free as in blog

This morning driving back from church, I saw a fire engine (lights on) flying down the left lane a ways behind me. It was following two cars who did not move out of the way. Fire engine finally cuts over to the right lane and gets past them. I, being in the right lane, pull over and let the fire engine and cars pass. Strangely enough, the two cars had the “support our troops” stickers on their bumpers.

As usual, it just proves that it’s nice to say things, but it’s harder to put your money where your mouth is.

And it also proves that people in MA can’t drive at all.

Let’s review, shall we?

If there’s a fire engine, cop car, or ambulance behind you, and their lights are on, PULL OVER.

Finally got around to putting the trim up around the front door. This sounds like a small thing, but when the house isn’t straight, plumb, or level, there’s a bit of a challenge to it.

In short, the door itself was p/l/s, but the wall around it wasn’t. The upper left corner of the wall was away from the door by 1/4 inch, and the lower right corner was also away from the door by 1/4 inch. The upper right corner was fine, and the lower left corner butts up against the wall and floor, so it’s not that bad if it’s off.

This all meant that I had to gracefully rip out a shim that was underneath the sheet rock at the top of the door, and rip out sheet rock at the bottom of the door. But hey, it’s finished now and tacked into place.

Side note: never buy an electric staple gun. They don’t work. The nails are too short (1 inch) and it has trouble getting the nail through while leaving a large scratch on the wood. So you have to come back with a nail kit and sink the nail and get some filler for the hole and the scratch. Save your aggravation and get a air compressor.

Pictures. Not much if you don’t know who anyone is. We were not able to go for a variety of reasons, but I was able to fly out to San Diego with my mom in August to see him and the ship, so we got a real nice tour. Mom wasn’t able to go as it’s the beginning of school for her. Everyone else went and it appears they all had a good time.

In case you’re wondering, my brother Allen is a supply officer on the ship. He’s been in the Navy now for just about two years.

I’ve been busy doing work on the house. We started work just over a year ago (Sep 2003). In true fashion, 90% of the work was done by about April, but the remaining 10% is still in process, and probably will for a long time.

On the good side, I’ve been able to get the guest room mostly set up. the only remaining items in there is the baseboard and sanding the joint compound in the ceiling. I have been complimented on my wallpapering skills, which I mostly learned by putting up borders in the kitchen. Which has since been removed.

The biggest problem is that there’s so many small things to do, that I don’t always know where to start. Usually I pick something to do and do it. It’ll get done, eventually. The big things are all done, so we’re in our bedrooms, we have offices, the bathrooms work, we have heat. All good things.

So Howard Stern got kicked off 6 Clear Channel stations. He’s put his tinfoil hat and said that it was because a few weeks before that event, he came out in favor of John Kerry over George Bush. It’s pretty tinfoil.
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I don’t really like Iron Chef. Squid ink ice cream? No way.

But then I found out that Alton Brown was rushed to the hospital after suffering heart arrhythmia in early March 2004. Which got me curious - would Alton be actually be competing?
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Every year brings around the MIT Flea Market, a collection of computer/HAM/other crap from years ago. It’s pretty rare to find something that was made in the past 18 months there. More commonly you’ll find things at least 5+ years old.

I go for two reasons: to sell or get rid of crap in my basement that has been accumulating for the past while, and to socialize usually with my friend Nelson. Nelson usually has far more stuff to sell than I do, so I’ll hustle what stuff of his that I can for him.

This year (actually the Apr 18 one) was particularly interesting. Nelson had a U-haul van PACKED with stuff whereas I had a small cardboard box with a bunch of cards and cables in it. One of the items Nelson was trying to get rid of was a Dolch logic analyzer. Now I remember Dolch as making luggable PCs in the late 80s/early 90s. But apparently they made these logic analyzers in the early 80s, making this thing 20+ years old. It couldn’t have been that bad, as it came with two 5.25″ floppy drives. There was this sign on the Dolch that read “Dolch Logic Analyzer: Free. Textronix cart: $100″. Yes, the empty cart had more value than the analyzer. The analyzer (and cart) sat in the van for most of the day with most people not giving it a second look. Near the end of the day (about 2PM), we started our “Free Bin” where we take the stuff we don’t really care about and give it away. It might be a 9600 modemwe couldn’t sell, it might be PCBs that do nothing. It might be a mouse or joystick. In some form of desperation, the Dolch was hauled out of the van and near the Free Bin in the hopes we could get someone to take it.

And that’s when we met Pevner.
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