Altivo

Actually I kept thinking all day that it must be Saturday because I wasn't at work.

Finished up tax forms and mailed them. Sat in on Kishwaukee Ramblers rehearsal, which is always a treat. I don't often get to just play music any more and especially not in such a relaxed company. On the way home we stopped at my favorite produce market (Joseph's in Crystal Lake) and bought more fresh veggies than would fit in the fridge. Also some frozen pierogi that happened to take my fancy. Tried the potato with cheddar and jalapeno ones with fish and cauliflower and they were quite good.

Then we watched the rest of the Terry Pratchett film, another 90 minutes plus at least 60 minutes of bloopers, deleted scenes, and cast interviews. Not a very productive use of time but certainly enjoyable.

Now bed, I think. Short hard frost early this morning appears not to have damaged apple blossoms or lilacs, thank goodness.

I did nothing that really counted as work other than helping to feed critters. Played around on the computers, just fiddling. Rode with Gary into Chicago to take his mom shopping and out to lunch. We went to The Olive Garden, which is kinda over-priced but good stuff, since Gary still had a gift card from Christmas that was usable there. The gift card bought lunch for the three of us, so it was all gravy. Or should I say pasta? I had eggplant parmesan, one of my very favorite dishes. We also like their (all you can eat) salad, with the bruschetta appetizer (thin slices of toasted bread sprinkled with some garlic and Romano cheese, served with diced tomato and basil leaves.)

Came home and did more nothing. There are plenty of things that I could and should be doing, but I didn't feel like it. Helped a bit with evening chores, nearly put Tess out in the pasture for the first time this spring but Gary was out there working with Red and we aren't ready for an "off-lead" meeting of horse and dog. Helped him bring his agility jumps and some plastic hoops and cones from the arena to the dog yard so he can use them there with Red.

Mail was all just letters from places asking for donations of money I don't have. No messages or phone calls from work, so nothing to worry about. I do have to go in for tomorrow evening, about four hours. Then I'm done for the rest of the week.

Well, enough so I had to turn on the windshield wipers to blow it away. For this late in the year, insignificant here. It was real snow, though. And cold.

Got to work, dragged a laptop out to where the public ports are, plugged it in. Tried every test I could come up with, and it still worked. Sorry, guy who complained to someone that you couldn't connect yesterday. Our system is working. Yours is not.

Wireless router came in today's mail. That was quick! Took it to work with me, and did find a few minutes to test it. Of course they provide no real documentation, only notes for idiots. Worse, they failed to provide half a dozen lines on the default power on state and settings, that would have allowed me to configure it in minutes from any PC, even one running (gasp) Linux. Oh no, they had to insist that you must initialize it by running a "wizard" program off a CD, which only works on a Windows PC. Assholes. So I did it their way, and in the process figured out all I really would have had to do. Now set up, using WPA and working at home. And yes, the Zipit connects to it just fine, though the present location of the router gives a pretty weak signal at the other end of the house. Have to change that.

Tried out links (text based web browser) and irssi (irc client) in the Linux shell on the Zipit, and both worked. In the default graphical environment, the streaming radio player works fine, and I had difficulty with the IM client. It won't connect to either AIM or Yahoo, dunno why. Same name and password work fine in pidgin on Linux.

We've made an appointment to go down to Bloomington to see and hopefully bring back Red, the dog the adoption folks selected for us. I think he's going to fit in well here and be happy, but we have to go see him to confirm that.

Off work tomorrow because the service guy is coming to check the ground loop on our geothermal. Off again next Thurs. to go to Bloomington. And now, bedtime.

Actual weaving. It's a miracle. One rug completed, another partly finished. Too bad this is the end of vacation. Back to work tomorrow.

They seem to have blown through without doing much here other than making noise and spitting a bit, though I guess points south of here did get soaked pretty well. Temperature has dropped off and the radar looks clear to the west.

Gary had a class tonight, and drove home through the tail end of a severe storm warning. Meanwhile I made stir fry of six vegetables and a tiny bit of leftover steak. Also baked an apple pie using the last apples from last year (Jonathans) and some new ones from this year (Paula Reds.) We'll see how that turned out in a few minutes.

Went shopping today and got some new jeans that were badly needed as my only remaining ones were becoming threadbare. Also stopped for some art supplies for tomorrow, which will hopefully include fair weather.

Early this morning had a bit of an enlightenment experience as I finally figured out how to squelch some weird issues on VMS that were appearing on both Alphas and also on the emulated VAX. It was partly due to a home directory being misplaced but mostly a result of a bad example I got somewhere showing modifications to a user's LOGIN.COM script. Once the simple fix was applied, it became possible to start any text editor without getting 15 seconds of pointless error messages (the editor would work anyway, but you had to sit through all the warnings each time.) I no longer have to think twice about starting up EVE or LSE.

Now to sample the pie. Report later.

...but almost no mosquitoes. We seem to have crossed the critical length of time without significant rain so that the little buggers have all dried up. Of course, hot humid weather means flies and we have plenty of those. Fly spray on the horses works much better than mosquito repellent does, though.

Theoretically, tomorrow should start feeling like a vacation, since I'm not going to work. Car goes in for 36K service, though, and Gary wants me to go to Chicago with him to visit his mom, which I'll probably do.

I got inspired and made ratatouille crêpes for dinner. They turned out pretty well, except that the jalapeño I added was rather hotter than I expected. My ratatouille normally has some cayenne or a small hot pepper anyway, and I had the jalapeños on hand so I used one. It was so powerful that even after washing my hands twice with soap and water I could still feel the burn when I touched a finger to my lips. It diluted in the overall dish though and the result was quite acceptable.

Tess went out this morning and came in at noon, quite willingly as it was getting hot and stifling out there. She still fussed about being alone in the afternoon, though, and gave me a lecture every time I passed by, even if I stopped to pet and talk to her.

Apparently there are no black walnuts to be found around here this year. What few there may have been seem to have been taken by the squirrels already. I did find an empty shell this afternoon that was clearly the work of a squirrel. Most every natural dye source that is readily available now produces shades of yellow, and I need a contrast to yellow. Looks like either I take a chance on walnut bark, which is obtainable, or I go buy something like indigo. Need to decide pronto and get this done before the week ends.

I've been off work for nine days and have to go back tomorrow. I did get a lot of things done, but very little of the main goal, which was editing. There were too many other priority interrupts, like the hay deliveries and the need to immediately stack hay bales. Oh well.

Now to see how the apple pie turned out. We got some home grown apples from a friend. They are quite tasty, but rather misshapen and some are a bit buggy, so it's easier to peel and cut them up for pie (omitting the bugs of course.) Report later. First pie, then bed.