Sunday, October 09, 2011

October 2011




Welcome to the month of October- I did my stretches, lifted weights, core trainer, and ran a mile.
The picture above is of these vase like things made of mud by some kinda insect. I found them on the backside of my outside temperature gauge when it blew down off the wall in high winds. It appears that whatever was birthed in them are now gone. Weird!!!
I went to visit John Massey.
I mostly worked on my book filling in some gaps here and there.

Sunday 02- I did my stretches and ran a mile.
Roger needed help with Stoney’s car.
Again I mostly worked on my book filling in some gaps here and there.
Kelly came by to pick Solomon up.

Monday 03- Kelly picked me up and we went to Palm Desert for her doctor’s appointment. While in the waiting room I watched lecture 28 of MIT Introduction to Biology: Nervous System 3.
Then we went to Sizzler in Yucca and ate like pigs, did some shopping, and ended up at her house about nightfall where we yakked for a spell.

Tuesday 04- I did my stretches and ran a mile.
I worked on my book filling in some gaps here and there.
Mat came by and put up a new antenna that went bad so now I’m back on the internet! Yippy!!!!!
I watched the rest of the “Fringe” episode that I was watching when my antenna died. And then I watched a new episode of “Castle”.

Wednesday 05- I did my stretches, lifted dumbbells, and ran a mile. It was very windy and there were some raindrops here and there but it felt good to run in that weather- kinda makes me feel alive.
I did my laundry over at Stoney’s, and then checked on a friend’s house and watered her plants.
When I got back home I took a broom and mop to the floors of my home and now it’s all clean and nice smelling!
I went for my evening walk listening to an astronomy lecture by Alex Filippenko about: White Dwarfs.
I watched lecture 29 of MIT Introduction to Biology: Stem Cells/Cloning 1.

I found out that Steve Jobs had passed on earlier in the day- I am really sad about that after having seen him and his company grow from the beginning. I’m not a fan of anything except what works for me; never bought into this fanboy/girl thingy. I used an Apple II when I was in college- before that DOS- before that OS MVS JESII on an IBM 370. I have ancient computers lurking around my home: a Newton here, a TRS Model 100 there. Old laptops that run on Win 3.2 on up to Win7, a couple of Macs from the earliest to my MacBook running Snow Leopard. I never did like the Mac OS simply because I couldn’t choose what platform to run it on without a lot of tweaks and I’m more familiar with Windows.
Now with all that being said I believe that the iTouch is one of the greatest devices ever created. I never thought I’d watch anything from a 3.5 inch screen, been there done that, but with the Retina display I can very easily watch my lectures from MIT and Berkeley. Take pics and movies and upload them to FaceBook. Dang I can even place calls using Skype. I do have an iPad but find it too bulky to use as an ereader or whatever- still trying to find a use for it- but the iTouch I pop into my pocket and I’m off on my Harley :)
I’ve watch Steve ever since he created Apple, he’s a little younger than me, and watched Bill, too. These are guys like you and me who had a vision. For example: I was shown by a Xerox Rep a top secret device when I was taking classes at Xerox for forms creation on the 9700 Laser Printer. In a locked room of the security section in the building was a small computer. It looked like the 820 with a small laser printer hooked up to it; no big deal I thought. What was amazing was the screen; no command line with blinking cursor but a GUI, with a trash can and a few other icons on a desktop and an arrow controlled by a mouse, wow! I said to myself this is where computing is going. Steve Jobs saw the same thing and said to himself this is where I’m taking computing! There is a difference…

I watched a new show called “Terra Nova” on Hulu and it seems to be pretty good so far.
I went for a night run.

Thursday- 06 I did my stretches, yoga, and ran a mile.
I updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the Newsletter.
I went for an evening walk listening to an astronomy lecture by Alex Filippenko about: Supernovas.
I watched lecture 30 of MIT Introduction to Biology: Stem Cells/Cloning 2.
I watched “Starship Troopers 2” I guess it wasn’t very good because I’ve seen it before and had completely forgotten about it.
I went for a night run.

Friday 07- I did my stretches and ran a mile.
I printed up an agenda and flyer for the Neighborhood Watch that Linda sent me this morning and needed it by noon.
I went to my mailbox and mailed a letter for Kelly. Then I drove to this bike shop on the north side of HWY62 just before you get to Yucca. I met a guy call Ian who was waiting for his bike that was in the back getting new tires. Ian is a Marine and headed on his bike to Ohio to visit some buddies of his who had recently got out. I’ve never been to this shop before and I was buying oil and a filter for the Harley. I reached into my wallet to get a credit card and the owner said we take cash only so we can provide the lowest of prices for our customers, besides, he went on to say, card companies charge him $600 a month to use them in his store. Well cash it was and the prices seemed okay.
I got home and changed the oil on the Harley. After watching how to do it on YouTube a few times it was easy to do.
I watched a new episode of “Fringe” on Hulu.

