I keep forgetting that, now that I have high-speed, I can do things I couldn't do before. Like listen to music online. I went long enough avoiding such activities that it seems odd to be able to do it now with such ease.
So currently I'm trying out Pandora. Basically, it custom-builds a "radio station" for you based on your preferences.
You seed it with an artist or song, and it takes off from there. You can give a song the thumbs-down if you want it off the list.
So for the first station I started with "If You Never Got Sick" by The Wallflowers. That's a twisted little song. Sadly, I don't think "creepy lyrics" are one of Pandora's selection criteria (that's a drawback for me...), so I got a lot of acoustic guitar stuff. Not bad stuff, and the songs were new to me, so that was nice. But too mellow. Not the mood I was looking for, and I was too impatient to wait and listen through most of the songs.
So for the second station I started with "Everlong" by Foo Fighters. Pandora chose "Californication" (Red Hot Chili Peppers), "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World, "In Bloom" by Nirvana...Stone Temple Pilots...Smashing Pumpkins...Green Day.... I like these songs/artists, so that's good. On the other hand, I know these songs/artists, and I'm sort of hoping to find some new music via this site. It got repetitive, but that can be fixed by adding more seed-songs.
Third station: "Too Tough to Die" by Martina Topley-Bird. I was curious to see what that would bring up. Suzanne Vega, Howling Bells.... Then I added "Sea Legs" by The Shins. So far, I'm really liking this station. Aqualung, Tegan and Sara...I'm hesitant to shift the mix by choosing any other seed-songs...there seems to be plenty of variety.
The site does have lots of nice pop-uppable info about the artist and song, why they were chosen (categorizes music, vocals, etc.), what album the song is from, etc. That's useful. Oh, and a tab with lyrics. Now that's a nice feature.
And yes, ads off to the side. Not my favorite but, for me, not itself a deal-breaker. You can resize to hide them. There's an occasional in-line spoken ad...that is jarring enough to be an issue. Looks like 40 hrs/month free (with ads), or $39/year unlimited, no ads.
You can goof around for a while, but eventually it wants you to register (email address, password, birth year, zip, gender).
Overall, I'd recommend giving it a whirl, as long as one doesn't mind the ads and reginfo.
- pandora's music box
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
otterwort- December 2nd, 22:04
- training
-
- otterwort
- December 1st, 16:16
I'm taking a Java class remotely. So far, it's working okay. There are pros (no catsitter, no travel, can go to my own kitchen during breaks, etc.) and cons (can't talk privately with classmates, usually wearing the headset, etc.). Mostly I don't care about the cons. I'm a little more isolated from the rest of the class, and basically working on my own, despite their discussion of working in teams. But I'm fine with that.
I've told boss that after this class is done I want to fix one of the bugs in our new Java-based tool. I appreciate the fact that we have training, but it wastes everyone's time if I take a class and then don't use it for so long that I don't actually recall it anymore.
I've done C and C++, so everything's pretty familiar so far.
I do like training from home, even if it is an Eastern timezone class (had to be online at 7:30am today). Sweats, decent coffee...done and home before dark. And I'm using different brain parts, and short-circuiting the travel part of things, so not feeling the usual sort of worn out at the end of the day. I'm hoping this will mean getting a few things done tonight.
Unfortunately, getting outside wasn't one of them - light's fading too fast; what there was of it was used up logging in to work (I'm waiting for someone to get back to me so I can do one thing...and they haven't gotten back to me). And the forecast implies this is the last day to get into the ground before it freezes up again. Garden's not cleared - that's normal for me; it doesn't really harm anything. Sunchokes aren't harvested...well, I could hack a few out of the ground later if I want.
Fedco Seeds catalog arrived yesterday. Complete with standard GMO and Monsanto diatribes, and quotes from Goethe.
- home
-
- otterwort
- November 29th, 12:23
Wazookeeper and I went to my family's Thanksgiving. Eldest brother was warned by multiple factions to not give youngest brother a hard time for his recent (somewhat surprising and arguably elective) surgery - brother's doing well post-surgery so it's all water under the bridge now. And the gathering went well: everyone got along well, much food was eaten, some games were played, that sort of thing. Pretty much textbook. I might have hoped for a little more family interaction, actually, but it was fine. I took along a mincebean pie, which went over well with eldest brother and even with Mom.
