Yesterday was actually pretty fun after a rough start… Arythna, Rai, and I went south a ways to Colorado Springs and tooled about down there for half a day.
We found the AT&T sites known as Truckton and Calhan, checked out some things near where Coral Bluffs should have been, ended up on an Air Force base for a few seconds, then drove around downtown Colorado Springs till we found the old Central Office. That was all we had for daylight so we aimed the car northward and headed back to Denver.
Once we got back to Aryntha and Rai’s place we spent a few hours talking about how mass religion effects the general populace in regards to an individual’s ability to recognize their place in the universe… Fun stuff.
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians – passed on from generation to generation – says that “when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.“
In modern education and expanded government, however, a whole range of far more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Threatening the horse with termination.
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses.
6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
7. Re-classifying the dead horse as ”living-impaired.”
8. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
9. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed.
10. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance.
11. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
12. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead, and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
13. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
14. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.
Someone forwarded me another one of these quiz things. Some of them are interesting in their observations of a set number of responses.
This quiz aims to tell me what tarot card I am… Interesting. Everyone seems to have their favorite card for me: Wolf gave me “The Magus” a while back and I carry it with me all the time in my wallet, and years ago my ex decided I was the ace of cups.
Being a tarot idiot I don’t have any conception of what these cards mean, but everyone is helpful and tells me all about said card they determine as mine. So here’s the next card as determined by some stranger on the internet…
You are the Hermit card. The Hermit has chosen a solitary spiritual path. He shines light on his inner self and, by this means, gains wisdom. The Hermit’s home is the natural world and it is by being in tune with that world that he learns the laws of nature and learn how they operate within himself. His path is a lonely one as he lives in silence and has for companionship only his own internal rhythms. But those crossing his path are touched by his light and wisdom. Though often alone, he manages nevertheless to instruct those who meet him and guides those who chose to follow him on a path towards enlightenment. Image from The Aleister Crowley Tarot deck. http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/thoth/
As always I leave it up to the folks who know me to determine if this is fitting and if this person’s analysis of the card in question is accurate.
In other news it looks like Aryntha, Rai, and myself will be out today cruising the highways and byways of Colorado in search of the elusive AT&T tower. Over the last week we’ve made some large strides in this “hobby” in that we’ve picked up a new person, Jim Hebbeln, who is a long time phone man and AT&T employee. He’s been giving us all kinds of recollections, war stories, information, and some photos of stuff he took back in the 70’s. Really neat stuff if you’re into historical telecommunications. 🙂
There is also something brewing that I can’t really say much about just yet in regards to getting a chance to get inside a certain facility and take pictures… We were contacted by the current owner and he’s arranging to get us inside with our bevy of cameras and video toys… Stay tuned for more info on this.
Well, I’d better sign off here and get my act together.
Sunday morning I drove from Avon, to Salida, through Pueblo and back up to Denver… Just to avoid the passes which the Toyota doesn’t do well on… About 400 or so miles.
Then Sunday afternoon Aryntha, Rai, and I decided that it’d be fun to go out and do something… We wind up taking my car (it has AC *and* four doors) and end up in Colorado Springs for dinner then back to Denver… Another 200 or so miles.
So Monday I drive Wolf to Boulder, then head north of Boulder to the old Beech Aircraft facility to get some pictures… I spent several birthdays playing with the HP mainframe, watching them test the tanks for the Shuttle, and other things there and I thought it’d be neat to have some photos of those memories. So I did that (got a tour of the place from the last Beech guy there) then returned to get Wolf and drive her back home… Another 200 or so miles.
Today I drove Wolf back to Boulder again… See, she works at NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and doesn’t have a car just yet since the last one I gave her got stolen…
Well, besides NOAA being on the same campus as NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) and that in and of itself being about as cool as space travel, it’s also right close to the “Flatirons” (a series of rock formations I will explain below) and offers ample opportunity for hiking adventures.
So today after I dropped her off at work I made for the hills, camera in hand…
Off I went and hiked up to the top of the hill that NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) sits on… Truth be told I was also looking for another one of these towers that we look for, called “Boulder Junction”. Well, the tower isn’t there anymore, but I did get a good hike out of the deal.
