Stopping by

[umar]

Stopping by to see what's become of the place... looks like everyone's
gone to greener pastures. Pity, that; Usenet is vastly better than
what's come after it. I still refuse to join Facebook, and have more
or less dropped off the other places I used to hang out in, largely due
to work, which has more or less eaten my life. Luckily, I enjoy doing
what I do for a living.

Ах, как годы летят, мы грустим седину замечая;
Жизнь, ты помнишь солдат что погибли тебя зачищая?


umar

[songbird]

*waves hello* :)


i still see what gets posted, but it's pretty thin these
days.

i'm living the quiet gardening life so i'm in the gardening
group r.g.edibles... and a few other places in on-line forums
hold my attention from time to time.


songbird

[umar]

songbird <song...@anthive.com> writes:

> *waves hello* :)

*waves hello back*

> i'm living the quiet gardening life so i'm in the gardening
>group r.g.edibles... and a few other places in on-line forums
>hold my attention from time to time.

I make a fair number of comments on dailykos.com, but it's surprisingly
"fascist" for a liberal site. There are all sorts of unwritten rules.

Other than that, I'm mostly off in radioland. WSCS (classicalwscs.org)
takes up a fair amount of my time. And yes, the Web site sucks; we
haven't had time to do anything about that.

It's weird; the two lines of Cyrillic I appended to my previous post
came back as gibberish, but quoted in this reply, before I deleted
them, they were Cyrillic again. Weird.


umar

[songbird]

umar wrote:

> songbird writes:
>
>> *waves hello* :)
>
> *waves hello back*
>
>> i'm living the quiet gardening life so i'm in the gardening
>>group r.g.edibles... and a few other places in on-line forums
>>hold my attention from time to time.
>
> I make a fair number of comments on dailykos.com, but it's surprisingly
> "fascist" for a liberal site. There are all sorts of unwritten rules.

heh! :) i can't do stuff like that.

> Other than that, I'm mostly off in radioland. WSCS (classicalwscs.org)
> takes up a fair amount of my time. And yes, the Web site sucks; we
> haven't had time to do anything about that.

it is fine! since you commented i had to look at it and am
listening this morning. :) i like that it isn't full of other
stuff and your stream sounds ok to me too. our more local
station we used to listen to they talk too much. when we want
music we don't want them to talk all the time. i'll bookmark
it and see how it goes. ;)

> It's weird; the two lines of Cyrillic I appended to my previous post
> came back as gibberish, but quoted in this reply, before I deleted
> them, they were Cyrillic again. Weird.

it showed up correctly for me both in your initial post
and in my quote of it. using slrn on Debian linux.


songbird

[Ken Wright]

On Mon, 2021-04-26 at 06:52 -0400, songbird wrote:

> umar wrote:
>
>
> > It's weird; the two lines of Cyrillic I appended to my previous
> > post
> > came back as gibberish, but quoted in this reply, before I deleted
> > them, they were Cyrillic again. Weird.
>
>   it showed up correctly for me both in your initial post
> and in my quote of it.  using slrn on Debian linux.

Just as another data point, I saw the Cyrillic clearly. Evolution on
Ubuntu 20.10.

Ken,
missing the old alt.poly days

[Freyja]

On 4/26/2021 03:52, songbird wrote:
> umar wrote:
>> songbird writes:
>>
>>> *waves hello* :)
>>
>> *waves hello back*

{waves at everyone}

>>> i'm living the quiet gardening life so i'm in the gardening
>>> group r.g.edibles... and a few other places in on-line forums
>>> hold my attention from time to time.

We have a gardener who comes every month. We have roses, hibiscus,
lavender, irises, other plants, and citrus trees. This is separate from
the various lemon, orange, and grapefruit orchards here in our
development. I don't touch plants as I tend to kill them, and I can't
find my cotton gardening gloves. We had drip irrigation installed on a
timer as it's far more efficient with water. We're back in a drought
again here in SoCal.

>> I make a fair number of comments on dailykos.com, but it's surprisingly
>> "fascist" for a liberal site. There are all sorts of unwritten rules.
>
> heh! :) i can't do stuff like that.

I do the comments in GoComics and Comic Sands sites.