Wazookeeper and I made a leisurely trip of it, coming back home. Hit a couple of good bookstores along the way. Ran across a classic you-could-hurt-yourself-on-that playground with a cool spinning double swingset. Found a leather&fur store, with fresh deerskins piled outside. Friend was much taken with a fur hat made from a whole skunk: head staring out from the top, long stripey earflaps, tail hanging down the back.... I got a couple of animal tails, for the cats.
We spent much of Friday's daylight hiking up one of my friend's favorite trails, nicely challenging (and made more so by having to park half a mile or so from the trail head) and unspoiled by candy wrappers and the like, although it did have its share of hunters. I kind of resent the constant warnings to wear blaze orange - "hunting" does not mean "shoot anything that's not blaze-orange" - nevertheless I wear my blaze orange. It's sensible to wear it, but I hope none of the hunters take it as an excuse to be one ounce less cautious. I'd be more hopeful if the fur store weren't selling blaze orange beer cozies.
Got home about dinnertime yesterday. Good to see the cats again. Looking forward to not traveling for a while. Slowly working my way back into reality - stuff I should do today, for that whole refi thing. Tomorrow will be very full of getting everything lined up so I can do training from home for 4 days. Training will be good...but in many ways I'm taking this class because people think I'm supposed to take this class, not because it's going to be of any use to anyone. It seems inefficient.
- mental mini-vacation
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- otterwort
- November 23rd, 22:26
I'm taking the evening off, apparently. I might come to regret this, if I end up scheduling the appraisal for Wednesday after all. But I haven't heard anything on that yet. I'll have to look at the list of things left to do and see if that's a truly manageable date. If not, no big delay, as I'll have some time home next week and can work with that.
Work's just done that explosion thing that it does with such grim regularity. ~75% of the team is either out with flu or on vacation. Of those remaining, I'm the only one doing prod support - not that that's a stretch, seeing as there's usually only 2 of us, or sometimes 2.5. Any way you slice it, tomorrow's going to be plenty busy.
Mentally, I've been fighting a self-dislike funk/panic for some time. Possibly coping (i.e., punishing myself) by throwing a lot of difficulty at myself in an attempt to either prove I can take it or to get what I deserve. There are worse ways to cope -- things do generally get done, or at least resolved -- but it can wear at a person.
Anyway, repeated mantra-like internal pep talks are helping (or possibly I'm just getting sick of listening to my inner self prattle on).
Also helping was something I haven't tried before - hanging out in my alter ego for a while. Just half an hour or so. She's...like me, but more placid.
It was an interesting exercise. I suspect taking on a different personality is one of those thing I'm not supposed to do on a regular basis. But I could see it being useful.
- tired now
-
- otterwort
- November 23rd, 0:38
I can't complain about the amount of work that got done this weekend. Would have been nice to get more done, of course, but this will do.
Guest bathroom is painted, and probably dry but I'll give it a while longer. The no-VOC paint really is mostly odor-free - which is nice since I was working in a somewhat enclosed space. The color is pretty much what I was going for - 2 coats of primer to make sure the original navy&lavender scheme was well-obliterated, but then only one coat of new color (a sort of gold-beige) was needed. The room looks better than it did.
Basement and entryway are approaching some variation of "clean". Popcorn ceiling has been scraped off in master bath (and guest bath, pre-painting). There is no tidy way to remove popcorn ceiling. Wetting the popcorn keeps the dust down, and helps with smooth removal, but you're going to get glopped on. It needed to be done, though: textured ceilings so do no belong in a bathroom.
And so on, and so forth.
Also did the testing of the laptop for the class I'm taking in early December. The class is in New York, but I'm attending remotely. Had to install Java stuff and a handful of other little plug-ins to get the full green light on the remote class setup. Course materials came with a headset, so I can talk to the instructor or to the class. Should be interesting...studying from home beats finding a catsitter, though. I tire of finding catsitters.
Ameristar Mortgage continues to confuse me - I'm not working with them. This was one of the original places I checked with, based on a BBB rating. But the guy I talked to was indifferent to my request, and then when I pressed and said "yes, send me the paperwork so we can do this"...he said he would...and then he didn't. Meanwhile, at least 4 other people from the same place called me and left messages, daily, each time with a different extension # to call. So they kind of now seem eager for my business...but I can't figure out what's going on there.
