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Calling Atlanta fen, book loading Wednesday PM
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Apr. 21st, 2008 @ 09:37 pm
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For those who haven't heard...
The Meisha Merlin warehouse contents, rumored to be 'about to be pulped' last year about this time, apparently really are about to go. Sean Wallace of Wildside Press is making a run to salvage what he can, basically one truck-full (semi, I assume). See the original announcement.
He can use all possible help for loading, even an hour or two. The warehouse is at 1440 Kelton Drive, Stone Mountain, which is in the general vicinity of Stone Mtn. Freeway and Hairston Road. All the truck company will tell him is that the truck will be there sometime between 12 and 4 PM Wednesday, the 23rd. Show up if you can--if I can spring loose from my office a little early, I'm planning to go.
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Taxes, taxes, taxes
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Apr. 15th, 2008 @ 12:13 am
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Took most of the day off work (except an hour-long conference call and some time on email and Web pages) to work on taxes. I'd spent a chunk of Sunday on them, too, plus time last month doing some of the data entry. Things are particularly messy this year with the final dissolution of assorted family businesses--blessings on my younger brother for looking at the mess and laying out how he dealt with everything so I could copy it.
I've now printed everything for the final checking, which I'll do tomorrow when my brain is fresh. Bottom line is not as painful as last year, though I still hit the AMT. Plus I overpaid--a major sin in my books, as I hate giving the IRS a free loan. But I'm being conservative about my estimated payments until all this shifting due to the family stuff settles down.
It's now officially April 15...Tax Day. Grrrrr. I'm going to bed.
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More feeder watch
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Apr. 12th, 2008 @ 07:00 pm
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This brown thrasher is most interesting. It's working on the suet/seed cake that's in a hanging wire basket. It has a difficult time with the basket--frequently ends up spinning around and around, has trouble getting in position to peck at the suet, etc., but eventually either gets a piece in it's beak or knocks some to the ground. If on the ground, it flies down to collect it's booty. In either case, it then flies off across the neighbor's yard--I'm guessing it's feeding either a mate or babies, though it seems a little early for babies.
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Feeder Watch
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Apr. 12th, 2008 @ 02:30 pm
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Goldfinches. Loads of them. 22 right now at the back yard feeder area, probably more in the front.
The bluebirds have largely disappeared for now. I also haven't seen one in or near the nest box, but I don't have it in easy view. One male was at the front feeder this morning, but that was the first I'd seen this week.
The hermit thrushes have migrated, leaving the 'brown, stripy breast' niche to the brown thrashers. Robins are more in evidence, for some reason--but they're here year-round. Cardinals, occasional house finches, a sparrow or two. A red-bellied woodpecker and a downy woodpecker. And mourning doves doing ground scavenging. |
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Stand back, it's an email landslide
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Apr. 7th, 2008 @ 10:57 pm
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I dabble in Freecycle when I have un-donatable items--I like the concept of keeping things out of the landfill, and it's sometimes amazing the items that someone else will come and haul away for you. However, I have never seen a response like today's.
I offered 10 tickets to ZooAtlanta--they send me some every year when I renew, and these expire at the end of the month. I posted the note to the FreecycleDecatur list this morning, and responses came in all day. In total, 58 separate requesters--just amazing for the little Decatur Freecycle list. The big Atlanta list might do that all the time, but not Decatur.
Of course, I forgot that it's spring break for several of the school systems here, so there are lots of people looking to entertain kids Right Now. When I get my breath back, I may delve into the Drawer of Free Passes and see if I want to offer Atlanta Botanical Garden passes, or High Museum, or Carlos Museum. Probably none of these will match the Zoo for popularity, though...
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| » Killing time in the Denver airport |
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Sure like this free WiFi in the Denver airport....
I got here >2 hours ahead of my flight, that being the closest carpool I could hook up with. (Using a commercial shuttle service would be at least that much lead time, and taxis cost a fortune.) So here I sit at one of the laptop counters (convenient power outlets built in), checking email and reading newsgroups. Gee, maybe I'll even get caught up enough to start working on my LJ backlog! Nah, probably not. I'm still 2 weeks behind on piffle and the Bujold list email, though I'm about up to date on my SFF newsgroups.
