Thanks to a donation from lone_cat, you can now read the beginning of "In the Heart of the Hidden Garden." Lawrence and Stan look for their classrooms at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
I just bought a membership in this year's Wiscon, which is entirely online, so I don't have to worry about energy levels, or covid risk, and all I'm paying for is the con, not airline tickets and a hotel room and all.
On both my work and personal laptops (Windows 10 and 11), I have noticed that the file context menu in Windows Explorer now includes an "Ask Copilot" option.
I have privacy and security concerns about that. If I accidentally select this option, will the file or its contents potentially be uploaded to the web somewhere? Will Microsoft use the contents of the file for other purposes? I didn't find clear answers on that. If I wanted Copilot to analyze a file, I would prefer to select the file thru other means. I don't need extra items in my context menu; it is already lengthy due to other custom entries (which I actually use on a frequent basis) that I've added to it. So I will edit my registry to remove the entry from the menu.
Small white cars with autonomous vehicle things on their roofs passed by me twice as I was walking this morning, with different company names on them. One was Nuro; I forgot the other before I could look it up. I presume they're test vehicles for future self-driving taxi services, but Nuro has been rolling out package and food deliveries with autonomous vans for a while and we're just inside their licensed area.
Kanye West was supposed to have a concert in Korea at the end of this month, but after he released a song called "Heil Hitler" on VE Day, his concert was canceled and — perhaps even more devastating — sales of his merch were stopped. Hopefully we'll see more of this sort of thing going forward.
With construction starting this year, the Great Florida Reef will soon feature a 7-mile public art installation: The Reefline.
Both a sculpture park and a snorkeling trail, the development will also serve as an artificial reef to offer shelter to fish, which will, in turn, help corals thrive.
Shidarizakura By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams Part 1 of 1, complete Word count (story only): 1625 [Thursday, 24 March, 2016]
:: Diane Cort makes time to follow her family tradition of hanami. She also makes an effort to include an acquaintance who could become much more important to their family. Part of the Mercedes story arc in the Polychrome Heroics universe. Written for the April 2025 Feathering the Nest prompt call, from a suggestion by siliconshaman, and posted because I just couldn’t let it get lost in the ether any longer. ::
Shidarizakura
Blossoms peek between curtains of leaves to weep for a trembling world.
If I have enough interest, I would like to purchase one of the three giant Shiv epics, or open one for microfunding if there is a good start but not enough to buy it outright. If there is not enough interest, I have two other Shiv poems in mind instead.
Giant Epics "The Release of Human Potentialities" $568 (q.p. $284) OR "Shopping for College" $639.50 (q.p. $319.75) OR "The Bones of Chihuly" $618 (q.p. $309)
Cheaper Options "The First Swath Cut by the Scythe" $106.50 (q.p. $53.25) "So Monumental and Still" $162 (q.p. $81)
Went to Fort Bragg yesterday and had my back worked on. It feels Much better. Got room 2 bed 1 planted in the last couple of days. That involved removing old fennel and leeks that were past their prime and then filling the bed up with dirt and compost. The bed looks ever so much better and more tidy. In the picture the stock panel sections are mounted going north/south. In this bed they will have cucumbers or tomatoes on them this year. In the past I've put up long panels that were oriented east/west. Last year I trialed one section, like these, that went north/south and thought that it was an improvement. I got the panels up, then saw a segment of a garden show where the panels were raised off the ground, thus giving extra support up high. Since both cucumbers and tomatoes have eagerly grown over the top of my panels in the past I thought raising them was a dandy idea. Along the south edge of the bed is a row of little French marigolds. Should be yellow and orange.
I feel like this bed got planted a month late, but better late than never. Also accomplished: cleared the two small round tanks and filled with extra dirt and compost. Those got planted to various kinds of squash. The clutter of trays and pots of bedding plants is now clear of Room 1 bed one. . I'd already planted a couple of cucumbers, some dill, and two Vates collards in that bed. They were joined by 6 Orange Jing okra plants. Now I need to get some flowers in there too. More and more it seems to me that mixed plantings are the healthiest. Next up I'm building two new raised beds in the space that was between Room 1 and 2. (I took down the actual rooms last fall, but it is still easier to designate the beds as if the rooms were still there.) Removing the rooms left a space about 9 feet wide, a space that clearly should be filled up with new beds! I had intended to build new beds on the south side of the house, but somehow that never happened. So handy to have a ready supply of pre-cut lumber!
