Exploring Mike

In the last decade or so, Halloween has become as big a holiday for decorating as Christmas is.  A lot of people put up various decorations, including skeletons, fog machines, a twinkling lights.  And some of us put up an entire graveyard. I've been putting together a graveyard every year for at least a decade.  You can see in the picture three of the 13 graves that I've installed, using 36" fence posts and phone headstones.  Not shown here are the solar flood lights that will make them visible after sunset. Besides the "headstones", each grave consists of uncut grass with a sprinkling of leaves.  I have tried to put things like skeleton hands sticking out of the "grave", but I haven't much success that way.  What I am doing is relatively low effort.  Late September or early October, when I mow the lawn, I leave  3' x 8' rectangles uncut.  When I'm ready to go in late October, the grass on the graves is usually 5" - 7" tall.  F...

The 2024 General Election is in a little more than two weeks.  As I may have mentioned in a previous post, I will be serving as Chief Judge at my local precinct.  Since this is a Presidential Election year, I expect that election day will be busy.  So busy in fact that I wouldn't have time to vote.  For this reason, I always take advantage of Early Voting, which started last Thursday in North Carolina. Today, my wife and I got up at 7:00 a.m., which for me is a little late for a weekday, but a little early for weekend.  For my wife, this time is a little early on any day.  That said, we jumped in my truck and drive to the Early Voting site, arriving at about 7:45 a.m.  The line was reasonably short, perhaps 100 people ahead of us.  In previous elections, I've seen the same line be two or three times as long, taking three or four hours to get into the Voting Enclosure.  Today was nothing. The polls opened this morning at 8:00 a.m.  When i...

  Work is getting busier.  The project that I test is about to drop a new version in two weeks.  This means that I'm putting in longer hours to focus on the various tasks needed to ensure a quality product.  Not having a better topic de jour, I thought that this would be a great opportunity to describe some of what I do at work. I am a software tester.  I've been a software tester in one form or another for 26 years.  This means I generally know how to test.  This includes Test Planning, Test Creation & Documentation, and Test Execution.  Fairly straight forward stuff.  One hurdle is the product cluster that I am testing.  Lenovo Cloud Deploy has several elements, including a web front end, a server based database, as well as a windows application. The website allows management of users and system licensing.  The application provides a method to manage O/S deployments and perform the actual deployments, either to the computer th...

  I am Santa Claus.  At least in November and December.  During those two months, I work with photographers and make appearances as requested at Subdivision holiday parties, Company Santa appearances, Home visits, and similar events.  Sure, I have been known to be Santa Claus earlier in the year (primarily in July or August), but for the most part, when Santa is on vacation, he is incognito. What does a Santa do during the rest of the year?  Besides supervising elves to make next years toys, he likes to meet with other Santa's Helpers.  Every other month, I try to attend the meeting of the local IBRBS Santa Chapter, Santa Buddies.  We meet at the local Golden Coral for breakfast, usually with a presentation thrown in for good measure. This morning was the final meeting of the Santa Buddies before the Christmas season.  Two ladies from the local Build-a-Bear shop down at the mall came to give us a presentation on the services the provide for childr...

My truck is 11 years old.  I take maintenance seriously.  That is why when I got a got a flat tire (front right) a few months ago, I immediately took it into a local tire shop for repairs.  The shop was able to patch it, and sent me on my way.  All was good, and I have driven several hundred miles on the repaired tire. Last night, I attended a Toastmasters meeting.  As I was setting up the audiovisual equipment, one of the other members came in and mentioned that I had a flat tire (front right again!), but offered the use of an air pump.   After the meeting concluded, we stepped out to the parking lot, and we set about reinflating the tire.  32# of pressure later, I was good to go...  until I wasn't. That Toastmasters meeting is held at a church 3 1/2 miles from home.  But I had only driven about 2 miles before I could feel that the tire going flat again.  I pulled into a side street, and called for a tow truck to help with changing...

  Today started early, with my alarm going off at 5:30 a.m.  I rushed to get dressed and hit the road by 6:00 a.m., having to drive up to Hillsboro, the site of the 2024 BikeFest.  This charitable event event is held every year.  I have participated as a SAG (Support and Gear) for several years.   Bikefest offers somthing for riders of all skill levels, from the short 35 mile route, up to 100 miles on a longer route.  I covered the two intermediate routes:  45 miles and 62 miles.   Let me describe how I have my truck set up.  I have mounted an AT-778UV Anytone VHF/UHF radio.  The radio is suspended from the dash under the glove box, with an external speaker under the driver's seat.  The antenna is mounted on the left fender, just outside the hood.  I use two magnetic mount safety strobes, one on either side, with the cables running through the back doors of the truck, and snaking up to plug into the duel cigarette lig...

  Mary, Mary, quiet contrary.  How does your garden grow?  With silver bells and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row. I've maintained a large garden in my home's back yard  As I get older, I'm finding it more difficult to plant garden vegetables.  But even if the vegetables don't do well, I have always gotten a great harvest of fruit from trees. I planted 10 fruit trees when I first set up the garden.  Of these, about half died in the first year.  After replacing these, I ended up with 2 Peach trees, 1 Pear tree, 1 Fig tree, 2 Plum trees, and 3 or 4 Paw Paw trees.  The Peaches have provided 30 - 50 pounds of fruit each June/July.  The Figs aren't quite as productive, but enough for a taste.  The Plum trees provided 3 plums this year (first year of production).  The Pear tree produces 10 - 15 pound of fruit one year, but none in the other years since I planted it.  The Paw Paw trees are just starting to grow beyond the ...