The whole refi thing is pressing all sorts of personal embarrassment and self-annoyance buttons. It's appropriate that I am doing it. It will not magically fix my problems, and despite being a pretty good kid lately I will continue to pay for past sins for some time yet. It's manageable, it's workable, I have options...I just tire of constantly having to remind myself of all that. A long vacation in the fetal position would be nice about now...not gonna happen. So it goes.
- getting more things done
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- otterwort
- November 20th, 22:50
I've handed in all requisite paperwork for the refi. This weekend is primarily devoted to spiffing the house for the appraisal. Technically, that isn't necessary; the things I'm doing are cosmetic or mini-maintenance...but they can influence a person. Either way, the thing that seems to motivate me best is a looming deadline. Even if I manufacture a looming deadline, it still often works. So, things will get done, and the house will acquire a much-desired aura of tidiness before winter sets in; and if all goes well, I might extract a few extra bucks and get an ego boost from seeing the house appraised for more than I originally expected.
One of the more ambitious items on the list is (finally) repainting the guest bathroom. It's the smallest room in the house - should be fairly quick. And, it's going to be somewhat warmer, so I can air the house. I got non-VOC paint, but it's regular primer. Non-VOC primer just doesn't cover very well, according to the HD paint guy -- who is the same HD paint guy I talked to over half a dozen years ago when I did the majority of the house painting. He does know his stuff and was very helpful.
I think the paint color's going to work well, but you never really know until it's on the wall and cured. And browns/tans can be problematic: get the tints wrong and it can literally look like ****, and all of the non-VOC colors looked just a little strange. The names of the FreshAire paints were very off-putting - but that's true of most paint colors.
Joy of joys, I found that HD is where my curve-handle snow shovel can be found. My original is almost in shreds. Seriously, without that shovel, I'm not sure I could live here in the winter. Now I can keep the old shovel in the car.
Most of the afternoon at work was spent giving a coworker from another building/state the nickel tour of our departments/building, and talking our way through various parts of the system. And walking him around to be introduced to a bunch of coworkers. He's a chatty person, and knew some of the people already, and it was a Friday afternoon...it was good, but rather more social than I'm used to. I did learn more about deer hunting, though.
- generic update 2
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- otterwort
- November 18th, 23:26
Trying to do too many things at once...but making a sort of progress.
Laptop appears to be more or less back to normal; sound's back on etc. fwiw, I've also downloaded all the Windows updates (good grief, there were a lot...). Which was the original point of the whole exercise that BSOD'd the poor thing - because I'm intending to use this computer for an online class in a couple of weeks and - idiot me - wanted to "standardize" my software setup first.
Touchpad still seems touchier than it was...probably just a matter of tweaking settings some more. A few other things still need locating/re-installing, but nothing I'm really missing.
Still afraid to re-open Word, in case Clippy is still alive.
I did not bother to install/upgrade IE...Firefox is serving me just fine, and it should work for the online class too.
The day job continues apace.
Refi paperwork is moving forward. I doggedly continue to clean house - it's good motivation to do it, and it wants doing, so I'm encouraging myself to think it's necessary.
Made vat-o-food tonight: a little onion, a bag of shredded carrot, a bag of broccoli slaw, a bag of frozen "vegetables for soup", 2 cans of pinto beans, kala jeera, turmeric, ginger, fenugreek (seed), a little mint (not much), some fenugreek (methi) leaves, and chili sauce. Side of kashi, brown rice, charnushka (black cumin), saffron, and allspice. I had a bit of cooked turkey that I forgot to add, so I added it to the rice. Eat with yogurt and a little carrot pickle.
Lest you think I'm eating healthy, I'll point out the cheddar dog I had for lunch. I like both types of food, very much, for different reasons.
But if I had to pick a default food for me, it would be the "X with turmeric, fenugreek , mint leaves, and chili", with a grainy thing and some yogurt. Some people default to Italian, or sandwiches, or pot roast. My default doesn't quite resemble any nationality, and not everyone would like it, but for me it is comfort food.
