I’m at the point where, when I do something, I often figure I’m probably doing it for the last time in my life. I think I mentioned a while back that I bought a case of LED light bulbs because Home Depot had them for pretty cheap. I have CF bulbs in all my lighting fixtures at home (those that aren’t LED lamps, anyway), plus a pretty good supply of CF bulbs squirreled away in various places, so – assuming nobody breaks into the house and steals them – I’m pretty sure I’ll never have to buy another light bulb again.

I bought a case of 500 envelopes a couple months back too, and 100 “forever” stamps. The only thing I use stamps and envelopes for these days is mailing my property taxes in. Maybe the odd rebate form. At most, I mail maybe 5 things a year. So I’ve got 100 years worth of envelopes and 20 years worth of stamps. Maybe I’ll have to buy stamps again, but I doubt it (hopefully over the next 20 years they’ll come up with a way for me to print my own postage without have to subscribe to a service for $16 a month).

I guess if you do a lot of mailing, then something like stamps.com is worth it, but as cool as it seems, it just doesn’t make much sense to me (makes about as much sense as audible.com). My computer, my printer, my envelopes – and I have to pay close to $200 a year? Shit, the USPS only charged me $1.20 shipping for 100 stamps. At that rate, I could get over 1,300 stamps for $16.

And I’m definitely going to the grave with a surplus of envelopes. And checks. I got a couple hundred of those a year or two ago, so if I don’t move or change banks, they can bury me with those, too (though I did just join the credit union recently – if it weren’t for the pain in switching all my payments, I’d jump over completely).

I also may or may not be on my last set of dogs. Fritzi’s more or less at the half-way point in his life, and the other two kids probably have 10 years max. On the one hand, I really can’t imagine a life that doesn’t involve tripping over critters. On the other, well, I think three more deaths is really more than I can handle. Every time one of them dies (and of course they don’t have the decency to just wake up dead – you have to decide for them), it damn near kills me. Of course, that’s assuming I’ll outlive them – which, the way I feel these days isn’t exactly a sure thing.

One thing that definitely won’t outlive me is the skunk I found in the back yard a few days ago. At some point after I got up and let the dogs out, I detected the unmistakable aroma of Eau de Skunk wafting in through the open windows. Nothing major, mind you – and not terribly unusual, what with living out in the sticks and all. When it didn’t go away, though, and it finally got light enough out there to see a bit, I decided to go investigate. Two of the three dogs were inside and not too stinky (no stinkier than usual), but as I mad my way from the front to the back, I saw Peggy sitting by herself, looking rather proud.

Of course, when I got close I found that she was guarding the body of a poor dead skunk. So I got her and the other two inside (thankfully, while I could smell skunk it didn’t appear that she’d taken a direct hit), and headed back outside, snow shovel in hand. Aside from being dead, Pepé looked to be in pretty good shape (it was still darkish out, and I didn’t exactly perform a postmortem examination, but I didn’t see blood and guts) and relatively fresh. And pretty heavy as I rolled him onto my shovel (being careful to stay away from the business end – I wasn’t sure what might happen if I inadvertently pressed down on the wrong spot) and then flung him over the fence into the woods (in retrospect, I probably should have made an effort get him farther away).

Since then, we’ve been living under a cloud of stink. The dogs didn’t get a full blast, but 2/3 of them have a good stink going on.

Good thing winter’s coming.

Except for the heat, that is. Much like Oklahoma, it’s gotten really hot and humid around here (not Oklahoma hot, of course, but yesterday was the hottest day of the year here at 93°, and today should be the third day in a row that it’s gotten into in the 90s). The normal high temperature for this time of year is about 75°, and it’s looking like we won’t get lower than the current 76°. So, yeah, for us, that’s hot.

