bob – Page 6 – A Jaunty Little Blog

May 6, 2019May 6, 2019

What Are You Doing? Digging Through The Photos Edition

Friends,

One of the big reasons I’ve started taking a lot more photos is to be able to have something for every post here. Recently, it’s been the reverse. I find that I’m digging through albums to find something interesting to write about.

This is not one of those times. I just saw this glassware in a resale shop lit with a black light and snapped a quick shot.

Oh! This here Internet fever dream received a nice endorsement today from my boss…

“https://www.bobtherieau.com/ is good blog to go to if you want a fun read.”

Granted, it was mentioned to me in a private direct message and apropos of nothing, but I appreciate the sentiment. You know, you can actually like this thing too. Comments are open, or you can go old school and send links this way.

Keep doing that thing you’re doing. It’s really working for you.

Your pal,

– bob

April 30, 2019May 7, 2019

What Are You Doing? Calculator Edition (update)

Friends,

It’s been a little while since I wrote about the pretty dead and not alive Toshiba T1000. I think that there’s probably somebody who wants the bits that remain, like the display, case and floppy drive, so I was thinking about selling. There’s a lot of other stuff to sell as well, like clamshell iBook batteries, Powerbook G3 pieces, and other computer stuff.

What I’ve turned my attention to at the moment is completing the handheld calculator wing of Musée de l’Informatique Anciens. Sure, I’ve got Rockwell four-bangers, Casio melody calculators, and a model that didn’t feel the need to include a decimal point. They’ve got red LEDs, LCD displays, and the collection includes my very first calculator—a green LED Casio four-function. It’s my favorite, but the next one was a gem that was extremely popular…

The Texas Instruments TI-30 digital slide rule. Yeah, that’s right. They used that marketing to differentiate this student-focused model from the pro-level “scientific” models. Mine came in a package with a great book that I read over and over again, The Great International Math On Keys Book. I went from junior high pre-algebra failure to college math major by paying attention to the processes in this book (and a few others).

I still have the book, but I don’t know where the calculator went. Time to find a replacement, I think.

They made a bazillion of them, so it should be easy to find another one.

Your pal,

– bob

UPDATE: Replacement TI-30 has been ordered and is on its way! Very exciting.

April 9, 2019April 9, 2019

Old Friends: Bad News For The Toshiba

Friends,

It’s been real bad news for les ordinateurs anciens around here lately. For one, I purchased a replacement battery pack from a Florida Man and spliced it into the power system of one of the older machines here—a Toshiba T1000 laptop.

Why get this particular machine running again? The concept is brilliant: A PC-compatible laptop that boots almost instantly to MS-DOS 2.11 and runs for nearly six hours on a charge. The keyboard is a delight to type on, the non-backlit LCD screen crisp and reasonably responsive. It’s got a serial port, a parallel port, a 1.44 MB floppy drive and a 2400-baud modem. It’s still a great writing machine and deserves another shot.

After putting the machine back together, I left it on the charger and went to bed.

11:38 PM: “Honey, it smells like plastic burning in the kitchen.”

I shot up out of bed and padded into the kitchen to take in smells like blown 35-year old capacitors. After disconnecting the power adapter, but ever the optimist, I flicked the power switch to see if despite all of the smells, it would still turn on. No lights, no sounds, all the smells. Placing the machine on the granite countertop, I figure that at least I wouldn’t burn down the dining room table if it burst into flames.

1:35PM: Burning smell getting worse. Noticeable from the bedroom.

Laptop is still warm to the touch and rubber feet are stuck to the counter. Move the poor burnt laptop outside into the barbecue. If things go very badly, at least the flames will be contained. She asks me as I walk back in the kitchen, “Hi honey, what are you up to?” “Oh, nothing,” I lied.