Those rock formations are the Flatirons… Basically huge sheets of rock that have been forced up at an angle from tectonic motion.
Along the way back I ran into a herd of mule deer who didn’t really seem to mind me hanging out with them and taking pictures, so I did. There were two bucks, two does, and three fawns all together. This photo shows one of the family units and their twins. In the background is south-east Boulder. As you can see I was about, oh, 20 feet from them and they seemed content to ignore me.
Once I made it back down I got a chance to poke around a bit at NIST which is where the master clock is… They broadcast the time from this clock from a transmitter in northern Colorado which is received by my wristwatch: which was showing the same exact second as this wall clock…
So, that was my day pretty much. About another 100 miles of fun in the traffic…
So, about a thousand miles so far this week… Not bad for a car that doesn’t work all that well.
And the chances are good that I’ll be driving to Boulder again tomorrow…
Another weekend is looming on the horizon, and that’s a good thing.
Let’s see, what’s happened in the last few days… Hmm, not a lot I guess.
I’ve been getting up, futzing with the computer for a little bit, then working on my daily chores of kitchen cleaning and general house maintenance, then performing my general “listen to today’s problem and comment on the fix” duties. Today I’ll be fixing the vacuum then spending some time working on Noan’s car before Scales gets up and bends my ear for a couple of hours in regards to whatever thing will have him spun up today.
Been talking theology, psychology, and magic with folks around Haven over the last few days. Some interesting discussions to be sure. Last night Fox was here for an hour or so and there was some discussion in regards to the reconciliation of hermetic traditions and pagan beliefs. Fun stuff.
Yep, still in Denver. With Wolf still needing the Lincoln to get back and forth to work, Larry still not paying me for last month, and the fact it’s kind of nice to have people around to talk to of an evening; I’m still here.
I’ve gotten the online store finished for Larry… Now if I could just get paid for it I’d be a lot happier. The last time I talked to Vivian (she had me on the phone with some IT moron from the hotel to talk him though setting up her laptop to work with the wireless there) she said Larry would be cutting me a check this week…
I’ll believe it when I see it.
On the subject of computers I spent a couple of hours elbow deep in Scale’s computer yesterday… Oh the joy.
I’ve also had a talk with Wolf about them, hobbies, and other things which patched things up a bit. Yay talking.
Other than that, folks here are finally stirring and getting ready for another day of the day-to-day so I should sign off.
Well, the week so far has been pretty mellow and I’ve been more relaxed than I have in months… A good thing to be sure.
Today I cleaned the kitchen here at “Haven”… It’s obvious that Wolf has either been exceptionally stressed or her new lifestyle has her too, umm, busy. See, she’s normally a borderline neat-freak, but this morning it took me a half an hour just to get the sink into a state where I figured it was safe to do dishes. It’s ok though, I rolled up my sleeves and dug into the place with enthusiasm: all of the counters, tables, appliances, etc are now ick free to my specifications. 🙂
Housework can be such a zen-like thing if you let go of the angst of doing it and just get into it. So sayeth me. 🙂
Anyways I’m taking a little break here before I start in on the microwaves. I did the range top right down to the drip pans but still need to do the front.
Anyways, enough with that. The rest of the week and weekend promise to be a little more hectic as I attempt once again to be all things for all people. Zeze will be flying in some time tomorrow for a job interview and I have to pickup, deliver, wait, pickup and deliver to the airport and interview. Then at about 5am Saturday I have to pick up Aryntha and Rai and deliver them to the airport too.
Not a big deal, just a lot of trips to the airport. 🙂
And of course I have to do all of this around Wolf who’s using my car to get back and forth to work and whatever gas is left in it from said traveling.
I still don’t know what time Zeze is coming in tomorrow so I don’t know how I’m going to work Wolf into everything… Nothing like last minute planning to keep your stress levels up.
Ok, well back to work. Have a great day out there folks.
Lyon and I were up at the crack of dawn this morning and off to get a two-story ladder to get on the roof and take a look at the swamp cooler.
