It has been a while since I’ve posted anything here… but I have a good excuse… The project at work has expanded more than originally planned and there were several Saturdays and Sundays that required my presence at the labs. In short, there has not been that much going on in my life except for work (not that I mind).

This past week was a bit of a change of pace: it was hay baling time at the ranch. So after spending a few days on the tractors and doing little things like spraying the herd for flies, fixing fence, and tromping around the north 100 acres, it all came to an end yesterday when the last ton of hay was put away for the year. The good: the cows will not starve this winter and the heat was not oppressive. The bad: playing hide-and-go-seek with the older bull in the 30 acres of woods on the land… the bull won BTW. The ugly: my golf game.

Having the day without needing to attend to the cattle, I decided to play the back nine at the local links today. I walked as I usually do, letting the speed golfers play through. It was a nice day, and I didn’t do too badly for having not picked up my clubs since April. A few shots were actually good… but most were as expected… in the rough/water/trees. That’s probably why I play single; others tend to get frustrated with my lack of skill, but I personally don’t mind having a golf score that is higher than my bowling score. To this end, I have my own scoring system, and today was a “successful day.” My ball find to lose ratio was 3 to 1 ;3

Aeros’ Skill-less Golf Scoring System
“Bad Day” – Lose more balls than found, no birdies or pars on any hole
“Successful Day” – Find more balls than I lose, no birdies or pars
“Good Day” – Get par on a hole
“Excellent Day” – Get one birdie or more than one par

Books Currently Reading:
The Oxford History of the Classical World

Current Computer Game:
Rome: Total Realism

I stumbled onto this the other day and thought it was an ok song with a mesmerizing chorus and a good video. The chorus sort of reminds me of songs created by Enigma. But, one must smile at the lyrics... especially "train to trainwreck town" (note: any large FUBAR at work is figuratively known as a "trainwreck").


( Continue reading... )

Currently Surfing:
Space.com

Currently Reading:
The Winds of Change by Jon Sleeper

This being the Memorial Day weekend, I want to shout out a “thank you” to all the U.S. service personnel, who are currently serving or have served in the past. So, if this is you, and you have somehow found yourself stumbling onto this post, “Thank you!”

This has been an interesting week. Work has been very slow lately; training is about all that has been going on for nearly a month. If I didn’t want to learn C++, I would have been absolutely bored out of my mind.

Then on Tuesday, I received a letter from a company VP about receiving an “atta-boy” letter from a prominent customer. Somehow, my name was among those on the list, of which my contribution was definitely the simplest to pull off; the other names were project managers and leads. That brightened my day a bit before sliding back into figuring out how to use object pointers.

Thursday, I received another project to work on… one that should last two months or more working on large test fixtures. “And if you could come in on Saturday… that would be grreeaattt.” Ok, it wasn’t quite said like that, and after being project-less for nearly a month, working Saturdays is a good bargain. All that now needs to happen is to get oriented without majorly messing up.

Currently Surfing:
Wikipedia

Books Currently Reading:
A Leopard's Tail by Robert

... and the last story which was too large to fit into the entry.

NOTE: These are all very Mary Sue-ish and a bit violent, but hey... it's based on an RPG.

( The Divine Crusader )

I finally decided to post a few of the short ditties I've done over the past few years. This set is fan fiction based on a character I played in the Elder Scrolls VI: Oblivion. These have received decent reviews from a few of my non-furry friends, who said that I should post these. So, here they are along with a few screenshots (to Marathil and Matthews who created the mod for the Skyrim Khajiit: excellent job, I had a riot playing it!):

WARNING: Mild spoilers are contained the first three and major spoilers are contained in the last story.

( A Lowly Squire )

( Legends of the Warrior-Mage )

( Return of the Paladin )

Currently Surfing:
AnandTech

Books Currently Reading:
Cuckoo's Egg by C. J. Cherryh

The bank finally figured out that the ATM did give me the money. It took them long enough... at least my checkbook is balanced again.

