!Eye Spy

21:00 Tuesday, 5 September 2023

Current Wx: Temp: 74.53°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 159

Very pleasant morning today. 67°F! Supposed to get over 90° later today though. Still, I'll take it. I opened the windows the morning to get some fresh air in the house. I have a CO2 monitor and it's consistently over 1200ppm, which doesn't seem to cause any overt effects; but has been shown to cause measurable cognitive deficits in controlled tests. It won't matter, because I just closed the windows and it'll be over 1000 again shortly.

If I weren't laboring under those cognitive deficits, I'd look into plants or some other mechanism to reduce the interior CO2 levels.

Anyway, no birds this morning. I don't really understand it, and it's troubling. A few mockingbirds, a couple of doves and a woodpecker, but that was it. Nothing standing still long enough to photograph.

Spotted this green anole, which I don't see as often as the ubiquitous brown ones, when I was shooting some flowers. It'll have to do.

✍️ Reply by email

Everything Old is New Again

21:13 Tuesday, 5 September 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 75.54°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 391

Jack laments the current fad or fashion of film. I can relate.

I was never as much into photography as a younger man as I became when digital arrived. Chiefly because of cost. When I was shooting with "intention," I was shooting slide film, because it was cheaper than getting prints. Later on, I was shooting mostly as a tourist when we made port visits, using whatever plastic Canon compact 35mm auto-whatever was available at the time.

Somewhat later I bought a Canon AE-1 Program, which seemed to be the most popular camera at the Navy Exchange. But I'm unsure of whether I have any pictures from that camera. I probably do, but there's no meta-data on the prints to tell me, so I have to guess from the sharpness and depth of field.

I genuinely appreciate digital photography. Although I confess that I too sometimes succumb to the fads and delusions of things like the "CCD-look." For the most part, I do understand it's all just numbers and you can make them anything you want. So if you work a little bit on contrast and saturation, you can make your stacked 80MP CMOS sensor have as limited dynamic range and high noise as that beloved 8MP Kodak CCD.

It's all just numbers.

Anyway, same thing with "computing." I can still kind of recall the excitement many of us felt with the advent of "home computers." I can definitely recall the ridiculous amounts of money many of us spent for precious little utility, just the chance to experience something that felt like "the future." If I'd have known then what I know now, I think I'd have run away screaming.

I do still enjoy those old machines. Mostly in emulation. They do recall the feeling of thinking the future was going to be something cool. I still think that much of the attraction, for me, was that it empowered me to put something on a TV screen, something that had been just a device to look at things someone else had made. Probably the same thing that motivates me to maintain the marmot. I get to read something I wrote on a screen, and other people can too.

Same thing with the pics, I guess.

Why they should want to is a question I don't dwell on.

✍️ Reply by email

Memory

22:31 Tuesday, 5 September 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 81.95°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 69% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 133

Mitzi and I are watching season 5 of Unforgotten. It's good, though I relate to Sunny and his grief over Cassie. Tough role for Sinéad Keenan to step into, because they don't make it easy to like her right from the beginning. Which is perhaps the best way to do it, if the series will continue.

Interesting listening to what Lang wants to talk about in the series. This one is the most overtly "political." I especially enjoyed the little soliloquy on being powerless in episode 4. People on the margins live the most uncertain lives. As uncertainty appears to be something we will all be looking forward to a great deal more of, perhaps people on the margins will be the best equipped to navigate the future.

It's streaming on PBS Passport.

✍️ Reply by email

Work, Work, Work

12:46 Friday, 5 September 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 70.86°F Pressure: 1010hPa Humidity: 59% Wind: 15.39mph
Words: 834

Went to Home Depot yesterday, dropped Mitzi off at Trader Joe's. I got some grass seed (another tyranny of choice struggle), and a little hand spreader. Later learned Mitzi has one of those back in Florida. Well, now we have two.

When we got home, I went down by the road and kept raking, picking rocks and pulling roots. The dirt was hard and I probably could have used a hoe instead of the rake. So hard that I gave up! I'd hoped to get the seed in before the rain came, but figured I might have to come up with a new plan.

Mitzi suggested we just get a bunch of top soil. Well, it rained at bit yesterday, about a quarter of an inch, and so this morning I went down to see if the dirt was any more cooperative. For the most part, it was. So once I got started, I didn't stop.

I was able to loosen up about an inch or more of most of the area. Pulled up more roots, which seemed to come up more easily after the rain, and that loosened the soil here and there. Picked more rocks. I'm hoping that if and when this grass comes in, our neighbor will mow it, so I want her to know I got most of the rocks out the area.

I didn't do the whole stretch on my side of the driveway (Mitzi wants to do something with the other side of it.), but about three quarters is done. There was still some debris that needed to be picked up on that part and Mitzi worked on that this morning.

Anyway, grabbed the spreader, spread some seed, raked that in and tried to level everything out as best I could. Did another layer of seed, raked that in, then connected three hoses to get enough length to water it all in. There's something odd about that soil down there, because with just that little amount of rain, it made it incredibly sticky and it clung to the bottom of my shoes in huge layers. Noticed it trudging up to the garage to get the hoses with my feet feeling like lead. Tried to stomp it off with minimal success. Ended up using the rake tines to scrape it off.

Watered it all in as well as I could. It's windy today, so it'll probably dry quickly but I'm not too worried about the seed blowing away. There's a lot of seed, and it's pretty well raked in with soil and the remaining debris from the bush hog. I'm supposed to water it every day for two weeks, but we're leaving a week from today. I hope to get some bales of straw somewhere and put that down before we leave so it doesn't dry out too much while we're away.

I noticed both of the ratchet straps had come loose from the black walnut in all this wind. I went down to put them back on and noticed the rope line was slack too. Looks like it's rooted itself pretty upright again. I went ahead and took the slack out of the line and put the ratchet straps back on just in case. I'll probably take everything off in a week and see how it looks after we get back from Florida.

This morning's effort was quite a workout. My watch seemed to think I was on the elliptical. By the time I got the hoses put away, it had recorded 584 "active" calories expended, and 104 minutes of "exercise." All I knew was I was beat. Came in the house and took a shower and repaired to the recliner. Feel pretty recovered now, though my hands are kind of weak and achey.

I will say that all that effort is a welcome distraction from the unfolding catastrophe that is America under Trump. So I guess I'm grateful for it.

Also got the Maverick's vehicle inspection completed yesterday. I'm street legal now in New York.

I told Mitzi I think I'm going to go ahead and pay the flood insurance premium. It's a bet I hope to lose, because I sure wouldn't want to win it. But if I don't do it, I could wind up regretting it for a very long time. A flood loss now would be unwelcome no matter what, that's one of the reasons why we've left Florida. I know I can afford the premium, and I know I can't afford a flood, so it's not that tough a call. It's just annoying because you have to pay the whole year's premium all at once. There is a way to make monthly payments, but you're still obligated to pay for the entire year. You can transfer that coverage to a new buyer, with them taking over the monthly premiums, but if they don't want to, you're still on the hook for them.

C'est la vie in the 21st Century.

The beat goes on...

✍️ Reply by email