The First Robin of Spring!
Posted May 15th, 2008 by Clay DowlingYes, I realize that robins have been around for a couple of months now. But Aiden brought us his first robin of spring this evening. That makes him the first of the cats to score a robin this spring, which is kind of surprising since he's not out strongest hunter. Still proud of our boy though, and happy to see that he's doing his part to keep of the reputation of our cats.
All Patio bricks placed
Posted May 10th, 2008 by Clay DowlingThe patio bricks are now all cut and placed (pictures to follow). I was able to finish the rest of the cuts (fan, edges and circle) in one afternoon thanks to my new tub saw. The 10" blade cuts a brick in one pass, allowing me to make neater edges and to work a lot faster.
Patio Construction Continues
Posted May 5th, 2008 by Clay DowlingPatio Construction continues today, the third day of work. Saturday and Sunday I worked from Can See to Can't See, along with my wife. Michael and his friend Ryan worked through most of the day on Saturday as well, hauling gravel.
Adelfa Passing BricksThe circles and fans consumed a lot more time than we realized. They look really cool, but they added a day to the construction.
Patio Construction to begin
Posted May 1st, 2008 by Clay DowlingWeather permitting, we're scheduled to start building our patio this weekend. Materials are delivered on Friday. Saturday morning from can see to can't see we'll be outside hauling and compacting gravel.
Packing to Go
Posted April 18th, 2008 by Clay DowlingWebsite Mail Problems
Posted April 16th, 2008 by Clay DowlingIf you have created an account, but noticed that you haven't received any email from the server telling you how to access your account, there's a reason. The website was not configured properly to send messages, and ugly errors were piling up in my logs. I have fixed that now. Come to the site and click the "Request new password" link on the main screen and it should come to you.
Family Website Issues
Posted April 14th, 2008 by Clay DowlingThose of you who are regular visitors may have noticed that not all is right with the world of our site. The most noticeable issue is the crazy giant pictures appearing everywhere. There's also a good chance that you are getting funny red error messages sometimes when you press a button. If you get that, please copy the text and email it to me (click the Contact link at the left). I've tried to get the most common of those messages, but there are still a few that I haven't caught up with.
C++ For Easy GUI Development
Posted March 5th, 2008 by Clay DowlingThe Desktop GUI development space has been owned by Borland and Microsoft pretty much since that space existed. The free software world has started to catch up though. Four packages have combined to make an excellent development environment for GUI applications.
Shiny new monitor
Posted January 17th, 2008 by Clay DowlingFor Christmas I bought the family a new video card, so that we could actually use the full resolution of our existing monitor. Joke was on me though, because the new video card used a new kind of video cable that our existing monitor couldn't connect to. So I had to wait a little while to get a new monitor.
LOLCats
Posted January 10th, 2008 by Clay DowlingI played with the LOLCat Builder over at I Can Has Cheezburger and came up with these creations:

