Done Since 2018-02-11
It's snowing; has been since some time last night. Good day for not going anywhere.
We went to the (first, as it turned out) open mic at the Freeland Cafe last night. It wasn't entirely successful -- our first song, "Lord of the Buffalo", was a bit of a trainwreck because we'd neglected to bring a music stand and light, and we needed them. We cobbled something together for "October Country" and "Gentle Arms of Eden", but it's pretty clear that I absolutely have to memorize the chords for anything we perform there.
Singing lessons have been going well. We've figured out that most of the songs we do have to be capoed up anywhere from a whole step to a minor third to get them into our optimal range. (N and I have almost exactly the same range, an octave apart.)
At N's suggestion, we invited Colleen's caregiver to come to Worldcon with us. That will help a lot, even if her plumbing problems (TMI in the notes) get resolved soon. Travel is becoming has become quite difficult for her.
Work on the website for N's new business is progressing, finally. I'm using Wordpress, since that will make it easy for her to update it; I spent quite a while fighting with the theme, though. At some point I'm going to have to learn how to roll my own. I'll post a link when it's in reasonably complete shape.
At some point I really need to write the "HTML for Poets" tutorial I've been thinking about. Meanwhile, here's a tip: You can make the browser obey line breaks by adding the following attribute -- style="white-space: pre-wrap;" -- to a
or tag. It gives you the same effect as
only without changing to a fixed-width font.
Notes & links:
0211Su * up 5:15; ; : C was apparently up all night. ugh. @ The Fight For Patent-Unencumbered Media Codecs Is Nearly Won (Don Marti) @ mdlbear | Done Since 2018-02-04 with bonus Song for S[unday] Very pleased that adding style="white-space: pre-wrap;" to a blockquote (or p) tag works for poetry. Basically the same as [pre], but doesn't change the font to monospaced. @ Betsy DeVos comes out of hiding to complain critics are hurting her feelings (amaebi) More blaming the victim. * Brunch with C at Charmer's. Went early because we could; good thing, because they had to close early due to plumbing issues. Bit of a drive afterwards, to Langley via Bayview, back on Saratoga. * guitar: The River, followed by random, mostly minor, noodling. Worked out whether the chord I call C* is really C5 -- it is only if you leave off the E played on the D string. @ Don Marti: Team A vs. Team B * SL: tikka masala sauce, beef for stir-fry, bean sprouts, tortelini, cream, pastrami, ground beef, limes, capers, whole milk, x spanakopita, see if they have x piroshki, powdered milk, stick butter, pantsu * Started reading Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey * pick up kids - 8pm ferry, so leave ~7:45 -> actually left at 6:45 because I mis-set the alarm clock. 0212Mo & awake 1:30ish; back to sleep maybe 4? * up 6:15; ; There's actually enough daylight to see by * 9:05 finished the Introducton and Translator's Note of The Odyssey. Fascinating. * guitar: October Country, The River, Ballad of the Shape of Things (needs more work on chords -- the ones it came with are wrong, at least for my picking style), Desolation Row. About a 20+ minute session this time. * B1 mostly spent reading. & park Molly up by the house to allow room for pod delivery -> came early! * shed arriving (from Tuesday) @ How to Start a Folk Band - Clarke Tinwhistle Blog Post ( Poem: "Strength and Power") 99 Coping Skills & gave V the (other) WRT54G -- the one in the box. : We have an 8' wide, level RV parking space alongside the split-rail fence. Wants a layer of gravel for traction and drainage, but not much else. : V is enthusiastic about going to Worldcon with us. * Monday: -beef-_chicken_ stir-fry; C makes fudgies -> timing came out perfectly: rice beeped just as I was figuring the bean sprouts were fully cooked. Go me! Decided to use the chicken that didn't get used last week, because if I didn't it would go bad. The rump roast will keep, and might end up as stroganoff or bourguignnon, or steaks. * reading: finished Ursula Vernon's short stories; read the first chapter of Summer in Orcus and the first book of The Odyssey. The latter is living up to its promise. 0213Tu * Awake 3:15; % trouble getting back to sleep because of Ticia * up 6:15; W=204.6; % mask better but still hurts some ~ _N will_ get digestive cat food at vet - call ahead open 8-5 (360) 341-1200 * guitar: Where the Heart Is, Lord of the Buffalo, WItC @ Dude, you broke the future! - Charlie's Diary [LWN] " Someone out there is working on it: a geolocation-aware social media scraping deep learning application, that uses a gamified, competitive interface to reward its "players" for joining in acts of mob violence against whoever the app developer hates. Probably it has an inoccuous-seeming but highly addictive training mode to get the users accustomed to working in teams and obeying the app's instructions-think Ingress or Pokemon Go. Then, at some pre-planned zero hour, it switches mode and starts rewarding players for violence-players who have been primed to think of their targets as vermin, by a steady drip-feed of micro-targeted dehumanizing propaganda delivered over a period of months. " @ A collection of Meltdown/Spectre postings [LWN.net] @ LineageOS - LineageOS Android Distribution [LWN] community-run successor to CyanogenMod @ Want to Avoid Malware on Your Android Phone? Try the F-Droid App Store | WIRED * book 2 of The Odyssey. @ Welcome to Chibitronics (Increasing open-source inclusivity with paper circuits [LWN.net]) Love to Code - Reinventing STEM with Paper Electronics 0214We Valentine's