See, Lyon is on vacation this week and I’m sort of taking a week off too, so what do we do? House repairs…
It’s fun though as we make a hell of a team in just about anything we do. So while Lyon disassembled the cooler and checked out components I cleaned the filters and diagnosed the parts as he pulled them. It turns out that the copper line feeding the things has a break in it and the water pump had melted down.
We had help from Scales too who ran around getting tools, flipping switches, and fiddling with valves. He’s also got a hell of an arm and can put a can of wd40 right into your hand from 20 feet down. 🙂
So right now we’re down from the roof, Lyon is off to Home Depot to get a new $10 pump, a length of rubber hose, and two small hose clamps while I fiddle with Larry’s web-thing for a bit.
While we were up there we cleaned the gutters, checked over the shingles, checked the caulking around the vents, and performed the usual seasonal home maintenance. It’s hotter than hell today, 100+, but we’re having fun. 🙂
Once we get the cooler running we’ll be living like kings! (chuckle)
Well, I managed to escape briefly on or about Thursday. This led to Aryntha, Rai and I heading into the Pike National Forest for a photo-op with a few old AT&T towers. While we were there we got some pretty stunning pictures of the rest of the place too.
The first one I’m posting here is from the very top of the mountain that the AT&T microwave repeater “Devil’s Head”, an active AT&T microwave facility, sits on… It was a fair hike to get this photo as one has to traverse a big pile of rocks, but it’s worth it.
And people ask why we search out these old cold war towers…
The second shot is from a site called “Westcreek” which is probably still an active AT&T facility… Imagine having this view from your office.
The “guests” have left, leaving the house completely destroyed; from dirty towels all over the place and unmade beds to food all over the kitchen and dishes in every room. Every window in the house has dog prints on them, on both sides, at about 3 feet from the floor… It’ll take me till Friday to get everything cleaned up.
But, there was something even more distressing I found this morning… A note stating that they will be up here friday night through sunday every weekend while Larry and Vivian are gone.
I’ve discovered that children have two modes: “asleep” and “loud as hell”. The bunch here are, like the last group, incapable of communication in anything less than full scream. The youngest, a girl, has another function which is to cut loose with this ear piercing scream any time she feels she’s not getting her way.
I was also wrong on a few observations yesterday: The two people I assumed were friends were just random folks looking at the house so this group only has two panzer-esque SUVs, the third was unrelated. Also I got the family members mixed up: This mom-dad team are daughter and son-in-law, not the sister and brother-in-law I thought they were. It’s also three children, not four… Not that you can tell the miscount from the volume. Oh well.
Beyond that, I’m still blocked in so there is no escape for me. I suppose I could go and have some confrontation over it, as everything is a confrontation with these types, but I’d rather just stay hidden in my room.
So far the most interesting thing I’ve discovered is that these folks only eat 100% organic foods and are borderline vegans, they spend a lot of time talking about how we are destroying the environment, how the media is a problem, and how the world is over populating… They do this while leaving every light in the house on 24/7, driving something that gets 8-mpg, using the TV as a babysitter, and having three kids.
Again; no matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up.
Well, I got exactly 45 minutes of peace and quiet after Larry and Vivian left… A short while ago two gas guzzling SUV loads of relatives showed up to spend the week in the “great outdoors”…
There’s mom and dad, four kids, two friends, a dog, and a mother-in-law.
These are pretty typical relatives from Vivian’s side of the family; meaning the father’s name is Saul and he just spent a half an hour telling me all about this really great deal he got on a sandwich on the way up here. There was also some discussion about the the mohel they use down in Denver having some sort of issue with his diamond business… Eesh!
Right now I’m stuck here too as they parked one of the monster SUVs right behind my car then left to go “sight seeing”…
Then there was the dog, a purebred standard poodle named Fido, who just sort of wandered into my room here and chowed down on the chips I left on the table next to the bed. This was met with “Oh isn’t he just so silly?” from the mom.
If anyone needs me I’ll be swinging from a noose in the back yard.
Well, so far it’s been a very cold and wet week here. Not that I mind, mind you; we need the water and I like it cool. Right now it’s an almost exact duplicate of being in the mountains of Washington state outside with the pine smells and perpetual drizzle. Well, that and it looks like I’m living in a Led Zeppelin album cover. 🙂
Here’s a shot from my deck at the ridge to the south:
I’ve also gotten a chance now to play around with some of the new features in “Tiger”, the new Macintosh OS version, and it pretty much blows everything I’ve used out of the water.