Saturday 08- I did my stretches, lifted weights, core trainer, and ran a mile.
John Massey came by wanting me to printout a chapter of his book. While I was at it I printed out a chapter of my own book.
Seimi came by to yak for a spell.
I called Family and Friends throughout the day.
I watched lecture 31 of MIT Introduction to Biology: Molecular Medicine 1.
I watched “Silent Running” (1972) Starring Bruce Dern on YouTube in nine parts. It was a movie I watched when it first came to theaters, about; all of Earth’s forests, wetlands, and deserts are stored off Earth on spaceship cargo haulers. Pretty cool movie still!

Sunday 09- I did my stretches. My day off from exercising!
I started collecting all the tools I have lying about and cleaning them with the used oil I got from the Harley.
I watched about half of Avatar.

Monday 10- I did my stretches, yoga, lifted weights, and ran two miles. I was going to only run one mile but it was such a beautiful day and you never know how many beautiful days you have in your life to run two miles so I ran two.
I did more cleaning of Tools- this is going to take a few weeks.
I watered Linda’s plants.
I went to the Neighborhood Watch and then the board meeting- kinda burned me out, I hate doing meetings.
I finished Avatar- already seen it a few times- great movie!

Tuesday 11- I did my stretches.
I met Sami at the park in JT and she went over my book for grammar and such. She called me a few days earlier and introduced herself and said she is an author and staying at Sandy’s house while she’s away. We spent the whole day yapping about this and that. We decided to write a fiction story through email- she writing a paragraph and then I write one. Sami is a pleasant and easy to get along with.
I watched a new episode of “Warehouse 13”.

Wednesday 12- I did my, lifted dumbbells, and ran a mile.
I drove to Yucca and did some shopping before I picked up my parts from the Harley shop that finally came in.
I did a bunch of updates on computers. It seems like everybody (Meaning Microsoft and Apple) wanted to update. I installed OS5 on the iPad and iTouch after updating iTunes. Then it was security updates for Microsoft. I played around with the new OS5 for the rest of the night and found it made the iPad very useful to me as before it just didn’t cut it in my book. The browser was updated and much more user friendly.

Thursday 13- I did my stretches and ran a mile.
I worked on Tools most of the day- I keep finding them around the yard.

Friday 14- I did my stretches, lifted weights, and ran a mile.
I watched “V for Vengeance” a really thought provoking movie that Kelly set up for me to watch at an online movie site called Justin.tv that was interesting just by itself.

Saturday 15- I did my stretches, yoga, and rode my bike.
I went over to Kelly’s house and we sat outside doing a little stargazing- about four hours worth.

Sunday 16- I did my stretches.
I called friends and family throughout the day.

Monday 17- I did my stretches, yoga, core trainer, lifted weights, and ran two miles.
Chris ran out of gas.
I worked on tools some.
I had to take the sissy bar back off because the plates that hold it weren't drilled right and placed the tail lights too far forward- I re-drilled the holes in the back of the plates a larger diameter so the tail light extenders would fit through the dang hole- found nuts for the bolts that didn't come with any, I had asked for them but I guess the parts guy forgot- and put the whole dang thing back on correctly so my Ms. Honey Badger can rest her back and not slide off onto the road! What a pain in the butt, but worth it!
I went for my evening walk.

Tuesday 18- I did my stretches and ran a mile.
Worked on tools
I went for my evening walk.

Wednesday 19- I did my stretches, yoga, lifted dumbbells, core trainer, and rode the bike.
I signed up for National Novel Writing Month where you write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in 30 days.
Worked on tools…
I went for my evening walk.
I watched lecture 32 of MIT Introduction to Biology: Molecular Evolution.
I went for an evening run.

Thursday 20- I did my stretches, yoga, and ran a mile.
I watched lecture 33 of MIT Introduction to Biology: Molecular Medicine 2.
I went over to Kelly’s to give her a ride to her mailbox and also to check out the sissy bar. I found out that the bolts that hold the turn signals were rubbing against the tire. I spent the rest of the day cutting and grinding them down to fit right. I hope what was supposed to be a simple order parts and install that started on August 02nd will finally be done! Not much of anything I ordered was compatible with one another and had to be sent back or reworked by me or the Harley shop.
I went for my evening walk.
I watched new episodes of “Warehouse 13” and “Castle” on Hulu.
I did my stretches and went for a night run.

