Month: January 2016

The snow blower arrived today!

A tech from Sunnova was here to check out and reset our meter.

Still looks like this, although it sure feels cold enough to snow:

I finished MT Anderson’s “Symphony for the Dead” a couple of days ago. Anderson is a writer of children’s books and this work was on the Long List for the 2015 National Book Award for young people’s literature.

Apparently that means the book is age-appropriate for 12-18 year olds. The fact that I found it engaging and well-written perhaps says something about my mental capacity at age almost-70.

Here’s another reason why:

Excerpt, “A Full Life”. Jimmy Carter, p 136-7
… A scholarly analysis of presidential news coverage revealed that, overall, I had negative coverage in forty-eight months that I served — the only exception being the first two months, including when my family and I walked down Pennsylvania Avenue. This was a problem we could never understand or resolve but we just decided to accommodate what we couldn’t correct. Some of the most influential analysts never anticipated my election, and others could not accept having a governor from the Deep South in office. There was a running debate about whether I was a liberal or a conservative, with the conclusion that I was being devious about my basic philosophy. Also, a negative attitude toward the presidency carried over from the Watergate revelations about President Nixon, with perhaps a suspicion that we too had something unsavory to hide. We remember most vividly that “The Washington Post” had a full page of derisive cartoons showing me, my mother, and other members of our family with straw coming out of our ears, frequently outdoor privies, and associating with pigs. At the end of my term, on of the most prominent columnists wrote that finally the Reagans would “restore grace to the White House.” One of my top advisors, Charles Kirbo, referred to my pledge never to lie as throwing down the red flag. He said, “We just lost the liar vote.”
… During the first two years I had broad congressional support among Democrats, ands Senator Ted Kennedy was especially helpful. This changed dramatically late in 1978, when he decided to run for president. He became one of my most persistent opponents, seemingly determined to minimize my achievements. Kennedy recruited a number of more liberal Democrats to support him.
The most memorable occasion of Kennedy’s opposition to my proposal came in 1979, concerning our national health plan, which was the result of months of work my cabinet officers, economic advisors, White House staff, and congressional leaders. Except for Kennedy, we had full support from chairmen of the six key committees fin the house and Senate, and all six had been involved in its preparation. Out plan protected all Americans from catastrophic illness costs; extended comprehensive health coverage to all low-income citizens; gave total coverage to all mothers and babies for prenatal, delivery, postnatal, and infant care; promoted competition and cost containment; and provided a clear framework for phasing in a universal, comprehensive national health plan. Its total startup cost were included in my annual budget proposal, and it was to be fully implemented over a period of four years, with funding assured. Senator Kennedy had his own preferred plan which was so expensive that there was no prospect of congressional support, but his committee member participated with us until the week of announcement, when he decided to oppose the legislation. Kennedy’s opposition to our plan proved fatal; his was a powerful voice, and he and his supporters were able to block its passage. We lost a good chance to provide comprehensive national health care, and another thirty years would pass before such an opportunity came again, with just partial implementation.

January 7. Busy but well-organized drive sponsored by the Masons at the John Wesley Methodist Church.

For the truck, from Cormier’s.

I’ve been downloading DIY videos that I bought yesterday.

There’s a lot of good information here on framing, electric, dry wall, lighting, etc.

Even if I don’t DI myself, it’s helpful to have at least at little knowledge of the trades. Like learning another language – or software.

Which brings me to the realization that I have little interest in learning the “latest and greatest” either in Microsoft or Open Source.

Java 8 and Scala, Apache Spark, Play Framework and Spring may be great technologies, but wading through the generally lousy documentation of even established languages, platforms and frameworks throws the cost:benefit out of whack.

Example: URL routing. Not hard to do, but try finding a straightforward explanation of how it’s implemented.

Another example: I’ve struggled with CSS literally for years. I’m a decent JavaScript developer and understand the DOM, but not CSS. Recently, though, I found an excerpt from the book “CSS for Dummies”, and it felt like discovering the Holy Grail.

A client needs a new credit card processing portal installed; I started to go through the documentation yesterday, with dread. I’ll figure it out, always have, but I’d rather be muddling in the basement with my new videos. Especially if Ron isn’t around to noodge and kibitz.

We spent New Year’s day quietly.  I did some more work on a responsive MRS site and attempted a home improvement project which will be more difficult than I thought.

I wanted to insulate the old hatch to the attic but didn’t realize that there was plywood partly nailed over it.  Actually, two pieces of plywood.  So it’s a project.

It’s probably a stupid idea to start with, which only occurred to me after we bought the materials, since we don’t have need of the hatch and could just close it off.  Duh.

I hate working with insulation.

This morning, my truck made a horrible grinding sound when I tried to start it.  I called AAA and turns out, the person who came out to help is a long-term friend of our neighbor Scott.  Unlike Ron, who offered his usual asshole comments (“I’ve only had a donut since I got up.”) while engrossed in a cartoon on Facebook, the AAA guy had good advice, which I will follow.

I borrowed Ron’s van and got the fasting blood work out of the way this morning.  Mashpee C-Lab was almost empty, a miracle on a Saturday.  Brought James to work and did a light shop at S&S.

Ron put together a fine New Year’s Eve with 3 bunches of “Manager’s special” roses and fresh-squeezed citrus (oranges, lemon, lime) mimosas.

We had “surf and turf”, burgers and shrimp, for supper.

Drove the kids to the Fall River Newport Creamery for the traditional year-end Awful Awfuls, which also describes the trip pretty well.  Light traffic, though, and we had a terrific waitress who took excellent care of us.

Watched “Bone Tomahawk”:  enjoyed it, even if it’s about as far from the much-loved “Downton Abbey” as you can get.

The last of my purchases from Jet arrived: New Balance shoes and a no-fuss gluten-free pizza mix.  The microwave popcorn bowl got here a couple of days ago.

Launched the new, responsive version of MRS schedule.  Discovered the excellent reference “CSS3 for Dummies” and ordered a copy.  First one I’ve found that simplifies div-based vs. table structures in a way that can be easily implemented.