The new system-wide search features, “spotlight”, definitely work as advertised and having RSS and Atom services built into Safari (the web browser) is really nice.
What will be the best part of “Tiger” will be what programmers do with all of the changes under the hood – CoreImage and CoreVideo will really turn things up a notch.
Well, I’m going to get back to work now. Have a great day out there folks…
Not much to update really, just been working my tail off… Which is rather impressive considering the length of my tail.
Let’s see here. Larry and Vivian will be gone for about two months starting next week and during that time it will be my job to make sure everything stays show-ready around here.
Oh, because I’ve been spending 16 or so hours a day in front of the computer for the last few weeks I’ve developed a minor DVT problem (deep vein thrombosis) which has me keeping my leg elevated while sitting in front of the computer and taking long walks of a day. So far I don’t think it’s anything to worry about and I’ve done everything a doctor would tell me to do, so I should be ok… This too shall pass. 🙂
Well, I have to run, but I leave you with a photo taken at the latest Apple World Wide Developer conference:
Hmm, I guess other folks have noticed the “striking” similarities between OSX and Longhorn 🙂
Aryntha and Rai were up here for the weekend and of course we had to go out, drive around, and take pictures of things…
This photo is from on top of a mountain that we Honda’d to just east of Glenwood Springs… Yes, we were after another tower called “Storm King”, but it has eluded us for the moment. We finally met a location that beat the hill climbing powers of the Honda.
Anyways, this is looking south east across the valley from where we finally stopped…
I’ll post more about this weekend’s adventures later…
Well, a good night’s sleep and a couple cups of coffee and I’m right as rain again. How long this lasts in light of what I have to do today has yet to be seen though.
Today I get to wrestle with yet another PC… Larry bought a new Compaq last week with the idea that he can convert his old video tapes to DVD with it…
This should be fun… I’ll be spending a few hundred hours explaining to Larry that the PC “just doesn’t do that” or the ever popular “well, you just have to reboot Windows that often.”
sigh…
I’ll probably wind up doing all of the transfers on my Mac at night and leading him to believe his PC is “all that”… See, if I volunteer to do it Mac-wise Larry starts in on a tirade about how the Mac is a toy and to do real work requires a PC.
Yeah, ok, whatever…
It’s amazing how used to it you get over time. I got used to having to perform registry magic to install hardware, I learned to except that you simply had to reboot the machine once a day for some random reason, that when the OS crashed you lost everything… And now that I don’t have to do that anymore having to deal with it still for other people really frustrates me.
The real bonus of the last few weeks is Norton: Larry installed Norton’s “internet security” on his laptop a while back in a vain attempt to patch a few of the holes in the OS. Well, since the restore from his backups anything Norton will neither run, nor install. I’ve exhausted everything I know (remember I have years of schooling in PC and windows here), run though everything on Norton’s web site (did you know that the windows-norton combination is so bad they have created utilities to remove things?) and finally called tech support who, after two days, simply said “reinstall the OS”… Like that is a common answer.
Yay windows.
Anywho, I’m off to fix a pot of chili and then get back to fighting a bad collection of hardware and software in some odd semblance of a job.
It’s been a few days between updates here. With wrestling with Larry’s PC laptop (pure fucking 6-hour-a-day hell) and being completely submerged in SQL and PHP coding I’ve barely had time to do anything outside of my appointed functions…
I’m sick to death of technology… Been doing this crap for far too long.
There’s also the fact that I’m tired of being broke. Larry is a nice guy and all, but I’m once again doing heaps of work for the promise of “lots of money” later. Everyone seems to do that these days: Work your ass off now and make them rich and they *might* remember you later when they’re driving around in their new Ferarri Enzo… Yep, that’s happened to me: Not only did I make the company “go”, but I was a key component to selling the company and was listed as an asset in the paperwork. I got $60k, ‘ol Sam made millions and had the gaul to show off his new Ferarri while I was driving a broke-ass Ford Taurus.
