Grumps and yays.
Apr. 25th, 2010 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillI've had a couple of minor disappointments in the past couple of days.
The League of Women Voters had their Annual Legislative Breakfast, in which we invite our local state representatives and senator to come and speak to the League, and anyone else who cares to bother, at a local restaurant on Saturday morning. I meant to go to this; I had it in both my PDA and my paper calendar, and I still forgot. Argg! I must call the woman who organized it an apologize.
I tried loading a copy of Parallels today so that I would be able to load Windows and then Visual Studio Express so that I would be able to mess around with object oriented programming. However this version of Parallels won't work with either of my OSes. I could load a trial version of a later Parallels that will work for 15 days, and I might yet. I can pay 86$ for the full program and I might yet. But money is tight and 86$ is looking like a lot of dough.
On the other hand, I have been removing dandelions from the front lawn steadily all week. My brother introduced me to the concept of something he called a "hound dog." He said it was about the size of a shovel, you step on it to drive it into the soil around the dandelion, and you lever it back (or maybe spin it) and it removes the dandelion plus several inches of root. Well, I found something called a Fiskars "UpRoot" that roughly matches that description. It's got 4 stainless steel prongs on the end, and a spur on the side you can step on to drive it into the soil. When the prongs are buried, you use the spur against the ground as a fulcrum, lever the long handle toward the ground, and the spurs draw together, pinching whatever underground thing is unlucky enough to be between them, and pulling out a roughly pyramidal divot of soil. It will reliably get about 2 inches of root, if you center it properly on the dandelion, and sometimes pulls up as much as a foot.
On the average I think I get a little bit more of the root with a dandelion fork. On the other hand, the UpRoot is much quicker. At a guess, about four times as fast. It cost me 22 dollars but it was worth every penny.
Now for the side yard.
The League of Women Voters had their Annual Legislative Breakfast, in which we invite our local state representatives and senator to come and speak to the League, and anyone else who cares to bother, at a local restaurant on Saturday morning. I meant to go to this; I had it in both my PDA and my paper calendar, and I still forgot. Argg! I must call the woman who organized it an apologize.
I tried loading a copy of Parallels today so that I would be able to load Windows and then Visual Studio Express so that I would be able to mess around with object oriented programming. However this version of Parallels won't work with either of my OSes. I could load a trial version of a later Parallels that will work for 15 days, and I might yet. I can pay 86$ for the full program and I might yet. But money is tight and 86$ is looking like a lot of dough.
On the other hand, I have been removing dandelions from the front lawn steadily all week. My brother introduced me to the concept of something he called a "hound dog." He said it was about the size of a shovel, you step on it to drive it into the soil around the dandelion, and you lever it back (or maybe spin it) and it removes the dandelion plus several inches of root. Well, I found something called a Fiskars "UpRoot" that roughly matches that description. It's got 4 stainless steel prongs on the end, and a spur on the side you can step on to drive it into the soil. When the prongs are buried, you use the spur against the ground as a fulcrum, lever the long handle toward the ground, and the spurs draw together, pinching whatever underground thing is unlucky enough to be between them, and pulling out a roughly pyramidal divot of soil. It will reliably get about 2 inches of root, if you center it properly on the dandelion, and sometimes pulls up as much as a foot.
On the average I think I get a little bit more of the root with a dandelion fork. On the other hand, the UpRoot is much quicker. At a guess, about four times as fast. It cost me 22 dollars but it was worth every penny.
Now for the side yard.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-25 10:33 pm (UTC)The bunny rabbits in our yard *adore* dandelions. Whenever I do dishes, I can watch at least one nibbling up the stem, ending with a yellow dandelion at its mouth before slurping it in blissfully! They also eat the leaves, but only afer all the flowers in the yard are gone.
This is good, for Sparkle enjoys blowing dandelion clocks to the wind.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-26 10:54 am (UTC)When money gets a little looser I like the PrintMusic version. You don't need to go all the way up to Finale, in my opinion.
It is wonderful that the bunnies like dandelions. We either have too few bunnies, or the wrong kind of dandelions here. Frankly if I saw the dandelions in my yard were a bunny buffet I would seriously consider leaving them in place :-)
We end up with lots of dandelion clocks--and there were a lot more dandelions in the front yard this year than last year. :-7
I'm pretty sure that my best efforts won't eliminate the dandelions--just reduce them.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-25 10:44 pm (UTC)What are your immediate goals for "messing around with object-oriented programming"? Unless you need very specifically to learn Visual Studio or a particular Windows technology, there are other options, including some excellent tools which are almost certainly already installed on your system. I'd recommend either Java or Python depending on what kind of programs you're thinking of writing.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-25 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-26 10:50 am (UTC)If you have further suggestions I would love to hear what you have to say. :-)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-26 10:48 am (UTC)One of the issues is that I was planning on working with a friend who is already using Visual Studio--and having things as much the same as possible would probably help with collaboration.
But I'm giving serious thought to alternatives, because 86$ is a lot of money and I'm not sure it would stop there.
If you have suggestions about which programs might be good for what, I would certainly love to hear what you have to say.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-26 06:32 pm (UTC)In general, reference books are a big expense, even with open source tools, but it can be especially costly with MS software. Apart from the expense of the software itself, much useful information about MS software tools is buried in expensive books and, if one is a professional and can afford them, MS support contracts. Since MS software is proprietary and closed, there is only one source for the basic information about the software, and the people who know, charge.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-26 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-26 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-26 10:43 am (UTC)Lawn worship is not rampant here--but one of my neighbors is so grass-oriented she doesn't like having *violets* in her lawn.
Also dandelions are cuter while they're keeping their heads down. At a foot tall--not so cute. :-)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 04:38 am (UTC)"Concrete breaks as dandelions stretch toward the light
There never was a living thing would yield without a fight."
no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 02:41 pm (UTC)Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-28 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 02:41 pm (UTC)