Friday 21- I did my stretches, yoga, ran a mile, core trainer, and lifted weights.
I watched lectures 34 and 35 of MIT Introduction to Biology: Human Polymorphisms, and The Future of Biology. The Professors were Eric Lander and Robert A Weinberg. This is the end of the Biology Class.

Saturday 22- I did my stretches and ran a mile.
I watered Linda’s plants and drove down to collect my mail. I found a Jury Summons in the mailbox- I thought to myself what else could go wrong. Just as I was about 500 feet from my driveway my rear tire started going flat, dang. Well no problem I thought, I’ll just pullout the nail and put a plug in it- nope it appears to have an inner tube, dang again. I’ll wait till tomorrow to pull the tire off.
I told Kelly I needed company, I was feelin kinda down, so she invited me over to her place. I brought over my tablets and she really liked the iPad and played with Google Earth showing me where used to live- I did the same for her showing places where I moored my sailboats when I lived in King Harbor. We ate crackers spread with spicy refried beans topped with sharp cheddar and olives. We kept her begging dogs and cats at bay with a water spray bottle.


Sunday 23- I did my stretches.
I mostly spent the day talking to friends and family who called. I been having trouble with my landline phone and had to forward it to my computer to use Skype to call them back.
I removed the rear tire from the Harley and took pictures of everything I did so I’ll not be having any troubles putting it back together- it actually wasn’t that hard.
I watched a new episode of “Fringe”.

Monday 24- I did my stretches, yoga, core trainer, dumbbells, lifted weights, and ran a mile.
Desert Cycle and got tire fixed. Doctors, Rite Aid, Staters, Kelly’s.
I went for my evening walk.
I did my stretches and went for a night run.

Tuesday 25- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
I watered all my plants.
I mounted the tire back on the Harley- what a pain!
I test drove it and ended up at Kelly’s and we yapped for a spell.
I did my stretches and went for a night run.
I practiced my guitar and tried recording a couple of songs.

Wednesday 26- I did my stretches, yoga, dumbbells, core trainer, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
I wrote last paragraph of chapter one of The Pawn, my collaboration with Sami.
I read and caught up on astronomy reading.
I did my stretches and went for a night run.

Thursday 27- I got on my Harley and drove to the Doctor’s office to pick up the signed jury duty summons and went right back home.
I did my stretches, yoga, and ran a mile.
I updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the Newsletter.
Mostly I worked on computers all day. One of my Win 7 came up with a warning that the software was bogus. I knew it wasn’t and had to go through Microsoft to get it corrected- felt like strangling the robot voice on the other end of the line.
I went for my evening walk- still can’t find my iPod Shuffle with my astronomy lectures on it.
The cheap Android Mid 900 Tablet I bought for $60 still wasn’t working right with the Uberoid V5 version that I had loaded on a few months ago using number 8 settings- video wouldn’t play correctly. I read up some more and decided to try setting 7 and it looks to be running fine now. But now I find that Uberoid has a version 6 out, dang, so I downloaded it and may try it tomorrow.

Friday 28- I did my stretches, yoga, dumbbells, core trainer, lifted weights, and ran a mile.
I updated the Mid 7” to Uberoid V6 and it seems to be running better.
I went for my evening walk.
I watched “Sahara” on the Mid 7” tablet and it ran very well on the new version of Uberoid this time.
I did my stretches and went for a night run.
I practiced my guitar.

Saturday 29- I did my stretches and ran a mile.
I called Family and Friends throughout the day.
I went to potluck at our community center-
I went for my evening walk.
I stopped off at Kelly’s to bring her some potluck leftovers and stayed over for a spell.

Sunday 30- I did my stretches- my day off from exercising.
I fixed Kelly’s fence so her little rat dog would have a harder time escaping, and then put a plug in her flat tire.

Monday 31- I did my stretches, yoga, core trainer, lifted weights, dumbbells, and rode my bike.
I watered my plants.
I wrote another couple of paragraphs in reply to Sami’s latest one sent to me- I killed off three of the stories characters :)
UPS arrived with the 8Gig memory for my netbook.
I’ve been fretting over what to write for my 50,000 word novel in the National Novel Writing Month that starts tonight- I don’t have a clue but I guess I’ll find out tonight. My name for the novel is “Rainbow at the end of Tomorrow”- Wish me luck!
Goodbye to you October! Such a nice month you were!!!