Tweets for 11 Jan 2008

E-Mail Musings

My Twittering For the Past 24 Hours

  • Updating maps on my Garmin GPS. Then I’ll work on swatting some coding bugs. (11-Jan-08 08:39 am)

  • Garmin’s tech support is rather screwed up! Their maps aren’t very accurate, either. They’re a good example of how NOT to do business. (11-Jan-08 09:43 am)

  • Finished weekly status conference call. Glad to be at home where I can do something else while paying partial attention to the call. (11-Jan-08 02:28 pm)

  • Running a couple of errands … Including venti hot chocolate! (11-Jan-08 04:07 pm)

  • Working on pictures for my blog and enjoying chocolate chip cookies with hot chocolate. Yum! (11-Jan-08 08:04 pm)

  • Finished a family blog post about our trip to Missouri this past week, put up pictures from the trip, and am now ready to end the day! (11-Jan-08 10:31 pm)

Home From Missouri (With Pictures In the Picture Album)

Computer Stuff, General

We arrived home about six p.m. on Wednesday, January 8th, 2008. We had a very good trip and I really enjoyed the time we spent with James, LeeAnn, their family, and LeeAnn’s parents. It was a full house! LeeAnn’s parents were put up in Shaundra’s bedroom. Nina and I were put up in James and LeeAnn’s bedroom. James, LeeAnn, and all the kids bedded down in the boys bedroom (I’m not sure how that worked … I’m also sure that James and LeeAnn were right ready to get back into their own bedroom!!). Somehow we all managed to get through the four nights with no major catastrophes. That in itself is goodness!

The primary purpose for being there was Shaundra’s baptism … which I’ve already written about on the blog. That was quite successful, although the water for the baptism was ice code. Shaundra walked in, was thoroughly dunked, and walked out without complaint. She’s was determined to be baptised! Fortunately, James did the ordinance very well and Shaundra only had to be immersed once.

The weather turned quite warm while we were there with temperatures approaching 70 degrees on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. When a cold front combined with unstable moist air from the Gulf of Mexico moved through on Monday evening and night, we got a very good dose of what it’s like to live in tornado country. I wouldn’t want to live there anyway, but if it happened, I’d definitely want a house with a basement … and with bedding and beds or cots down there because nights get very long when the severe weather sirens are going all night long. We left on Tuesday morning and James and family got to do it all again on Tuesday night.

We drove the fastest route possible out and back. That would be going east from Pocatello through Kemmerer, Wyoming to Green River, Wyoming, then I-80 east to Lincoln, Nebraska, cut across to I-29 just east of Lincoln in Iowa, then south to Kansas City, Route 71, then Route 7, and finally Route 13 to Springfield. It’s a full twenty-hour drive given good roads. Going out the roads (other than in western Wyoming) were dry and problem free. Coming back we had very messy roads through Kansas City up to the Iowa border. Nebraska’s roads were very good, but the drive from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Laramie (where we spent Tuesday night) took us through very high winds and severe drifting snow. On Wednesday we had several places on I-80 where high winds and drifting snow made travel difficult. West of Green River and on US-30 through Kemmerer to Montpelier, Idaho was extremely slick and dangerous. We were very happy that we had gotten as far as Laramie on Tuesday!

The drive on Wednesday was also pleasantly interrupted in Green River for about an hour when we stopped at my favorite brother’s place. Then we stopped later in Soda Springs to spend about an hour and a half with dad and mother. Dad has been working (somewhat unsuccessfully) on fixing an air compressor and had tipped it over to work on it. He couldn’t get it back upright, so Nina and I helped him do that. I also did a couple more things to their new computer to finish that installation. Then we drove the rest of the way to Pocatello, picked Bradica (the dog) up from the kennel, and finally arrived back home after a lot of driving and a lot of fun. I think we’ll be here in Pocatello for the next couple of months!

I’ve been working on the picture album software and have the new version working pretty well. I used that version to put up a set of pictures from the trip to Missouri, so visit the picture album to see these pictures. That’ll also show some of the work that I’ve been doing. The two big changes are the addition of a picture gallery for pictures that don’t really fit into a picture album sequence, and to add tagging to pictures. The main menu shows the pictures albums on the left, a link to the gallery on the top right, and a list of all the tags on the right. I’ve got about half of my pictures tagged and will get the rest tagged in the next few days (I hope). In putting up these pictures from Shaundra’s baptism I did notice a couple of issues with the new version that I’ll need to fix before making up some instructional video and making the new version available to the other folks that are using the software.