- generic update
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- otterwort
- November 14th, 12:37
jtj608 and head-injury D came over last night. jtj608 cooked: a chili dog casserole, the recipe is based on someone's entertaining 4-page post about the process of making the dish. It was tasty; and a very effective antidote to the bean/yam/veg curry I've been eating all week. ;-)
After feeding, we gamed for a while. A game of Dominion - I went with my preferred Smithy card strategy, and it went well. And then a game of Le Havre - and I won. Go figure. I got a lucky break on turn 1...but usually I manage to burn away such adavantages long before a game ends. I was a slum lord of boats and transported multiple loads of coke (the fuel, not the beverage), then invested the proceeds in some handy real estate. It was a tight margin on the win - could have easily turned out differently.Work's going okay. I'm pressing my point on some of the things I'd like to get done - I'm aiming for polite-but-insistent. Seems to be getting some of the desired results.
I'm finally, finally getting around to actually doing the refi, instead of just poking at the idea. I've done my prelims: gathered the relevant numbers and papers, reviewd my credit reports, crunched some numbers so I have a ballpark on what to expect and how that meshes with what I want, etc. I'm not big on surprises, especially for this sort of thing; alleviating my sense-of-impending-surprise was a big part of getting the ball rolling on this.
I've started talking with one mort. company (Ameristar), but despite the positive reviews I've seen I'm just not totally keen on the vibe I'm getting from them. If dealing with a human is going to be annoying, then I'll skip as much of that as I can: going to throw my info to LendingTree and to BankRate and see what comes back. It will give me more information, anyway, and that's good. The current rate on my current mort. is ridiculously low - but that means nothing if I have other higher-interest loans on the side. I'm strongly considering a 15-year fixed - I want to roll in my current sins, but then I want to pay them down as fast as possible.
Current task is spiffing up the house for appraisal. Probably one will be required, and even if it isn't this is incentive to tidy my nest before winter locks me into it. I know how winters go sometimes: if I don't clean it now, then I'm going to be sitting in it or staring at it all winter.
- things were done...
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- otterwort
- November 10th, 1:39
In an attempt to get my computer's mess of outdated software less outdated, I installed some of the M$ upgrades that were much overdue. And BSOD'd the laptop. Been a while since I've had to deal with a persistent BSOD. Blech.
I'm fine with cute little puzzles to solve, but I use my computer to do stuff, not for the sake of the computer itself. And Microsoft's puzzles are rarely cute. I dunno, maybe it's work, but most days I have little patience with home computer maintenance.
And, like an idiot, I decided to do all this while I was in the middle of a writing spree, a rare thing..but at least it forced me to go out in the sunshine for a while, and to do dishes and such.
Anyway, boot CDs were located and Windows was re-installed. The computer runs. Currently, that's about all I can say for it, but it's better than the alternative.
- mmm...gruel....
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- otterwort
- November 4th, 21:01
Made a vat of tasty gruel: 1 1/3 C red lentils (rinsed), 1 pkg Kashi pilaf, 2/3 C red rice, add water and cook until done, then add some veg. boullion base, 2 cans of Healthy Choice veg. soup, and some rogan josh seasoning, and cook to desired gruel-ish consistency.
Good topped with Indian snack mix, but it would be better with yogurt. Sadly, I am out of dairy until I get to the store.
I seem to have this binge-and-purge tendency. Or, more correctly, binge-and-different-binge. The most recent food-related binge was (not surprisingly) Halloween candy. Now, I want something different, hence the tasty gruel. It really is almost like flipping a switch.
Plenty of non-food binges going these days too.
- more food games
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- otterwort
- November 3rd, 23:17
Another episode of Chopped tonight.
Yeah, I like this game: all the fun of making up recipes, with a bye on making sure they actually work.
( ingredient spoilers for the nori episode of Chopped )
- festive walk
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- otterwort
- November 2nd, 12:05
I stirred myself out of default reclusiveness enough to meet up with friends Saturday night. There was a Halloween walk at Lapham peak. We thought it might be just "get to stroll around the park at night", but it was actually a haunted-house sort of thing, fundraiser for United Way I think. Lots of stumbling about in the half-dark and people leaping out from behind garbage-bag walls. Entertaining, but I have to admit most of my personal entertainment was from trying to locate the lurking people beforehand.