The gopher snake is visiting the garden and made me yelp when I saw it. I sure hope it is actually reducing the gopher population, seems like we have an abundance of gophers this year. It is a pretty good natured snake, I think it is the one Chena stepped on this spring. Speaking of Chena, she did her job today and escorted a pesky deer out of the area.
Donald has been clearing up the grass I weed whacked as well as all the grass I pulled around the house. Every little step makes the place a little more fire safe.
New dahlia flowers are opening, and I'm mostly very disappointed. Most are pretty enough, but not at all what I wanted. Half of the dahlia seedlings originally went into a potting mix that had fertilizer mixed in, half of them went into regular mix. It is clear that the fertilizer mix made a big difference. Both sets of dahlias have set blooms, but the ones with the fertilizer are blooming at least two weeks earlier. They are different seed batches, so there is still hope that the second batch of seeds will produce flowers I like better. What this really says is that I am under fertilizing things. Maddie brought me some 5" square pots from town. Now all the Dahlias I started are potted on, into plain old potting mix. They will be ever so much happier as they were drying out daily.
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 24 secrets from Secret Submission Post #959.. Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ]. Current Secret Submissions Post:here. Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
This evening we went to the plot so I could water things (and say hi to people). We wandered up past the woodpecker nest; there was a Great Yelling; we heard some wood being pecked; all seemed well.
In the vicinity of ten minutes later, someone heading home realised that Things Sounded Wrong, and established that one of the babies had launched itself out of the nest while really not remotely being fledged yet (it. does not have that many feathers.) by dint of hearing that the yelling was not all coming from up, and also some of it was Louder Than Usual. (I am pretty sure we didn't miss this when we were ambling up? I think it genuinely did go on an incredibly misguided adventure somewhere in that ten minutes.)
... I was delegated to stand guard for the purposes of Dissuading Foxes. Other people went to fetch A Ladder. I subsequently provided A Torch, and Part Of The Ladder Steadying.
The Errand Child was delicately posted back into its hole.
The tenor of the yelling from the hole... changed.
An adult popped its head out, all "what the fuck just happened???" Paused. Quite clearly thought, upon Observing the Assembled, something along the lines of "... right then." Retracted.
And then everyone settled down apparently to sleep.
I was perhaps not in fact The Fae, but I did get to be at least fae-adjacent, and I got to see a shit tiny dinosaur that really I ought not to have but in a way that was minimally bad for the poor thing.
Fascinated by the evolutionary strategy of "screaming incessantly might get me eaten or might get me The Fae, but there's no good outcome from not screaming, so... screm?" Evidently in this case it worked!
(It had the start of its little red hat! It was simultaneously Tiny and Lorge, and definitely Distinctly Round! It was a BABY. I am so glad friend human realised Something Was Wrong.)
I love his work normally in regards to reflections on the news and political scene, but this isn't that. This is about his Childhood, College, Army Experience and Adult life and Therapy. Personal rather than his usual slightly snarky humor and very enjoyable if you have the time for and hour & 15 minute dialogue.
My vet practice changes the mail order pharmacy it uses far too frequently. That would be a PITA even if they were all pleasant to work with. They aren't.
These people - or perhaps my vet - believe that prescription medicines are discretionary purchases, which one waits to buy until they are on special. And they have enough specials that I feel cheated when I pay full price, but not so many that I can reliably get the meds my dog needs, when she needs them, without paying full price - even if the med in question is a monthly pill the dog will be taking for the rest of her life. (Also, they have an autoship feature, enabled by default, which presumably guarantees missing out on all those specials.)
But that's not the worst of it.
On Saturday, I tried to reorder one of my dog's flea medications. AFAICT, they simply did not stock that medication. So today I called the practice to ask them (a) what to switch to and/or (b) to give me written prescriptions I could take to a vet pharmacy with a more complete selection. Fortunately (?) I got a ring-no-answer from the veterinarian's office, at a time that might have been a late weekday lunch hour (after 13:30). Naturally, they don't have their hours posted on their web site. So I started composing an email to the veterinarian.
