By Holly the Assistant
(Sarah is working on comments from the editor for Witch’s Daughter today, and also letting the antibiotic kick in.)
I have very little to say today, I’m afraid: the sun is shining between much needed rainstorms, my rain gauge blew away, the weeds are growing faster than the gardens . . . and the dogs relocated the front yard to the sidewalk, a joint project achieved separately in between spates of trying to murder each other. (No, the photo is not one of them. They’re in time out.)
I do finally have the new computer up and running. The old one failed in an entirely improbable and perplexing way, with first Firefox, then Discord, then finally the OS refusing to recognize keyboard input, over a week’s time. Pale Moon, which is my secondary browser, and LibreOffice still both talk to both keyboards. When you can type text in some programs but not in the OS search function box . . . well, it’s probably MY computer.
Spring is as busy as fall around here, with the trees currently enthusiastically enlisting everyone in their reproduction projects whether or not we’re willing participants. And of course the grass is growing, the wildfires are burning, and we’re side-eyeing the large puffy clouds overhead for their intentions regarding rain, hail, and lightening.
The oldest cat is on my lap discouraging gardening work by emitting sleepions, the younger two are probably opening cupboards somewhere, or maybe rewiring something (they are Indy and company’s full siblings). What’s up at your place?
Does anyone want to help remodel with the cats? The Wolf just said something about paint . . .
According To Hoyt 
I hope nobody messes up the Diner… too much. [Crazy Grin]
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Not so much that Fluffy will disapprove.
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Rain. We could surely use some in the southeast. Im doing my part: i planted flower seeds on the steepest slope of the yard, and when my car is back from the mechanic I’m taking it for detailing
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The OS search box in Windows 10, and maybe also 11, is outright unreliable.
I do not know why it refuses input, for me, at times.
I’ve figured out how to install command line programs in windows 10 without directly adding them to the path.
First, I have a text editer, either a GUI like Kate (installs vis MS store) or Notepad++, or an already working command line set up. SEcond I have a command prompt (such as Windows terminal from the MS store), and know how to use the path command as a query. Path at the command line, in the ‘old’ prompt (the one that is /not/ powerscript), gives me the list of things that I have added to the path, with installers and such.
Anyway, I first installed Midnight Commander or mc in windows using Chocolatey.
Then using my text editor, I created a two line file.
@ECHO OFF
“C:\Program Files\Midnight Commander\mc.exe”
I saved those two lines to C:\Users\Luser\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\mc.bat
(I already knew that I had the directory added to the path, and that I could save or copy files to it.)
Now I can just CD to my J:\ or K:\ drives, and type mc, and I can poke around in the files I actually want to explore.
The sensible answers would be wsl2 for 10 and 11, or finishing the switch to Linux. In theory, I can use these answers for my hypothetical windows 7 toolchain install.
I’ve been spending time on stuff I may waste if I do not put in the follow up work. (I do not have an ideal track record on follow up, or finishing.)
The command line stuff currently is less scary to me than what I should be finishing. But, this is clearly my own internal levels of anxiety. I learned command line decades ago, then got scared of it while I was not using it. Then six months or so of using cut my anxiety levels way down, and something I was too scared to do last fall is potentially something I can whip out when I have an afternoon to spare.
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Our cats didn’t do remodeling. Each had their favorite place to nap, one for each level of one of our cat trees, the others, their favorite counters by the windows. One was into art appreciation. She liked to sit on the shelf above our TV and stare at the artwork on our walls. Of course our oldest and most mischievous used his own unique alarm clock on me. I used to come home and empty my pockets onto our 5.5 foot high chiffarobe. If I didn’t wake up early enough for his taste, he would leap from the tile floor up to the top of the chiffarobe and proceed to knock one penny at a time down to the floor, then wait a few seconds to see if I was awake before repeating the process.
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Vader would sit firmly on my feet. If that didn’t do the job he would creep slowly up and nibble on my chin.
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Irish government survived vote of confidence by 5 votes. There were some high profile defectors, mostly from the left, which is worrisome because the left seems to be doing the best out of all this. . the Irish government had already surrendered on the fuel tax that was the proximate cause of the protests, but the British government has not. Hence protests have moved north of the border with the Ballygawley roundabout in Tyrone closed. That’s a major node in the road network up there.
