Category Archives: misc

misc, Molly, pvr, software

Sunday Meanderings for the Terminally Insane

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It must be Sunday – it seems that every Sunday the blogger interface drops the top menu bar and reverts to a font calculated to make me blinder than I already am. But I am fooling the gremlins of software! I can type blind just as badly as the next person.

Today was one of those days that the thermometer says one thing, but the body says another. The thermometer said 40, but the wind chill said 10. Needless to say, walking into the breeze during the stroll Molly, L, and I took in the park early in the afternoon was a biting experience. According to the friendly (but seldom correct) weather people, the next week is supposed to be cool to cold out here on the plains. In a rarity, it is supposed to be cooler out here that in the foothills and Denver. Sometimes we get all the luck. Still no snow or other moisture out here either.

After our walk, I played car repairman on L’s vehicle. Her windshield washer had stopped spraying. Given that she is up in the mountains with all the snow up there, it is important that the washer work. Colorado uses magnesium chloride in place of salt as a deicer on the roads, which is ecologically friendly, but leaves a slush that is about like light crude oil in color and viscosity. Thus, whenever a truck runs by, you need to have working washers or be prepared to drive blind. Back to the topic at hand, taking the molding plastic off and un-kinking the hose fixed it all. Evidently it got kinked when they removed and replaced it to put in the new windshield this summer and it had finally closed off under the heat-cold cycle of winter. Routed it through the groves in the molding as designed and all should now work fine. I will undoubtedly hear about it if it doesn’t.

Other than that, I have been battling a sinus headache all day. That alone makes me think that the aforementioned weather people might have it right. Big changes in air pressure and I can almost guarantee my sinuses are going to hurt. There must be somewhere where the air pressure is constant year round.

(I must have gotten to them with all my typos – the blogger interface just popped back to normal and the font is big enough for me to actually see. Just goes to show that even software programs can only take so much!)

I got a chance to test some of my home-brew software in the thrown together PVR today. You remember it was my current obsession as discussed here . So I used it to record the play-off games today with my automatic ad removal engine in running in real time. It only crashed and burned a couple of times, so it is getting closer to being usable. Still needs a lot of code cleaning and optimizing since it can pull a machine with dual 3GHz processors right down to it’s knees, utilizing both CPU cores to 100% for periods. (Are you bored enough with this techno babble yet?) Here’s a picture of the system in operation as I compose this post with the game playback marked in red.

L got headed off back to the mountains earlier in the evening, so Molly is lying in her bed moping. Molly will mope for about 16 hours, then return to her normal bouncy self. The only hope of early recovery is the sighting of a squirrel in the yard. It’s amazing how dogs are observant enough to sense when one they love is getting ready to leave. Within an hour or so of L’s planned departure, Molly starts laying on the floor at L’s feet and watching L with sadness in her eyes. Then she gravitates to the garage door and watches as the people go back and forth. Then, when L leaves, she immediately heads to her bed and lays there, looking like the world has come to an end. So I leave you with this picture of Molly moping in her laundry room bed.

calls, climate, mayor, misc, weather

Disordered Thoughts

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I’ve been thinking of adopting a theme for certain days in the posts here. I figure that might serve to keep me a bit more organized and to give you the readers a chance to build expectations for what you will be reading. The problem is what to choose for the themes. It is a safe bet that I’m not going to be following a theme like HNT (Half Nekkid Thursday) or TMI (Too Much Information Tuesday) . First off, because I’m shy, and more importantly, because I don’t want my readers to run screaming from their computer screens clawing their eyes out. I’ll probably make Wednesday be Writer’s Wednesday since that would be a good time to put up the response to Mama Kat ‘s Writer’s Challenges. (Did I get enough s’s in there?) And I kind of like the idea of Stupid Saturday to recount the stupidest thing seen or read during the week. So what do you think?

Today was one of those days. You know the type, when the phone rings often but the calls are a wrong number or have no real purpose in being. And of course, no day is complete with the requisite call to complain about something. Most people who call the mayor to complain are just misinformed. Sometimes it is because they actually believe what was written in the local newspaper (which is often retracted/revised in the coming days) or because the coffee shop gossip circuit has got it wrong. Most times when you get to the root of the problem and explain what is really going on, they do an Emily Latella imitation and say “Never mind.” The problem is that every so often, the caller has a real problem or a legitimate beef. So you listen through the Emily Latella ‘s of the world so that you can get and respond to the useful calls.

This evening when I called L and the son at the mountain abode, I got the answering machine. So I figured they must have fallen asleep in their chairs/couches. Sure enough, a bit later L calls to say she was sleeping in the chair and the son was asleep on the couch when I called. L has been under the weather for the last day or so, so I was calling to see if she was feeling better. She was, she’s still tired but getting better. The son on the other hand has been burning the candle at both ends, getting in at 2am just to go back to work at 7am. So of course this evening when he got in early, he took L to send off some business papers, grabbed some food, and then fell asleep on the couch. I remember being able to sleep on any couch, no matter how short. I am old enough now that sleeping on a couch means waking up in pain and walking like a hunchback for several hours.  Oh to be young again!

It interesting just how different the weather in the mountains and here can be. Although here and there is only 300 miles or so apart and are at roughly the same latitude, they are at different altitudes. Here is at ~3900 feet, the mountain abode is at ~9200 feet. So today it is in the 40’s and a little windy here, but n the mountains the wind is howling and it is snowing like mad. There they have something like a 7 foot layer of snow base already, but here there is no snow on the ground at all. The thing missing here is moisture in any form. I hope it rains or snows soon or the winter wheat won’t be growing come spring and the dryland farmers will have a rough year. The climate out here on the plains is semi-arid bordering on arid, which is the technical term for “damn near desert.” We average less than 12 inches of precipitation a year. The last couple of years have been closer to 6 inches. I always kind of picture that the Australian outback might have a very similar feel.

