iPad Press
The iPad has garnered tons of attention before, during, and after its release. It was heavily anticipated, eagerly watched, and has created a firestorm of reviews after its announcements that range all over, but are generally whiny in some capacity or other. There is a lot about the iPad that was hoped for and that it is not delivering. Apple knows that - it also knows something else, and stated it during the keynote, that is usually lost in all of these reviews.
The biggest disconnect is coming in the form of, "this is not what I expected," and extrapolating from "I" to a broader technical market where that may not actually be the case (or skewed toward an overtly vocal minority). We'll see how the numbers actually play out when models begin shipping in 60 days or so, but chances are those who are complaining about its failings are not actually in the target demographic.
It's all well and good for me to be dismissive about the knee-jerkery of others, but can I back it up? I hope so. I'll actually start by borrowing a jab from the product's biggest detractors: it's a basically an over-sized, over-powered smart phone that can't make calls. This is largely what Apple themselves said during the unveiling (and to which I referred above): they're looking for a product need in between smart phones and laptops:
Smart Phone:
- Good battery life (compared to laptops)
- Highly portable
- Ubiquitous data accessibility
- Limited computational power
- Limited local data storage
- Limited interface
Laptop:
- Computationally capable
- Large local data storage
- Large and capable interface
- Limited battery
- Limited portability (they don't work well in all environments)
- Potential data availability issues (or at least costs)
The concepts of application availability we can largely throw out for now based on the demonstrable market forces in developing applications based on anticipated demand, as shown by app stores (iTunes being the largest, but not the only example).
So the complaints about the iPad seem based around the expectation that it was going to be everything that MacBooks or other notebooks (or even netbooks) are, and somehow fit them into a different form factor. For the most part, Apple's done that previously in the the MacBook Air: given the constraints they were shooting for (screen size, usability, battery life, and dramatically enhanced portability/nifty form factor) it's an over-powered netboo0k and/or an underpowered notebook: bigger than a netbook, not quite as useful as a full notebook due to its processing and data capacity limitations - I can't comment on the sales figures for the product line because I haven't seen them, but simple economic sense suggests that they haven't penetrated the lower-priced netbook arena where it would be able to compete in features because the price point is set around the same level as full notebooks (which in turn best its own feature set handily).
To the iPad then:
- Excellent battery life (if the 10-hour figure is to be believed)
- Good portability
- Ubiquitous data accessibility (if you go for 3G - if not, you're as constrained as netbooks w/WiFi)
- Moderate computational power (custom silicone augments the software to almost total hardware acceleration for common operations, which makes things both snappy and gentle on the power-consumption; a good move, overall)
- Large and capable interface (the usability of the on-screen keyboard in real-world situations has yet to be seen, but the first large scale multi-touch platform lends to new worlds of possibilities)
- Moderate data storage (unheard of for a smart phone, but underwhelming in notebook standards)
This hits Apple's intended mark squarely: it is between smart phones and netbooks, and addresses the market segment which needs, or could effectively use, just a little more than they get out of a smart phone, but not as much as would make them require a note/net- book. It is the convergence of the tangents along which both smart phones and netbooks have been evolving, hoping to capture the market segment suggested by that intersection rather than really competing with either and is intended to live along side both.
The smartest move though is a pricing point along the same lines (or vectors, even): this will cost a little bit more than an unlocked smart phone, and a little less than lower-end netbooks, and while I'm confident that deal-hounds will be able to best it on a dollars-for-Xflops in terms of computational capacity (and Xbytes on the reciprocal data figure), that Apple has stepped out into a new territory - it is not yet the Dream Tablet or convergent communications device of sci-fi near future, but it is a competent offering by an established technical competitor with the kind of force that they can bring to bear. In this new territory everything will be discussed in terms of how it compares to the iPad, which acts as an initial bar and corresponding litmus test. Other providers will see how this performs and respond either by avoiding or competing, including Apple, whose first forays usually miss the mark in some capacity and require a generation or two of evolution to properly adapt to the also-evolving niche that forms around it (OS X, iPod, and iPhone being excellent examples of iterative improvement).
