The Boss
Current Wx: Temp: 69.57°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 53% Wind: 6.17mphWords: 54
One of my favorite memories of Schatzi. She wouldn't often do this, but often enough.
Coincidentally, that's Springsteen on in the background and the closed caption lyric is from Promised Land
And the dogs on Main Street howl
'Cause they understand...
Bruce is the Boss, but Schatzi was a boss. Miss that little pup.
✍️ Reply by emailRushing Dawn
08:21 Sunday, 31 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 51.31°F Pressure: 1025hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 1.66mph
Words: 65
I hate picking titles. This turned out okay, I think. But it gives you a sense of what our little piece of the world looks like.
✍️ Reply by emailUseless Desires
Current Wx: Temp: 45.07°F Pressure: 1025hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 2.55mphWords: 209
How the sky turns to fire
Against a telephone wire
And even I'm getting tired
Of useless desires
Last night's sky, and a favorite of mine by Patty Griffin.
The OM-1 is on the porch making a timelapse. I tried yesterday, but I think the battery was too low. It quit taking pics about two-thirds of the way through the number of images I'd selected.
So a fully charged battery this morning, more images, faster frame rate in the movie and I'm trying it at 4K. We'll see how this turns out.
That dark lines aren't telephone wires, but power lines. The fiber line is below them, probably hidden in the shadows.
Last day of Blaugust, if anyone is keeping track.
On This Day has my first post about Schatzi. I should post a pic later. Miss that little pup. We brought her with us up here to the Finger Lakes on vacation, and she was a trooper. We called her "Adventure Dog," because she was up for anything we wanted to do.
The same post mentions my efforts at weight loss. Some things just never change.
Thought I had more to say, but I guess not.
Anyway, the beat goes on.
Film at eleven.
✍️ Reply by emailThe Gorge
Current Wx: Temp: 54.79°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 6.06mphWords: 438
Cloudy today, so no timelapse effort.
We hiked the Watkins Glen gorge yesterday. Beautiful day for it, clear and cool. We got there a little earlier than we had in years past, and later in the season, so there weren't as many people on the trail. Though it did pick up as the morning went on.
They're replacing the bridge at the entrance to the gorge trail, so we had to hike up the stairs to the north rim trail and then back down into the gorge. That got my achilles activated! By the time we were hiking back down the stairs it wasn't a lot of fun.
I brought along the OM-3. I know I keep saying this, but I really need to sit down and dial in some custom modes. I wasn't happy with many of the shots I took, but that's on me and not the camera. We're looking forward to doing this again in the fall when the leaves are changing color.
There is a new, sixth, season of Unforgotten out, and we finished watching that last night. If you're unfamiliar, it's a British production, streamed by PBS as part of its Masterpiece brand. Season five looks to be available on Prime. Chris Lang is the creator and the writer for each episode, and each series follows an identical template. Human remains are discovered, we're introduced to the potential suspects, the remains are identified and the investigation begins.
The police procedural is just the scaffolding for a close examination of human nature and issues of current interest or importance. This season looks at immigration, the struggle in academia regarding, well, "wokeness" for lack of a better term, and right-wing media. The two lead investigators, DI Sunil Khan and DCI Jess James, are given complex emotional lives that feel authentic as opposed to bolted-on.
As I've written before, part of its appeal is it's unlike any popular American cop series I've seen. There are no histrionics between the leads and their superiors, no bullying interrogations, no guns, no chases. It's intensely low-key, and all the more interesting for it. You feel for all the characters, as they all have something they wish to hide, as indeed we all do, that the investigation eventually uncovers.
I loved Nikola Walker in the first four seasons, and her departure was a gut-punch.
Anyway, I enjoyed this season. It's genuinely immersive and engaging, at least to me. I'm sorry it's over so soon, but it was a welcome bit of entertainment.
Unlike the stupid movie from Apple that shares the title of this post.
✍️ Reply by emailTimelapse Experiment
08:14 Thursday, 28 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 52.39°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 78% Wind: 7.52mph
Words: 131
I wanted a quick and dirty test to see if it was worth making a more "serious" effort. The TG-6 only permits 299 frames, and at 30fps, that's only a 10s video. I could've increased the time between shots and captured more of the movement, but it was just a test.
✍️ Reply by emailLunch Guest
06:12 Thursday, 28 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 46.96°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 7.27mphWords: 508
We paid a young man to clear out a lot of weeds and grapevines, a few Morrow's Honeysuckle bushes, and a few sumac bushes so we could get a view of the road. Well, not really. Mostly because they just looked awful.
But since we've had them removed, it's made the yard seem to flow into the broader landscape beyond. It really is a remarkable transformation, and it was completely unexpected.
It's also aroused the curiosity of a pair of fawns who've been coming by to nibble on the new shoots pushing up through the ground. They were here on Tuesday and I went out to get a few shots, not realizing the SD card was still in the MBP.
I normally leave the card door open on the camera so I don't forget that it's empty, but my desk was crowded and so closing the door made for a slightly better fit amongst the clutter. Lesson learned.
Yesterday they returned. Put a few up on Flickr.
Today's On This Day in the marmot was interesting, partly because the agent collected a lot of construction elements. Had to scratch my head a bit on how to remove them. Apparently I did a lot of work on the marmot on this day eight years ago. Didn't take long to figure out I just needed to change the $PublicationDate attribute to "never" for each of those elements and the problem went away.
But there are a couple of long-form posts from back in the day when I did that sort of thing. I'm not sure if anyone ever read them, but they hold up pretty well I think.
For some time, I was kind of baffled about how Germany allowed the Nazis to come to power, and then obeyed them for twelve years. Was it something unique about the German character? Nope. Just human nature. Resistance is hard, and it doesn't seem to be in our nature. For all of our self-flattery about American "rugged independence," and "just plain cussedness," we're pretty much sheep too.
It turns out that somewhere around a third of humans actually welcome authoritarianism. Maybe it makes them feel less insecure. So would-be dictators have a pretty strong base to start from. Then you have an imperfect democracy, with weak institutions and an indifferent electorate, and pretty soon you elect yourself a dictator. And once they're in power, well, they're going to dictate that they should never leave power.
Where are the mass demonstrations? The labor strikes?
There are individual acts of courage here and there, but for the most part it's been crickets as Trump has build a secret police force, and begun occupying American cities with military forces.
He used to brag he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his poll numbers would go up. If he starts rounding up Jews, pretty sure he'd get away with it. "Never again?"
We'll see.
Pretty sure we can't wonder about Germans and the Nazis anymore, either. We're the same people they were.
✍️ Reply by emailMoon Descending
09:36 Wednesday, 27 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 55.94°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 8.72mphWords: 100
Happened to look out the window last night and saw this.
In other news, it's now official. I got my New York State driver's license, registered the Maverick in New York and registered to vote in New York. I've returned a card I received from the St Johns County Supervisor of Elections telling them to cancel my Florida voter registration.
Now if we can only sell that house, we'll have no significant "legal" ties to Florida. Family ties will remain, but we won't be paying property taxes to a state that is undemocratic, hateful and cruel.
I'll call that "progress."
✍️ Reply by emailSunset
Current Wx: Temp: 47.86°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 4.9mphWords: 436
A metaphor for American democracy and the Constitution.
Trump is hoping to stir enough unrest to cancel the 2026 elections. Not sure how we come back from this. What was it Jefferson said? "People usually get the kind of government they deserve," something like that?
Awesome.
Tried to rip the CDs I bought the other day, and I can't seem to get my external optical disc to be recognized. I was able to get it to work for Springsteen's Tracks II a few weeks ago, but now it won't mount at all. I'm pretty sure the device is ok, I think it's just the bullshit of Apple's platform and how they've managed to fuck up USB and security.
(Plus, if you can't "rip, mix, burn," then I guess you have to buy or rent your music from Apple. Winning!)
I suppose it's hyperbolic to say I "hate" Apple. But I can say that there was a time when Apple products enriched my life. Now they mostly make it more frustrating. Not that there's a product or platform out there that's any better, that could "surprise and delight" me. It's all just crap, and we all have to wade through it every day to get wherever it is we wish to go.
The landscape around here continues to surprise and delight me, thankfully.
Our contingency offer has been withdrawn. She wanted us to extend the deadline another thirty days until she, hopefully, sold her condo. We told her fine, make the deposit non-refundable. She declined, we said so long. Her realtor is a real jerk.
