It looks like we’re past the last of the cold weather and since this weekend is looking absolutely gorgeous, I went out back to do a little more work in the garden. I’ve gotten one more cucumber in the ground. They did really badly with the cold, with me losing 5 of 6 that were planted first time around. I also planted one of the cantaloupes, the anaheim peppers, jalapeños, banana peppers, and a sprite tomato. I also planted another batch of carrot seeds, some more lettuce, and try three at one of the broccoli. After that a lot of mulching of the more established plants and then running some fertilizer over everything.
Author Archives: Pat
My First Gun Show
After enduring much ribbing from friends about having never attended a gun show before, I picked up Alex and headed down to Dallas Market Hall to do a little shopping. I met a couple other friends there and proceeded to nose around. Definitely some good deals, but boy were the rip-off artists out in force! At the end of the day I picked up a couple LED flashlights, bright, cheap, and reasonably waterproof. One’s going in the Sportster’s saddlebags and the other’s in the Jeep. I also managed to score a .22 caliber air rifle cheap. That one will be fun for dealing with garden pests. And the pièce de résistance was a small, cheap .380 automatic for those times when concealing a full sized 9mm is just out of the question.
Planted The Hops
Well, both hop rhizomes are in the ground now. Now I’ve got to work on a climbing support for them. It’s going to be interesting figuring out how to work that in with the bird netting that’s currently covering the entire garden. They both looked really happy, throwing off shoots left and right in the plastic bag they came in. I also got some mulch spread over some of the taller plants that ought to help retain moisture, etc. The tomatoes and cucumbers are still really unhappy. I’m thinking they got planted too soon. But there’s more still inside so all is not lost.
Running Errands
It was a busy day today, met some of the North Texas Netscum for breakfast at Mama’s Daughter’s Diner, then headed over to Competitive Cameras to see if I could find a more convenient bag for carrying the camera around D.C. in May. Thankfully, I did. I’ve now got a SlingShot 300 AW and amazingly enough all of the gear fits in it. I’m happy that I found something that looks like it’ll work out. After that I went up to Homebrew Headquarters to pick up ingredients for a batch of wheat beer and some corks and a corker so that I can finally get the mead bottled. Looks like that’s going to be next weekend’s project. It was a pretty successful and productive day.
Stargate – The Ark Of Truth
| I finally got a chance to sit down and watch the DVD and have to say that I really enjoyed it. They did a great job of wrapping up the Ori story arc and it was pretty evident to me that they had a little bigger budget to work with. The story line was well written, with no real gaps that stood out. The team chemistry was definitely there and I laughed at the ongoing banter between Vala and Daniel. I’m definitely sad to see SG1 end but as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. One more movie to go this summer and then it’s all Atlantis… |
Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here
I got woken up at about 3:30 this morning to the pounding of hail on my roof. I ran to the back door because I was worried about the garden being completely wiped out. There was golf ball sized hail falling and literally bouncing off the bird netting that we’d put up on Saturday. I was amazed, and after I’d gotten up in the morning and looked, there was no damage to the garden at all. The Jeep has some more dents, but that’s not a big deal, they just blend in with the rock rash…
The Faded Sun Trilogy
| I’ve been a fan of C. J. Cherryh for a while and picked this one up as my other reading for the trip out to San Jose. I got part of the way through it on the flight back, but didn’t finish it until tonight. The work is definitely a little dated, especially in regards to the technology, but the story really doesn’t suffer from it. Definitely some elements of Dune in it as well.
The story starts at the end of a war between humans and regul, who fought by using proxy mercenaries called the mri. The mri got slaughtered because of how different humanity treated the war. From that beginning we move through intrigue and betrayal as the few remaining mri struggle to find their ancestral home. It was a great book and reading it brought me back to an author I’d neglected. I’ve got the beginning of some other series which I need to re-read and then finish off now… |
The Hops Rhizomes Arrived
I checked the mail today and there was an envelope there with a couple cascades rhizomes. They look nice and healthy, with new shoots coming out already. They’re resting in the fridge until I get time to get outside and plant them.
Storm Casualties
Not a good week to be garden plants. We had some severe weather roll through, but then again it is spring in Texas. Looks like three of the broccoli, one jalapeño, and one of the tomatoes got damaged by the winds. I’ve got one more of the tomatoes still inside, but the rest will have to be re-seeded.
b2evolution Upgrade
I upgraded the blog software today and while you may not notice anything different, I sure did. I’ve been reluctant to update the software because it’s been a pain to do. I’ve had to customize some stuff, like the Adsense code, Google search, Google Analytics, and some HTML validation steps.
Well, it turns out that none of that is needed any more. The 2.1.x series has a generic HTML widget that you can drop just about anywhere. I just copied the HTML into widgets, put them where they needed to be, and was done. Now code updates don’t require me to crank up vi and get dirty with PHP.