It's definitely not for everybody, and will take a few releases or at least OS upgrades for them to figure out how to incorporate the feedback that will help to capture and refine the market. If you don't like it, don't buy one - but quit whining.*
*Except about the camera. Why on earth does this not have a camera?
Torpor 1.0
As of this morning, after extensive testing and its first production beta deployment (which did result in a few minor bug fixes), I am pleased to announce that Torpor has reached release 1.0 (slightly delayed to allow for other DataStore adapters and management of pigfluenza in the home, but close enough for open source).
Things to check out:
- Torpor distribution page on Google's Code Hosting
- TorporPHP_1.0.tar.gz archive download.
- Prior blog posts:
On the whole, everything works. Case sensitive collations under SQLite and SQL Server have issues, but mostly due to he limitations of those particular databases, and SQL Server cannot enforce DISTINCT selection when returned records include TEXT/CLOB columns (so DISTINCT is temporarily disabled in SQL Server - I've chosen to go live with the bug). All told, these are fairly minor issues when everything else works so well. All major features work in:
- MySQL
- Oracle
- SQLite
- SQL Server
An identical database has been ported to each of these database engines in turn, and the same code and same configuration XML (with minor adjustments to specify the new DataStore adapter) pass, exercise the full suite, on each. Additionally, the provided Memcache adapter allows for distributed read/write-through caching for horizontal scalability at the app layer.
All DataStore and Cache adapters use generic interfaces, and the provided code serves well as examples of working implementations. It should be possible with minimal effort to add additional DataStore components (even non-RDBMS adapters for XML, SOAP, etc.) or Cache's.
The 1.1 road map is being assembled, to include better performance through leveraging bind variables in those adapters which support it, Postgres (which will almost certainly come as an earlier component release), inferred joins and a join hint syntax, and custom reports / aggregate functions, etc. Have a suggestion? Create an issue in the project home page (same goes for bugs).
While it sounds like there's a lot to do, this is still an incredibly strong 1.0 offering especially in the PHP world (did I mention it passes E_ALL|E_STRICT error reporting?), and is being made use of professionally at the day job with excellent results.
The one lament, and this will be remedied over time, is the lack of end user documentation. I've settled on the use of TiddlyWiki as a convenient mechanism for creating, storing, and distributing the documentation with the project, and will begin adding this as time permits (though it's now in competition with other projects, so not likely to move at the same speed with which Torpor has also matured).
For now: download, use, enjoy!
Middling MIDI
About 12 years ago, while playing around with a friend's recording studio equipment, I had a chance to try out a Casio DH-100 - "DH" for "Digital Horn." Basically a small saxophone-esque MIDI controller in the Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI, pronounced EE•wee - not especially dignified) category. I was astounded at how, with the simple addition of air-pressure sensitivity, the possible range of expression increased so significantly. Furthermore, that this could be mapped through other MIDI controllers or patch banks in order to play nearly any instrument in this fashion (though not all accept the full range of expression very gracefully).
I was hooked, but couldn't do anything about it. My budget at the time was less than meager, and I had other factors of budding bachelorhood to attend to. I kept the idea in the back of my mind, every now and then checking on prices for used Yamaha WX-series wind controllers but otherwise simply sighing it off and going back to other things. I was happy enough to have our Alesis QS 8.1 keyboard which I'd been introduced to about a year after the first EWI, and which Rachelle and I bought shortly after getting married on account of A) it's cheaper than a piano, B) easier to move up and down stairs (we were living in a 3rd floor apartment), and C) can be used with headphones. At least, those were the official reasons: the prevailing one for me was the re-enactment of the classic Wayne's World "Oh yes; it will be mine..." scene I'd done when I'd first played one. That, and how much possibility was potentially held within good studio equipment for the eager practitioner.
This was our musical mainstay for nearly 10 years, through 2 apartments and into our 2nd home (where we are now). We were fortunate enough to "store" my aunt's old upright piano for a while, and enjoyed it immensely, but had to make other arrangements while we were trying to sell the house, returning it to its rightful owner who by that time had space for it. During this time, in order to keep the place in a state of perpetual showability (or within 5 minutes of), Rachelle even had to keep the keyboard stashed away, and I didn't have room to take it with me up to Washington. I did eventually make this all up to her by the way, with my "I'm so very very sorry for everything" / "welcome home" present: Her Baby Grand.
