(Well, re-reading really) My memory is foggy, but I think this is the book that someone tossed at me in my sophomore year of high school. Written by Robert Heinlein, and originally published in 1961, it is one of the “must reads” in the SciFi genre. The premise is fairly simple. A manned expedition to Mars meets with tragedy, and the only survivor was an infant born shortly on their...
Our family is complete with two furkids. We have adopted retired racing greyhounds, and made them completely spoiled. Greyhounds are some of the sweetest, laziest, dogs you will ever know. Both of ours are couch potatoes, and are often ridiculed for being the slowest walkers. We don’t mind. However, there are some downsides to the Greyhounds. Their upbringing and time on the track is...
I posted this AM about our neighbors’ new nasty habit of having loud parties on Tuesday nights. This is most annoying for a variety of reasons, but the main negative is that I get to lose three hours of sleep.
This leads to a domino effect of me being logy and off my game all day. I hate this. Tonight, I will fall asleep early, and hopefully will not be disturbed.
I am fully acclimatized to the Phoenix (and Arizona in general) weather. Yesterday, I thought nothing about pulling on shorts and going for a 4 mile run at lunch time (95F when I left). Additionally, yesterday, it was 100F at the high. The lowest temperature this June (from my memory), and it felt very comfortable. Of course today it will be 108, tomorrow 113, and Friday 117 or more. Yes, I am...
(Warning: I am going to use some harsh language below) We live in a nice subdivision in Chandler, in SE Phoenix. It is a clean, well kept, and in general a very friendly neighborhood. But there always seems to be someone who has to stand out as a twat-waffle. Our neighbors to the north are one such “family”*. They have a Son who just graduated high school, and he was a baseball player...
As I have posted before, I have been grooving on watching TV series from my youth. (well, ok, not really my youth) I have come to a realization. Regardless of what show it is, it seems that in the 5th or 6th season, the shark is invariably jumped. X-Files, in the 5th season, they kill off all the conspirators, and in the 6th season it gets mega campy. Sigh, because I still groove on Gillian...
One of the hazards of dieting, and the process of losing weight is the inevitable plateaus that you will encounter. They are frustrating as hell. You know that you are not going overboard on the calories, and you are doing your exercise, but the needle doesn’t budge. I had been stalled at 214#’s for almost 2 weeks. It was frustrating, particularly because I picked up the intensity of...
A while back, I had a quick review of my first impressions of Android (recap: I had bought a Nexus 7 primarily to test a website I maintain for that form factor). Being a long fan of Apple and iOS, I was cautious in my review. At the end of that review, I committed to putting my iPad down, and living with the Nexus-7 day to day to give it a fair shake. Here are some interim observations: The...
Yesterday, on a lark, we visited the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM). I wasn’t sure what I expected. Perhaps exhibits of seminal instruments, and artist histories (they do have that), but I was blown away. First, it is in a gorgeous building, with fabulous architecture, and a well thought out plan. We started on the second floor, in the Africa region, and was completely fascinated. There...
One of the problems with how well integrated and how smooth moving from an old, tired Mac to a new machine is that a lot of old cruft gets carried along. For the most part, since you typically upgrade to a faster, with more memory system, it isn’t a big deal to carry a lot of baggage. Additionally, it is really easy to migrate and bring all your old programs, data and other items to the new...