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{| style="background: #eeeeee;" align=right
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|Time doesn't just fly; it tends to go first class and charge the tickets to my account.
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=What Woozle Is Doing Right Now=
=What Woozle Is Doing Right Now=
Entries are most recent first; to read in order, start at the end.
Entries are most recent first; to read in order, start at the end.
{| align=right
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| __TOC__
|}
==Overview==
==Overview==
*Legal summary document
*[[Staddon vs. Griever]]
**Updated accounting spreadsheet
*[[Childsitters Wanted|Childsitting]]
*[[HyperMail]] so I can manage my emails
*Images for existing VBZ items
*Images for existing VBZ items
==Today==
*[[DriveFerret]] (currently at experimental stage) to recover work from 60 GB drive
'''08:25, 20 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': [[RH/ST Checks|This]].
*[[HyperFile]] (has many uses, but most urgently to help with managing vbz images)
=Journal Entries=
* '''2007-01-11''': Actually making some progress on [[FileFerret]], finally. Who knew that all it would take is a bit of single-minded hyperfocussing to the exclusion of all else (except for a bit of vbz shipping now and then)?
: It's not really surprising, though, that this has taken so long to get to, as I am finding that there are many things which will be using it and correspondingly many complications in converting them (and their data) so that they ''can'' use it... (and I'm probably jinxing it by saying that I'm making progress, too.)
* '''2007-01-08''':
** [[2007-01-05 Rebekah's response]]
** [[2007-01-08 Woozle's response]]
* [[2007-01-04 open letter to Rebekah Wade]]
* [[2006-12-23 The tirCysP Affair]]


=What Woozle Was Doing Earlier=
'''09:04, 10 December 2006 (EST)''' Harena's to-do for today:
==2005-08-19==
* <s>Help W finish Josh application thingy</s>: mostly done; need to see if we can get answers from Tom
'''12:58, 19 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': [[SvsG:Checks Available|This]].
* Get all the teacher stuff thingies
** go to AC Moore
** candy canes, put them all together
* <s>xmas cards (low priority)</s>
* pay bills
* <s>stickers for soap</s> enough for this year
* lip balm


'''15:58, 19 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': For the 2nd year in a row, Githens has initially [[:Image:2005-08-19 Josh class assignment.wiki.jpg|assigned Josh to a mainstream class]]. Hopefully his teacher can get things straightened out...
* [[2006-11-24 The Cockroach Mafia]]
==2005-08-18==
'''17:46, 18 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Spent most of today uploading check images for the [[SvsG:Accounting|accounting]], though I did also ship an in-stock order which came in yesterday and the one shirt actually ordered from a [[vbznet:cat/sd/td/cr03/|bunch]] of SunDog Crinkles (minimum order 24 pcs) which also came in yesterday. Need to enter a list of disputed items from the accounting, as best I can puzzle it out from the scattered notes in the Defense's paperwork, along with my responses.
==2005-08-17==
'''07:29, 17 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': (Headache off and on all last night; it's currently in the "on" position.) Continuing to update the accounting, as well as processing images of checks and so forth to fill in the blanks in the spreadsheets.


'''18:41, 17 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Overheard Benjy quote: "Put ketchup on the french fries, because they're being really evil." "Aaah! They're dead! Because the ketchup is their blood!"
'''19:57, 11 November 2006 (EST)''' This came to me as I was waking up; it was only supposed to take an hour, maybe two, to write down; what with one thing and another, I basically spent all day writing it: [[Issuepedia:A spiritual argument against religion|A spiritual argument against religion]]
==2005-08-16==
'''14:39, 16 Aug 2005 (EDT)''' Entering [[Staddon vs. Griever|SvsG]] [[SvsG:Accounting|accounting]] updates from the documents provided by the defense. Found a way to paste spreadsheet data into the wiki using a [http://wiki.hypertwins.org/csv2wp/ converter script] -- it was a bit broken for data containing tabs, but I fixed it. I should post the fixes on the author's wiki, but at the moment I don't feel like it, so I will do it later.


Also narrowly dodged a bullet on the bank account front -- forgot that SunDog hadn't yet debited for their order (it was complicated -- they were sending the order in 2 parts, and apparently they didn't bother to debit my card until the 2nd part went out, which meant a huge charge that I wasn't expecting rather than a smaller charge that I was half-expecting). My bank balance this morning was 88 cents.
'''19:36, 4 November 2006 (EST)''' Woops, a month went by.
==2005-08-15==
'''07:39, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Putting together an order for Liquid Blue.