The week in Denver was fine--database testing was fairly uneventful, though I have a couple of testing tasks I'll need to finish next week. I also need to write up a summary of a meeting we had on what to do about Homeland Security requirements for the database changes that will be in this release--there's a conference call with a couple of senior management types next week, and us worker bee types took advantage of being together in for the test to talk out our preferred strategy for the problem areas. Now we just need to get those approved by those who have the final say. It's all a CYA exercise, of course, because any terrorist who wanted to locate one of the sites of concern ("public water-supply infrastructure") could do that easily with Google Earth or by driving down city streets. However, you won't be able to pull exact lat-longs off our system for them.
Denver weather fluctuated between beautiful and unpleasant. One day was sunny and a high of 50, the next was mixed snow and rain until mid-afternoon, when it cleared off and was beautiful (but colder) again. I do wish I'd joined up with some of the groups who got out and enjoyed the pretty weather (when it was pretty)--I always heard after the fact about the group that played frisbee golf downtown, or the group that drove to Red Rocks after work and hiked a little, and so forth. All I managed for exercise was climbing the stairs of the hotel (6 stories) last night, where I found another person from the test team with the same idea so we climbed up and down and chatted for about 30 minutes.
Apr. 4th, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
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| » Denver again |
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It's the April-in-Denver database test this week. So far, testing is going well, weather is cold (an inch and a half of snow on the car yesterday morning, more tomorrow evening maybe), hotel, as noted during the January trip to a training class, is adequate. I have punted on the hotel breakfast options, and just finished a bowl of cereal with strawberries in my room.
Off to testing!
Apr. 1st, 2008 @ 09:23 am
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| » Mortgage payment adjusts |
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The annual mortgage interest adjustment letter arrived. I have a 30 year mortgage that had a fixed rate for 5 years, then became subject to annual adjustments. As interests rates have been fairly low over the 14 years I've had the loan, I've never bothered to shell out the fees to refinance to a fixed rate.
Won't happen this year either: Previous index: 4.92%. Current index: 1.52%
Thanks to this and to regular additional payments on the principal, the monthly payment dropped 19%. I will, of course, adjust the additional payments on principal upward to keep my monthly payment the same as it has been.
Mar. 29th, 2008 @ 09:22 pm
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| » And the show goes on.... |
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Well, the exercise class goes on, anyway.
About 2 minutes before 6 this evening, as the instructor for my Jazzercise class was just putting on her mike and getting ready to start class, the power went off. Blinked back on once, then went off again and stayed that way. After some brief investigations, we concluded it was a widespread outage, so not much that we could do to get it fixed. But after a little more pondering, the instructor grabbed her laptop from her car, pulled up iTunes, cranked the sound up as loud as possible, and found her playlist for her set. We opened all the blinds for light, opened the doors for light and air (it was mid-70's today, so when 25 people start exercising in one room with no A/C, things get warm fast), those of us with poorer hearing moved closer to the laptop, and off we went.
We were in the next-to-last song when the power came back on--the instructor just switched to her iPod and the room sound system, and finished up.
Lucky it was Lynette instructing tonight. She's been an instructor for a long time, and nothing much fazes her. And lucky we're now in the era of iPods, as if it had been back with CDs or cassettes, we'd have been SOL.
Mar. 27th, 2008 @ 09:52 pm
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| » Dragged back into droughts |
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Drought hydrology isn't really my thing, though I somehow ended up doing some drought analysis a few years ago--mostly pulling together some data, and looking at what parameters might could be used for a semi-early-warning-system for a growing season drought. But all that passed, and other than answering questions about it from the cooperator every now and then, I haven't been working on droughts.