Anyway, had a showing yesterday. They were oblivious to the security camera. Wife loves the place, husband thinks it's "too small." Someone ought to tell him, "Size doesn't matter."
Feels like fall around here. Highs in the 70s, cool nights. We made a fire for the first time in Mitzi's fire pit. The neighbor came over and joined us. At one point the topic was cell phone radiation (electromagnetic, not nuclear) and the health risks, as we sat inhaling enormous quantities of smoke.
Still, I enjoyed the fire.
Got to see a waxing crescent moon descend and disappear behind a cloud, only to reappear beneath it and slip silently below the horizon.
That was pretty cool.
No mosquitos either.
I can't believe what's going on in my country. Can't wrap my head around it. I mean, I understand it all. I just didn't know how weak and fragile our institutions were, and how cruel and indifferent my fellow citizens were.
At least I can confidently assert, "I was a good German."
✍️ Reply by emailBefore the Sunset
Current Wx: Temp: 57.56°F Pressure: 1010hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 6.06mphWords: 151
We were watching After the Sunset, a semi-entertaining bit of fluff from 20 years ago with Pierce Brosnan and Selma Hayek, during a thunderstorm. I glanced out the window at one point and noticed some red in the sky, so we paused the movie and looked out the window.
I should probably get more "serious" about photography, because I grabbed the E-M5 when the OM-3 was sitting right next to it, and I might have enjoyed working with the file a bit more. Failing that, I should have tried some exposure bracketing. -.7ev exposure compensation was a bit much.
We got about an inch and a half of rain, and it came down hard. Haven't checked, but I'm sure it hasn't helped the driveway. I welcomed the rain for the black walnut, which seems to be doing okay.
Anyway, I love the views here.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailThe Bomber Mafia
15:19 Sunday, 24 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 78.66°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 4.27mph
Words: 260
Finished Gladwell's glorified blog post this afternoon. Serious criticism may be found in this review at Army University Press, and if you're interested in a more scholarly opinion than mine whether or not to spend your time reading this book, read that review.
Gladwell is a dilettante. A product of the internet. He "surfs" his topics, looking for the "angle." Then does his confirmation bias research to promote his reputation as a contrarian with "new" or "fresh" insights.
Most of his stuff is probably harmless, except insofar as it is mistaken as serious work, which it too often is. But it's especially offensive given the nature of this particular topic.
I don't regret spending my dollar for this bullshit, but I nearly do.
There may be a longer post forthcoming, because the same phenomenon that gave us the bomber mafia, also brought us the internet triumphalists of the early blogosphere. The Cluetrain people, the "smart mobs" people. "This changes everything!" Supposedly for the better.
Inevitably, not so much.
But the "visionaries," garner attention. Get funding. Book contracts. Page rank. Money.
Frauds. All of them. Not purposely. Perhaps "fools" would be more appropriate.
Technology changes how we do things. It compresses action in time, and expands it in space (in both directions). In the main, technology does not change what we do.
And it is in the field of action, what we do, where our morality or judgement is revealed.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our technology but in ourselves.
Technology may change, but human nature remains the same.
✍️ Reply by emailBreakfast Club
Current Wx: Temp: 67.51°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 8.99mphWords: 600
I started to go outside to take care of a little chore and spotted one of these fawns. Stepped back inside and closed the door and pointed it out to Mitzi through the window. She spotted the second one. We watched for a little while, they seemed to be enjoying the tender bits of new growth from where I'd whacked some of the weeds.
Mitzi opened the door and stepped out onto the porch and they didn't seem to notice her. She asked for a camera and the E-M5 was handy, so I gave that to her. It was last used with -.7ev exposure compensation, and I didn't notice it when I handed it to her, but it brightened up ok in Photos.
Of course, as soon as she brought the camera to her eye, they noticed that. And right after she pressed the shutter, they bounded off up the hill.
Yesterday was trash day, and the Watkins Glen Public Library was having its annual book sale. So we stopped in after we dropped off the trash. We were early, so we became Friends of the Watkins Library (FOWL) so we could go in and look around. They had a large collection of books, fairly well organized. What I found most interesting were several people with their phones mounted on their wrists and a scanning device they used to scan the books and then deposit some in a plastic tote. They were moving pretty efficiently as all the totes were nearly full. I guess resellers hire people, or maybe these were resellers themselves.
Despite the competition, I found several books to bring home, even though I have no place to put them. I got a copy of Malcom Gladwell's The Bomber Mafia. It's really just a long essay and I got halfway through it yesterday afternoon. I really don't care for Gladwell or his writing, but I was interested in the topic, something I wrote a paper on thirty years or so ago as a student in the Naval War College non-resident program.
Gladwell's book is a gloss, mostly interesting trivia and the broad strokes of the myth of "strategic bombing." I'd call it something like an entertaining diversion, rather than a historical work. That is, if I found Gladwell's writing entertaining. But for a buck, it's a welcome break from the grinding minutia of Gannon's Colossus.
After shopping for books, we came home and had lunch and then spent some more time working in the yard, which then earned me a couple of hours in the recliner with Gladwell and the bombers.
After dinner we read some more. Mitzi got a book about James Hope, a 19th century painter from Watkins Glen, which she was enjoying. It's a slim volume and she finished it last night.
Then I bought a digital copy of Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning. I was hopeful because I seem to recall it received decent reviews. Mitzi saw it in the theater when I was up here in May and she was using up gift cards. She liked it. For me, it was meh. The plot was weak and the whole thing was more an homage to the franchise and a Tom Cruise stunt exhibition, which the plot was structured around.
I guess I'm glad I saw it, it's only shame I couldn't have waited until it showed up on a streaming service for free.
Taking it easy today. Yesterday's yard effort seemed to have tweaked my back again.
Thanks for dropping by. As always, well, for now anyway, the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by email"It's full of stars..."
06:18 Saturday, 23 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 60.03°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 7.14mphWords: 896
The sky was clear again last night, so I tried to prepare a bit for going outside after dark and seeing if I could get the Milky Way. I used Live Time for this shot. It's basically bulb mode, the shutter opens and remains open until you press it again. (So, not like bulb mode in that respect.) You can get a certain number of display updates, depending on the ISO setting, the higher the ISO, the fewer the updates. This isn't a tutorial, and I'm not certain I really understand how to use it, but this was the second of two efforts, this one at ISO 1600. It's a 48.5s exposure, so there's some trailing in the stars.
The thing I love is that I could see the Milky Way when I stepped outside, so I knew where it was. Now, it doesn't look at all like what's in the photo, and the jpeg SOOC doesn't look like this at all either. Someone more knowledgeable about post-processing, using an application that supports layers, could get rid of that ugly sky glow at the bottom of the frame, but this is just me wrenching the levers in Photos to get something a bit more dramatic.
I'm looking forward to having more opportunities to practice.
I wanted to get some star trails looking toward Polaris, so I set up to do a Live Composite shot. At some point early in the process, my neighbor drove his truck down his driveway, and so there's some nasty flare. The image is up at Flickr.
In the future, I can avoid that by setting up behind our house, farther up the hill. It'll put some trees between his place and the tripod, so I shouldn't have that issue again. I'll have to dig out my headlight to make sure I don't stumble walking up the hill.
But I do love it here.
Yesterday's errands went smoothly. We hit Target, Best Buy and Home Depot. It's nice when you can knock out a bunch of errands in one trip. I exchanged some CO2 cylinders for my Soda Stream and bought some syrups. Mitzi got another door mat for the side door. My kids had given me a gift card for Best Buy years ago, and I finally decided I needed to quit letting it just sit there in my desk drawer. I didn't have anything particular in mind, but I ended up getting a DJI Osmo Mobile 7. It was a $50 gift card, so it was only $30 out of my pocket. Now I'm only a few videos away from my second career as a YouTube influencer! Can fame and fortune be far behind?
At Home Depot I got another 8', 12" pine board for another shelf in the garage, and the necessary brackets. We have a couple of end tables with metal frames as their bases. Because they're never quite square, and floors aren't necessarily even, they have four adjustable screw feet to level and keep them from rocking. One of those went missing on the move. Looked like quarter-twenty (.25" 20 thread per inch), so I bought a couple of those, and they did the trick. Bought another quarter sheet of .5" plywood, because why not?
Mitzi did some shopping at Kohl's while I was fumbling around Home Depot with one of those carts for lumber that always seems to have a mind of its own.
