T and I took a trip to Nags Head, NC, with my family last week. We spent a wonderful, restful time on the beach. My brother Chuck’s kids – William and Wesley – were the center of activity all week. I put a small set of photos up on Flickr.
The Sgwentus on the Chesapeake Bay
Nonzwakazi and Boy visited us at the end of June. Our friend Carl took us out to get some rockfish on the Chesapeake Bay. Click on the photo below for a set of photos of Flickr.
Posted in Personal, South Africa
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Shed Under Roof
I installed the roof and the rest of the door hardware tonight. I installed the lighting the other day. Next steps are flashing, interior shelves and hangers, and detailed trim.
Posted in Gardens, Houses
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Meet Marin Elizabeth Hypes
Marin Elizabeth Hypes, daughter of Stephen and Wally – and our granddaughter – was born at 5:30am on Saturday. 7 pounds, 0 ounces. Perfect health. We quickly took a trip down to meet the beautiful little girl!
Click the picture to see a set of pictures on Flikr.
Posted in Family
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Shed Doors Mounted
I got the shed doors mounted with hinges last night. The roofing material came in this week as well. So, we’re down to a few punch list items:
- Re-wire lights for both inside and outside shed.
- Add roof and flashing.
- Door handle and shutter locks.
- Interior hooks and shelves for tools and other stuff.
- Detail trim.
- Find and add a stained glass window facing the garden.
Posted in Gardens, Houses
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Teresa Has a New Job
Teresa started her new job today. She is Assistant Director for Evaluation and Assessment at the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension. It’s an administrative faculty position, and she’ll be pursuing her PhD. This is a return to her roots: she spent 20 years at Virginia Cooperative Extension before moving to Cleveland in 1996.
Congratulations, T!
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Rare Photo of Jim
Back in June, late in the evening around the hotel pool at RSTechEd, I found myself in an odd situation… suddenly in the pool, with my button down shirt and khaki pants on. The circumstances of the event will remain with those of us who were there, but they were much more innocent and self-inflicted than the folklore and legends would make you believe.
It’s so rare that I like a picture of myself that I thought I would share this one with you. There are many happy memories of RSTechEd evoked for me.
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More Progress on Shed
The shed is nearly complete. I’m waiting on the materials for the metal roof. We just bought the hinges yesterday to mount the doors. Most of the trim is on except for some small details. Then outfit the interior for hanging tools and such.Â
I’m really happy with how it is turning out. The doors were a challenge… I had the transforming idea just after I cut the first piece of 1×4†trim… and of course it wasn’t long enough then. I built the doors all as one piece, and then Teresa and I had quite a time cutting them in half on the little table saw in our cramped basement. But it worked. Now if I can just hang them square… I have a piece of plywood temporarily attached to see how far the metal roof will overhang.Â
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Hard Drive Failure on My MacBook
I’ve been pretty lucky with my (original) MacBook. I never had the issues of overheating etc. that plagued others with the first Intel MacBooks. Yes, my white case has yellow spots where my hands rest beneath the keyboard, but heck, no biggie… that just means I use it.
In the last couple months, since updating to Leopard, I’ve also had the issue with closing the lid and my MacBook going to sleep meaning it couldn’t reconnect to my wireless. A REAL pain, and EXTREMELY frustrating… so I’ve just left the lid open.
Well, one morning I came downstairs and my screen was frozen and it turns out the hard drive had failed.  Apparently another common occurence that I hadn’t hade the privilege of experience… until now.
So, I hopped over to TigerDirect, bought an 80gig 2.5″ SATA drive for $65, and now my lovely MacBook is up and running again. And this time, I know what software I actually use, so I won’t be polluting it with a bunch of stuff I thought was cool but didn’t ever run. Firefox and Skype are it, so far.
And I have a full backup on a NAS with Memeo, so just a couple weeks of usage lost. And my wireless reconnect problem went away. Woohoo!
However, if anyone ever tells you that Apple computers are more than just computers, just laugh it off. Slick… yes. Cool… yes. But they are still error and crash-prone beasts that have hardware failures. For me, the only reason I like having it is that it is a nice form-factor, and I can test out Mac OS X apps to learn from their UI design for my work. It’s still just a damn computer.
Posted in Technology
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Garden Project: Storage Shed
More than three years ago, we had to tear down the big ugly shed that came with the house so our neighbors could build a fence (it crossed into their property). Finally, I’m building a place to put our lawn mower and all the other garden tools that have been taking up way too much space in our basement.
Here are a couple of construction photos. It’s 5’x6’, clad in knotty cedar. It’ll have a metal roof and a 4’, double panel door. And there’s a little cubby that goes under the side of the house to help get the mower out of the way a little bit (not to mention give us a chance to clean out some of the junk the previous owner left in the crawl space.
Posted in Gardens, Houses
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