To deal with prowlers at the pondside we installed little spooklights around the path, and when they go on, we know something’s out there. So I went out about 11:00 last night armed with an electric lantern to put whatever it was out and away from the pond. Jane followed, and because her cat decided to help, shut the back door to keep him in.
With the lock engaged.
We were locked out.
And the lantern died.
And I tripped and fell on some rocks by the waterfall.
And then we ascertained that, yes, the front door was locked, too.
And the neighbors lights were out.
So Jane decided to try to get in the side of one tiny basement window that had a wooden insert to admit the dryer hose. In the process, we broke the adjacent panel. And she still couldn’t get in, despite painful efforts.
I decided to go wake the neighbors—so in my nightgown, I trek over next door, wake that household, and then Jane shows up saying she’s in.
Well, in, except for the cuts from the glass still in the frame. Mostly scrapes and one nasty slash on the underside of her arm.
A pile of bandages later, and some reassessing what we’re going to do with that window, which right now is provisionally secured—we have a plan.
I have to apologize to the neighbors.
Jane is calling the basement window repair people.
I have the long-awaited dental appointment tomorrow.
This is going to be a week.
We have Schlage electronic locks. I love them, never use keys.
It was sounding like a fun adventure, right up until Jane’s arm got cut. Ow-ouch.
Bless you both, for Jane’s arm, for your teeth, and for (haha) the cat playing guard and/or sleuth and/or hunter. (Did he have the little fedora or a pith helmet?) 😉
Those electronic locks sound interesting, but are they battery-driven, or what?
The new carpet cleaner and vacuum cleaner are now here. All that is required is some gumption, but that is lacking today.
Last night, my night owl insomnia phase (I’ve gone nocturnal for the past several nights) was not helped by, I swear, a group of kids outside playing between 2 to 4 a.m. I am not sure if they were in the pool, didn’t hear pool splashing sounds. But there was ample kid yelling, fortunately of the fun-screeching-playing variety of kid noises, rather than the hurt-scary kid noises. This has been known to happen here before, summer and winter, but is usually not so screechy and more likely to be a pool party. OK, so it’s mid-July, I can’t really fault them, just, oh, to me, this is weird. (See, I never, ever would’ve been allowed to do so in the middle of the night, and I didn’t grow up with a lot of kids. Or rather, I wasn’t allowed to seek out the neighbor kids. I had weirder parents than I knew.)
I have halfway decided I have some truly nocturnal neighbors, or perhaps I’ve landed in some urban supernatural fantasy vampire / werewolf thing, but of the exceptionally non-gory and mostly safe and polite kind. Well, OK, I guess. — I don’t know if this is due to parents’ work schedules, or a cultural thing I’m unaware of, or simply a way to deal with the heat, or maybe a way for the adults to retain their sanity while cooped up in apartments with young kids. (Haha.) I am not greatly troubled, the kids apparently had great fun, and my only difficulty is, it delayed any possible resetting of my sleep/wake cycle back to daylight hours.
So, I am now about to work on fonts, assisted by one cat sharing the chair with me, and at any time, the other, parked on the makeshift desk. That is, normal home office conditions around here. 😀
I’m newly motivated again to knuckle down with font work, as still my best path to income, however steady or feast-or-famine.
Maybe this will make you feel a little better:
https://www.tor.com/2018/07/16/horses-and-horsemen-in-c-j-cherryhs-gate-of-ivrel/
It may be time to reread those books again.
Love it. Yes, my ‘Mai’s were always named ‘Bill.’ Bay, round, and self-protective. And there was Cody, who I refused to sell to just anybody(when I had to get cash to pay my cat’s vet bill, it being life and death for my cat, and gave him another 8 years…I tried out buyers until for one of them Cody put his ears up and shifted through his gaits for her, because he was happy. So she ended up with Cody, and the cat lived.
Huh, that’s about the third time in a week I’ve run into the name Cody. I used to know a Codey with an E online, and years before that, a family whose last name was Cody. (Unrelated afaik to the famous Buffalo Bill.) Life is so funny, the coincidences. A good name.
Oh, and one of those locks for your back door where you can either use a key or type a code on a keypad, maybe?
It is somewhat disconcerting to go through login and see Locked out. Wait, what? But I digress.
I came across Programming Proverbs [a book, maybe OOP]–well, one loose proverb recently. From memory, “No code runs faster than no code”: if you don’t have to get a computer involved, don’t. I say this as a career programmer (etc.) Just bury a house key under an in-obvious rock. (Long, irrelevant story about optimizing compilers omitted.)
You might also consider some solar lights here and there. I had a set of solar rock[light]s; I don’t know what happened to them, but solar rocks amused a friend, no end.
However, I will also opine that these “smart”-phones are a mature tech, and uniformly include quite a bright LED, suitable for “filming” movies or hunting vermin. I don’t like leaving the house without mine; kind of a high tech security blanket.
