Silicon Valley Redneck

I have seen the big gas station, and it is big.

Yeah, we checked out the shiny new Buc-ee's over by the Interstate.

Friday afternoon of the first holiday weekend after the place opened... yeah, tourists.  Lots and lots of tourists.  Cops were out in force, directing traffic.  The giant convenience store was very busy indeed.

The store does have some nice things - both touristy and snacky.  Also jars of stuff one doesn't see every day, like prickly pear jelly and pickled quail eggs.

We bought a few foodish/snackish items.  Of note: a lot of the Buc-ee's branded stuff has proper ingredients.  Safe for Joy, even.

There was a vast array of on-the-go food, which we didn't really check out on this trip.

Joy did note that amenities for truckers seemed to be lacking, but it does appear that there's another building still under construction; maybe that's destined to be trucker amenities.

I didn't check out the fuel pumps either, but apparently ethanol-free gas is available.  I should see if there's a separate hose for ethanol-free (as there is at the Weigel's down the road, but not at the Weigel's near here).

Update:  Apparently it's not meant to be a truck stop; seems Buc-ee doesn't like big rigs tearing up his parking lots.  It's just a giant gas station, convenience store, fast-food joint, and tourist trap of opportunity.

And the afternoon...

Air quality here is quite unfavorable, what with the appalling pall of smoke.  Not sure if we're still blaming Canada or if this drifted in from someplace more local, though the smoke map does rather suggest that it's all from the Canadian cloud.

Oh, well: it's an excuse to run the air conditioning.  I did a little watering down in the garden, and it's hot & humid out there.  Indoors is nicer.

I'm trying to write a silly little Ruby script to run on a RasPi in support of the toaster project now getting underway... and find myself needing a feature that's in Ruby 3.2 but not in 2.7, and the Pi has 2.7.  I may end up using a C demon or something.  Sideloading newer versions of software tends to lead to brittle configurations.

But!  The kitchen floor is done-ish.  They're supposed to be returning Monday to deal with trim and various other details, but the tile is now sealed and the sealer is dry.  Maybe Monday we get the refrigerator back in its proper place?

Selige Morgentraum-Deutweise it ain't.

But I did have this morning dream....

Was visiting old friends, location uncertain - maybe around here, maybe Pacific Northwest.  Seems they'd bought an old, small-but-luxurious hotel or apartment building or some such - something built before the age of ubiquitous automobiles - and converted it to a mansion of sorts.  Had a modest amount of land around it; for some reason it was well outside of any urban area.  Either there was a permanent house party going or it was sort of a commune; I wasn't quite clear on this.  There was a mini farmers' market set up on the second floor, featuring (at the time) various locally-grown fruit and some bizarre but oddly tasty confections.

That's about all I remember of it, except for some of the visuals, which mostly could have been borrowed from a 1930s film.

 

Meanwhile, here in real life, it's quite hazy this morning.  I guess at least part of it is smoke from yet another round of wildfires, unless some of the old ones are still going.  Showing an air quality alert, and apparently there's a lot of grass pollen about in addition to the smoke-or-whatever.

I keep hearing something that sounds like distant thunder, but that doesn't make sense unless the sound is somehow getting here from that monster thunderstorm way over in the Indiana / Illinois area.

Kitchen floor work has been on hold for a couple of days; apparently the crew was dispatched to some emergency repair job.  Supposed to resume today, so we should have the kitchen back to normal in time for the weekend.

Update:  Thunder is in fact coming from the next room.  Joy left a computer playing a cat-purring vid, with a fire and a thunderstorm.  The purring is meant to calm the cats; the thunder is incidental.

Kitchen floor is nearly done.

All tiled and grouted; still needs a few details attended to.  Looks very much like the old floor, except for being level, and not cracked, and having the grout all nice and even.

We should have the kitchen back in operation in another day or two, I think.

And there are several other things on this contract, which maybe will all be wrapped up sometime in July or perhaps August.

Meanwhile, I'm not being terribly productive.  Not sleeping well, between the back thing and too much late to bed, early to rise.

It's kinda like living in a giant dorm room.

The kitchen remains a work in progress, so cooking mostly involves the nuker and toaster currently residing in the guest room, while washing of dishes happens in a bathroom sink.

