Altivo's Horse Tails

Days of distraction

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:31:11 GMT

So while I was cleaning stalls this morning the hay supplier called from Wisconsin and wanted to bring down a load for us. Said he'd be here at noon. Gary said yes, we need it.

He didn't arrive until 2 pm. Extra big load, 200 bales. OK, we can take all those, except we have to be at the library staff party at 5:30. So we stacked hay, and stacked hay. The temperature was 70F, which is very warm for November. It felt like June as long as you didn't look out the arena door at the bare trees. When we got too tired to throw bales up four levels, we stacked the rest on the floor. Pushed the wagon out of the arena, fed everyone, and rushed in to get cleaned up.

We made it to the party at exactly 5:30. It was fun, but I think we were both groggy.

Tomorrow I'm doing horse chores and then writing all day. Period. Gary has to go to school, so I'll be here alone and should be free of distractions at last.

Oh one other thing. While waiting for the tardy hay delivery, I went through some weaving stuff that was stored up in the barn loft. I wanted the sock loops I knew were there. These are waste from commercial tube sock manufacturing, and look like fluffy versions of those loopers we all used to weave into potholders in cub scouts or whatever. I had about a bushel of them leftover from a project years ago, and they were stored up there. Well, mice had nested in two of the bags. What a mess. Still, about half of the loops were salvageable. The third and fourth bags were pretty much OK. All will have to be washed before using, but that's no big deal. Since I have a rug warp on the loom, and am currently weaving a rag rug out of old jeans, I want to make some bath mats. Sock strips are perfect for that. They soak up water just like a fluffy towel, and weave up into a padded fabric about a half inch thick.

I thought this was a vacation

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:33:01 GMT

The good thing about today: had a nummy dinner with friends visiting. Gary made his famous spaghetti and meatballs, friends brought a super salad, we had home made focaccia with caramelized onions on top (my recipe,) wine and apple cider and some green tea someone brought that looks like a petrified moose turd but you put it in a glass pot and pour boiling water over it and it slowly opens up and blossoms into an elaborate floral sculpture underwater, made from tea leaves. Dessert too: Gary's chocolate chip zucchini cake.

And all the usual chores too, plus we replaced the boys' water trough because it was leaking. The bad thing: I'm getting farther behind because I'm being so careful writing.

So, for anyone who has been waiting patiently for more NaNo output from me (and there will be more, I promise) I offer a story written a couple of years ago, to fill in the gap:

Rabbit Food by Altivo Overo. This is furry and has a transformation in it, but no werewolves. ;p

Oh, and it got up to nearly 70F today I think, and the sky is still clear and there are stars for the first time in what seems like months.

TGIF

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:55:03 GMT

Good grief, is it over yet?

Boy am I glad I took next week off. I'll need it to catch up the lost time on NaNo. Guild newsletter is done, finally, after a long wrassle with uncooperative graphics. Not ideal, but it's done as it gets for this purpose.

Friday was short-handed, which didn't help. Gary is still working on an assignment that won't die for school, meeting again and again with his professor and then again and again with the group for whom he is supposed to be creating the map. Yet another meeting tomorrow, at our house, which means cleaning and cooking and all that.

I wanna start weaving that new warp, but NaNo has to come first. However, sleep has to come before that, in spite of a howling wind out of the south that has raised our temperatures back into the 60F range today.

Erg

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:48:42 GMT

I think I'm still not recovered from Wednesday.

In the interest of avoiding writing, or editing a guild newsletter that I need to get done, Argos finished warping his loom this evening. I'm sure he'll have something to say about it tomorrow. There are more photos, for the curious. The entire 32 inch wide warp (320 individual threads, which isn't a lot for something that wide) is now threaded, sleyed, tied, and tensioned. The header has been woven, and the loom is ready for the actual weaving process now.

We got a new garbage disposal installed today. In the eleven years we've had this house, we have replaced nearly every appliance, including the heating and cooling system. I believe only the water softener is still original at this point. Oh, and the well pump. I don't want to replace that one. We already had it pulled so they could replace the gaskets, though. That was expensive enough. We don't actually use the garbage disposal much, but since we do use the dishwasher, and it drains through the disposal, when the old one died it had to be replaced. In general it doesn't make much sense to grind up food waste and dump it into your septic system, so we compost kitchen waste instead.

I'm flattened, though, so I think I'll go be flat (in bed.)

Order, Chaos, and (ugh) Wednesday

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:20:59 GMT

Argos philosophizes on order and chaos here as he finishes up getting the warp threaded onto his loom.

