Dysmey Post Archive > Pages for 2004 > End-Of-May Edition

End-Of-May 2004 Edition

memorial day

For a long time Memorial Day was seen as the unofficial start of the summer holidays. It still is, though not as much given the high price of gas for all those SUVs.

However, the original meaning of the holiday, to honor those have given their lives for their country, has revived this year due to the war in Iraq, which has gotten very bloody, and the opening of the new World War II Memorial.

I tried to hang the Flag on the holder Tina on the roof eaves over the front door, but the Flag keeps getting caught in the lilac bush. Finally I rammed the free end of the Flag in a chink of the chimney and let it hang horizontally.

lawn moving day

Two Saturdays ago seemed to be Lawn Mowing Day, because most of the town, including myself, were out cutting the grass before the storms came the following day. When Vickie's neighbors cut their grass, well, I couldn't just stand there and let Vickie stick out like a wart. Padre usually cuts her grass, but he was recovering from surgery in Indianapolis. So I borrowed the folks' lawn mower, drove it to Vickie's, and mowed her lawn.

Vickie's grass is a thicker variety than mine, so my push-reel mower wouldn't make much of a dent in it. (Vickie already tried with it.) And Vickie's yard is large, like that of her neighbors in that part of town. That's why I had to borrow the folks' mower. It's an efficient mower, once I figured out how to work it: For despite the size of the yard and thickness of the grass I finished off the yard in an hour and a half. And I got ten bucks for my service.

Tina and Erin

My sister Tina is okay. She's with Geocorps in central Washington State during the summer. I just got a postcard from her describing the area as "sandy/rocky/sagebrush" with forests to the north, in contrast to the picture on the postcard, which shows green prairie. I'm not sure what she is doing there, but she is being well compensated for it—as I noted while depositing her checks.

Erin, Tina's niece, will be graduating this coming June from Bloomington South High School. All I know about it is that Erin could take Japanese classes there. The graduation will be at IU: Evidently the high school does not have the capacity to hold all the students and their parents.

Erin is going to a two-year all-girl college in the backside of Missouri. Yes, that does sound prejudicial: Mount Holyoke is in the backside of Massachusetts, but nobody thinks any less of that college, right? But then, how many people have even heard of Mount Holyoke?

nasty weather

The past month has had warm days intersped with nasty storms. One such storm last night hit Muncie hard. As is usual, that part of Muncie's Madison Street under the railroad bridge was flooded with six feet of water—drainage there is very poor. And, as also is usual, some stupid native tried to cross that flood.

Sunday had a series of storms which disrupted the Indianapolis 500 Race and trashed some areas (including just south of Fairmount). We got a lot of rain and thunder, but that was all.

Today's weather was okay, apart from an evening sunshower that forced me to retrieve the Flag. The night brought more storms.

Rolling Stone this week put out an article that looks like the type of stuff Hal Lindsay has been predicting since the 1970's: Increasingly violent weather, including new storms in unusual places. The weather is a result of an increase in human-made carbon dioxide, bringing about global warming. And naturally, RS notes both the Bush government's refusal to acknowledge it, and the just-released piece of cinematic tripe based on it.

fedora core 2

The second version of Fedora Core was released a week ago. But I had to wait until Thomas Chung, a Linux hacker who runs one of the relatively few American sites, returned from vacation to update his site.

Fedora Core 2 is based on the latest Linux kernel 2.6, with updated desktop environments. That sounds good. I ran into problems, though, while installing it on my blue box in the afternoons yesterday and today.

Fedora Core 2 works OK when I log in as root, but when I log into a user account, the X Windows system falls apart. Evidently PATH and other environment settings for root and user accounts do not match in ways that let X work. That is not a good thing.

contribution

The last contribution of my ex-employer to my well-being will now come, as I have filled out and mailed in the appropriate documents. The coming two weeks will be hard until the results arrive.


Copyright © 2004 by Andy West. All rights reserved. Written on 31 May 2004.