This is the latest addition to the estate, and accounts for a lot of my time over the past couple of months. We subcontracted out the building, but there was still a lot of set-up with the painting, caulking holes to make it weather tight, adding hardware, etc.

The wind is blowing, but as of right now there is nothing tremendously interesting going on – just rain and wind and we still have power. It’s flickered a bit, but is otherwise stable.

The garden has been going well so far. The pea crop was bad – largely my fault, as I underplanted. Plus, that batch of seed seemed to have a pretty poor germination.

The rest of it has been fine – squash and corn were fine, the pumpkins are looking good, as are the onions and potatoes.

Beer is good, carboys are full, and phase 2 of the beer system is complete (phase 1 was 4 kegs with ability to tap 1. Phase 2 was 4 more kegs, with the ability to tap 4. Phase 3 is bringing the taps out of the refrigerator so that they’re proper bar taps).

We’ve decided to keep chickens, starting next year. MyPetChicken.com has a pile of interesting breeds. Liz found a fairly over the top chicken coop, which we’ll be hiring our neighbor to build. He builds houses, and this coop is more “small house” than “shed” or “coop”. That and the economy is pretty down, so he’s available, and building it ourselves will end up taking a couple of months of weekends.

I also picked up a new video card to add to the computer my brother gave me for my birthday. Right now, we’re playing a lot of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and I’m planning on gearing up for Battlefield 3. This requires an upgrade to Windows 7, which I’, not particularly looking forward to, as I fear it will break a good portion of my existing games. My brother, for example, claims that he’s not been able to get Mechwarrior 4 to work.

I think that I’m going to preemptively partition the drive to multi-boot, likely using xosl as the boot loader. That way I can still play games on XP (even after it goes unsupported) if need be. The working theory is that XP will be a fallback if I can’t get it to work in Windows 7.

Anyway, pictures behind the cut. ASUS card with ATI Radeon 6870 w/ 1GB of RAM. It’s a little absurd.

My grandfather passed away last Monday night. The wake was well attended. The funeral was on a clear, crisp spring day. Some of the local CMA chapter showed up, in support of my father and uncle who are members, and of my grandfather, who was a veteran of WWII and Korea. The processional was long – about a dozen motorcycles, glimmering in the sun with their chrome, the lead one trailing a large American flag.

We passed by the family farm, where the funeral director placed a white rose on the front steps, before we continued on to St. Theresa’s church, where the funeral was held. We then proceeded to St. Theresa’s cemetery up the street, where some naval personnel were waiting for us.

Some folks from the Navy were there, and he was laid to rest by his parish priest who was a fellow navy man himself, with military honors. (I was doing well until taps.. that always gets me).

I was going to write a little more about his life, but my father did a better job than I could in his eulogy, which I have included in its entirety below the cut.

I want to thank you all for coming today as we bid our final earthly farewell to my father
Alfred Emile Caron. He was a husband, a brother, a father, an uncle, a grandfather, a great
grandfather and a friend to many. For 84 years he lived on this earth. He entered the Navy at a very
young age, a farm boy from Sturbridge Massachusetts. He served in 2 wars, was wounded in WW
II and served in the Korean conflict. Although he was wounded and was offered medals for his
service, he would not accept many of them, he did not consider himself worthy, because some of
his friends and comrades paid the greater price. They never came home. Having served much of his
career on LCIs (Landing craft infantry) he witnessed some horrible things. He didn’t like to talk
about it much, but he did mention the horror of seeing young men running down the ramps, only to
be cut to ribbons by enemy fire. These scenes and others haunted his dreams for years. He was a
man who loved his country and often said that “After having traveled most of the world while in
the Navy, the United States of America is the greatest country in the world”. He made no apologies
for it.

On February 27, 1954 he married Doris Marie Zacharie, the little Zacharie girl from Central
Falls. During the past 57 years together they raised 4 children and they have been blessed with 8
grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren. He often spoke to me of how much he loved Mom and
how important she was to him.

Dad was a member of UA Local 51 for 50 years. He spent some of the early years working
as a refrigeration technician, but most of those years he worked as a Pipefitter. Dad enjoyed nature
and the outdoors and through the years spent time hunting, fishing, camping, gardening,
motorcycling and snowmobiling. He also loved the farm that he and Mom bought about 27 years
ago. He recently said that the only way he was going to leave there was feet first. He was true to
his word.

Just after 11:00 PM on April 11, 2011, surrounded by his family he left this world to meet
his maker and he stepped into eternity. Many of us here feel the sorrow and grief of his passing and
he will be truly missed by many.

In our grief God’s word offers comfort, Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 But we do not
want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do
the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will
bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the
Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who
have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who
are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,
and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
There is comfort in those words for those of us that remain. One day we will be reunited
with those we love who have gone before us. Our grief and sorrow are temporary, Psalm 30:5 says
“His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the
morning.”

My Dad has left this world, and his eternal future is set based on the decisions he made
while he was here on earth. There is nothing left for us to do but pray that our merciful God will
keep him safely with Him. Hebrews 9:27 And in as much as it is appointed for men to die once
and after this comes judgment, 28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,
will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.
My sorrow, my concern, my burden at this moment is for those of us here that remain. What
is our future? How will we spend eternity?

Romans 3:10 “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God.”

We all have sin in our hearts. We all were born with sin. We were born under the power of sin’s
control. – Admit that you are a sinner.