I didn’t have time to take the thing apart this morning, so it had to wait until this afternoon. The damage was much worse than I imagined. Bad capacitors weren’t the problem. The real issue was a bad (or incorrectly wired) battery pack. I connected my red wires to the red wires in the battery pack, but the damage sure looks like a dead short that caused a little bit of fire inside the case…

So the motherboard is burnt. The add-on 2400-baud modem is burnt. The battery carrier and harness is burnt.

It’s beginning to look like the machine can’t be fixed!

Aw, c’mon. You know that’s not true.

Your pal,

– bob

March 22, 2019

Toddler Watch: The Mueller Report Has Been Filed

Friends,

Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor who has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, has submitted his report this evening. What’s in it? Only a few people know. Many more people are speculating about what might be in it. Many more still are filled with hope that its contents will lead to a septuagenarian carnival barker being hauled out of our White House in manacles.

Magical thinking on my part, certainly.

We should be patient and see what’s in it before rushing to judgement. That’s way easier to say than actually do.

Breathe…

Your pal,

– bob

March 18, 2019

I See You – Telescope Thing

Friends,

I saw this fun gizmo at B&H Photo a few weeks ago at a steep discount, so I grabbed one. It connects to an eyepiece on your telescope and lets you clamp your smartphone camera over the lens. I just started playing with it, but I can see the potential.

There might be a little editing involved, though.

Your pal,

– bob

March 12, 2019March 12, 2019

Filling In The Blanks: What Are You Doing For Fun?

Friends,

I’ve been having a good time taking a lot of pictures to fill out this hot mess of a blog, but lately I’ve been taking it a little more seriously. By serious, I mean that it is my intention to figure out what all of the Fs are stopping and the ISOs are in search of. I’m also very keen to get out to take trips specifically to take photos. The new DSLR (Dark Salad Lettuce, Romaine) camera is complicated but fun to use. Expect a lot more of shots once I get a little more comfortable with the thing.

This shot, however, is of a new Hot Wheels Jeepster that was taken with a macro lens clipped onto my phone. Also fun.

Your pal,

– bob

March 11, 2019March 11, 2019

Filling In The Blanks: What Do You Do All Day?

Friends,

I used to dream about what I would do for a living. Long before viewers fell in love with the 60s misogyny and lung cancer glamorized by Mad Men, I wanted to be a copywriter. I wanted to sit in a bullpen with a group of writers to craft the perfect pitch and build marketing campaigns that resonate. My goal was to use language to convince people to reward my clients with their business. Pretty straightforward.

When I first cultivated this dream, I was monkeying around with 8-bit computers, but I really thought my future looked like a family in New Rochelle, New York.

Some of that happened. Most of it didn’t.

I married the sweet girl. That part worked great. What didn’t was the professional writer part. During my hiatus from this bloggy trash fire, I worked for a global publisher, a county, and a medical device manufacturer. And imagine how surprised I was to find myself eventually working at a university. But not writing. I’ve been spending my time trying to convince users—mostly callers—that they’re not dumb. That the computer problems they’re facing aren’t their fault.

In some of these places, I’ve spent enough time to make friends. Some of these places have only served as waypoints on the way to the next thing. Some didn’t know what the job should be. And some of these places made the job as ridiculous as possible. Couldn’t get hired for the job I dreamt about though, so I’m just going to keep doing this.

Right?

Your pal,

– bob

February 26, 2019

Filling In The Blanks: Castle Edition

Friends,

When you say to your fiancé that you’re not so much interested in making the event into a spectacle as much as something grand, the obvious reaction is, “Yeah? Like what?” Better have something in your pocket ready to go.

“How about a big outdoor wedding? Something big, like a castle,” I think I said. Then it was time to find a castle.

Scotland? Ireland? A destination wedding was voted down. I tried to stick with something grand somewhere close, but local wineries and other venues in the Wedding Industrial Complex just weren’t doing it for me. Then I found this place—a real castle! Who knew?

