Category: Longform
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Camping!
When I was a kid, we went camping as a family all the time. I think some of my siblings enjoyed the out-of-doors more than I did, but still, it was a good time for the whole family and a cost-effective way to go on vacation. :-) After we got married, Becky and I went camping a few times; most notably we were in Colorado camping when 9/11 happened… but that’s a different story.
Fast-forward to today. Well, to tomorrow. Tomorrow morning we will pack the van and head out to Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin for two nights of camping with my family. Andrew’s girlfriend Heather (hi, Heather, do you still read this thing?) is visiting for the next 10 days, so Andrew has organized pretty much the whole camping trip. (“Remember to bring your softball equipment” x 100 or so. :-) ) I’m hoping the girls will enjoy it; they’ll certainly enjoy seeing all the uncles and grandparents again. How well they sleep in a tent will be an entirely different story.
I’ll be sure to take a bunch of pictures and post them here once we get back. This weekend starts what will be a whirlwind month and a half for us; this camping trip, I have a trip to DC, Becky’s folks visit for 2 weeks, I run a couple of 5ks, and then we go to Orlando for the better part of a week while the girls stay with their grandparents. It’ll be fun, but it’ll also be a relief to have it slow down in July.
(Yikes! Did I really just say July?)
24 Hours of the Hubbs: A Celebration of the Mundane
When I decided to do 24 hours of Flickr, I wasn’t really sure what my Saturday would entail. Nonetheless, I gave it a go. As Saturdays go, it was fairly basic. We went to some neighborhood garage sales, cleaned out the garage, went shopping, and watched a movie. So while some of the pictures are cute, none of them are particularly artsy or profound. Oh well.
Here are a few samples of the pictures; you’re welcome to visit the whole set on Flickr.
A much-needed improvement...
I’ve been using Google Reader for some time now as my feed reader, and one of the more frustrating things has been its really bad email feature. When you find a blog post that you want to share with a friend, the email feature should make it easy, right? Unfortunately, Google Reader ended up dumping a bunch (but not all) of the text from the post in a horribly-formatted email. If I were Google I would’ve been embarrassed that it was even an option. It was that bad.
Today, though, I find that they’ve updated the email feature. Now when you click it, it just opens a little panel right in the blog post, lets you type in an email address (which it will auto-fill from your gmail address book if possible), and add a personal message. The email that it sends out then looks good; it includes all the original formatting, pictures, and a link back to Google Reader. Very nice.
Yet another reason to consider moving to Google Reader if you need a feed reader.
Flying it!
Part of the goofiness with my job is that by the time we get these announcements, I’ve been done with the software for months. Still, it’s fun to know that they’re flying these things now.
From AvWeb:
FIRST CITATION ENCORE+ DELIVERED TO CUSTOMER
Cessna Aircraft announced Tuesday that it delivered the first Citation Encore+ to an undisclosed customer. The latest Citation V derivative is powered by two FADEC-equipped, 3,400-pound-thrust Pratt & Whitney Canada PW535B engines that offer “high durability and reliability,” and “surpasses the most stringent environmental standards for emissions, set by the International Civil Aviation Organization.”
Besides the upgraded powerplants, the $8.273 million Encore+ has an increased gross weight that allows for a full-fuel payload of 1,170 pounds, 340 pounds more than the original Encore. According to Cessna, this weight increase also extends the airplane’s range with higher passenger loads. In the flight deck, the Encore+ sports a Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 integrated avionics suite, which marks a significant change from its predecessor’s Honeywell Primus 1000 avionics.
Softball 2007
One of my very first posts on my blog was about softball; hard to believe that’s been two years ago. But yesterday night we started up the church softball season for another year. It was a beautiful night; the day was hot (at least, hot for April in Iowa) - it got close to 90 degrees in the afternoon. But by evening the breeze was blowing and the temps had cooled; what a great night for softball!
The first game of the year is always a bit of an adventure, seeing who will show up and how the team will fill out. To be sure, we have some regulars in their places; Nate at shortstop, Becky pitching, me at third, Shaun in left. But there’s always a new guy or two you pick up who really help you out. This year it looks like we’ve got two of them: Joel out in center field, and Nick at first. (It does this infielder’s heart good to have a tall, left-handed first-baseman to throw to.)
Last night we played against one of the teams from New Covenant. It was the typical back-and-forth game; we were behind by a few runs, but then made a comeback as time was running out; I had a two-out, two-run single to tie up the game. It wasn’t all heroics for me, though - I failed to tag up and advance on a base running play the inning before that would’ve given us another run. :-( Oh well, one game at a time.
After playing the 6:00 game, I umped the 7:00 game. I actually really enjoy umping softball games, and it’s something that I’ve improved on quite a bit over the past few years. It drives me nuts, though, that even in our C-league church league softball there are guys who will yell at the ump during the game for calls they don’t like. Come on, guys. It’s just a game. It’s not worth it. (I know, I know - I better get used to it if I want to keep umping games. :-))
The church softball season runs through July and into early August. It definitely gives me something to look forward to on Monday nights.
Good Motivation
I just filled out the entry forms for two 5K races in upcoming months: the Marion Arts Festival 5K (May 19) and the Hog Wild Days Squeal’n’Run 5K (June 16). The latter, happily, starts and ends at Gutheridge Park, only 4 blocks or so from my house. While I don’t expect to be competitive in either of the races, they provide some good motivation for me to keep training. I’ve been getting lazy these last few weeks. Can’t let that continue!
Random Thought #2
I’m sitting on my PC waiting for the Microsoft Visual C++ .NET development suite to install. And on one of the little information boxes that it brings up while I’m waiting, it highlights one of the benefits of MSVC++.NET:
A “mature and intelligent” developer community? Intelligent, perhaps, but when I think about most of the coders I know, mature?!? :-) To quote Groucho Marx, “I’d never join a club that would have someone like me for a member.”
At Becky's request... more pictures!
No, this place isn’t turning into a photoblog. But when you have a new toy… :-)
A time to read...
A month ago today I resolved I was going to put down my endless string of library books and spend a month just reading the Bible. Today is the end of that month.
April 20 I started reading in Genesis 1 and decided I’d just read through, getting a feel for the breadth of the story. A month later I’m through the book of Ezra, maybe a third of the way through the whole Book if you just look at how many pages I’ve covered. It’s been good reading and good reminder.
There have been some times I’ve really missed having some other good book to read - most notably the hours I was on an airplane traveling to Salt Lake City and back, and occasionally in the evenings when something less-than-memorable is on TV and I’m in the habit of reading while the TV’s on.
I think it was a worthwhile exercise, though. It made me more convinced that I need to focus on reading quality books, things that will be worth my time, and avoid just rushing through a long string of mediocre titles just to max out my reading list. (I know there’s no way my list will be as long as Kari’s - no sense in going crazy trying.)
I’m going to be done with work a little big early today. I’m going to suggest to Becky that we make an “overdue” stop at the library. :-)
New toy coming...
Thanks to some unexpected cash influx, I was able to purchase this earlier this week:
It’s a Nikon D70s, a quite nice Digital SLR camera. Only 6 megapixels, but that should be plenty for me.
Fedex promises it’ll be delivered tomorrow… can’t wait. Looking forward to posting more pictures here… you can be bet I’ll be taking a lot of pictures. :-)