But now I'm going to have another spurt (not a good word for this, I guess) of drought stuff. At the end of April I'll be one of 2 people representing my office at a NIDIS Southeast Drought Workshop down in Peachtree City, Ga.--that's about an hour's drive from my house or office (more with traffic). NIDIS is the National Integrated Drought Information System--which I heard about for the first time today. Guess I'll be learning a good bit more, soon.
Tomorrow I'm going to a noon-through-dinner symposium on Drought: Science and Policy down at Georgia Tech. This one I asked to attend, partly because of the workshop next month, and partly because I do find this interesting even if it's not my field. I'm also helping a co-worker put up an exhibit--we're a sponsor for the symposium, it seems, and so they asked for an exhibit. Today. For a meeting tomorrow. Luckily I used drought as the focus for last fall's exhibit at the Sunbelt Agricultural Exposition, so we dug those materials out and that will be it. No time to update the hydrographs for the last 6 months of data--it will have to do as it is.
Mar. 24th, 2008 @ 10:14 pm
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| » Shopping on Easter |
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I'm so removed from my Southern Baptist/converted to Episcopalian childhood, I forget how big a holiday Easter is for some. If I'm attuned to any holiday, it's the Jewish ones celebrated by my s-i-l and nieces and nephew. And Pesach is a month off from Easter this year. Bottom line: I got caught off guard. Some things got punted as a result.
Target: all stores closed
Publix: ditto, I think, judging by the big store I drove past
the kosher Kroger was open, yay! Could do the shopping for dinner. (No, no, I don't need a kosher grocery, it's just that this store is close to a large Orthodox synagogue and caters to the community. And the alliteration is nice.)
DSW: open limited hours, found the new cross-trainers I've needed for a couple of weeks
Bed Bath and Beyond was open, but didn't have the item I wanted to get at Target
And I have industriously used up my weekend in projects that didn't further work on the income taxes. Must start trying to make small efforts in the evenings after work and Jazzercise, as I've got a trip to Denver that eats up a full week of the time remaining.
Mar. 23rd, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
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| » Electronic medical records |
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This morning was my twice-a-year visit to my internist for blood work--check the cholesterol, the thyroid (both being treated with medication), and liver function (because of the cholesterol medicine). I also mentioned again that the tailbone pain from last August (that started sometime in February 2007, but I didn't get in to the doctor until August) was still present. Better, perhaps, after taking extra aspirin for inflammation and sitting on pillows to keep pressure off it, but still there. He's referred me to a non-surgeon orthopedist, perhaps headed for a cortisone injection to see if that helps. Yikes! Googled the orthopedist, and find that he is actually a Physiatrist--new term for me. Double yikes! His practice has a YouTube video of their doctors and staff. [shakes head] What's the world coming to?
But that wasn't really the interesting part of the visit. Since my last visit, this clinic has made big strides in converting to electronic medical records. ( More on the system... ) I suggested that the next wave of doctors wouldn't make any notes with pen and paper, but he's skeptical...but then, he graduated from medical school in 1965. His habits are pretty well set. <g>
Mar. 18th, 2008 @ 10:26 pm
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| » Started the taxes |
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I started the taxes Sunday night. I wanted to start earlier in the day, but Step 1, intall TurboTax on the iMac, proved difficult. It seems TT dropped support for OS X 10.3 this year, and I never upgraded the iMac beyond that. So, decided I could take it to 10.4 (not 10.5, as I would lose my recipe program that runs only in Classic mode if I went to Classic-less 10.5), and set off to buy the system upgrade. An hour and a half later I'd managed that--wandered through the Apple "Federal employees purchasing for themselves" store, found only the version showing was the multi-seat license, called the store support number and got someone who had the same problem and foisted me off on the main Tech Support line. Half an hour on hold, but then I got the very helpful Pete, who spent another half an hour finding the code for a single seat 10.4 (by looking in my purchase history for when I bought it for work) and then completing the purchase. No download available, so it was mailed and will be here next week, probably. I regret being so upright and not just finding an install CD at the office after all that.