So then, we found ourselves mostly tuneless, at least of our own making, for many months while we were unwillingly separated and trying to make the best of our situations. I briefly toyed with getting the flute out of storage (packed away in Utah), but I wanted to be a good neighbor - especially in the 2nd apartment I had in Seattle, where walls/ceiling/floors were as thin as they could be and still maintain structural integrity. The keyboard still wasn't an option, since I didn't dare trust it to anyone to ship it nor could I very well bring it back with me from one of my visits, so I returned to the EWI idea after having a Homer Simpson Tom Landry's Hat moment: "I can't buy that. Only management-type guys with big salaries like me can afford things like that. [gasps] Guys like me! I'm a guy like me!"
I purchased an Akai EWI USB controller - a fairly cheap but eminently capable device, so long as you have a machine to hook it up to. Which I did, so I did, and it was. I used it to pass the time and play sad songs, practice scales, and improv along with classical music.
Now, whether or not the device is capable, it still relies on whomever is playing it to do anything worthwhile. I don't know that I pass - I would like to think so, but I know I'm still a crude amateur next to any kind of real musician. I offer a few samples below, which lose a little in translation through the tracker back through the VST filter from the original performance, but it's close enough (yes these are all me, and I'm sorry they're all me):
What's interesting is what prompted me to finally record at least a little bit of this. I have other music projects under way (and geek projects), and have been letting the EWI gather dust since shortly after I returned from Seattle, but upon hearing yet another phenomenal cello performance in the background track of something or other wondered to myself... "How much does a cello cost, anyway?" And have found myself once again bit by another instrument bug (there are more than just these 3, too). The thought has even crossed my mind of making a steampunk style electric cello myself, in order to have something to play and practice extensively without offending others (works well with headphones), because steampunk is fun even if it is getting a little too close to mainstream, and because it would be musical and geeky at the same time. I'd even make an interchangeable fingerboard, one with and one without frets, in order to support different styles of performance (or lever-actuated retractable frets, but imagination needs to give way to reality in terms of practical implementation sometimes).
I whipped out the EWI, set the VST to cello, and started playing that instead. Maybe someday...
Weight Reduction
This post is about my personal challenges with weight, and managing it in light of a metabolic disorder. None of it is meant to be self indulgent or congratulatory, and I promise there are some geeky bits near the end for those patient enough to wade through the content or who want to skip to the end. Sorry for being boring, but not for being me. On with the story:
Back in the day I could have been considered a "bean pole." I was highly athletic, and though moderately muscular any of the definition was overshadowed by being wiry (though I eventually outgrew the designation "gangly," thank heavens). This is back when I could afford to be so physically active, and before the effects of the McArdle's disease steadily clamped down on the stamina. More importantly, it's when I was also getting sufficient rest to compensate for the effects of the activity I pursued regardless.
I got married, and gained the requisite 10-15 lbs. that generally comes with it, simply due to a change in lifestyle - eating more frequently, and in the company of others on a schedule of well prepared food rather than "when it suits me" and consisting of "whatever's around." Even with that gain though I was smack in the middle of the Healthy band of the BMI (though individual results vary depending on body type, I'm fortunate to be a good match for the algorithmic archetype). That weight stayed steady for another year.
Then: The Desk Job. In the interest of advancing my career and furthering the capabilities and savings of our family, I changed from the more free-form telecommuting gig to one that met those requirements but also required standard office attendance. I have no issue with the work, or with good work ethic, but I had been liberally making use of the telecommute arrangement to rest as necessary in order to recover from the day's strain. With the desk job, that luxury was forfeit. Ignorant of the specific nature of my disorder at the time, I didn't realize how disastrous this would be.