'''08:22, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': okay, that's done... Now I need to ship that one shirt (customer paid with PayPal yesterday)
I'm now trying to decide whether to pester my lawyer about a discovery I've just made (that's [[wikipedia:Discovery (observation)|Discovery]], not [[wikipedia:Discovery (law)|Discovery]], although it does involve the latter).


'''20:01, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': My head hurts. I should probably mention this whenever it happens in case I can spot a pattern later on.
In the trial process, there is a phase referred to as the [[wikipedia:Interrogatories|interrogatories]], which is where I get to ask them questions, and they have to answer within 30 days. (They also get to ask me questions, and I have to answer within 30 days.)


Spent the rest of today (except for errands) working on the design docs for [[HyperAdmin]], especially [[HyperAdmin Session]]s. Slow going; the kind of thing in which each interruption sets you back about half an hour. There were a lot of interruptions, and I'm now about 17 minutes into yesterday. Maybe if there are more I will get to last week, and I can start over.
We did one round of interrogatories already ([[SvsG:Plaintiffs' First Requests to RDA|RDA]], [[SvsG:Plaintiffs' First Fact Requests to Bubba|Bubba]], [[SvsG:Plaintiffs' First Fact Requests to Lynne|Lynne]] &ndash; 5 questions per defendant), and the questions were rather general, and their answers were uninformative.
==2005-08-14==
'''09:03, 14 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Uploading rebuilt vbz pages. Finally (finally!) added the new Beatles and Yes shirts to inventory, so maybe someone will actually buy them now. I've got three more boxes of what looks like sets of Mountain close-outs, so probably no need to tag them (lots and lots of the same design in different sizes), and then a few other bits and pieces left over. Also need to get a Liquid Blue order ready to place on Monday morning. Oh, and there was an order to reactivate because the customer wanted to use PayPal, and another order to charge because I decided not to wait for the rest of it...
==2005-08-13==
'''17:08, 13 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': I have discovered the joys of buying used CDs for one cent plus shipping on Amazon, or about $2.50 with shipping (which is still less than I used to pay for most used LPs in the late 1980s, even without adjusting for inflation). Not every CD is that cheap, but more than you'd think... a couple of weeks ago I got a Smashmouth CD at that price, and just now I got [[wikipedia:Tubthumping|Tubthumping]] -- possibly the very last [[Ann V. Simon|Tigger]]-certified Trampoline Song.


Before that, I was finally starting to make a dent in the huge stack of unfiled shirts-etc. hanging around the office. I'm starting to run out of places to put stock boxes.
I came up with a much more [[SvsG:Plaintiffs' Position Statement/archive|specific set of questions]] after that, but then the lawyer said I couldn't ask them, because there wasn't going to be another round of interrogatories. From this, I gathered that I'm only allowed one set.
==2005-08-12==
'''07:34, 12 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Decided not to try to figure out a way to automatically set prices of in-stock discontinued items; used existing price codes to set them once, and then can set them manually if needed later.
==2005-08-11==
'''16:40, 11 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Oh... I should be doing something, shouldn't I. ...Well, okay, actually I ''was'' working on some revisions to the data design of the ordering system (the catalog part) because I needed to enter some new items, and the whole "price code" thing started seeming really redundant some time ago. So I got rid of it; "TGroups" are now used to maintain pricing information. Unfortunately, when I ran a test build of some pages, the builder got into some kind of tangle. So I'm trying to figure out what's up with that.


And then I really should get back to the legal summary... er, the accounting... er, the [[HyperMoney]]-online scripts... er, the [[HyperAdmin]] coding. Yeah.
However, I just now found the relevant statute ({{gacode|9|11|33}}) in Georgia law, and it doesn't say anything about the number of rounds; it only says you have to limit the total number of questions to 50, and we've asked, like, 5 or 10. I think. It seems to me that we could seriously clarify some things before the trial by asking my list of questions, even if I have to pare it down quite a bit.