It was that day again. What more can I say? Did barn chores early, ran off to a Weavers' Guild meeting in Woodstock, then ran to work after staying too long to watch a slide presentation on silk production and weaving in Nepal, Assam, Bhutan, and China. As usual, Wednesday was much too long. No Nano counts yet, though I hope to get some done before falling asleep. If not, tomorrow is a half day of work when I should be able to catch up at last.

If anyone is getting impatient to see just what's going on, the introductory chapter is posted here.

New arrival

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:44:25 GMT

Loom guardian
Originally uploaded by Altivo

The snow leopard I bought a couple of weeks ago arrived in today's mail, and he's a cutie. Also very soft, and a perfect size for lap sitting. His name is now Neige Paw (yes, bilingual punning is intentional) and I think he'll fit right in here. He's already claimed a couple of spots other than his own.

Nano status
Current word count: 4379
Target count would be: 5001

Still behind, but not badly. I can feel the wind filling the sails now.

Nano begun

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:37:04 GMT

Under the full moon, which is brilliant tonight...

Off to a rough start last night, the first chunk of text, though probably usable, needs heavy editing and isn't a suitable opening. Met today's quota with a better opening chapter. I'll post it tomorrow morning, probably and start publishing the link here for those who are curious enough to look.

Current word count: 2682
Target count would be: 3334

As always, I strive for quality, not just quantity. ;p Better a little slow now than floundering later, and I'm off work next week to make this thing move along.

Also pulled together my contributions for the Authors and their Novels staff party on Sunday. You may remember I was to create a multiple choice quiz on the topic.

Here are the questions:

1. Which of the following successful novelists was NOT a woman?

a. George Eliot
b. James Tiptree, Jr.
c. Samuel Richardson
d. George Sand

2. Which of these “trilogies” really does have exactly three books?

a. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
b. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
c. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
d. The Wolves of Time by William Horwood

3. Who was the original author of the unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood?

a. James Fenimore Cooper
b. Edgar Allan Poe
c. Agatha Christie
d. Charles Dickens

4. Which of the following authors continues to appear as a byline on new work, despite being quite dead and buried?

a. Isaac Asimov
b. V. C. Andrews
c. Frank Herbert
d. All of the above

5. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) is often credited as the “father of the modern novel.” His epistolary novel, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded was parodied as An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, later credited to which well-known novelist?

a. Mark Twain
b. Daniel Defoe
c. Henry Fielding
d. George Sand

6. The Brontë sisters, Emily, Charlotte, and Anne, are easily confused by most of us. Though Charlotte was the most prolific of the three, she did NOT write which of the following novels?

a. Wuthering Heights
b. Jane Eyre
c. Villette
d. High Life in Verdopolis

7. A number of 20th Century American novelists have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Which of the following did NOT win this award?

a. Saul Bellow
b. Willa Cather
c. John Steinbeck
d. Pearl Buck

8. Which of the following authors is generally believed to have been the first to submit a typewritten book manuscript to his publisher?

a. Henry James
b. Bret Harte
c. Francis Parkman
d. Mark Twain

9. The Science Fiction Writers of America awarded its first Grand Master title to Robert A. Heinlein in 1977. As of 2008, 25 authors have received this award, and only three of them were women. Two are very well-known authors today, Anne McCaffrey and Ursula K. LeGuin. Who was the third?

a. Andre Norton
b. Marion Zimmer Bradley
c. Kate Wilhelm
d. Elizabeth A. Lynn

10. Which of the following mystery writers is most often acknowledged as the first woman to succeed in the field?

a. Agatha Christie
b. Dorothy L. Sayers
c. Mary Roberts Rinehart
d. Amanda Cross

Answers:

(c) Samuel Richardson was male. The others were all female.

(c) Only Kristin Lavransdatter is a “real” trilogy. Tolkien's masterpiece was actually six books published in three volumes. Douglas Adams wrote five books, and left a sixth unfinished all as part of his “trilogy.” William Horwood intended to write a trilogy but a squabble with his publisher forced him to finish the story in just two volumes.

(d) Charles Dickens left only the first few chapters, but it has since been made into a musical and published with various endings.

(d) All of these authors continue to “write” and publish as if still living.

(c) Henry Fielding is usually credited with authorship of Shamela, though some scholars dispute it.

(a) Emily wrote Wuthering Heights.

(b) Willa Cather never received a Nobel Prize.

(d) Mark Twain claimed in his autobiography to have been the first ever to submit a typewritten novel manuscript to the publisher. He said it was for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, in 1874. It is true that Twain purchased and used a Remington typewriter starting about that time, and quite probably did submit the first typewritten novel, but experts today think it more likely that the actual book was Life on the Mississippi, in 1883. In either case, Twain didn't type his own work. He said the typewriter made him curse and swear and want to throw it out the window, something he also said about numerous fountain pens over the years.

