This house is well-insulated, a bennie of living in the north. It takes more time than that to drop us below 64 degrees in the house, and since we keep the winter day temperatures around 68 F, or 20 C, we’re pretty ok. Even during the 8 day blackout with no furnace action (the ignition is electric) we made do with a hunter’s indoor-capable propane stove (had to keep a window cracked) intermittently: we were able to keep the fish tanks at 61.8 by draping doors and windows and doing our living in the same room.
We re-lit it once, but we had problems with the fan motor, so that didn’t last. Turns out, however, that the thing fell within the 5 year warranty, and our only bill was labor. Yay! We finally have actual heat coming out of the vents, and the cats, instead of being furry balls or lying on our laps, are sleeping atop my bed on a fuzzy blanket, stretched out in comfort. We still hold to our 68 F but at least we have, like, a warm bathroom. Life is good. Our local HVAC people are good folks: they know our names when we call, they have our records, they service what they sell, and they’re prompt and sane. We got this furnace in 2013 (Carrier brand) and they assured us our AC portion was perfectly good, though we asked. I also appreciate a company that gives you an honest assessment of your stuff without trying to con you into something you don’t need.
So—we’re warm, we’re ok, the snow is forecast to continue until the weekend, lightly so, and we did not have a huge bill. 😉
It’s been cold here, too. We’ve been below freezing every night (mid 20’s F/-2 to -3’s C)for the last two weeks and have stayed between high 40’s and low 50’s F (7-12 C) during the day. It’s supposed to rain Friday and over the weekend. We could use some moisture. We’re having what I refer to as Rice Krispies weather — every time you walk across the carpet or touch somebody or something, Snap! Crackle! Pop! At least today we’re up to 52% humidity. The other day we were at 40%. I have to put about a cup of water in the pet fountain every day to keep enough water in it.
I keep my furnace set on 68F(20C) also. I have this lovely 1 L glass lined thermos carafe that I’ve been drinking Stash Tea’s Moroccan Mint hot tea out of.
I need to finish the other lap robe I’m making.
Winter is why Ghod gave us microfleece. I may have to pick me up a queen microfleece blanket and make a floor length “happy coat” out of it . . . hmmm . . .
One of my customers told me that a safety pin in the seam of one’s clothing will help with the static. Why not just buy fleece yardage and make PJs, housecoats, etc. from it? The spousal unit loves his fleece jammles!
40 o 50% humidity sounds lovely. It’s currently 28% in my place. And the wind is blowing outside (gusts to 35 knots at Van Nuys airport).
You can add me to the 68/20 club, except now. It’s 70 now. The past couple days I’ve been having fever and shivers. Someone too generously gave me their cold–and it might possibly have been my sister! She had one a couple weeks ago, and I was there for Turkey Day–maybe picked up a leftover germ? Got my flu shot months ago, have been for years. So it’s been “can’t remember when” since I’ve had a common winter cold.
That didn’t last long! By the time I figured out what it was, I’d pretty much defeated it–a couple days of acetominophen to control the fever/shivvvers was all it took. Mebbe it was the flu and the shot had done its job?
I used to “tolerate” antihistamines really well–never made me drowsy before–but I ran out of plain acetominophen, so tried some of a “PM” version with chloropheniramine antihistamine in it. Ended up with a two hour afternoon nap, three hours that evening, and 8 in bed that night! Wha?!
We installed a pellet stove several years ago and it now provides all our heat in the winter except for that baseboard heater in the bathroom that gets turned on in extremis. This gives us about 18-20c in the main floor, and probably about 17-18c in the bedrooms. Which is just fine. In a power outage, we hook it up to the generator, since it needs a pair of small electric motors to work – a fan and the automatic feed auger. Total cost for pellets last winter was ~$450CDN, so ~$325USD.
It’s _good_ to know that the local HVAC vendor is reliable and efficient. We don’t have one really local here, but then, there’s no AC and little need for it. We get the pellet stove people out every couple of years to certify it and sweep the chimney.
According to the EPA, setting the thermostat at 68 while the space is occupied during the day and lowering it to 60 at night is more efficient than keeping it at a constant temperature all the time. I run mine at 66 when I’m home, and 60 at night. I have a gas furnace and my winter gas bills are usually under $70/month.
Overcast today; it spit some raindrops yesterday when I was walking home, but nothing more yet. The temperature is finally dropping towards normal for this time of year, which just means that we open windows rather than running the a/c. I wish it would hurry up and rain. The forecast is for drizzle through the weekend, but that seems to be wherever we are not.