Romans 6:23a “…The wages of sin is death…”

Sin has an ending. It results in death. We all face physical death, which is a result of sin. But a
worse death is spiritual death that alienates us from God, and will last for all eternity. The Bible
teaches that there is a place called the Lake of Fire where lost people will be in torment forever. It
is the place where people who are spiritually dead will remain.- Understand that you deserve death
for your sin.

Romans 6:23b “…But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Salvation is a free gift from God to you! You can’t earn this gift, but you must reach out and receive
it. – Ask God to forgive you and save you.

Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died
for us!”

When Jesus died on the cross He paid sin’s penalty. He paid the price for all sin, and when He took
all the sins of the world on Himself on the cross, He bought us out of slavery to sin and death! The
only condition is that we believe in Him and what He has done for us,understanding that we are
now joined with Him, and that He is our life. He did all this because He loved us and gave Himself
for us!

Give your life to God… His love poured out in Jesus on the cross is your only hope to have
forgiveness and change. His love bought you out of being a slave to sin. His love is what saves you
– not religion, or church membership. God loves you!

Romans 10:13 “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved!”

Call out to God in the name of Jesus!

Romans 10:9,10 “…If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that
God raised Jesus from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in
righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

- If you know that God is knocking on your heart’s door, ask Him to come into your heart.

Jesus said,
Revelation 3:20a “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears My voice and opens the
door, I will come in to him…”

- Is Jesus knocking on your heart’s door?

Believe in Him.

Ask Him to come in to your heart by faith, and ask Him to reveal Himself to you.

Open the Bible to the Gospel of John and read what God says about Jesus, about you, and about being born again.

God will help you. He loves you.

Angel is the vampire with a soul, loses his soul, gets his soul back, then gets killed by Buffy.

Buffy has to be the slayer, kill Angel, explain everything to her mom – and then her mom flips and she has to go off on her own for a bit.

(And that’s as far as I’ve gotten in that).

In practically every episode, one of the crew of Serenity gets landed in the infirmary.. and then two of them get killed in the feature.

1. Got the oil changed on my car, the inspection sticker affixed, and some misc detail repair (the 1 to 4 power adapter is remounted, etc.).
2. While the oil was draining, I tidied up the garage a bit.
3. Got the seed order squared away
4. Emptied the compost buckets
5. Played with dog
6. Posted the generator instructions
7. Made bread (maple oatmeal)
8. Cleaned up and stowed the beer equipment in the basement
9. Cleaned up the furnace room a bit (still needs more, and I need to add some more light fixtures back there)
10. Assembled some more minis (Behemoth, Drago, Skarre)
11. Made chicken and dumplings
12. Watered the plants

I think that about covers it.

if, you know, they were sold in the US…

The roads aren’t much better – there’s about half an inch of slush, kept liquid only by salt. So, they’re passable, but not really good.

Slept in both days, and am fighting bad glasses. I’m waiting for the new ones to come in from the lab – according to the optometrist, aside from the LensCrafters crappy knockoff transitions coating delaminating, when I had them make me another set to replace my broken ones, it looks like they flipped the left and right prescriptions. My new optometrist had some interesting noises to make while reviewing my notes as he was checking my eyes – not unlike what I say when looking at other people’s goofy code. As a result, I’m now having bad headaches when I use my far lenses. My computer glasses are fine, and the bifocals are fine, so as long as I do detail work for most of the day, I’m good. So, I can work on the computer, paint minis, etc.

• We took down the Christmas tree and decorations. This might sound late, but it’s not – we typically wait until after Valentine’s day to de-Christmasify things.
• Painted some tanks.
• Bottled the spiced winter ale – it’s a little late, but there’s still a little bit of winter left.
• Played with Diesel dog.
• Painted more tanks.
• Watched some movies
• Cleaned up a bit
• Ate up the leftovers in the fridge
• Read some books

Lizzy has been doing similar things, and is working on her Sewing Cabinet. She and her dad have been working in a corner of her mom’s bonsai workshop, and I think the current plan is to try and finish it in the next couple of weeks so that it can be moved back to our house and he can put in the floor in the workshop.

Now, the big thing that gets me about this movie was the cops – this guy is running around with some variety of plate body armor – they look to be overlapping plates of something metallic or ceramic, but they were thin – maybe 3/16″ at most. Even assuming he could obtain such items (like he obtained his submachineguns). Doing a quick look, a .223 or .308 (reasonably common for police to carry as a car gun) will defeat most of the armors listed – even without AP rounds (which I wouldn’t expect the police to have).

That, and there’s always the head shot…

At this point, I don’t really know what to do – the benefits of not having to wear glasses anymore are very compelling, but the potential complications (dislodged flaps, loss of contrast in low light, loss of night vision, etc.) are pretty serious. There is also data which suggests that the risks are understated (which is unsurprising).

Basically, since this is an elective surgery, and it seems like everyone has a vested interest in one side or the other, the safest way in the absence of a clear path is to do nothing, get glasses, and wait and see. In the worst case, I’ve had to suffer with glasses for N more years, and have spent $N*500 dollars on glasses (on average). In the best case, I’ve avoided being blind, and won’t be one of those guys whom the lawyers on late night TV are trying to get to call them.

Remember:

• Therac-25
• Asbestos
• Thalidomide