I saw this recently as I was doing yardwork. It appears to be a robin egg:
It’s a pretty little egg, so I took a photo. Poor baby bird. I like how this solitary ant is enjoying the feast though, like “Screw the colony, this is mine!”
–Simon
Something for Nothing
Remember that moldering potato I stuck in the pot under the grow light 3 months ago because it was winter and I wanted something green inside? Well, it died.
I had never seriously grown a potato before, so I didn’t know what to expect. Liz informed me, however, that the plant dying simply meant it was time to harvest it. Either way, I needed to remove it before it started rotting in my basement, so I dumped the pot outside. Peeking through the root clump, I saw some happy little tubers, so I gently ripped apart the roots and behold:
I had forgotten it was the red potato I planted. While not exactly an epic crop, it’s still a fun little net gain from an otherwise inedible piece of produce.
–Simon
Herbaceous
Over the weekend, we managed to finish the herb garden. I say “managed” because as I’ve mentioned before, the sod in this place is brutal. The grass is old and the roots well-established, and the soil contains just enough clay that separating the two is a feat worthy of a strongman competition. And the vegetable gardens will be bigger. I asked the neighbor to borrow his tiller but it’s currently on loan to his son. Maybe I’ll acquire an ox instead.
Anyway, after two days of hacking and cursing, the sod was removed. The soil, now exposed, was begging for vegetation, to which I obliged before it started enlisting local volunteers.
But first, we discussed raising the bed. Despite our valiant efforts of minimizing soil loss, a large quantity still accompanied the sod in its journey to the pile of discarded grass on the side of the house. That, and the benefits of drainage from a raised bed are obvious. Visions of logs sticking out the back of the inadequate Honda dampened my spirits, but then I remembered the leftover 2x4s from the fencing installation. With a little help from the reciprocating saw and sledgehammer, I secured a border with wooden stakes.
A lot of fancy dirt later, and raised bed we had. Lowe’s also had a sale on herbs, which was awfully considerate of them to time that with the weekend of our herb garden project. And, complementing what I had started under the grow lights, we now have a proper garden of fragrance and seasoning–a symbolic requirement to having an established homestead.
Can’t wait for the pesto to start flooding in.
–Simon
My Outlook: Office Doesn’t Excel
Do you know what they improved between MS Office 2013 and 2016? NOT A DAMN THING!
Okay, to be fair, there were some totally awesome improvements, like…window stacking? And new Excel graphs. And there’s this map function apparently. And better database integration support. This would totally be worth buying a new license.
Of course, that’s not their MO anymore. I realize it’s clichéd to blame Millennials for things as I’m apt to do, but it’s totally their fault. They expect software to have no upfront cost, and to be completely cloud-based. So now, Microsoft pushes subscription services instead. Yay, just like DRM! You never actually own anything anymore.
On the business side, we have the same thing: perpetual contracts, even when the new software adds no value. So what did Office 2016 change? Well, they moved all the functions around so I had to find them again. And now, repeated keystrokes cause some type of application layer panic and everything crashes.
Rant complete. But I’m not one to complain without suggesting a solution. I offer you an alternative: LibreOffice. It’s an open-source fork. So while you may be forever forced to use Microsoft products at work, you can still make a choice in your personal computing needs.
Now I’m going to get back to work and see if Excel launches.
–Simon
A Requiem Not Eternal
As I’ve mentioned before, my former job involved maintaining an internal website of procedural company information. I also tend to have an over-abundance of humor. This often created unexpected results, much to the irritation of management (e.g. hidden Pokémon GIFs).
At one point, the idea arose to create a serialized novel, hide it in the website, and share the link with just enough people that it would remain an amusing easter egg. Two chapters in, I wisely chickened out. However, I now had the seeds for a story. I dabbled with it off and on, for I always enjoyed writing, and while I knew the chances of ever becoming a published author were akin to being struck by lightening, completing a novel had long been on my bucket list.
My colleagues found the burgeoning story entertaining enough that they encouraged me to continue, so I (always the one to shamelessly find distractions) took the opportunity and indulged. And because of my coworkers, I had a constant supply of feedback–something critical to the project. It would have been all too easy to devolve into rhetoric, or abandon it completely. Except now I had an audience who was expecting regular updates, and advising me where they felt the story should elaborate more (character development, violence, philosophy, universe creation, etc.). It was because of their involvement that this came to fruition. Coworkers, I thank you.
Once completed, I debated what to do with it. Ultimately I submitted my manuscript to a literary agency just to see how the process worked. They promptly rejected it (as I expected). I considered repeating the process with other agencies, but decided against it as I did not want to exhaust my emotional energy over a non-critical side-project. But, growing in popularity is the paradigm of self-publishing. Of course, it certainly doesn’t carry any prestige, but that hardly mattered. It allows people to distribute their works contract-free with little risk. I see it as an opportunity to officially label this project as complete and to finally close the book (so to speak), that I can move on to the next project.
For those interested, it can be obtained here, print on demand:
https://www.createspace.com/7086065
Additionally, I found CreateSpace’s comprehensive guide incredibly fun and straightforward. If anyone else is looking to self-publish, so far I’d recommend them.
While a work of dubious literary value, may it still bring you cheap entertainment.
–Simon