>
>> Other than that, I'm mostly off in radioland. WSCS (classicalwscs.org)
>> takes up a fair amount of my time. And yes, the Web site sucks; we
>> haven't had time to do anything about that.
>
> it is fine! since you commented i had to look at it and am
> listening this morning. :) i like that it isn't full of other
> stuff and your stream sounds ok to me too. our more local
> station we used to listen to they talk too much. when we want
> music we don't want them to talk all the time. i'll bookmark
> it and see how it goes. ;)
>
>
>> It's weird; the two lines of Cyrillic I appended to my previous post
>> came back as gibberish, but quoted in this reply, before I deleted
>> them, they were Cyrillic again. Weird.
>
> it showed up correctly for me both in your initial post
> and in my quote of it. using slrn on Debian linux.
>

I see it rendered properly. I'm using Thunderbird on Win10.

For the people not at alt.callahans, I fell in the bathroom and broke my
R tibial plateau, IOW, broke my knee. They made an immobilizer out of
cotton padding, fiberglass, and ACE wrap. Lots of wrap. My crutches
came straight out of the shrink wrap in the ER. I'll be in the recliner
with my leg up for at least three more weeks as I broke it 5 weeks ago.
Hubby is scheduling me for my orthopedic consult as I type. I'm no
longer in pain, which is good, as that first week was a horror.


--
Freyja the NurseWench
http://freyjaw.dreamwidth.org
Twitter: @FreyjaRN
I will not just survive, I will prevail.
-Leslie Burgess Jr.

[umar]

songbird <song...@anthive.com> writes:

> it is fine! since you commented i had to look at it and am
>listening this morning. :) i like that it isn't full of other
>stuff and your stream sounds ok to me too.

The stream is being encoded by a Raspberry Pi with a USB audio
interface, running liquidsoap.

>our more local
>station we used to listen to they talk too much. when we want
>music we don't want them to talk all the time. i'll bookmark
>it and see how it goes. ;)

The morning show is a bit more talky: news, weather, and a feature
called This Day in History which I produce. But the rest is all music.
There are a few non-classical shows on weekends; Sundays at 8 (eastern
time) is jazz and popular music from the early 20th century, on
old 78rpm records

> it showed up correctly for me both in your initial post
>and in my quote of it. using slrn on Debian linux.

I will try slrn. I'm currently using nn.


umar

[umar]

Freyja <Fre...@despam.yahoo.com> writes:

>We have a gardener who comes every month. We have roses, hibiscus,
>lavender, irises, other plants, and citrus trees. This is separate from
>the various lemon, orange, and grapefruit orchards here in our
>development. I don't touch plants as I tend to kill them, and I can't
>find my cotton gardening gloves. We had drip irrigation installed on a
>timer as it's far more efficient with water. We're back in a drought
>again here in SoCal.

We're in a drought here in New England, too. I wonder where all the
water's going.

>For the people not at alt.callahans, I fell in the bathroom and broke my
>R tibial plateau, IOW, broke my knee. They made an immobilizer out of
>cotton padding, fiberglass, and ACE wrap. Lots of wrap. My crutches
>came straight out of the shrink wrap in the ER. I'll be in the recliner
>with my leg up for at least three more weeks as I broke it 5 weeks ago.

Ouch!

May the three weeks go by swiftly.

I have never been on alt.callahans, but I took a look at it yesterday.
Is Bill Gawne still around? I seem to recall he used to hang out there.


umar

[Freyja]

On 4/27/2021 13:26, umar wrote:
> Freyja <Fre...@despam.yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> We have a gardener who comes every month. We have roses,
>> hibiscus, lavender, irises, other plants, and citrus trees. This
>> is separate from the various lemon, orange, and grapefruit orchards
>> here in our development. I don't touch plants as I tend to kill
>> them, and I can't find my cotton gardening gloves. We had drip
>> irrigation installed on a timer as it's far more efficient with
>> water. We're back in a drought again here in SoCal.
>
> We're in a drought here in New England, too. I wonder where all the
> water's going.

Texas? The Midwest? Someplace else? Beats me. We just got a little
rain yesterday and today. Pollen comes next. Time to eat antihistamines.

>> For the people not at alt.callahans, I fell in the bathroom and
>> broke my R tibial plateau, IOW, broke my knee. They made an
>> immobilizer out of cotton padding, fiberglass, and ACE wrap. Lots
>> of wrap. My crutches came straight out of the shrink wrap in the
>> ER. I'll be in the recliner with my leg up for at least three more
>> weeks as I broke it 5 weeks ago.
>
> Ouch!
>
> May the three weeks go by swiftly.

