Dysmey Blog Archives > 2008 > Autumn of Discontent
I was raking out the first fallen leaves of autumn from under my tree, when some guy walked over to me with a flyer in his hand. He and his colleagues had just finished trimming the overhanging limbs from the trees of one of my neighbors, and offered to do the same for my maple tree out back. I accepted; and three hours and $150 later, my tree has been trimmed of its lowest limbs — those that smack me in the face when I walk across the back yard. The tree looks a little better overall, even if I can now clearly see all those dead limbs inside the foliage.
I have cut down the goldenrods for the year, now that their flowering phase is over. That's two bags of yard waste ready for Monday pickup.
Now I plan to remove and stack up the bricks that make up one of the two paths from my back deck to the court, where I park my car. The path is overgrown with weeds and grass; and since I don't use it all that much, I intend to pull the bricks, weed the path, and plant grass there. I will also use that bag of winterizing fertilizer/weedkiller, that my folks gave me last year.
At work I have been working hard to compile a new edition of the Mac Computer Installation manual. I use this to help me when I install, and to let others know how I install, Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), and the applications that the library makes available to its users, on which models of the Mac.
For non-Mac users, Macs come in two major models, iMac desktops and MacBook (formerly iBook) laptops. The hardware inside a Mac changes from time to time. When the earlier Mac OS (Tiger) was in use, I had to install different versions of some software because one version would not work on one Mac hardware setup. Leopard changes that: I am use one version of any software for any Mac because Leopard can compensate for the hardware on the Mac. That, and its other featuers, have made Leopard worth the long wait until I got in my hands and until I can install it on all the Macs that can handle it.
I am also hammering out the manual in order to figure out any mistakes I am making that have caused recent problems for the Mac users. I have had to remove Adobe Reader, for example, because it has been demanding administrative access every time a user launches it. Nope, that won't do. It turns out that Adobe Reader is trying to update itself. That will be turned off before Adobe Reader is brought back.
I have been thinking that, with all that work I have put into the library Macs since I started work in the library, maybe it is time to take the test for the Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) certification.
I had hoped that the House of Representatives would stick to their original votes despite the Senate adding to the Wall Street love packet bribes — bribes that would not affect the average citizen or halt the coming unavoidable recession.
Yes, I, too, am susceptible to the bites of Elpis, the ancient spite of blind faith. And Elpis, as she always does, has let us down. The House passed that lying piece of work, and El Dubya signed it into law.
At least I have the satisfation of knowing that my congressmen (in the districts where I live and where I work) have stuck to their principles and voted against this bill.
The love package is not going to fix anything. It will simply pump more money into the market out of the Federal electronic printing press. Given the crappy way the American financial system has been handling money and debt — the reason for the financial crisis — our foreign debt buyers in China and Japan might not buy anymore. And the resulting inflation will make our savings worthless. And the bailout will not stop that recession that is already in Indiana from spreading throughout the rest of the country.
It is going to be bitter days ahead, no matter who gets elected President.