It was fun, though, when one of the people leapt out, checked himself, peered at my friend, and questioningly called her by name. Apparently the person behind the hockey mask was one of my friend's coworkers.
They had beverages and snacks for sale too; a pretty well-run setup.
After the official walk, we drove up to another area of the park and did a proper nighttime stroll. Saw one pair of eyes (probably deer), but it was an otherwise quiet walk. Well, except for the faint screams in the distance from the Halloween walk.
For me, though, I must admit, the scariest part was riding in the car while friend #2 drove.
- food miscellany
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- otterwort
- October 30th, 20:35
Halloween potluck at work today. I ended up bringing a mix of black beans, orange peppers, chopped parsley, and alphabet pasta mixed with dressing of vinegar, sugar, oil, "green goddess" herb mix, and pepper. People seemed to like it.
Food at home currently: cooked ground beef with fenugreek, added a bag of frozen peas and a few good spoonfuls of garlic chutney, mix in the leftover alphabet pasta. Not bad. Garlic chutney is a very fine thing.
Caught a rerun of Chopped tonight. I hadn't seen all of it the last time. My "what I would do with the ingredients if I had enough time" ideas are behind the cut.
( ingredient spoilers for umeboshi episode of Chopped )
- brains...
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- otterwort
- October 27th, 21:06
On the pretext of needing candy brains, I hauled my Korean SUV, with its "Eat Local" bumper sticker, over to Yue Wah. Yep.
They appear to have recently re-stocked, so there was much to tempt me. But, it's a cash-only joint. I keep myself in check by limiting the cash I bring, and this is a good thing all around. It's also good mental exercise to keep the running total in my head as I shop.
Highlights of my purchases:
-- sugar-coated chickpeas, a.k.a., the aforementioned candy brains. They really do look exactly like tiny pastel brains, hemispheres and all (google sugar coated chickpeas if you don't believe me), and we have a Halloween potluck at work (complete with H1N1 hygiene warnings)
-- canned sweetened red bean paste, the main ingredient in mincebean pie and in "purple stuff"
-- tofu snacks, black pepper flavor; I'm somewhat addicted to these indestructible chunks of preserved tofu
-- sriracha peas; they're like wasabi peas but with a chili-garlic coating
-- garlic chutney
-- carrot chili pickle, a huge jar because that's all they had
-- dal biji, an Indian snack mix (good as a topping on all manner of foods)
-- black sesame powder, and pea flour...I'll think of something to do with those
-- green curry paste
-- black tea with cinnamon and rose hips
-- 8 packages of Mama Sita's calderata mix, for wazookeeper; my friend makes a mean calderata
On the way home I made myself half sick wolfing down methi para, sort of fat fried noodles flavored with fenugreek leaves.
Dang, I forgot to get a stack of mochi snacks. Sort of a rice flour bun with filling (bean paste, fruit, etc.). They look like a small breast implant, but they taste quite good.
- home
-
- otterwort
- October 26th, 11:11
Had a pleasant and productive weekend with the writing friends. Coffee and interesting proteins were ingested. Many topics were discussed. Picasso was all over me from the minute I got home -- which was slightly after midnight, making this morning a little more challenging than hoped. But, it was worth is. Despite the rain, the drive home was pretty decent; I90 is no longer quite a road construction pit of despair.
I soothed my depression about the weekend ending by getting two beverages at Beaners on the way out of town: a caramel marvel and a red bull smoothie. The red bull smoothie tastes like red bull, with lots of slush; not a bad thing at all.
Seen on the way in to work this morning:
-- a truck with a kayak on the roof rack, and a sign on the side that said "geese police", and a sign on the back that said "caution: working border collies"
-- a car with the vanity plate I PRAY 4U. They probably mean well....
- speaking of blood-soaked entrees...
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- otterwort
- October 14th, 16:54
...Chopped also dings contestants for hygiene issues: bleeding on the food, hair in the food, double-dipping, dropping an item on the floor and using it anyway...the frequency with which that stuff happens is rather off-putting. That much cross-contamination in a chem lab would have blown something up by now.
