’s been after me to read those for ages.

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The worst of times for sixteen of our friends and family at war. Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Sgt. Tyler N. Holtz, 22, of Dana Point, California, died Sept. 24 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire.
  • Spc. Francisco J. Briseno-Alvarez Jr., 27, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, died Sept. 25 in Laghman province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using an improvised explosive device.
  • Lance Cpl. Franklin N. Watson, 21, of Vonore, Tennessee, died Sept. 24 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Garrett A. Fant, 21, of American Canyon, California, died Sept. 26 in Helmand province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • 1st Lt. Ryan K. Iannelli, 27, of Clarksboro, New Jersey, died Sept. 28 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Lance Cpl. John R. Wimpey Cagle, 19, of Tucker, Georgia, died Sept. 28 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • 1st. Lt. Andres Zermeno, 26, of San Antonio, Texas, died Sep. 25 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with a rocket propelled grenade.
  • 1st Lt. Ivan D. Lechowich, 27, of Valrico, Florida, died Sep 28, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Steven E. Gutowski, 24, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, died Sep 28, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  •  Pfc. David A. Drake, 21, of Lumberton, Texas, died Sep 28, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. Nicholas A. Sprovtsoff, 28, of Davison, Michigan, died Sept. 28 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Sgt. Christopher Diaz, 27, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, died Sept. 28 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Adrian G. Mills, 23, of Newnan, Georgia, died Sept. 29 in Kirkuk, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked by insurgents using indirect fire.
  • Spc. James A. Butz, 21, of Porter, Indiana, died Sept. 28 in Helmand province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using an improvised explosive device.
  • Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Caleb A. Nelson, 26, of Omaha, Nebraska,died after his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device while conducting a combat patrol in Zabul province, Afghanistan on Oct.1.
  • First Sgt. Billy J. Siercks, 32, of Velda Village, Missouri, died Sept. 28 in Landstuhl, Germany, of wounds suffered Sept. 27 in Logar, Afghanistan when insurgents attacked his unit using indirect fire.