Seated at the console, plugging away on the code (Object Pascal cum Delphi RAD environment for MS IIS ISAPI filters on the MetaStorm e•Work product) I found myself wearied as usual, but unable to deal with it. I compensated by being exceptionally stubborn, and when that fell short, supplemented with anything available to increase my blood sugar (I was also drinking a lot of water, which I attributed to the poor transition from Washington's temperate and moist environment to the Utah dessert two years before - but probably only half of what I now know would be required. Whatever the case, whenever Rachelle called I seemed to be in the bathroom). This latter strategy came with predictable side effects, and in the course of five months I put on some 40 pounds.
The rapidity of weight gain was certainly off-putting and distressing, especially as the combined weight of the entire supplemental caloric intake during this time didn't seem to be adequate to account for the change. I did my best to stabilize and cut back on the snacks, suffering through the stupor instead, and plunging into another round of medical inquiry to find out why I was so tired so I could hopefully do something other than eat to manage energy levels - these of course were ineffectual. Later, changes in jobs, the production of very very cute children, and general demands of the conditions of life slowly edged the weight upward until finally peaking at about 250 lbs. (113kg), at the same time that the last vestiges of regular physical activity (Kishindo martial arts) feel by the wayside.
I was frustrated, to say the least, but also largely to blame - by putting myself and my needs very last, I was doing myself this dramatic (and visible) harm until it interfered with my ability to continue to serve my family. I was so bogged down, waking up exhausted (and frequently nauseous), barely pushing through the day, and repeating. Minor gains in understanding, not necessarily of my condition but my reaction to it, gave me some latitude for correction and over the course of about 2-3 years managed to move from 250 back down to about 220.
The most recent improvements have come from a very complete comprehension of the condition and my situation. The management strategy I'm pursuing now allows me to walk that thin line between capacity and injury, and to retain cognizance throughout even the long days (with few exceptions). Combined with that, I've been able to leverage the inability to utilize stored glucose energy to maximize natural ketosis (the same condition the Atkins and other low-carb diets attempt to induce artificially) and consume stored lipids instead - this time without the crippling side effects causing near-comatose stupor. This means that from the first day of the diet I've been able to realize dramatic results, as detailed below:
Down, down she goes!
The weight log starts in late January, testing out the Wii Fit I'd gotten the family for Christmas (but was unable to play with myself, having been separated from them). Return visits to the family explain the infrequent initial measurements, followed by my more permanent return in lat March. Throughout April and May I was completing my research into the effects and side effects of McArdle's before finally establishing the current regimen. This failed to produce any effects on the weight though, so I sought out the advice of my buddy Joel - the most successful dieter I've ever seen. Over the course of a year his appearance completely changed, to the point that when we were re-united for a get-together I recognized his wife, and wondered who the heck was with her. Thus was born the references to the "Sexy Sexy Joel Diet" (as the diet belonging to and responsible for Sexy Sexy Joel, as opposed to the old Joel).
His secret? Has nothing to do with all of those "By following these X simple rules!!1!" ads that are all over the internet, nor with fad products, "cleansing," etc. He wasn't even exercising - just following the old Weight Watchers™ formula for calculating caloric intake in terms of points (calories / 50 + ( grams of fat / 12 ) - ( min{ grams of fiber, 4 } / 5 ) ) and his allowance for consuming them. Using a calculator and log on his iPhone he followed the simple principles over time to great effect.
I adopted the same pattern, and am pleased to report that, per the graph above, have dropped 32 lbs. in the course of just over 3 months. At this rate I have another month and a half or so to meet my long term goals, after which I can settle into a maintenance pattern. Looking at the trend line it's very slowly leveling out. It also has that cyclical up-tick I'm at a loss to explain - though I also admit that I haven't gone into an in-depth analysis for them yet, as they are inconsequential to the average / long view.
For the geekiest bits: the point system, whatever its failings, works. In order to make sure all measurements are taken consistently, they've all been done within the same hour of the day, in the same general outfit (light sweats, t-shirt), immediately following my carefully metered exercise (metered to avoid undue metabolic or toxic distress) in the morning before any kind of intake. This does mean that I've artificially skewed the measurement to the lowest point in a day's fluctuation, but given that I'm moving 10-15 lbs. of water though my system throughout the course of a day it makes sense to take a low baseline, since the peak water retention will fluctuate unpredictably (or according to parameters and timings I'd rather than make explicable by mapping when there's an easier solution). Doing it the same way every day is what makes the biggest difference in collecting the samples, which allow me to apply a general trend analysis instead of a specific margin of error per day. All measurements have been taken on the Wii Fit in order to keep the analysis consistent and to provide a log of the output as well, which I have carefully transcribed and reproduced above using Perl's GD::Graph module.