Same thing happened at a computer store I helped start: Matthew and I were limping these old broke-ass VW beetles around town while Mark bought a new 944 and a Landcruiser, and Alan went and paid cash for a 740il. When they each bought their second houses and Matthew and I were still scraping by in apartments and trailers is when I decided it was time to move on.
You know, if I stop and think about it I’ve made no less than a dozen millionaires in the last ten years…
Meanwhile I’ve got $5 and half a tank of gas in another broke-ass car.
I wish I knew what it was I’m doing wrong… Wait, I know what I’m doing wrong; I’m too nice and people these days prey on that. Even folks I know are subject to this…
It’s ok though, it doesn’t bother me and that I guess is the root of the issue. I’ll just keep doing what I do and the world will just keep sucking me dry.
At least I’m predictable.
Maybe I should just snap and get it over with; be like everyone else – Look out for number one and fuck any one who gets in my way. There’s a certain part of me that thinks that would be grand, but I keep him under pretty tight control.
Naw. That’d be tantamount to loosing in the bigger picture. Yes, it’s easy to be rich if you’re a complete ass; but you truly “win” the game if you can get to the other side of the board while improving the lives of those around you.
If you get out of this life while making just one other person’s life a little easier, that’s good. Of course you’ll die under a viaduct in a cardboard box, but I guess the ends justify the means.
And with those cheery thoughts I think I’ll head for bed so I can be up early and finish up the online store for Larry and make “lots of money”.
Ok latching down the cans didn’t work. It’s time to use a little evolution here on my part and put the cans in the garage.
Most folks around here would just call animal control and have the bear executed because it’s “dangerous”… Really. It’s just a black bear cub and while I realize it won’t be a cub forever, you have to be *really* stupid to get attacked by a black bear, in which case I chalk it up to darwinism.
Black bears are browsers and next to skunks, the most laid back wild animal out there… Seriously, if they thought you wouldn’t freak out they’d come in, grab a slice of pizza, and curl up on the couch to watch TV.
Anyways, at about 5 am this morning I got woken up again by Brother Bear doing bear things in my driveway. He’s already learned that when I hit him with the flashlight it’s time to blaze and in that, this is a game to him. He also doesn’t make a huge mess, preferring to rip up the bags while they’re still in the can to get to some ham sandwich or leftover chicken.
So, once I get the boiler running again and get some hot water making, I’ll go out, pick up the bag, grab the paper, and move the garbage cans inside the garage… Knowing my luck Brother Bear will just open my car and use the garage door opener. 🙂
I’m sure you’ve seen me mention the wildlife up here in the mountains and how it’s a continual effort to keep the outdoors, outdoors…
First some background: I sleep with the big sliding door to my deck open at night because I like it cool and it gets down around 50-60 at night here.
Last night at about 3:30 in the morning I was awakened by a loud crash out in the driveway. Grabbing my ever-present and insanely bright flashlight I went out on my deck to find this black bear cub rummaging around in our freshly toppled trash. Well with the light and a few harsh words he thought better of sticking around and moseyed off for about fifteen minutes. Just as I got back to sleep I heard the sound of a few glass bottles rolling down the slope of the driveway and got up again to find Brother Bear in the garbage again.
This time I got angry with the little fella (little… He probably weighs as much as I do) and told him flat out that he really didn’t want me to come down there and mess up his fuzzy-wuzzy little world.
Ok, so he left again and stayed gone this time.
So, now that I’m up I have no choice but to stay that way and set about down in the basement fixing the ever-borked boiler… Which is a tale for some other time.
So, this evening I’m sitting here writing php code for a web site when another crash happens in the driveway… Brother Bear is back.
I run Brother Bear off, again, and he stays gone telling by the sounds of the neighborhood dogs. So, while I’m putting my shoes on to go clean up I hear more trash rustling… I figure the bear is back…
I’m wrong, it’s a lanky grey coyote. So I run him off too and latch the cans down.
We’ll see how it goes tonight, but chances are this is just the first volley in the war of me versus the critters. 🙂
If it comes down to it I’ll just move the trash-cans into the garage till our friday morning pickup.