It's like dorm life, only with a heck of a lot more space (and with things all spread out).

Return of the Revenge of the Son of Hottenhumid!

Yesterday afternoon, during yard work: 70°F, 70% humidity.

This morning, during yard work: 80°F, 75% humidity.

Yeah, not doing large amounts of manual labor as the day progresses.

Update:  Not doing outdoors stuff of any kind this afternoon.  Last forecast I'd seen called for rain starting overnight.  Forecast at lunchtime?  Severe thunderstorm imminent!  Which indeed it was; this is a decidedly rainy sort of afternoon.

The plants like the rain and heat.

Including, alas, the weeds.  I'll be needing to employ various weed-control measure in the next few days.

Looks like the first round of sweet corn will be, as the saying goes, knee-high by the Fourth of July.  (In Sunnyvale it'd be as high as a cow-pony's eye by the Fourth of June, but we didn't have winter back there, so planting in March was a thing.)

And!  First tomatoes should be coming ripe in a couple of days.

And here is is Friday.

Most of the kitchen tiles are in place now - just a few not done yet, and the workers will put those in on Monday when they come back to do the grout.

The tiles placed yesterday are safe to walk on, so we have a straight path to the garage.  The sink and the front of the stove are off limits until Saturday afternoon.

I got out and did some mowing.  That and moving stuff out of the way seem to have been what my back needed.  Gotta do more yard work over the weekend.

On the not-so-good side: nowhere near enough sleep last night.  I was up way late, then woke up at 0300 and couldn't get back to sleep.  Did have a couple of short naps during the day.

Progress....

Kitchen floor: more'n half the tiles are in place.  We're not supposed to walk on them until tomorrow.  Tomorrow, the workers return to put down the rest of the tiles, and then we'll be supposed to refrain from walking on those until Saturday.  Monday, grouting.

Toaster project: the plan is now sufficiently coherent for me to be working on a document outlining the plan, where there are options, what the constraints are, where there are details yet to be filled in, etc.  Main goal right now is to get confident enough that the hardware design can be nailed down by the end of the month.

Backache: still there, but not so bad today.

Yard stuff: no progress on that front; it's been raining and/or I've been busy and/or sore.  I'm hoping things will be reasonably non-muddy Saturday afternoon and Sunday so I can do some planting and weed control.

Hm.

Postal parcels arrived yesterday, late in the afternoon.

As of this morning, though, yesterday's actual mail has not yet arrived.

I hope it's merely delayed a day for some reason.  There was supposed to be a paycheck in there.

Update:  UPS brought my Wednesday Amazon package.  Driver was gazing sadly upon the torn tape, and remarked that Amazon seems to be going cheap on packaging materials.  A quick look revealed that the box contained everything I remembered being due today, so I said it was probably OK.  Checking Amazon later, yeah: four items were supposed to be in there, and in there they were.

Still waiting on mail delivery (Amazon package for Joy, and, one hopes, the mail).

Update 2:  Shortly afterward, the mail showed up - including yesterday's, including the check.  Apparently they're shorthanded again.

Back is moderately better again.

And I got a reasonable amount of sleep last night.

Maybe I can address the ToasterCo backlog?

But the workers are here, about to commence demolition of the old tile floor in the kitchen.  They brought a tool: an electric jackhammer, with chisel bit, mounted on a wheeled carriage.  The noise level may become rather distracting.

Hm.  Perhaps I should fetch my Bluetooth earmuffs/headphones from the barn.

Update:  Kitchen activity is very noisy indeed, with occasional quiet spells.  I think all the noisy will be done with soon, but today hasn't been terribly productive.

Some progress on ToasterCo, though.  I think a Plan is taking shape for dealing with the doggone comm controller chip - and it involves a sort of specialized I/O processor to offload most of the activity from the CPU.  Should be enough space in the FPGA to do that.  I'm running into annoyances with the controller chip; it has three interrupt outputs, but there seems to be no way to decouple the two aux IRQ pins (RX and TX) from the single all-things-IRQ pin.  But... there's a 4-byte interrupt status register, including a 7-bit field that reflects the highest-priority pending action, so that's maybe OK.

