Bill Roper's Journal

Please Fence Me In

2026-04-14T02:57:34Z

Sam was good enough to come by today so we could put the busted section of fence back together. An old panel had separated from a new post, because toe nailing (with or without added screws) simply isn't very effective when the wood in the crossbars is rotting out.

The good news is that I had lumber in the garage from a previous repair plan that hadn't been executed in that form (we hired the contractor who rebuilt one long section of fence that was in horrible shape and also fixed several posts, but not so much it turns out the sections connected to them). This meant that we just needed to rip out the old fence section, haul it up to the patio, salvage the useful pickets, throw the dangerous to the dogs rusty nails into a bucket for disposal, and then build a new section between two nicely stable posts.

Piece of cake.

Well, piece of cake if Sam and I weren't both dealing with various problems in knees and hips which slowed us down quite a bit. But we used the joist hangers to drop the 2x4s between the two posts -- an arrangement which is much more stable than toe nailing -- and then just had to nail the surviving pickets back up. We had to replace five pickets, so I went into the cache in the garage and retrieved those. Overall, it took us about five hours, which is acceptable.

And the fence is up, which is admirable. :)

Tomorrow, I go back to practicing for Debbie's Interfilk concert at FKO...

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Project Hail Mary

2026-04-13T02:51:30Z

Julie, Bonnie, Sam, and I went out to the theater today to see "Project Hail Mary". (Gretchen stayed behind, because she's still rehabbing from the wisdom tooth extraction, although doing *much* better.)

We were a little late to the party here due to other commitments, but today was a day that worked out. The film is excellent. Everyone enjoyed it, including Julie, so that was a good thing.

Meanwhile, the house has apparently heard that I got laid off, because today the failing retractable screen in the front storm door failed completely. Replacement parts are unavailable, so that's going to require a new door as the course of *way* less resistance.

And while we were at the movie, one of the sections of the fence that had been inadequately attached to the replacement post by the contractor a couple of years ago gave way. Sam is being good enough to come by tomorrow so we can rebuild it, which will be a good thing as it keeps both the dogs in the yard. :)

At least I have all of the lumber for this operation in the garage.

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Wisdom and Age

2026-04-12T03:29:26Z

Gretchen thanks everyone for the kind wishes about her wisdom tooth extraction. She is feeling much better (although still sore) today, having decided to dispense with the hydrocodone which was probably the cause of her stomach upset.

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Sympathy for the Spouse

2026-04-11T03:14:17Z

Gretchen notes that in the responses to yesterday's post there was absolutely no one who was sympathizing with the surgery to remove her wisdom tooth yesterday. This is what happens when I write a long technical discussion as part of the post, it seems.

Gretchen's stomach today decided that it would demonstrate why sympathy was in order. One of the pills that she was taking seems to have produced some extreme stomach upset and -- well, dynamic disassembly of the contents of the stomach onto the floor. More than once.

Dinner was some egg noodles that I boiled for her and that has stayed put so far, which is a major improvement.

Gretchen suspects that the problem was with the hydrocodone pain reliever, which she is now omitting from the regimen.

We'll see how things go.

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All That Jazz

2026-04-09T23:30:44Z

Gretchen got her wisdom tooth out today. I shortly need to go pick up her prescriptions from Walgreens, but one of the four prescriptions didn't go through, so we have made some phone calls and maybe when I go down to check in with her, she will know that the prescription is ready. I hope. :)

Meanwhile, K wrote a project in Java using IntelliJ. I wish that she had picked VSCode and the Java extensions there for an IDE, because I've *seen* that IDE before. Anyway, this honors project involved building a sort of choose your own adventure game. The trick was getting it off of her computer and into a form that someone else could run.

My Google Fu is strong, but this was one heckuva little problem to sort out. I managed to find out how to get IntelliJ to build a JAR file that included all of the Swing components that K had used in building the game. Now, if you had a matching installed version of Java on your machine, you could double click on the JAR file and get the game to run.

Did I mention that K's machine does not have a matching installed version of Java? I managed to get IntelliJ to tell me which version of the OpenJDK it is using (26!) and then we downloaded that and installed it. This gave me access to the JPackage utility, which is used to bind a JAR file together with a matching JRE so that you can run the JAR file. This is a trick that I had planned to investigate someday at work for one of my stalled projects. Well, I won't be doing that for work, but I would be doing it today, because I am a minor programming deity. (Ok, if you have done this before and you are working on your own machine, this may be fairly simple. If you are working on your child's computer over Zoom and have never had to use this trick before, it's a bit more complex.)

