I really need to get back on board with blogging. It's been so long... I've re-enabled my subscription to HakerBoxes. So far, I've received boxes 54 (Smart Home), 55 (High Roller), and 56 (Demon Seed). I've created some project pages on my internal wiki, but have made no progress toward assembling the kits. I have a large box of unpainted D&D minis sitting here next to me that were originally intended for a campaign I created for a bunch of friends. Of course, this was all before the COVID-19 craziness. We haven't played yet, but I do want to start chipping away at painting all of these. Eventually we will use them. About a month ago my main PC crapped out. I decided to do something I've never done before; spec out a high-end machine and order all new parts. I did such, and got all of the components from...
Category: General
A Near Miss
At this point, it's a certainty that Hurricane Dorian (now a Category 5 with a maximum of 180mph winds)will miss hitting us and we'll only feel some tropical storm level effects. Hurricane Dorian Update 32A, 2019.09.01 11:00am. Hurricane Dorian radar 2019.09.01 11:10am.
Hurricane Dorian
Since my last post, Dorian has intensified to a Category 1 hurricane. At this point in time, it's going to hit the east coast of Florida at a Category 3. I assume we'll experience low Category 1/Tropical Storm effects here. Wed Aug 28 2019 5:00 pm AST update (Advisory 18).
Tropical Storm Dorian
Looks like it may get a little wet later this week...
Standard Saturday
Here's a boring, day-in-the-life-of post... Going to do a little yard work today - trim the palm tree, weed the plant beds. Then I need to look at the clothes dryer. The drum's not turning, so hopefully it's not a burned out motor (I think it is, tho). I also need to complete re-edging the den after painting a couple of weeks ago. That won't take too long. As part of that remodel, I need to talk to a cabinetry contractor about some supports for the new quartz worksurface that's being built, which should arrive in the next couple of weeks. I'll also need to decide on the wall cabinets and get an estimate from him on hanging them. Grilling is on the docket for today as well.
Lots of Digging
It's been quite a while since I've posted up here. I've created a reminder on my phone to post at least once per week, so we'll see if that helps me or not. Over the past two weeks, I've finally gotten on the Minecraft bandwagon. Yeah, I know it's late, but I tried playing the game about 10 years ago, and for some reason I wasn't interested. But, I revisited it and have to say that it's really been a great mental relaxation game. Nothing too heavy. Simple. It's been fun playing on a server with a couple of friends, which helps too. I'm still working on the lighting project for the kitchen cabinets. I'm really hoping to be done with the entire project by the end of September. Decided to use a Raspberry Pi and a microcontroller, which is new for me. It's taking more time than expected, but...
Hurricane Irma
She's barreling this way...
McDonald’s Update
I brought the Toyota to Walmart to get the obligatory oil change and it looks like it'll be about a two-hour wait. That's fine with me, though. I'm just sitting at the in-store McDonald's, having a cup of coffee. I was able to go measure the box containing the patio furniture and it looks like it'll just barely fit in the car. After reading some news articles, I'll hit the floor and scout for a few more things.
2010 L.A. Trip
I happened to stumble across my old Tumblr page today. Apparently, I created it around the time I went to L.A. in May 2010 for a short, 4-day trip. I was seriously considering moving out there, and Zeke (Eman) had set me up with a interview at the Ski Channel. The interview didn't go so well, but I had an opportunity to see what L.A. was like and it was a large basis of why I went back out there again in December 2010. Anyway, I pulled all of those Tumblr posts into this blog and deleted the Tumblr account. If you go back to around May 2010, you'll see the posts.
Full of Renders, Comics, and BBQ
I was able to get the final render for SCS047 off to Carl this morning. I found that supporting an alpha channel in the animation required QuickTime using the Animation codec with a depth Millions+ of colors. Today was Free Comic Book Day. The whole family participated as we visited Emerald City Comics in Pinellas Park and The Comics Club in Brandon. We got a ton of stuff that I'm too tired to list here, but all-in-all, got some fantastic deals and bunch of fun reading material (and games!). We grabbed some food at a BBQ kiosk outside Emerald City and some Mexican at Vallarta's in Brandon later in the day. After all of that, since Melissa was back in town for the last day or two, we took her by the new house. Nothing's changed since the photo's I posted yesterday, but neither of the girls has been to...
