Edwin Wise

Illustrations!

Illustrations! Illustrations! Renderings! Solid 3-D Models! Photographs... no, photographs are too easy, let's stick with the hard stuff. Illustrations! Cross-sectional renderings! Graphs! Charts! CAD Drawings!

Yup, that's what I'm spending my time on. Robotics Demystified isn't a book, its a _picture_ book. I've spent something like seven hours today and written just three pages of text (out of ten to fifteen needed for the chapter). And three pictures.

Sure, Figure 8-1 has two (very simple) CAD models and two views of a 3D model. Figure 8-2 contains six sub-photos, but not just photos -- I cut the image of interest away from its background. Wouldn't want it to be simple.

I just finished Figure 8-3. It's a sintered bronze bushing and a cut-away view of a ball bearing.

Now I'm about halfway through illustrating a hinge, where I'll also provide a cut-away view.

I love the figures, and the models may be useful for later projects, who knows? But it's killing me.

It didn't help that I worked with Marla on her school project for an hour or so (documenting the process of creating a Halloween corpse), and showed Bob Q. around the shop while talking about knife making and the new exotic metals they have now. Neat stuff! It's all good!

Just time consuming.

Time. I remember when I had time.

No, that's a lie. I never have time. I kinda like it that way, though some days it seems like I'm insane to do all that I do.

Anyway, the electronics chapters are so much easier.

No dancing tonight; tired, need to do things, Michelle isn't too enthused about it either. Tomorrow we do grocery shopping, office supply shopping, book shopping, and I bet Marla will try to convince me to go _clothes_ shopping!

I know that all I seem to do here is whine... but there isn't really anything to report. I'm working. I'm writing. I'm busy.

So, to stay in the habit, I talk about my working, my writing, my business... and complain about it all. Complaining is, sadly enough, my favorite sport.

Real work!

Yup, it looks like next week won't just be free time to catch up on my soap operas (or, more likely, my technical reading).

Seems that we have some heavy duty testing in store for us, and I've been slotted to do some of it. My role isn't very exciting yet; some basic build validation at first. I will probably also get some test records (assignments) that, from what I hear around me, will be extremely difficult at first.

New environments (even different than what I've learned already), new things to learn.

On the home front, I haven't practiced my Tai Chi outside of class for _ages_. I've really slacked off! Of course, I haven't exactly found a good time for it, either. I think I may be able to squeeze it in, though, if I try hard enough. I suppose I could just get up earlier. Morning practice is supposed to be the best. But I also jealously guard my sleeping time (except at night, where I jealously guard my reading in bed time).

For that matter, if I'm to be shoe-horning things into the crumbs of time left to me, I want to get more writing in to UnDead!

Hmmm.....

If each of you readers could e-mail me an hour a day each, I would probably have enough time to do everything! And you probably wouldn't miss that hour much... not most of you.

Tell you what; you can keep all 24 hours for the weekends. I just want your hour during the week. Deal?

Time and Madness

You may have noticed by now that my time is... full.

Last night, I decided that alternate Mondays are my nights off (the other Mondays are dance lessons). I figured I might keep my sanity longer if I was able to watch a movie now and then, or just kick back and ignore my many tasks.

Last night we watched _Tank Girl_ for the umpteenth time... a fun movie. Cost the poor bastards $25M to make, and it made back just a quarter of that amount in theatres. I wonder how well it's doing in DVD form?

The book is going pretty well; I'll have Chapter 7 done soon. That marks the 1/3 point.

Things look like they will be slow for me at NI the next two days, so maybe I can catch up on my technical reading. Or maybe they'll notice and give me somthing hard to do... who knows?

There was something I specifically wanted to say here today, but I'll be damned if I can think what it was.

Mmmm... Monday

Hello friends,

You know, there isn't much that happens when you are busy all the time. Doesn't that sound odd? A contradition... the more I do, the fewer interesting or newsworthy things happen.

Unless, of course, I'm working on a project. But no, it's all work, school, dancing... and how exciting are "Oooh, I went to dance practice on Friday" posts every week? Not very.

All of my mad science projects are still on ice, though I did call a halloween meeting for the 20th of March. And I want to do a few experiments using last year's molds and supplies. And I want to get some plastic "guts" that I can re-cast in squish, for _better effect_. Heh.