I managed to get everything correctly typed into the command line to launch JPackage. This involved, among other things, downloading a copy of 7Zip so that I could peer into the contents of the JAR file and make sure that I was providing the correct class name. Ok, it's -- not running. It wants the WIX toolkit.

I have never used the WIX toolkit. I found it, downloaded it, and installed it. Let's try that again.

Look! It's an EXE file. Run it!

A dialog comes up and goes through some steps and goes away. Ok.

It eventually dawns on me that I've built an installer. Let's look over here. Yes, there is the installed application. Let's try running *that*.

And the game popped up on the screen.

And there was much rejoicing. Right after we ate Sir Robin's minstrels.

Yay, Dad!

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You Can Tune a Piano...

2026-04-09T02:35:05Z

I'm working on learning a new song for Debbie's Interfilk Guest concert at FKO. I went to look up the chords on line and discovered that Ultimate Guitar believes that the song is in F. The song is pretty much brutally unplayable in F, but I can play it in D and capo 3 to get to F, so I can make that work.

Then I looked at the music video and saw that the guitarist was playing this in the key of G. This is because his guitar was detuned two half steps. Great. The chords make *much* more sense in G.

Ah, and Debbie actually wants to play the song in A, which would be G capo 2. All good.

Except that I need to play along to learn the song's rhythms and I really don't want to detune my guitar to match the only track I have to play against right now. Grumble.

I then realized that I have a baritone guitar sitting here, which is detuned by *five* half steps. So if I capo 3 and play G forms, then I am playing in the key of F, which matches the video.

And then I can capo 2 for the concert on my guitar that is tuned to concert pitch.

Whee!

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Knocking Down More Pins

2026-04-08T02:43:48Z

I used to bowl. I could probably bowl again, but my knees would comment on it. So for the moment, we'll content ourselves with knocking down metaphorical pins.

My previously scheduled -- and now vital -- meeting with my financial advisor was this morning at 10 AM. I had planned to get up at 8 AM, giving me plenty of time to get ready and get out the door, but my body had other ideas and I finally gave up trying to get back to sleep around 6:45.

The meeting went well. We sorted out a number of items. He shared with me the contact info for a guy that they use to help sort out Medicare issues who *may* be able to give some advice on how to get the kids insured. Or maybe who will know someone *else* who can give that advice. In any case, the steps are in the right direction.

I grabbed lunch, got home, and decided it was time to take a nap, which I needed pretty badly.

This afternoon, I got hold of my life insurance company and have modified the policy so that it will not increase in value as much, but also so that I stop having to pay for it for the next 20 years. That change won't take effect until the anniversary date in August, but that's fine. It is a done item.

I looked over some stuff for FKO, but recording scratch tracks for that needed to wait until tomorrow, because time was running out. I also checked out Xfinity, where I need to get some statements to submit to work for reimbursement and determined that I am paying *way* too much for my current plan. I just need to sort out what plan I need to be on. That will be a mission for tomorrow.

I took Gretchen out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse so we could use the free appetizer coupon that I'd received via email. This meant Gretchen got a nice steak which is a welcome change from the usual dinner courses at home. (There is nothing *wrong* with dinner at home, but it is not a nice steak.)

When we got home, K pinged me, as she's having difficulty sequencing some audio files in the Java program that she's writing for school. I checked some references and gave her some ideas to try. This sort of thing is easier when you're looking at the source code. :)

And then Gretchen and I watched tonight's episode of "Will Trent", which was a wonderful thing. We have preserved it on the DVR and will be going back to watch the sequence that begins with the ceremonial firing of the cannon that was put on the mantel in Act II through the end of the fight scene.

Seriously, unless you do not like police procedurals *at all*, you should be watching this show. It took about four episodes in the first season to get us hooked, because the beginning is a bit of a slow burn, but the writers and actors here are doing a great job.

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Man (Not) At Work

2026-04-07T02:40:11Z

Work isn't (although the apps that have not yet been forceably uninstalled from my phone keep reminding me of meetings that I can no longer attend), but that does not mean that there aren't things that I need to be doing. Some of those are blocked until work actually sends me information that I need from them, but others can be taken care of.

