Successfully upgraded my mac from 10.5 to 10.6.4. Didn't want to (had no compelling reason to do it) but our corporate IT droids are cutting 10.5 users off from our internal calendar app after next week.

My troublesome employee gave notice yesterday and left today for good (1 day notice!). Sure takes a huge load off my mind; he won't be missed. People are commenting that the 1 day notice wasn't very nice but honestly it's saved me a lot of trouble. If he lingered around we would have had to do some stupid ass 'transition plan' and done some sort of going away event (since he quit before I could fire him). This way he's just gone, *poof* and if someone says "hey, he was working on XYZ for me!" then I can reassign it but use the 1-day notice as why that project got dropped on the ground. So much better all around.

Otherwise, not much to report. I'm still so happy that he's gone that I haven't thought of much else for the last 24 hours.

The alarm went in on Friday; took much longer than I had hoped (didn't make it back into the office that afternoon) but it looks good. They didn't rush the wiring or do anything half assed from what I can tell. The woman doesn't like that the siren is loud, but it's an alarm, that's what it's supposed to do. They get much better signal with their antenna than I do with the iPhone, ATT's service seems to have degraded, I can't even make phone calls downstairs at all. Come on, release a Verizon phone so I can switch away from ATT!

I went up to my parents to check out the cabin and the damage the tenants did. Those people were animals. Carpets ruined, holes in the walls, trash everywhere and you can tell they had a kid because the whole house smells of shit (literally). At least the kitchen and bathroom are intact and they didn't break too many tiles. We'll gut the place next weekend and see if we can get a cleaning service to come in and do the major work before we tackle painting. Sometime next week I have to order a dumpster delivered, no way we'll have enough time to make that many dump runs even with the trailer.

While I was up there I attempted to go quail hunting but it started snowing at 7500 ft and the lake was on the other side of the pass. If I had been in the Jeep I would have carried on but I was in the Suzuki and didn't have my chains with me. Sigh.

It took me less than 10 minutes to adjust the chain on the bike tonight. Although I miss the KLR, I don't miss the constant fiddling. The Vstrom just sorta runs and runs and runs. It's got 28k miles on it I think, and that original chain is still on there. Crazy.

The radio antenna project is moving along quite nicely. The bracket is finished (after a bit o a problem of it exploding when they hit it with the tig... turns out it was anodized aluminum and no one noticed before it exploded) and I've got it mounted up on the house. I can now hear the county repeater on 2m, but it's still really noisy. On 70cm though it's awesome, comes in perfectly. They said that it's hard to hit the 2m county repeater in Milpitas at all, something about a hill being in the way and blocking most of the city, so I'll take the half-assed 2m performance as a good thing.

Over the weekend we were cleaning up crapola to recycle/toss/donate and I decided to toss all the old picture frames I had stored in the closet. I kept the contents of a few of them, such as my NVDA stock cert and my first paycheck.

A picture from the construction site yesterday. I look so official! :)

I think we just cheated our way into premium seats and priority boarding. I paid $30 to upgrade to a non-shitty middle seat in the back to an isle right behind first class. Liz (minion from work) was still stuck back in steerage so we went to the desk here at DFW and asked if she could move up to sit by me (because I knew the seats around me were empty). I'm standing there with my short hair, an OD green shirt, tan tru-spec casual pants, multi-cam backpack and the woman says "are you military?". I say "no, I just have the backpack" and she gives Liz the free upgrade anyway and puts us in group 1 so we would get on first and get overhead space. I didn't lie, but they gave us the stuff anyway. Seems like cheating. Hmm... unless she thought I was being a smart ass and really was military.

Should I be surprised that my laptop automatically adds itself to the SJC wifi? Oh, and they keep paging a "Max Johnson". Really?

Actually went out to a real restaurant here in Austin since Liz is here and she's got a friend that knows downtown well. Ended up at Parkside (menu) and I had the lamb duo as my main. At first I thought the lamb was under-seasoned but when you eat it with the peppery lentils it's exactly right. The grilled asparagus side to share for the table was spot on too, I can't ever make them as good as they did... just the right about of char and oil, not soggy and not burnt to a crisp. The crab cake appetizer was only OK and the chocolate/peanut butter/creme fraiche ice cream desert was only OK too, but for Austin it's probably good. :) Spendy though, even with only one glass of wine.

The woman said that dad came and took the bracket from the garage but didn't take the ladder. Guess he figured I would need the ladder to install the bracket when he finished with it, which is true. I was planning on hanging out the window like I did to take the picture of me holding it and how I made the measurements, but coming at it from the outside with the ladder is easier. Scary, but easier.

Bad news in hamster land this weekend, the littlest hammie died (pumpkin). He was looking sorta funny after the vet visit and on Saturday night he just laid down and died. The woman held him while he died and she cried a bunch, then we put him in his little ammo box coffin and in the freezer. Today we pulled him out and buried him in the yard under the window where the woman made a headstone. Sigh, 4 more of these to go through. The cage does seems different without him.

After a couple visits to the ham hut and consulting the aesthetic committee (ie the woman) I've finally come up with a place to mount a dual-band antenna. I wanted to put it WAY up on the main roof but even the 25' ladder won't reach. Even if it did I'm too afraid to go up there! I settled on putting it on the porch roof which was at least half way up the building and it's easiest to run and hide the cable to the radio in the garage. The major win here is the bracket, they didn't have anything that would work for my application with the limited wood (lots of stucco) and getting around the gutter so I made something. I got some aluminum from OSH and using the high tech bending and cutting setup (as seen in picture #1... ie a dremel, some c-clamps and some scrap steel on the welding table) I whipped this bad boy up. I can't actually weld it together because I had to move the welder out so I taped it together and I'll have dad make the welds.

The alarm guy came on Friday morning and looked around and came up with a good system layout. I've got more garage sensors than they're used to, but 90% of what I want to protect is down there so I want some coverage. Now we just have to get the install scheduled.

I really wish I had something interesting to write, but life is just work right now. I am working from home this morning trying to write my last review (for the guy I want to fire) and waiting for the alarm system installers to come by and tell me what we can do about an alarm for this place.

Couple of pictures from the phone (just clearing the thing out). First a rare pic of mom and her fancy $25 Walmart tent from the trip. Next up is our fabulous meal.

Here we see the vet bill for the woman's hamster today. I love the classification "RODENT" on the top. :)

Rather than a rodent named pumpkin she could just go with a pumpkin dressed up as a rodent (at the grocery store tonight):

Sitting in the lobby waiting to go to a 10:30am meeting and it is really quiet around here today. SJ just announced that we get all of thanksgiving week off (with pay) as a 'thank you' for doing so well, maybe people have started a few weeks early? :) OK, maybe not, maybe there is just some crazy traffic somewhere.

The weekend was kinda bizarre. I went to Parkfield and this time mom did come along. She followed me around while I was trying to bow hunt (trying is the word, there were hardly any rabbits around and those that I did see where at 50+ yards and moving fast), learned about how scopes work and how you dial or hold for distance and how a spotter conveys info to the sniper, how to use the rangefinder and a bunch of other useless skills. We found the remains of the old mining camp on the property but couldn't find the mine itself, but did see deer, turkeys and quail while out tromping around.