We had a Random Saturday gathering on, well, Saturday, and had a great turnout. We ate snacks, drank a little beer, and played games. Well, game. This time it was a game whose exact title escapes me..."Kung Fu Ninja on Giant Robot Island" or somesuch. It's fun!

We cleaned the house (whee) and the vacuum worked wonderfully. Dyson is great. Marla got some bookshelves, and the library is looking very nice indeed now.

On the national front, Ralph Nader is running for prez. Jeez! What an idiot! This is _not_ the time to "make a statement" by running. The only way this could go well is if he manages to (a) force the discussions over to something other than G.W. Bush's lack of and then (b) drop out before the real voting begins.

Maybe he's a Republican shill....

Whew... and argh

Whew, I made it through my second week at National.

They have a very complicated environment there, lots of files, lots of scripts, lots of lots of lots. Their educational method is "sink or swim", taking even a simple DMFU assignment and turning into a giant treasure hunt of finding dependencies and the information needed to implement the otherwise trivial programming tasks.

And its not as if dependencies and make environments are my strong point.

Note, for example, the data CD for _AI in Java_, the CD that was going to ship with the book but isn't because someone dropped the ball.

I know I tested the code in the book, and I'm pretty damn sure I did a clean build on all of it. I clearly didn't perform a clean _enough_ build, though, since it won't compile as shipped. At least one dependency loop between projects, so now I'm kicking myself. Thankfully, due to the interactivity of the internet and the keen efforts of dedicated readers like Francisco J. Bido, I am now aware of my deficiencies.

Now I just have to find time to fix them. Which is where the Argh! comes in.

No time! No time!

Argh!

Slow

This site is terribly slow, but the exciting thing is that now, with my newly discovered cash-flow, I have some hope of upgrading my service to fix the problem.

Stay tuned! This may happen next month.

Of course, having the site be slow is only appropriate, since it matches my own personal brain speed right now.

I had, maybe, an hour and a half yesterday where I wasn't off _doing_ something. While this isn't stressful, more like fun, it is tiring.

At work I'm wading through bits of the environment now, courtesy of the DMF University (internal training) I'm in. Today was the second day. It's a very complex environment, quite a bit to take in. It definitely puts some wear and tear on the old neurotransmitters.

Off topic, yesterday we bought a vacuum cleaner. It's beautiful. It works, it works well, and it works elegantly. It comes apart to give you complete access to the airflow. And the airflow itself is strong and steady, and doesn't diminish even as the container fills up. In addition of all this technical and functional greatness, it is lightweight and quiet!

This wonder machine, which Marla is convinced that I want to marry, is the Dyson DC07 Cyclone Animal.

Check it out at http://www.dyson.com and then buy one for yourself.

I'm a little behind...

Okay, I suppose it won't come as a surprise that I didn't get everything done today that I wanted.

I'm not done with Chapter 6 yet, though I should get that in tomorrow.

I haven't started Chapter 7 of course, but that was to happen tomorrow anyway.

Didn't do any bills or budgeting, didn't do laundry yet, or clean the kitchen, or anything useful.

Went to the PHC meeting and got elected director for Haunted Trails for 2004.

What?! Oh damn! I'm director this year! So, I get to direct a two-location haunt (Davenport wants to host our parking and transportation again, an will probably give is space to haunt in too) following the _best_ year Trails has had yet.

It's going to be a tough act to follow. And I did put in the caveat that I wanted to direct, that is, manage the creative stuff. I require deputies (assistant directors or something) do manage much of the construction and late nights before the run.

Sigh.

At least we decided which vacuum cleaner to get. Our old one died some months ago and the cat fur is _really_ beginning to pile up.

So if you are ever in the market, and have $400 you don't know what to do with, get the Dyson DC07 Cyclone vacuum cleaner, or one of its variants. It's the best.

Now to eat pizza and go to the Valentine's dance. Enjoy, y'all!

2:00 Nap

That's what I miss most, my 2:00 (or so) nap. My natural cycles are such that I usually get all sleepy about then.

So I'm kinda droopy right now.

Of course, I'm being assaulted by germs! Aaaa!

The cedar pollen softened me up for a few days, now the cold weather and the new-job stress are trying to establish a beachhead in my body.

I'll beat those bastards yet, though. The weekend is coming up, and I forsee lots of warm clothing, hot tea, and good rest for me.

In between writing in the book, of course, and those other things I listed. Ooh, and paying bills and working on a budget. This is actually very exciting! I have cash flow again.

Mmmmm.... cash flow.

Friday!

