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I thought this was common knowledge that you removed the masking tape immediately after painting or caulking; otherwise, the coating will dry and stick to the masking tape. A friend at work told me he tried caulking once using masking tape to make clean edges. He let things dry and then found the masking tape pulled up most of the caulking. Another used masking tape to protect the moulding while he painted the walls. Again, he let things dry and then ruined the edge of his paint job. I thought I must share this tip.

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My wife is making “Indian” flutes with the Grade 5’s. So far I’ve cut the ½ in PVC pipe to lengths and loaned my two electric drills to make the holes. Soon I’ll have to fabricate little ½ in x 1¼ in pieces to direct the air from one hole to another to give it that “flutey” sound. These parts will require me to use a router table to cut ¼ in grooves in PVC doorstop moulding. As I was at Rona to get the moulding, I looked at the tables and only found generic or mucho-expensive models. As I have had a Craftman router for several years I decided to look for one at Sears just down the road. I ended up buying the medium expensive model shown in the image. You gotta love those marketing images: they show a router table in a workshop with a few shavings but no router. I spent a relaxing half-hour or so assembling the table.

In the not so exciting department I had to replace some of the caulking around the main bathroom’s tub. We are thinking it is time to renovate because of the ugly tub and the bathroom’s rather bland decor. We aren’t sure whether it will be a shower cubicle or a complete bathtub enclosure this time around. I grew up in a house with only a bathtub so I’ve taken showers exclusively ever since I left home. I’m really not into tiling and I think it is difficult to achieve leak-proof results without a lot of skills, time and care. It will be time to look at bathroom furnishings in the next few weeks and start planning.

I’m tired: I increased the distance of my run by several kilometers. Unfortunately snow at about the freezing point starts to lose its hard-pack qualities. The valley trails are starting to become slushy in places. That last third was starting to feel like a real grind.

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We blew over one hundred 14,400V, 10 and 20 A fuses during tests a couple of weeks ago. The lab tech set up the digital camera to trigger when the 1000A short circuit was applied. It’s quite an impressive display for a piece of fuse wire less than 1 mm thick.

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I took a snapshot of the environment variables on my XP box at work and compared them with the home 2k box. Here was the difference:

2k box: COMSPEC=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\COMMAND.COM!!

XP box: COMSPEC=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\cmd.exe

When I installed 2000 in place of Me I guess the upgrade kept good ol' COMMAND.COM. I changed this and PostgreSQL installed “perfectly.” I’m not sure why the install used the COMSPEC variable but now I have something else to put on the checklist if an install fails.

I have several thousand hourly readings on each of several channels collected over the last couple of months stored in the database. Now I can use simple SELECT commands to aggregate say the sums of hourly readings/channel for each day or the last 48 hours of readings for a particular channel or the average daily sum of hourly readings/channel/day of the week. Lovely data mining!

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The newest version of PostgreSQL, my “favourite” database now has a “native” Windows port. This couldn’t have come at a better time at work as I need a “big” database for a project I’m involved with. Now I can develop the database on my Windows box and then move it out to the FreeBSD box on the Internet. I certainly couldn’t do that with Access!

Unfortunately it wouldn’t install on my home box because, just near the end, initdb fails and the log reports: creating template1 database in C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/base/1 … Bad command or file name. I guess I’ll have to compare my home box environment settings to those at work to see what might be is screwing up the installation.

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I was part of the chorus for Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance several years ago. It was fun; however, I didn’t enjoy driving the half hour or longer commute at the tail end of rush hour to get there. The performances take place at the end of January so there are rehearsals around Christmas and snowy weather to drive in. The stage director, a friend, asked me in an email if I would come out and see the show this year. As the title suggests I probably won’t. Upon reflection I can think of these reasons:

• I’m not partial to sitting for a couple of hours as an audience person.
• I don’t like being in the audience when I could have been part of the show. This also applied to being in the congregation and not the church choir.
• The older I get the less I can stay awake in the evenings—especially if I’m just sitting and watching.

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Looks like I might have to hack up my old copy of Moveable Type again. Google suggests the “major” search engines won’t follow links containing the rel=“nofollow” attribute. This means that comment spammers will no longer have search engines coming to their sites from the junk they post as comments and/or trackback pings on popular blogs. Personally, I have found that using some Apache mod_rewrite rules has eliminated almost all of it.

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I guess the new South Common Walmart is popular. I counted at least half-a-dozen of their shopping carts abandoned in the park path I ran through this afternoon. Shopping carts look unsightly at the best of times but especially so against new fallen snow. I wonder why “they” don’t have coin locks or some other means of preventing their lossage?