I have cats in the house. And yes they will go anywhere they want to; don't think they won't the minute your back's turned. But I know exactly which surfaces any given spoon has touched, and keep things relatively cat-free using a thorough knowledge of my workspace and plenty of handwashing. It isn't clear to anyone but me, which is part of why I get agitated when others tramp about in my kitchen. Is it perfect? Definitely not. Do I wish I could cage the kitchen and make it off-limits to the cats? Oh my yes. But it mostly works. The weird thing is that apparently it works better than a professional chef's ingrained processes.
What gives? And I so weird for thinking that one must pour food out of a container rather than digging into it with one's hands, for always storing salad on a higher shelf than uncooked meat, or for washing my hands before touching the spice jars?
Am I hygiene queen? Definitely no. But there's a distinction between disorder and hygiene. My messes are strictly segregated (another nitpick that gets my static up when I have houseguests). Stuff that crosses rooms tends to agitate me; there are a few instances of cross-room contamination that I can't avoid in the current house; I hope to change that someday.
And yes, I know I'm basing a generalized comment on the behavoir of reality TV contestants. Real-world confirmation or denial is welcomed.
- Playing the Chopped game
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- otterwort
- October 13th, 21:51
I like watching Chopped. Not because the chefs are apparently all full of themselves, and not because the judges are mighty tetchy. Those things don't thrill me.
Chopped is about the ingredients. The Iron Chef secret ingredient theme taken to extremes. Three courses, three or four secret ingredients for each course, and nasty tight time limits. And they actually discuss the ingredients: what's easy about them, what's problematic, how they really should be cooked...it is actually somewhat educational. Assuming I ever had such ingredients on hand; some of them are quite exotic.
If I were on the show, I'd go down in flames. Probably while accidentally slitting my own wrists when I glance up at the clock to check on how screwed I am.
The game I like to play is the "what would I make with those ingredients if there were just a little more time on the clock". Tonight's dishes behind the cut.
( ingredient spoilers for tonight's ep of Chopped )
Well, that's what I would do, if I were a good enough cook to do it. It's tempting to acquire the ingredients and see what would really happen.
Ironically, dinner tonight was salt&vinegar Pringles and a Vernor's.
- phenology: egad
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- otterwort
- October 11th, 12:11
The night of Oct. 9-10 was the first killing frost here.
Considering the state of the unsalvaged squash, I suspect it did get officially below freezing, too, if only briefly.
Oct. 10 was the first snow (flurries, non-accumulating).
All of which has triggered my huddling instincts. The clear skies that allowed the temperature drop also mean that (aside from the early Saturday flurries) it's been sunny. So there's that at least. And the forecast implies that it will get a smidge warmer for a while - still cold, but slightly above the frost line.
Speaking of the warm-blanket effect of cloud cover, tender plants in parts of the garden were not fully frost-killed. The trees that hang over the garden, and plague me with too much shade and too many roots, are about as effective as floating row cover in preventing frost damage. Something I was aware of from past falls, and the main reason why I haven't severly trimmed the trees yet. That said, the shade level is getting too excessive: this fall, I think, two maples will be severely trimmed. Possibly killed. They're interfering with the white pines anyway.
There's a spruce that might suffer the same fate - anyone need a Christmas tree?
I got home after dark Friday, so I did not do a final harvest before the frost. I did on Saturday, but those melons and squash might well be a loss. Not surprising. Collective Farm Woman melon wins the year, though: it had more melons than the other vines, and more of them ripened. With proper care (rather than what I gave it), it should go gangbusters. Flavor's not bad, either.
The late-harvested tomatoes might do okay - they were protected by tree cover. Green Zebra is still my favorite: tasty and productive.
Since it's now cold, the various brassica greens, and the chard, are perking up and getting ready to shine. Until snow cover makes it too much bother, I should be able to harvest some greens. Carrots are still okay too. And it is now time to harvest the sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes).
- fall yard update, etc.
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- otterwort
- October 5th, 23:25
Despite the chilly weather, still no frost here. Which means the tomatoes are still limping along...alive, but not really ripening. Ditto the remaining squash. And also it's not quite time to harvest the jerusalem artichokes (sweeter after a frost).
But I did finally get around to clearing some weeds over the weekend. The more I clear from the vicinity of the driveway, the less I can run into with the snow shovel (a good way to wrench one's back), and the more space I have for piling snow. Not trying to be pessimistic, just trying to not make things harder than they need to be.
