New Coffee Roasting Cart

By | | ,
Comments Off on New Coffee Roasting Cart

So, I’ve got the week off, this week. And we’re not going anywhere, so I have time for projects, mixed in with the schoolwork. The first project is to clean up and reorganize the woodshop a bit. To do that, I need to get the coffee roaster and vent hood off of my workbench, where it’s lived for the last two years. I haven’t minded much, because I’ve been too busy to do much woodworking, but you never know.

Sitting in a box. I had components for a 6′ tall slender rack, rolling or standing. An alternative is to build two half-racks: one rolling, one standing. So I did, and the rolling cart, with a top applied, is the new roasting cart:

Coffee Roasting Cart

Coffee Roasting Cart

In a minute, the maintenance guy for our HVAC is going to be here, then I’ll continue with working in the shop. Ciao!

 

 

What happens at UC Davis

By | |
Comments Off on What happens at UC Davis

is what happened at Kent State, and many other places. Democracy and peace and plenty is a momentary aberration: blind cruelty and painful existence is the normal human condition, and I think this experiment is almost over. Our republic’s evolution into a police state is progressing, inch by inch. The beatings will stop when everything is safe. I wonder who it’s safe for?

In much less important news, I finished up the week’s project for class and turned it in. Marcia returned from a weekend-long quilting retreat, and we watched the final Potter film tonight. I enjoyed it.

*     *     *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Sgt. 1st Class Johnathan B. McCain, 38, of Apache Junction, Arizona, died Nov.13, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered after encountering an improvised explosive device while on mounted patrol.
  • Spc. Calvin M. Pereda, 21, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, died Nov. 12, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered after encountering an improvised explosive device while on dismounted patrol.
  • Spc. David E. Hickman, 23, of Greensboro, North Carolina, died Nov. 14, in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered after encountering an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. James R. Burnett Jr., 21, of Wichita, Kansas, died Nov. 16, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Matthew C. Colin, 22, of Navarre, Florida, died Nov. 16, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Sean M. Walsh, 21, of San Jose, California, died Nov. 16, in Khowst province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained after encountering indirect fire.
  • Pfc. Adam E. Dobereiner, 21, of Moline, Illinois, died Nov. 18 at Kandahar province, Afghanistan of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Another week spins by

By | | ,
Comments Off on Another week spins by

Whoa! Really? Mid-November? Where are the years going?

This week the ‘A’ for my Social Gerontology course landed at the Academic Records Office at UMUC (I made that name up, but it sounds good). Of course, the class wasn’t about whole societies getting older, civilizations dying, etc. Mostly it was an overview of the field of research into anything nontechnical on the subject of aging. You could, I guess, call it Gerontology for non-science majors. As usual, I learned some stuff anyway. The biggest thing I learned, though, was this: To do well in school (as I didn’t do the first time around, and as I am doing this time around), work to excel in the boring classes as well as the interesting ones, too. In 1981, I was politely asked to leave, since I wasn’t passing enough classes. I passed every course… every course I was interested in. Now I’m getting an ‘A’ in every course. Motivational rockin’.

*      *      *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

Lance Cpl. Nickolas A. Daniels, 25, of Elmwood Park, Illinois, died Nov. 5 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Pfc. Cody R. Norris, 20, of Houston, Texas, died Nov. 9 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire.

Pfc. Theodore B. Rushing, 25, of Longwood, Florida. died Nov. 11, in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Thank You!

By | |
Comments Off on Thank You!

It’s Veteran’s Day here in the US. While I didn’t serve(*), I have nothing but boundless gratitude to and pride in our warriors! My thanks to those that serve now, that served in the past, and my moment of silence goes out to those who have fallen while in service to our country.

.

.

.

Thank you!

 

[*] – I was a couple of hundred spots shy of getting into the Air Force Academy following high school, and college, rather than service, was the encouraged thing to do at my school. Things would have likely been different if there’d been a hot conflict at the time.

Some Fallen Warriors Are Mothers

By | |
Comments Off on Some Fallen Warriors Are Mothers

Really, there’s nothing that should make the loss of any one of our young men or women any different from one another. This week DoD reported about Cabrera, Newman, Darrough, Eugenio, Gailey, Butcher, Cullers, and Vincent – all of these people gave their lives for our country. Each loss is deeply felt. But please, why are we sending young mothers into war zones? Nineteen year old PFC Sarina Butcher had a three year old daughter. Yeah, we have to follow our laws, and women fought for equal rights, including the right to die for their country in battle. The law of unintended consequences strikes again. Sigh.

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Lt. Col. David E. Cabrera, 41, of Abilene, Texas, died Oct. 29, in Kabul province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. Christopher R. Newman, 26, of Shelby, North Carolina, died Oct. 29, in Kabul province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. James M. Darrough, 38, of Austin, Texas, died Oct. 29, in Kabul province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. Carlo F. Eugenio, 29, of Rancho Cucamonga, California, died Oct. 29, in Kabul province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.
  •  Sgt. Christopher D. Gailey, 26, of Ochelata, Oklahoma, died Nov. 1, in Paktia province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Sarina N. Butcher, 19, of Checotah, Oklahoma, died Nov. 1, in Paktia province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked her vehicle with an improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. Ari R. Cullers, 28, of New London, Connecticut, died Oct. 30, in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered when an insurgent rocket-propelled grenade exploded near him.
  • 1st Lt. Dustin D. Vincent, 25, of Mesquite, Texas, died Nov. 3, in Kirkuk province, Iraq, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire.

