Observatorio de la Ballona

After installing Autodesk Quick CAD on my new Lenovo R61 laptop, I started getting a weird error when booting up the machine. It reported:

br_funcs.exe -- Ordinal not found
The ordinal 39 could not be located in the dynamic link library zlb.dll

I Googled the message and the closest thing to a relevant link was something at Experts-Exchange. I signed up for the trial membership, and the solution offered (actually, the solution promised, since Experts-Exchange is a for-pay service) did not address the problem. This is my second bad experience with Experts-Exchange, it is a useless service, never go there.

The solution was fairly simple. Autodesk put an old version of zlib.dll (used for zipping and unzipping) into the /Windows/System directory. Shame on them. I searched the root disk for zlib, found a later version in a Lenovo directory, and replaced the file in /Windows/System. Problem solved.

Hopefully this solution documented here will prevent people from losing time (and money) going after the useless information at Experts-Exchange.

We arrived at Osage (this is, I think, the name of the place, to go with “Camp” as a unique identifier) this afternoon. My older daughter had a half day and I was able to get away from work early so it was a 3:45 or so arrival.

We noted that most of the leaves were gone from the trees. Three weeks ago, they were just beginning to turn yellow, now they are gone. The high winds that drove the destructive fires of the past weeks made a mark here too, although one hardly worth mentioning. We would soon see how windy it actually was.

When my wife went into the house, she commented on the condition of the kitchen. There is normally some dust on the counter when we make it out here, and I usually take part of the first evening to clean up the dust. This was an entirely different situation (altogether ). There was a visible layer of dust across the entire counter. My older daughter found the back bathroom covered in red dust. The Sun porch was inundated — every surface covered with dust. This is what 5 days of 35+ mile an hour wind can do when laden with dust.

There are other problems. The sprinkler valves in the yard have been leaking for a long time. So long you squish as you walk across the yard. The tree in the northeast corner fell down because the ground was so soggy. I used the truck to right it and a board to hold it up. The cover for the lawn mower, a gift from my father-in-law, is currently AWOL, taken away by the wind. The cover on the spa was pulled open (no water in the spa, so no drowning risk) and the lattice around the spa is broken.

I feel lucky. When we were here last I washed the kitchen floor, so the dust did not have grease to bind with. We just bought a new vacuum cleaner (a Dyson, we are very happy) and it has done a great job capturing the dust. We were able to knock out the worst of the problem on Friday night, leaving the weekend open. The tree is upright. No one has been hurt.

We are very lucky here.

The recovery activities did prevent me from getting the CG-5 set up. I have a new motor controller, and a new DMK firewire camera. I go to OPT tomorrow to get the final parts.

Finally the comet. Comet Holmes is easily visible to the naked eye. In Perseus, just below Casseopoiea, it is almost a star, but slightly fuzzy. With binoculars, it is a nice, slightly green, ball. As I always tell people when I am trying to get them to find a comet, it looks like nothing else in the sky.