It was a stunningly beautiful day yesterday, a priceless thing we can't take for granted anymore. So the drive was pleasant, we weren't in a hurry and traffic was very light outside of Ithaca.
Got home, put everything away, had lunch and then went back out in the yard to keep making progress at the roadside. Cleaned up a lot of little stuff that the bush hog missed or couldn't get to. Found another Morrow's Honeysuckle and took the sawzall to it. We'll have to keep cutting it down until the stump dies, which may be never I guess. There are grape vines over two inches in diameter we've been cutting back, and many small vines entangled in the sumac bush. I'll have to get on a ladder to get them out. We made quite a pile of debris that we'll have to call someone to haul away.
After a couple hours of that effort, I repaired to the recliner. I began to notice the shadows of birds flying above our roof against the hillside behind the house. I looked out the front window and there were hundreds of birds perched on the power lines at the road. Which was nothing compared to the dozens of birds flying low in front of me in the yard, seemingly oblivious to my presence. It was like something out of The Birds. There were dozens more on the roof of the garage.
I took some shots and discovered they were barn swallows. I'd never seen them flock like that before. ChatGPT informed me that barn swallows are famously social when they're not raising young. They gather in huge flocks to roost together, eventually migrating south for the winter. That was pretty cool, if a little disturbing.
(Also heard coyotes howling last night while I was outside with the camera.)
Anyway, beautiful, productive day yesterday. Amazingly, my back isn't screaming at me this morning.
✍️ Reply by email"Huge...tracts of land."
07:29 Friday, 22 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 56.35°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 97% Wind: 1.57mph
Words: 716
This morning's obscure cultural reference.
We had the surveyor come out yesterday and locate all the survey pins on the property. It's a bit bigger than the impression I had from just looking at the survey and walking around the place, mostly in the back left corner.
That's good, because that's kind of where we're thinking we'll put the new place. The surveyor was a really nice guy. Pretty fancy setup he has too, with a gps rig that's accurate to centimeters. He'd take his pole to where gps said the pin should be, then wave a fancy metal detector and locate it beneath the dirt or grass. He put neon pink ribbons on them so we could find them again. I may go out and try and drive some stakes into the ground.
I showed him how I'd tried to overlay the survey over a shot from the drone and he said he'd send me a pdf with the survey overlaid over the county's aerial imagery, and the scale will be accurate. Might save me from running 393' of string to be more certain of where the back line of the property is.
We're going to head back to Florida next month, closing or no closing, and pack up the rest of the house and move it up here. We'll put our sectional couch here in this house, because this couch is killing me. Its sole virtue was that it looked presentable, and it was cheap. But I can't sit on it and watch TV. It's fine to lay on, which I did a lot when I was up here by myself, but with two of us, it's uncomfortable.
We're slowly accommodating ourselves to living in these more confined quarters, which is a useful exercise in helping to determine just how large of a new house we'll need. Yesterday we went through kind of a drill to see what it would take to make this place a bit larger and safer to age in place. Suffice to say, we're persuaded it's not really possible.
But keeping the new place small will be essential to making it also affordable. Mitzi's reluctant to really start getting quotes until we've closed on the sale of the Florida place and we know about how constrained our budget will be. I'm more anxious to begin planning, but the delay is useful nevertheless. Perhaps mortgage interest rates will go down in the interim and if I need to borrow some money, it'll be more affordable. Who knows what's going to happen to the cost of building materials?
Mitzi still wants a timber frame type home, while I'm more inclined to go with insulated concrete forms. Where there's a disconnect is in the roofing. Generally, you might use conventional engineered roof trusses on an ICF shell, but our guy knows a guy and we may be able to have a timber frame roof on an ICF shell and have the best of both worlds. The thing we both agree on is that we'll dig into the hill for a walkout basement, which essentially doubles the square footage. How much of the basement we choose to finish, or how quickly, will add some flexibility to the build.
So all of our daily living spaces will be on the main floor, with an additional bedroom, bathroom and "office(s)" in the basement, along with the mechanical room. At some point we may lose the ability to negotiate stairs, but all the day to day activities would all be on one floor, which will include a deck above the walkout basement. I'd plan to put the laundry and the breaker panel on the main floor as well.
We may need assistance every so often with someone to come by and replace the filters in the water softener, add salt, and so on, but I think that should be manageable. With a little luck, we may remain ambulatory for most of our time in the house.
But all that's just dreaming for the time being. Today I'm running out to Home Depot to buy some screws, some more plywood, another board for a shelf in the garage and so on.
With that, I'd better jump in the shower and get going.
Because the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailOn This Day
15:59 Wednesday, 20 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.94°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 3.89mph
Words: 233
Got the shelf installed without too much difficulty or back strain. Mitzi's happy.
I checked the On This Day in the marmot page this morning (I don't every morning, but I should.) and had to correct a formatting issue.
More importantly, the oldest post is from 2014 and dealt with the aftermath of Michael Brown's shooting and an opinion piece in the Washington Post by Sunil Dutta. I disagreed with Mr. Dutta and did a little search on him to try to learn something about why he would feel and write as he did.
I did a similar search this morning, because I was curious to see if he'd written anything else on the subject of policing in the popular press. I learned he died from cancer in 2019. Before George Floyd was murdered by a cop. Before Breonna Taylor was murdered in her sleep by a cop.
I learned he did write a book about his life and his brother's, and how their paths diverged.
I learned that others objected to his WaPo piece as well.
But I didn't see any other writing by him on police work.
I'm sorry he died, but that doesn't change how I feel about what he wrote. I'm wondering if his feelings changed over time; or if they might have, if he had lived.
Especially today, with America under the boot of the Mad Orange King.
✍️ Reply by emailMuddy Boots
10:39 Wednesday, 20 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 60.48°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 6.04mphWords: 60
It was raining the whole time. I went down into the ditch from the roadside because it's a shallower pitch, but I could climb out on the property side. Little did I know how muddy it was. My shoes weighed a ton, and this was an effort to stomp most of it out of the treads.
Thought it looked cool.
✍️ Reply by emailMission Accomplished?
10:31 Wednesday, 20 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 60.53°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 6.98mphWords: 199
Well, it's up. Whether or not it recovers isn't up to me. I may put a couple more t-posts in a little closer so it's easier to put the ratchet straps on, and then wrap something around the trunk so they aren't rubbing against the bark of the tree. But that's a job for tomorrow.
I used the ladder to get all the grape vines off of it. It was hanging over the ditch nearly horizontally. I don't know if it suffered root damage, but the rain should help it recover more quickly, if it's going to recover at all. I expect we'll be holding it up for a few months at least. It has a few walnuts on it already.
The power lines and the fiber optic cable are near the tree. They're not a problem at the moment, but if it survives it'll require some trimming from time to time.
I spent some time pulling more grape vines out of the sumac and fell on my ass at one point. Nobody saw me, but I imagine it was pretty funny. Made me laugh anyway.
Now to rest up for the next chore.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailNice to See You Again
08:13 Wednesday, 20 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 60.42°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 7.54mphWords: 460
Yesterday was a "recovery" day, since I busted my ass on Monday. The walk went fine, and my achilles didn't scream in protest when it was done.
So I went outside with the hedge trimmer and the weed-whacker and cleaned up around the shed and the garage, and found two more pieces of the former owner's scaffolding.
That felt like enough for one day, but later we learned that the young man Mitzi had hired to clear all the weeds and unwanted bushes by the side of the road was coming by at 1400 to do that job. Well, that went until about six and I was out there for much of it, pulling vines and using the sawzall (Makita, not the Milwaukee. It's kind of like kleenex.) to cut some limbs and vines that were too much for the hedge trimmer or loppers.
By the time we were finished, I was wrecked. Didn't feel much better yesterday, so I took it easy all day. I did take Mitzi to the public library to get her library card, but that was about it.
There's a walnut tree near the corner of the property that we had hoped to keep, but it was so badly entangled in vines together with some Morrow's Honeysuckle, which there were three examples along the road, and in the process of uprooting the honeysuckle, we nearly toppled the young walnut. It's still rooted, but it's leaning over the road and remains entangled with a lot of grape vines I couldn't reach.
I'm going to go out there this morning with a couple of the t-posts that are still waiting to be collected and try and ratchet-strap it back near vertical. I pushed on it yesterday, and it didn't feel like it wanted to move. But we got .5" of rain last night, so hopefully the ground is a little softer and I can get it more vertical.
