Category: Revelation

New keyboard

SafeType keyboardI’ve got the new keyboard and it’s nice. It takes a bit of getting used to, and strictly speaking I need more mobility in my left hand than the cast allows me. But when I get the arms of my chair set up right and the pillow under my cast exactly right, it’s just about full speed for normal text typing. Still very strange trying to find number keys, and very hit and miss to find the various modifier keys. The mirrors are more help with the number keys, especially since the modifiers aren’t labelled in an Apple manner, but also because they’re too far away from the mirrors to see them well.

SafeType keyboardOne of the weirder aspects of this system is that is comes with a PS/2 to USB adaptor, and it’s got two connectors, one for a PS/2 mouse. I don’t have a PS/2 mouse, I have a USB mouse, but when I plug this adaptor in, then the Powerbook thinks it has a mouse plugged in, even if my USB mouse isn’t plugged in. This means that the trackpad doesn’t work (because I turned on that option when I’m typing one-handed because otherwise my hand drags on it and moves the cursor when I don’t want it). This causes problems when I have to unplug the mouse to, say, plug in the Compact Flash reader. I’ve either got to unplug this keyboard and go back to one handed typing, or reconfigure to allow the trackpad when a mouse is plugged in. What I really need is a small USB hub. I wonder if an unpowered one would work with this keyboard or if it draws to much?

What a weekend!

Saturday, I woke up to an email saying that my waypoint generator had a bunch of Canadian airports with US-style identifiers (instead of CYRP, Carp was KYRP). I fixed that first. Then Vicki and I replaced the outside front floodlight which had a wonky socket. And we replaced the floodlights over the garage, which supposedly had a light sensor (although it was more of a randomness generator) with one that had a motion detector. Since we can’t find a switch for these lights, I like the idea that they won’t be on all night. This involved hacksawing off a bit of iron pipe conduit that was sticking out too far to put the box where I wanted it and some simple wiring. Or at least it would probably be simple wiring for somebody who isn’t scared of ladders and electricity (gee, my brother used to shock me with electricity and throw me off barn beams – see a connection?). But we got it done – I’m so domestic it hurts.

N8439ZSunday, I got up bright and early to be a safety pilot for Paul P. He’s been my safety pilot in the past, so it was only fair, even if it did mean getting up ungodly early. I took some pictures while he was buzzing around, but most of them sucked. Here are a few that didn’t suck too bad.

Vectors for ILS 4 Intercepting the localizer

Back at the airport, there was an ancient Dornier flying boat re-engined with modern turboprop engines. Cool!

Dornier

After that, I went kayaking again. This time I went a little slower, and went up all the way to Blossom Road. The river was still quite shallow, and fast. I lost track of the number of times I had to put down my paddle and push down and forward or backward on the bottom of the river because I was bottomed out. (Try that with a canoe!)

On the way back I took one of the other branches because this canoe full of girls can careering across the river and rammed me without making the slightest effort to slow down or avoid me – after they saw they were on a collision course, they all stopped paddling – and when I got to the fork there was another one of these canoes full of girls sideways in the river. But it worked out well – there was a Great Blue Heron on the bank of the river that I got a couple of shots of, and then some “ducks in a row”, and then a Green Heron, which I ‘ve seen very few of over the years.

The best pictures from today’s paddling.

Swan Heron Heron
Ducks Ducks Green Heron

Unfortunately on the way home I noticed that I had a really badly sprained wrist. Unfortunately it’s my left one (I’m left handed), but I suppose the right would have been worse since it would be hard to shift my car like that. It was literally a big pain trying to put my kayak away afterwards.

Good things to hear from your boss, number NNN in a series

I just got a phone call from my boss. “So with everybody else I should multiply their estimates by four, but with yours I should divide them by four?”

How did this happen? He had called me a bit earlier and said that they’d changed their mind about postponing a “PCR” (probem report) that had been assigned to me, and wanted to know how long it would take to fix it. Since I hadn’t really had a good look at it before they’d postponed it, I said “Maybe four hours.” “Can you have it before you leave for the day?”, he asked. I said that I’d do my best. I looked, and found that 90% of what I needed had already been done elsewhere, so I needed to cut and paste some code, do a tiny bit of tweaking, and Bob’s your uncle. I did a very rudimentary test, and it worked, so I checked it in and marked the PCR as “Resolved” about an hour after I’d given him the four hour estimate.

As Scotty said, “how else would I keep my reputation as a Miracle Worker?”