I have several other observations as a result of the experience, mostly regarding psychology and sociological trends, which I'll save for another time. For now I'm excited for the day when I can stabilize enough to buy new pants (which I'd rather only do once, an account of being a cheapskate). Also, while it's true that I may have an unfair advantage due to the super-charged ketosis, Joel's experience demonstrates the viability of the approach without such an inside track (a track, I might add, that is not worth the side effects if it can be avoided).
Bon (pétit) apétit!
Torpor 0.9β Released!
The 0.9 beta release of Torpor (all major features work, but only in MySQL and there's some definite clean-up and organization to be done) is available now:
TorporPHP_0.9b.tar.gz (via Google project hosting)
I also need to correct a statement I made earlier during the introduction of Torpor - this is not the first mature persistence layer abstraction. I've come across others (turns out the buzz word for googling is "PHP ORM", not "PHP persistence abstraction") since I delved into this foray in the first place, though I can say I'm not especially impressed. I can also say that Torpor easily stands on its own among these, with its philosophies fitting an appropriate niche and providing some of its own innovations (especially the intermediate cache interface and the complexity of the intrinsic deep-loading and relationship introspection).
Those feeling adventurous, enjoy!
Those without the cycles to spare, 1.0 should be available in 3-4 weeks, enabling additional database interfaces and cleaning things up. Between 0.9b and 1.0 there may be some minor changes in naming conventions, but overall structure will remain the same. Much documentation will be forthcoming as well.
Good luck, and good night!
Back
As most of you probably know by now, I have returned from Seattle Washington to Salt Lake City Utah. This move was brought about by the end of my employment with Amazon.com, which overall is a mixed blessing - I am with my family again, even if it does mean I'm back in the job market. The house which perpetually refused to sell now acts as a comfort and a shelter since we still have a nice place to live, and all of this comes on the heels of a confirmed diagnosis of McArdle's Disease (which diagnosis had nothing to do with the change in employment - this is all coincidental), a rare form of muscular dystrophy due to glycogen storage (more accurately utilization) complications: I now know far more about the genesis and management of the health complaints I've voiced here in the past, and it is comforting and vindicating.
So now that I can keep myself conscious and operating it's time to roll up the sleeves and get working. My resume is online if anyone knows of any openings in the area (I'm done with relocating) or leads they can toss my way I'd appreciate it.
A Good Geek in a Bad Economy
(e • KAAAAHN!! • o • MEE)
As previously mentioned here, I need to sell my house due to my relocation to Seattle. The current economic and real estate climates are anything but friendly to this kind of venture - we plan on recouping some of that when it comes time to buy a new house in Washington, taking advantage of the buyers' market, but first we have to suffer through it as a seller.
Enter "m4d g33k 5ki11z" stage left: creating the Best House Ever site was just a beginning; it isn't really useful just sitting there, people have to know about it. Putting it on the fliers or associating it with the MLS data only serves as a limited enhancement to what the fliers and the MLS are already providing. In the strictly online realm there are so many places to find information about listings now that there's just too much noise to stand out in; especially when considering that the price range is not uncommon for the region, even though the value represented by that price is a good deal. There's just no way to immediately represent that and draw the kind of attention that will sell the place.
Our thinking, which is perhaps naive, is that with a place as gorgeous as this one, at that kind of price point, someone is bound to recognize the bargain and snatch it up. In order to increase our chances and/or decrease the timeline we need to draw attention and get as many people informed of the details as possible. We know the traditional avenues are saturated, so we'll expand our options a little bit.