Howdy y'all...

Today is Friday, marking the last day of my first week at National.

I survived! Well, I will have once today is over.

I spent the entire time learning LabView (our basic high-end interface to our "stuff"), going to meetings (, haven't had those for ages), and setting up my environment.

The computer I have is _sweet_. Dual processor, 3GHz, 1G RAM, 100G or so HD... ahhhh....

Of course, my test computer is crap. PII 266, 128M RAM. Feeble.

It may be a while before anything interesting happens to report here, but heck, I'll try to keep logging in even if its a report on how there is nothing to report. I realized I could take five minutes in the morning _from work_ to do this! Woo!

Today is Friday the 13th, which is something of a special day for me and Marla. Our first official "date" was on a Friday the 13th in October (except, wasn't the movie _Best in Show_ before this? I memory for time is terrible). And of course, tomorrow is Valentine's day.

So tonight we have a three-pronged celebration dinner. For our mini-anniversary, for my landing this great new job, and for Valentine's.

We don't celebrate the big V on the 14th, because it's far too crowded out in the world. Who wants to have a romantic evening out with all of Austin, joggling elbows as we wait for an hour for a table at an overcrowded restaurant?

This weekend, with any luck, I can study two more chapters of Anthropology, go to the Permanent Halloween Committee (PHC) meeting for Haunted Trails, finish chapter 6, get will into chapter 7, and, ummm, something else, too, I think. Maybe.

Wish me luck.

Ugh

Ergh bleh pfffbbbttt... eck ack pllb.

Brk ugh blat.

Ahhhhhhhhh....urrrrrgggghhhh... gurgle.

Tired

Went to my first day at work today. National is a neat company. My computer wasn't in, so I used a junky loaner.

I'm learning stuff.

After work, I went to UT and took a test or two, reviewed some old work.

I came home. Marla made some food, fajita thingies.

I worked on the book. Spend an hour and a half getting an illustration done. I'm going to have to work faster than that.

I'm tired.

I go to bed now.

Mmmm, weekends

Hey y'all,

Sorry for the digression into ranting lately. Been a bit wound up here lately, it should get better once I settle into the new job.

The terrible slow response from my ISP is bugging me, so once I have some money, I'll probably upgrade to the next level of service. I'll see what I can do.

Last night was fun, but tiring. Thursday I wore myself out in Tai Chi, and then last night at dance class. My endurance is a bit thin lately.

This weekend would be a great time to sleep. Or hang out in the yard or the park, since the weather looks beautiful.

But no, I need to study my anthropology and start chapter 6 in the book.

No rest for the wicked!

Janet's Booble

---+++++Lies, Damn Lies, and Janet Jackson's Right Breast

Oh God, not this! You have either never heard of this topic, or you are sick to death of it by now. Either way, I'm not going to waste your time talking about Janet Jackson's Right Breast and how it came to be exposed during the super-duper bowl, or whatever.

No, that's a lie. I _am_ going to talk about that, but only as a way to talk about television in general.

First, I despise broadcast TV and I don't think much of most cable channels either. Mostly because of the steaming stream of sewage they call news and advertising flowing out of them; because of the lies they expose you to every hour of every day.

I practice what I preach, too. I haven't had cable or watched broadcast TV in something like three, maybe four, years. I do watch the tube, though. I'll go to a friend's house and catch a select show or two. I watch DVD movies. But mostly I read books and I write books. I’m not smug about it, no holier-than-thou attitude. It’s simply how I prefer to spend my time.

What do you do with _your_ spare time? What could you be doing if you didn't watch TV?

Anyway, back to the topic on hand.

Summary. During the Super Bowl, Janet Jackson lost part of her costume and had a breast, complete with silver sun-shaped nipple shield, exposed. People freaked out. CBS issued a bunch of apologies.

They are dancing. Near the end of the song, Justin clearly reaches across Janet's costume, he clearly grabs hold and removes an important part of it, and if you look at the piece in his hand, it is clear that there is just one piece involved, with red lacy trim attached to it. No accidents, no torn costume, no errors. Perfectly executed. These are professionals.

CBS is bombarded with complaints (duh). What is everyone's first impulse? Lie.

Janet says it was a stunt that just went too far.

Justin says it was a "wardrobe malfunction".

Both statements are clearly lies.

CBS says that they were totally surprised, what a horrible, unplanned thing to happen to them.

You know what I think? I think that CBS is lying to us, too.

