Thursday, April 21, 2005

Life is funny....

My wife accused me of 'stealing the pillow from her' last night... I remarked that I hadn't 'stolen' the pillow, I was simply "repositioning previously misappropriated head cushioning apparatus" - which of course means that she'd actually stolen it from me first!

This past weekend I rented a tractor with a front-end loader and a rear mower to do a little work around the 'farm' (our entire 1.2 acres)... things were going pretty well, when, just as I was pulling forward to move the last bucket load of firewood I nicked a tree branch and dropped a piece of said firewood directly on to the hood of this John Deere tractor... it split that plastic hood like an over-ripe grape... The ticket for a new hood for that tractor? $604.92... about twice what it cost to rent the thing for the weekend.

Oh well, at least the fire wood is moved, the brush is cut back and we now have a nice dark brown mulch covering the large area in the back yard where grass refused to grow.

You see, I have a plan... everywhere else we've put mulch to suppress the grass and weed growth (like around the plants in the front of the house) grass seems to sprout up better there than anywhere else on the property... grass always grows robustly where ever it's very inconvenient to mow... So I figure I'd spread out the mulch... sit back and probably by Mothers day I'll have to mow that mulched section twice as often as the rest of the yard!

The contract has been keeping me very busy. I picked up two additional projects this week, both are going to be challenging and will most likely lead to another extension on this contract. I know this is going to sound like I'm not thankful for the work (and believe me I *am* thankful), but doesn't anyone but me know that it's *motorcycle* season?? I want to be in the wind, carving corners on the Blue Ridge Parkway, riding the Dragon at Deals Gap (put your bones on the line... ride 129... 318 curves in 11 miles)... and in general adding to my long list of strange and unusual folks I meet while riding... but the universe has decided that this season I'll be coding, not riding... it could be worse, I could be riding, but not eating!

The personal work is slipping... it's been days since I've been here... My new data driven web site is still in the “proof of concept” phase, meaning I’ve proved the concept, but it’s still a long way from “ready for prime time”. I know I can build a package that will allow anyone with a computer to build a totally dynamic, and data driven website, with no knowledge of web pages or HTML… I’m just a long way from having it ready for even ‘pre-beta’ testing (which means a bunch of my friends trying it out)

The truck project is still ‘in the shop’… in pieces, all over the shop, on the shelves, in the attic, under tarps behind the garage… a vehicle takes up a surprising amount of room once you take it all apart!! I’m reminded of ‘how many’ pieces every time I need a ‘lawn implement’ from the garage as what ever I need is always behind the heaviest pile of truck parts…

So the weekend is almost here, Saturday promises to be perfect for frenching in the new gas tank doors and finishing up the body work on the truck bed, and Sunday if it rains I could tackle the brakes and suspension…

Then again... I could take my new ‘beach chair’ (I’ve gotta ‘test sit’ it before the actual beach… don’t ya think?) a cold beer or three and grill something on Saturday after a nice bike ride in the country… Decisions… Decisions…

I’ve decided to go steal a pillow from my wife!

2 comments:

Trevor Record said...

In software dev, they should officially change "Beta" to the phrase "ready for prime time".

Bill said...

Trevor -

You're just exactly right! I've worked on several 'beta' teams over the years, and today, I no longer use anything in 'beta'. I can remember when a beta release was what they now call a 'Release Candidate'.

Even those "RC's" are often still very buggy... There's not enough time in the week to even evaluate anything less than an RC, unless you make your living doing it!

Thanks for stopping by!