(a) Mary Alice Norton (1912-2005,) who wrote as Andre Norton, was the first woman to be awarded the title of Grand Master by SFWA, in 1983. She also received the title of Gandalf Grand Master from the World Science Fiction Society in 1977.

(c) Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) is probably most often acknowledged as the first woman to succeed in the field of mystery writing.

Tivo and the productive day

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:00:33 GMT

Well, mostly. Thanks to the end of daylight silliness time, the day started an hour earlier by the clock than it would have otherwise. I wasn't sleepy any more and got up. Got lots of regular and not so regular things done, including planning dinner ahead using the crock pot, cleaning stalls, and picking up my show entries from the gallery as today was the last day of the show in Woodstock. What I didn't get started on until quite late was writing, though I spent some time pondering character names and where to start. Nonetheless, I have over a thousand words down now and probably will add more before giving up for the night.

The nearly full moon that was hidden by clouds last night has been visible tonight in the gaps between clouds, extremely bright and large. As we were putting horses to bed for the night, a flock of geese passed overhead making quite a lot of noise. It was already quite dark, and I couldn't resist bursting into song: "Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings, These are a few of my favorite things..." All it got me though, was a dirty look from Gary. "Not my favorite," he said. "It means snow is coming soon." I kept quiet rather than pointing out that I like snow too, at least at the beginning of the season. Right now it's too warm for snow in any case.

Argos has the loom about halfway threaded now, and I expect he'll start weaving within a day or so. Yet another potential distraction from the writing job at hand. Funny how my opening volley depicts the protagonist of the story sitting at his desk and trying to focus on a writing assignment while his attention wanders all over the place. Or maybe not so funny.

Anyway, it's November. The Beaver Moon (time to set traps) is coming in just three days. Meanwhile, I need to get busy writing.

Samhain

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:56:20 GMT

The Vigil of All Saints, All Hallows Eve, Halloween, whatever we call it, it's here. In recent years I haven't paid it much attention in fact, other than to avoid the trick or treat stuff. That's because here in the US it has become just too litigious and dangerous. I prefer not to be accused of having handed out the candy with the needle in it, or the little bags of sand, or whatever. And I prefer not to buy into the commercial success of prepackaged candy makers.

Years ago, when I lived in Michigan, we could still hand out apples at the door. Now you wouldn't dare. Everything must be commercially wrapped and sealed. No homemade cookies or brownies, no more of grandma's fudge. The costumes are rarely homemade or original as far as that goes. Most are prepackaged from the big discount stores. The fun of the event has gone, at least on the public face of it.

On the other paw, Gary is in Chicago this evening (or was,) performing the Dark Morris to dance the sun down. Tonight begins the reign of the Hunter, the Horned God, the Wild Hunt. The Lady will not return until Beltane. Certainly the world outside the house looks the part now. After a week of rain, most of the leaves are on the ground, rustling ankle deep where the wind hasn't removed them. The sky was leaden this afternoon, and though the sun set promptly at 5:46 or so, there was an eerie gap in the clouds on the southwest horizon that continued to glow with reds and oranges like the fires of the underworld. That lasted nearly 45 minutes, much longer than it should have. I'm not very superstitious, but I took extra care to be sure the barns were properly closed and everyone was safe indoors tonight. I won't be comfortable until Gary gets back, which will be a couple of hours yet.

NaNoWriMo begins at midnight, and at 2 am the clocks go back to 1, making this an extra long night. At the moment, it's an extra black one out here in the countryside. The moon is near full, but the clouds are too dense for it to illuminate anything. Perhaps there will be some gaps later, to contribute to the spooky atmosphere.

Whatever you do to celebrate, be wise and safe.

Beaming a warp

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:17:17 GMT

Beaming a warp
Originally uploaded by Altivo

Argos is experimenting with sectional warping, one of several common methods for getting a new warp onto a floor loom. This technique requires additional specialized tools, including spools, a spool winder, spool rack, tension box, and a warp beam divided into sections by pegs or posts; but it has the advantage that a weaver working alone can beam a wide and/or long warp without tension difficulties. It also eliminates several steps in more conventional hand warping, particularly the tedious process of pre-measuring all the individual warp threads while keeping them all parallel and untangled. There are five photos in the sequence. To view them all, click through the thumbnail on the right.