Not only is it hot, but it’s also back to work today after four days off. As if that thought wasn’t revolting enough, it’s also back to school day (whatever happened to “Black Wednesday”? They start on Tuesday now?), so we have to fight the damn school buses on the way in. I’ve expressed my annoyance with school buses in the past (I just wrote the check for the annual school taxes, and may I just reiterate that for the amount of money I’m paying, the goddamn kids and buses should have to yield to me) so I won’t get into it again (it’s too hot to get all worked up). Suffice it to say, after dealing with construction all summer, it just makes for one more big old pain in my ass.

In fact, I’m thinking of starting a new religion. I don’t have all the details worked out yet, but one the central tenets will be “Thous shalt not yield to school buses, school children, not those in crosswalks.” So “the man” netter not even think about infringing upon my religious beliefs.

On top of that, summer is basically over. It starts getting dark really early, really fast from here on out. In a month, the sun will be setting by about 6:30 – and I still have an overwhelming amount of things I need to get done to get ready for winter.

But first I guess I better get ready for work.

So long summer, you will be missed.

Here it is, my annual (sorta) lament to the end of summer. It’s a big day today, as not only is it freshman move-in day at SU (a sad day indeed, back when I used to work there – traffic instantly turned to shit, and there were suddenly lines to get into pretty much every establishment in the area), but the butter sculpture will be unveiled ahead of tomorrow’s opening on the Great NYS Fair. I will, of course, let you all know what it is.

Otherwise, I’m struggling to make it through another five-day week, and I find it hard to believe that it’s only Wednesday. The weather has cooled off a bit (quite a bit, actually), and while they say things will warm up again, I have doubts that we’ll get more pool time this year. I haven’t kept track, but I’d be willing to bet that if you added up the amount of money it cost in propane, electricity, water (lots of water this year), and chemicals and divided that by the actual amount of time anybody was actually in the water, you’d be somewhere in the vicinity of a dollar a minute. Probably more when you consider that June was a total washout.

It’s also rapidly getting darker earlier in the evening now. Sunset up here is 7:50 PM today – and in a week it’ll ten minutes earlier. I find it all very sad. As usual, I had a lot of goals for the weather, and while I did manage to get a few things done there’s lots left to do before the snow flies (and you never know when that’s gonna happen).

Oh well, whattya gonna do?

So, we’ve made it more or less to the halfway point of another five-day work week. This one started out with an exhilarating trip to the dentist, which (all things considered) wasn’t too terrible. I got an attaboy for my diligence and oral hygiene, and an appointment for my next cleaning in February (which sounds very cold to me). When I got home on Monday evening, there were only two dogs there to say hello, which is very unusual. Turns out the third one was camped out underneath a tree waiting for some varmint or other to come down and play. At first I thought it was a cat, but much to my surprise, it turned out to be a woodchuck.

Now, I’m a pretty worldly guy, but I’ve never seen a woodchuck in a tree before, and frankly had no idea that they could even climb trees. But apparently they can, and this poor fella looked pretty terrified. So I herded up the dogs and sequestered them over on the other side of the yard. I went back to check on him a few hours later, and damned if he wasn’t still there, hugging a branch. I was beginning to try and figure out how I’d go about moving him if it came down to it, but fortunately he was gone the next morning.

I’m guessing he’ll stay outside the fence from now on, but I’m a bit paranoid that there’s gonna be a groundhog paratrooper leaping from a tree when I least expect it, and biting my face off.

Otherwise, there isn’t much excitement around here. Summer seems to be fading fast, and the weather has turned slightly chilly. At least at night, which is good for sleeping but not so good for keeping the pool water warm. At this rate, between the cost of water, electricity, chemicals, and propane, I figure it will have cost me roughly $64.15 for every time I’ve gone in the pool this summer. What a deal!

And of course I’m trying to resign myself to the possibility that the idiot American people will somehow manage to appoint Donald Trump the next president. Not that the other Republicans are any better.

Please save us Bernie Sanders!

Oh well, two and a half more days and then another 3-day weekend. I only hope I can make it.