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There comes a point where ignoring the complaints of the people stops working. “This is for your own good, because we know better, and are better than you, so hush” wears out when overused.
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Tammy (Burmese, and basically the first cat I had on my own) would assume the legless position on my chest and purr in the morning. That was fine, but some mornings her next move would be to lick my eyelids. That’ll get you going -straight up.
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I’ve been using the breaks between the (much needed here, too) rainstorms to plant flowers Orange chiclet esperanza, which are new this year, and cigar plants, which replace the ones the frost killed this winter.
My sister asked me if I was planting chewing gun bushes. I said of course! After the hummingbirds visit the cigar plants, they will need a breath freshener.
Daffodils finished a week or so ago; tulips are about done; columbine and early lilies are about to bloom. Pomegranate is leafing out, but it’s just 3 years old, I think, and not likely to have flowers or fruit this year – but I’m willing to be surprised!
See, an exciting life!
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Today and tomorrow, 80 degree weather. Monday, under freezing.
All my plants get to wait.
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Forecast low in rural Flyover County is 36 tonight, 20 tomorrow night, and downright [appropriate expression deleted] cold at 16F Thursday night. Grass and weeds are growing, and the 100 year old lilacs have largely survived equally cold mornings a couple weeks ago. I have no hopes for blossoms.
$SPOUSE plans to start seedlings (daytime in the sun room, night inside) around May 1st, starting with tomatoes. After a couple weeks, she’ll start some zucchini (not as much as normal, because drought. (Drought.gov says we’re somewhere between Abnormally Dry and Moderate Drought.) We’re getting dribs and drabs of moisture, with April’s showers yielding only 0.2″ of the wet stuff. So, instead of 6 beds of zucchini, maybe 3. That will also be easier to cover for June’s hard freezes. Ain’t Intermountain West weather fun?
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Just 3 beds of zucchini means you will only need to do a 3-mile radius sweep to leave zukes on people’s porches, instead of 10 miles.
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Need rain here three. It poured north and south of me, but not on me. The roses are starting to bloom, the salvia has been going for a while, the honeysuckle is luring hummingbirds … into the alley, because that’s where all the blooms are, the ungrateful plant!
And weeds, like the poor, shall be with us always.
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I’m watching the radar tonight
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I’m a great proof reader or editor but I found a lot more errors in the finished version of book one than the pre published version of book 2. Either I’m getting senile or Sarah has a better spell check now.
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This bit of the Formerly Golden State got over an inch the past four days, which is slightly unusual for April, and we’re officially now well over 90% of average with more expected Sunday. Even with nada in most of January we’re in pretty good shape.
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Oof. We’re in the low 30%s. Rains going north or south of us, as did the snow.
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Your dogs moving the lawn inspired me to remodel the shed. Stuff in the front shoved to the back, tractor moved into the shed where it belongs, now that the freezing cold is “over” for the year (unless we get another snow storm, which could totally happen). Bottom line, the tractor will start in the shed now, whereas at -5F it wouldn’t.
I also managed to squeeze in a little ride, enjoyed the novelty of +60F temp for an hour of ripping around the back roads, being a menace to society.
“When you can type text in some programs but not in the OS search function box . . .” it’s time for a fresh install of Windows. Or a whole new PC, because that’s a hardware-ish sounding glitch. Sometimes they just plain go funny.
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I’d install a fresh copy of the OS. (Preferably Linux, because I’m that kind of smartass.)
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If you suspect a hardware glitch related to typing, first thing to try is to plug in a cheap USB keyboard. You can buy a cheap one for $10 (US dollars) last I checked, maybe it’s up to $15 or $20 with inflation now but that’s still cheap. Then see if the USB keyboard produces the same glitches or not.
Reinstalling the OS, after making a backup copy of your important files just in case the install process screws up, is also a decent option. Though if it’s Windows 11 and you do NOT have a Microsoft account, do your homework beforehand by trying the install on a brand-new computer (or virtual machine), because many of the procedures for telling Microsoft “(bleep) off, I don’t want a Microsoft account” during the install process no longer work because Microsoft removed the undocumented option, or they only work on certain versions of Windows 11 but not on others… it’s confusing.
But try the USB keyboard first. If the external USB keyboard works where the laptop keyboard doesn’t, then you just have a hardware issue and reinstalling the software won’t do anything.
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We need a long wet spring here to mitigate our complete lack of winter.
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