Gnurple dot Net

From the ispcon-2006 department:
As usual, many moons have passed and the blog was left on the curb like that poor, sad lamp in the old Ikea commercial.
The blog is hungry. It wants to be fed.
In today’s issue:
* Wrap-up for ISPCON
* Cottage May 24 weekend
* Upcoming vacation
WRAP-UP FOR ISPCON
I’ll try and keep this […]

From the family-rules department:
I spent the last week or so hosting family and friends (everybody who stayed was family, but they are all friends, too, because that’s the kind of people my family are) at my house for the holidays.
This was absolutely teh RoxX0rz.
I think “It’s not what you do, it’s who you do it […]

From the holiday-festivities department:

Well, it is truly Christmas at The Gnurple Residence. I just happened to be wandering around the airport on Friday evening, and who should show up but my mom! Well, imagine my surprise and delight! So we headed back home. When we get there, who do we find […]

From the its-raining-deer department:
CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
The Christmas Light Project is 100% completed, deployed and operating. Pictures coming soon. I learned some cool stuff that’ll help me build the dimmable version next year. I spent too much money and now own more extension cords than I’ll ever need. Seriously. I have enough […]

From the geekatroid department:
It works! Finally! Happy happy joy joy! All that time and money and effort I’ve put into this thing is not for naught!

Here’s the Christmas light controller I’ve been working on for about a week. Wassit do? In case you haven’t been playing along (naughty!) it turns […]

From the who-needs-a-driver? department:
You’ll have to excuse me if the next few entries seem a little rushed. They are. Time is constrained. I’ll probably limit myself to 10,000 words (heh). Oh, yeah. And since internet is kinda constrained as well, entries will be brief, big, and infrequent. So, recent […]

From the who-needs-a-driver? department:
Well, the weekend is almost over and tomorrow dawns a new day and a new adventure: autonomous vehicle racing!
I’m part of a team of people who’ve written some software and modified a truck to drive autonomously. We’re competing in the DARPA Grand Challenge 2005, where 40 teams, picked from well over […]

From the clean-cars-r-us department:
So I cleaned my car last weeekend. Sounds like a real pile of fun, doesn’t it? Surprisingly, I spent two days (!) on this episode of fanatic sudsmanship.
SATURDAY
Without going into *too* much boring, lame detail, I basically spent the day on the interior of the car — well, with part […]

From the all-astern-weddings department:
OK, I’m a bad blogger. It’s been a while since I updated. Part of me says, “So what? Nobody reads this crap.” Then the part of me that started this thing says, “Dude! You started doing this as a way to release pent-up creativity, and to practise writing, and as a diary […]

From the all-ahead-weddings department:
Lemme tell you about my grandmother.
(This will eventually tie in to a story about an upcoming wedding. Bear with me.)
My memere was, among a great many other good things, a very good planner. She had Christmas gifts purchased and waiting in closets years in advance. If she were going on […]