Glenn McDavid

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...For colgaffneyis first camping event of the season. mia_mcdavid is hauling the trailer of our corporate gear behind a borrowed van (Thank you, LS!). She called a few minutes ago as they passed Owatonna.

I am going home now. I will pick up a few things that were left behind, put them in our car (packed last night) and then be on my way as well.

Again following-up on last night's post from mia_mcdavid, yesterday we loaded colgaffneyis trailer for our first camping show of the season, in Charles City, Iowa. Setup is Thursday evening, down there. I am busy Monday (Irish Class), Tuesday (colgaffneyis dance), and Wednesday (Church choir), so I got my traveling woodworking kit together (I hope) this afternoon, and did most of my other packing this evening.

I took another look at that list of projects that I mentioned earlier today. I have finished 11 out of 14. Of course, I can think of a few additions....

Today's snowstorm (this is Minnesota) meant that I was an hour late getting home. Also cold and wet. I immediately had to load some dead computer stuff (4 computers, 1 monitor, and 1 scanner) into the car for recycling tomorrow. Then I had to type up, edit, and submit the minutes of colgaffneyis last Board meeting--the next one is Tuesday. I finished that just after 8PM. Next I had to do taxes. I had done most of the work last week so I was able to finish a little after 9. And I think it is finished. The returns (one for us and one for J) have been submitted electronically and I have saved backup copies of the files (I work in systems administration--paranoia is my profession). The only possible issue is that a return might be rejected by either the IRS or Minnesota. This is unlikely. TurboTax is quite good and our tax life is not that interesting. Just sometimes painful.

We did our part with colgaffneyis for Minnesota's Tartan Day observance. IMHO, this is a rather artificial celebration, not having any historical precedent. Still, it is harmless, and there are many other such things going around, and it was a chance to do stuff with friends, so I have no problem with it.

Actually, not completely harmless. Four of us carried matchlock muskets, and we fired a couple of blank volleys as a salute at the end of the ceremony. I had a misfire on my second shot, and got a burn in my left palm for my sins And they were my sins: I don't fire these things often, and I had not reviewed the procedures for loading and firing them any time recently. Black powder is an old explosive, but is still very dangerous, especially with an inherently hazardous device as a matchlock musket.

I just finished the basket I started in colgaffneyis basket making workshop three weeks ago. It is rough, but I think it will hold together and be more than usable.

( Primarily of interest to colgaffneyis )

mia_mcdavid is in Michigan for the weekend and the first couple days of next week. Her aunt died after a long struggle with Alzheimer's. She has posted about it, most recently here.

I cleaned off my workbench this morning, and am trying to make some progress on at least some of my unfinished projects. ( Quite a list )

Tomorrow I will go to Church in the morning, get there early for choir rehearsal. It will be Palm Sunday and there will be a lot going on. It occurred last week that joining the choir in the middle of Lent may not have been good timing. We have been working hard on music for Holy Week, the busiest time in the Church Year. However, it is certainly interesting.

After church I am going to the Day of Irish dance in downtown St. Paul, where I will be working at the Gaeltacht Minnesota table.

As mia_mcdavid forecast, we had a busy weekend. colgaffneyis basket making workshop yesterday was interesting and fun( basketmaking )

( Church )

( Choir )

The workshop, last night's party, and church this morning (on top of the change to Daylight Savings Time) meant that we were really on the go. OTOH, driving home from Church at noon today I had the feeling that we were really done with what we had to do for the weekend. During the afternoon I mended some clothes and then worked some more on my basket. Afterwards I did some shopping for dinner. While I was at the store mia_mcdavid called on my cell phone, asking me to buy more potatoes. She asked for red potatoes, but, thinking of haddayr's latest story, I suggested Yukon Gold as an alternative. They were just fine.

Thomas, our younger son, has been hospitalized. Mia has been writing about this:

• Worried about Tom (Feb. 11).
  
• Tom update (Feb. 13).
  
• Today with Tom (Feb. 13).

Also, my mother is in the hospital. Her hip popped out on Sunday. That was quickly fixed, but she was kept in the hospital because of congestive heart failure. It sounded like another episode of the trouble that caused me to make an emergency trip to see her back in September. I called her at the hospital. The reality is not quite so alarming: The congestive heart failure is the same issue as last year. At age 82 it doesn't really go away. She was actually in good spirits, in a hospital room with a great view of the Rockies.

On a totally different front, I have to work on Sunday, thereby missing the second day of colgaffneyis at the St. Paul Scottish Ramble. I have two big system implementation projects to complete. These are the sort of thing that can only be done outside of business hours, and require extensive coordination with my co-workers. So scheduling is always hard, and compromises have to be made.

From our host in Albert Lea this past weekend:

It's winter in Minnesota
And the gentle breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour
At twenty-five below.

Oh, how I love Minnesota
When the snow's up to your butt
You take a breath of winter
And your nose gets frozen shut.

Yes, the weather here is wonderful
So I guess I'll hang around
I could never leave Minnesota
'Cause I'm frozen to the ground!!

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mia_mcdavid and I are in Albert Lea (southern Minnesota, near the Iowa border) with colgaffneyis for the Big Island History Faire, an off-season event to promote the October Rendezvous. No camping this time--we are all "Ramada Rangers" (actually at at Holiday Inn in our case).

The drive down was OK. We had dinner and are settled in for the night. The actual event starts at 9 AM tomorrow.

Even here, in very outstate Minnesota, this Holiday Inn has wi-fi, and it is free.

( In reference to colgaffneyis meeting yesterday )

colgaffneyis had its annual business meeting today. We elected a new President, c_nocturnum, since her sister, mairi2, was stepping down. As Secretary, I feel like the civil servant of a dynasty, but it is a good dynasty :-)> colgaffneyis has a quite a few active and energetic members, but relatively few who will step forward into leadership roles. Three families hold four of the seven board positions, and two of the three senior staff positions. Well, none of us have been trying to make a power grab. It is more a case of filling a vacuum.

Late last week at work was difficult, and when I got home Friday night I was in something of a funk about all I had to do. However, I settled down to what had to be done, did it (insert Powdermilk Biscuits commercial) and had a good time.
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As I wrote earlier, I have been reading Gamma: Exploring Euler's Constant, by Julian Havil, which begins with a chapter about Napier and the invention of logarithms.

The historical motivation for logarithms is quite interesting. We think of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division as elementary, while exponents and trigonometry are more advanced. In fact, the multiplication and division involved in the practical mathematics of c.1600, e.g. navigation and compound interest, was very time consuming. People were desperate to find a faster way.( Warning: Math content.... )And so the slide rule was invented. It just had two scales (C and D in standard terminology), but the underlying concept was established.

I wonder if I could make such a such a device and bring it to colgaffneyis camp as the latest innovation in computing technology :-)>

A cold weekend--high temperatures not much above 0^oF/-18^oC.( Read more... )

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