Backyard Is Done

Keith the contractor rolled in this morning with a trailer full of sod and had it all installed by 2:30 PM.

After a few days of watering, the dogs will finally be allowed back in the yard.

New Elements

Kelly and I saw my car's evil twin yesterday.



I guess they are actually selling it in a silver and blue now too. I may have to see about trading mine in.

Graded

So they finally got all the dirt out of my driveway and in the backyard. With a little grading and such, we are just waiting for them to lay down the sod.

Dirt

My dirt has arrived.

Backyard Landscaping

After month of rain, interviewing contractors and plain old procrastinating, the backyard landscaping has finally begun.


I've opted for the simplest (i.e. cheapest) possible scenario -- just adding some grass along the top of the property while leaving the bottom "California Natural" (or unfinished as you would call this in other places).



I'll post some more photos once they start laying sod down.

The Baroque Cycle

Normally, I wouldn't think it momentous enough to blog about my reading achievements (although I am sure it will come as a surprise that I am actually literate for some of you), but I have had to make an exception for my latest reading foray. After three books, 2652 pages and over six months of reading, I have finally finished Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle. The Baroque Cycle is Neal's prequel to his excellent "Cryptonomicon", which had hooked me years earlier due to my insomnia on my frequent long-haul over the Pacific flights, and carries on his habit of intensive researching detail and massive page counts.

Set in the late 1700s, the trilogy tells a fictional tale of the transformation of the world's economy weaved through the major historical events and characters of the time. As in the Cryptonomicon, we are again dealing with the mysterious Enoch Root, the Shaftoe and Waterson clans. Although the topic seems to have little to do with Neal's forte (Crypto and futurism), after the first few chapters, you can start to see the parallels. While I won't give too much away (after all there is a lot of detail in the 2600 pages), I found the first book interesting but somewhat slow and confusing, the second book spotty (although the sections with Pirate Jack were quite good) and the final books excellent.

Should you want to embark on this reading adventure, make sure you wait until all of three books appear in paperback -- the hardcovers are really heavy to read in bed:
"Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)" (Neal Stephenson)
"The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2)" (Neal Stephenson)
"The System of the World (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 3)" (Neal Stephenson)

I am betting that Neal might make a (set of) book(s) that fit in between the Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle next.

My Desktop

<< Any Mac hating people should probably skip this posting. >>



Since a few people have asked, here is a list of goodies that I run on my Mac OS X desktop:

• Meteo: The weather outside is important. Keep it nearby -- perferably at eye level. Meteo gives me current temperature and a weather icon in my menu bar, as well as a cool radar image in the menu drop down. Very cool, very free.
• gCount and yMail: Two totally different implementations of the same thing. They check your Google Mail or Y! Mail account for you and turn their icon red when there is new email. Both are free.
• iChat : An Apple supplied no-brainer. It hooks me into the AIM chat network. I'd like to use Y! more often but their Mac software isn't great and everyone I know has a AIM/iChat login. It's also getting some groovy new features in Tiger.
• Sidenote: I like to have sticky note type documents all over my large monitor, but I want them to recede from view when I don't need them (kinda like expose). Sidenote does just that - It sticks to the side of your screen and hides when you aren't using it. Again, free.
• QuickSilver: I takes some time to grok QuickSilver. As the instructions say, "At first glance, Quicksilver is a launcher." And that's all I thought it was at first. But theres more. More than just allowing me to type the first two letters of an application to launch it (I don't like using the mouse), it also allows you to take advantage of small applescripts and such to automate several actions. You can also lookup web pages and contacts. Play specific playlists in iTunes. Email files to people. It even has a dock-like shelf to keep commonly used actions. Very clever. Very free.

I am hopeful that the new version of Mac OS X (i.e. Tiger) will allow me to replace many of these doo-dads with Dashboard widgets. We'll have to see.

Google Maps And Satellite Pictures

After reading some online announcements that Google has integrated their Keyhole acquisition with Google Maps, I decided to check it out. I did the normal things:

• Looked up my old house in Pacifica
• Peered down at my office in the Bay Area
• Viewed Folsom Prison which I drive by but can never see

But it really wasn't until I saw the Wired magazine article entitled "Surprises Lurk in Satellite Snaps", that I realized how much of a change this is really going to be. Google maps is now the second thing I do after I search for something:

• Going to play golf ? Let's see the course (My local Bass Lake Golf Course)
• Looking at a house. Let's see the neighborhood (A kinda neat house by ours)

Hmmm . . . the possibilities are endless. What's Kelly's address again ?

Landscaping

After an abnormally long, wet and cold winter, it appears that the rains have subsided until sometime this fall.



As you can see from the picture, this has left me with a veritable jungle that threatens to engulf my two labradors (Zeke is actually standing up in his picture). so I have finally gotten a landscaper, who isn't going to cost as much as the concrete guy, to start clearing the top forty so that we can put down some grass. This should thrill both my neighbors and my yellow lab, who needs a flatter course to chase tennis balls. If, and when, I actually get the guy to come out here and start, I will document the work in photos.

Prairie City OHV

I've decided that my knee is finally back in working order (after four years of healing from a basketball injury) and I want to race my mountain bike this year. Well, maybe not race my mountain bike (I'd like a shiny new one). Anyhoo, there are a lot of mountain bike races in my area but one in particular has caught my attention.

The Prairie City Race Series is held weekly on the Prairie City OHV just a few miles from house. The PC OHV (Off Highway Vehicle) is one of the largest motor bike / ATV parks in the west. Usually restricted to just motor vehicles, on Wednesdays they open up their MotoCross track for the bike races. These are short course races (5 - 15 miles), mostly sprinting enduro style.

I went over to the OHV to scout it out today. It was very cool -- I even was entertaining notions of starting some motocross (They just open a HUGE Kawasaki dirt bike store in Folsom). I was, that is, until the ambulance arrived to cart someone off to the hospital.

I think I'll stick to the pedal powered biking. Races start in mid April. I'll keep you posted on my progress.