Fun in the Desert and Sad Bargains
I spent so much time in the saddle this weekend I missed meals. The rain was no deterrent, either. It's green here. Really green and hilly and full of twisty asphalt.
Twelve days at Yuma Proving Ground were largely a whopping success. We needed heat for our tests and we got it. On the 3rd, 4th and 5th the high was 117F. I would get up at five AM and the temperature would be ninety+. The secondary test didn't go well, which was sort of Plan B. The original scope had been reduced (meaning no developers to support on site) so that all we could do was slap the equipment together and hope for the best. In technical terms, that means we were begging for failure. Sadly, I thought that over a year ago I'd won the argument about supporting development test events. Of course, there are valid excuses for leaving old Crash hanging out at Yuma. Right.
The heat limited my choices of outdoor fun, but I did indulge in a couple of activities. Here’s a family enjoying the Yuma Water Park.
There’s also a bowling alley.
Millie and her girlfriends, to whom I’ll refer as Good Angel and Ornery Angel on the promise of a lingering death for revealing their true names, have been on a campaign to empty out their favorite Borders. Millie stopped driving after we moved here (two close calls were enough) she relies on GA and OA for transportation.
Anyway, Good Angel likes to take pictures. Here’s Millie waiting for Ornery Angel to get her butt out of her graduate forensic science lab so they can rummage through the stacks at Borders.
They’ve made three scavenger raids in the past two days. Partly due to the “oh did you see no I didn’t but I must have let’s go back again” effect. This is the carcass in the process of being picked clean.
I looked through one pile of trophies. Millie found a really nice picture book that’s a compendium of all Bette Davis’ films, an autobiography of Elizabeth Taylor, a collection of Anton Chekhov’s comic stories, an illustrated encyclopedia of insects, The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, and a couple of coffee table books into which the Impressionists have been emptied. It’s a pretty eclectic mess. Lots of beautifully rendered books that once had astronomical prices and are now going for a song. ‘Tis a sad state of affairs, still and all. Borders, we will miss you.
Twelve days at Yuma Proving Ground were largely a whopping success. We needed heat for our tests and we got it. On the 3rd, 4th and 5th the high was 117F. I would get up at five AM and the temperature would be ninety+. The secondary test didn't go well, which was sort of Plan B. The original scope had been reduced (meaning no developers to support on site) so that all we could do was slap the equipment together and hope for the best. In technical terms, that means we were begging for failure. Sadly, I thought that over a year ago I'd won the argument about supporting development test events. Of course, there are valid excuses for leaving old Crash hanging out at Yuma. Right.
The heat limited my choices of outdoor fun, but I did indulge in a couple of activities. Here’s a family enjoying the Yuma Water Park.
There’s also a bowling alley.
Millie and her girlfriends, to whom I’ll refer as Good Angel and Ornery Angel on the promise of a lingering death for revealing their true names, have been on a campaign to empty out their favorite Borders. Millie stopped driving after we moved here (two close calls were enough) she relies on GA and OA for transportation.
Anyway, Good Angel likes to take pictures. Here’s Millie waiting for Ornery Angel to get her butt out of her graduate forensic science lab so they can rummage through the stacks at Borders.
They’ve made three scavenger raids in the past two days. Partly due to the “oh did you see no I didn’t but I must have let’s go back again” effect. This is the carcass in the process of being picked clean.
I looked through one pile of trophies. Millie found a really nice picture book that’s a compendium of all Bette Davis’ films, an autobiography of Elizabeth Taylor, a collection of Anton Chekhov’s comic stories, an illustrated encyclopedia of insects, The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, and a couple of coffee table books into which the Impressionists have been emptied. It’s a pretty eclectic mess. Lots of beautifully rendered books that once had astronomical prices and are now going for a song. ‘Tis a sad state of affairs, still and all. Borders, we will miss you.