Soggy

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:00:35 GMT

The bizarre weather just won't quit. Another inch of rain overnight. We have no flooding, fortunately, but mud is soft and ankle deep all over the place. It's like late March rather than late October, which is usually pretty dry here. It has also been fairly warm. This morning at dawn it was well over 60F here, and 100% humidity so that I got soaked with sweat just doing feed and water chores. Rain continued much of the day, but not really heavy. Now much cooler and getting pretty windy.

Installed replacement hard drive in the public internet server, reinstalled software, and it came up just fine. Why their tech support kept asking me to try yet another time to reinstall the software onto the dead hard drive, I have no idea. They've been silent since I told them I was ordering the replacement drive anyway. Fortunately, I didn't need them to get things running again, but we could have saved two days of outage if I had ordered the drive Monday rather than late Tuesday. Certainly it wasn't the fact that a replacement drive would be costly. It's a Western Digital 80GB IDE/ATA100 and it cost me all of $49.95. The hardware was out of warranty anyway, so they weren't going to have to pay for it. The outage time and my wasted hours were worth a heck of lot more than a measly $50. And this happens just a week after spending an hour on the phone with the manager of their tech support explaining to her why I think they are doing a poor job...

Argos is beaming a warp using sectional techniques. This is a procedure designed to make it much easier for a weaver working alone to get a wide and possibly long warp onto the loom with little waste and the same tension all the way across. It's pretty clever but looks Rube Goldbergish. I hope tomorrow to have some natural light to photograph a bit of the process so Argos can post to his journal.

For those who will begin the NaNo on Sunday, remember not to cross the starting line until Saturday Midnight your local time.

Speaking of time, daylight "saving" ends at 2 am on Sunday in the US. Clocks go back an hour then, which is going to make sunset ridiculously early here. I'll be driving home in the dark now until some time in March. When I came to Illinois for graduate school in 1971, it took me forever to get used to the early dusk. Actually, Illinois (or at least, the Chicago meridian) has a normal time of sunset. The thing is that I was accustomed to Michigan, which is in the Eastern Standard zone for no particularly good reason, so it's on a sort of daylight saving all year round. When daylight saving is applied on top of that, the state is almost two hours ahead of its correct local time. Summer sunsets come very late at night.

Novel weather

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:37:15 GMT

Rain again. If the forecast is correct, buckets of it. We have a flood watch, but looking at the amounts of snow falling in the western plains and the tornado warnings in Arkansas and Louisiana, I guess I won't complain. Rain is an excuse to do things indoors, after all, and the NaNo starts in a little over two days.

While it would be cheating to start writing now, it's permissible to outline or to define characters and situations. I rarely work from much more than a character or two and a situation, though the first Argos story had me outlining ahead before long to make sure all the bits fell together. This year's story is another trip back in time relative to the Argos and Fennec we first met. I don't think Argos will appear, though he might creep in unexpectedly. Fennec has a cameo, and Hammel a significant role though he isn't the main protagonist.

ARROW: A College Tail takes place while Fennec and Hammel are attending college in the coastal town of Chatton. The complicated plot involves raccoons, wolves, fraternities, an apparent case of what, for want of a better word, I will call lycanthropy, and a series of murders in which all the victims are students and deer (roe deer to be precise.) The unfolding crimes seem to mimic a similar series of events that took place a century earlier and were mostly hushed up. We will learn how Hammel and Fennec first met, and see Hammel involved in his first (though unofficial) crime investigation. The real protagonist, though, is a young raccoon student who wishes with all his heart that he had been born a wolf. There may be some puns and humorous situations, but the overall tale is quite serious and intense. Sexual innuendo, hazing, and apparent speciesism or racism are factors.

I hope that those who have followed previous NaNo efforts will be with me for this one. I have kept the conclusions of the previous stories off the web in hopes that they will be published in print, but this year I promise a full conclusion and denouement. It will be in draft form, certainly, and may not be left online for long, but you will get to see the resolution. I am not attending a convention in November, nor am I building a fursuit. I expect to complete the entire story in the 30 days of allotted time. Join me for the fun (unless, of course, you are busy writing your own.)

Moar tech fail

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:23:44 GMT

Or at least rumors of it as I watched others complaining on twitter and various blogs through the day. Seemed as though everyone was either having technological disasters or else trying to undo those disasters for someone else. Mercury is NOT retrograde, as it turns out, so there has to be some other explanation. Sunspots? A large and active new one appeared just a few days ago. maybe that's it. We've been without them for so long that we've forgotten what it feels like to have them around? ;p

My day was quiet on the tech front, actually. Everything that was likely to break already broke, I think. I'm in the lull while waiting for parts to arrive, at which time I'll have to repair the broken stuff.