Currently Surfing:
Times Online

Current Computer Game:
Supreme Commander

Currently, I am on “vacation” at the ranch; it was sorting and calving time. Earlier in the week, we received 8 centimeters of rain, which swelled the creek that runs through the lower part of the land. Unfortunately, the next day was the biannual “rodeo” where we gather up the herd, tag, vaccinate, and sort. This must be the first year that the sorting went mostly as planned: no cows jumping the fence, no calves requiring shots escaping, and most importantly, everyone that was helping was pretty much working as a team. The corral, however, was a mud pit when everything was finished.

As we were selling more than the trailer could handle, we called on a hauler to pick up the cattle, but they couldn’t get there for several hours. So, as it was such a beautiful day, I drove up to the local airport to rent the aircraft they have available and take a short tour of the area, looking at the swollen rivers, practicing maneuvers, and just enjoying the general sensation of being “above it all.”

Returning to the ranch, there was still a few hours to go before the hauler came to load the cattle, and as there is always something that needs to be done, I began walking the perimeter to see if there were any broken wire that needed repaired. As if on cue, I found a whole 30 meter section laying nearly flat on the ground, where the overflowing creek, with the help of various debris, had washed over it. This section was wiped out last summer with the floods, but I really couldn’t get too upset… the weather will do its thing in spite of what I would like it to do. Finally, under vehicle headlight, we loaded the fall calves and culling cows and called it a day.

Today was a bit easier as most of the day was spent at the stockyards, but a few hours were spent making sure that none of the cows had found the break in the fence. The good news, every day this week, a new calf has been born. The bad news, this follows losing four calves and two cows earlier this winter, which has been pretty bad… as in early 1950s bad. (Musing: Where is my AGW! The models promised mild winters! I want my tax money back!)

Tonight, I am sore. Tomorrow, we repair fence. It serves me right for having a desk job.

Currently Surfing:
YouTube

Books Currently Reading:
Serpent's Reach by C. J. Cherryh

WARNING: The following contains data interpretation, opinions, and modern heresy. Reader discretion is advised.

( An Assessment of the IPCC AR4 )

Currently Surfing:
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Books Currently Reading:
The Oxford History of the Classical World

No, I have not been playing Monopoly (R), but over the last month it seemed like it. Just before Christmas, I had taken 60 USD out of an ATM to pay for gasoline for the drive to my parent's place. A month later, after I came back from my business trip, I found that the money did not show to be withdrawn on my bank statement. I stopped by the bank to see if there was an error on the statement before flying off for the ski trip; they told me that there was no error but would look into it.

After a few weeks of exchanging information over the phone with the bank, I stopped hearing back on their progress in tracking this down. So, today, I stopped by the bank to inquire on where they were at in the investigation. About 15 minutes of digging through their computer system yielded the following verdict: The ATM record claims that I tried to withdraw sixty dollars, but the transaction timed out without giving me any money. End of story, there is nothing more that I can convince them to do, the ATM doesn't lie.

Considering that I remember only having a few bucks in my wallet before going to that ATM, I'm wondering just what did I pay the convenience store clerk with to fill up my gas tank? Perhaps he was filled with the Christmas spirit and gave it and 20 dollars to me for free while manipulating my memory of getting money from the ATM. Or, perhaps the ATM itself was in the giving mood. Whatever the reason, my checkbook is out of balance, and there is sixty dollars attributed to it that is not mine. This is not to say I would rather have the ATM to not have given me my money but charge my account anyway, but still, the error does not give me any more confidence in ATMs to monitor what it hands out.

Or, I somehow was drawing from Community Chest that day: “Bank error in your favor: Collect sixty dollars.”

Currently Surfing:
The Long War Journal

I had a blast skiing in Colorado two weeks ago. Other than being down with a fever on the first of three days, everything turned out great! However, thinking back on it, I probably have a death wish. My idea of fun was pointing the skis straight down the mountain and seeing how fast I could go before I felt like I was losing control. The crazy thing is, I would absolutely do it all over again... and probably will next year.