Right now, I would recommend to you and Jane a pair of Moto X4 (Android One version–ie, no junk-ware to confuse things) for $~$60/mo for 2 years (to buy the phones) then $~40/mo (that’s for both of you); (I pay $~23, Nexus 5X paid for); plus data; Project Fi prices, which uses the Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, and WiFi–whichever is best, and Fi switches between them seamlessly, as far as I can tell.
You can also get heat-sensing “smartphone FLIR” from Amazon for around $200, last I looked.
Elucidation: plus $10/GB for mobile data, max total $135(?)+taxes for both of you. WiFi is “free” (TANSTAAFWF–but it’s close). At home it should use your WiFi router, not mobile data.
https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6201699
If I understand this, one of you can max (say the navigator on a trip, though you can navigate without real time traffic updates with no data usage–my usual MO) while the other doesn’t use data. (You can just turn off mobile data on the phone–again, my MO.) So, the $135 is if you each use more than 5(?)GB, at which point data is truly free, but only at “256 kbps”, 1/4 GB/s. Which is a long way from 110 baud.
Basically, it’s a penny per MB until you reach your cap. I complained bitterly to a friend, “I accidentally turned on mobile data, and it was seven cents–seven cents! O, the humanity!
I agree.
Hide a key.
KISS!
I was gonna say… this is why I have a couple keys hidden in reasonably secure places (defined as “where only a lunatic would look”).
Not fond of electronic locks… seen enough people frustrated by failed car e-locks, and what happens when the power is out and the battery’s died?
Hi – you gave me a fright – for a moment I thought you had locked yourself out of your new computer – horrors. Talk about horrors – I am listening to Downbelow Station – some of it can get quite scary. Have a nice summer.
Sorry to hear Jane was wounded and I know it is frightening to get locked out. I think a hidden outdoor key is a very wise thing. You write fiction and yet I see this brief bit of reality was so well written and (other than the injuries and you taking a tumble) quite entertaining. You two seem to have a very eventful life which would make for a great biography.
Also, as an aside, since you mentioned teeth. The protein drink my daughter makes – I was able to spend time with her and I fell in love with this very substantial beverage. I did a bit of recipe research when I got home to see if I could make my own protein powder which turns out to be very simple and cheap to make from scratch.
I just used my electric nut grinder to make almonds into flour along with quick oats. I had to use my coffee bean grinder to get flax seeds into flour then mixed it all with non-fat dry milk. Using some frozen carrots and spinach along with a big spoon of plain yogurt and the protein powder and a banana makes a very nicely flavored drink. I also add a bit of water. I tapped my Birch trees this spring and froze several gallons so I use Birch water. I also experimented with my home canned apricots and left out the spinach for an orange colored theme and it is really good. I am taking this to work instead of a sandwich and I am not starving. So, I just wanted people to know this is actually delicious and very good for one’s body.
Lava update: Apparently Madame Pele didn’t feel she was being given her due. Yesterday she shelled one of the tour boats that was cruising the shoreline where the lava meets the sea with a basketball sized lava bomb. DH read the story and said, “The shore batteries are using hotshot!”
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/footage-of-a-lava-bomb-blasting-through-a-tour-boat-highlights-kilaueas-killer-capabilities/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heated_shot
Yee-Ouch! — YouTube, local / national news, etc., seem to have decided the continued activity is no longer news, Stateside / Mainland.
I’m not sure if that qualifies for mage-fire, but ouch, basketball-sized lava projectiles…very nonconductive to feeling peaceful. Hoping folks stay safe there.
I wonder if this is contributing a lot of new landmass to get covered by plant life and critters.
Only info I could find offhand — various Hawaiian eruptions have created about 600 acres of new land since 1960. So some, but not a lot — for comparison, 640 acres is a square one mile on each side.
Saw that. Madam Pele is widening her range.
When I locked myself out, sometime in the mid-70s, I hung a spare key in the boiler shed, on the back side of one of the framing uprights – you couldn’t see it when you opened the door, but it was easy to get to if you knew it was there. (It was on a keyring, so it was easy to hang/remove.)
Perhaps it’s because I’m a guy but I would-and have-just bash the knob off with whatever is at hand.
We applied the same emotion to the basement window.
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The Miller Brothers bought the horses of the William F. Cody Wild West Show in 1913. it was a bankrupt Buffalo Bill Cody who had to sell. The horses were driven across country from Pueblo, Colorado to the 101 Ranch in Kay County Oklahoma. My Dad was in the trail crew. He was 11 going on 12 . It did not turn out well for the horses as the Miller Brothers went to Europe in the summer of 1914. Landing in the docks of South Hampton in August of 1914 The horses were impressed into the British Army. The first of almost a million horses and mules sent from the US to be used in the First World War by the British Army. The US Army did not do much better they left about 300,000 Horses and mules in France when the war ended many were disposed of with rifle fire.
I think I might put a cup hook where the trolls live.
Under the bridge?