I actually cleaned up a little in the weaving room today and we moved the big (55 inches wide) loom out from the wall so I can get a warp onto it. Or so Argos can, at least.

And at the end of a long day, as usual, my brain is mush so I don't have much more to report.

Is Mercury retrograde or something?

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:35:38 GMT

This seems to be shaping up as a week of technology failure. First yesterday's mess at work, which is nowhere near resolved and will have library users throwing rocks through our windows soon because their free internet service is down, and now more this morning.

Mate's computer is in some sort of CHKDSK loop it seems. When booted, it announces that the hard drive is "dirty" and runs CHKDSK which reports no errors but when it gets to "verifying free space" it just seems to stop at 5%. Reboot and the cycle repeats itself.

Google seems to be utterly trashed this morning. Nothing Google related is accessible here. I've poked through DNS and found various apparent referral loops and dead ends. Were they hacked or did they do something to cause a massive failure? Hard to tell, since so much depends on them now. Everything is down.

Ever look at the results for "whois google.com" ?? What's with that? I dunno if you normally get such gibberish as GOOGLE.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM and GOOGLE.COM.ZOMBIED.AND.HACKED.BY.WWW.WEB-HACK.COM and many other such obnoxious entries or if this is a symptom of what's going on. Way down at the bottom you still find what should be the normal entry for google.com, though. Their own name servers are up, but all the public name servers I tried this morning couldn't locate www.google.com or mail.google.com or anything else in their domain.

Writer's Block: Seeing stars

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:24:20 GMT

Which character from any film, television show, or book would you most like to take on a date and why?

Submitted By blue_mariposa88

View 2237 Answers

This is easy to answer, just off the top of my head. A literary character, of course, because film and television make very little impression on me. His name is Bayard Lilian, but most readers will remember him as Streak, the white wolf who rescued Volle from prison in The Prisoner's Release and played a major role in the sequel, Pendant of Fortune, both books written by Kyell Gold.

Gold is noted as a writer of erotica, and those who know me well might be surprised. But Streak is not a cardboard porn star. He is a deeply sincere, lovable, and devoted character who gives the Argaean stories far more depth and intensity than they would have without him. I find it very easy to understand how even a rogue like Volle could fall in love with him.

Ack

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:29:05 GMT

Talk about dodging live ammunition and dashing for cover. After just one day off I came in to work to find my desk covered, the big five user public internet machine down and unbootable, complaints about printers and various other stuff not working, and the climate control in the library once more gone bonkers, with part of the building being heated well into the 86F range while another area was only in the 60s. At least I don't have to deal with the last one.

Hard drive appears to have crashed on the internet shared system, though. This is not going to be popular with users unless we get it back quickly. Vendor insisted that I run dban and try to reload everything to make sure it was the hardware that failed. Running dban took all day, it was still verifying when I left.

Printing issues were caused by some of Microsoft's patches rolled out last week. Fortunately they could be uninstalled.

At least the web site updates were pretty straightforward, and gave me something to do while waiting for dban to finish. The stuff covering my desk was mostly cataloging, which did not all get finished today, but more than half of it did.

Spinning along, hoping to break the one mile marker for the first month of our little friendly competition here. All day drizzle at least showed that the Rain-X applied to my windshield yesterday was in fact functional, though a little heavier coat might be better.

OMG, Sun!

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:15:11 GMT

In spite of the forecast, the sun came out this afternoon. First time we've really seen daylight in what seems like a week, and with another storm system coming in tonight, may be the last time in another week.

Gary and I went on a shopping trip this afternoon, mostly for groceries but he needed printer paper and some other supplies. We had lunch at Chili's, which was OK but I can't help feeling it isn't quite as good as it was a few years ago. At least they've lowered the volume of the music so you can hear each other talking without having to shout.

I made real chili for supper, with black and pinto beans, tomatoes, lots of hot stuff, and kernel corn added. I generally use ground turkey in it, and we like it that way. The chili powder, cumin, and hot peppers overpower any meat that is used in any case.

We also had home made cornbread, and a salad that included ripe pears from our tree. I was a bit surprised this year, since we have only one pear tree left. This is the third year it has bloomed, and I was aware of three pears. Gary found six last week when he went looking after the hard freeze. It's a Beurre Bosc, those brown colored pears with a long conical top and sandpapery skin. They seemed pretty hard, so I left them sitting in a basket. Today I noticed that a couple of them were getting soft and oozing sticky juice from the stems, so I sliced them up for salad. Sprinkled with crumbles of gorgonzola cheese, and mixed greens added, they were delicious but incredibly sweet. I like pears, but there's some limit to my tolerance of sugar. ;p

I expected Tess to be grumpy after being stuck in the arena pen for so many days, but she was in a pretty good mood. I guess she likes the new hay. Other than that, I was spinning today, yarn from our own sheep. I have a lot of wool stored up and decided I need to do something with it.