Clearing the weeds allowed me to better see the tunneling creatures' damage to the rock wall. It's on the list...I'm not 100% sold on how it was originally laid up, but that doesn't necessarily justify a full tear-down and redo. But I should do something sooner rather than later - there are plants there whose roots I don't really want to disturb.
The nemorosa sage has some of its cheery blue blossoms, and the yellow-flowered sage is blooming quite well. Likewise the dropmore scarlet honeysuckle is still going; I've trained the year's new growth up around the entryway fencing, using zip ties. The blanket flower has finally stopped blooming (possibly only because I didn't deadhead). Lungwort's still showing (leaves, not flowers). No berries on the bittersweet.
Many small trees to cage/wrap before the rabbits start getting interested in them.
While clearing stuff, I noticed just how much wild grape I've got going on. *sigh* It has a certain survivalist practicality, so I don't hate it, but it sure is invasive, and it can kill a tree. I ripped a bunch out and made a wreath. Canes of grapevine will neatly pull up (without the root, of course) and then the leaves can be stripped off with a gloved hand, leaving the handy tendrils. Start twisting canes around in a loop, and around each other, to make the wreath and use the tendrils to tie it all down. Then I decorated with stuff from the yard: Chinese lantern, blackberry lily, etc. Looks kinda okay. It's now hanging in the space between the honesuckle vines, with a few too-small-to-eat winter squash dangling in the middle. Oo, festive display of yard invasives and garden failures. Arrange a bony finger to point at the squash, and I'll be all ready for that frost.
Back in the real world, I've printed out some info on SOA and ESB, to prep for tomorrow's meeting. But it's pretty dry reading. Same programming languages, different perspective. The new version of object-oriented. Whatever. I find it hard to really look at any of these "new" things and not think of them as the same old things, just coded the way they should have been from the get-go, but weren't because people were hurried, lazy, powerless to enforce standards, or some combination of the above. My two cents on it. I think it's part of why programming doesn't thrill me anymore.
- happier cats
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- otterwort
- October 5th, 20:08
I get stubborn about turning on the furnace for the first time in the fall. The thing that finally prompted me to do it was just how cold Dory looked. I keep wondering if she's arthritic. Anyway, she loves the heat. Rather than spring for a heated pet bed, I sometimes put the heating pad under a soft blanket, and set the heat to low. She likes that almost as much as crawling under the covers with me.
But anyway, I finally turned the furnace on - and nothing happened. Well, better to find out now than later.
It was a disjointed work day - I went in to work, then called the furnace guys, then ended up coming back home at noon for the service call. I guess I don't think of a furnace issue when it's above freezing as requiring same-day service. But it's good to get it fixed.
The problem was a faulty "inducer relay". A $12 part, and he did the fall once-over as well. Same guy as last time, I think; he likes cats. Total bill was $100.23; by homeowner standards that's chicken feed.
When something goes in the house, I always spend some time thinking about whether I should DIY it. I probably could have done this one. But not quickly, because I'd be starting at square one. It was worth the money to me. The relief of one's furnace being given a clean bill of health is a feeling most Midwestern homeowners can relate to.
More frequently than I'd like, something reminds me of just how much ground I lost during ex-ex-boss time. Not just in time wasted in frustration and anger. It's like that time's gone entirely. I have groceries that were purchased during that time and forgotten in the back of the pantry until I found them (expired) much later. I'll have the impression that I did some home maintenance thing "just recently", only to find that the last time I did it was pre-ex-ex-boss. Skills were lost. Confidence was lost. Everything at the house just slid a bit...sometimes more than a bit...it's a testament to the previous owner's anal-retentive construction methods that they didn't slide further. But now, it's like I'm a first-year homeowner again, in a lot of ways. How annoying is that.
The thing that kept me at that job, through all that, was sheer stubborness. I had it in my mind that I wanted to make the probation absolutely irrelevant, and then beat her over the head with my success on the way out. But by the time I'd done the first part, the second part had become a bit pointless; I had a new boss and better things to do. Symbolic revenge rarely has the desired impact anyway. And again the cats dictated the course of action: this house is good for them, and they are good for me.