Anyway, I temporarily installed TT on the work laptop, got the updates downloaded and installed, and got through the first blast of data entry (W-2, 1099s). I should be working on the one stock sale tonight, but I don't seem to have enough brain. Will wait until tomorrow...or later. Lots of time left, right? Except that the really messy stuff for this year's return is yet to come...
Mar. 18th, 2008 @ 09:38 pm
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| » Car's in the shop |
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My car's in the shop today. They couldn't hear the rattle/thump/whatever sound, of course--shops never hear your car's mysterious noises. However, they found that the lower control arm bushings on both sides are cracked and need $$replacing$$. And the two front tires are below the safety level for tread by a good bit--and the first job requires alignment, so it's efficient to buy the tires from them and get it all balanced and aligned at once. I usually don't buy tires at the dealer, but gave in on it this time.
Oh, and an oil change, and grease a squeaky door, and the bill should be about $700. Now that I've googled on the bushings, I'm hoping they actually replaced the control arms, not just the bushings, for that price. And I hope that this stops the noise!
Mar. 17th, 2008 @ 03:10 pm
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| » Pi Day |
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I took my younger niece out after dinner to buy a mini pie, in honor of Pi Day. Her older sister wanted to eat pie but wasn't willing to make the trip to get it, so will have to live with what came home (chocolate banana, from Whole Foods). Both parents declared that they had done all the driving they were willing to do for the day, so I agreed to make the trip.
And this brings to mind the Thanksgiving pies, all 6 or 7 or whatever it was, and how we taught my 8 y.o. nephew about pi using pie. We actually told him he couldn't eat pie until he knew about pi--he didn't seem to take this threat all that seriously, but still quickly memorized the definition, and 7 to 10 digits of the number. And we measured (sloppily) the circumference and diameter of several circular objects (including a pie), did the calculation and arrived at something in the vicinity of 3. He found this procedure disappointing when it didn't come out closer to 3.14159.
 Ah, it appears it was only 5 pies at Thanksgiving, if you don't count the tartlets we made to use up the extra chess pie filling. The 4 in this picture, plus a black bottom that was still in the fridge. And the memory goes faster every year--what did we make? Deep dish apple, buttermilk chess, the dark chocolate thingy that wasn't as good as I'd hoped, and ____. Something else chocolate, perhaps? Maybe chocolate chess.
Mar. 14th, 2008 @ 11:29 pm
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| » Birthday cake baking |
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Most of today has been consumed by baking...no, preparing...another birthday cake for younger niece. ( Party (and cake) history of late )
This cake goes away from the decorated-party-cake type to looks-like-it-will-taste-marvelous territory. It's a Chocolate Raspberry Bavarian, from Chocolate by Nick Maglieri. ( Cake description, and the hockey puck first attempt... )
Oh, yes, final touches. After the kitchen marathon I was not inclined to cook dinner, so I headed to Mama Fu's for Thai green beans with beef, then to the grocery store for fresh raspberries for garnish. Egad! Those berries cost $5.99 for each 6 oz. container--and I wanted 3. I decided I was committed and spent the money, but that's well past my usual choke point for berries. I generally buy raspberries when they're going for $2-$3 for those little containers.
Mar. 8th, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
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| » Junk drawers |
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There are too many places in this house for "miscellaneous junk". Places that need to be searched when I need to find a smallish item that is not where I expect it to be, or that doesn't have a place where I expect it to be. Top drawers in two desks, compartments in one of those desks, top drawers of dresser, bathroom drawers, jewelry boxes (which also accumulate buttons, pins, keys, etc.), a box or two in the garage cabinets, and many spots in the 'new' (from the 2006 renovation) cabinets of the utility room and the Cat Room.
I searched all of these, the most likely of them two or more times, looking for my old Hastings triplet hand lens, largely unused since I emerged from college with my geology degree, got a job as a hydrologist, and quit looking at rocks for the most part. I thought I'd seen it recently, defined as 'period of time that seems like a couple of months, but the older I get could really have been a couple of years'. It eventually turned up not in any of the junk drawers, but in a box of 'misc. stuff' that needs a new home after a clean-out of the primary desk's top drawer. Not with it, however, was the smaller, higher-powered triplet that used to be on the same lanyard...that may have disappeared forever.