One Nation Under A Groove

By | | ,
Comments Off on One Nation Under A Groove

Thanks, Funkadelic, for brightening up my afternoon!

*     *     *

Busy week (huge surprise there, eh?) – four days working at the office, including a day of racking new gear and helping to get the electrics run properly for the new gear. Friday was an appointment in the morning, followed by writing and coding for school. I’d been working on the final paper for the Social Gerontology class for a couple of weeks, and yesterday I finished it and submitted it. In the evening, I worked on the Java project that’s due on Sunday evening (or, confusingly, Monday, but I’ll go with Sunday – that’s safe). I just finished that up, including testing, documentation, etc. So I’m all caught up with the world at this moment. Yay!

Now I need to find a longer (or better shielded) audio jumper cable – the one I’ve got running to the Logitech gear from the windows box picks up noise from the ethernet cables. Shielded is *always* good, but longer would allow a route away from the noisemakers. So I’ll go with either if I have such in my stash.

Other tasks include cleaning out the front flower beds, cleaning up my filing system here in the home office, and cleaning up my woodshop. None of that sounds very exciting right now, so I’ll do something else, instead.

Their Sacrifice…

By | |
Comments Off on Their Sacrifice…

The goal is non-terrorist-friendly countries. Is our path the best way to that goal? Yea or nay, that’s a policy question. There’s no doubt that our men and women in uniform perform their duty at 110%, every day. Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Sgt. Paul A. Rivera, 26, of Round Rock, Texas, died Oct. 22, in Logar province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered in a vehicle rollover during an attack by enemy forces.
  • Lance Cpl. Jordan S. Bastean, 19, of Pekin, Illinois, died Oct. 23 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Airmen 1st Class Jerome D. Miller Jr., 23, of Washington, D.C. died Oct. 13 due to a non-combat related incident in Parwan province, Afghanistan.
  • Pfc. Steven F. Shapiro, 29, of Hidden Valley Lake, California, died Oct. 21 in Tallil, Iraq.
  • Lance Cpl. Jason N. Barfield, 22, of Ashford, Alabama, died Oct. 24 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Capt. Shawn P. T. Charles, 40, of Hickory, N.C., died Oct. 23 in San Antonio, Texas, from a non-combat illness.
  • Sgt. Edward S. Grace, 39, of South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, died Oct. 23 in Silver Spring, Md., from a non-combat illness.
  • Sgt. 1st Class David G. Robinson, 28, of Winthrop Harbor, Illinois, died Oct. 25 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
  • Sgt. John A. Lyons, 26, of Seaside Park, New Jersey, died Oct. 26 in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire.
  • Staff Sgt. Stephen J. Dunning, 31, of Milpitas, California, died Oct. 27 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

 

Real Snow (TM)

By | | ,
Comments Off on Real Snow (TM)

 

Snow. Sticking. October. Believe it.

Snow. Sticking. October. Believe it.

Had I said I was going to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve by decorating the whole DC Metro area for Christmas, they would have laughed at me.

The snow is still here, hours later, and the temps are dropping through freezing, so it’ll be here for a short while tomorrow, too. Wow, just wow! And our overall precipitation is around an inch and a quarter for the last 18 hours. We’re 3/4 of an inch away from 20 inches of rain in our back yard since Irene made landfall here in late August.

Snow? SRSLY?

By | | ,
Comments Off on Snow? SRSLY?

 

First snow of Winter 2011-2012

First snow of Winter 2011-2012

First snow of Winter 2011-2012 – it ain’t much, and it ain’t sticking to anything, but I’m still impressed with the can-do attitude expressed by this weather system. We started off with rain in the middle of the night, and were just shy of an inch of rain today when it flipped over to the snow delivery system about an hour ago. Right now the occasional flake is still falling, and it’s hovering around 35-36°F (~1.5°C)…

I guess it’s a good thing I winterized the watering systems yesterday. We might get our first frost tonight, eh?

*     *     *

I made a big dent in the paper that’s due next Sunday – the organization and cited documents are all in place, and I’ve begun on the prose. I also want to get a head start on the Java project that’s due next week, but first it’s time to roast some coffee and bake some cookies! Ciao!

 

 

Healthy Choices

By | | ,
Comments Off on Healthy Choices

Tim O’Reilly twittled about a talk at a conference, regarding “systemic” change to cities and food choices to enhance health. Really? We can’t afford healthy, long-lived people! What this country needs is sick people, real sick people, people with low cost, short time-to-death diseases and infections. That’ll solve our employment problems and our long-term social welfare funding issues, all in one go. It won’t be as effective as the big rock from the sky with our name on it, but disease has the advantage of not damaging much in the way of physical infrastructure. Fewer people, faster commutes!

*     *     *

After the busy weekend, I had a long day Monday, too: 14 hours at the office. I could take the rest of the pay period off, and still be over on hours. But there’s too much work to do, I’d just fall further behind if I stayed away. The last couple of evenings have been eaten by schoolwork, catching up on 3 days missed due to work, and one new class starting. I’m learning to program in Java! So far, it’s a lot like C, except syntax heavy and slower.

I did validate a regular polygon area calculation algorithm by using an approximation of the unit circle (a 100-side regular polygon, sides of length 0.0314152965 – it matches to three decimal places. A 1000 side polygon matches to 6 decimal places). That’s fun!