Raible Designs

August is gonna be a rough one

I've got a lot on my plate for August. Probably too much, but I'm going to make a run at it anyway. In addition to my 40-hour per-week contract, I'm going to try and finish off 1.0 of Spring Live and release the next version of AppFuse. Julie and I were talking last week and I estimated that I'd need about 100 hours outside of "work" to accomplish both of these tasks. That's 65 hour weeks, or 12.5 hour days. Yech...

I'm off to a bad start today since I was twidding with my monitor most of the day and only billed 4 hours to my client. Tonight I got a couple hours in on AppFuse, but only minor bug fixes - no major features. It's gonna be rough - if I seem short or don't post much you'll know why. If I did it right, I'd get up at 4 every day and be I'd have my time in + exercise by 6 p.m. every night.

We'll see how it goes - the baby is due September 3rd (a.k.a. Labor Day Weekend) and I'd like to be done with Spring Live 1.0 and AppFuse 1.6 before the little guy/girl comes out. I told Julie if she had it two weeks late it would work out awful nice for me!

4 Flights in one day

I'm setting a personal record today - 4 flights in one day. I'm sitting in Denver's Airport right now, having just flown from Portland via Seattle. I'm getting on another plane in 15 minutes to fly to Traverse City via Chicago. I left Portland at 10:00 this morning and arrive in Michigan at 11:30 tonight. One of my good friends (and a little brother in my fraternity), is getting married tomorrow night. Should be a fun weekend.

Wanna hear from me over the weekend? I'll be blogging over on JRoller, where Jim thinks he can blog more days than me over the next month.

The Cornbinder

Bruce and I drove this up to OSCON from Salem last night. It's made by International or IHC which stands for International Harvester Corp. They made farm equipment before they made trucks including "Corn Binders". I've also heard them called "Harvest Queens".

My dad's '78 International.

Off to OSCON

I'm off to OSCON - plane leaves in 2 hours - sheite - I'd better get going!! My dad is picking Bruce and I up from the airport this morning and then we're going to proceed to enjoy a good Oregon Micro Brewery and head for a hike in Silver Falls State Park. Conference starts tomorrow - should be a fun trip!

Spider-Man at IMAX

Today we managed to rope our old neighbors (Jenny and Jeff) into watching Abbie while we went to see Spider-Man 2. I was a bit surprised when they guy said "That's be 23 bucks please" - but then I realized it was in the IMAX Theater! I've never seen a real movie in an IMAX theater, and it was awesome! Definitely worth the money. Julie didn't like it because the seats leaned so far back and "chunkey monkey #2" made the position painful for her. Only 6 weeks left until that little sucker pops out. I was 9.5 pounds when I was born - let's hope this one is more Abbie's size (7.2).

If you're interested, here's a listing of IMAX's carrying Spider-Man.

[House Project] Drywall has started

It's been a while since my last update on the house project. The builder says they'll be done before the baby's born (Labor Day). Julie believes him, and I think it'll be take until November. Nevertheless, it's coming along. Wired with fiber. Click below to zoom in and view closeups. Sure has changed a lot, eh?

Huckleberries

For my birthday this year, Julie got me 2 gallons of Huckleberries - shipped from Washington state. If you grew up in Western Montana, you probably know what a huckleberry is. Huckleberries are, simply put, one of the best things on the planet. I once heard them nicely described as a cross between a blueberry and a raspberry.

Growing up in Montana, huckleberries were a part of every summer. I used to go picking them with my Mom and Grandma. They hated taking me though since I just ate them, and never picked any. My favorite dessert in the world is huckleberry cheesecake. My favorite breakfast? Huckleberry pancakes.

Julie cooked huckleberry pancakes for breakfast this morning. Life couldn't be any better right now.

What a great weekend!

This past weekend was a blast. My entire family (Mom, Dad and Sister) flew in on Thursday night for my 30th on Friday. In reality, they were here to see Abbie more than me, but I can accept that - she's a lot of fun. Friday night Julie arranged a "White Trash BBQ". My sister, dad and I had a good time getting ready for it with a quick trip to "Value Village". Lots of folks showed up that night and everyone had a good time - especially the 5 kids running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Saturday we went and saw I, Robot at a theater downtown. The theater was frickin huge - wider than any I'd ever seen. Even wider than an IMAX. Good flick, wicked theater. That night we went and saw the Rockies play the SF Giants. Rockies lost, but Abbie loves baseball games and we had club-level seats, so we couldn't complain.

Yesterday we went up to Idaho Springs and did a white-water raft trip. It started raining before we even got on the water, which made it even better. It was my Dad, Mom, Kalin (sister) and I + 2 other folks and the guide. Right before the first class 4, we slammed into a rock and it knocked Kalin out of the boat. She swam downstream and got into another boat. Shortly after that, we hit our first class 4 and didn't have enough weight on the high side. You guessed it - the boat flipped. Nobody got hurt and it made our trip all the better. We've all been on several rafting trips, but it was the first time we'd flipped. Good memories, good times, great family - I wish they lived closer. Thanks y'all!

30 years ago...

Almost 30 years ago, I was born at the cabin in Condon, Montana. I was delivered by my Dad, with his hunting knife. There were no doctors around, only my Mom and Dad - and my grandma was sleeping in the Sauna with my sister. The only complication was my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck and my head was blue. My dad's hunting knife made quick work of that. July 16th - one of my favorite days of the year.

Funny, I just went back to look at what I had to say last year. Pretty much the same thing. Oh well, I guess I haven't changed much in the last year. ;-)

Failed Emissions

I haven't driven the bus much ever since I brought it back from San Diego. This is mostly due to the fact that it has Oregon plates (BUS BOY) and they expired last July. Today, I made an attempt to get Colorado plates. Unfortunately, the ol' bus ("Dadda's Bach" is what Abbie calls it) failed the emissions test. I've got 10 days to get it fixed if I want to avoid paying $15 for another test. I'm considering just letting it sit in the driveway until I start restoring it (sometime this fall). VWs are typically summer rigs because their heaters suck in the Winter. Driving around Denver in 100 degrees today makes me question the logic of driving it in the summer. Maybe I can retro-fit a modern-day air conditioner in into it.

Update: I called up the the local bug shop and they told me to come on down. They fixed 'er right up and I passed. It cost me a mere 12-pack - my kinda joint.