I have paid the accountant for tax preparation, placed a call to my life insurance agent to see what we can do about reducing my monthly premium payment (I was told this can be done; now I need them to call back and do it), and spoke with my regular insurance agent about possible changes to auto insurance so that I know what my exposure is.

My *biggest* exposure, of course, is health insurance. I hope to get some ideas about that tomorrow when I talk to my financial advisor, although I expect that I will put the family on COBRA through year-end. I just really need to find out how to reasonably insure the kids in such a way that they can get the health care that I'm paying for.

In the meantime, I've started practicing for Debbie's Interfilk Guest concert at FKO. The number of days between now and then is relatively short and there's material to be worked up!

(I was looking at one of the songs today and said to myself "What rat bastard decided to chord this song in the key of F?" Then I looked at the music video and realized that the guitar player was playing a G chord. On a guitar that was detuned a full step. Well, that would do it. That song is *much* more playable in G.)

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Happy Easter!

2026-04-06T03:49:40Z

If Easter is a holiday that you celebrate, I hope you had a happy one. If not, I hope that you had a fine day anyway.

My dad spent 20 years in the Air Force. I grew up as a military brat.

Today (and last Tuesday, for that matter), I am reminded of the old aphorism: They know the price of everything and the value of nothing. IYKYK and if you don't, take it up on someone else's page. :)

In different news, I became one of the older people to get his first MMR shot today.

See, I had already had the measles and the mumps when the vaccines first became available. Heck, I had the measles when I was only six months old and they gave me a shot of gamma globulin.

And the immunity didn't take, apparently as a result of my age and that gamma globulin shot, so I got the measles again in my sophomore year of high school, spent two weeks in bed, and missed the state chess tournament. (I went the following year. We won. :) ) My siblings both got the vaccine that I didn't. *sigh*

When I visited the doctor most recently, I noted my entertaining history with measles and suggested that we run a titer to see if I had immunity. I did to both measles and mumps, but not to rubella, which I had never encountered. And I'm traveling out of the country shortly, even if only to Canada.

So I am now vaccinated against rubella.

Yay!

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One Thing at a Time

2026-04-05T02:25:01Z

I'm making progress on knocking things off my lists of things to do. None of them today had anything directly to do with the layoff, because it's Saturday and no one that I need to talk to is in their office.

But it was good progress.

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Ticking Things Off the List

2026-04-03T20:04:32Z

I got my eye exam today and have ordered new contacts and glasses ahead of the looming insurance discontinuity. (There will be insurance -- there just might be a short period in which no one can figure out that I have it or which insurance that I actually have.)

One of the things that I did a couple of days ago was order a dock for the recording laptop. The dock arrived today while I was out getting the eye exam. The work computer and its dock have now been unceremoniously removed and the recording laptop and its dock are now in place and seem to be integrating fine. I'm writing this while a bunch of Steinberg software updates install.

Once I'm done on this computer, I have to flip back to the desktop and review the documents for my tax return and some Oracle paperwork.

I will eventually get all things sorted out.

It just takes time.

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Progressing Slowly

2026-04-03T03:11:21Z

Today's big development: I got a haircut. I now officially look employable again. This is not so much a concern at the moment. Call me in a few weeks and we'll see. :)

But I had a couple of good phone calls this afternoon with friends, one of whom was a former co-worker.

And the garbage has gone out, because you've got to keep these things moving.

Tomorrow, I have my previously scheduled eye exam. I'm hoping we can get along with a dilation this trip, since both eyes have been dilated in January and the eye with the vitreous detachment was dilated and photographed again two weeks ago (so was the other eye, but no dilation there). In any case, this will get me another year of contact lenses ahead of any deadlines.

I *need* to file a Medicare application for me and Gretchen, but I can't do that until I get the form from Oracle, which they do not seem to plan to give me until April 10th, at which point my current health insurance will expire. I may have misread this, but it seems, well, bad. Non-optimal. Vaguely punitive.

But maybe I've misread the paperwork. I will be going over it again tomorrow along with my tax return, which still needs to be filed. After I check it again...

*sigh*

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Day One

2026-04-02T03:08:19Z

I got less accomplished today than I might have hoped, but I made some progress.