That loud slurping noise just now? Me putting on hand lotion. Again. Did I mention our humidity is 41%?
Off topic: when Jane was clearing out stuff in the cellar, did she happen to come across the boxes of hardcover Foreigner books we could buy from you signed?
I’m still hoping to buy a signed hardcover Tracker and Visitor from you, with a note for my dad in one of them, along the lines of “Dear Hans, thanks for giving your kids the love of reading” – in the other one I want to thank him for all the hours of reading aloud, but that would look strange coming from you, so I guess I’d better put that in myself.
His birthday is March 1st, so if you could get these in the mail by the end of January that would be perfect.
If schlepping around heavy book packages is not going to work for you, I’d like to order them from the bookstore in February. So could you let me know by then if I should stop waiting and go ahead and order them?
Sure. We can do that for you or any other on this site. We just haven’t put them up for general sale because our lives have been too chaotic to deal with general sales.
@CJ: thank you! I tried paying for them with the Donate button on Closed Circle, but I don’t think Paypal worked on my phone. I’ll try again tomorrow and leave a message here when it succeeds.
If it won’t work, just mail an international money order and we’ll just ship when you need it shipped. I don’t think we can get anything to Holland for Christmas reliably, especially as behind as we are with everything shippable—but February? Should be easy.
@CJ, it worked today on my laptop. I put my address in the ‘additional information’ box. Whenever you get around to the postoffice is fine, we don’t do presents at Christmas.
Would you please sign them, and put the extra sentence (dedication?) in Visitor?
When is a good time to send things to you? I know you have been up to your okoles in alligators the past several months, and I have a packet of craft materials for Jane that has been waiting for a lull since last December! I can wait longer, especially if she’s still busy digging out of other projects.
We’re good on receiving things: we’re snugged in for the winter, so things WILL get to us. And Hanneke, we will get that organized.
It will be briefly cold here, if the forecast is half right, Thursday and Friday. We’re supposed to get a low of 33 Thursday night and 37 Friday night, highs in the 40’s or 50’s both days, then warming over the next few days back to seasonably mild temps. My heater is working, my utilities are paid, so I’m expecing things to be fine.
I’m expecting to send off my old iMac to be recycled this week, and hope for a credit towards purchase of a new one, which will determine if I can get a new one. Don’t know if that will arrive before or after Christmas. But if I can get it, I’ll be back to production again. Fingers and toes and eyes crossed.
Being up to date on your bills, a full fridge and empty trash bin, cool temps outside and a nice snug house, good reading material at hand and a glass/mug of your favored beverage, all makes for a nice evening! God bless us, every one!
Heh, I always did like Tiny Tim better than Scrooge. Sorry, Ebenezer. 🙂 He did, however, learn and change, which is more than most of us do.
Cooking Question: Ham and Cabbage. The large hambone from the Thaksgiving ham (small) is now simmering in my biggest stock/stew pot. I wised up about that. With it, I have about half a head of cabbage, too early for it to go in, but no good way to store it, so in it went. And water to cover it all. No added salt, as the ham has more than plenty.
Question: What other spices, if any, do I need for this? Also, I’ve never looked up a recipe for corned beef and cabbege, for the spice mix. Not that I want to do that for the ham and cabbage, but in case. Aout how much black pepper, for instance,or any other spices, would you all recoommend for the ham and cabbage? I am going to see what shape the carrots are in, baby carrots and big carrots, and add either the package (baby carrots) or the two carrots, chopped. I have plenty of leftoverham in the freezer if what’s in the pot isn’t enough. I expect it will be more than sufficient.
If you have any other root vegetables, like potatoes or turnips, that are due for a cookin’, you can peel or scrub them, cut them up and plop them into the pot as well. Spices are diner’s discretion; taste the broth after it has simmered a while before adding anything. It sounds like you are going more for a stew than an actual brisket or ham, which is a lump of meat. I have 2 ham bones with plenty of meat in the freezer that are going to be a large pot of Portuguese bean soup for New Year’s.
When Mom had ham bones, green split pea soup came on the menu. Mom would grate a carrot into it. Cabbage might work. Sounds like maybe you’ve got too much water. I’ve heard of some people who don’t like pea soup. I do.
