Recycled Electrons - Blog of Keith Horowitz

Sunset picture from work last week

Slashdot | Could TNG Stunt Casting Save 'Enterprise'?

A second shuttle will be ready to fly - at least during the next couple of shuttle missions. Slashdot | NASA Prepares for Space Rescues Columbia broke up 2 years ago this Tuesday. Discovery planned to return to flight in May.

No, that isn't the time I have to get up. I've been getting up at 6:10 or so for the last month and bit. No, 6 A.M. is the time I have to be at work by for the month of February. So that means tomorrow morning I have to be at work at least 10 minutes before I used to get up. I'm not going to try to do as much in the morning as I did when I got up at 6. But I figure I have to get up by 5 A.M. Maybe earlier if that doesn't give me enough time. Which means I should try to go to sleep soon. I just hope I don't have the same amount of trouble going to sleep that I've been having for the last few weeks. The good news is that I may not feel as stressed about the workload. Right now I wind up trying to clean up everything that is left over towards the end of the day due to my work-partner not doing as much work. He means well, I think. He just isn't very fast at things. But now instead of it being me who has to beg for help towards the end of ...

There is a climbing wall at our local mall. I've seen it a number of times. But it was always closed. But Saturday evening was different. It was open. I watched as a few people tried going up the wall. I must admit I was a bit intrigued. But was it childish to want to try? Was I scared I'd like it too much? Was I just scared? I am good at talking myself out of things. But last night I got talked into trying it. I was interested enough that I didn't say no. So I signed the forms, put my jacket in a locker and let them help me put on a harness. The rock wall at the mall has two sides, and two different heights. There is the side opposite the offices next to the escalator, that is vertical. The side towards the office varies from a little shorter and easier looking on the left to really hard with an overhang on the right-most course. There are about 7 courses on each side. I tried one of the easier ones on the left to start with. One of the two on th...

When I first heard about Hot Stone Massage, I thought it sounded kind of odd. It sounded like it would be some sort of decorating hot rocks on acupuncture points. And it seems like that might be part of it in some cases. But I received a version of hot stone massage last night that made me think it wasn't bad. Having warm, wet rocks placed on my back, hand and feet didn't do much for me. It seemed a bit silly. But when these warm, river-smooth stones were used to rub my muscles, it was very nice. It allow some nice pressure with some nice warmth. When the warm stones were placed under my back, covered with a towel, this was nice too. This provided firm, warm pressure to spots on my back. Spots that were sore from the weekend's activities: roller skating, biking with 2 of my boys in the trailer, and crouching for hours building a new cage. So, while the standard hot stone massage is just some sort of rock placement, a good therapist can use the rocks as a st...

It was decided we needed a new sugar glider cage. We could pay $150 or more to the people we got the first one from. Or we could figure out how to make once for ourselves. We tried to find the same type of coated chicken wire as the current cage. But the only thing home depot had was smaller grid an thinner wire. But it seemed like it might just be think enough. So we go two 5' rolls and a 3' roll. We also got a roll of bailing wire to help put it together. And a new needle-nosed plier to deal with the wire. We spent a few hours on it last night. We got the basic forms and layout down, and had started attaching some of the floors to one of the two wall-sets. We learned the best way to flatten the wire. Pounding it flat or a little past with the mallet, then turning it over and pounding it flat. Building a new Sugar-Glider Cage Today I formed a couple of ramps, and managed to get all of the pieces attached. The only thing left to do is to put in the do...

My youngest son had been invited to a birthday on Saturday. It was a friend from school. One I don't remember having heard about, but he wanted to go. The birthday was at a local skating rink. SO we all went. After we got my youngest son settled, we went back out and paid admission so we could skate. I remember being to this skating rink once or twice before - but it had been probably at least a couple of years. The boys were a little reluctant to skate. The two little guys were very hesitant to go out on the rink on their skates, even with help from a parent or two. My big guy got out there a few times. He was slow, and spent most of his time along the wall, but at least he tried. When I wasn't helping one child or another, I was able to get out and skate a bit. I don't remember doing much roller skating as a kid. I did ice skating some, but it usually hurt my feet. And I could never stop without hitting a wall - which was usually okay. Well, with roller...

It was another intense day at work. I sit down and plug into my job. I manage to tear away for the bathroom and tea a few times during the day - and nibble my way through lunch at my desk - but mostly the day just rushes by. There are two halves to my job - failed jobs and emails. I mostly have the hang of the failed jobs, that came pretty quickly. I'm rather good at problem determination - especially with failed mainframe jobs. But it takes a little while to understand the nuances of a new shop. But I've felt pretty confident with handling the jobs for a few weeks now. But the emails seemed way too much for me. So many of the emails require a good knowledge of the system. So almost every email requires research and most times asking for help to get the right answer. All the time the emails back up further and further. And we are supposed to give a 2 hour service to emails. I've felt very stressed about the emails. It doesn't help that the other person...

I just finished watching Kill Bill Vol. 2. I stayed up late last night watching Volume 1. My first reaction to the movies is just how violent they are. If you can get past the violence, the action and plot are kind of fun. I had this vision of the movie being about some sort of conspiracy to kill Bill - some sort of leader of a group. But I realized that the core plot was very similar to another 2-movie set that I had just seen lately. It has a similar core plot to the Borne series. Both are about revenge from the view of a single rouge agent. But the Borne movies were 2 movies. The Kill Bill series was really one long movie broken into two releases. There is a difference in the 2 movies flavors. KB1 is a lot more on action and not too much on plot. Just enough plot to make you really want to find out why and what happens. And the cliffhanger at the end of KB1 is intense. I am really glad I wated for video, and got to watch them one after another. I had sta...

Day off from work and school today. We went bowling. It was pretty fun. It didn't suck that I had best score all three times ;-) Had friends along - that was nice. And in a non-smoking bowling alley!

Yesterday my middle boy had a birthday party to go to. I didn't have exact directions, so I would up driving the wrong way a few times, eating up a minutes between being a little early to being a little late. He was to be at the party activity for an hour and a half. I had the other two boys with me. We hadn't had lunch yet. It seemed like a good idea just to treat the to lunch out instead of rushing home, rushing through lunch and rushing back. So we went to the nearby Carl's Junior Hamburger fast food place. Afterwards I drove around a little, until we found a playground. Nobody was there. The small round-a-bout was very hard to turn, so that got boring quickly. I got an interesting black-and-white picture of the empty playground (below). There was a bridge for an openspace trail over a stream right next to the playground. We crossed the bridge. Then we went down to the stream and played a while. We through rocks in. We watched little ice flows drift...

Picture Shopping Cart in Stream

Picture - Playground in B

Picture - Road - You can see the old center yellow line peaking through the cracked roadway on the sidewalk. The way the lines are faded make me feel motion when I look at the picture. This is a case of looking at the picture afterwards giving an unexpected feel.

The other night, I noticed a new puddle in the basement. It was in the back storeroom with the unfinished floor. So nothing was really hurt by this puddle. But the puddle was just a little different that previous puddles. Previous puddles had always started against the window and worked towards the entry door. This puddle was in the corner at made it just to the edge of the window area. I vacuumed up the water, except for where there was a shelf in the way. I looked at the window well - it was dry. Then I got a flashlight and went out in the dark to check the area outside the basement. No sign of water. It was very strange. Then next night I checked again. The puddle was back, nearly the same size. Once again I wet vacced the puddle up. Then I listened. I thought I heard a slight dripping noise from behind the shelf. I couldn't see anything with the shelf of boxes in the way. I wasn't in a rush to move the shelf, but I wanted to know where the water wa...