Now that people are pressuring the involved parties, everyone is backpedaling. Saying that, umm, yeah, we did this on purpose, sorry.

Would they be backpedaling if the lies were not so obvious? I don't think so.

CBS went on to say that MTV would be sanctioned, that they would not be allowed to produce the next Superbowl show.

I bet they get VH1 to do it. Or maybe Comedy Central or Showtime. Maybe we will get country music and CMT will do it! Woo!

But this is like flipping you off with the left hand instead of the right hand. Because Viacom owns every single channel mentioned so far. Viacom's CBS is complaining about Viacom's MTV. So maybe Viacom's VH1 could do the next show.

See where I'm going with this?

Now, the whole Janet Jackson thing was easy. The evidence is right there in front of us, the pictures are pretty clear, the video most telling.

Even advertising has obvious lies. Beer commercials where they are actually selling women. Car commercials where they sell the fantasy of the great, rugged outdoors, or of racing along twisty roads. Yeah, you tell me how much driving along twisty mountain roads you do in your car, as you sit in traffic on the way to work in the morning.

Candy coated cereal, “a part of this complete breakfast”. Remove the cereal from the picture entirely and what do you get? A complete breakfast. Which part of the breakfast is the cereal? The dessert part. I had a friend once who called the stuff “sugar coated sugar flavored little bits of sugar”. A candy bar with some vitamins crumbled up into it. Don’t believe me? Read the labels.

But what about the lies we don't catch? How do you know that your news shows, for example, are telling the truth?

You don't.

There are different kinds of lies. An important one is the lie of omission, and this is the easiest. Where you focus on one part of a story but exclude other parts that change the story, make it more complex. It's easy to mislead this way. But there are also lies that are just lies, speaking untruth.

There is no way to tell if any one source is telling you the truth or telling you lies. If you are getting your information pre-digested, pre-packaged, and sent out in handy, entertaining little doses, you are at their mercy. They could feed you anything and you would be none the wiser.

Even if you look at several different sources of information, the sources that you like, that comfort you and sound right, you are probably getting a consensus lie. The lie that the conservative papers all tell together or the lie that the liberal papers all tell together. The lies that people believe because they have heard them so often and they now repeat on the web and in the forums.

Maybe, instead, you can try reading the news sources that you hate, that make you uncomfortable, that bug the hell out of you. Read the comforting stuff, too. But read both.

Are you interested in a topic, perhaps what a politician is doing, or has done? Read your usual news sources, sure. But if you really care you have to work for it. Almost everything in politics, and many things in business, are in the public domain. With digging you can get the source material. The actual vote, the actual bill, the actual financial records, the actual chain of ownership.

But you won't find that the original material is easy to find or easy to read. It isn't meant to be.

I don't have any answers yet. But I'm pretty clear on my complaints.

Hopefully, with more digging, I'll come up with something more constructive.

Pico...

Oh, skip over my rant below and look at the cute kitten pictures.

Master of Irrelevant Details

School.

It's not for everyone, I suppose. Or more precisely, not all teaching styles are equal and there are some I actively despise.

One in particular.

The Master of Irrelevant Detail.

I know I'm not one to talk. I collect junk trivia like anyone else. Want to know the opcode for no-operation on the 6502? I haven't used that architecture for almost twenty years, but I think I remember that code. 0xEA. The 0xAD and 0xA9 were, I believe, manipulations of the A register.

I could be wrong, of course. I haven't used these for ages.

So I started this term taking two classes, both of which were "self paced". Anthropology, which looks like a lot of fun, and Geography of cities, which was there so why not? These were the only two self-paced we could find this term.

After reading the two assigned chapters in Geography, I though the content in the book was pretty light, but heck, it did talk about the development of North American cities, so I'm good.

I wander in to the test. I'm wondering how he is going to get forty questions out of these chapters. I figure he will have to get down to trivia, like naming the five boroughs of New York. While these aren't really relevant, the data was in there.

Otherwise, I expected to have him ask about the growth patterns of the city, percentage of urban population now and 100 years ago, _relevant_ stuff. Or at least, nearly relevant.

I glanced over the test and walked out.

I can see, I suppose, asking where Machu Pichu was (South America, in the Andes), though that isn't terribly relevant to the development of North American cities that the _rest_ of the work focused on. But it was mentioned, in a brief aside, near the front of the book.