'''21:26, 11 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Trying to figure out how the pricing interface should work for items which are no longer available from the supplier but which are in stock. Can't always depend on prices having been set earlier, which is what we've been doing so far.
On the other hand, my lawyer is likely to insist on doing all the typing and formatting, and one way or another will end up charging me for more hours to handle the additional paperwork &ndash; which runs the risk of pushing me over into yet a ''third'' multi-thousand-dollar retainer. Is it worth the risk? Should I ask her for a statement of our current account status? Or should I just let all this stuff get dealt with at trial?
==2005-08-10==
'''17:23, 10 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Hmm, I seem to have missed a day. I know I was doing some shipping yesterday, and a couple of other things... I finally started to collect the information about [[Josh and The System|Josh's history]], but I still don't have the older email collected and the [[HyperMail|program]] I was going to use to collect it is having technical obstacle after technical obstacle. Shipped two more things today; now waiting for deposits to arrive so I can place the next round of orders (hopefully it will come in before the debit for the 2nd half of the SunDog order comes in, otherwise things will be Icky).


Feeling otherwise very unfocused, starting shortly after we picked up Benjamin.
Feh.
==2005-08-08==
'''07:43, 8 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Working on login sequence for [[HyperAdmin]], ultimately to be used for [[HyperMoney]] and other web-based applications, which in turn should let me post accountings online. It'll soon be time to get kids ready to go, though, and then we'll be out for a couple of hours erranding.


'''17:44, 8 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Gaahh!! http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/335379p-286516c.html I say we boycott Daylight Savings Time altogether. Take all the money they will need to budget for software fixes and use it to buy solar panels.
'''13:31, 24 September 2006 (EDT)''' Some trivia: I pulled a bunch of old service receipts out of the Benz, trying to clean up after the CD player thief (who rifled thoroughly both the Nissan and the Benz, took the CD player out of the Nissan but struck out with the Benz because it doesn't even have a radio) spilled all the glove box contents everywhere. Oddly enough, the receipts are not for ''this'' Benz but for a different one, a 300TD, license plate CME-837, belonging to some people named Harry and Pam Abel in Atlanta.


Also, took photos of the burned-down #[[143 Pinecrest]]. I feel weird about posting them, because I'm sure the owners must feel absolutely horrible after all the work they've been putting in renovating the place. I mean, I'm sure (I hope?) insurance will take care of the expense, but who knows what irreplaceable quasi-historical parts of the house are gone forever? And of course the insurance company can't replace the time lost; that house has been under renovation for about a year now...
From the receipts, it looks like they moved there sometime around or before August 1985, and sold the car sometime in 1994. I found their address on one of the receipts, which leads to [http://66.64.236.226/identity/mstockton/listings_details.asp?OrderBy=beds&User_ID=mstockton&Offset=10&Listing_ID=5951 this site] showing their former house (with lots of photos) sold for $1,195,000. Googling both office and home phone numbers comes up with nothing for area code 404, which I'm pretty sure included Atlanta at the time (prior to 1992 or so, it was most of northeast Georgia).


I'm also assuming nobody was in the house when it happened, and that therefore nobody was hurt.
On one receipt &ndash; October 13, 1988 &ndash; they spent a total of $8076.41 on the car, apparently including a new engine (#617 912-12-727772). So now I don't feel quite so bad about all the thousands I've spent on ''my'' Benz...
==2005-08-07==
'''15:35, 7 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': [[HyperMoney]] was going to need a security system, so I'm adapting the one I mostly-created for [[vbzwiki:VbzCart|VbzCart]] as a separate component. It's going slowly.


Also created a favicon.ico for vbz.net to reduce 404 errors, and made the favicon.ico for the hypertwiki properly transparent -- at least, it should be, though I can't see the difference yet. (Just checked, and apparently it's still using the image cached on disk, and the cache expires on Tuesday. So I loaded it on a different browser and... yes, there we go.)
I'm guessing that this was the Benz which the Grievers later somehow obtained and which became Cimmeria's car (maybe she bought it with the settlement money from her court case? I don't remember what that was about except that there was a lot of money and it was gone pretty quickly.) I'm going to assume this is correct, and stuff it in with the other stuff to give back to the Grievers next time I encounter them (presumably in court).
==2005-08-06==
'''08:30, 6 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Yesterday, uploaded all the scanned check images from Grievers. Now I'm trying to figure out some reasonable way to show the accounting on the wiki. The obvious solution is just to enter it as a table, but the first time I started doing that I somehow managed to crash FireFox and lose all my edits. It probably won't happen again, but it ticked me off enough to put some effort into finding a better solution.


'''11:16, 6 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Typing on the [[HyperMoney]] page; looks like a lot of what I'm typing should probably have its own page(s). Also chatting with Sinaasappeltje.
* [[2006-09-05]]
* [[2006-09-04 beach trip]]
* [[2006-09-03]]


==2005-08-04==
==2006-08-10==
'''20:53, 4 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Shipped Mountain shirts that came in yesterday, except for those awaiting confirmation from customers. Processed and uploaded some of the RDA check images I scanned yesterday. Typed up [[SvsG: Phone Bills]] page.
'''21:36, 10 August 2006 (EDT)''' I feel like however I handle this, it'll be the wrong thing to do. [[2006-08-10 truth and secrets]]
==2005-08-03==
'''10:23, 3 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Transcribing [[:Category:SvsG Emails|emails]] for [[Staddon vs. Griever]].


'''15:59, 3 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Finally received copies of inspected documents from defense lawyer, via my lawyer. Now updating records and scanning stuff.
==long hiatus==
==2005-08-02==
It's been a really, really busy summer. What can I say.
'''16:37, 2 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': Just finished shipping a bunch of shirts. Now, should I work on [[HyperFile]], or [[Staddon vs. Griever]]? Or should I check the official to-do list? <checks official to-do list> On balance, I think SvsG... but should do some dishes first.
==2006-03-19==
==2005-08-01==
'''08:05, 19 March 2006 (EST)''' Actually got something done yesterday, in spite of having to drive Zander to a [http://maps.yahoo.com/dd_result?newaddr=122+pinecrest+rd.&taddr=9000+Habitat+Cir&csz=27705&country=us&tcsz=Chapel+Hill%2C+NC+27516-5262&tcountry=us birthday party] (1/2 hour each way x 4 trips = 2 hours felled in the name of improved childhood socialization or whatever): the main catalog portion of vbz.net (all URLs starting with /cat/) is now running from a single script, rather than being hundreds of static pages built on a PC. It's a small but significant step towards making the site completely data-driven and no longer dependent on Windows.
'''16:26, 1 Aug 2005 (EDT)''': The morning (a word which here means "the part of the day prior to now") was mostly errands and miscellaneous chores, though I did manage to get two in-stock orders into the mail. Currently working towards getting the items in the Liquid Blue package (which arrived Friday after we left for the beach) into tomorrow's mail.
 
==Earlier Months==
A lot of other stuff happened which I haven't had time to post about; see [[:Category:Wallpaper]] and [[:Category:2006-03-10]]. Also [http://wall.hypertwins.org Wallville] is back ^_^
*[[User:Woozle/2005-07|July, 2005]]
==2006-03-03==
*[[User:Woozle/2005-06|June, 2005]]
'''07:41, 3 March 2006 (EST)''' Began the seed of an area about making music as a profession: [[Art vs. Career]]. Also, a couple of days ago, wrote up our unhappy experiences with the {{yp|Kenmore 44052}} washing machine. Didn't have time to process the Day In The Life pictures; three days generally isn't enough, unless it includes a weekend and my to-do list isn't more overloaded than usual.
==2006-02-26==
'''15:38, 26 February 2006 (EST)''' [http://secondhandwhore.livejournal.com/ Sraedi] invited me to take part in [http://community.livejournal.com/ditl/profile this], so I've been taking pictures. I also figured out that the camera has a mode which squeezes about 5 times as many shots on a memory card, and (incidentally) doesn't take forever to process them. Who knew.
 
Also creating new icons for vbz.net. The transparency doesn't work in MSIE v6, but who cares, right? ;-) (I wonder if v7 will have proper support for PNG alpha transparency...)
==2006-02-25==
[[Image:P2250007 2006-02-25 Zander in playstructure at Wheels.jpg|250px|left]]
'''21:04, 25 February 2006 (EST)''' Finally put some of my kindergarten-era electronics knowledge to work -- see [[User:Woozle/notes for electronic learning kit|Woozle/notes for electronic learning kit]]
 
Also took Zander to [[htyp:Wheels (Durham, NC)|Wheels]] for the birthday party of Henry (the immediate motivation for creating the aforementioned electronic kit) and picked him up again after (leaving about 45 minutes in between for shipping operations). This was made considerably easier, however, by the presence of Rachel-the-sitter, who made it unnecessary for me to also pack up Josh and Benjamin in the car each time.
 
==2006-02-22==
'''10:28, 22 February 2006 (EST)''': Just now applied for [http://seeker.dice.com/jobsearch/servlet/JobSearch?op=101&dockey=xml/4/8/485466afd1b98d598f899e71c08d14bc@activejobs0&c=1&source=1 this], after updating [[Résumé - Nick Staddon|this]].
 
Catching up: The overload has continued since the last entry. The plumber replacement section of pipe and removed a large quantity of muck from the existing pipe, but apparently didn't test the fix because the sink was still stopped up after he left (he may have tested it but not realized that you have to leave the water running for a good 5 minutes to be really sure, because it takes that long for the pipes to fill up from the blockage to the sink drain). So Saturday (with a bad headache) I got out the powered plumber's snake and reamed out the drain from the laundry room (after the unsurprising false start where the snake went up the vent instead of down under the floor). So that's fixed.
 
But then the washing machine was still making unhappy noises, and when the drain was still blocked it was leaking, so he need to come back and fix that, and I still can't get the drain under the laundry room sink to stop leaking completely (though I've got it to the point where it's a drip every 5-10 seconds instead of 5-10 drips per second; maybe it just needs a new gasket somewhere).
 
Then on Sunday I had an even worse headache and a slight fever and kind of did not much of any use all day. Monday I was a bit better, but still had no appetite until dinnertime. Tuesday mostly recovered; today still mostly recovered.
 
Also, I finally broke down (sometime during all that) and installed the windows drivers for the scanner. It worked fine for a bit, and then I foolishly tried to install a USB snooper utility to help out with the Linux driver development, and various things stopped working (including the network and the scanner). I was able to fix the network, and I got the scanner working again for a bit, but then it mysteriously stopped working again. So I'm still in the middle of that.
==2006-02-16==
The kitchen sink has been doing its quasi-annual stoppage since about Tuesday. This time, we're having a plumber look at it. (For one thing, there's a section of pipe which appears to have been patched with ''duct tape''. For another, this shouldn't keep happening; if the pipe is too small to accomodate the load, then we need bigger pipe.)
 
Meanwhile, we had fun bailing out the laundry room last night (the laundry room sink, dishwasher, and washing machine are all on the same drainage "circuit") in order to prevent the floor from being flooded (again) when laundry had to be done.
==2006-02-14==
'''07:41, 14 February 2006 (EST)''' More things I did between 1/11 and 2/13:
* Upgraded [[vbzwiki:Main Page|vbzwiki]] to the latest {{yp|MediaWiki}} version, in hopes of getting the spam filter to start working; I was able to get it working, though I think this was mainly because I re-read the instructions more carefully and found I had left out a line of code in the configuration file. Also, this will allow me to offer customers the ability to subscribe to topics of interest.
* Set up a test {{yp|Drupal}} page &ndash; it's at http://stuff.hypertwins.org, but I'm still working out the kinks before it's ready for actual use. (At first I couldn't get the email confirmation to work, but then that mysteriously started working several days later. Now it won't create forums, even though it says it is doing so.)
 
And time's up again...
==2006-02-13==
'''21:20, 13 February 2006 (EST)''' Yeah, [http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-02/b-oam013006.php this] describes what I've noticed. And I thought it was just my current kid-infested lifestyle. Or maybe it's mainly that, and later on I'll be able to look forward to the joyous prospect of ''always'' feeling like I'm in a room full of screaming kids. Hmm.
 
'''14:47, 13 February 2006 (EST)''' I guess it must have been a busy month since January 11. I've done a substantial number of mentionable things, but can't immediately remember any of them. Oh, wait, yes... there was...
* The new water heater, which took much back-and-forthing between here, Sears, and a few other places (I have the "before" shots and will put them up eventually along with an "after" shot).
* Shaving about 8 inches off the end of the old falling-apart sink base cabinet in the laundry room (forgot to take "before" shots, but got a nice "after" shot).
* Getting one ("Von! Ah-ah-ah-haa!" &ndash;[[Wikipedia:Count von Count|Count von Count]]) [[Childsitters Wanted|childsitter]] lined up. She's too young to do overnights or driving, but it's a start.
* Spent a lot of time working on [[FileFerret]] and oops, that's all I have time for now because it's time to pick up the kids. (I was going to tell about buying a new scanner and looking at phono needles, but it'll have to wait.)
 
==2006-01-11==
'''07:41, 11 January 2006 (EST)''' Just finished the final (I hope) revision to [[SvsG:Messages for Defendants|this]]. Yesterday, we discovered that the reason why vbz seemed to be making so much money over Xmas, relatively speaking (the bank balance climbed to nearly $700 at one point, (yee. haw.), and is still well above $400) was that one of the suppliers had mistakenly been charging one of Sandy's credit cards which I gave them to use ''once'', two years ago. The total came to $730.80... so I'm still working back to "break-even" point. So much for "Black Friday". (She was relieved to find that she hadn't been as much of a spenthrift as she thought; I'm vastly annoyed and dismayed that I can't even seem to make a profit at Xmas. The sales numbers say I did make about $600, but that's not unusual for most times of the year.)
 
Yesterday also, I foolishly started into doing a huge overhaul of vbz's Topic system, and of course unexpected issues have arisen (as I expected).
 
Currently printing out the famous SvsG "Sales Accounting".
==2006-01-05==
'''13:32, 5 January 2006 (EST)''': There's a fine balance between (on the one hand) taking on so many tasks that one starts to get panicky over how much isn't getting done and (on the other hand) taking on too few and ''actually'' not getting much done. I'm feeling like I haven't been getting much done over the past week, but I'm trying not to take this as a signal that I need to take on a whole lot more because I can feel that edge of panic ready to spring up. Just find one or two things that need doing, and work on them. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
 
Reading material: http://www.judithberman.net/sffuture.html

Latest revision as of 00:55, 5 March 2021

Time doesn't just fly; it tends to go first class and charge the tickets to my account.

What Woozle Is Doing Right Now

Entries are most recent first; to read in order, start at the end.

Overview

Journal Entries

  • 2007-01-11: Actually making some progress on FileFerret, finally. Who knew that all it would take is a bit of single-minded hyperfocussing to the exclusion of all else (except for a bit of vbz shipping now and then)?
It's not really surprising, though, that this has taken so long to get to, as I am finding that there are many things which will be using it and correspondingly many complications in converting them (and their data) so that they can use it... (and I'm probably jinxing it by saying that I'm making progress, too.)

09:04, 10 December 2006 (EST) Harena's to-do for today:

  • Help W finish Josh application thingy: mostly done; need to see if we can get answers from Tom
  • Get all the teacher stuff thingies
    • go to AC Moore
    • candy canes, put them all together
  • xmas cards (low priority)
  • pay bills
  • stickers for soap enough for this year
  • lip balm

19:57, 11 November 2006 (EST) This came to me as I was waking up; it was only supposed to take an hour, maybe two, to write down; what with one thing and another, I basically spent all day writing it: A spiritual argument against religion

19:36, 4 November 2006 (EST) Woops, a month went by.

I'm now trying to decide whether to pester my lawyer about a discovery I've just made (that's Discovery, not Discovery, although it does involve the latter).

In the trial process, there is a phase referred to as the interrogatories, which is where I get to ask them questions, and they have to answer within 30 days. (They also get to ask me questions, and I have to answer within 30 days.)

We did one round of interrogatories already (RDA, Bubba, Lynne – 5 questions per defendant), and the questions were rather general, and their answers were uninformative.

I came up with a much more specific set of questions after that, but then the lawyer said I couldn't ask them, because there wasn't going to be another round of interrogatories. From this, I gathered that I'm only allowed one set.

However, I just now found the relevant statute (9-11-33) in Georgia law, and it doesn't say anything about the number of rounds; it only says you have to limit the total number of questions to 50, and we've asked, like, 5 or 10. I think. It seems to me that we could seriously clarify some things before the trial by asking my list of questions, even if I have to pare it down quite a bit.

On the other hand, my lawyer is likely to insist on doing all the typing and formatting, and one way or another will end up charging me for more hours to handle the additional paperwork – which runs the risk of pushing me over into yet a third multi-thousand-dollar retainer. Is it worth the risk? Should I ask her for a statement of our current account status? Or should I just let all this stuff get dealt with at trial?

Feh.