And a pull-out shelf arrived yesterday for one of the cabinets that Mitzi wants to install. That's more getting up and down off the floor and leaning into a cabinet. I'm pretty confident I can get it done, but I'll pay for it tomorrow.
The spider pictured above is supposedly a paradise jumping spider (Habronattus coecatus). It's probably 2mm long, and was crawling along the top of the Benq LCD. I grabbed the 60mm/f2.8 macro lens and stuck it on the OM-1 and got a few shots. It has since moved on to some other location, I did not escort it outside. I hope to see it again. Seems to be a female according to Wikipedia.
This was supposed to be an admin week, but that hasn't proved to be the case yet.
✍️ Reply by emailXZ-2 SOOC
Current Wx: Temp: 52.23°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 5.14mphWords: 35
I need to get going, but I decided to give the XZ-2 a little love yesterday. The flowers I bought are hanging in there pretty well, I thought. JPEG, straight out of the camera.
✍️ Reply by emailMonday
07:05 Monday, 18 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 52.47°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 5.14mph
Words: 67
Had four images selected in Photos when I ran the script to create the previous post. AppleScript created the post with the last image, not the first. I went back and manually changed the file name in the attribute and re-exported. Somehow that didn't get picked up. Can't figure out why. Adding this post to see if the stars align or something...
That solved it. Interesting...
✍️ Reply by email"Dip your beak into this..."
Current Wx: Temp: 52.47°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 5.14mphWords: 65
Well, I managed to get a few shots yesterday, albeit through the screen door, so this is wonkier than it ought to be. A lot of weather yesterday. A little rain, some sunshine, some clouds, some wind, more clouds, then the temperature dropped. Interesting!
Pretty this morning, though.
Achilles is feeling ok-ish. May take a walk, but not to the top of the hill.
✍️ Reply by emailAround the 'Sphere
06:27 Sunday, 17 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.38°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 5.86mph
Words: 111
Stumbled on this today, following links ("One link leads to another..."). Seems prescient now, doesn't it? W and the GWOT and the Patriot Act and Fox News all set things up for what, in hindsight, inevitably followed.
One could make the argument that Osama bin Laden actually won.
"They hate our way of life," and so we destroyed our way of life to save it. Of course, it was all one big business opportunity. We just thought it was for Halliburton. Takes a lot of tech to build the surveillance state.
Irony is the fifth fundamental force of the universe, and I keep waiting for my call from the Nobel committee.
✍️ Reply by emailHow Now Brown Cow?
19:43 Saturday, 16 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 78.66°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 66% Wind: 5.61mphWords: 520
Achilles felt pretty good this morning, so I thought I'd take a walk. I kind of told myself not to overdo it this time, and I went left instead of right at the bottom of the driveway. Well, one step leads to another and I wondered how much elevation gain I'd get if I walked to the top of the hill?
278 feet, as it turns out. Which is only sixty-some feet less than walking to the bottom of the hill and back up again from our house.
And of course I overdid it. Achilles is stiff and sore and occasionally burning and stinging. Awesome.
Took the camera along, got a couple of nice shots, but most of them were clinkers.
We met up with our Florida friends this evening and saw their lot up at Keuka Lake. It's all just trees now, but they're starting to take some down to bring in the equipment for building the foundation. They expect the shell of their log cabin home will be finished by the end of September. We're not even sure if our Florida house will be sold by then.
We had dinner together and caught up on all the things. I'm looking forward to having them up here on a more frequent basis starting next spring.
In other news, we did make some significant progress in organizing the garage yesterday, and I spent some time in there this morning doing some additional re-arranging and labeling. It's still not *chef's kiss* , but I'm pretty confident I can find what I need without moving and lifting a bunch of boxes.
We also hung up a hummingbird feeder Mitzi's daughter gave to her, and it has been visited! "Pix or it didn't happen," right? Well, they seem to have a sixth sense about me and my camera. I'd be shooting through a screen anyway. But every time I picked up the OM-1 with the 100-400mm zoom on it, they flew away. They taunt me, too. Flying right up to the window and hovering there, looking in. As soon as I move... Zoom!
I give up.
Cows are a lot easier.
Before I go, I should say that it seems pretty clear to me that if you have to go about your job wearing a mask, dark glasses and no identification, you're either a superhero or ashamed of whatever it is you're doing.
They're cowards, as all bullies are cowards. These are people who have lost their way. It's a shame, really. We have so many opportunities to make meaning in our lives by helping others, serving others. They are hollowing out their existence by hurting others, and they can tell bystanders to "Shut the fuck up," all they want, but what do they tell the still, small voice that gnaws at them in the wee hours of the night? A voice that will haunt them for the rest of their days, and which will compel an endless recitation of justification and rationalization.
I was just doing my job! I was only following orders!
Cowards and bullies.
Men without honor.
✍️ Reply by emailNFA
08:06 Friday, 15 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.27°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 0.43mph
Words: 516
We had dinner at the Stonecat Cafe last night, and I noticed much of the staff wearing t-shirts with "NFA" printed on them, and there was merch at the entrance with "NFA" on it, so I asked the person at the register what it meant.
"Not fucking around."
This delighted me, so I bought a tin sign to put up in the garage.
It feels like this is a moment in time that demands such a TLA.
Pulling up stakes and abandoning Florida to make a new life in New York seems pretty hard core NFA.
I like our garage. It's pretty small, but it's insulated and the interior is finished with OSB, which makes it easy to hang things with screws and NFA with drywall anchors. Yesterday we bought a little package of hooks for hanging stuff up in the garage and I got nearly everything hung up on the walls. (Ladders, loppers, beach chairs, solar panels, weed-whackers, hedge trimmer, rake, shovel and some other crap.)
We also washed both cars, using a "foam cannon" I got for the pressure washer. Works well, but you still need to mechanically wash with a sponge to get all the grime and bird shit off.
As far as dealing with the weeds and vines at the side of the road, we've decided to NFA and we're hiring somebody to come in with a bush-hog and just lay waste to most of it.
I think I'm going to focus on "admin" next week and see if I can put together all the necessary paperwork to establish my New York residency, get my license and registration switched over, change the title to the Maverick and maybe find a new primary care physician, and a dentist. I've found a barber. (Baby steps.)
Our friends from Florida are up here this week, getting the foundation poured for their summer home over by Keuka Lake. We hope to meet up with them sometime over the weekend, maybe have them over here to see our place.
As something of a non sequitur, I've found that as digital photography has matured over the last decade or so, the signal to noise ration (SNR) at "hardware" forums like DP Review has become vanishingly small. The posts there are the helpless, "Please help me decide..." And the hopeless, "Micro four-thirds is dead..." And the pointless, "Full-frame is better than micro four-thirds, fight me." Mixed in with the usual "OM System sucks," and the Lumix inferiority complex.
You used to be able to find helpful tips about how to best employ some of the new or more esoteric functions of the latest models. Now it's just mostly crap and I really don't know why I keep returning to it, especially as the ads have become even more intrusive. My problem, I know.
I plan to spend more time in the garage today, trying to get things better organized so I can actually find things.
And hang my new metal sign.
The beat goes on... (Check out the movie The Life of Chuck.)
✍️ Reply by emailStill Life
15:42 Wednesday, 13 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 78.49°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 4.32mphWords: 258
I was a bit bored this afternoon. We did some more yard work this morning, which kind of put me off my plan to work in the garage. But after some time in the recliner, I seemed to rally and managed to get out to the garage and put up a couple of shelves.
I've been deleting images from my Photos library, and that had me looking at shots I took with the tiny Olympus E-PM1, which was my first micro-four thirds camera. I don't know why, but I find those images appealing somehow. It's the last iteration of Panasonic's LiveMOS 12MP sensor, at least in an Olympus body. I believe it's the same sensor that was in the E-5 and E-30 DSLRs. Panasonic's earlier 8MP and 10MP LiveMOS sensors were known for somewhat high levels of chroma noise at any ISO above base. The 12MP sensors were much better controlled in that respect.
Anyway, it's probably just something subjective, but I do like those sensors paired with the Olympus jpeg engine, so I pulled out an E-PM1 I bought some time ago, specifically to have a body with one of those sensors on hand. I don't shoot with it a lot, so I got the tiny E-PM1 so it didn't take up much space.