Tomorrow the big loom gets a warp again. That means I have to put away a bunch of bits and pieces from fursuit construction that are in the way of using it. About time I did that anyway.

Starting to wonder...

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:15:52 GMT

...how long it will take for green stuff to begin growing in my mane. Or if I'm likely to catch the dreaded rain-rot. Another inch of rain in the last 24 hours. The dry creek isn't dry any more. The nicely colored foliage that was evident on Wednesday and Thursday is mostly lying on the ground after almost 36 hours of continuous rain. Now the winds are picking up to remove the rest of it I think.

The bright side, if there is one, is that with the leaves off the trees, radio reception and transmission from this location improves. Heck, we might even be able to receive television (though there's nothing on it that we watch anyway.)

What with a canceled trip and a day off work, I was lazy today. Spent much time reading, spinning, and yawning. It was so gloomy and wet outside, I didn't want to go anywhere or do much of anything. I felt sleepy much of the day, but resisted the urge to nap because I knew it would mean I'd have trouble sleeping tonight. Gary got back home late this afternoon, which helps. I don't sleep well when I'm alone. After more than a quarter century of togetherness, I guess that makes sense.

The whole weekend lies ahead, and I have nothing planned because I wasn't going to be here. It's like an unexpected vacation in place of an expected one.

Oh, I snagged a cute looking plush off the internet, I think. It's actually from the gift shop of a wildlife charity (Snow Leopard Trust) and looks very cute in the photo.

Jeez, enough with the rain already

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:59:50 GMT

It has been raining more or less continuously since last night. Sometimes just light sprinkling, other times a deluge. Gary drained a half inch from the rain gauge this morning, there was another 5/8 inch at sunset, and it hasn't quit raining since then. Supposed to rain all day tomorrow and probably into Saturday. Of course, if all this were to be snow, we'd have more than a foot. Hmm...

Maybe just as well we called off that trip to Ohio. Tentatively reset for second full weekend of November. I'll have to miss a guild meeting, but that's OK. If we go then, we get to visit the Ft. Wayne hamfest, giving me a chance to sit for my long-delayed extra class exam. I have the week before that off work, ostensibly to work on the NaNoWriMo but should also give me time to brush up on the exam questions. After 27 years as a licensed amateur radio operator, I really should finish off the exam cycle and get the highest available level. Most folks were held back by the 20 wpm morse code test, but that has been abolished. I actually was able to pass the code test, but distaste for the pointless grilling about satellite operation modes and memorized frequency tables was what kept me out of the exam room. The added privileges, though there are some, are of little value to me, and I have no interest in changing my station call sign. The extra class does add a little more credibility to your status as a radio op, I suppose.

Since I'm not going to Ohio, the day off I scheduled for tomorrow will not be taken up on the road. That means I get to either squander it on nothing or do something useful, or maybe a mix of the two. UPS say they will deliver some weaving tools I ordered tomorrow, so I should probably clean up the weaving room and make room to try them out. On the other hoof, I just started reading Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood and it's off to a good start, so I could just sit inside where it's dry and read. Hmm. Hard decision.

The sound of the rain is not unpleasant, except that it brings back the worry about hay. I think it unlikely that there will be any more hay made this year. The forecast calls for rain every day well into next week, and temperatures are dropping so that hay cut now will probably not cure properly. We can still get more hay from storage, fortunately, but the excess rain makes the approach to the barns soft and treacherous for a heavy-loaded vehicle or trailer. That means probably we will have to wait to take delivery until the ground freezes. The first delivery that we got is enough to last until New Year. We'll need at least two more that size or three smaller ones to make it into next year's hay season.

Bleah!

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:57:42 GMT

Too tired to make a real post I am. Oh, it's Wednesday again, no wonder.

Looks like we need to add memory to about eight machines at work in order to get around some limitations in the new version of Userful software. Fortunately, they're old Pentium III class Dells, all the same model, and the memory upgrade will cost about $18 for each machine. That I can do without busting any budgets.

Their tech support has a hard time understanding why we don't just buy new machines. After all, these are "so" old. But they still work just fine, and it shouldn't be necessary to use some turbocharged overpowered equipment just to fetch catalog records. The difference between $150 to upgrade eight machines' memory or a minimum of $8000 to replace those machines is not insignificant and especially not in the current economic climate.

After I said the foliage colors were disappointing here this year, today I drove from Woodstock to Harvard on US14 right at noon with the sun out and the sky clear. There was a lot of color on that route, plenty of reds, oranges, yellows and rusts. Missing were the pinks and purples we sometimes get, but still the display wasn't bad at all.

Trip to Ohio is in the balance due to a vehicle failure (not mine.) We may still be able to go, but if we take my car, then the desired cargo definitely can't fit. It will be just the two furries and luggage. To be decided...

Holiday party plans

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:06:09 GMT

This is amusing. We've been letting the library staff Christmas/New Year party creep later and later. Three years ago, it became a Chinese New Year party, in fact. This started from the idea that it was just too hard to find a date when everyone could make it during the holidays. Two years ago it came around Presidents Day in February. Last year (or early this year, if you like) it somehow never happened at all. So this year we are having a National Novel Writing Month Party in November. This is sort of like the state's library grant budget, which has been creeping later and later every year, until this year the check arrived about eight months late.

Anyway, it should be fun all the same. This year the party will center around "Authors and their books." We will have a trivia quiz with multiple choice answers and prizes. (Not my idea, but then someone said "Gary will get them all anyway, so he can make the quiz." Boo. The curse of being "the reference librarian" I suppose.) Options include bringing a pot luck dish that was mentioned in a novel, or had a recipe given in a novel. (Like Water for Chocolate anyone?) Another option is to dress as a character from a familiar book and let people guess who you are. I think much merriment can be expected. I said I would wear the Argos costume and represent White Fang except that I can't imagine eating goodies while wearing all that spotless white fur. ;p

I guess the trivia quiz will include things like "Name the first novel submitted to the publisher as a typewritten manuscript" or "Which of these 'trilogies' actually does have just three books, no more and no less?" I'll welcome any clever suggestions. The questions should not be too obscure or difficult, or I'll be tarred and feathered for my trouble.

In other news, I've had an open problem with a software vendor for over six months. They have not fixed all the aspects of it, and in fact some of their attempts have generated new issues. Every so often one of their tech support drones comes along and tries to close it "because it has been open too long without action." They did that again Monday and I reopened it, using some rather strong language about how my opinions of the company and their support had fallen over the edge as a result of this thing. That finally got some action. The manager of their technical support group called me today and we talked for almost an hour. She now understands some of the issues and where the company failed to communicate properly or failed to respond appropriately. She promised to act to keep these things from happening again to others, and is reassigning our problem to herself. Unfortunately, some of the issues are related to incorrect information having been given to us about a software upgrade, and I don't think there is a satisfactory way to resolve them unless I suddenly get a miracle budget grant to buy half a dozen newer PCs. There also is an issue about some "hardware guy" at the company using the excuse that "Dell hardware doesn't work right," which is simply an excuse that won't fly. They are in the business of selling software and support to a market that is dominated by Dell. They jolly well better figure out what their problem is with Dell hardware and fix it (if in fact there is such a problem, which I very much doubt.) Trying to blame a problem on Dell is the same as trying to blame it on Microsoft. You can say it as loud and as often as you want, but no one will be paying attention. If their software doesn't work on Dell, they are cutting off their own appendages.

Thunder in the distance? Yup. Latest weather forecast says scattered thunderstorms on the way, and I see some on the radar heading toward us. Time to post this and shut down.

Crazy neighbors

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:04:55 GMT

Chainsaws again all weekend. This morning we woke up to the sound of heavy equipment, as in bulldozers and such. Sure enough, they were over there pushing down trees and shrubs. Knowing that they were very close to the property line, we ran out with a compass, surveyor's tape, and a copy of our survey. The line is 41 feet due west of the southwest corner of our arena, which is quite a bit farther than anyone is likely to expect, and well on the far side of the creek at that point. Gary had me hold the end of the tape while he crawled through the undergrowth with it. The foreman (we assume) of the construction crew came over to ask who he was and what he was doing. I couldn't see, but could overhear the whole thing. The guy was actually quite polite.

Gary explained, and the response was "Oh good. You're the neighbor then. Glad you came to check."

They did have the line figured to within a foot of where Gary put it. The guy explained that the Brits were putting up a pole barn. OK, this is their right, provided they get a building permit and stay within their property lines. They had indeed clear cut everything right up to the edge of our land. Code here requires a ten foot setback for any permanent building, and the foreman said they were staying back fifteen feet to be sure, and the roof will have a one foot overhang beyond the base of the building. So that's fine. Maybe their horses will stay home when they have a barn of their own, instead of wandering into our barn looking for hay.