The upside is that the company that manages the venue also provides catering and other services. The downside is that they’re very firm about who else can provide services on your wedding day. This meant that my dear friend and talented photographer had to jump through hoops. That meant no ponies, pets, or piglets. This also meant that we had to use the approved disc jockey. An affable fellow with an unfortunate middle-aged dude ponytail afforded us the opportunity to create our own playlists. We used a food-themed jazz playlist for dinner, then one filled with dance tunes for the reception.

We chose a cake and flowers and dresses and suits and colors and entrees and liquor and quotes and vows and got married on a beautiful spring day. How about that?

As the one year anniversary approaches, it’s hard to believe it didn’t happen last week.

A lot happened between then and now. It should keep us both busy for a while.

See you tomorrow.

Your pal,

– bob

February 25, 2019February 26, 2019

So, Where Was I?

Dear friends,

It’s been a little while since I added something to this mess. How long? To me, it seems like I last wrote a lifetime ago. You’ll have to bear with me here, since I haven’t written anything longer than a Twitter post or a cover letter for a resume for ages.

A resume, you ask? You sound surprised, but I’ll explain.

You may recall that I was working for McGraw-Hill answering phone calls from their salespeople to fix computer problems, reset a password, connect to the Internet, and hook up a printer. Sometimes this was a tough job when the caller was crying or when the systems causing the problems should have been out of my reach. Luckily, people don’t change their router passwords like they should, and sometimes they try to connect to hotel WiFi networks that are actually well documented. Given a bit of time, it’s easy to look stuff up and appear to be a genius. This wasn’t rocket surgery, as the kids say.

As jobs go, it wasn’t all that difficult. Sure, it meant not living full time in the mountains, mostly abandoning my piney paradise, but my colleagues were great and it represented a steady paycheck. It meant that I could finally dig out of the financial hole I’d wallowed in since leaving the Festival of Dirt<™> during my largely unsuccessful attempt to build a private computer repair practice. With the very notable exception of developing great friendships, starting an independent business in a small mountain resort town seems doomed to failure.

The downside of working for a book publisher in 2018 and an academic publisher in the age of Republican ascendancy, is that these fortunes are tenuous and education of the populace is not as cherished. That’s probably why they closed our office in California and off-shored our work to a ~~third-world country~~ right to work state that pays minimum wage for the same work—Ohio.

The upside of working in Northern San Diego County is moving in with my lovely sweetheart. We’ve been dating for over a decade and she’s been waiting and waiting and waiting for me to settle down and take a moment to think about what’s really important—sitting in a cold cabin, broke and sulking, or spending sunny days with a sweet girl. That’s when I called up the courage to propose marriage.

And that’s exactly what we did.

We got married at a real, bona fide castle and made up our minds to live happily ever after. Being as non-committal as ever, I made clear my intention to review this whole marriage thing on our 50th anniversary to see if things were working out as planned. This seems like a fair compromise and should serve to keep both of us on our very best behavior.

I subsequently got a new forever job working for a California state university. One of them. It’s up to you to guess which one.

There’s an awful lot of stuff in the middle of all of this that I’ll get to in a little while. What’s also coming is, essentially, me figuring out how to work a new camera. I hope it’ll be worth your time, but it’s pretty important to note that it may not be.

Let’s waste your precious time together, shall we?

Yes, lets.

Your pal,

– bob

August 30, 2017February 27, 2019

Toddler Watch: Product Placement Edition

A lovely centered picture of a lady wearing a hat.

Friends,

The president of this here union of states, a United States if you will, went to Texas to “tour the area stricken by Hurricane Harvey.” That seemed like a thing that presidents do, not this president necessarily, but some presidents. They fly over the scene of devastation, maybe meet with some of the victims…

(needle_scratch.wav)

So this president went not to Houston, the fourth largest city in these United States and scene of mass devastation, but to Corpus Christi. While there, he praised Governor Abbott on a job well done (premature congratulator? -ed) and marveled at the crowd that his staff assembled for his appearance.