It appears that there is a gigantic chasm in our healthcare system for anyone who had children after age 40. I will eventually get this sorted out. It may be that the only solution is to stop claiming the kids as dependents, which is crazy, but the government really does not care.

Of course, large organizations not caring is pretty much the current theme, so...

In better news, I got to watch the Artemis II launch today.

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And That's That

2026-03-31T20:01:42Z

I dodged last year, but I have been caught in the latest wave of Oracle layoffs today. I am still waiting for information about severance and such.

The worst part of this is going to be arranging health insurance for the kids. I am trying to figure out what options are available. (COBRA, for a short while, at least, but that's a terrible choice overall.)

I did not *quite* make it to 44 years at this job. But that is the length of my career, as I am now (with high probability) retired.

I had work that I wanted to finish and I'm sorry that I won't get to do that.

You all want to hear the *funny* part?

Yesterday, I checked in the last changes that cut our calculation time on complex models by more than 50%.

Today, I am laid off.

My boss was saying that Michael Jordan ought to allowed to retire, resorting to a basketball analogy.

Instead, I hit the three-pointer with time expiring to win the game. And then got waived.

Ah, well. Time to set up the recording computer up here... :)

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Reckoning

2026-03-31T03:22:53Z

I made a few more improvements to last week's project at work today. It is now ready to go off for testing.

I have figured out how much money I need to move to cover the taxes that are due April 1st and April 15th. It is a stupid amount of money, assisted by a visit to the emergency vet along with a bunch of other things. Happily, I have the stupid amount of money available, but owing taxes and estimated tax payments is a big swing from expecting a refund of around the same amount. We'll manage.

And I have found a second error in my not-yet-filed tax return that needs to be corrected and have notified the accountant, so I will be waiting for the next revision to show up. Correcting the first error sent my Federal taxes down; the second error will send my Illinois taxes up.

Tomorrow, I get to get up annoyingly early for a follow up visit with my urologist after last year's lithotripsy. Sadly, the X-ray on Friday suggests that the festivities may not be quite complete, but we'll see what they have to say.

Whee!

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Draft Day

2026-03-30T03:23:41Z

Today was our annual APBA baseball draft. This is an eight-team continuous ownership league, so there are a lot of very good players on the existing teams. We also have a cap on quality starting pitching, so there's a good big of jockeying for the starters available under the cap. This year, the cap was going to limit us to five or six starters.

I was drafting last, which means that the team was successful last year, a good thing. My starting lineup and bench were largely solid and hard to improve upon given what was available in the draft. My starting pitching was strong, but could always use some help. My bullpen had completely disintegrated, aided by Emmanuel Clase's foray into illegal collusion with sports betters, so it had to be completely rebuilt.

I would have liked to collect another outfielder, but the only one who really suited my needs, given that I have Juan Soto, Julio Rodriguez, Byron Buxton, and Ronald Acuna, was Roman Anthony. And he was available to me with the eighth pick of the draft, but I decided that I really needed Hunter Brown, a quality starter from the Astros, instead.

Roman Anthony was drafted with the next pick. I was not surprised.

It was now time to rebuild the bullpen, starting with a couple of strong relievers with control, Adrian Morejon and Randy Rodriguez. There was no great hurry to draft the rest of the bullpen, as there were a lot of similar relievers available, so on the fourth round, I collected catching prospect Samuel Basallo from the Orioles. He is not allowed to play this year due to limited at bats, but since I already have Moreno and Herrera at catch, that was not a problem.

In the fifth round, I drafted promising Brewers pitcher Jacob Misiorowski -- in this case, one pick before the fellow drafting after me was prepared to take him. Yay, me!

In the sixth round, I continued collecting Jacobs. No teams really needed a shortstop which meant that talented A's rookie Jacob Wilson had gone into freefall in the draft. I stopped that fall.

The seventh and eighth rounds added two more quality relievers, Bryan Abreu and Brad Keller.

In the ninth round, I picked up Sandy Alcantara as a pitching prospect, hoping that he is now completely recovered from his surgeries.

And for my final draft pick in the tenth round, I grabbed reliever Garrett Whitlock to finish rebuilding the pen.

With the exception of Jacob Wilson, this was what I will refer to as my "Duracell Draft", as there were nothing but the two sides of the battery, pitchers and catchers.

This was largely a draft which relied on going with the flow and seeing what came my way. Overall, I'm quite happy with it.

