Tralfaz

Month: December 2015

  • Last post of 2015

    2015 is in the books. Apart from a pretty lazy day in the office, and trying to keep Garrett from freaking out with the inevitable fireworks, you can stick a fork in 2015, it is DONE.

    Some big changes, we bought a house in the Santa Teresa neighborhood, a modest 1,400 sqft abode for a whopping $695K, and every cent we could get our hands on. For the first time ever, we had a significant amount of work done before the move in. Nothing major or structural, but quite a bit of plumbing was in need of work (and the water supply/sewer lines were an expensive “gotcha”). The appliances were Roper and GE out of the 1970’s, and just nasty, and poof they are gone, replaced with decent drop in replacements (Kitchenaid, LG and Bosch). Finally, we had the popcorn ceiling removed, and all the interior repainted, as it was, um, ugly. It is a nearly 50 year old house, with good bones, and we are happy with it.

    Our hounds, Garrett and Tate, are still with us, although Tate’s seizures have been trying. We have worked him down from his Keppra dosage that really wasn’t doing the job, started him on potassium bromide, and we are hopeful that it will work. (more…)

  • It’s over (holidays at least)

    It’s over (holidays at least)

    I am not sure who said it first: “All good things must come to an end…”, but it is a truism. Alas, the holiday shutdown and followup vacation days are now over.

    Today I go back to the office for the first time in 11 days. In the interim was Christmas, some time with family, reading a few books, finishing the latest edition of The Baffler (if you are a natural born cynic, who bleeds sarcasm, I highly recommend it, although it can be a tough read at times), and beginning to plot the creation of a custom designed weather monitoring station.

    Highlights:

    • Way too much eating. Really outdid myself this year. The new year must bring restraint and some self control.
    • Quality time with the family. I hosted a brunch for all the locals, and it was a good time.
    • Tate is now 30 days seizure free. The fear of a pending seizure during the holidays, possibly necessitating a drastic decision didn’t happen.
    • Speaking of Tate, just about EVERY morning we went for a 2.5 – 3.6 mile walk. Phew, at least I got some exercise.
    • I splurged on an Arduino “kit” to teach myself the essentials I will need to build a better weather station than our dying Oregon Scientific unit. It was refreshing to remember some of my crusty old C programming skills.
    • Set up my blood pressure monitoring for 2016, moving to Excel from Google Docs. That deserves a blob post, but let’s say that the 4 years I used google docs has been a love/hate relationship. It works, but even for trivial things like this long term tracking, it leaves one wanting.

    Lowlights:

    • I have been weaning myself on sleep aids (melatonin, and benadryl) so my sleep patterns have been screwy. A good thing, but it is not a good transition. However, I have no trouble falling asleep (the reason why I started the Benadryl in the first place), but as a light sleeper, I struggle to make it through the night. Sigh.
    • It was a damn cold snap through the last 11 days. I got out for one bike ride, on a day where it was barely 50F, and the wind was brutal. No bueno. Alas, I do not have good cold weather gear, and no money for proper gear. Last Christmas, it was flirting with 70F. I guess I shouldn’t complain, this will help the snowpack, and the drought.
    • It is over. Boo.

    Of course, expect this 2 day workweek to be catching up on email, filing away the 2015 final flourishes, and then getting ready for a raucous 2016.

    Tomorrow, I will summarize my year in posts, and try not to over commit to change for the new year. (one change I need to make: I need to sign the waiver, so I can use the gym at work.)

  • Shopping Cart Douchiness

    Some things just piss me off. One of them is assholes who don’t know how to put their shopping carts in the corral area, and just leave them willy-nilly wherever they want to.

    Lazy fucks.

    I am sure you have seen this behavior before. It crosses class, and state boundaries. From the bargain grocers like Lucky, or Safeway, to the boutique like Trader Joes, or Nob Hill, and even to the swanky, over-priced realm of Whole Foods.

    I see abandoned, or poorly placed carts, awaiting for the poor bagger who has to collect them. I know how hard it is to walk the 20 to 150 feet to drop the cart in one of the clearly marked collection points. You are worried that your frozen foods will melt, or that your lettuce will wilt, so you justify that you really can’t afford to delay your departure long enough to walk your fucking cart to the collection area.

    (more…)

  • Waking up at 3AM is getting old

    Ok, this is getting old. Waking up at 3:00 AM and not going back to sleep. Argh.

    The reason: Tate, one of our Greyhounds, goes out to relieve himself. He has been doing it at 5-ish, but lately that has become 3:00 AM. Alas, since he has a fecophilia vibe, he generally will turn around after defecating and wolf his own feces right down.

    Yuck.

    So, when I hear the swish/swish of the doggie door, I start monitoring him. When I see him pacing, I know it is time to get the sweats on, and be ready to scoop up the tootsie-rolls of poop before he munches them down.