Tweets for 10 Jan 2008

E-Mail Musings

My Twittering For the Past 24 Hours

  • Going to run the snowblower and clean out the snow that came while we were gone to Missouri. Probaby a couple of packages under the snow … (10-Jan-08 07:42 am)

  • Driveway and sidewalks done. Forecast is for NO SNOW for the rest of the day. I’m pleased. (10-Jan-08 09:05 am)

  • Breakfast done. Caught up on computer stuff. Now to do a little programming. (10-Jan-08 09:30 am)

  • Programming … working on tags for the picture albums on my server. (10-Jan-08 02:57 pm)

  • On a conference call waiting for the other parties to join…. Some are ten minutes late! (10-Jan-08 03:38 pm)

  • Solved a programming problem. Took all afternoon to figure out why two arrays weren’t comparing to each other correctly. Whitespace….! (10-Jan-08 05:47 pm)

  • I think the programming is done. Initial testing looks OK. Now well see how the beta test goes… Good night! (10-Jan-08 10:39 pm)

Tweets for 08 Jan 2008

E-Mail Musings

My Twittering For the Past 24 Hours

  • Been on the road for 45 minutes. spent sig time last night sheltering from tornadoes. (08-Jan-08 06:51 am)

  • Kansas City, here we are (but not for long!) drizzling rain, 37 degrees. (08-Jan-08 08:22 am)

  • Forty miles east of Grand Island, NE. Clear, bright sunny skies and 39 degrees. Nice driving weather. Cheyenne tonight. (08-Jan-08 01:18 pm)

  • You have new Picture Mail!: http://tinyurl.com/2bcd4p (08-Jan-08 02:04 pm)

  • Have stopped at the Hampton Inn in Laramie for the night. Very strong winds and blowing snow from Cheyenne to Laramie. (08-Jan-08 07:20 pm)

  • @lauramoncur you’re my kind of people … Frys! (08-Jan-08 08:04 pm)

  • In the room for the night. Nina’s connected to the WIRED internet access. Maybe I can use this time to take a shower? (08-Jan-08 08:35 pm)

Tweets for 07 Jan 2008

E-Mail Musings

My Twittering For the Past 24 Hours

  • Breakfast was delicious. The weather here is warm and humid. Lots of errands today. (07-Jan-08 08:23 am)

  • Trying to load software in Vista under Parallels. Not working well. (07-Jan-08 09:41 am)

  • Finished stocking up on snacks. Just about ready for the game tonight and the drive back to Pocatello starting tomorrow. (07-Jan-08 04:15 pm)

  • Halftime and OSU needs a whole bunch of motivation. Dang!! (07-Jan-08 07:56 pm)

  • Ohio State had too long a break…. Good night (with big thunder in the background). (07-Jan-08 09:52 pm)

Sirens, Rain, Wind, and Lightning … Oh My!

General

Several lines of furious thunderstorms are making their way from Alabama into Missouri and on up into Illinois spawning tornadoes on their way. About 5:30 this afternoon sirens started sounding outside. I was wondering where the fire was since so many sirens were sounding. LeeAnn came into the living room to tell us that tornado warnings had been put up for this area and that twisters had been sighted. That was what the sirens were all about! Since then the sirens have sounded several more times. We’ve had some very big winds, lots of lightning, and some very heavy rains — all of the kinds of weather that reinforces my desire not to live here!

It’s been a fun day. I took the three grandkids this morning to the car wash to get some of the grime off the car before we leave tomorrow morning for the two-day trip back home. They had a grand time, particularly little Shaundra. When she pulled the trigger on the wand for the pressure wash, she certainly wasn’t expecting the force of the water pressure which just about knocked her down! The car looks much better and is ready for the next coating of salt and grime. The weather looks fairly reasonable for the trip home. We’ll probably be able to dodge most of the bad weather.

Once Ohio State is able to pull this football game out, we’ll finish the packing for tonight. We’ll load the car in the morning and hopefully be able to leave about 7 a.m. or so … provided no tornadoes actually come around!

Tweets for 06 Jan 2008

E-Mail Musings

My Twittering For the Past 24 Hours

  • Downloading pictures to my Macbook. Perhaps something worth putting on a blog? (06-Jan-08 03:23 pm)

  • Playing table games with the grandkids … Cranium … they’re pretty bright! (06-Jan-08 04:38 pm)

  • Games over for the night. Reading email and blogs. Four of us gathered at the dining table with three laptops open and connected. (06-Jan-08 06:50 pm)

  • Busy day with family. Not much twittering today … following the ten commandments of twittering: http://twitter.com/tencommandments (06-Jan-08 09:02 pm)