Thanks. Hubby & Dad are taking good care of me. They wheel me to the
bathroom when I need it. Chris helps me wash my hair every Friday. He
cut my hair at my behest and took off over a foot of hair, so no more
waist length hair. It's easier to handle when laid up in a recliner.
The first week was very painful, then it was as if someone flipped a
switch and my pain went away. I'm okay, just not thrilled at being
nonweightbearing on one leg.

> I have never been on alt.callahans, but I took a look at it
> yesterday. Is Bill Gawne still around? I seem to recall he used to
> hang out there.
>
>

Nope. I think he went to the FB version known as "Friends of Mike" or
something very close. I don't have FB. He still posts on LJ from time
to time.

--
Freyja the NurseWench
http://freyjaw.dreamwidth.org
Twitter: @FreyjaRN

If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage
but not his judgement.
-Robert A. Heinlein

[songbird]

Freyja wrote:
> On 4/26/2021 03:52, songbird wrote:
>> umar wrote:
>>> songbird writes:
>>>
>>>> *waves hello* :)
>>>
>>> *waves hello back*
>
> {waves at everyone}

:)

>>>> i'm living the quiet gardening life so i'm in the gardening
>>>> group r.g.edibles... and a few other places in on-line forums
>>>> hold my attention from time to time.
>
> We have a gardener who comes every month. We have roses, hibiscus,
> lavender, irises, other plants, and citrus trees. This is separate from
> the various lemon, orange, and grapefruit orchards here in our
> development. I don't touch plants as I tend to kill them, and I can't
> find my cotton gardening gloves. We had drip irrigation installed on a
> timer as it's far more efficient with water. We're back in a drought
> again here in SoCal.

i watch the water news out west and the snow packs. for some
reason i find water projects and rivers facinating and i also
hope to see actual rivers flowing again sometimes to give wild-
life a break too.

most of my work here is trying to keep certain things from
getting worse while growing some food. it's a challenge some-
times because this site is complicated enough from the fact
that it is mostly developed so there are no easy ways to do
some tasks other than a little at a time.

i'd love to be able to have citrus but that just isn't
possible here - for many years i hauled a tiny orange tree
around with me until it finally gave up. the final straw
was a cold attic. where i'm at now there's no room for
plants than what i have already.

...

> For the people not at alt.callahans, I fell in the bathroom and broke my
> R tibial plateau, IOW, broke my knee. They made an immobilizer out of
> cotton padding, fiberglass, and ACE wrap. Lots of wrap. My crutches
> came straight out of the shrink wrap in the ER. I'll be in the recliner
> with my leg up for at least three more weeks as I broke it 5 weeks ago.
> Hubby is scheduling me for my orthopedic consult as I type. I'm no
> longer in pain, which is good, as that first week was a horror.

it's no fun being injured and dependent upon others. glad to
hear things are going ok. :)


songbird

[songbird]

Freyja wrote:
> On 4/27/2021 13:26, umar wrote:

...

>> We're in a drought here in New England, too. I wonder where all the
>> water's going.
>
> Texas? The Midwest? Someplace else? Beats me. We just got a little
> rain yesterday and today. Pollen comes next. Time to eat antihistamines.

while it has been overly dry here in recent months we've still
had a few rains enough to keep the ground moist, but we could
use a few steady rains. last night and this morning the storms
came through and went north of us so i don't know if we'll pick
up any rains in the next few hours, some small chance i think but
more likely another chance this evening. i guess i'll be able to
get outside today for some weeding after all. :)


songbird

[umar]

On 2021-04-28, Freyja <Fre...@despam.yahoo.com> wrote:

> Texas? The Midwest? Someplace else? Beats me. We just got a little
> rain yesterday and today. Pollen comes next. Time to eat antihistamines.

Lots of pollen here, along with some spectacular flowers on trees. The
rabbats are out, munching away on greenstuff, and I saw a spotted turtle
basking on a log the other day at Ponkapoag Pond, one of my favorite
places to go walking.

> The first week was very painful, then it was as if someone flipped a
> switch and my pain went away. I'm okay, just not thrilled at being
> nonweightbearing on one leg.

Gotcha.

