Happy Christmas

To all my readers (all half-dozen or so of you!) I also wish you all a happy and prosperous 2007!

We’re spending a quiet holiday at home. Traditional dinner tomorrow night. Tuesday the rest of the family is heading south to Oregon to visit relatives. I’ll be working. I hope to use my spare time to wrap up my series of rants I started well over two months ago. I still owe you the answer to the Maxim Gorky riddle, which I promise before year’s end.

2007 looks like it will be an adventurous year for me and those close to me. I’m heading down to Macworld Expo in a few weeks to speak at the IT conference. Subject matter will be technical aspects of blogging (John Welch asked me to sit on a panel), and the session I developed with John, Julian Koh, and Shaun Redmond entitled “Total Network Awareness, which is focussed on one of my favorite subjects (though I never talk about it here), network monitoring systems. Should be fun.

The family are once again heading out to Colorado for our annual visit to my parents, along with the entire scattered Goolsbee clan – my siblings, their spouses and kids. They even have 802.11 now at mom & dad’s house! (whoo hoo! no more dialup!)

In February Christopher heads down to the southern hemisphere, to spend a a few months in Chile as an Exchange Student. He’ll be back in July (I’m thinking of cashing in the frequent flyer miles to head down there to pick him up… maybe get some MORE skiing in!) More on that later.

Summer of course brings the Jaguar out from hibernation and all sorts of fun… stay tuned.

–chuck

Museum theme continues…

Even though it is a bit blurry, some folks will instantly recognize this shape, whereas others will be baffled. Which camp are you in?

It is an object that radically changed the automotive world – for several reasons. A radically innovative bit of engineering in a radically modern car for its era.

It is also an object that is still sought after, almost 50 years after its invention, by independent car builders (namely hot rodders, custom car makers, etc) for its wonderful self-contained nature, combined with outstanding performance.

Truly deserving of a spot in a museum.

Aftermath of the big Wind Storm

That’s the extent of it, beyond a few branches from other trees. We were without power for 32 hours. This is a mid-sized Douglas Fir, at 103′, which came down in our back yard, roots and all.

I have a confession to make… I don’t like power tools. Most of them at least. I especially don’t like the ones with rotating blades… mostly because I am something of a klutz and always have visons of chopping vital parts of myself off. As such I do not own a chain saw, and really don’t forsee ever having one. I do have a saw, a hatchet, and a long-handled axe.


Above: Sue & Nick next to the tree roots.


Above: Nick clowning around in front of the base of the trees.


Above: the top limbs removed.


Above: about halfway done.

We spent the day removing branches from the downed tree… with the hand tools. It took a while, and I’m *real* tired, but nobody lost any arms or heads. I worked my way up and down the trunk and removed all the limbs and branches, while Sue & Nick pulled them away and started stacking them. Sue left us around mid-day to go ride her horse. Later, once the majority of the trunk was exposed, we chopped and sawed off the top 25′ or so of the trunks (there are actually two, as this tree is bifurcated. Once we uncovred the fence, we saw that it was salvagable. We brought the pickup truck out and hauled the top of the trunks away, then raised the one bent fence post. We tie-wrapped the wire mesh fence material back on and basically made it dog-proof once again, and released the hounds… just as it got dark. There are still a bunch of limbs to clear, but the hard work is done… I think.

I wasn’t able to photograph the finished work, as it was too dark. I really want to get this work done before the rains return, which will likely be Monday.

The trunk will require a chainsaw, so I’ll either have a neighbor do it, or we’ll hire it out.