Suburbia 302: Nightstalkers

"He says there's a storm coming."

"Tell him I know. I know," Sarah Connor replies to the gas station owner at the end of the original  Terminator movie just before she drives off towards the mountains, the storm and the epic Terminator music score.

I sorta knew what Sarah Connor was thinking when I pulled into my driveway this past Saturday morning. I opened the door of Meerkat, our trusty Subaru Outback, and did a quick survey of our yard. Yep, the grass was due for mowing- and the local meteorologists all agreed that the Chicago area was going to be hammered by wind, heavy rain and hail on Sunday- all day. Four letter words, each and every one of them!

Time for an aside here....  Back in my college days, I used to do a fair amount of creative writing, both for class and for personal enjoyment. Stream of consciousness was often used, partly because my typewriter (my manual typewriter) was horrid, and the "t" did not work properly. It was so bad that I once wrote a short paper for a freshman English class and I was struggling so badly that I slipped into stream of consciousness (SOC) without even knowing what SOC was whilst writing this essay. The paper itself was bad, but my salvation was my viewpoint- after several typos, I started SOC and the paper ended up getting a very good grade simply because I took the topic and a bad situation, and managed to get a laugh out of my classmates and our instructor through my commentary.

That was English 102. Fast forward thirty-odd years to 2015. I present Suburbia 302: Nightstalkers. And actually, this is not really for Nightstalkers. It is about Nightstalkers, and why we do things in the manner that we do.

Let's set the stage properly. At 0700, do you want to be wakened or have your morning disturbed by a lawnmower? Of course not! I'm not certain if this is a local ordinance, but the convention seems to be no mowers or other noisy equipment are to be in operation prior to 0800. I generally arrive home sometime between 0500 and 0700. Apart from the fact its bloody early, its also generally fairly wet, as the grass is covered with dew. So, I have the following windows available for grass cutting: Tuesday through Friday 1700-1900, Saturday 1800-2000 and pretty much all day Sunday and Monday. (And Sunday is the only full day of the entire week that I do not normally have to work for my employer.)

The bottom line, though, is that the grass does get cut, although sometimes because of meteorological conditions, it sometimes gets a bit shaggier than some of our neighbors' lawns who employ lawn services. For example, in May when Jennifer was out of town, I was always behind in my grass cutting because of Mother Nature's gleeful demonstrations of deluges, downpours and general dampness. Many of our neighbors had lawn services that seemed to suddenly appear with their high-powered self-propelled mowers the moment the rain stopped. Me? I had to wait until the grass dried- often a day or more. I once cut the grass in the rain, just because it was in dire need.

Its not quite like I see our suburb anywhere near the Monkees' Pleasant Valley Sunday, but I try to make our home and property look nice. And yes, I am aware that the song is NOT about nice or pretty (for 60's fans, please see also Proud Mary)

On the data front, not much has been going on. As some may be aware the Secret Underground Lair (SUL) has been undergoing a remodel. Mr. T., in an honest effort to move things along, committed a tactical error which has created a setback. In my previous blog, (Around) 2.5 Years Ago, or, my personal Interwebz v2.1, I had noted that the major moves were complete, and what was left was arguably the hard part- getting everything back in the office. Mr. T. decided to expedite the process by unboxing a great deal of old software to save some room. The net result of this was the complete occupation (wasted space) of nearly two shelves of formerly unoccupied space. It has been a week since he did this, and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to re-package this software.

Lego data has not been worked on. But- some Lego elements have been organized for ease of counting.

Lastly, Jennifer came to me with an odd problem- she was trying to read a document, but it would not download properly. At first, the website was blamed, but after a bit of troubleshooting, I discovered a much simpler error: Microsoft Office was not installed on her PC. Fiften minutes later, everything was good.

Now if I could only find the interface cable for my DSLR....

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Let's hear it for autumn!

I think autumn is Jennifer's and my favorite season, followed by winter, spring and then summer. Its sweatshirt and jeans weather, and that suits us just fine. There's a certain crispness in the air, aromas seem to be enriched and linger longer than they do in the busy summertime air, and the colors of leaves and flowers are just plain magnificent as they stand in sharp contrast to the browns and fading greens of surrounding foliage and the somber greyness of the sky. Even the compost seems perkier, sometimes giving off a bit of steam in the morning as if it were enjoying a cup of coffee or tea with us. If there is a downside to the early part of autumn, its this: the grass still needs to be mowed.

Yes, grass is truly the party-pooper of the autumn parade. Now, don't get me wrong- grass mowing is one of those homeowner tasks which I truly enjoy. I don't pay someone else to do this for me, and I'm not one of those suburbanites who revels in a superior lawn: I merely enjoy the task of getting out the mower and cutting the grass. It is 30-45 minutes of tranquility for me. Its a bit of exercise as well (*yardio- look it up in the Urban Dictionary- its my term!)  It also makes the compost happy- during the winter, the compost does get some additions on a fairly regular basis, but they are no substitute for the weekly feedings of grass that happen during the growing season.

I just realized its been a while since I've included a picture in a blog. All of the pictures featured are mine, and I think all are taken with my phone by me. They're pretty nice, I think, which is why I include them. However, I grew up in the 35mm era, and have owned a few SLRs- one of these years I'd like to acquire a DSLR. While cell phones can do amazing things (like the photo above), when it comes to photos, I believe a dedicated camera really is the way to go.

Data- I know there are a few readers who are wondering when the data will return to the blog. The short answer is this: it will be back when I have the opportunity to bring it back. I started writing this blog  entry right after I had published the previous one, hoping to get back on track of publishing something every two-three days (Hey! It's a goal- everyone's gotta have goals, right?). I believe I've mentioned that I'm currently a contractor, and lately, business has been booming. In fact, its been so busy that I've worked seven days straight, and this pay period has twenty-one hours of overtime. I'm not complaining about the hours- they are a blessing. I'm just saying that when one works seven days a week, something has got to give. In my case, its my projects. My projects currently are my nonexistent website, my database, my training spreadsheet and this blog. As the blog is featured on my resume, this is the only project that receives ANY attention while I'm putting in crazy hours. The website still needs a domain and hosting, the database gets updated occasionally and data is still accumulating for my training spreadsheet. And adding insult to injury, I have a Win7 box that won't give me any audio.

As much as I hate to admit it, Sting and I agree on one thing at this juncture: I want my MTV!

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.