Category Archives: GeekWorld

Aging, Dogs, GeekWorld, Woolly Mammoths

Watch the Video

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Summer                 Waxing Green Corn Moon’

Former Door County dairy farmer and Woolly Mammoth Bill Schmidt passes the Dairyland baton to northern Indiana’s Fair Oaks Farm.  Why?  They produce enough milk to provide for the dairy needs of an 8 million person city.  They have 25,000 acres and 32,000 cows, milked 3 times a day on a moving carousel.  Hard to believe?  Watch the video.

Kate and I spent the morning at the Minnesota Spine Center.  We met a confident and capable surgeon who gave Kate some possibilities she had not had before.  Whether any of them will relieve what has now been a 20 year 0rdeal that has caused a lot of pain and cost here 3 1/2 inches in height we do not know, but we will.

Vega the wonder dog continues.  Now she has found the netaphim running through the raised beds.  She has gnawed on some of it though she cut through none of them.  She’s an intelligent, active, inquisitive dog.

The Blackberry Storm I got at the Verizon store got terrible reviews when it first came out.  I have used it for a few days now and can say that the problems I’ve encountered so far fall the into the severely annoying class, frustrating but not crippling.  Example.  Like the I-Phone, the device it attempts to copy, it has an acclerometer that switches the orientation of the screen from portrait to landscape when you turn the phone.  Unlike the I-Phone the Storm does not always respond to the turn, at least not right away.  Likewise the internet link acts up sometimes, offering less than the full website for viewing.

On the other hand it has a full qwerty keyboard in landscape mode and two thumbed typing can  be accurate and fast.  It also has a smaller footprint than the I-Phone, something I appreciate.  It will work for my needs just fine.

I’m back to working out with the full routine:  flexibility, resistance, balance and aerobics.   Body and mind work better when exercised.

Garden, GeekWorld

We’re Baaaack!

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Summer                                Waxing Green Corn Moon

Some new html code somehow turned all the type on some computers black.  Why this happened is not clear, since it never showed up on this computer or friend Bill Schmidt’s.  A long time back it became clear that the last thing done before a problem occurs probably screwed things up.  Yup.

A.T. will go to sleep for now, but the blog will be, as much as possible, in the third person, with no I.  This is an exercise in discipline for a writer.

The netaphim, shredded by Vega, now connects from one end to the other.  The reason for the fence, to allow it to stay that way, now comes into play.

The irrigation clock received new instructions based on something heard at Seed Saver’s over last weekend.  Water once a week, a lot.  Stop.  This encourages plants to grow deeper roots, following the water down.  This is an experiment, we’ll see how it works.  This new setup will eliminate, too, a frustrating situation in which two zones ran at the same time, reducing the flow to both.  At least clearing the computer of all its programming and starting over should fix that.

It’s surprising how many everyday items now rely on computer code.  The irrigation clock.  The weather station.  The blackberry.  Microwave.  TV.  Automobile.  Some experience with computers and with code, even if limited, can make navigating this electronic minefield easier.

GeekWorld

Fade to Black

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Summer                  Waxing Green Corn Moon

The demon of blackness has chosen many screens as his domain, at least many domains that read this blog.  I’ve changed colors here to see if it helps.  Please let me know if it does.

GeekWorld

Gadget

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Summer                        Waxing Corn Moon

A.T. got a Blackberry.  He’s not proud of it, but the life he’s chosen for the next couple of years, especially the Sierra Club part, will require maintaining a calendar while away from home, checking e-mail and using the internet.  A phone with those features made the most sense.  He thinks.  Only use will tell.

A.T. also got a new watchband.  But, sadly, no ring has turned up or come out.  That means soon we’ll have to face the question of how to reband (rebrand?) him.  A ring carries important social and personal meaning.  A.T. feels weird without his wedding band.

GeekWorld

Can You Read Me?

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Summer                          New Moon

Are any of you out there having trouble reading Ancient Trails?  One user on a Mac finds the website totally black, not as that’s existential, dude, but as I can’t see what you’re sayin’ man.

A.T. wants to know if you find the site hard to read for any reason.  Let him know.