    But then I am awake. Sure, I try to return to sleep, but that is a fruitless endeavor. Then I will go snuggle with Tate on the couch, and try to read. Sometimes I can put a few pages on my Kindle behind me, and I doze off. But, after 6 hours of sleep (9 – 3), it is almost impossible to nod off.

    Sigh. Finally about 4:30, I give in, get up, make a pot of coffee, and start reading the Times.

    Suckage. About 3:00 in the afternoon, I get a bit of tiredness, and fade. If I am lucky, I can take a short cat-nap, but not always.

    Yep, this shit sucks.

  • Project 2 – Variable LED flash timing

    This project builds upon the flashing LED of the first project. If you were motivated, you could change the frequency of the flashing, by adjusting a constant in the program, a “delay” value that was used to turn on and off the power to the LED.

    This circuit instead brings in the concept of analog versus digital circuits, something that is worth explaining.

    In the digital realm, a signal is “on” or “off”. It is “binary” in that there are solely two states, represented by the values “0” and “1”. An awful lot of the modern world can be reduced to such simplicity. (more…)

  • Merry Christmas – 2015

    Merry Christmas – 2015

    It is Christmas day in the Beck/Anderson household. The day started well, I slept until almost 5:00 AM, not bad for me lately, some fresh coffee, and about 6:00, I was lobbied hard for a walk by Tate. Today, Garrett didn’t join us, so Tate got a 3.2 mile walk in. That should tire him out!

    Since the boys aren’t too kind to trees, we don’t do a lot of internal decorating, and we never really got into the habit of really hanging lights when we lived in Arizona. However, we finally have a house, in a neighborhood, and it already has hooks, and an outdoor outlet for lights, so we did some decorating. (more…)

  • First project – Flashing LED

    The Sparkfun Inventors Kit arrived, and I have to admit that it was better than I expected. Packaged in a nice box, it has plenty of goodies, and projects to play with. There are enough parts that I am sure I can go well beyond the scripted projects.

    Last night, I did the (really minor) assembly, but didn’t dive in. However, this morning, I dove right in, and did the first project.

    As one would expect, it was a pretty simple introduction, probably more to ensure that the software was setup and the hardware is functional.

    The goal was to blink an LED at 1 second intervals, and to accomplish this you need to download the Arduino developer’s kit, download the sample source files from Sparkfun, and finally to install the USB->FTDI drivers. Nothing too difficult, but the process is documented well enough that a grade school kid should be able to do it.  (more…)

  • Hobbyist Electronics

    I am sure I disappointed my dad growing up. He tried mightily to get me interested in electronics, even building many Heathkit projects with me. I remember an AM radio, and a few others, but for me it was boring, and as a pre-teen, I just didn’t get into it.

    He had a Heathkit oscilloscope, and had built our hi-fi system from Heathkits, among many others. We had a B&W TV that often needed new tubes, and I recall taking tubes to the tester at the local K-Mart back before it became white trash shopping. But the bug never bit.

    (more…)

  • Showing its age – or is it

    My main computer since 2013, has been a rocking MacBook Air. It is the first generation of the system based on the Haswell chipset, and it has been awesome. It came with Mountain Lion (10.8), and has been upgraded thrice now, recently to El Capitan.

    When I got it, one of the huge benefits was the battery life. The data sheet said 12 hours, and it easily beat that. I often went several days between charging the battery. I think my record was 14 actual operating hours, and I still had ~ 10% of battery left.

    Of course, as time has gone on, I use it more and more, but until the upgrade to El Capitan, it was still rocking the great battery life.

    I held off on the El Capitan upgrade as long as I could, but in a moment of weakness, I hit "ok" when prompted.

    Unlike many of my friends, my upgrade went smooth and frankly, it was the easiest upgrade, and for Apple, that is saying something. Two entries of passwords (I have different iCloud and Apple Store accounts, a long story, don't ask).

    The changes were fine, no issues, and since I don't use Apple mail, there wasn't any re-index.

    However, there is a downside. The battery life seems to be about 1/2 what it used to be. Of course, the laptop is 2.5 years old, so the battery might be wearing out. But I doubt it is that drastic. El Capitan really appears to be a battery hog.

  • Project Time – Step 1 The Raspberry Pi

    A few years ago, I got a wild hair up my hind-side, and bought a Raspberry Pi to mess with. A small, fully functional computer, running a Linux variant, built around an ARM SoC, it was a pretty nifty bit of kit.

    I connected it to my monitor, wired up a keyboard and mouse, added a wifi USB dongle, and had some fun. Did a lot of learning to program Python on it.

    But then the move happened, it got chucked into a box, and ignored. With the move done, the house bought, and the project bug biting me again, I have resurrected it.

    The first challenge was to actually FIND it. Alas, it was hiding in my monster box of cables and other items. Still connected to the powered USB hub that I had for it.

    (more…)