Got big white stuff amongst the raindrops! Makes a “shatter ring” when it hits the window. 🙂
MMm-mmm! What I’ve got (I added a little black pepper and a can of corn) turned out just right, and I have it cooling now to put up. I don’t *think* I have potatoes on hand. I do have two roasted yams or sweet potatoes, but those will be separate and need to be eaten up. If I do have a couple of potatoes, yes, I’ll chop them, cook ’em, and add ’em to the mix. Yes, I had more water than I needed, even once the ham bone had cooked down some. But I avvoided having it stick any, always good. I fixed beans and ham, of all things, on Thamlsgovomg. as of O were readu fpr an early New Year’s. I am ready for this year to be past, not a very good one for me, but I think next year may be better, eventually. I expect the ham and cabbage will cook more before it is cooled enouh to put up. I got it just right, not yt too wiled, still just a bit crsip. So I’m hopeful for the finished product. Yes, it’s ended up soup-like, but not entirely a soup, mostly cabbage.
For Christmas, I plan to get a rotisserie chicken. Thanksgiving was easy cooking, which I liked a lot. I don’t feel muc like fooling with a whole turkey, so a chicken, already prepped, sounds good. For New Year’s, I will have leftover (frozen) ham, black eyed peas (of course) and mustard greens (I think), I have finally finished off the beans, sadly scorched, which I hope never to do again. they were perfect until the last 10 minutes. Heh.
I fixed a German chocolate / Black Forest cake, box, not from scratch, on Saturday. It was not as fresh as i would’ve liked, but turned out fine. Tasty! And the first time I’ve fixed cake in a long time. I will likely buy a spice cake for Christmas. And pie crust to make a mince pie, if I can find where they keep their pie crusts now. (Frozen foods, pastry, should be near other dessert items.)
I have (yay) pineapple juice on hand now, so will fix my wassail recipe for Christmas. Already thinking of it.
I was naughty and ordered something for Christmas, part of which has arrived, and part of which has not. Maybe before Christmas, it’ll get here. Maybe.
Today, I’m sending off my old iMac in hopes of a rebate towards a new iMac, once they receive and confirm this. It will be (eek) charged, to pay off, which is dubious, but which I think I can swing, if I am a very good boy for a while, and especially if I get fonts finished and submitted, so thee can be (aha) independent income generating. Oh, what a hoped-for endeavor.
Today, I’m going out apartment hunting. One bedroom, not two. Budget insists. Ouch, prices. But maybe things will improve enough that I can later move up to a two bedroom apt. Or maybe one will suit me OK. But dang, trying to squeezed downinto that space from a four bedroom house? Ee-yii! This is going to be a real challenge.
It sounds like Craigslist will be your friend, and maybe generate a little extra money for you if you can pick what you can’t live without, and sell the rest. I’d consider a yard sale, but we’re getting into seasons where weather definitely plays a factor in how well you do; if you’ve got any seasonal stuff you don’t want to keep or store, this is the time to sell. It rained here for the last 2 days straight, but we needed the water, so can’t complain. I hope Smokey and Goober aren’t too traumatized by the move, when it eventually happens.
Today, I checked on a couple of things and found no, they hadn’t been done yet, nor had I been notified at all. So I put in to get those in process again. The low-vision eye doctor splits her time between the U of H low vision center, the local Lighthouse for the Blind’s low-vision clinic, and the Veteran’s Administration. I hope what I did gets what’s needed done sooner.
When I do get to the point of moving, Goober and Smokey will be boarded at the vet’s, either my regular vet or another if he has retired in the meantime since I last saw him. I think they will be OK once they see the new place will be home base. They completely disliked the carriers and being cooed up in one room when I took them to my grandmother’s regularly, but they were used to that, going back and forth, so I expect they will adjust OK. Once they see I am there, food is thee, my things (and theirs), I anticipate it’ll be OK. They will, however, not like notgetting to go Outside into the Yard. (Note capitals.)
I have learned that “patio” is apartment seller / manager speak for “balcony, all few square yards of it.” Heheh. I have a favorite of the apts I’ve looked at, but still, ouch, that’s a lot of money, and a one bedroom apt. But it looks good and is the best deal I’ve found. Glad to have had help thre. It will be very small compard to a house, but as apartments go, it’s the best deal I’ve seen. And I’m halfway telling myself If I can oly improve my situation enough, long-term, then I could move into a two bedroom in a year. Maybe.
The cabbage and ham is good, but oh, too much water. After getting all of the solids I could scoop out, I poured up the broth to cool in half-galllon Igloo jugs, two. If I have potatoes, I’ll coook them in that broth and add to the cabbage, am, carrots, and corn, withmaybe some hame chopped and added. I expect this will reduced down the liquid to a reasonable level.Great solution, though, the food’s great. It might et me through the end of this week. Hoping to get Christmas grocery shopping done next week, mid-week. Or maybe early, Monday or Tuesday, tough that’s almost too early.