> Nope. I think he went to the FB version known as "Friends of Mike" or
> something very close. I don't have FB. He still posts on LJ from time
> to time.

Fascbook? Sigh. Fascbook devours all things; it is the black hole of the
Internet.


umar

[umar]

On 2021-04-28, songbird <song...@anthive.com> wrote:

> while it has been overly dry here in recent months we've still
> had a few rains enough to keep the ground moist, but we could
> use a few steady rains. last night and this morning the storms
> came through and went north of us so i don't know if we'll pick
> up any rains in the next few hours, some small chance i think but
> more likely another chance this evening. i guess i'll be able to
> get outside today for some weeding after all. :

We've had some rain, but not nearly enough. There have been lots of
fire warnings to the north of me, in NH and VT.


umar

[umar]

On 2021-04-28, songbird <song...@anthive.com> wrote:

> i'd love to be able to have citrus but that just isn't
> possible here - for many years i hauled a tiny orange tree
> around with me until it finally gave up. the final straw
> was a cold attic. where i'm at now there's no room for
> plants than what i have already.

I have a north-facing lawn; my back yard is full of trees (mostly
Norway maples). I like the trees because they shade the house in
the summer, and I've never needed air conditioning.

But I have essentially zero opportunities to grow anything. There's
not enough sun.

> it's no fun being injured and dependent upon others. glad to
> hear things are going ok. :)

Amen.


umar

[songbird]

umar wrote:
> On 2021-04-28, songbird <song...@anthive.com> wrote:
>
>> i'd love to be able to have citrus but that just isn't
>> possible here - for many years i hauled a tiny orange tree
>> around with me until it finally gave up. the final straw
>> was a cold attic. where i'm at now there's no room for
>> plants than what i have already.
>
> I have a north-facing lawn; my back yard is full of trees (mostly
> Norway maples). I like the trees because they shade the house in
> the summer, and I've never needed air conditioning.

we need the AC here for Mom, but i'd gladly do without it
if i could. my sinuses don't like coming in from the warm
outside to cooler air or vice versa and i'd also like to be
able to acclimate to the heat during the summer but that
doesn't happen very much with the AC on. ah well, FWP... :)

> But I have essentially zero opportunities to grow anything. There's
> not enough sun.

i couldn't really enjoy that. i like gardening too much
to not have some strawberries and other plants that need
a fair amount of sun to be productive.


songbird

[songbird]

Ken Wright wrote:
...

> missing the old alt.poly days

nice to have some people talking again here. :)


songbird

[Ken Wright]

I always said alt.poly had the best conversation on Usenet. You were
always part of the best of the best, songbird. Here's hoping we can
get things going again!

Ken

[umar]

On 2021-05-01, songbird <song...@anthive.com> wrote:

> umar wrote:

> we need the AC here for Mom, but i'd gladly do without it
> if i could. my sinuses don't like coming in from the warm
> outside to cooler air or vice versa and i'd also like to be
> able to acclimate to the heat during the summer but that
> doesn't happen very much with the AC on. ah well, FWP... :)

I can remember as a very young child in New Orleans, we didn't have
AC. We just opened the windows and ran lots of fans. Our house was
built on piles driven into the ground instead of a foundation, and I
loved to crawl under the house and see all the bugs and other critters
that lived there. I found pill bugs fascinating.

It must have been hotter than the hinges of hell -- I remember we'd
get intense downpours for 10 minutes or so, and then the sun would
come out and we'd see steam rising from the streets.

This was in the early 1960s. Air conditioning existed, but I remember
only ever encountering it in a few stores my mother took me to.

> i couldn't really enjoy that. i like gardening too much
> to not have some strawberries and other plants that need
> a fair amount of sun to be productive.

My former wife and I bought the house back in 1988. Decades later, I'm
still there. When my brother and I bought a handful of radio stations
in northern New England, it was my plan to move up there, but
circumstances haven't allowed that so far.