And maybe, as I develop a better understanding of how this all works, I'll decide that the AVR core can handle the load after all, and the I/O processor won't be needed.  (Less fun, less revenue, but gits 'er done quicker.)  The example code I was looking at may turn out to have been wildly overcomplicated.

Once again, Mondayness commenced on Sunday.

My back had been doing better Saturday.

Sunday morning, even.

By Sunday afternoon, though... it was getting tweaky again.  By evening, much ouch.

Doesn't help that we were trying to prepare for the kitchen floor work that's supposed to commence this morning, so I couldn't just find a less-painful position and stay put.

Update:  It's not just Monday, it's Monday the Juneteenth, which turns out to be a feral holiday now!  Just had a call from the contractor; he didn't realize this was a holiday, but apparently all the workers did.  So, floor work does not commence today.

Maybe a storm is on the way.

It's getting breezy out there.  Gusty breezes, from various directions.

Forecast calls for rain starting in the wee hours, with around half an inch tomorrow, and various thunderstorms continuing through the week.

Which the garden can certainly use, though I didn't get around to applying grass seed and straw to an area that needs such.  I want to do that ahead of a rainy spell, and I can't very well do it when the air keeps moving around like this.  Maybe there'll be a suitable break in the weather during the week.

Hot Saturday afternoon

Did a little weeding, with the hoe... out there in the late-afternoon heat.  (A session with the mid-sized rototiller will be called for soon.)

Then stood around in the sun for quite a long time applying water to various plants, being as how rain keeps not happening.

Earlier: Joy and I went to check out that big fireworks store over by where the new Buc-ee's is about to be.  Yeah, it's a big store.  We got a whole bunch of canister-type shells, including some double- and triple-break types, so we're pretty well set for a holiday spectacle.  I neglected to stock up on festival balls, though.

And... my back is feeling a bit better today.  I took the bandage off my thumb after lunch, and applied Nu-Skin to prevent further leakage.  It looks (and feels) very bruised, but I think it'll be OK.

There's various preparation to be done before Monday, when kitchen-floor replacement commences.  Mostly we'll need to be prepared to do without the kitchen during the time the workers are busy.

This appears to be Friday.

Bleah.

Thumb seems to be healing OK, assuming the nail doesn't eventually decide to part company with it.

But my back, which had been somewhat better-ish yesterday, got worse last night, and remains worse this morning.

This is being a very unproductive week.

Oh, yes: the hay guy did go to urgent care after finishing up on Wednesday, just to make sure there wasn't any serious damage.  He's sporting quite the shiner now, but was back at work yesterday with tedder and baler, and this morning is moving the bales into a neat row for pickup.

I'm thinking I may spend much of today horizontal, maybe with movies on the laptop or something.

Considering how many typos I made in this little post, I don't think I should be trying to do anything important - and certainly not anything involving heavy machinery and such.

Eventful morning.

The good news: I seem to be on the mend, gradually, from the backache-plus-other stuff.

The crazy:

I knew FedEx was supposed to be delivering a signature-required package, so I turned on the driveway alert.  Then I took a nap, because I'm merely "on the mend" and not actually back to normal, and I still didn't exactly sleep well last night.

Driveway alarm sounded.  Kinda early for FedEx...?  Ah.  Hay-mowing guy is here, and making a start.

Phone rings.  Relatives!  Cousin on my father's side is passing through, with his wife.  OK, so stop by and say hi.  Wake up Joy.

Driveway alert keeps going off.  Birds?  Nope: it's breezy, and the tall grass in the unmowable zone in front of the sensor is moving around.  Trudge down there with the hedge trimmer and deal with it.

Relatives show up, admire the view, and set and chat for a spell.

Tractor noise gets close.  Look out window: tractor is pulling up on the back lawn.  Go out to see what's up.  Hay guy is bleeding.  Seems the mower hit a rock and propelled it forward, where it hit him on the side of the head, just behind the eye.  Doesn't appear to be serious.  Fetch an alcohol wipe and a large Band-Aid.

Hay guy resumes mowing.  Relatives get back on the road for home, back among the square-state flatlands.  FedEx shows up.

Still supposed to be postal parcels and UPS showing up today, but those don't require my attention.

My brain remains mostly out of order, so perhaps I'll deal with yard chores today.  Tomorrow, definitely gotta get busy with work.