Aging, Family, GeekWorld

Waving As They Left

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Summer                        Waning  Summer Moon

Duffel bags and cloth grocery bags went into the plastic Yakima carrier on top of the Colorado state car, the Subaru.  Ruth got in her car seat with the two spongy plastic balls Grandma bought her.  Gabe crawled through the morning grass and got some cutting on his Gap jeans and his pale blue shirt the color of his eyes.  Herschel came out, bounded up in the front with Ruth, then went, reluctantly to his place in the rear where he has a small fan to keep him cool.  Finally, Mom and Dad got in the front seat and the Olson family headed out for points west.

Grandma and I stood, waving as they left.  We were sad to see them go.    Jon will have surgery on his shoulder on August 12th, surgery made necessary by his joint crushing fall now over two years ago.  Jen starts her work in a new school at the end of this month and she’s excited about that.  Ruth and Gabe will continue to head across to Marcella’s, or Humphrey’s as Ruth calls her long time day care provider.

We’ll seem them again sometime in the fall; I may go out for a visit after Jon’s surgery to help out for a bit.  It still feels a bit odd to be the Grandparent, the one visited by the kids after a long drive away from home.  Odd, but good.

Last night I scored a minor geek triumph.  My photoshop elements ceased functioning a good while ago, over three weeks.  This is a program I use a lot.  I got so frustrated with it that I took it to the Geek Squad.  They fixed my disappearing optical drives, sold me two more gigs of RAM but said pass on a photoshop fix.

The guy suggested a repair install or a remove and reinstall.  I did both.  No joy.  I went through all the diagnostics I know the machine has available.  None there either.  Finally, late last night I went back to the chat rooms and found, on an Adobe forum, a possible fix.  I tried it.  Damn.  It worked!  Satisfaction.  Felt pretty damned good.

Installing the two gigs of RAM was the first time in my long experience using computers that I had cracked the shell and done any work inside.  It took a bit of time and care, but, by god, I got them in and now this computer has three gigs of RAM.   More satisfaction.

Family, Garden, GeekWorld

123456789 Tomorrow

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Summer                           Full  Summer Moon

Woolly Mammoth Tom Crane sent this interesting note:

I’ve been alerted to an event that will take place later this week, something that happens once and only once over the course of history. Shortly after noon on July 8, comes the moment that can be called 12:34:56 7/8/9.

Don’t forget.  A once in our calendar moment.

Now that the mulch pile has been moved I can turn my attention to other garden tasks like weeding the clover, checking for new potatoes and looking at the garlic.  Weeding vegetables and perennial flowers.  Harvesting vegetables.  Thinking about how to fill in that spot in the year, late June, with flowering perennials next year.

Jon has one more carpentry task.  We want him to wall in a portion of our utility room to create a cool storage area for fruits and vegetables, an inside root cellar.  I don’t think it will be too complicated for him.  He’s very skilled when it comes to handyman type work.  Thank God.

One of these morning we’re going to the zoo to see the grizzly bears.  I love to go to the zoo but its so far from here in Andover, almost 50 miles.

Aging, Family, GeekWorld, Great Wheel, Woolly Mammoths

Woollys, Grandkids

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Summer                     Waxing Summer Moon

Tomorrow we get the full on Summer Moon.  We’ll have a warm, but not hot night with a brilliant satellite.  No good for astronomy, but great for moon viewing, a favorite activity among the Japanese.

Woolly’s met tonight at the Black Forest.  Mark, Stefan, Bill, Tom, Frank and myself showed up.  Mark got the dam site job.  He reports next Monday morning to Lock and Dam #1, the first official lock on the Mississippi River.  The job runs until the river ices over and the barges cannot come.  Stefan’s been giving himself fits over his children.  A potential liability of parenthood.

I showed off the Kindle.  I’m a fan.

Jon, Jen, Ruth and Gabe are back from a weekend in Chicago.  There was a Bandel family reunion with rooms at the Doubletree and visits to Grandma and Grandpa, Ruth and Gabe’s great-grandparents.  They are back here for four days, then they strike out for home in Denver.