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August 07 to August 13, 2000

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This is about computers, Linux, camping, games, fishing, software development, books and testing... the world around us. I have a weird viewpoint from a warped perspective. If you like that, cool.
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Humidity...




MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
August 07, 2000 -    Updates at 09:30 EDT;    16:30 EDT

Hi There! Yesterday's humidity was 97%% I believe that we'll be suffering something like the bends when we return to California later this week, as the additional moisture leaves our bodies.

I don't know what happened back there in Sunnyvale, but the system did stay up longer than the 5 minutes I predicted. ::sigh:: Sorry. Now I must run, we have another busy day ahead today, and I have to fire off a couple of emails to put a mailing list or two on hold, because the mailserver is dead, too. Don't use these mailto links - I can be (probably) reached at [email protected]. Thanks for the tolerance. Later.

16:30 EDT - Hey. Went a number of places today. First was a store that only sells Delft and wooden shoes. I guess there really *is* a strong dutch heritage here, what? Some serious shopping was accomplished. Then we popped over to an antiques mall, where no effective shopping at all was done. A visit to BK and off to the beach at Holland, MI. Nice little walk, a few pictures, watching the boats head out the channel, get out into the chop, tough it out for about 5 minutes, then turn about and come in, green-gilled children hanging out of the scuppers.

After that, Saugatuck was our final afternoon stop. Very like Carmel, CA in style and feel. More walking and shopping. Now we're resting up for supper at the Beltline bar and grill, the wet burritos that Marcia likes so well. Speaking of which, it's about time to depart. Later.


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August 08, 2000 -    Updates at 10:00 EDT

Good Morning. Slept really quite well last night, finally. Today is Marcia's professional shopper's day - she's headed off to Indiana (yes, another state), to a place called Shipsy (?). She was up at 05:30, and out at 06:15, probably not to return until early evening. Now that's dedication to the craft.

In the interim, I am going to work on the book, and relax a little, with no other responsibilities than those listed. Have a good day yourselves. TTFN.


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August 09, 2000 -    Updates at 09:00 EDT

Howdy. Another grand day of sightseeing around humid, cloudy Grand Rapids, home to the Gerald Ford Museum (dented helicopter doors and all), a place where they fully *close* the main freeway through town for the better part of a year, and the signs leading up to the closure say "Seek alternate route", for which the subtext should read "DIE IN TRAFFIC". Today we tour the Meijer Gardens, lunch at Marcia's favorite Chinese food, and visit the school where Marcia's sister Karen teaches.

Got a fair bit done on Troubleshooting yesterday, though much of the work was more like triage than writing. "Yep, this stay in." and "Nope, no one cares about running a Hercules Monochrome card with a Wyse Paperwhite display." The biggest pain was writing with only one computer and a dialup connection. Writing in windows, testing in Linux, building up and tearing down connections, all takes far more time than writing at home, surrounded by electronics and a broadband connection.

Now for a bit of breakfast, then once more into the breach, dear friends, once more into the breach. Tonight we pack, tomorrow, we bail. TTFN.


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August 10, 2000 -    Updates at 07:30 EDT;    21:33 LCT (Left Coast Time)

Good morning. We had a nice time yesterday, as we have all week. We visited Karen's school, Moline. They put up a new wing, and have done a fair bit of refurbishing in the older portions of the school. Everyone should be out of the rolling classrooms this year. An early lunch at Hong Kong Inn was the next item on our agenda. Two steaks, sweet and sour chicken, almond chicken, and a shrimp/scallop dish later, we were on the road.

For the afternoon, we visited Meijer Gardens. The highlight was Michelangelo's Leonardo da Vinci's Horse - a 24' high casting of the horse that the artist designed for Duke Sforza (?) of Milan. There are other sculptures scattered throughout the gardens, and some gorgeous flowers. We should have lots of pictures up for your pleasure once we're home and I can reset the DSL modem.

Thanks for your patience through this week. I am terribly annoyed at the link failing after we left - Dan tells me that he and Matt have a couple ideas for me...

Today is another travel day, without nearly all the up and down and delays of the outbound trip. Now to jump in the shower, finish up packing, and get ready to hop a plane. Later.

21:33 - Home safe and sound. Power cycle the DSL modem brought back all the connectivity, and shortly thereafter, about 120 emails, as various servers started finding us and dumping their loads. Our flight arrived early at SFO (I know, amazing, isn't it). The only other problem from the connectivity hiatus was that Apache needed to get restarted to recognize all of the virtual hosts (like Marcia's site, etc) that I have set up here. Tired, but it sure is good to be home. An hour, no more at work tomorrow, and some Marcia time, settling back in, and perhaps some book time, who knows. Lots more update tomorrow. G'night.