On the main transportation corridor in the Salt Lake City area there are 2 LED billboards, one north-bound and one south-bound at places where traffic already naturally bottlenecks during rush hour (maximizing gridlock exposure). I don't fault the billboards with that slow-down though, they don't use any animations, they have immediate transitions (no special effects) and use 8-second exposure windows - so it's not terribly distracting, any more-so than other multiple print billboards (which typically use rotating slats to accomplish the same thing) have been: they just have excellent position. It turns out that it's really not that expensive to buy ad space on these things, so we whipped up a billboard graphic according to their guidelines and signed up.
The thinking here is that you can't normally advertise a single property on a billboard - the address information makes it impractical. At best you can list a housing development or various real-estate offices, or things that promote developer brand recognition and the like. The URL we have positions us uniquely though, and gives us an opportunity to try out an otherwise incompatible medium. I've had Google Analytics installed since the beginning to give me a good idea of who was hitting the site and where they were coming from. I thought to use this to see what changes there were in the trend of repeat untracked traffic (coming in directly) by region to measure the effectiveness of the ad. At first I was a little disappointed by the results, showing no real change (not that we're talking about a huge volume here anyway, this is so hyper-niche). I broadened the view and found out something interesting though - visitors were coming in from Google search after having typed in "best house ever," ostensibly from having seen the billboard and/or hearing about it.
Problem is, beyond the URL that text isn't highly featured on the site, nor has the site itself been around long enough to appear on the front page search results (it's top on the second page as of this writing). This means there are a few things I need to change in the contents, and that I should use the webmaster indexing and site mapping tools to increase the relevance of the content from the spider's perspective, and find some way to increase the in-bound linkage. All those things take time to register in the index ranking though, and this campaign is live now - and potentially time sensitive, since we have an open house this weekend.
So I signed up for Google's keyword advertising (I like Google, can you tell?), and snapped up ads relating to "best house ever," "best house," and "sandy house" since all of those are potentially active derivatives from the content on the sign. I restricted the target region to anything inside of Utah and turned it on. Their plans are really economical, and the controls and restrictions available even in a basic account I'll only be spending money for legitimate interest. Being so niche as this is, that means I'm A) saving money over other advertising because I'm only going to owe them anything when it generates activity, and B) I can restrict that activity to the most likely sector and not bother with a lot of costly noise.
I've alse tied the billboard graphic into the main page in order to create a visual association so folks know they're in the right place, as well as a notice of the impending open house. These will automatically deactivate based on a timer after the closure of each event, keeping the maintenance cost low and hands-off. A little bit of technical savvy might go a very long way in this case - and for those also in the geek community, not that it will necessarily impact the sale of the home, I whipped up an ad that might help it get some viral distribution traction online: Free House with Purchase of Domain Name!
I'll let you know how it goes. If this prevents us from having to lower the price, or from having to lower it as far (which is always the standard realtor's refrain for attracting buyers) we're ahead of the game.
Best House Ever (.com)
I've settled into the Seattle area reasonably well, and even have a few blog articles in the works courtesy of time commuting on the bus. They're enough in-depth that they need a little bit more polishing though, and that's hard to do without sitting down at a desk - and when I've been at a desk, I've been working on BestHouseEver.com:
Being a geek I decided to see if I could make it a little easier to get our house noticed (Utah's got a saturated real-estate market), and to transmit that information by word of mouth. I was fortunate that an easy to remember, difficult to misspell, and catchy domain was available for exactly that purpose. Usually there is a unique domain per house these days for those which do actually get web sites, but they're derived from the address like "2073WindsorOak.com", which works OK on a flier or in email but not conversation where it would requiring writing down and later review. For purposes of compliance I picked up the address-as-domain too, and promptly pointed at the Best House Ever site.
I'll probably sell or rent the domain name to others after the place sells, or maybe even hang onto it in order to launch a company which does an extremely limited / premium service, maybe 1 house per-region with regions auto-selected based in geotargetting (but overridable through navigation to see other regions) for a pretty penny. For the moment I'm just hoping it brings enough attention to sell this house, which we're offering considerably under market (and drastically below tax assessment) just to unload it quickly so we as a family are not separated for too long. Selling it at this price shouldn't be hard - getting it noticed in the current market is the sticking point, so tell your friends, neighbors, co-workers, colleagues, associates, relatives, acquaintances, etc.
