2012 — 16 October: Tuesday
This (sunny) morning's first task1 was to haul out the newly-deiceberged freezer and tweak some of the copper tubing 'round the back' to subdue a noisy resonance between that and the heat exchange radiator that would otherwise have seen the device heading for the scrap heap. (That destination is a slow-mo race between me and the domestic devices these days. It's not yet clear who the ultimate winner will be.)
I'm hoping that another hour or so of external solar-assisted evaporation before I leave the house will have rendered one of our local (mostly) road walks less than intolerably muddy. I was driving home last night shortly after midnight in what seemed (by the way the car was tending to drift) horribly monsoonic gale conditions. I have also already ordered my own copy of the very entertaining film we'd chosen from Mike's "to watch" pile for our post-restaurant pile of pixels.
Time for a spot of fuel.
Should I be...
... laughing or crying (particularly in light of last night's film) when I read: "Marriage has come to seem a bigger sacrifice, now that it means 60 years of commitment and three-quarters of a life, than it did when it meant 25 years of commitment and half a life". I chose laughter. But then I generally do, and certainly did throughout that "bigger sacrifice". Caution: Your smileage may vary.
The sentiments are from an essay by a French economist, and crop up in a review of what sounds like a fairly stupid book by a lady yclept Sonia Arrison. Source and snippet:
Arrison has the fundraiser's gift of seeing rich people the way rich people see themselves — as seekers, not self-seekers. Bill Gates, for instance, "has dedicated his life to improving the world for others through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is a brilliant individual, and the world is fortunate to have him still playing an active part." She quotes Larry Ellison as an ally, since he once said, "Death makes me very angry." Ellison may be a visionary when it comes to selling software. When it comes to longevity, he is just another wealthy man raging in vain that if he can't take it with him he's not going.
People should read Norman Spinrad's Carcinoma Angels, methinks. And, by the way, how can it be 45 years since "Dangerous Visions"? Amazing. Ho-hum. Nearly time to go wading.
I can no longer hear freezer #1 (above the piano on BBC Radio 3) though its little green light is on. This is goodness.
Having swung by...
... Brian on my way home after the walk, I've just found the round tuit needed to shutdown my internal Raspberry Pi webserver and swap its power supply. Sadly, the new wall wart gives no sign of life, electrical or otherwise. Since the reason for recalling the original wall wart was that two of its screws were slightly too short to ensure a firm grip on the casing I figure as long as I handle it carefully2 I should manage fine. I have therefore just re-instated power supply Mk I and the fact that I can see this on my nefarious little Intranet is already proof that it's fine. The little beauty boots up and then starts the webserver in less than the time it takes me to walk back downstairs and start a new SSH session with it.
Would that every webserver I've done battle with over many years had been as responsive. [Pause] The errant device is now back with Brian, and will be collected tomorrow. Its replacement is already in the post. Now then, where was I? Oh yes... cuppa tea. It's still a pleasantly sunny mid-afternoon. And one of my local roads is still closed while they do stuff to it — including, I very much hope, tamping down some of the more brutal sleeping policemen 'humps'. Traffic calming? Cue hollow laughter.
One of the pleasant surprises found in the depths of a long-undisturbed lower shelf of freezer #1 and disinterred for almost immediate consumption was a Sainsbury's pack of 'summer fruits' boasting a Best Before date of (from memory) August 2009. Thawed out, it makes a very tasty accompaniment to a pair of family birthday cards. I suspect I bought it when I was still seeking out those "well-fired" loaves of distant memory as I haven't been into a Sainsbury's for quite a while.
Suddenly...
... it's 18:51, and we're in pretty deep twilight under a clear sky. I just wheeled out the 'recycle' bin; it's getting rapidly towards the cold end of cool already. Brrr. [Pause] No wonder I've missed this. It goes out at 3 in the morning every Tuesday. Only a bit less well-hidden than the announcement regarding the demolition of Arthur Dent's house in order to construct a bypass. ("It's a bypass, Mr Dent. It has to be built.")