Raining here for the past three days ith more possible. Near freezing expected Thursday and Friday ight I have not yet taken pictures for projects ongogin.Sei
Oh; turning in the old iMac was shockingly easy. So maybe by the end of this week, I might know if I’m getting a rebate or not. If so, then I can order a newone this month and get it in a week. If not, I will have to wait until next mnonth, likely. But now that’s maybe doable.Looking forward to being productive again. Gotta happen.
Why can’t you design fonts on a Windows machine? There are good, free font design applications available. e.g. FontForge. It runs on Mac and Linux too.
I’ve gotten Font Forge for my old Win7 laptop, what I’m on now while without my Mac, but I have to get up to speed on using it. On the Mac, it’s a Linux port that runs under XQuartz or other Linux interface, rather than the native Mac interface.
I don’t *think* it’ll read in Fontographer or FontLab Studio’s source files. It can read in the output font files, though. Again, I’d have to reverse-engineer what I’ve got and go from there, or I’d have to start a new project from scratch, which I’m likely to do. Fontographer and FontLab Studio, as far as I know, won’t read a Font Forge source file either. Everything I’ve found is proprietary or not a shared, common format, even the open source projects like Font Forge are effectively proprietary because the paid competition won’t import them, only the output font files (the files we all use as actual fonts).
Fnt Creator, the other competitor, is Windows-only.
Glyphs App, which is new-ish and looks promising, is Mac-only.
Fontographer and FontLab Studio are nominally cross-platform, but don’t want to read each other’s source files and are at least 3 years since the last update other than a maintenance update. I was very unhappy to find I couldn’t have my Win7 laptop FontLab Studio read a Mac Fontograper source file. Same publisher, same year, and they won’t share data well enough.
Xo ungil i can get a new Mac, I either go with Font Forge or FontLab Studio and live with not being able to share source files with othe programs, as was the case now with the Mac Fontographer files I’be been working with,
I had single faces of various font-families in development, with the basic OpenType Standard characters, something like 275 characters, and not yet kerned or otherwise adjusted. In looking at what two major font vendors prefer now, most are preferring a fuller Western European character set, often with small caps and oldstyle lowercase numerals. That’s great, but it means doing around 500 to 800 characters per face/style/weight, which means more time in development. I *like* that and want to do it, but I was hoping to get some fonts out the door and generating income sooner, and now, I’m effectively on hold. I was just starting on further single weights in the font-families I had furthest along.
If I have to start from scratch, that means months of development before I get even a single face oute fonts and start from there, I still am looking at a long time to develop what I had into something more likely to be accepted for sales in today’s market. As an intermediate, to be able to get things out sooner, I was hoping I could release the smaller, more basic character set, and then upgrade that with a ful;er Pro character set once those were done. I’m still unclear whether I could do that and give customers the upgraded pro versions gratis, or if the vendors want hhe pro versions (or any upgrades) as new and paid issues. In practice, the latter seems like what’s being done. And both as a user of type and as a designer, I would much prefer to offer only the latest and best version with the fuller pro set, and existing customers, likely not a large number at first, would get the pro upgrade as a freebie, a thank you for buying when the pro fonts were in development. Once I have fonts out there generating income, and have a pipeline, a system going, then I can develop the end products, pro versions, from the strt. But that first step, the startup, is a big one.
I had already learned that, both to give a more steady output and income, and to be sure I wasn’t likely to get bored while doing one family, that doing display faces with one or two faces, was a good solution. It effectively keeps you from getting stale by giving you a new design to work on all the time.
I’ve found I really like both traditional and more vibrant display designs. But I’ve found I have some specific personal preferences on what’s usable and legible from a font user’s point of view, and from experience of what clients did and did not like when doing typesetting and graphics for the general public or for some small business clients who were sometimes more savvy about a look, a presentation style.
Er, short answer, yes, I will be using Font Forge, but I’m having to et used to it and try things, either from scratch or from importing my existing work and reverse-engineerin. It feels very strange to reverse-engineer on my own work. It also means a delay until I have things out thee for sale through any of the major vendors.
I miss my Mac, tooo, and want to get back to a Mac. I did not expect that. It had been lng enough since using Windows that now I see the things about it that irritate me.
But I also want not to be stuck with source files I can’t use in another program. It looks like, hough, that’s common to all of them. Font design is a niche within graphic design, even though font design is more common and wanted now. Everyone wants new, fresh designs and they want fonts cheap. As long as I can sell enough units, I am fine with cheap. I would rather price low than have people not bu. Ad as a newbie, I feel I can’t price too high, or no one will want to buy.