Day * up 5:45; W=204; * 1-click install Wordpress on caravan-massage.com; add https cert. * guitar: October Country, Lord of the Buffalo. Used Raven; view dual, odd page left @ Linux Journal 2.0 Progress Report | Linux Journal (G) : C and V made major progress on the pile of book boxes in the living room. * minimal setup on N's website * Singing: N, g, and me. worked on Lord of the Buffalo and a little on Toolmakers; g sang I Meant to Do That. g said she wanted to do more jazz; we'll pull out Wheelin' some time. : X has apparently told N that she doesn't want her name associated with any of the songs she co-wrote. Good. Best Valentine's Day present ever. * humira 0215Th * Up 5:15; W=203.2; @ The Initial Better Ads Standards - Coalition for Better Ads [LJ] (Linux Journal) @ A New Project for Linux at 25 | Linux Journal What's Our Next Fight? | Linux Journal : Apparently my CPAP mask frame only takes small cushions, and it's a bad fit. So I need a whole new mask assembly. GAAH. According to ResMed's sizing chart, based on my Respironics size S, I should have gotten a Medium. % Putting the head of my bed down flat helps a little to keep the headgear from riding up, but not enough to keep it from hurting. * shelved the poetry and mythology (There's probably more still in boxes.) @ Making the Most of the AAAS 2018 Annual Meeting! | AAAS plenary sessions (evening) livestreamed; #aaasmtg * j 9am DBA (math) @ The Brains of Jazz and Classical Musicians Respond Differently to Surprising Sounds - Pacific Standard There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places. Miles Davis @ UBOS - The Linux Distro for Personal Servers and Indie IoT Devices (You're the Boss with UBOS | Linux Journal) 1-command install of web apps & out to store at lunchtime; stupidly missed the peanut butter because it was on the same aisle as the juice, and I got sidetracked. Next time check things off. @ Buying Guide: Extension Cords at The Home Depot @ Langley cop saves man from opiate overdose | South Whidbey Record naloxone nasal spray, which Langley cops are carrying. EMTs also carry it; sometimes the cops get there first. @ In the Matrix of Mobile, Linux Is Zion | Linux Journal & helping g with chemistry homework * shreddng (with g's encouragement). Just a couple of items left, which will need disassembly. Terrified the kittens. * start on caravan-massage.com - theme (Tempera) uploaded flier. Unfortunately the bridge image doesn't seem to be separable. : and g decided to use the already-made fudgies in the freezer. Well, we need to make another batch anyway. % "depression? attack" after going to bed. The dominant feelings might be something like regret, despair, and self-??loathing?. Beating myself up as usual over retiring when I dd and leaving Rainbow's End, all the remodeling that we never got much use from, the remodeling in the works, how we can possibly move from here with no capital, and so on. 0216Fr * up 6:35; W=203.2; % went back to the Wisp; with the right tightness it worked well enough. So there's that $ RC to Cat Faber for travel expenses * leave 10:30, so * wake C at about 9:30, o remind at 10 * 11:20 Colleen Freeland Clinic -> catheter came out as soon as she got home. * mail check to Cat @ Poetry by Ian Badcoe | Mary Crowell's Blog & Pick up G at ferry. N drove but wanted company. * bug: something is making (empty) Dog/yyyy/mm/ directories. Should be in Journals 0217Sa * Up 4:30; W=204; $ $20 Mycroft.ai annual support * tried (browser)min. -> the packaged version is out of date, is part of the problem: 1.2, latest is 1.7 1.3 introduces [esc] to show menu bar (there may be a problem under xmonad, though) @ Electron | Build cross platform desktop apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. @ Empress 1908 Gin f(Sunnie) * Successfully updated the header image. A little fuzzy, and I had to fight the damned theme customization all the way. Wordpress may make _content_ creation easy... * basic home page and sidebar text. Still lots of crap. The theme is very inflexible, and the title on the home page is the title of the site. True of other things, too; e.g. the title on the home page. Bletch. * set up Wordpress for caravan-massage.com logo, * theme, ~ colors, * fonts, * header/background pic (preferably from flier) * admin account for N * google font Poppins is a decent match for the logo * Guitar: Lord of the Buffalo. Updated lyrics page. -> listened to Tracy's version; there are differences esp. in chorus. Poetic license ~ Tried the little travel router. OK for what it does, but it doesn't work as a bridge. ~ cat litter -> G * 7pm Open Mic, Freeland Cafe. With G here, we'll have to use Rosie (or take Plink instead of Flame, which I'd rather not. -> noisy, crowded, not a whole lot of room, bad lighting. Lord of the Buffalo was somethng of a trainwreck -- I couldn't see the chords and could barely see the lyrics. After that we tilted the book up. October Country was better. A few chord fumbles, but no problems with lyrics. Gentle Arms of Eden was good -- still a lot of chord fumbles, but not too serious. -> need to memorize both lyrics and chords -- I have problems when I'm weak on either. -> need to bring a music stand with a light; maybe the desktop stand -> need to test whatever recording equipment we're bringing *before* the event @ Scientists Say Japanese Monkeys Are Having 'Sexual Interactions' With Deer (thnidu | interspecies sex) * Menu * Monday: -beef-_chicken_ stir-fry; C makes fudgies ~ Tuesday: Pasta Bolognase, garlic bread, x salad * Wednesday: Pastrami sandwiches * Thursday: Cheese tortelini; cheese sauce and pesto * Friday: leftovers
[Crossposted from mdlbear.dreamwidth.org, where it has
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