Digital Choke Daynotes

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What I Did On My Summer Vacation (July 2003)

Did you notice I was gone? Well, not really gone, but I lost my "round-tu-it's" that I use to get these pages done. I'm not sure where all the time went, but I must have been busy.

Let's see. I got up early on Saturday (that must have been the reason for the unusual weekend -- I didn't get to sleep in on Saturday). Took the car over to the brake shop to check out the brakes. I had gotten a brake inspection at Mieneke, and they said that all four needed to be done. I had them do the fronts, since they were the worst. Although they said that the brake hardware needed to be replaced, I declined; replace the pads for now, and I'll look at the other stuff later.

So the brakes had been a bit squeaky since then, and it sounded like it was coming from the rear. (Not mine, thank you.) Since we are leaving on a road trip soon, it was a good time to check out the back brakes. So I left it there while I went over to show someone the trailer (more on that later). The brake shop (a local place) called a bit later and said that the front brakes were at 80% (reasonable, since they were replaced), and the back brakes were at 60%.

Now, the back set of brakes. Weren't those the ones that the folks at Mieneke said needed to be replaced? Seems like a bit of a scam to me. I probably should have stayed at Mieneke while they were working on the brakes so I could actually see them. I am fully not impressed with Mieneke.

While that was happening, we went over to the in-laws to show the trailer to a guy that responded to our classified ad. We were supposed to meet him Friday night, but his father-in-law had a stroke, so he took care of that. Although he seemed to like the trailer, he was going to check out a couple more, and we haven't heard from him since. We got a couple of other calls on the trailer, including two that wanted to pay only $2500 (we're asking $5000, which is a reasonable price). We politely declined.

Then some other errands, including picking up a copy of Harry Potter's newest adventures. (Did you read the story on abcnews.com that there are already pirated e-books of the book available? That didn't take long.) In the evening we went to a wedding reception for a family friend's daughter, where we were able to visit with some friends from the area we just moved from. (Yes, Brian C....not the best grammar, but it is late...) By the time we got home, I was too pooped to post.

Sunday was also busy. We slept in a bit, went to church, then got ready for the Sunday dinner. We invited my parents up to visit Stacy before she left. So the whole family was here. I fixed barbeque chicken on the new grill; they turned out well.

So here it is Monday. You may have read about the agriculture conference here in Sacramento. So there are a higher number of strange people around town. Some are very colorful (colored hair and clothes and tattoos), and some are just brown (they have smeared mud all over their bodies because they are 'one with the earth'). All of them are quite strange. You have all these protestors against techniques that will increase the food supply of third-world countries. All of the protestors look quite well-fed. Especially compared to the folks in those third-world countries that are suffering from widespread droughts and famines.

Most of the protests were several blocks away from the office. But I was still quite busy. It was one of those days that goes by very quickly.

So we got home, and cooked some hamburger patties on the grill. And noticed that the refrigerator is getting a bit warm. It was, as the good doctor says "Dead, Jim". The lights are on, but the compressor has died. It's about 9 years old, and should have lasted longer than that, but I don't think that it is worth putting money into it to fix it for a couple of more years of use.

So, we made a quick trip to Lowe's to pick out a new one. And then came home and emptied the old one out. Since the new one won't be here for a week, we took the mostly frozen meat (including some nice rib-eyes ....sigh...) to a neighbor's house. They have a large family, and can use it, along with some mostly full condiments. They appreciated it, and it was better than just throwing it all out.

That brings you up to date, I guess. It's getting a bit late here. We've got two more days of work this week before we head out on the road trip. We'll be gone for a while, but we do have some good neighbors watching over the house. And the alarm system works just fine. But you may find the posts here to be a bit skimpy until then.

The main tasks today were to prepare for the big road trip. So I spent some time getting a couple of projects into their next stage. I worked on a security book for users, using as a basis a few things that I found on the net. The intent is to put together a booklet about computer and information security, and get it to all the employees. It should be a good education tool, assuming that people actually read it.

We stopped by Costco on the way home, and i found a couple of paris of jeans for about $13.00 each. We grabbed some new white socks, some film, and a double bag of beef jerky (gotta have something to chew on as I drive across Nevada). We all went over to Round Table for our last family pizza for dinner. Then off to Best Buy to pick up a USB hard drive for Stacy. I figured that she could use that to easily transfer information when she does research at the library. Although she's got a new computer, I am not sure how her Internet connection will be handled. She is living off-campus (there isn't much on-campus housing available), so there isn't a network connection. She'll be sharing a phone with three other girls in the apartment, so you can't really tie up the phone to go on-line. We also got her a cable lock that we'll use for the computer in her room, so it won't disappear.

Then I got home and got a call from someone that wanted to take a look at the trailer. So back into the car to head over to the in-laws to do that. They seemed mildly interested, but we didn't close the deal. He doesn't need one right away. And although it would have been nice to get it sold, that's one less thing to worry about before taking off on the trip.

Back home again, then preparations for the trip. I downloaded all the pictures from the camera into the home computer, then erased them in the camera. It's got a 128MB memory card, which holds about 160 pictures at high resolution. I may pick up another card to take along. Gotta grab a pile of batteries, put together the computer bag, then I still have to pack my clothes. I also think I'll put together a small tool box for minor road emergencies. I don't think that we'll have any problems, with all the repair work that we've got done on both cars.

So, it's getting late, and I have much to do. Posts here will be sporadic until we return. I'll keep a running travelogue locally, then upload them when I can, for those of you that want to read about someone else's vacation. Our plan is to spend a few days at Yellowstone, then head west to the Oregon coast, then down the coast to home. We don't have an exact plan, just hope to find something interesting along the way. And, hotels with vacancies.

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