But what relevance does the question "Who wrote poetry and the city?" have? I had to search through both chapters, out of morbid curiosity, to even see what he was talking about. Was there a side-box labeled "Poerty and the City"? No. There was this paragraph, however:

"US Poet John Ciardi (1959, chap. 1) believed that we also need to consider the mood the poem creates in us, its readers, as well as the deeper subtleties conveyed in how the poem's words play together. Our concern, wrote Ciardi, should not be 'to arrive at a definition and close the book, but to arrive at an experience.'"

Yeah, I can see now that it could be a question on a test for the really anal. But reading this in the _introduction_ of the book, Chapter 1 which just gives an overview of the subject, it really didn't seem interesting or relevant.

Maybe it's just me. But looking over the test, briefly, the other questions didn't seem to deal with the meat of the material, but with the sidelines, the irrelevant details. Only those two questions stuck in my mind, though.

Hell freezes over before I take a class that requires me to memorize every name, date, and reference on every page. I want to learn the subject, not memorize textbooks.

I dropped the subject.

On the other hand, Anthropology looks like a good class. Sure, I'll be memorizing a million obscure latin and greek words as I struggle through the classification of primates, but at least those details are _relevant_, they are the language of the subject.

I don't mind work when it has a point.

Teachers often have the misguided belief that each student has, or should have, the same passion to learn every little nuance or subtle side-track of their subject.

This teacher got his PhD almost 35 years ago; he's probably been teaching this for twenty or thirty years. He is clearly deeply immersed in the subject.

But if I want to learn about poets, I will take a class that is _not_ called "Intro to Urban Geography". Teach me the subject, and the subject is Geography. Urban Geography. The growth and development of cities.

And make the tests to the point.

I suppose I'm just being over-excitable here. I've been a bit stressed, and this just put me over the edge.

The Master of Irrelevant Details.

Fortunately, I don't have to put up with that crap.

Pico

We are trying out a new name for the kitten... Pico. Or, to be precise, Pico de Gato.

We apologize for the bad pun.

Of course, we have pictures to post! First, here is Papa looking disgruntled:

[[http://www.simreal.com/twiki/pub/Simreal/Journal/papa1.jpg][]]

And here is little Pico:

[[http://www.simreal.com/twiki/pub/Simreal/Journal/pico2.jpg][]]

He has found the old "happy sock" here. This version isn't actually a sock, but a knitted gift wrap cover coozie for jam, from Christmas 2002.

Inside of it is a cinnamon roll of polyester batting layered with a generous helping of catnip.

The cats love this thing. We have a second one now, made from an actual sock.

Mmmm, Money

Sorry to keep y'all hanging from Monday!

Monday night I got a call from National saying they got the job offer approved. Yesterday afternoon I got the paperwork.

It's a good job! The pay is perfectly acceptable, the opportunities for advancement are excellent, and the benefits are... they have benefits! Oooh, I can get glasses now. It's been too long since I've had insurance, and FAR to long since I've had _good_ insurance.

I'm a very happy camper. Still stressed like nobody's business, but I suppose this is "good stress". Heh.

Yesterday was busy in another way. We ran out and foolishly got another cat. Papageno (damn, I don't know how to spell that... we just call him "Papa" whatever; papa-doodles, that kind of thing) is not taking it particularly well.

Let's go back to the beginning.

I've been working out of the house for something like eight years. When Marla and I moved in together... ummm... a couple/few years ago (sorry, my mind just isn't coming up with the timespan here) the cat has been a constant companion in the office. He sits on his perch by my desk. He naps in the chair in the corner. He clambers over my paper and demands to be petted.

You know, cat stuff.

Years of this. He's gotten pretty used to my being here.

And he likes his people. He tends to make unhappy noises when Marla goes to work in the morning, even. He spends a bunch of his time either yelling at outside cats to go away, or whining that there aren't outside cats to yell at. Or something. Who knows? He's a cat.

With me going to work full-time, we figured he would be lonely. So we decided to get him a kitten! A half-bread Maine Coon, like him, so it will have a compatible personality and enough size to survive playing with him.

Yesterday we got the little guy. Cute as a button, three months old and already larger than some adult cats we know. Good personality, though a bit shell-shocked.

Poor little tyke was taken from one home to another... grandma's I think. There, he was surround by lots of other cats, some litter-mates, and a bunch of outdoor dogs. Then we swoop down, take him from his siblings, run him through the vet, put goop in his ear, and plop him into the middle of another cat's territory.