There are aspects of living where I do that are very convenient; I
am two blocks from the local commuter rail station, for one. But
it would be nice to be out in the countryside,


umar

[songbird]

umar wrote:
> On 2021-05-01, songbird <song...@anthive.com> wrote:
>> umar wrote:
>
>> we need the AC here for Mom, but i'd gladly do without it
>> if i could. my sinuses don't like coming in from the warm
>> outside to cooler air or vice versa and i'd also like to be
>> able to acclimate to the heat during the summer but that
>> doesn't happen very much with the AC on. ah well, FWP... :)
>
> I can remember as a very young child in New Orleans, we didn't have
> AC. We just opened the windows and ran lots of fans. Our house was
> built on piles driven into the ground instead of a foundation, and I
> loved to crawl under the house and see all the bugs and other critters
> that lived there. I found pill bugs fascinating.

pill bugs are edible, supposed to taste like shrimp, i've
not tried them yet or been that desperate but a good thing to
remember. i have some nice sized ones that live in the worm
buckets i keep for digesting food and paper scraps. they can
get pretty big. :)

i spent a lot of the summer out back in the ponds and fields
and the neighboring woods. i feel sorry for kids who've not
been able to do much out in the natural world. to me it has
always been so facinating and gardening is a great way to
expand into soil sciences and microbiology and geology and
...

> It must have been hotter than the hinges of hell -- I remember we'd
> get intense downpours for 10 minutes or so, and then the sun would
> come out and we'd see steam rising from the streets.

yeah. and riding down the road on our bikes and having
tar bubbles pop and spray us.

> This was in the early 1960s. Air conditioning existed, but I remember
> only ever encountering it in a few stores my mother took me to.

we did have a window unit way back in the 70s but it
was a loud monster. i didn't like it and spent more time
downstairs in the living room which was much cooler.

>> i couldn't really enjoy that. i like gardening too much
>> to not have some strawberries and other plants that need
>> a fair amount of sun to be productive.
>
> My former wife and I bought the house back in 1988. Decades later, I'm
> still there. When my brother and I bought a handful of radio stations
> in northern New England, it was my plan to move up there, but
> circumstances haven't allowed that so far.
>
> There are aspects of living where I do that are very convenient; I
> am two blocks from the local commuter rail station, for one. But
> it would be nice to be out in the countryside,

it has it's ups and downs for sure. :) today the farm
across the road was being sprayed and the wind was drifting
towards us. now i need to get outside for a few minutes and
check for black ants that want to keep nesting in the walls
of the house. a lot of gaps that need to be caulked up.
always something to do here and it will be a busy day so off
to get at it before i talk myself into going back to sleep
for a while. :)

i'd love a commuter rail station anywhere within walking
distance of here. not likely ever, but who knows, when
perhaps they figure out how much less it costs to maintain
rail than pavement and the world runs out of oils/tars...
or ... heh. well, we can dream right? :)


songbird

[umar]

On 2021-05-02, songbird <song...@anthive.com> wrote:

> pill bugs are edible, supposed to taste like shrimp, i've
> not tried them yet or been that desperate but a good thing to
> remember.

Pill bugs are crustaceans. I think they even belong to the same branch
as shrimp (malacostraca? something like that). I seem to recall there
are a fair number of fossil crustaceans that resemble pill bugs.

> i'd love a commuter rail station anywhere within walking
> distance of here. not likely ever, but who knows, when
> perhaps they figure out how much less it costs to maintain
> rail than pavement and the world runs out of oils/tars...
> or ... heh. well, we can dream right? :)

I have some old railroad timetables from the 1940s and 1950s. One of our
radio stations is in a town in NH with a beautiful brick former Boston
and Maine depot. In 1948, I could have caught a train at Boston's North
Station, changed trains in Concord, NH, and got off within a block of
the radio station... except that the radio station wasn't there in 1948.
The track leading to that station is gone; like many New England
railroad lines it was abandoned after most of the regions factories and
mills shut down. Parts of it are now a bike trail, and two covered
bridges still stand that used to carry trains across the river.

There is an Amtrak train that stops about ten miles from there, but
it goes to NYC not Boston, and it isn't running at the moment due
to Covid.

One of our employees has a 7.5-inch guage railroad on his land, and uses
it to move dirt, gravel, and building materials around. He's building
himself a new house.


umar

[songbird]

umar wrote:
...

> One of our employees has a 7.5-inch guage railroad on his land, and uses
> it to move dirt, gravel, and building materials around. He's building
> himself a new house.

i used to have an HO scale layout as a teen, but that was all torn
up when Mom sold the old house. if i had one now i'd set it up as a
bean shelling and sorting layout. :) not really, i enjoy the tactile
aspect of harvest season too much to have it done by something else.


songbird