I bought some flowers yesterday, and I thought this looked nice. It's unedited, straight out of the camera. Something that afforded me a few minutes of diversion this afternoon.
And gave me something to blog about too.
✍️ Reply by emailBuckaroo Banzai
07:06 Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 67.1°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 6.06mph
Words: 400
We finished a re-watch of Season 4 of Only Murders In the Building the other night, and browsing around Hulu for something else to watch I noticed Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which I'd never seen before. So, into the queue it went, and we watched it last night.
I'm not a huge Wes Anderson fan. I'm conscious that I'm watching a Wes Anderson film the entire time, I never really get into the movie. I feel like I'm just watching a Wes Anderson performance, and he doesn't seem that interesting because it's always the same schtick. I never have that problem with Quentin Tarantino. I know I'm watching a Quentin Tarantino movie, but it's not intrusive the way Wes Anderson's style just sort of screams, "LOOK AT ME! I'M WES FUCKING ANDERSON!"
At some point in the movie, there's a clip from an old Steve Zissou documentary where he's in the Antarctic or someplace and everyone's kind of partying and he tells everyone to be quiet. He hears an animal crying somewhere out there in the ice.
And that's when it twigged for me. I was watching a Buckaroo Banzai remake by Wes Anderson. I mean, Earl Mac Rauch should've received a writing credit, or at least an "inspired by."
When the end credits rolled, it was just overt. It didn't feel like homage so much as appropriation. "Great artists steal," and all that.
I don't know. I liked parts of the movie, especially the sets. But once I was aware of the Banzai ripoff, I was even less into the movie as I kept looking for more ways Anderson ripped off Banzai, and did it in a way that seemed disrespectful to the original.
It's a shame too, because I love all the actors, and the sets were cool. The scene near the end in the mini-sub was pretty interesting in the post-TITAN era. "Are we safe in this?"
"Probably not."
I did a quick search this morning, and the similarity hasn't gone unnoticed. But the web sites that seem to have any writing about it are just ad-infested assaults on the eyes, so I didn't pursue it any further.
Anyway, disappointed. Wes Anderson movies often make me laugh, which is, I suppose, their point. But this one just made me a little mad, and I felt bad when I laughed.
✍️ Reply by emailCorrection
14:54 Monday, 11 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 88.29°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 36% Wind: 7.31mph
Words: 37
The photograph in the preceding post was not from last night. Shame on me for not deleting old photos from the SD card!
We strive for editorial accuracy here at the marmot. We'll try to do better.
✍️ Reply by emailLast Night's Sky 8-10-25
Current Wx: Temp: 68.95°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 7.07mphWords: 573
It got warm over the weekend, and we ended up turning on the AC in the evening. Nice sunset last night.
It was a lazy weekend for me, but Mitzi worked on cutting back some vines. I'm going to spend some time in the garage I think, trying to get a few things organized.
Interesting Tinderbox Meetup on Sunday. Mark Bernstein talked about using Git for version control with Tinderbox, a new spatial view for Tinderbox using a building metaphor, and a version in development that allows an AI app like Claude to interact with Tinderbox.
Git seems interesting, but there's a learning curve, and it's kind of an intrusive process. What it does point out is the failure of MacOS's Time Machine and the "versioning" feature of the application API. Now, I recognize the differences between Time Machine snapshots, "versions," and "version control" in Git, but if "versions" (as in "Revert to..." from the File menu) worked as intended, then at least half of the utility of Git would be covered.
I've tried using "Revert to..." many times, and it seldom worked as expected and almost always involved a Tinderbox crash immediately after. The problem probably has something to do with having the Documents folder in iCloud and working on the same file (not at the same time) in two different Macs. I don't know how Git would behave with having the repository stored in iCloud, but the architecture seems a little more robust anyway, from my decidedly uninformed point of view.
I didn't know that Git was built into MacOS, and perhaps there are some automations I could work out using Run Command with a stamp that would make the process less intrusive. I understand that Git is intended to be "intrusive," as in "deliberate," and that one would wish to record certain "meta-data" with a commit to aid in recall as to why you made a certain change, but that only makes sense in the context of your platform architecture, which isn't something you do every day (Unless you're Jack Baty.). But the only reason I've ever had for wanting to restore to a previous version of the marmot, was because I'd added posts on a different machine, opened the marmot on another machine where the local snapshot of the file was opened, which for reasons only Apple knows, hadn't updated to the most recent version stored in iCloud.
I'm only using one machine these days, so I don't think it even matters anymore. Maybe if I was into tinkering with how the marmot works or the CSS or something, it might be more valuable. But I have little talent for tinkering, which is why this blog has changed so little in format and presentation over so many years.
The new view was interesting. But I don't do that much thinking anymore. If thinking made more of a difference, I suppose I'd be inclined to do more of it. (I jest. But jest barely. Heh.)
What's most intriguing is the MCP facility to allow an AI to interact with Tinderbox. I'll be watching that closely because I think it may give me a way to leverage the content of my old blog, Groundhog Day into some new posts. Not to "recycle" that material, but to kind of gather it, distill it and polish it into something coherent.
More to follow, I suppose.
Until then, you know how it goes...
✍️ Reply by emailThese Are Better Days
09:11 Sunday, 10 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 72.68°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 5.59mph
Words: 312
A close friend sent me a text yesterday, saying she read this in The NY Times and thought of me. I asked her to gift me the link because I'd unsubscribed to the Times many years ago for its dereliction of journalistic duty.
If you can't, or won't, click through, it's a piece by John McWhorter about his newfound appreciation for Bruce Springsteen as a poet.
My friend mentioned the comments, and so I read some of them (there are over a thousand). Familiar sentiments, similar views. Nothing to complain about.
It's hard for me to describe the place that the Boss holds in my heart. While little of my biography could be said to be reflected in his lyrics, so much of my inner experience was. Enduring that experience, surviving it, and ultimately transcending it was a journey with Bruce as a companion and often a guide.
Bruce has written and spoken of his father's struggle with depression and his own. Been there, done that. Still encounter it from time to time, but not so much anymore. Doesn't seem to find any purchase. No ghosts that haunt me these days. Maybe they'll be back someday, but I don't think so.
I think that's probably one of the few gifts of getting old.
Therapy was undoubtedly more valuable than the CD player, but the music was more accessible. More available. In the car, in the parking lot, in tears before going to work.
Everything was so everything back then.
Now everything is just everything. And that's okay. It leaves space. Admits grace?
Everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be.
Do your best, the rest is not up to you.
We're all in this together.
We only have moments to live, and none of us is getting out of here alive.
So just breathe.
Because these are better days, baby.
✍️ Reply by emailI Can See Clearly Now
08:17 Saturday, 9 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 66.09°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 5.26mph
Words: 121
The smoke has cleared! The far hills are visible in the beautiful morning light. Nature's canvas has been restored. AQI sensor shows 15, which is pretty much normal around here.
We spent yesterday morning completing the liberation of a tree (probably a maple). Took several loads of vines, dead limbs, grass and weeds over to the neighbor's place and deposited them in the gully that serves as a yard waste repository. There's another tree I want to liberate, but I'm giving my back a break instead of breaking my back.
We're off to a walking history tour of Watkins Glen. It's a beautiful day, but it's also NASCAR race day in Watkins so maybe it'll be crowded?
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailBriefly
08:19 Friday, 8 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 65.91°F Pressure: 1025hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 6.8mph
Words: 352
After writing about a "pause" yesterday, I went out and did a lot more work! And kind of "suffered" for the rest of the day. I'd intended to just do some raking, but you know how it goes... Mitzi helped out and we loaded a lot of the debris into the bed of the Mav and drove it over to the neighbor's house where they've said we could deposit it.
I liberated a tree from a canopy of grape vines and we can now see the road through a gap in that overgrowth.
We'll be back out there this morning.
I always enjoy Jack Baty's blogging, regardless of platform, and his photography. He's been writing a bit lately about AI, a topic that isn't especially compelling for me. After having tried that Chinese knock-off on a local model with the iMac, I've pretty much confined myself to using ChatGPT from time to time. It's been helpful and not especially misleading. I think it correctly identified a type of rock I submitted to it in a photograph (gneiss). A book I ordered seems to suggest the same thing.
As to the larger social and economic effects, I think they're less pressing than the unfolding climate catastrophe, and may actually be useful in attempting to forestall it, albeit ironically. Here in the US, we're pressing hard for leadership in AI, but we're building these massive data centers that stress an aging electric grid infrastructure, encouraging people like Elon Musk to use fossil fuels to power them.