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August 11, 2000 -    Updates at 11:30 LCT,    17:25

Good Morning! Up at 5:45, at work by 7, back out in traffic at 9-1/2, and home at 10. Sounds like nap time to me, but instead I pruned plants, harvested a batch of beans, sprayed for aphids, and swept up the porch. I've mostly caught up on email, a few hundred messages between here and work. Now to go check out the X10 thing that Dan is recommending to us. More later, including a picture page with lots and lots of photos. Not now, however. Later.

zzz Yep, a few pictures and a very brief travelogue are now available on the Grand Rapids Field Trip Report. Additionally, we got caught up on the food shopping, took care of an appointment and moving our medical charts (our Doctor shifted from one practice to another), and a variety of other errandy type of things. I have a headache, and shan't do much more today - I think that re-acclimating to the marvelous dry weather and our unique microclimates and pollens after the short exposure to the versions in Michigan are really getting to me.

Oh, hey... David? David Y... somebody dropped me an email today about X10 stuff, and I must have put it in the bit bucket rather than the keeper pile - it's gone. Please feel free to write again and tell me how like a village idiot I am (no, not you, Tom - you call me that on every Tuesday, Friday's are out of bounds). Anyway, take care, thanks for dropping by and I'll see you tomorrow.


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August 12, 2000 -    Updates at 08:15 LCT

G'day. Today's a book day, and I'd better get down to brass tacks, there's lots and lots to be done, and a day job to attempt in the spaces between. However, I have a book report or two. During our trip to Ashland, I picked up a couple of paperbacks. Read one on that trip, reserved the second, Greg Bear's Legacy for the outbound trip. Good read with a gripping story and excellent characterizations, a prequel to his 1985 Eon. So during one of our shopping expeditions in Michigan, I snagged a copy of Eon, as well as the last of the new Foundation Trilogy, Foundation's Triumph, from David Brin, and knocked both of those off on the trip back from Grand Rapids.

I quite enjoyed Eon, though it was so clearly a morality play, written in the depths of Reagan's Star Wars period, which rather scared people. Bear's consistency, characterizations and yarn-spinning skills are excellent. He's one of my "oooh, I haven't read that one yet, let me buy it" authors, along with David Brin. Foundation's Triumph caps the second trilogy, trailing Foundation's Fear and Foundation and Chaos. Not quite as happy with this book, though I am glad I read it. All the original Foundation books (either the direct 5 or 6, along with the others that comprise that universe) had their minor inconsistencies, just as any series of books written over decades will. Thinking changes, science changes, and the Good Doctor was one of the best at weaving new facts and features into an old, continuing tapestry. While Benford, Bear and Brin each did a marvelous job of extending the richness of detail in our knowledge of the life and times of Hari Seldon, I kept on being distracted by the writing style differences. That's too bad, because these are excellent stories. I have run into this as well with the Man-Kzin extended universe stories - I am perhaps too used to Asimov's style (and Niven's) to be fooled - the later works don't seem to have the ring of truth, for me (thanks, Philip).

Now I really should get organized, and get to work. Have a lovely day, I'll probably check in again later.


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August 13, 2000 -    Updates at 10:00

Hello. Later became today. Mostly polished off Troubleshooting last night. Time for a read through for wording, moving commas about and so on, then write the Chapter summary and off to Tom with it. Then the balance of the day will be taken up with re-shooting pictures (aka screen captures) of the early chapters, now that we know what IDG production wants.

While this is being written, I am sitting on hold with UUNet. There is a hunk of network constipation at one of the edge boxes run by AlterNet (which is UUNet). I know this because I "can't" get to syroidmanor. Well, I can, but when I have a 10M file to transfer to Hydras, at current speeds I could start the transfer, then head out for breakfast, lunch and dinner, hoping it would be done by the time I returned. Not acceptable. So, while I might assume that the UUNet techs know about this problem, I thought I might be polite and let them know what I see, since they probably run skeleton on weekends, and their last network report (about 3 hours ago) said all-clear. Hmmm. What? Oh, it's Serial-10-1-1.BR1.DCA1.ALTER.NET (137.39.23.141) that appears to be stumbling so - located by running traceroute syroidmanor.com.

Update, Marcia's Grand Rapids trip page is now up - check it out, as she's ever so much better at this sort of thing than I am... Almost all of the pictures taken are up here. Now to get to work. Have a wonderful day. TTFN.


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