Right now, the dinky fellow is establishing some space in the upstairs bathroom. He's doing pretty good.

Papa, however, is not amused. He spent a bunch of time yesterday sniffing our arms, shirts, and/or pants an hissing at them. The rest of the time he spent hiding under the bed or skulking around looking offended.

Today he's a bit more chipper, but is avoiding the upstairs entirely. I kinda miss the silly booger, because my office is up there and I'm used to him being a pest!

Ooh, as I'm writing he just wandered by and into Marla's workroom up here. Good! A good sign!

He's had another cat in his house before. After a few days of what Marla assures me was similar behavior, he got used to her and settled down to play. In _that_ case, the other cat couldn't cope with Papa. That's why we got a kitten of his breed.

So I have high hopes things will work out. Hopefully soon, because I go to work Monday.

Woo-hoo! Work! That means... paychecks. Mmmm, paychecks. If you haven't had the joy of working for two years for random amounts of cash, never enough, then you might not appreciate the joy of the paycheck.

Next time you get one, look at it. Savor it. And consider the alternatives.

Information

Information is power, we all know that. Sometimes the information you want and need is not accessible. Such as the future. It would be nice to know what the future holds.

I have been offered a job at a startup doing some robot-related work. And they are offering me a lot of money, and a lot of stock. And a lot of risk.

NI will be offering me... something, tomorrow I suppose.

I think I'll be going with the lesser known, the stability of NI. Like Marla says, risk is for people with savings. The startup could be worth millions, or it could get its ass kicked in the market and lose big time. If I knew which, I could make a better decision.

Politics is another arena where good information is hard to find.

The mainstream news channels are, as best I can tell, pure crap. Faux News with their "Fair and Balanced" makes me itch; the talking heads there have as much credibility as a soap opera.

And the others? Who knows! I don't trust TV news, it's all about the entertainment. The newspapers aren't any better. And they all seem to be following a specific agenda.

Of course, alternative news sources have as much agenda as the mainstream ones, if not more.

People who have news written about them say that the interviewers come to them with a particular story in mind, and are mostly looking for details to back them up.

Is this finding news, or __making__ news?

What happened to investigations? To covering both sides of a story? Of including the details and not just the bits that make for a dramatic report?

So, back to politics. How would I find out the truth about the candidates? I poked my nose into the national committee websites for both parties... http://www.rnc.org and http://www.dnc.org... but they just scared me.

The Republicans, while many of their anti-people positions make my skin crawl, provide a good resource for embarassing details about their enemies, the Democrats.

The Democrat site doesn't seem to be as detail-oriented as the Republican site. I mean, the Republicans have Democrat-bashing down to a science, and they seem to be very organised about it.

But either way, there won't be much truth to be found in either site. My hope would be that, reading both, it might be possible to actually find both sides of something. But I don't know if I want to suffer that much.

Maybe it all comes down to finding the transcripts of speeches and voting records of politicians, and extrapolating from there.

Right now, I think I'm in the Anyone But Bush camp. But for future elections, I really want to find a source of good information.

On a more enjoyable note, these pictures of 3D sidewalk art are absolutely amazing, at least while it is still up:

[[http://www.mooie-meiden.com/wtfpeople/temp/chalk.htm]]

Chewing Nails

Okay, I would like to say I'm sitting here calmly working on the current book, but I'm not.

Tomorrow or perhaps Tuesday I am going to get a call from NI with their job offer. What will it be?

I have a fairly enormous base of expenses, due to the largish house we live in, child support, the truck payments, and the fact that I like to eat.

If they offer too little, I'll starve. I hate that.

Soon, soon. I hate waiting. I usually avoid the sense of "waiting" by simply doing other things, ignoring the wait. Some waits, however, are harder to ignore than others.

Friday night went to [[http://www.oddfriday.com][Odd Friday]] and had some good Geeking time with David. Last week I had repaired a metal bug for Sophia and I got to return it... she was most happy!

Yesterday was mostly involved with waiting. Though I found some interesting scripts, [[http://www.matwei.de/][Eagle3d]], that convert Eagle board files into POVRay scenes.

I of course had to go and modify them a bit, providing a breadboard and jumper wire macros to replace the circuit board.

Sigh. Another hour or so and I need to do some housecleaning. Then tonight, D&D. Then tomorrow, I'll write more or do some damn thing for Wittlock.

Did I mention I hate waiting?