Well, in the course of this I decided to check what the pharmacy actually offered. On Saturday, they had alternatives I'd never heard of - none listed with the active ingredients prominent - and where I'd clicked through I hadn't been able to find the same drug , except with additional drugs duplicating the function of one of the dog's other meds. I wanted to document this as an appendix to my email.
Well guess what? The excrescence of a pharmacy had the usual product today. I doubt they've just started carrying it. Most likely, it was out of stock, and their stupid site couldn't communicate that. Next most likely, their search-by-name and search-by-function were both broken, and have since been fixed, or at least broken in new ways.
Meanwhile, the web site promises vets that using their service will "put profits back in your pocket". So I presume they are overpriced, or sell only the more expensive products, either way with commissions to the vet.
Or maybe not, since they also claim to offer "a world-class experience for your pet owners," which they certainly do not. So maybe the supposed profits for the veterinarian are equally illusory.
Meanwhile, the system (TM) makes it really hard for me to switch to an alternative pet pharmacy. I've tried. I need to mail original paper prescriptions to the new pharmacy; meanwhile the vet office didn't believe that and gave me soft copies.
He was just standing around, looking kinda vague. So when I finished the exercise I was doing, I went over and asked him if he would like any help.
We didn't share much language, but I got the impression he didn't want to be bothered, so I cheerfully went on my way.
But when I was doing my next exercise, he came over and said something about "check weights."
I hopped up with a confidence I soon realized was unearned. I was at that time actually using the only machine I can read the weight numbers on...because they've been repainted by hand. I rarely use the free weights because I can't find the dumbbells I need most of the time -- everything is labeled black-on-black! Why?!
Anyway, he didn't actually want help setting the weights for a machine or finding free weights. He wanted me to read his weight, from a scale that I hadn't even known was in the gym.
The numbers on the scale were so tiny.
Oops: I quickly realized I'm the worst person in the gym for him to ask!
Luckily I had my phone on me, so I could do what I usually do when I'm out and about and something is too small for me to read: took a photo on my phone and zoomed in.
I read out the number to him, and he seemed dismayed. He actually handed me his cane and asked me to read his weight again.
Guide canes are only a meter long, they're hollow, and they're very light. White canes working properly depends on them being very light! Sorry my friend: the number was the same the second time.
Anyway, moral of the story is: sighted people should offer help to a blind person, because if you don't another blind person is gonna recognize their cane and be excited about it and offer help that it turns out I'm shit at actually providing.
For this morning's practice we attempted to keep all 7 boats in proximity to each other, starting by having the slower boats launch first. That gave me a chance to get this photo while we waited to launch:
Good practice for waiting in line at regattas! (and then also hustling once we have our turn to launch; these aspects of rowing really do cater to twitchy people like me)
It was a bit chilly, but the water was pretty calm and the current has settled down.
Getting 7 boats across lined up is a bit of a project, and we definitely aren't used to doing it.
Thankfully we only really had to do that once.
But from this photo, you can probably begin to appreciate why coaches are always trying to get their crews to bunch up together.
It's really hard to communicate with everyone when a group is spread out like this! And this is right after we tried to regroup!
A good row, overall. I was really glad to be back in a 2x with J, since that's our priority race for Saturday morning's regatta.
After some coffee with my teammates, I went back to the boathouse to finish constructing the main "wall." I wanted to get it done before I leave to go bike touring next week. And, success!
It might not look like much, but it lets me move forward with constructing a second charging station for the walkie-talkies, which can now hang in another shoe holder next to the light charging station. Prior to the wall, there wasn't really a place to put things - you can see there's just the shed's metal outer cladding that's behind the wall. And then I can eventually start work on an updated coxbox/megaphone charging shelf.
And then I worked on just one of a jillion equipment repair projects. This one was an interesting one. Here is the footstretcher assembly out of one of the club's singles:
As you can see, the sole of the right shoe tore out.
The reason why the sole of the right shoe tore out, is because the shoe had been bolted directly through the footstretcher board, with a pair of bolts.
However, most likely in this instance, at some point or another there was a hunt to find a footstretcher board of the correct width/dimensions to fit into this particular boat. This footstretcher board hardly looks original (although one can certainly purchase a replacement for the original, for the mere price of $265).
