The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey April 27, 2013

Half-week Off

I turned 10base52 (not 1, sigh) this week, on Wednesday. So I took that day, and the next two, off work so that I could spend some quality time in the woodshop. I finished building all of the cabinet doors and inter-shelving, installed the cabinet backs, and tested all the hardware: Then I pulled, bagged, and labeled all the hardware, and started applying finish to the small pieces: Today, those get a top-coat of polyurethane and a bit of distressing. And I'll start applying finish to the cabinet carcasses. At least that's the plan. But the yard needs some attention,…

Brian Bilbrey April 21, 2013

Spring games

Friday night surrounded by wind and rain, we played Scrabble. Turns out that there is a body part you can use to not just win, but dominate in this game: Fertilized and rained on, the lawns demand an aggressive mowing schedule. The good news is that following Friday's storms, the temps were down significantly, making the yardwork a lot less sweaty. I also made progress on the cabinet building in the woodshop, fabricating the perforated screen door for the computer cabinet. All of the components for the lower cabinet are now done. I need to build a couple of intermediate…

Brian Bilbrey April 16, 2013

Schneier on Boston

Bruce Schneier says exactly the right thing about the explosions in Boston: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On in that article in The Atlantic. Remind your representatives in government of this sentiment.

Brian Bilbrey April 14, 2013

Spring is exhausting...

Last weekend, spring cleaning. This weekend, yardwork, all weekend long. The front is all pruned up, and first mowing of the year done. Looks pretty good (but the front fence needs a full redo). Today, I spent as much energy as I had (several hours worth) weeding out and tilling the garden beds in preparation for spring planting. In the evenings this week, I'll get the rest of the back yard cleaned up, too. At least then I'll have a starting point for the rest of the spring work. Upcoming: This is going to be an expensive week, since a…

Brian Bilbrey April 8, 2013

Eeek! It's Monday!

The weekend was given over to spring cleaning, and moving bits of furniture about. I was in another world last night - a world of pain. So sorry to have given the mostly-regular Sunday post a miss. * * * Top Tech Tip - You should have on-premise Tier 1 timekeepers - NTP out in the world is a scary place (search on "ntp vulnerabilites" for more information). Used to be, you could either cobble something that worked out of an old bit of Garmin gear, or spent 2-3K$ on a "proper" rack-mounted GPS unit. It's not good to have…