Category Archives: Blogging

The trials and tribulations of keeping this trainwreck going…

Blogging, Domestic Bliss

Helper

2 Comments

Yesterday afternoon I let my robot mower, Javier, loose in the front yard. Grass grows fast in the summer and I can’ let it get too far gone or it’s outside Javier’s ability. He doesn’t handle tall grass well.

I usually sit in the gage with the door o[en, reading a book, while Javier is working, mainly because I have the horrible thought that if not watched, somebody will come up and toss him in the bed of a truck because he’s a neat bit of technology.

Did I mention that the cutting of the lawn causes little insects to fly around. The local birds know this. So does this guy:
Technically, that’s a Florida anole, but growing up we called them chameleons because they can change from green to brown. This one dashed onto the driveway and snagged bug, then scurried back to a safer location because some of the larger birds consider him a meal. He kept me company for a bit.

Blogging, Computers and technology

That was fun!

5 Comments

The blog threw a virtual rod.

I tried logging on Thursday morning per the normal routine and get errors.

I get an email: “However, I checked and noticed that there is no A record in the domain”.

I didn’t even know I needed one.

I found out that my domain name is hosted by one server provider and my blog is hosted by another.

I just tried – 5/3/25 17:20, and got in to post this.

We’ve grown over the years. I have a lot of stuff on line with the server – pictures and text. I am forced to go with a more expensive plan for hosting.

But here we are.

Blogging, Domestic Bliss, Wildlife

Audrey

3 Comments

So Sweetie got a gift of a flower bulb. This thing was a wax-coated ball a bit bigger than a softball with a spot on the op that wasn’t waxed.

The instructions were simple:  Set it on the window sill and wait.

Darned thing started growing – sending up a green shoot as thick as my thumb.  Interesting.

Then the tip of the bulb started expanding.  Each day it got bigger, reminding me of ‘Audrey’ in Little Shop of Horrors, hence the article title.

Here’s the original Audrey:

And here’s our version:

And she’s still growing.

Blogging, Current events - national, Weather

Surprise!

3 Comments

No joke?!?

<Cue meteorologist rant™>

There you are, five years into a four-year degree into meteorology, which means most of your peers think you study shooting stars.  Diploma in hand, you get a job at a small-market TV station doing the weather, day in,  day out, of ‘partly cloudy with a 20% chance of rain’ which is vague enough to where people think you know what you’re doing.

But you never get a chance to SHINE! Unlike those assholes on the Gulf Coast – no hurricanes.  Tornadoes are unheard of.  But weather models give you a chance.

Not just a ‘cold front’, but a POLAR VORTEX!!!11!

Shine, you little star, you!

Blogging, Computers and technology, Current events - global, Education, History, Nostalgia, Technology

A.I.

7 Comments

Okay, let’s start with an established fact:  I’m OLD.  Seventy-four.  I’ve watched technologies progress over seven decades.  I’ve seen paths predicted that has failed to develop (yet).  Flying cars, anyone?

When I graduated high school (and dinosaurs roamed the earth) adding machines and calculators were electromechanical devices requiring either mechanical cranking or access to a wall socket for power.  They were out there, expensive.

We sat in classrooms and learned the progression through the world of mathematics – adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, fractions, decimals, all before we got through elementary school.  Then came algebra and geometry and trig and calculus.

Somewhere in the early 1970’s the handheld pocket calculator showed up and became cheap enough for personal use.  This knowledge quickly became a trope in the classroom:  “But teacher, why do I need to learn how to add four-digit numbers.  I have a calculator.”

And the teacher (back then you couldn’t BE a teacher unless you could add and subtract) would smile wanly and reply, “Little Johnny,  what if your batteries die?”

Indeed.  I moved from slide rule to scientific calculator, although I kept a slide rule in my desk at work.  I used it on occasion just to wow the youngsters.

Everybody at my level in the  company had a computer and every computer had MS Office which meant that I had access to MS Excel.  If one had some small amount of numeracy (like ‘literacy’ except for numbers) and a few pointers, one could use Excel to perform calculations.

Of course there were caveats:  You had to  know what you had, what you wanted to have, and some idea of what correct answers might look like.  An idiot with a spreadsheet is still an idiot.  Give that idiot access to MS PowerPoint and you can move him into management.

Now we have “artificial intelligence”.  Ask a question, get an answer, NOW.  Somebody (or some THING) has done the legwork for you.

“But teacher, how come I gotta memorize this stuff about history.  All I gotta do is ask Alexa or Siri.”

And everybody on that big hump of the intelligence bell curve will be asking the question, supported by management and leadership who are right there beside them on the curve, and they’ll get the same old answers, approved by those before them.  No more Edisons or Teslas or Wrights or von Brauns.  “Alexa says…”

Blogging, Cajun culture, Current events - global, Current events - national, Domestic Bliss

Christmas Week

5 Comments

Starting off with a bit of somewhat domestic bliss. I got up with the dogs this morning at 0730. Fifty-one degrees right now, up from the night’s low of thirty-eight. Puppers are fed and the youngest, Oscar, is curled up on the footrest. Very comforting.

Christmas is upon us. I don’t know the schedule other than Christmas meal is a big pot of chicken and sausage gumbo at the mother-in-law’s place. For a transplanted Georgia lady (the state, not the country) she does and excellent gumbo. A great locally-produced sausage is helpful.

Everything at the house is working, the weather looks to be mostly good. I think the government is going to hold together. I still get the feeling that the final Biden-Harris poke in the eye of America would be for Biden to step down to allow Kneepads Harris to actually BE the first woman president. Matter of fact, I further surmise that Jill Biden is threatening mayhem to keep this from happening. Still, it’s well within the capabilities of the dimmocrat party.

You really don’t expect it to be this easy, do you? Massive loss in an election, and we haven’t seen a single riot. Major media is strangely silent. I still don’t think they are buying the loss, so hang one.

And Merry Christmas.