Mar. 2nd, 2008 @ 08:53 pm
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| » Spam o' the Day |
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I email to know if you can make a specail order of powerplant for me ,If yes then i will like you to get back to me with the smallest sizes that are avilable with the prices range on them so that i will make my selection and get back to you with the quntity that i may need okay,
Regards
Can't tell what email address it was sent to, but I will guess the "water-use web" one, as that's where pages with the word powerplant would appear. I can't really see the point of the spam, though, unless it's just checking for live email addresses....
Feb. 28th, 2008 @ 02:05 pm
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| » Agatha goes back to the vet |
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Poor old lady Agatha was back at the vet again this morning, this time because she's been snorting and making gakking sounds like her nose is stopped up. But not continuously, and she has not been mouth-breathing, so I let it go on longer than I should have. I really noticed how bad it had gotten when I was at home Monday, but Wednesday is one of the days the good vet is there so I waited.
The tentative diagnosis is a sinus infection. (I didn't know cats could get sinus infections.) I've got tuna-flavored liquid antibiotic to give her every day for a week, and the vet's email to send updates or questions to. She (good vet) had me make a follow-up appointment for next Wednesday, but depending on how things progress, I might not need it. Or might need to go in sooner, if this doesn't seem to work. Vet also noted that on Agatha's last blood work her blood sugar was a little high, so we need to watch for diabetes.
Current status: Agatha is in her usual evening spot here on the desk, under the heat of the lamp. There's a lot of snorting, swallowing, and the occasional gakking fit going on, and I wish I could hold up a tissue like parents do to toddlers and say "Blow your nose, Agatha! Harder!" Unfortunately this doesn't work well with cats. :(
Feb. 20th, 2008 @ 08:39 pm
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| » Great Backyard Bird Count, Sunday and Monday |
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Yesterday's count, in the morning hours before I left for the JazzerThon. 12 species:
Mourning Dove - 2
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Carolina Chickadee - 1
Tufted Titmouse - 1
White-breasted Nuthatch - 1
Brown-headed Nuthatch - 1
Carolina Wren - 1
Northern Mockingbird - 1
Dark-eyed Junco - 4
Northern Cardinal - 2
House Finch - 6
American Goldfinch - 2
Today I observed most of the day, either from the kitchen eating area looking at the front yard feeders, or from the computer desk where movement at the backyard feeders often catches my eye. 18 species:
Mourning Dove - 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Carolina Chickadee - 1
Tufted Titmouse - 1
White-breasted Nuthatch - 1
Brown-headed Nuthatch - 1
Carolina Wren - 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 1
Eastern Bluebird - 2
Hermit Thrush - 1
Pine Warbler - 1
Song Sparrow - 1
White-throated Sparrow - 1
Dark-eyed Junco - 5
Northern Cardinal - 2
House Finch - 6
American Goldfinch - 7
Three of these are new-to-me species, and I'm a little tentative on all of them--on anything but a slam-dunk ID, I always wish I had an experienced birder at my shoulder who could confirm my work. The ruby-crowned kinglet I'm fairly sure of, because I don't see another option for a very small gray bird with a red stripe/crown. The next-least-certain is the hermit thrush--the key says the tail is reddish, but I didn't notice it as different from the brown back. Body shape and beak look right for a thrush.
Least certain is the pine warbler. Off and on all day I saw a bright yellow bird, too large for a goldfinch in early mating plumage and with a slender beak instead of the finch's conical one. I got lost in the warbler pages every time I tried to work out what it was--and of course, the bird would also flit away leaving me without a reference. Cruising over the GBBC report for Decatur shows that only 2 warblers have been reported, and only the pine warbler could be my bird (and it was on a number of lists). I decided I was sure enough of it to include it on my report.
Feb. 18th, 2008 @ 10:35 pm
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