There are fashion trends, though it’s a longer cycle. I am hoping that what I design will be what people want. But I don’t expect to have an instant hit. If I do, I’ll e thrilled. I don’t know yet what sort of volume to expect. It is all new.
LOL, sorry, talking shop.
If what I design is useful and likable and and well crafted, if it meets a design / stylistic need so that both designers and the using / viewing public respond well, that’s my oal. I am impressed with anything from the traditional stuff to the wildly experiemntal stuff. Both can be effective and memorable and likable, and that’s what’s needed.
BTW, since I’m a fan of languages and history, if people have specific needs or wishes, I’d be happy to hear them. I susect all type designers, even the radical wild ones, love type history and calligraphy, and respect the need for special uses. Old historical letterforms? Uncommon lanages? Other writing systems? Those would sure strecth a designer’s know-how, but would also be worth it to the design community and the people who use type, which is everyone, ut includes specific groups, like academia or language speakers…or that next hit series or product or company.
Hmm, my liberal arts background is showing. 😀
Type is a puzzling thing. It presents words and numbers, information and data and ideas. But the look of the type also conveys a personality, a mood, a feeling. Everyone senses this, even if they never think about it. There is always the need for more fresh type, for a diffent mode of expression to handle a given task or a particular feeling. That’s a fascinating dualism and need.
It looks like it would be possible to convert your font source files.
FontLab has a free utility which will convert to and from .vfb format (which FontLab and Fontographer use) and .ufo format.
UFO (Unified Font Objects) is a standard format which can be imported into FontForge, as well as being compatible with many other font development programs.
Ah! Thank you! I will get the utility! GreenWyvern, you may have just saved me a ton of work and frustration. Not to mention some colorful and inventive invective.
Aarrgh! The utility supports .vfb and .ufo, but not .fog, Fontographer’s format. I see that FontLab has a “FogLamp” utility, paid, but it says it only works on legacy Altsys and Macromedia versions of Fontographer. Hmm. Still worth a try next month when budget allows. It might work despite that, on FontLab’s most recent version of Fontographer.
I still protest that a company ought to make its software convert between its ownsister products’ formats. Sigh.
But this is a step closer to what I need. Thank you!
Methinks I doth protest too much. I need to redouble my efforts on FontForge and Inkscape. FontForge looks like my only good crossplatform option.
Don’t know why I’m resisting change so much on some things, when I embrace change on others.
Cold and wet and dirty-grey blanket cloud cover today, more of the same and colder through the end of the week, then warming again to more seasonal temps here.
One never knows here if Christmas will be cold or mild, wet or dry. Oribabkt nukd tgus tear, Oribabkt,
I suppose it wasn’t a real hard freeze (got 12°F in 2013, (61°F in 2015)), but we got down to 23.6°F this morning. Hoar frost all over at sunrize. Last evening it hit freezing at 7PM. I turn the thermostat down to 58°F at night, and it was coming on this morning–shoulda forgot the pajamas and worn my sweats to bed as pajamas! 😉
It looks like Fontographer 5 will export to .vfb format, but perhaps earlier versions won’t?
Right; 5 was after FontLab bought and upgraded FOG. Before that, it had had a long, languishing sojourn under Adobe when they bought Macromedia. It had been Macromedia and before tht, Altsys.
I’m presently without a Mac, for which I have oth Fontographer and FontLab Studio, purchesed some 3+ years ago now, and I’m on a Win7 old laptop, on which I still have FontLab Studio from the same year or so. My source files were in Fontographer’s .fog format, not .vfb, along with output files in .otf or .ttf and so on.
If I had only realized, I would have had .vfb files saved too. Guesss I will do that when I have access again.
I am waiting on the 3rd party recycling company that Apple uses, to find out if I will indeed get a rebate for my old iMac. If so, I may be able to buy a new one this month. If not, it willl have to wait a month or two. I’m hopin to know something by the end of this week or early next week. As of yet, no email or Apple Store credit showing up.
Once I have a new iMac, I can load on my software, Fontographer included, and I’ll be back in production. Until then, I am using a Win7 laptop which is showing its ae thse days. My fingers still won’t get used to the smaller keyboard, which seems puzzlin to me. I would have thought by now, my reaches would adapt. I’m a touch ypist, decent speed, but man, I keep missing keys with my riht hand, going off the home keys and, wow, the typos are way, way out of hand. Er, so to speak.
I am telling myself it’ll get better soon enough, just outlast it. But I’m not as patiet as i thought.
And i am going to hook up an external keyboard. It’s driving me bananas.
Hah, “Fruit Salad,” now there’s an OS release code name that could work. Hahaha!