13:31, 24 September 2006 (EDT) Some trivia: I pulled a bunch of old service receipts out of the Benz, trying to clean up after the CD player thief (who rifled thoroughly both the Nissan and the Benz, took the CD player out of the Nissan but struck out with the Benz because it doesn't even have a radio) spilled all the glove box contents everywhere. Oddly enough, the receipts are not for this Benz but for a different one, a 300TD, license plate CME-837, belonging to some people named Harry and Pam Abel in Atlanta.

From the receipts, it looks like they moved there sometime around or before August 1985, and sold the car sometime in 1994. I found their address on one of the receipts, which leads to this site showing their former house (with lots of photos) sold for $1,195,000. Googling both office and home phone numbers comes up with nothing for area code 404, which I'm pretty sure included Atlanta at the time (prior to 1992 or so, it was most of northeast Georgia).

On one receipt – October 13, 1988 – they spent a total of $8076.41 on the car, apparently including a new engine (#617 912-12-727772). So now I don't feel quite so bad about all the thousands I've spent on my Benz...

I'm guessing that this was the Benz which the Grievers later somehow obtained and which became Cimmeria's car (maybe she bought it with the settlement money from her court case? I don't remember what that was about except that there was a lot of money and it was gone pretty quickly.) I'm going to assume this is correct, and stuff it in with the other stuff to give back to the Grievers next time I encounter them (presumably in court).

2006-08-10

21:36, 10 August 2006 (EDT) I feel like however I handle this, it'll be the wrong thing to do. 2006-08-10 truth and secrets

long hiatus

It's been a really, really busy summer. What can I say.

2006-03-19

08:05, 19 March 2006 (EST) Actually got something done yesterday, in spite of having to drive Zander to a birthday party (1/2 hour each way x 4 trips = 2 hours felled in the name of improved childhood socialization or whatever): the main catalog portion of vbz.net (all URLs starting with /cat/) is now running from a single script, rather than being hundreds of static pages built on a PC. It's a small but significant step towards making the site completely data-driven and no longer dependent on Windows.

A lot of other stuff happened which I haven't had time to post about; see Category:Wallpaper and Category:2006-03-10. Also Wallville is back ^_^

2006-03-03

07:41, 3 March 2006 (EST) Began the seed of an area about making music as a profession: Art vs. Career. Also, a couple of days ago, wrote up our unhappy experiences with the Kenmore 44052 washing machine. Didn't have time to process the Day In The Life pictures; three days generally isn't enough, unless it includes a weekend and my to-do list isn't more overloaded than usual.

2006-02-26

15:38, 26 February 2006 (EST) Sraedi invited me to take part in this, so I've been taking pictures. I also figured out that the camera has a mode which squeezes about 5 times as many shots on a memory card, and (incidentally) doesn't take forever to process them. Who knew.

Also creating new icons for vbz.net. The transparency doesn't work in MSIE v6, but who cares, right? ;-) (I wonder if v7 will have proper support for PNG alpha transparency...)

2006-02-25

P2250007 2006-02-25 Zander in playstructure at Wheels.jpg

21:04, 25 February 2006 (EST) Finally put some of my kindergarten-era electronics knowledge to work -- see Woozle/notes for electronic learning kit

Also took Zander to Wheels for the birthday party of Henry (the immediate motivation for creating the aforementioned electronic kit) and picked him up again after (leaving about 45 minutes in between for shipping operations). This was made considerably easier, however, by the presence of Rachel-the-sitter, who made it unnecessary for me to also pack up Josh and Benjamin in the car each time.

2006-02-22

10:28, 22 February 2006 (EST): Just now applied for this, after updating this.

Catching up: The overload has continued since the last entry. The plumber replacement section of pipe and removed a large quantity of muck from the existing pipe, but apparently didn't test the fix because the sink was still stopped up after he left (he may have tested it but not realized that you have to leave the water running for a good 5 minutes to be really sure, because it takes that long for the pipes to fill up from the blockage to the sink drain). So Saturday (with a bad headache) I got out the powered plumber's snake and reamed out the drain from the laundry room (after the unsurprising false start where the snake went up the vent instead of down under the floor). So that's fixed.

But then the washing machine was still making unhappy noises, and when the drain was still blocked it was leaking, so he need to come back and fix that, and I still can't get the drain under the laundry room sink to stop leaking completely (though I've got it to the point where it's a drip every 5-10 seconds instead of 5-10 drips per second; maybe it just needs a new gasket somewhere).