If you’re like me, when you hear the word “leo” you think of the International Space Station, because it’s in Low Earth Orbit. But this August one can’t help but think of the astrological sign Leo the Lion. Especially in light of that brave white hunter Bungalow Bill DDS (aka, Bloomington MN dentist Walter Palmer – just his practice is in Bloomington; he lives over in Eden Prairie should you want to drop by his home for tea and cookies) who bravely paid somebody to lure Cecil the Lion from a sanctuary so he could kill him with a crossbow. Congrats, doc. Now Bloomington is known for something even more nauseating than the Mall of America. I hope Ted Nugent needs a lot of grill work, ‘cuz I can’t imagine a whole lot of other folks will be seeking your dental skills. Though I suppose Michelle and Marcus Bachmann aren’t far away.

But August isn’t just about killing leos, as we as celebrate their birthdays, including Leo in Chief Barack Obama, who was allegedly born in Hawaii 54 years ago yesterday, plus the birthday of my brother and wife (that’s two different people – I’m not some Mormon with brother-wives), who were both born an undisclosed number of years ago today. So, happy birthday to you both. Your checks are in the mail.

Otherwise, I’m jut trying to make it through another week. The weekend won’t be all that enjoyable, since I have a Monday morning dentist appointment hanging over my head. I don’t think he’s a lion killer, though I don’t really know for sure. I assume he’s Hindu – do they kill lions? I know cows are safe, but I’m not sure about other critters.

My sister is trying to get me to go look at a 1996 GMC Jimmy with a plow on it, because I made the mistake of mentioning that I’d kinda like to sit in a heated cab listening to the radio while I plow my driveway this winter (not to mention being able to plow a lot faster), rather than freezing my ass off on the tractor (cab or no cab, it gets cold out there after a while). So she’s been on the job scouring Craig’s List ever since. I hate talking to people and haggling and all that stuff, but it really would be nice to have.

Oh well, I suppose I’d better get back to work.

I’ve been playing with Google’s new “timeline” feature, which (assuming you have location enabled on your phone, which I do) shows you where you’ve been (and for how long) on any given day. And if I didn’t realize what an exciting life I lead before, I certainly do now. Basically, it’s five days a week Home>Work>Home, then Home>Costco>Home, and Home>Home>Home. Sometimes I switch things up a bit and go to Costco on Sunday. Prior to January 16, there was also a 6 – 7 minute stop on the way home at the grocery store down in our village for beer every two or three days, and it has the trip I took to Minneapolis back over Thanksgiving weekend, plus when I went to my in-laws on Christmas Day. Mostly, though, it’s work and home, and home and work.

Yesterday, though, it has my trip to the vet with Fritzi (it even got the exact spot in the parking lot – just to the left of the big maple tree – where I parked, which is pretty impressive. I mean, when I check my location at home, they even get the room I’m in right – let’s face it, if Google ever decides to drone me, I’ve had it), and the fact that I was there for a total of 16 minutes.

I also noticed that Google has updated satellite photos – no older than mid-May or so. I can now see the piles of stone and mulch at my house, plus the little kiddie pool I had set up in the front yard for the dogs. From freakin’ space. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty amazing.

So, anyhow, after our exciting trip to the vet yesterday, I came back home and decided to start painting the house. Or at least start getting ready to start painting the house. But then I said, “fuck that” and decided to do some weed whacking instead. So I did that for a while, and then thought about getting the power washer out to hose the house down a bit, but I didn’t feel like doing that, either. So I decided to start screwing the siding back on where it’s been coming off. So I did that for a while, but then had to get into some sort of bushes and a goddamn bee stung me (right on the earlobe, which is all swollen up so now I look like a Ferengi. Or half a Ferengi, anyway). And it hurt (it still hurts). I was googling around to see if there was some new remedy for bee stings (when I was a kid, the solution was to put mud on it, which my mom insisted would “draw” the stinger out), but the only thing I could find was a reassuring passage that said just ‘cuz you’ve never been allergic to bee stings before doesn’t mean you won’t be now. I was home alone with the dogs, so I thought “hey, this would be a great time to suddenly go into anaphylactic shock.” So instead of waiting to be found dead with my screw gun in my hand (so to speak), I said “fuck this” and hung out in the pool instead.

Sometimes, you just gotta admit defeat.

Of course, hanging out by the pool and not drinking beer gets pretty boring, pretty quick (much like everything else life when you remove beer from the equation), so I grabbed my camera and waited for the hummingbirds to show up. We have tons of them, but they tend to scurry away when you point a camera in their general direction.

The one with the red collar is particularly skittish – but one of these I’ll get him.

We’ve had a great stretch of rain-free weather which they say will end today, so I guess I’d better get out there and cut the grass. Or hang out in the pool – either one works for me. The secret to a happy life is being willing to settle.

My long nightmare of multiple five-day weeks has finally ended. Actually, it ended on Tuesday with the return of the guy I work with from his well-earned vacation. Fortunately, nothing too overwhelming crapped out on my watch and it’s really nice to not only have a few days off but to not have to carry my goddamn work phone around with me everywhere I go. The only real bummer id that I have to take Fritzi to the vet tomorrow morning for his Lyme booster and Lepto shot. Although I hate going, he’s at least pretty easy to handle and hopefully we’ll be in and out in a hurry and then I won’t have any vet trips to worry about for a while (as long as they all manage to avoid hurting each other to the point of breaking bones or needing stitches).

Otherwise, I don’t have a lot going on. I tried to get some shit done yesterday, but didn’t get very far. I haven’t really been feeling that great, which makes it that much harder to overcome my natural state of inertia. It has been warm enough to get in some pool time, so that’s nice. It’s about the only time I feel good – but it wears off fast. On the bright side, I’ve discovered a couple of good teevee-related things.

If you’ve got Netflix, you’ve probably already heard of Sense8. It was created by J. Michael Straczynski (I guess if you’re a geek like me then you’ll know who that is, otherwise not so much) and the Wachowski brothers. It’s pretty hard to describe what this thing is about, so I won’t bother. But it’s pretty weird, which is right up my alley.

Also right up my alley is a new show on USA – Mr. Robot. This one is kind of about a “white hat” hacker (though his hat isn’t all that white, so maybe “grey” hat would be better). It’s quite a bit more realistic than the other tech-related shit you’ll see out there, where the ability to hack seems to involve typing really fast and slapping in really cool-looking (and extraordinarily fake) graphics in post. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good (at least they use Linux).

The other little project I’ve been working on is a new media device I got a deal on, and which shipped from Slovenia of all places (which I don’t know much about, but it looks like a really beautiful place from the pictures I’ve seen). In fact, it went from Slovenia to JFK to my house in two days (for free, even). That’s pretty good. So, anyhow, I replaced the OS it shipped with (OPENElec, if anybody cares) and loaded Android on it instead. So it thinks it’s a tablet tied to my Google account, so I have access to all my Android apps and Google content on it. It’s also got an SD card slot, so I have OPENElec loaded on that, and can boot to it if I want to.

Not very exciting, I know, but if my life ever was exciting (and, sadly, it never was), those days are long gone.

Oh well, I reckon I’d better at least make an effort to get something done around here.

Gosh, it’s been a while, so I guess it’s time I put something up here. I kept starting to write stuff, but then some needy bastard at work would call me or some system would get all screwy and I’d have to go deal with some crisis or another. I’ve now been not on-call on-call 24/7 for nine days and I have the rest of today and tomorrow to go. It kinda sucks.

I finally got around to listening to Obama on WTF (and the follow up with Brendon and Marc talking about how the whole thing happened). I thought Marc did pretty well – he didn’t talk over Obama too much, so that was good. It was kind of interesting to hear Obama sounding like a regular human being instead of this devil (or god, depending on who you happen to be listening to) that he gets made out to be. I still think he should’ve pushed for single-payer just so he could cave in and give Republicans (and Democrats on the insurance industry payroll) a “victory.” It probably would have avoided a lot of the nonsense that came after.

Oh well.

Of course the big thing for me is that I’m somewhere into 3 weeks in to my “Project Fi” experience, which I guess can be broken down into two parts: the phone itself, and the plan.

As for the phone, it’s a Nexus 6. I’d heard a lot of things about it – mostly that this phone is a “whale” and way too big and all that other stuff. I was kind of afraid it would wind up seeming stupid big and that I’d regret it. I’m pleased to say that, though I don’t have especially large hands or anything, I took to this phone right away – and though the display kind of dwarfs my “old” phone (an HTC One M8 – no slouch at 5.2″), it doesn’t seem big to me at all.

Of course, I don’t go walking around with my phone in my ear all day either. If I’m talking on the phone (which I’m generally not), I’m using the speaker phone or my trusty HTC earbud headset. Otherwise, I’m just checking my e-mail or using it as a remote for my Raspberry Pi or maybe asking Google if it’s going to rain. So size, I’m pleased to report, really doesn’t matter. Not to me, anyway.

I’ve also been very pleased with the battery life. Again, I’m not yapping all day but I listen to podcasts on my 30-40 minute commute via Bluetooth connection to the car, I keep BT, WiFi, and location on all the time, and check the odd e-mail or web page now and again, plus (as I said) use it as a remote for various devices and even watch the odd episode of “Vicar of Dibley” on NetFlix. By the time I put it into the wireless charging cradle before bed, there’s still plenty of battery life remaining. In fact, I’ve never seen it less than 75%.

So, phone – good. Plus they gave me a “welcome” gift for being a Fioneer (made that up myself) with a case (white – used it for a couple days before my Spigen case came; even though I’m not into white, it was actually not a bad looking thing), a 6,000 mAh external battery (which I welcomed to the collection along with the 11,000 and 20,000 I already have and never use because I don’t actually go anywhere), and a headset which looks nice but which I haven’t used. So, hey, it’s always nice to get free shit.

No for the service. If you didn’t know, Fi automatically chooses the best connection between T-Mobile, Sprint, and WiFi. And it switches automagically between them. I wasn’t supposed to get better than 3G out here in the sticks where I live (say what you want about Verizon, but you can’t beat their network), but I’m pleased to report that I almost always get LTE from T-Mobile, and when I don’t, I get HSPA from Sprint. Both of which are faster (in theory, anyway) than what I get from Time Warner (which will hopefully change when Charter buys them out).

The deal with Fi is that you pay $20 a month for unlimited voice and texts, and then you basically pay as you go for data at a rate of $1 per 100 MB. You choose how much data you want to set your “goal” at, and pay for that a month in advance. And you get credited for what you don’t use or charged for what you went over at the same rate. I have WiFi at work, WiFi at home, and no real desire to check my e-mail while I’m driving to work. Since I download the podcasts I listen to while driving (or on the tractor) overnight on WiFi, and don’t stream anything, after playing a bit, I decided to just turn off cellular data completely and I can turn it on if I need it and WiFi isn’t available.

With Verizon, I had a 2 GB data plan and had to play extra for the privilege of using it as a hotspot. For this, with the voice/text plan, I was paying about $80 a month (excluding taxes and fees). I think the most I ever used was one month when my power and Internet were out for like a day, and that was 300 MB or so.

For Fi, the same 2 GB/voice and text costs me $40. However, I get a credit for unused data on the next bill. So had I not been getting screwed by Verizon at the time, that 300 MB month would have cost me $23 instead of $80.

As it is right now, with 13 days left to go this cycle, I’ve used 30 MB (or, as I think if it, 30 cents worth) of data – and this is why I paid about $220 to get out of my Verizon contract early. I figure at worst, a 5.5 month payback – and probably more like 4. Even with the price of the phone, it should be a bit more than a year payback (would have been better had I sold my old phone to Gazelle, but the wife an ancient Droid Razr and she fairly leapt at the offer to upgrade to something a little more modern, and Junior got her Droid as an upgrade from his old dumb phone, so everybody’s happy).

Another advantage of Fi is that when somebody calls me (admittedly, a mostly hypothetical scenario), the phone will also ring my tablet and my computer (which is actually a bit confusing when I’m sitting next to all three at the same time) if I want it to, and when I get voicemail (from myself, testing), it sends me an e-mail with a reasonable decent transcription and a link to listen to it online).

So, anyhow, that’s what’s been keeping me busy over the past couple of weeks. That, and we had our anniversary in there somewhere too (16 long, long years). I hope your July is going well. It’ll be winter before you know it.

This is the day that you godless liberals hate more than any other day (except for Christmas and Easter) – the day when we celebrate Jesus Christ writing and presenting the Constitution (not that Bill of Rights crap, though – except the Second Amendment, but not those other fruity ones) to King George III and his Nazi wife. History tells us that George was so enraged when he read the document that his head exploded, thereby spawning the traditional display of fireworks on this day (another thing liberals hate about this holiday, because many Americans enjoy fireworks, and as we all know, liberals hate to see people enjoying themselves doing anything except for smoking dope, burning the flag, or eating gay wedding pizza).

Personally, I don’t count today as a holiday, because “holidays” on Saturday and/or Sunday are bullshit. Plus it’s not a holiday if there’s no beer, and I haven’t had a beer in a long time, which sucks. I keep waking up in the morning (in the dark, because what I consider “this morning” these days is what most people think of as “last night”), wondering what the point of living is (I think it has something to do with owning the most electronic devices that don’t have fruit logos on them).

It’s one of life’s little ironies – beer makes life worth living, yet drinking beer shortens one’s life. Unless you drink it in moderation, of course, but moderation is for wimps.

Oh well, time to decide whether or not to go to Costco (I assume it’s open – I mean, there’s Patriotism, and then there’s Capitalism, and I’m pretty sure we all know which one this country’s all about. UPDATE: Looks like Costco is closed today – good for them!), or maybe skip that and cut the grass. But then I’ll have to decide whether to take the loader off the tractor and cut the grass first and then put the loader back on, or do all the shit I need the loader for first, and then cut the grass. Or maybe cut the grass with the loader on, but I tend to do some damage that way. And then I think I need to get some diesel, and if I’m gonna leave the house, I might as well go to Costco. But that would mean putting pants on (and if you have to put pants on, it aint a real holiday).

It’s just one dilemma after another.

To all of you who aren’t NY State Employees (or postal workers), Happy Holiday! Here in NY, Governor Snotball has made it clear that we need to get our asses to work today. Though, judging by how empty the parking lot is, maybe he didn’t make it quite clear enough. Anyhow, the wife and I are at work today, and I’d planned on taking Monday and Tuesday off, but since some asshole decided to make promises on my behalf (and without my knowledge), it appears that won’t happen. Plus the other person I work with is on vacation the week after that, so I’m looking at three or four five-day weeks in row. And since he’s the one that knows stuff, I’m looking at a couple of pretty shitty weeks.

Hopefully the weather this weekend won’t suck, because I have a lot of shit that needs to get done after last week’s monsoons. Parts of the area got so much rain that one good Samaritan who was trying to help a woman push her car out of waist deep water got sucked into an open manhole and disappeared, They finally found him in the sewer yesterday, a few miles away. What a terrifying way to go.

Anyhow, if you’re off today (or at least this weekend), have a happy holiday, stay away from yahoos with explosives, and watch out for open manholes.