Of the things I worry about, it's the rise of authoritarianism and the climate catastrophe that are forefront in my mind. AI might be disastrous as well, but if it is, the first two are way out in front of it. Our civilization will collapse with or without AI. If a truly intelligent, self-aware AI results at some point, assuming they don't all fight each other and kill the remnants of humanity in the process, maybe they'll keep us as pets.
The far hills are still murky, but the moon was yellowish last night, not orange.
✍️ Reply by emailMeta-Me
09:59 Thursday, 7 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 70.07°F Pressure: 1028hPa Humidity: 76% Wind: 6.29mph
Words: 126
The past few days I've been looking in on the On This Day in the Marmot page. I was somewhat horrified to discover that there were glitches in some of the markup for earlier posts. Easy to fix, but I'm not sure how they crept in in the first place.
Anyway, I checked today's page and it had a glitch in the first post, so I went back and fixed it.
Then I read the post.
Wow. I could write like that?
Seems like I don't write like that very much anymore. Maybe because it never seemed to matter very much. Didn't seem to make any kind of a difference.
But I liked reading it this morning; and I wish to commend it to your attention.
✍️ Reply by emailPause
09:06 Thursday, 7 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 65.62°F Pressure: 1028hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 5.66mph
Words: 552
Taking a bit of a break today. Between wielding the telescoping hedge trimmer, weed-whacker and rake, and getting two jabs yesterday, I've got a bit of any achey-breaky back (and a sore shoulder). I hope to at least get the stuff I've cut down and raked bagged up today. We'll see how I feel later.
It's still smokey here. The moon was reddish last night, but I didn't feel motivated enough to get the camera out. I haven't looked at the weather discussion, but I'm guessing this is more of that "blocking" that sets in when the jet stream gets all wonky because we've overheated the atmosphere. My AQI sensor shows a bit of improvement though, down to 35 just in the last few hours, so maybe some air is moving. Plus I can make out the far hills, but they're still murky.
I've been reading Colossus: Bletchley Park's Greatest Secret by Paul Gannon. It's slow going because Gannon insists on a thorough treatment of Germany's encrypted radio teletype networks, which were something of an innovation back then. It's a bit tedious, and doesn't seem to really have that much to do with developing the first electronic computer. But I'm only a third of the way through the book, so hopefully it'll pick up soon.
One thing that surprised me, despite feeling as though I've read a lot about Hitler and Germany under the Nazis, was that Hitler had thrice-daily meetings with his generals, where he micro-managed the war. He'd get so pissed off when things didn't go his way, he'd blame his generals for not following his orders. So he had stenographers attend every meeting to record everything that was discussed, so he'd have the receipts when things went sideways. (I wonder how that worked out for him?)
Anyway, just before the surrender, they tried to burn the archive, but some of it survived and they were eventually collated, translated and published in book form in 2002, Hitler and His Generals: Military Conferences 1942-1945, by Helmut Heiber and David Glantz. There are excerpts from them in Gannon's book. It's 1158 pages, and weighs a pound and I'm wondering how useful it might be? Apparently most of the stuff is pretty mundane. Still, I'm curious. Haven't decided yet.
Speaking of Hitler, I was amused to see Tim Cook debasing himself before the Mad Orange King. So much of Apple's reputation, such as it is these days, was built around the hero-worship of Steve Jobs. I wonder if Jobs would have kissed Trump's ass as much as Cook has. Maybe. He was a bit of a pragmatist, "Microsoft doesn't have to lose in order for Apple to win," or words to that effect, back when he took that $100M investment from Microsoft shortly after returning to Apple.
From the earliest days up until it became clear that the iPhone was going to be a paradigm shift, I took some pleasure in calling myself an Apple user. Kind of in the "Crazy Ones" spirit. Then things started to get screwy as Apple developed more market power, starting with the app stores I guess. Now it's just another corporate behemoth, beholden to "creating shareholder value," and defending its position in the (anti-)competitive marketplace.
Depressing.
But so it goes...
✍️ Reply by emailMore Progress
16:10 Wednesday, 6 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 77.76°F Pressure: 1028hPa Humidity: 60% Wind: 4.36mph
Words: 591
Well, I got a couple of jabs, a haircut and a rake! Oh, and lunch. Holy Cow deli is right across the street from the barber. I figured for a $25 sandwich (chips, cookie and a canned soda), the Mav could stay in their lot while I got my ears lowered.
Came home and figured I'd try out the rake and one thing led to another and I got the hedge trimmer and the weed whacker out and kept telling myself, "Now, don't overdo it again, Dave." But you know how it goes, get to a point where you think you might quit and then you see another spot that looks pretty easy. Now I have a pretty nasty blister on my left thumb. My back isn't as jacked up, but it's complaining. I've got a bunch of debris to dispose of, but hopefully my neighbor is going to give me a hand with that.
And I've only put a dent in the amount of weeds and vines and overgrowth down there along the road. Our other neighbor offered to give me a quote to come over with a piece of equipment he has and mow the whole thing down, but I figure I can use the exercise and I need to know what's going on in there anyway. There are some black caps down there and I want to keep those and try to encourage them. They've got berries on them now and I've been eating some as I've been cutting. Not sure there's enough for jelly or anything, but there are a few and they taste good.
We haven't had the AC on since last week. It can get a little warm in the afternoon, but with the windows open and the ceiling fans on, it's comfortable. In fact, as I was sitting in here yesterday, it brought to mind being a kid up here. We didn't have air conditioning, and in the summer we just opened the windows. Of course, it wasn't humid very often, but there were some hot days when I'd just lay on my bed and read science fiction paperbacks with their covers torn off that I'd bought for $.10 down at the Clockville Superette. Too hot to do anything else. The mornings and evenings were usually cool though.
There was no air conditioning at Bancroft Hall at the Naval Academy either, though all the academic buildings were air conditioned. That was uncomfortable, because Annapolis is both hotter than upstate New York, and way more humid.
But ever since I graduated, I've always lived in a climate-controlled environment. It's kind of nice just having the windows open, listening to the birds chirping and singing. That seems to come and go through the day. They seem pretty quiet now, but there's usually something singing nearby. In Florida, I can only recall them being vocal in the morning, and then mostly silent throughout the day. Of course, you seldom have your windows open in Florida, so who knows?
I've enjoyed listening to the crickets the last couple of nights. I hadn't really noticed them before, but they've been pretty hard to miss the last two nights. And Mitzi heard the coyotes again the night before last.
I think there's a lot to be said for having your windows open to the outside. Of course, the air quality isn't the best right now. Still can't see the far hills for the smoke and haze in the air. (Just heard a bird sing.)
And the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailProgress
06:57 Wednesday, 6 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 62.47°F Pressure: 1028hPa Humidity: 83% Wind: 5.12mph
Words: 1130
Got a few things accomplished yesterday. HVAC at the Florida house is fixed. Condensate line was clogged. I'd forgotten to tell Mitzi to remove the cap to the drain line at the air handler to allow air to enter as condensate was evacuated. Only charged me $110 for the service call because they'd just performed the semi-annual service in May.
Next chore was to install a water line from beneath the kitchen sink to the refrigerator. Watched a YouTube video or two and went to the local hardware store, Watkins Supply. Found the necessary items and returned home. $51 for a 3/8" and 1/4" t-connector and 10 feet of steel-jacketed tubing seemed a bit pricey.
None of these little DIY jobs ever goes very smoothly for me. The shut-off valve is connected to PEX, and the valve itself was really stiff. So I had to hold the valve body with pliers while I tried to turn the handle. Success. Removed the cold water line to the faucet, added the t-adapter, reconnected the cold water and the water line.
Next step was to get the dishwasher out from under the counter. The house originally had a polished concrete floor, later tiled over, but not wall-to-wall. Makes for some interesting challenges with appliances. I had to spin the adjustable feet at the front of the dishwasher up to be able to get them over the tile. One turned easily, the other required some WD-40.
All of this is being performed by an overweight, mostly out of shape, 68-year-old, lying on his side on the floor.
I should mention that once we'd gotten the kick-plate removed and looked under the dishwasher, the array of spider webs was somewhat disconcerting. Spent a little time with a hand vac and hopefully removed any potential problems.
With the dishwasher out from under the counter (Don't forget the two screws at the top, screwed into a metal grid epoxied to the counter.), I was kind of relieved to see a hole already drilled into the adjacent cabinet, above the floor of the cabinet. I was thinking I might try to run the water line below the floor of the cabinet, but that meant much tighter confines, trying to get back behind the dishwasher. Since there was already an enormous hole drilled into the wall of the cabinet to permit the plug to get to the electrical outlet, I just ran the line through that, below the wire and over to the other wall of the cabinet, where I drilled a much smaller hole to get to the refrigerator.
Let me say this about LG refrigerators: Their documentation sucks. The owner's manual purportedly explains how to connect the water line, but I couldn't figure it out. Thankfully, there was a video on YouTube. The water line connection is covered by a rubbery, silicone nipple that gave me the impression it was some kind of refrigerant connection. Would it have been too much trouble to put a sticker on there that said "H2O"? Probably.
Anyway, got everything connected, the filter installed and tested everything. So far, no leaks. Fridge dispenses water. It has not made ice yet. Not quite certain why that's the case and again, the documentation sucks. I had the app installed on my phone and toggled it on and off from the app.
Later yesterday, Mitzi installed the app on her phone. After she got it installed she said it asked her if she wanted to "share" the device with me. I told her no because I already had the app installed and the fridge added to it.
This morning, with no ice still, I went to consult the app and the fridge was gone! Apparently, Mitzi adding it to her phone deleted it from mine. She "shared" it with me again, and I have it back but boy is that a shitty interface/user experience.
I've since gone into the control panel in the refrigerator and held the ice-maker button down for three seconds until something beeped and flashed. Then there was some clicking from the vicinity of the ice-maker. No sound of water filling it, but more activity than before and the light is on. We'll see what happens. So far, no good.
After I finished installing the water line and checking for leaks (none, amazingly), I figured I'd spend some time in the recliner. But just then Fedex showed up with the Makita telescoping hedge trimmer I'd ordered. So of course I had to go play with that.
I mainly wanted it to cut down overgrown areas that the string-trimmer either struggled with, or was really too small to be efficient. This hedge trimmer has an 18-inch blade, so I can get a swath of weeds at a time. It's heavier than I expected, but manageable. I spent an hour outside trying it out, which was probably about a half-hour longer than I should have. Between getting up and down off the floor repeatedly, contorting myself to get under the sink and behind the dishwasher, and then wielding that hedge trimmer, I managed to get my back into the same condition it was after moving all those boxes into and around in storage. Plus, I have this enormous bruise on my right arm, which I have no idea how I acquired.
Was planning to go to the gym this morning, but another "recovery" day is in order.
Still plenty to do. I've got an appointment for my flu and COVD shots later this morning, then a haircut at noon, maybe some lunch in between, depending on how long the shots takes. On my way home I'll stop by Walmart and pick up a rake. The hedge trimmer does a good job knocking growth down, now I need an efficient way to pick it up and dispose of it.
I've downloaded all of my medical history from the two portals I'd been in, and I still have to complete the medical history for the dermatologist to get that appointment scheduled. Still haven't finished the breaker panel documentation project. I need to add another entry for the dishwasher outlet in the kitchen, I managed to omit it the first time, even though I'd included all the other appliances. And I need to call a guy about a generator. Power went out for 10 minutes on Monday. I managed to get all the networking stuff plugged into the Bluetti AC70 and got the Internet back up before the power came back on.
So, still plenty to do around here. Likely to be that way for the foreseeable future.
La-dee-da-dee-dee
La-dee-da-dee-da...
✍️ Reply by emailStill Smokey
06:44 Tuesday, 5 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 57.36°F Pressure: 1025hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 2.53mph
Words: 486
Still can't see the far hills. I suppose I should look at the news and figure out where these Canadian wildfires are.
But it reminds me that we watched The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout on Prime Sunday evening. If you have Prime, it's worth seeing. Even if you don't have Prime, I suppose you can find it somewhere.
It's about atomic testing in the Nevada desert, and fallout contamination at the St. George, Utah shooting location. It's an awful story, and the kind of story that helped sow the seeds for the "conspiracy theory" culture that thrives in social media today.
One of the things mentioned in the film that struck me was that Howard Hughes was only 70 years old when he died. I had the (false) impression that he was much older. Crazy, but much older. I can't help but think of Elon Musk when I think of Howard Hughes now. Both ego-maniacs. "Spruce Goose" and Starship? I don't know. Seems like there's some similarity there. Someone keep an eye on Elon's fingernails.
There was a fascinating article in The Guardian the other day about the collapse of civilizations, including this one. One of the causes of the collapse of prior civilizations is inequality and the rise of "elites." Howard Hughes and Elon Musk being examples of such, along with the members of the Atomic Energy Commission, filled with a distorted sense of their own importance and responsibility by their proximity to power, both nuclear and political. Makes sense. It's spot-on with how I think events are unspooling today.
The article is about the book, Goliath's Curse, by Luke Kemp, which you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to find. I guess linking to Amazon is bad now, so I'm confident you can copy and paste and search with the best of them.
Great quote from the piece:
“History is best told as a story of organised crime,” Kemp says. “It is one group creating a monopoly on resources through the use of violence over a certain territory and population.”
What's taking place in America, well, specifically, the Trump administration and late-stage capitalism, is certainly a story of organized crime. (American spelling.)
There is no such thing as "power" when it comes to politics or society. There is only "authority." Money is a liquid form of authority, and the more money you have, the more people you can bend to your will.
Coercion is not "power," it's violence. The illegitimate use of authority is violence. Authority without responsibility and accountability is an error, a bug in the code. But it's not "power." (See: ICE.)
The only power that exists in anyone's life is the power to choose. And it's an exceedingly weak power, and it's seldom exercised consciously.
But we've been over all that before. For all the good it ever did.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailAmong the Living
09:38 Monday, 4 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 69.89°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 78% Wind: 2.51mph
Words: 684
Made it to the gym this morning. There was a bit of fog, and some condensation on the windshield, so I drove slowly when I left the house at 0515. This is also prime deer time, which is another reason for caution heading down the hill.
And, sure enough, a deer was standing by the side of the road, looking at me as I neared the bottom of the hill. I slowed and, as feared/expected, it stepped out into the road and proceeded to cross into the opposite field. I don't know if I'm manifesting these guys by thinking about them or not; but I'm reluctant to drive much over 35mph around here early in the morning or the evening.
Got to the gym at about 0530 as elliptical guy was lacing up his shoes. May have been my imagination, but it seemed like he tried to speed up as I dropped my stuff in a cubby, because he's seen me on the elliptical and I'm sure he didn't want his routine disrupted by some stranger getting on "his" machine.
Probably my imagination.
I got on the recumbent and did 10 minutes on the bike as a warm-up, partly because I hadn't been in the gym in over a week, and partly hoping it would act as some kind of physical therapy for my achilles. It's relatively quiet this morning, stiff and a little sore, but not burning.
I looked at my training plan and made some adjustments because another old guy was there and he was on the lat pull-down machine, so I went over and did some squats. This is a lower body and back day. So I'm alternating between sets of squats and reverse-flies, and I hear this grunting and groaning behind me. Both of the old guys are on machines, and it's like a competition to see who can audibly strain the most.
Which probably explains why the young guy who'd walked in after me went over and turned on the music.
Had to figure out two new machines, leg extensions and back extensions, but it wasn't too difficult. Went conservative on all the weights, partly because I tended to overdo it last time I was in the gym, and partly because I'm probably still recovering from moving boxes and furniture last week.
Between pairs of exercises, I spent four minutes on the bike, which gave me over twenty minutes of cardio for the hour I was there.
Sun was up when I left and it was a big red meatball. Smoke from the Canadian wildfires is in the area and affecting the air quality. Can't see across to the hills on the far side of the lake this morning. My weather station PM2.5 air quality sensor is showing 82, which is supposedly in the unhealthy region. But I'll take this over hurricanes.
Last night we chatted over FaceTime with a friend of ours from Florida who also moved at just about the same time we did. She moved to Ohio, where she still has family. She's in her 70s and is doing this all on her own; but she bought a very charming house and we exchanged video tours. Before we signed off she said that she missed her landlord but she didn't miss Florida at all. We told her we didn't either, and I sent her a link to the Dixie Chicks performing Patti Griffin's Please Don't Let Me Die In Florida.