And with that hunt, a challenge, because boatmakers don't care to standardize things between boat brands. So maybe the board was found, but there was no shoe plate that would work with the board. In some cases I've observed that our coach has sawed (sawn?) down footstretcher boards to get them to fit the width of the boat he needs them to go in. Sometimes that works, sometimes not, depending on what the footstretcher board is made of.
Last year I did advocate for paying the hefty sum to replace one of the other really badly bodged sets of footstretchers in one of the doubles we use and race frequently.
Anyway.
With all that information, I did find a box full of spare shoe plates, and I did find a really nice, brand-new pair of shoes among the supply stockpile, which you can see on the right in the photo above.
But do the bolt holes for the nice-looking new shoes actually line up with the bolt holes in the shoe plate I found? (note, it has to be a narrow shoe plate for this narrow boat, so that did involve quite a bit of rummaging through that parts bin).
No, of course not!
But, there was another pair of worn-out shoes in the separate, bigger "footstretcher parts and shoes" bin that DID fit the bolt holes in the plate.
So the only other remaining step was to drill yet another set of holes in the footstretcher board, so the board could accept this particular (superior IMHO) style of footstretcher plate. That poor footstretcher board, though, can only handle so many holes!
And then assemble everything, after rummaging around a whole bunch more to find some acceptable bolts, too. (don't even get me started on thread pitch differences across our equipment!!!!)
There are also some brand new shoes on order anyway, but they aren't going to arrive in time for the regatta this weekend.
So when I go home, I also need to remember to find a couple pieces of foam to insert into the heels on these worn-out shoes, so that anyone rowing the boat doesn't get their heels all cut up.
And with this project, perhaps you can begin to grasp the extent to which there is a massive, massive equipment maintenance backlog to address.
We have the exact same problem with the rowing equipment, as I initially had with the first set of bicycles I obtained for my bicycling class. Used equipment, assembled back together, will work for a little while.
Until something breaks.
And when things start to break, the nightmare begins, because none of the parts are standardized. So every repair requires that someone become the champion of that particular project, and see it through from start to finish.
With the bikes, I largely addressed this by arranging to buy a fleet. I've added more bikes since then, but the fleet is the core of the bike collection. And it has been such a relief, to be able to ride and not have to worry so much about limping the bikes along.
With the rowing equipment, I think my biggest dilemma at this point is related to communicating about this whole situation to the rowing club.
Our head coach, who has been on hiatus for 6 months now (out of town in Chicago with family), has been talking to me about this problem for *years*. But he has also clearly been incredibly thrifty and clever about bodging repairs, to the point where I'm just not sure whether any of my teammates fully understand the scope of things. I mean, I'm not sure that *I* fully understand the scope!
There's also the element that it's usually a whole lot easier to convince people to contribute towards the purchase of a shiny new boat, as compared to contributing to the upkeep of many of these older, tired shells.
But it's worth keeping up at least *some* of these older shells going, because they're the boats we have right now, and we're using many of them often multiple times in a single day.
So that's where I am, with things.
And obviously I also need to be strategic with my time, since this boat stuff is a hobby and not my profession.
Got a notice from Campus Health that I may have been exposed to measles in Hagey Hall on the 8th, between 5 PM and 11 PM.
Oddly, that's not a one-to-one correspondence with my shift on the 8th. My shift started at 3:45 PM. The client's company was there before me, so if they were the source, the warning should begin earlier. I wonder what time Plant Ops evening shifts begin?
Today is cloudy, warm, and damp with a light breeze. It rained last night.
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches plus a catbird. We seem to have a lot of catbirds this year.
I put out water for the birds.
I set out the flats of pots and watered them.
EDIT 5/20/25 -- I did a bit more work outside.
EDIT 5/20/25 -- I trimmed grass beside the new picnic table, filled one of the new taupe pots, then planted it with a 'Pink Berkeley' tomato and Charleston Food Forest marigold seeds.
EDIT 5/20/25 -- I sowed cypress vine seeds around the support wire of the telephone pole. Asiatic lilies have buds.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmith
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
gallusrostromegalus_feed
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandomsecrets
