Halfway to Mehama
Feb. 19th, 2011 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeMy original plan was to leave Fremont no later than 9 AM this morning, and earlier if possible. I got up early and was making progress toward that goal when a work-related request came in and I spent an hour working on it. I consequently didn't get started until after 10 AM, and I found myself running more and more behind as the day went on.
I went to Sutter to visit my grandfather and mother, whose birthday it was today. She made some superb fried fish and baby potatoes in cream sauce for lunch. After lunch, I showed her the basics of my birthday present to her: a "new" laptop computer. It's actually one of the Dell D600s that I pieced together from various parts of Dell laptops I have here. (The base machine is actually the one I took to Australia with me, but it has a new hard drive and some other bits, and the information on the drive is cloned from other machines that have not shown the annoying no-boot problem.) It seems to be working, but we'll only know with use. Mom has used a Windows computer before, but this was her first experience with a laptop. I also discovered that I missed a piece of configuration, that being the wireless card. This is moot for now because they don't have internet connectivity there, wireless or otherwise, but it throws up an annoying warning message when you boot it. Eventually I'm going to need to schedule a weekend when I'm not passing through under time pressure, probably with me coming up early on a Saturday and spending the night, where I can go over it with her under "production" circumstances. Also, I probably need to take Mom to buy a multifunction printer/scanner.
The weather in the Bay Area was full of heavy rain when I left, but it mostly cleared up as I cleared out of the Bay Area at Vacaville, so I could make decent progress. Rather than heading out to I-5, I decided to head up through Chico, where I haven't been for years, and I lost a bit more time deliberately swinging through downtown just to see how things have changed since I was last here. I think one of the things I found most surprising was when I saw that one of my favorite restaurants, R. Fish & Co., was now a boot store.
Having had such a good lunch, I didn't need to make a full meal stop at Redding, so I regained some of the time I'd lost. The weather stayed mostly clear, and the pavement stayed dry as well, although roadside snow appeared around Dunsmuir. I had to slow down a bit just over the Oregon border as it was fitfully snowing at Siskiyou Summit and down toward Ashland, but it cleared after that again. I made it to Medford/Central Point before 10 PM. I recognized the desk clerk from my last stay here. My room is nice enough, but it's not an upgrade; there are enough cars in the parking lot that I reckon they're sufficiently full that there's no larger availability. I'm not complaining though; even the standard room is pretty nice, although their standard room doesn't have a refrigerator at this hotel, which is unfortunate.
I walked down to the truck stop on the corner and got a bit of take-out food and took it back to the room and finally got a chance to relax. Having only had about four hours sleep last night, I look forward to a full night's sleep.
The halfway point between the Bay Area and Mehama is roughly Yreka, and pushing farther north like Medford/Central Point starts wearing on me. Fortunately, by being farther north, I have less far to go tomorrow and shouldn't need to rush tomorrow morning.
I went to Sutter to visit my grandfather and mother, whose birthday it was today. She made some superb fried fish and baby potatoes in cream sauce for lunch. After lunch, I showed her the basics of my birthday present to her: a "new" laptop computer. It's actually one of the Dell D600s that I pieced together from various parts of Dell laptops I have here. (The base machine is actually the one I took to Australia with me, but it has a new hard drive and some other bits, and the information on the drive is cloned from other machines that have not shown the annoying no-boot problem.) It seems to be working, but we'll only know with use. Mom has used a Windows computer before, but this was her first experience with a laptop. I also discovered that I missed a piece of configuration, that being the wireless card. This is moot for now because they don't have internet connectivity there, wireless or otherwise, but it throws up an annoying warning message when you boot it. Eventually I'm going to need to schedule a weekend when I'm not passing through under time pressure, probably with me coming up early on a Saturday and spending the night, where I can go over it with her under "production" circumstances. Also, I probably need to take Mom to buy a multifunction printer/scanner.
The weather in the Bay Area was full of heavy rain when I left, but it mostly cleared up as I cleared out of the Bay Area at Vacaville, so I could make decent progress. Rather than heading out to I-5, I decided to head up through Chico, where I haven't been for years, and I lost a bit more time deliberately swinging through downtown just to see how things have changed since I was last here. I think one of the things I found most surprising was when I saw that one of my favorite restaurants, R. Fish & Co., was now a boot store.
Having had such a good lunch, I didn't need to make a full meal stop at Redding, so I regained some of the time I'd lost. The weather stayed mostly clear, and the pavement stayed dry as well, although roadside snow appeared around Dunsmuir. I had to slow down a bit just over the Oregon border as it was fitfully snowing at Siskiyou Summit and down toward Ashland, but it cleared after that again. I made it to Medford/Central Point before 10 PM. I recognized the desk clerk from my last stay here. My room is nice enough, but it's not an upgrade; there are enough cars in the parking lot that I reckon they're sufficiently full that there's no larger availability. I'm not complaining though; even the standard room is pretty nice, although their standard room doesn't have a refrigerator at this hotel, which is unfortunate.
I walked down to the truck stop on the corner and got a bit of take-out food and took it back to the room and finally got a chance to relax. Having only had about four hours sleep last night, I look forward to a full night's sleep.
The halfway point between the Bay Area and Mehama is roughly Yreka, and pushing farther north like Medford/Central Point starts wearing on me. Fortunately, by being farther north, I have less far to go tomorrow and shouldn't need to rush tomorrow morning.