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The drive to choir from Mississauga to the Beaches in the morning was snowy but didn’t get really bad until we exited off the east end of the Gardiner: some kind of lake (Ontario) effect I guess. The return drive home at about 1pm was uneventful though the Gardiner and QEW were only “track bare.” Many heeded the “heavy snowfall” warning and stayed home. We stayed in this evening rather than driving to Scarborough to attend a 50^th birthday party for a friend whom we haven’t seen for several years.

With the temperature about -18°C, windchill approaching -30 and lots of blowing snow I decided to stay in and use the treadmill. For some reason the pulse monitor jumped around between 68 and 120 bpm—perhaps because my skin and the household humidity is so dry due to the cold. I experimented and approximated the “pulse” controlled workout with the “interval” workout I used to do. I programmed my fastest walking speed (about 6.8 kmh) and a 10% slope. Judging by the calorie readout of 371 and how I was sweating I think this program equalled the pulse-controlled, 35 year-old program I had been doing.

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A very happy birthday to my older son.

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One evening I was driving my six-year-old daughter to her grandparents' home for an overnight stay. It was late, there was little traffic and we were enjoying a peaceful ride. It was a far cry from the usual chaos surrounding us when I drive her to various activities during rush hour.

My daughter seemed deep in thought when she said, “I have a question.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Mom, when you’re driving,” she asked, “are you ever the idiot?”

Borrowed from Clean Laffs.

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Monday, Tuesday and today I caught the last commuter train arriving at 7:31 pm at the local station. By the time I’ve eaten supper and done some chores it is after 9 pm. Tuesday I got home just after 7, ate a hurried meal and drove to choir in Oakville. Fortunately these fuse tests will be over tomorrow and the associated long work days.

Though this week has been like a field trip: I can’t charge all my meals, I haven’t rented a car, I don’t stay in a hotel and I still have to handle the odd “emergency” with other work projects.

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A client visited work to witness tests this week. Today was a setup day so I ended up talking a lot with him, showing the client around and expensing him to lunch. After he had left for the day the test setup was finally completed and I witnessed a couple of trial runs. Got to work at 8:00 am. Left work at about 6:30pm. From house to return was 12½ hours all told. Maybe I’m strange but I like to do something “different” i.e. not work, at lunch even if it’s eating a bagel and reading slashdot at my desk. Tomorrow I’ll have to go out for a walk despite the predicted -32°C windchill.

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My sister turns one year better today. Only five years to go until the half-century mark. Hey, wait a minute, I’ve only got 20 days to reach that milestone—gimme that walker!

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Thanks to word.a.day I now know what (or should I say who) a best boy is.

From: Wordsmith 
To: linguaphile@wordsmith.org
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--best boy
best boy (best boi) noun

  The first assistant to the gaffer (head electrician) of a film crew.

[Apparently borrowed from the sailing terminology.]

 "Cast and director commentaries are one thing, but do we really need one
  from the post-production team, as we've seen on the extended edition of
  The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King? What's next? 'Reflections
  from the Key Grip and Best Boy?'"
  Mike Snider and Thomas K. Arnold; Press 'Repeat' or 'Skip'; USA Today
  (Washington DC); Dec 28, 2004.

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I was able to renew both my driver’s and vehicle licences in less than ten minutes today. I remember the old days when everyone had to renew their vehicle licence at the same time yearly: there were always lineups. Today, walking to the mall and back to work took much more time than the renewals.

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Shorts

With temperatures in the low teens (°C) today I ran home from the train station wearing shorts—a first for a January 13^th for me. Unfortunately, like yesterday, it was pouring rain though, unlike yesterday, it wasn’t a thunderstorm. Of course, being winter, tonight’s temperatures will go below freezing and snow is expected.

Anti-Spyware

I tried Microsoft’s beta anti-Spyware software at work and at home yesterday. It seems to be pretty simple-minded about filenames and directories. It found a file, cat.exe, in the system32 directory and called it the Dutch Porn Dialer. Actually it’s a Windows port of the Unix cat command. It also called two expat.dll files spyware. These are an XML parsing library.

I think the software needs more work.

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When you pat a dog on its head he will usually wag his tail. What will a goose do?

Make him bark!

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Because I walk or run about 6 km each day I like to keep track of the weather. I was planning to web scrape Environment Canada’s website and create an RSS feed for myself. Then I discovered Forecast Fox. Now I can have the weather in the status bar. Neat!

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Here’s a couple of pictures I took several years ago of a transistor-based automatic voltage regulator, the control that helps to maintain the terminal voltage of a power generator constant. Nowadays this control is probably just a sub-program in a digital excitation system.

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I handed out scores for the Mozart Te Deum, the Haydn Missa Brevis and the Dvorak Mass in D for our upcoming concert. I have performed the Mozart and Haydn before. The Dvorak Mass appears to be quite charming. It should be a great concert.

Today I found out I had falsely “accused” a choir member of not returning one piece of music. It turns out that another member who returned their music today, about three weeks late, had one “odd” numbered score: a 34 in a bunch of 40’s. That 34 was the copy I had assumed the first member had. Hmmm, it seems I should be careful to cross off the music numbers returned and by whom when I get some early returns before the concert.

I’ve offered to assume the choir manager role as the current manager is resigning effective the end of this season. Of course, I will do this only if I can pass on the music librarian’s job and the 16 or 17 bins of music. Five years ago my wife and I became the music librarians. She has been too busy with her own music teaching duties and class prep work to be able to help out much with the borrowing, returning, sorting and filing duties. I think it’s time for someone else in the choir to take a turn.

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“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to use the ‘Net and he won’t bother you for weeks. ”

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I went downtown and picked up my baby bro' at our Mom’s and drove him to the airport this evening. He has to back teaching in Thailand on Monday. My sister-in-law, nephew and niece will follow next week. Anyway, I had to drive the car in to work. Ugh! It was snowing and very slow going. I went for a run at lunch time: the first time I’ve had rain freezing on my jacket and glasses. Fortunately the snow and rain stopped in the afternoon and, I guess, everyone went home early. I made it to my Mom’s in “non rush hour time” and out to the airport, again, in “non rush hour time”. I left work at about 4:15, grabbed a quick bite to eat and was home before 7 p.m. My brother said it wasn’t necessary to come in the terminal with him: he said he’ll be pretty antsy until he has checks his two large suitcases, gets his boarding pass and goes through the security check. I wasn’t going to argue since short term parking at the airport seems to be at least a tooney every 15 minutes.

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My youngest brother, sister-in-law, 5-year-old nephew, and 5-month-old niece stayed at our house for a couple of days in a round of family visiting that’s lasted for almost three weeks for them. My nephew is so cute: he led us in Christmas carol sing-a-longs for two evenings. We all accompanied on my wife’s selection of Orff instruments. And my niece, she’s a darling, starting to smile and vocalize and just adorable. My nephew thinks Canada is a great destination: He got presents at every stop. He’ll surely be disappointed next Christmas when the family spends it in Thailand where my brother teaches.

Though it only be just after 9 p.m. I’m ready for bed: a) because we gave our bedroom and queen-size bed as the room could fit an extra single bed and sleep a family of four with their own bathroom, b) we slept in the double bed in my study but mostly c) because I had to get up an hour and a half earlier than usual to go back to work after two weeks of vacation and holidays.

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Inscribed on a bottle of shampoo in my bathroom: “MADE IN USA OF MAINLY US INGREDIENTS.”

Which ones? I don’t know because the “ingredients” aren’t listed.

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Because it was a holiday and lighter traffic I chose to run along Eglinton, a 6 lane road with wide grassy boulevards to pick up the trail beside the Credit River where I expected to run alongside the river until Burnhamthorpe. To my surprise there is a steep ascent (30 m?) to the top of the valley in the middle of this route where you run along some side streets and then descend to the valley again underneath the Highway 403 bridge. Then, of course, there’s my usual steep ascent up to Burnhamthorpe. Though the route is somewhat shorter than my usual two valleys run it has twice as many arduous ascents regardless of whether you run it clockwise or anti-clockwise.

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Happy 2005 everyone!

It hardly seems possible but we are already five years into this century and millennium. With the earthquake and tsunami, Nature reminded us on Boxing Day, 2004 that despite our modern times and so-called human superiority: she’s still around. I can only say this is a rather sober beginning to 2005.

My wife and I celebrated quietly watching TV. Because of her cold she decided bubbly wouldn’t taste good so we greeted the New Year with decaf coffee and Carolans. We missed the countdown as we were watching Moulin Rouge! on French CBC at the time. It reminded me of a combination of Mary Poppins and Les Miz—light fare for a New Year’s Eve. The songs, mostly borrowed from familiar pop music, were in English and, fortunately, there wasn’t much plot so I could follow the dubbed French dialog without too much trouble. My wife had seen it back in 2001 in the movie theatre.