Now, let's see how the team does. :)

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Four, Finally!

2026-03-29T02:36:12Z

The Illini men's basketball team is going to the Final Four, following an exciting victory over Iowa. I realized that the game had started and tuned in when the Illini were trailing 12-2.

It got better for them after that.

Now let's see how many other Big Ten teams can arrive in the Final Four.

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Itsy Bitsy Project

2026-03-28T03:00:13Z

The itsy bitsy project that I was working on seems to be successful. More testing is required, of course, but the right things seem to be happening, which is good.

I have a whole bunch of projects that need to be completed tomorrow, because Sunday is the annual APBA baseball draft for our league.

Time to get to work!

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Colder Than You Would Expect

2026-03-27T02:20:04Z

It was over sixty degrees this morning, so you'd think it would be a lovely time for Opening Day at Wrigley Field.

You would think that incorrectly.

Gretchen was good enough to drop me at the Skokie Swift after we got some breakfast and the temperature was dropping rapidly. It was below fifty degrees at game time, which would *still* have been ok.

That is, it would have been ok except for the high wind blowing directly in from the north, right at the first base side of the park, which was where I was sitting. Five innings of that was enough.

The fact that the Cubs were trailing substantially didn't help, but the Cubs could have been *leading* substantially and it would not have kept me in those seats today.

Maybe if it were game seven of the World Series.

Of course, if it were October, I would have worn my parka.

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There's Nothing Like Fun at the Old Ballpark

2026-03-26T03:07:51Z

Tomorrow is Cubs Opening Day and Gretchen is going to drop me off at the Skokie Swift so that I can reasonably get to the park since the Remote Parking won't be open for a weekday day game. Unfortunately, the Cubs have moved the Remote Parking lot this year so that it is over near Lake Shore Drive, which might benefit people who already have the option of taking the Red Line down to the park, but which is -- I suspect, as I haven't driven it yet -- going to be a lot more inconvenient for those of us coming from points northwest.

I guess I'll find out.

To add to tomorrow's entertainment, we got a notice from Public Works today that they are turning off our water for 6-8 hours starting at 8 AM tomorrow morning for work on a water main, followed by a boil order. This means that we are going to be getting up very early, while we still have water.

Pitchers (and catchers!) and such have been filled so that there will be some water available while I'm off watching the Cubs.

We had talked about making chili for dinner tomorrow, but -- all things considered -- ordering in Chinese is looking like a better bet. :)

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Project X

2026-03-25T02:41:22Z

The bug list having cleared, I've embarked on a small side project at work. It's already had one useful result, which I've checked into the code base which will eventually get merged and shipped. Now, I'm going to use that useful result to see if I can make the side project work in a short period of time, like a couple of days.

Naturally, a new bug came in during the middle of this, but I fixed it and dispatched it back to the reporter, so I hope to be able to continue on that side project tomorrow. :)

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Boring Down

2026-03-24T02:48:04Z

Having spent most of yesterday working on work, I spent most of today working on different bits of work. :)

I am *still* going to Cubs Opening Day on Thursday, unless my knee (which is gradually improving) decides to become very, very bad. I am working to avoid this.

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Working Through the Weekend

2026-03-23T02:55:09Z

I spent a lot of time over the weekend working on getting bugs fixed for our upcoming release. More time than I really should have, but -- on the other hand -- I am taking Thursday off to go to Cubs Opening Day, so I suppose these things average out.

I need to pick up the guitar. I have two song prompts sitting waiting to be used, but they require a bit of time and nurturing. Work is sucking up the creativity right now.

But that will change. :)

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Tournament Basketball

2026-03-22T02:39:33Z

The Illini men's team has moved on to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA basketball tournament.

Let's see if they can go further.

(I am convinced that they could beat any team on any given night. There's also some danger that they could lose to any team on any given night. But there are fewer "any teams" left to lose to, as the competition is getting tougher.)

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Oof!

2026-03-21T03:31:01Z

Having gotten the last set of revisions to financial statements, my accountant was able to finish up my taxes. To my surprise, we owe money this year. This is largely due to my withholding at work being not as much as it needs to be, which means that I will also get to make estimated tax payments this year.

Yay!

Oh, and property taxes are due April 1st.

I will get through this. I just need to avoid doing anything stupid.

I can do that. :)

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