Having skied in New York several times, trying to go fast is nothing new. It's the several mile long runs and several thousand foot drops over those runs that made this different from what I am used to skiing. This was such a rush, especially when I was flying down a few really long blues that had just been groomed. I wish someone was clocking me on those runs, or at least had video of it. Perhaps it really wasn't that fast, as the perception on skis is different than when driving, but I wouldn't have wanted to smack into anything solid. That would have really ruined the weekend. It might have been a good thing that I was sick on the first day; I was getting fairly reckless by the end of the third day, so if there was another day of skiing left, I might have had a close personal contact with "brother tree".

The contrast is with everything else that I do: drive, fly, hike. I am usually cautious when doing those things when I could be more reckless, but skiing is the exception. Perhaps it is the perception that when I fall, I land on soft snow with a good two to three inches of insulating padding for additional protection. For a lot of the folks I was skiing with, their goal seemed to be to fall as little as possible. That was not mine. If I fall, and nothing is broken, then all is well. If I don't fall, then that means I can go faster!

Ok, so I'm probably an adrenaline junkie, but I am reluctant to seek help for this addiction.

Currently Surfing:
Iraq the Model

After ten months of going into the office for work, I'm back traveling. There's nothing like a test to focus the mind, whereas at the office, I could swear that I could feel my education and experience slowly leak from my ears. Fortunately, this short test on Long Island came up before I was reduced to a drooling, mindless mass. Don't get me wrong, I like living in Texas, but my place of work can get dull if there isn't anything happening at the labs. The testing isn't what I'm used to, but there's instrumentation to setup and monitor, data to collect and analyze, and decisions being made as information comes available... yes, for some of us, this is called "fun."

This is the first time I have ever stayed this close to New York City. I've hopped through once via an airline, but never went into the city. Last weekend, I spent the day doing a lot of the touristy things on Manhattan. I was impressed that the streets and subways were as clean as they were. I walked all over the financial district at night by myself and felt safer there than I do in a city like Dallas or Oklahoma City. Then again, you usually don't see a lot of tourists in the downtown of those cities.

The food is good on Long Island, especially the Italian. The only disappointment was the Irish pub that I was going to eat at this evening was closed for renovations. There's a place like it near Buffalo, and I was really anticipating having a pound of suicide chicken wings (really HOT wings). I guess I will have to do without the fire in the belly to keep me warm this next week.

I only have two more weeks of this before I go on vacation for a ski trip. I wish I could finish this entire test out, but the trip had been planned long before anyone thought of this test... and the trip is already paid for... and I haven't gone skiing yet this winter.

Currently Surfing:
Live Journal

Books Currently Reading:
The Soul of Battle by Victor Davis Hanson

What is this!?!

This... is just an attempt at finally stepping into the 21st Century. Another blog, to consume another few megabytes on the Internet, that is what this is.

Why haven't I started this before? The previous six years have mostly been spent on the road conducting tests for my company. I didn’t even pay for internet service until a year ago, relying mostly on my company, various hotels, and test facilities to connect to the internet. Most of that time was spent conducting business, but I was able to minimally keep up with a few of my other interests on my own time like news, science, politics, and the latest games that I didn’t have time to play. So after hundreds of weekends worked and thousands of hours of overtime, my contribution to the test program was completed.

Now, I have a new place to live, a new computer, and an Internet connection… and time.

Back to the first question of what this blog is about: I’m going to use it to post on whatever I feel like, from oddities at work, scientific or historical items of interest, or daily life in general. My only self-limitation that I’ll put on this blog is an avoidance of rants about politics and religion. I’ll likely post my thoughts on those subjects in those particular communities (we’ll see how long that lasts).

If you are interested in some of my hangouts on the web, you may follow the various “Currently surfing” links that I’ll post at the bottom of my posts. With those links I’ll also post “Current Computer Games” and “Books Currently Reading” which will not change too quickly, but I am not expecting to write more than 1 to 4 posts a month.

So if you have happened to stumble upon this on purpose, take a look around, say “hi” and feel free to comment.

Currently Surfing:
Michael J. Totten's Middle East Journal
Funday Pawpet Show

Current Computer Games:
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Books Currently Reading:
The Soul of Battle by Victor Davis Hanson
The Oxford History of the Classical World

Serpent's Reach by C. J. Cherryh