What I found galling was not those things that we’ve become accustomed to, like the not meeting victims, not having a human soul, congratulating flunkies for doing nothing, and judging his self-worth by crowd sizes. No, I was peeved at the hat. He’s been wearing a baseball cap during this calamity with USA embroidered on the front, and some other embroidery around the band including his name. He sells this cap on his campaign website for $40, which makes this combover costume little more than product placement for his merchandise.

Then there’s his wife’s cap, which writes the joke that symbolizes this presidency perfectly…

Who wears a FLOTUS cap to the scene of the worst flooding in this country’s history?

By the way, it’s funnier if you say it out loud.

This is not normal. None of this is normal.

Your best pal,

– bob

August 21, 2017

Banish This Calamity, Spare The Sun!

Friends,

Our gal, The Idyllwild Weather Clam loves a good celestial event and she couldn’t be more excited than she is for today’s solar eclipse. In fact, she’s been splashing around in her tide pool all morning listening to this cheery little number.

Have fun folks. Stay safe and don’t burn your eyes out, okay?

Your best pal,

– bob

August 18, 2017February 27, 2019

Toddler Watch: Adult Supervision Without Adults Edition

Friends,

The vice president of these here United States cut his overseas trip short to return to view the smoldering wreckage of the Executive branch of government. I’m sure he’ll keep our democracy in his thoughts and prayers as he digs through the debris, past the confederate flags and Post-Its with Twitter passwords scrawled across them, as he looks for a way to salvage his career.

After all, the albatross that is 45’s presidency is going to be very heavy, covered in cheap bronzer and smothered in fried chicken grease.

Your best pal,

– bob

August 15, 2017February 27, 2019

Toddler Watch: Aw, Do I Have To? Edition

Friends,

Yesterday, the president of these United States, days after the riot in Charlottesville, Virginia started by white nationalists, finally said that violence by white nationalists was bad.

“Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our Creator. We are equal under the law. And we are equal under our Constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America.”
– The 45th President of the United States

Would he have said this if his donors hadn’t pressured him to revise his “all sides” statement? Probably not.

Will he go to Charlottesville to meet with the victims and their families? Of course not.

A normal American president would denounce Nazis (I can’t believe I even have to say this) and meet with the victims right away. This, dear friends, is not normal.

Your best pal,

– bob

UPDATE: Good gravy. He held a press conference on Tuesday afternoon and doubled down on the “both sides” argument. Then, as you do when you’re the president, you equate George Washington with Robert E. Lee…

“George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So, will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down—excuse me—are we going to take down—are we going to take down statues to George Washington?”

Stunning.

August 14, 2017February 27, 2019

Toddler Watch: But Nobody Else Likes Me Edition

Friends,

The person who was selected by the Republican Party to be their nominee for president of these United States has a problem. He has no friends. He’s surrounded by suck-ups and toadies, but nobody actually likes this man. When you have as fragile an ego as Ivanka’s dad, you do things to make people like you. Like what, you may ask.

Like taking great pains not to offend Nazis.

Over the weekend, aggrieved white nationalists, fascists, neo-Nazis, and real Nazis descended on Charlottesville, Virginia for a rally to protest taking down a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and to cause some trouble. They surrounded a black church during services, terrifying parishioners. They attempted home invasions in a predominately black area of town, and set up battle lines in a park dedicated to peace. Later on Saturday, one of the Nazis got in his Dodge Challenger and plowed into a crowd of anti-protesters, killing one and injuring 19.

What did Melania’s husband have to say about it? He condemned the violence on all sides, that’s what. Nothing about disavowing Nazis or white nationalists or skinheads, and they were thrilled that they weren’t called out. They’ve got a pal in the White House, they crowed.

Yes, it would seem that they do. A man who needs all the friends he can get at this point.

We fought a world war to get rid of Nazis, and now the president of these entire United States (and Guam. -ed) is playing footsie with a home-grown terror gang.

This is not normal.

Your best pal,

– bob