My next chore is crawling under the kitchen sink to figure out what I need to buy to hook up the ice maker on the refrigerator. I'm going to have to drill some holes though cabinets to run the line to the fridge, but I don't think that's going to be too tough a challenge. Pulling the dishwasher out from under the counter might be a little tricky, but hopefully not. The biggest obstacle is working under the sink, but it should be doable. ("He said, confidently.") More to follow.
As perhaps not "always," but for now any, the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailAmong the Dead
Current Wx: Temp: 50.61°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 3.58mphWords: 776
We did head out to Elmira yesterday morning, to visit Mark Twain's grave. The weather was just beautiful. He's buried in Wood Lawn Cemetery, about 22 miles from here. His headstone is modest, but there's a small monument on the site as well.
The cemetery is beautiful, and apparently accustomed to a lot of visitors. I saw a lot of people just walking their dogs, or strolling along, as well as people like us, visiting the graves of some of the notable and distinguished people interred there.
Along with Twain, we visited the graves of Hal Roach, John W. Jones (an enslaved man who escaped from bondage and made a successful life for himself in Elmira), and Ernie Davis, the first Black winner of the Heisman Trophy, and a tragic story as well.
There were a few more we would have liked to have visited, but my achilles was not cooperating. As I was hobbling over to catch up to Mitzi who found John Jones' grave before I did, a gentleman came up the path, waving and calling after me. I thought perhaps I had done something wrong, and was about to be chastised or rebuked, but no.
It was Steve Schecter, whose acquaintance we were about to make, and who became our companion as we walked among the dead. Steve is a character. He was calling after me because he thought I might be a local, he being from Cleveland, and might know where Ernie Davis's site was.
I allowed that I was not a local, and did not know where exactly he was buried, but that he was among the graves we intended to visit as well. Mitzi had a web site open on her phone that gave the latitude and longitude of particular sites, so off we went looking for Ernie Davis, as his was the next on our list.
Well, it became quite a trek. We had to walk down a hill and I knew I wasn't going to enjoy walking back up it. But Steve kept up a steady conversation, mostly with Mitzi because I couldn't keep up. We had a photo to go by, but many of the monuments looked the same. Happily, Mitzi spotted the football and basketball left on top of it, which saved a lot of time.
Steve likes to visit graves, as I do, and now Mitzi does. Our first one in this region was Rod Serling's, and his was a bit difficult to find. It's very modest, and the cemetery makes little effort to point it out. But I've been to it twice now. We've also visited Carl Sagan's grave in Ithaca, and Glenn Curtiss's in Hammondsport.
We visited several in the Congressional Cemetery when we were staying with Mitzi's daughter in DC. I have the impression that Wood Lawn is better maintained, even though it is far larger than the Congressional Cemetery.
Steve's family wondered where he might have wandered off to, and we met his son and daughter at Ernie Davis's grave as they had been following us from some distance. Steve wanted to visit Hal Roach's grave before they left, which we had already visited, and as we were about to leave in the car I noticed he was about to head off down the wrong path, the same one I had taken, and gave him a vector in the right direction. He then gave us his URL and asked us to look him up, so I did.
It really made for a very interesting morning!
From the cemetery we went to visit the Chemung Valley Museum. There is a lot of history in this region, and it's kind of inspiring that they seem to value it. Perhaps because, in some respects, the past represents better times, at least economically. Part of the museum is in an old bank, and a vault is incorporated in the display. It's rather small and modest, but well worth visiting.
After spending some time learning about Elmira's past, we decided to find some lunch. We settled on the Ill Eagle Taphouse. Good reviews in Yelp, but they had an event yesterday and so our experience may not be representative. But it served its purpose, and the venue was certainly unique. It's in an enormous old federal building, so we enjoyed looking at the architecture and finishings as we waited for our food.
It was a lovely drive back home, though I did enjoy getting into the recliner. Achilles is stiff and sore this morning, but not too bad. We walked about 2.5 miles in the cemetery, but I think it's the uphill efforts that irritate it.
✍️ Reply by emailBlaugust?
07:01 Saturday, 2 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 48.72°F Pressure: 1027hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 1.74mph
Words: 396
Note the temperature. It's a bit warmer here, though. 52°F, and I'm not complaining. I love it. (Ask me again when it gets down into the 40s.)
I saw someone refer to this month as "Blaugust," though I don't know if that's supposed to be some tag or meme or something. I don't keep up with the meta-sphere as much anymore, though a lot of the blogs I follow post mainly about blogging, which is pretty meta.
Achilles is stiff this morning, but not on fire, which is a relief. Put some pics up at Flickr from yesterday's walk down the hill. They're not art, but I think they capture some of the beauty of this place.
Mitzi wants to head into Elmira this morning and check out Mark Twain's grave, so I guess we'll do that once I take care of the trash. Means I'll miss the Tinderbox Meetup, but we haven't done much exploring lately, so I guess we should get out of the house and do some and it's a nice day today.
The Florida house is having a glitch with the thermostat. Last time this happened, I had to use the shop-vac to clear a clog in the condensate line. A float switch in the condensate pan cuts power to the thermostat when it doesn't drain properly to prevent it from overflowing and causing water damage. It started acting up while Mitzi was down there for her conference, and I had her go out and try and clear it, but she didn't get any water. It's possible I didn't explain it right.
Anyway, our realtor scheduled a visit from our HVAC company on Tuesday and they should get it sorted. Seems weird because they were just out there for the summer service while I was up here at the end of May. And of course I declined to pay to renew the maintenance agreement, so I'm sure this visit is going to be extra expensive.
Such is life.
I'd comment on the corruption and malfeasance taking place in the highest halls of government, but it just depresses me; more so because it seems like somewhere between thirty to forty percent of my fellow citizens happen to think it represents "good government."
Or "owning the libs," which probably amounts to the same thing for them.
Anyway, the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailOh, hay!
Current Wx: Temp: 70.45°F Pressure: 1025hPa Humidity: 56% Wind: 10.27mphWords: 543
I was feeling pretty good this morning, my back is almost back to normal. My achilles seemed to have been improving and it was like 57°F outside. So I decided to go for a walk.
Everything seemed to be going really well, so I walked all the way to the bottom of the hill, about a mile. Got some shots of an old 19th century church falling into ruin down there.
Then I had to walk back up the hill.
Likewise, it seemed to go okay. Got a good sweat worked up, and my heart rate got up to 154, which is about where it is when I'm working out pretty hard. I could feel my achilles kind of complaining, but there was nothing for it because I had to get home.
Well, now it's screaming at me. I have no idea what it's going to take for this thing to resolve itself. Obviously I tried to do too much, after a few days of minimal pain and stiffness. Live and learn, I guess. It's just frustrating and disappointing.
The clouds off in the distance are above Seneca Lake. Happens pretty often, though I couldn't name the phenomenon that causes it.
Beautiful day today, high 60s. Rained all day yesterday, got nearly an inch, but today is just gorgeous.
The Schuyler County Historical Society had an event at the fire station yesterday evening, Geology, Geography and Glaciers, and Mitzi and I attended. I was surprised by the number of people in the room, more than 50 I'd guess. Maybe a lot more. The speaker was a retired school teacher who has an interest in the subject, and he gave a marvelous talk, very entertaining and informative. Explained what made a lake a part of the Finger Lakes, and it has to do with a terminal moraine dam.
We learned about erratics, or I guess more commonly, glacial erratics. Large stones that aren't original to the area. There may be a small one outside the back door, it's a large rock that I thought might be granite, but ChatGPT suspects sandstone. Sandstone wouldn't be an erratic. We mostly have shale, limestone and sandstone around here. But there are rocks everywhere. When they dig the foundation for the new house, we'll no doubt have a lot of them. When I was a kid, helping out on my uncle's farm, one thing we'd do after a field was plowed was "pick stone." A large sledge called a "stone boat" would be hauled behind the tractor, and we'd have to pick up any large rocks and toss them on it. They'd wind up at the edge of the field, which was typically a hedgerow, usually of cedar. We'd play there and build forts out of the rocks. I guess kind of prehistoric Minecraft.
You'd pick stone so that when you ran the disc harrow over the plowed soil, you wouldn't bang up the discs so much.
Over the years, most of the big stones had been picked out already. So we were only getting ones about the size of a brick or maybe a football. Nothing a 12-year-old couldn't handle.
I guess that's enough about all that. I'm going to go elevate my foot.
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