They won't even have to write it down.
Seattle Bound
Effective September 1st I'll be working as a Sr. Manager of Software Development for Amazon.com in Seattle, Washington.
This is a decision a while in the making, and a tremendous opportunity for the family - but not without sacrifice. There are many in Utah we'll miss deeply, and much extended family we'll be away from. Rather serendipitously, we do have some family ties in Washington, and having grown up near Seattle I do still have a network there we can plug into.
I'll have more updates as soon as I can, but the next 3 weeks are going to be packed getting ready for the move and prepping the house for sale. Oh, and for those unfamiliar, the above picture is of Mount Rainier, Washington's highest peak, as visible from the plane on my return flight from the Amazon interviews.
Chapter 1, Scene 2, of something I’ll probably never finish.
So, after 13,000+ words of manuscript text and who knows how many in the outlines and various scene roughs, I'm pretty sure that the current novel attempt had contracted a terminal case of World Builder's disease. This happened a few months ago, when I realized that there was quality in the writing that editing could save, but that it would require a larger effort than I could dedicate to it within my time constraints. Instead, I lovingly laid the files aside and decided "That one's for practice... or at least for a time far away from here."
Which means I feel entirely safe sharing bits and pieces from the unfinished rough of the manuscript, because these are posthumous as it were. Continuing on, then...
Yuri's breath reflected a hollow kind of echo into his ears in the isolation suit, forming a rhythmic barrier between him and the howling of wind in the thin atmosphere only inches away. Small beads of sweat tickled down his cheeks and nose in defiance of the built-in sweatband. The rest of him was sure to be soaked as well, when he finally stripped down.
He finished muscling the new greenhouse frame into place and bounced easily back to the cargo hatch of the crawler. Two more trays of green-black slop waited for him there, typifying the infinite patience available only to dirt. With barely a grunt of effort he hauled them into place and swung the hinged transparent lid down to lock above them. Almost instantly the tiny spikes of hoar-frost that had sprung to life on the short journey between compartments evaporated from the lumps of muck and turned instead to a fog of condensation on the interior of the golden-hued crystal glass. Yuri nodded approvingly.
He reached into the control box and twisted valves for the hoses connecting this stand to its several hundred siblings, then touched a microphoned finger in his left glove against the junction. The short, high hiss ended abruptly with a melodic snort as air sloshed and rebounded between chambers. Satisfied, he mounted the slow six-wheel and began the forty-minute trip home.
"Honey, are you on your way back yet?" His wife's voice interrupted the labor-bestowed reverie, suddenly making it feel much shorter than the several hour respite he felt he deserved. He waited until his sigh was done and cleared his throat before activating the pickup to respond.
"Yes, darling, just finished. A little more than a half-hour out now."
"Everything go OK?"
"Mostly. There is still more dust on the roof than I like." The latest attempt to thwart the constantly shifting deposits of Martian soil had only succeeded in arranging the micro-drifts into interesting patterns. "And FIDO's charge seems to be a little short."
"Will you be able to make it home?" Her sudden concern sounded more needy than anxious for his safety. Or even his convenience.
"Yes, with several hundred kilometers to spare. There is no worry, it is just an annoyance. I'll bring it into the shop tomorrow and have a look." A few amps wouldn't make a difference one way or another, and it's entirely possible that the non-linear initial drop was in keeping with the power profile for the unit. Still, no sense in taking risks. And maybe he'd get the quiet he was looking for.
Lynette sounded disappointed after a moment's hesitation. "Alright. Just be careful. And let me know when you're getting close so I can start dinner."
"I will need to shower first."
"Come straight home then, but please hurry." She sounded fragile in his earpiece. "I love you."
"Love you too, darling." Yuri closed the channel and guided the large vehicle back across the worn and rocky path toward the outpost.
Some distance to the east, Lynette returned the radio handset to its dock and slumped deeper into her depression. As though mourning a lost world and family weren't enough, she now pined for a man somehow distant even when he was in the same room. Her sworn strength and lifeline.
She looked out a porthole window at the too-small evening sun; another day gone.