Then on Sunday I had an even worse headache and a slight fever and kind of did not much of any use all day. Monday I was a bit better, but still had no appetite until dinnertime. Tuesday mostly recovered; today still mostly recovered.

Also, I finally broke down (sometime during all that) and installed the windows drivers for the scanner. It worked fine for a bit, and then I foolishly tried to install a USB snooper utility to help out with the Linux driver development, and various things stopped working (including the network and the scanner). I was able to fix the network, and I got the scanner working again for a bit, but then it mysteriously stopped working again. So I'm still in the middle of that.

2006-02-16

The kitchen sink has been doing its quasi-annual stoppage since about Tuesday. This time, we're having a plumber look at it. (For one thing, there's a section of pipe which appears to have been patched with duct tape. For another, this shouldn't keep happening; if the pipe is too small to accomodate the load, then we need bigger pipe.)

Meanwhile, we had fun bailing out the laundry room last night (the laundry room sink, dishwasher, and washing machine are all on the same drainage "circuit") in order to prevent the floor from being flooded (again) when laundry had to be done.

2006-02-14

07:41, 14 February 2006 (EST) More things I did between 1/11 and 2/13:

  • Upgraded vbzwiki to the latest MediaWiki version, in hopes of getting the spam filter to start working; I was able to get it working, though I think this was mainly because I re-read the instructions more carefully and found I had left out a line of code in the configuration file. Also, this will allow me to offer customers the ability to subscribe to topics of interest.
  • Set up a test Drupal page – it's at http://stuff.hypertwins.org, but I'm still working out the kinks before it's ready for actual use. (At first I couldn't get the email confirmation to work, but then that mysteriously started working several days later. Now it won't create forums, even though it says it is doing so.)

And time's up again...

2006-02-13

21:20, 13 February 2006 (EST) Yeah, this describes what I've noticed. And I thought it was just my current kid-infested lifestyle. Or maybe it's mainly that, and later on I'll be able to look forward to the joyous prospect of always feeling like I'm in a room full of screaming kids. Hmm.

14:47, 13 February 2006 (EST) I guess it must have been a busy month since January 11. I've done a substantial number of mentionable things, but can't immediately remember any of them. Oh, wait, yes... there was...

  • The new water heater, which took much back-and-forthing between here, Sears, and a few other places (I have the "before" shots and will put them up eventually along with an "after" shot).
  • Shaving about 8 inches off the end of the old falling-apart sink base cabinet in the laundry room (forgot to take "before" shots, but got a nice "after" shot).
  • Getting one ("Von! Ah-ah-ah-haa!" –Count von Count) childsitter lined up. She's too young to do overnights or driving, but it's a start.
  • Spent a lot of time working on FileFerret and oops, that's all I have time for now because it's time to pick up the kids. (I was going to tell about buying a new scanner and looking at phono needles, but it'll have to wait.)

2006-01-11

07:41, 11 January 2006 (EST) Just finished the final (I hope) revision to this. Yesterday, we discovered that the reason why vbz seemed to be making so much money over Xmas, relatively speaking (the bank balance climbed to nearly $700 at one point, (yee. haw.), and is still well above $400) was that one of the suppliers had mistakenly been charging one of Sandy's credit cards which I gave them to use once, two years ago. The total came to $730.80... so I'm still working back to "break-even" point. So much for "Black Friday". (She was relieved to find that she hadn't been as much of a spenthrift as she thought; I'm vastly annoyed and dismayed that I can't even seem to make a profit at Xmas. The sales numbers say I did make about $600, but that's not unusual for most times of the year.)

Yesterday also, I foolishly started into doing a huge overhaul of vbz's Topic system, and of course unexpected issues have arisen (as I expected).

Currently printing out the famous SvsG "Sales Accounting".

2006-01-05

13:32, 5 January 2006 (EST): There's a fine balance between (on the one hand) taking on so many tasks that one starts to get panicky over how much isn't getting done and (on the other hand) taking on too few and actually not getting much done. I'm feeling like I haven't been getting much done over the past week, but I'm trying not to take this as a signal that I need to take on a whole lot more because I can feel that edge of panic ready to spring up. Just find one or two things that need doing, and work on them. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Reading material: http://www.judithberman.net/sffuture.html