Category: Just Saying …

Great weather this weekend, which meant time for some outside chores. Saturday started with a late breakfast, then off to watch the grandkid’s soccer games on a bright sunny day.

Then back home for the first lawnmowing of the season. All that outside activity resulted in some minor skin redness. And some sunburned ears. Along with some happy neighborhood mosquitoes. But the yard looks better, the grass is starting to green up a bit, and the ‘damndelions” are succumbing to the weed killer.

The day was topped off with some grilled burgers with Christine and Jared and the grandkids. Who were also similarily reddish due to the sunshine.

Sunday was quiet. Watched the History Channel’s “America – Story of Us”, which was quite interesting.

Today is another quiet day. Got a minor nerve pinch near the shoulder blades, so treating it with heat and ice.

Much progress on the ‘stealth project’. No progress on the job hunt. But the stealth project and other web site maintenance/enahncements are keeping me busy.

Nice dinner last night at the “Holy Smokes” BBQ place in Clearfield. Had a great tri-tip sandwich. Their sauces are really good. As with all good BBQ places, their meats are served without sauces; you add the sauce of your choice. (Larry – <a href=”http://www.thebbqgrail.com”>the BBQGrail</a> BBQ expert, tells me that good BBQ comes without sauce. Then you can see what you are getting, and the taste is not covered up by the sauce until you decide to add the sauce of your choice.

I had a side of beans, which were also good. And of course, since we are in Utah, a little side of green jello.

Weather today: cloudy, rainy. Should clear up by tomorrow, which means the first day of lawnmowing is on the to-do list.

Nice storm went through here last night and today. About 230am, bright lightning (sudden thought: is there dim lightning?) and loud thunder (ditto) work us up. Got up and watched it a bit, then went back to sleep.

The lightning/thunder returned at about 630am, so got up and watched some more. Then it cleared up for a bit, only to return with a vengence.

This afternoon: winds 25-35mph, rain, hail, lightning, thunder. For about a half hour, the thunder was almost continuous. Stood at the window to watch and listen (with the wind blowing the rain sideways, it was too cold/wet to sit on the covered back patio to watch). Great storm!

Worked on the ‘stealth project’, finished up the last module. Also added a module to a client’s site, although it is not quite perfect yet.

And chuckled at the news of the big “McAfee Virus”. Used to manage that product at the previous employer, until we changed to TrendMicro. Not a fun one, since it required a physical visit to any affected system. Was nice to not worry about that one.

After a quiet Sunday, Monday rolled around. For most people, that means working. For me, not so much.

But I did get a few things accomplished. Since the ‘secondary water’ (used for irrigation) is now available, I ran a sprinkler cycle to make sure all the lawn sprinklers were working properly (and to get the lawn fertilizer watered into the soil). And then sprayed for what my friend John D calls “Damdelions”. Found some weed killer spray on sale at Lowe’s last week. That seems to have worked well on those pretty yellow lawn flowers.

I also cleaned the gunk off of the outdoor gas grill. (My friend Larry, the BBQGrail, says that I can’t call my gas grill a “BBQ”.) I used an environmentally friendly grill cleaner that I got from the local “Wally World”. Worked pretty well.

Also did a bit of work on the ‘stealth project’, and a couple of other web sites. And sat on the back porch doing a bit of reading, enjoying this nice spring weather (70’s, slight breeze, clear skies). The weather dweebs are predicting a spring monsoon tomorrow. That should help perk up the lawn, and get it ready for another feeding this weekend when the weather clears.

The weather has been warming up; happens each year about this time, I am told. So off to the local home improvement big-box (“L” word) to grab some peat moss, vermiculiate, and compost. Brought it home, mixed up the three ingredients in equal proportions, and put it in the new garden boxes. That’s the start of this year’s experiment in “Square Foot Gardening”.

Theoretically, the process will allow for dense gardening with minimal weeds and maximum output. Plans are for tomatos, peppers, beans, and strawberries. The ‘secondary water’ (used for irrigation out here) hasn’t been turned on yet (they turn it off during winter), although it is supposed to be on in the next couple of days. Since planting time is usually around the middle of May, I have a bit of time before I need to plant. Although I have read that beans can be planted a bit before then. We’ll see what happens with the water — could be that planting may start next week.

The “FoodieFeeds” site (www.foodiefeeds.com) had a database issue yesterday morning. Luckily, I had a recent backup, so just had to restore the data and make some minor changes. I have been doing manual backups, but needed an automatic data backup process. The WordPress sites I do (this one included) have a manual process that can be automated, but I needed one for all the databases here.

So, a bit of Google-fu brought me to a site that had a quick and easy PHP program that can be run on the host server. It will backup all databases on a site, compress the file, then email it. A download, a couple of minor changes, upload and run, and the backups were emailed. Worked quite well. I’ve set it as a CRON job to automatically run once a day. If any of my three regular readers need a link to it, send a comment and I’ll let you know.

Today’s plan? Some changes to a client’s (yes, I have a client) web site, and perhaps a bit of cleaning up in the garage. And some work on the new ‘stealth’ site: I am rearranging some code to make it more efficient, which of course breaks a few functions, so minor code changes to make it all work again. I think I am on the last 10% of the coding for that site — but, like all projects, the last 10% of the project takes the most time for some reason.

Had a nice Easter weekend. Good dinner at my daughter Christine’s house (she of the Sticky Fingerprints site). Spoiled the grandkids with Easter baskets, and got my favorite green jello salad (green jello mixed with whipping cream, chopped walnuts, and lots of cherry halves).

Still job hunting, perhaps another prospect this week. Added a new feature to FoodieFeeds that will send out a tweet from @Foodie_Feeds whenever there’s a new food blog post. And still working on the latest ‘stealth project’, which has some interesting techniques to combine multiple web page functions into one (all server-side PHP, with a bit of client-side Javascript thrown in). It’s an interesting project that helps keep me busy while I wait for spring to arrive in Utah.

…for this semi-regular blog. Same link as before, it’s just now a WordPress-based system rather than Blogger. Blogger is removing FTP support, so I decided, since I’ve been doing a lot of WordPress sites, to convert this place to WordPress. That took a few hours yesterday, and there’s still some more visual tweaking to be done, but all the content (I think) has been moved.

Just another step in the evolution of this site.

The job situation continues to be in ‘search’ mode. Some potential employers seem to disappear into a black hole, never to be heard from again. But others keep cropping up; some are quite interesting, but can’t be discussed. In the meantime, a bit of consulting work for an actual client has been completed, and there are new things in store for existing sites like “FoodieFeeds” FoodieFeeds, plus some other projects that help keep me busy.

The weather here has been, I am told, typical for Utah this time of year. Some nice days (last week in the 60’s), then a few snowy/cold days (that was the last couple of days), followed by clearing weather (today is 40’s and clear), followed by more storms (due to hit over the next few days). The weeds in the vacant lots are greening up nicely; my lawn still seems a bit dormant. Probably time for a bit of fertilizer pick-me-up. Still not time for garden planting, but I need to get the garden boxes ready.

So, life goes on. Good plan, in my mind.