Now I'd have thought it was good manners (even if not required by law) to advise neighbors of a major construction project like that, and explain where it would approach lot lines or affect drainage or overhanging branches, but of course nothing of the sort was done. Construction begins today. At least the crew leader was polite and (I hope) honest, which is more than I can say for the neighbor himself. Unfortunately for us, I don't think this is going to reduce the noise levels from over there at all, either during construction or after, but I guess I can stop worrying about my own oak trees for a while. Provided, of course, that Brit neighbor himself isn't operating the equipment. He has a propensity for crashing through fences and over lines, as demonstrated in the past.

Back to work

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:51:54 GMT

Weekend busier than being at work. Thank goodness this is a four day week. If plans hold together, going with quickcasey to visit loriana and aerofox next weekend. Yay. Almost like a real vacation, sorta.

We had the dinner meeting. Gary got to talk to our friends that he's working with to create this map project. He made most of dinner, I did dessert and helped with the breads and that was all. It was really good: Moroccan chicken with couscous, two kinds of bread with Moroccan tomato salad and hummus, sweet and sour cabbage soup... All successful, lotsa dirty dishes. Thank goodness our dishwasher works. Dessert was Louisa May Alcott's apple slump, always successful.

Oh, and we cleaned the house some, decluttering and vacuuming, which is always a side effect of having visitors for dinner.

Successful weekend, overall, just not very restful.

Loose sheep!

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:21:33 GMT

Oh well, no Trail of History this year either looks like. Gary is wrapped up in a school assignment that has grown rather large and unwieldy. He did barn chores this morning but has been busy with this project ever since and shows no sign of nearing completion. I hope he doesn't stay up all night with it because that never works out well. Tomorrow afternoon some of the folks who are supplying data for him and who will inherit the finished maps and brochure are coming here for dinner to look at his draft version.

It's OK, though. The weather is pretty chilly and I certainly have plenty to keep busy with here myself.

While getting hay for Tess this morning, I walked across a folded tarp in the arena and a big orange cat came squirting out from under it. We've seen him around out there for a while now, and he seems to be considering taking over Ricky Too's place as chief mouse arrestor for the hay storage. Gary calls him Ricky Three because their coloration is so similar, but this one is younger and less battle scarred. He's also not as fat but definitely healthy looking.

This afternoon I saw a slate colored junco (also called a "snowbird") outside the dining room window. These little birds usually show up here only in winter and disappear shortly after the spring thaw. Many people swear that they fly in with the first snow, hence the nickname. So far I've only seen one, but often they will outnumber any other bird species here when the snow is on the ground.

Originally the forecast called for a low of 24F overnight (brrr!) but no snow. Now they've revised it upward to 30F. We're really well above 40F still, so I'm resisting the temptation to fire up the woodstove for purely psychological reasons. ;p

About 5:30 Gary looked out the window and said "There's a sheep in the horse paddock." I looked and said "No, there isn't." I was right, at least when I looked, but it turned out that the sheep were standing between their own fence and the paddock fence. Fortunately it was supper time anyway so they came running right into their pen in the barn when Gary rattled the sheep chow container. It was clear that they had pushed down one whole side of their fence and walked over it. My fault, I forgot to turn the zapper on this morning. The youngest ewe, Jeannie, is apparently coming into season, and one of the wethers who still thinks he's a ram (Dodge) was aggressively chasing her around. That's probably what started the fence collapse.

And that's the news from Fuzzy Bear Farm, where the sheep are noisy and the horses are nosy and the cats are all above average, each and every one...

Fried day

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:05:52 GMT

Only because it was too long. Started at 4:30 am so I could get the chores done before meeting library staff for a birthday celebration breakfast before work.

Found out at the breakfast that the boss has announced her retirement to the library board last night. Not unexpected, but now it's official. No date set but sometime next summer. Last time a library director retired I was not able to live with the resulting shuffle and resigned my own job. This time is not allowed to be like that, as I must stay until next September in order to vest my retirement fund. And no, I don't want her job.

My last bunny, Lily, died today. She was nine years old. I knew she was declining, and the symptoms were kidney failure, probably Addison's as her fur started growing oddly shaggy in the middle of the summer and she began sleeping more and more. When she stopped drinking water this week I knew it wouldn't be long. She fell asleep while eating her cabbage leaf this morning, and I think that was the end.

Gary was in Chicago since yesterday, helping his mom. I met him for dinner out right after work and we went to Amy and Friends, a local folk music gathering at Amy and Ray Beth's that happens once a month except December. That was nice, and I got some spinning done while listening.

Now must [yawn] sleep. Possibly Trail of History tomorrow depending on weather.