Afternoon update:   Ow.  It was too windy for mowing, and the anti-bird frame over the strawberry planter definitely needed some bracing, so time to cut some scrap lumber into pieces with 45° cuts on the ends.

Aaand... yeah, I kept all body parts well clear of the whirling blade of the miter saw.  But, one of the pieces shattered, and part of it whacked the tip of my left thumb right proper.  Bleeding from under the nail.  Maybe the nail will stay attached...?  Anyway, got it bandaged up now.  Feeling a bit shocky.

Maybe that tool is meant for cutting pieces long enough to be held with the clamp.

Which came first...

... the backache, or the broken chair?

The new chair isn't fixing the problem, and creaks ominously as I shift my weight around in search of a position that doesn't hurt.

Could be that shifting my weight around, owing to an incipient backache, was what broke the old chair.

And this doesn't seem to be a chair-induced backache.  It seems to be part of the collection of symptoms I've had a few times before - the one eventually involving nasty cramps in the left leg.

The absence of any non-hurty position is not conducive to getting a proper night's sleep.  This does not bode well for my productivity this week.

Still here.

Still busy, with one thing and another.  Except today.

The days are a blur, but yesterday I rearranged another several tons of dirt, adding compost to some of it, back-dragging to create a fairly level surface, and generally preparing a long-barren area for seeding with lawn-type seeds.  There's still some dirt-rearrangery to be done before planting, and some of it must needs wait until things have been re-moistened a bit.

The maple-smoked Canadian weather having shifted, we got a little bit of actual rain this morning; not enough to tenderize the soil, but enough for plants to perk up.  There's supposed to be a significant thunderstorm coming through tonight, with more thunderstorms lined up all week.  I'm hoping there'll be opportunities for getting some of that outdoors stuff done.

Also yesterday, I gave the fallow first expansion field a good tilling, something it'll need repeatedly this Summer.  It had become apparent that just keeping it mowed short was not going to suffice for weed control.  Tilling after a dry spell was good in terms of the displaced weeds promptly wilting, but not so good in terms of my getting horribly dusty.  There's still dust up my schnoz.

Today... slightly rainy morning, and a warm, humid, lazy-type afternoon.  I ended up taking a couple of naps.  Tomorrow I must get around to cleaning the chicken coop and doing some weeding, as well as resuming work on actual work.

Busy, busy...

Lots of stuff to catch up on in real life, and most of it not bloggable.

We're getting a dose of cool weather, exported from Canada along with their plume of smoke (or perhaps caused by the smoke).  The smoke got very noticeable here yesterday sometime between 0600 and 0830.  Cool weather is welcome; the smoke, not so much.

Gotta resume digging into FPGA code now; some status bits that should be getting set, apparently aren't.

Monday morning begins at sunset on Sunday.

OK, so the actual Mondayness didn't commence until considerably after sunset.

Put chickens to bed, deal with post-chicken stuff, shower, curl up in bed with Kindle for a while.

Joy reports that the toilet in the middle bathroom is making burbling noises.

Argh.  Go deal with it.  It's... not totally clogged.  Water goes down, gradually, but an actual flush isn't happening.  Repeated vigorous application of the plunger fails to make any significant improvement.

Suggest adding some septic system clean-out stuff and waiting until morning.  Joy does this, but reports that the other two toilets are also burbly and not flushing properly.

Gah.  Well, let's see what develops by morning.  Back to bed.

Shortly thereafter, hear the joyous sound of plumbing resuming normal operation.  But... we should still probably (though likely not directly related to this incident) get the septic system inspected and maybe pumped... and if we're getting it pumped, we should see about getting an above-ground cleanout.  Joy had already, some weeks ago, been asking on Nextdoor about septic service; seems the guy who use to be popular in this area has retired, so a new recommendation is sought.

Actual morning, around 0410: no, I don't get to sleep in.  Southmoon bounds onto the bed and commences purring.

Somewhat later morning: vet appointment!  Southmoon missed her vet trip last week, so she has to go in this morning to get current on her shots.  Amazingly, she remains in adorable-kitten mode... right up until the actual vet enters the room.  Then it's full mountain lion.  Oh, well: we all got home intact.

Getting on toward lunchtime now.  After lunch, probably a Walmart run.  Let's see if I can squeeze in any productive time.