The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey June 20, 2014

What a week!

To give you just a sense of what it's been like, here's the email I sent to my group at $FIRM early on Thursday morning: Subject: Not going to be in office todayMultiple appliance fails.Hot water heater wasn't making hot water, assumed pilot light fail.No, no, a partial containment fail instead, with leaking to carpets,yay! But most of the water went to the sump, and left the building appropriately. Cleaned up some water until time to feed and walk thedog.Heading out to do that, the garage door opener played up, badly.Repeat of winter problems that we tolerated until they went…

Brian Bilbrey June 16, 2014

Lay-Flat toaster

I just picked up a lay-flat USB3 SATA docking station from Plugable Tech. Works like a champ in my cabinet configuration. See ... This let me move my in-system SATA front-load slot over to the other system for whole-disk backups of the Windows system, and to play with other OS loads in a less impactful way. I like it a lot, and it works just fine.

Brian Bilbrey June 15, 2014

Painting the Town Red

Not exactly "the town", eh? In my case, it was the shutters on the second story front of the house that I painted red. And by "red", I mean Classic Burgundy, a Benjamin Moore color. Six windows, twelve shutters, 6 hours total time on Saturday spent alternately crouching on, and stretching up from the porch roof. Didn't fall, #FTW! Today: shopping, started the laundry, cleaning, mowing. We went out for an early supper at Mi Hacienda. * * * Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:  

Brian Bilbrey June 8, 2014

Lexi Being Cute

Instead of running off when I approached her in the back yard, Lexi decided to deploy her Massive Cute Attack. It works, too ... For me, this was just another a warm, chore-filled weekend. When does Winter start? * * * Our condolences to the family and friends of these fallen warriors: Capt. Jason B. Jones, 29, of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, who died on June 2, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, of wounds received from small-arms. Pfc. Matthew H. Walker, 20, of Hillsboro, Missouri, who died on June 5, in Paktika province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked by enemy…

Brian Bilbrey June 1, 2014

Five Down, Seven To Go

Months, that is. The year, it flies by too quickly. We're approaching the heat and humidity of the year, sadly. The upside of the unpleasant months is fresh veggies out of the garden. Soon, soon: Things are going well ... I cleaned house yesterday. No, really. With a car wash mitt and a few buckets of soapy water, I cleaned everything I could reach on the front of the house. Doing it that way was a pain in the ass, and frankly exhausting, but the method did a much more consistent job of cleaning than using a pressure washer to…