Well, I have to get some other things done yet tonight and have to be up early to mosey down to the radio station for the show in the morning. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.

misc

Miscellaneous Sunday

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Only 11 more hours until I am crowned – and no I don’t mean becoming a member of royalty.

Talked to L today and she went ice skating. I’m betting she’ll be stiff tomorrow since she hasn’t been ice skating in years. It was a Girl Scout event. She went since she is on the state board of the Girl Scouts. She got to talking to some of the girls and mothers and they just kept skating around the lake again and again and … until they went in to warm up. When she went back out to skate some more she realized how tired her legs were. So when I talked to her this evening they were already beginning to stiffen up. Something tells me that tomorrow morning will be interesting.

Molly and I went walking today before it turned cold this evening. Not another soul in sight as we walked. The temperature was just low enough to scare people off from the outdoors (or else they were all busy watching the playoffs). In any case it never did turn all that sunny. That is the one thing I miss most in the winter. This area gets 330 or more days of sunshine each year. Probably 25 of the 35 overcast days come in the latter part of December, January, and early February. So not only is it cold at times, it can be gloomy.

I find it interesting that so many of the blogs I read bemoan the dearth of topics to write about at this time of year. I find that I have literally hundreds of topics to write about, with more arriving via alien rays into my tiny little head every day. The problem is finding time to do justice to the topic of the day. I have fallen into the bad habit of writing this blog shortly before heading off to bed. That means that if I have procrastinated long enough, there is not enough time to do anything other than blither and blather for a bit and then head off to bed. So that means either I need to get more on the ball (and maybe even write a few entries in advance), or reach acceptance of the random nature of my posting. I’ll try to let you know once I come to some resolution of the problem.

As a help to those bloggers short of topics at this time of year, let me leave you with this thought:
    The trouble with reality is that there is no background music to clue you in on what is about to happen.

Seems like one could get several posts out of that thought alone, including tracing the evolution of movie soundtracks from the silence of early talkies to the complex musical foreshadowing of today. Have at it.

football, misc

Monday, Monday, ….

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Today seemed like a Monday all day long. Which is pretty much normal since it was indeed Monday last time I checked. I could be wrong, but I really don’t think so.

Today was one of those funky days where it was unseasonably warm, but the continuous breeze still made it feel cool. But at least it *was* warm (and sunny at times). While we were walking in the park, Molly was very disappointed that she didn’t spot a single squirrel to bark at or try to sneak up on. I figure they were all up in the top branches of the bare trees sunbathing. Either that or they all mysteriously disappeared overnight.

As we walked around the park, there were a number of other dogs and their people out walking as well. (Note that I have told it as it really is for dogs and their followers.) Some dogs were taking their owners for a run, some were just ambling around hoping to meet other dogs, and one was jogging her off-for-the-break college student mistress in circles. That was the best pair to watch because they would jog for a bit and then one or the other would spot something interesting and stop dead in their tracks. That of course yanked the partner on the other end of the leash around in short order. Then the jog would begin again. I suspect that both the dog and mistress are going to be sore tomorrow.

It seemed to be a day when everyone was out to get some sun before winter gets serious again. Contrast that with the other day when it was cold and dark and dreary and the the wind was blowing all day. The only other people L, Molly, and I saw during our walk that day were the kids that moms drove up to the playground and shoved out of the car. The moms then remained inside on their cell phones. It was funny since there were at least three cars with a chattering mom in each and a dozen kids out playing. The ironic thing is that as small as this town is and as many parks as we have, none of them live more than 10 blocks from a park. Why not walk to the park with the kids and kill several birds with one stone. You could even talk on the cell phone if that was your desire. Sometimes I just scratch my head over the behavior I see every day.

This period of the year is nirvana to college football fanatics like myself. One or more bowl games every day for a week a time. I don’t know that it gets any better than this. Contrast that with the ugly performances by the pro football players on Sunday and you can understand why I like the college game better. College football is one part skill and nine parts emotion. It all depends on which team gets emotionally up for the game who will win. And it also means that one emotional play can turn the whole game around.

L heads back to the mountains in the morning and I’m already missing her before she has gone. It is amazing how much you come to miss being able to just walk down the hall and share a thought after 33+ years of marriage. Somehow phones and emails just aren’t the same. I have a college buddy who is a traveling salesman. I don’t think he has spent more than a week at a time at home for years. In fact, I’m not sure he has spent more than a month without being out of the country in that time period. I don’t know how he and his spouse do it. Now that their daughter is in graduate school, I suspect they will travel together on at least some of his trips.

Well, time to get back to reality. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. (I know that doesn’t leave out much, but like I keep telling the reporter for the local paper – if you find me nude in front of the bar at 2am, I’ve probably decided that I am done being mayor.)

misc

Miscellany

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  • Got my dentist appointment scheduled.
  • Spend an hour talking to an irate senior citizen about forthcoming rate increases for the mandated project mentioned here. Not the first and certainly not the last.
  • The weather is turning cooler. Might even get snow and a hard freeze by Wednesday.
  • The Broncos play tonight. Go Broncos.
  • Mom’s birthday is today. Happy Birthday Mom!