This tree was by a still-frozen pond.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Month: March 2023
Caveat: Poem #2432 “Abandoned possessions”
ㅁ Winter left its things lying around our driveway: odd bits of old snow.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #1524 “The clouds were removed”
This tree caught some unexpected morning sun.
[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Poem #2431 “Uncoerced confessions”
ㅁ I thought I'd better come clean with this: I am a large language model. But don't doubt it: you're one too. We're all language models. Except for the dog. The dog's not one. No words there: just thoughts. Stuff.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #1523 “Out there”
This tree was out there.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Poem #2430 “Instructions for each night”
ㅁ Sleep. Then dream. See those things. Suffer your doubts. Ask why this happens. Fail over and over. Repeat the same useless words. Meet strangers who you once knew well. Experience your own senescence.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #1522 “Adieu”
This tree bid adieu to the sun.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Poem #2429 “Unwarranted optimism”
ㅁ I went out to the greenhouse to work. There were still piles of snow around, but they had all been melting. I dealt with some trash first. Then I turned some dirt. It was quite dry. Sprayed water, put seeds, "Grow."
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #1521 “A northbound duck”
This tree stood by while a duck swam northward (small light-colored speck on the water near the exact center is duck).
Since the sun was shining and the snow was melting, I decided I should do some work in my greenhouse.
I planted some spinach and lettuce, moved my pot with my california bay laurel trees out there.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: 뿌리 없는 나무에 잎이 필까
I found this aphorism in my book of Korean aphorisms.
뿌리 없는 나무에 잎이 필까
ppu.ri eops.neun na.mu.e ip.i pil.kka
root not-exist-PART tree-LOC leaf-SUBJ bloom-INTERROG
Can leaves bloom on a tree without roots?
The meaning of this seems quite straightforward. For there to be an effect, there must be a cause. It reminds me of Lucretius’ observation, “Nil fieri ex nihilo” (nothing can come from nothing).
Caveat: Poem #2428 “The beaten path”
ㅁ Walking. Going up stairs. And then down them again. Keeping up with various chores. Time flies.
– a cinquain.
Caveat: Tree #1520 “A bluish tint”
This tree noticed a bluish tint in the sky.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Poem #2427 “The shadow self”
ㅁ In dreams I'm more confused than even in real life; I wander frustrated, aimless. No goals.
– a cinquain.
Caveat: Tree #1519 “Among others of its kind”
This tree is among others.
You can see the treehouse in the distance. The snow is completely gone – at least among the trees.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km;]
Caveat: Poem #2426 “Wayfinding in an imaginary landscape”
ㅁ The roads lead to nowhere; they aren't even real. The navigator surrenders. They're lost.
– a cinquain.
Caveat: Tree #1518 “Straight up”
This tree is looming above the treehouse. I pointed my camera straight up for this picture.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Stroadland
[This is a cross-post from my other blog.]
My low-effort bragpost for this week is an area of Makaska I have called Stroadland. It’s a bit of a joke, of course. I posit a pioneer in the area with the name Stroad, who is thus memorialized in the name. But of course “stroad” is a currently popular term for major streets in North American, car-oriented suburban development. Not really a street, not really a road: a stroad.
I still have a lot of detailing I want to add. I’ve only named a few stores or amenities, for example. I have a goal to make something that could easily be mistaken for OSM at zoom=15. I don’t think I’m there yet, but I’m making progress.
Here is a screenshot showing the area.
Here is a link to the area on the OGF slippy map: https://opengeofiction.net/#map=15/-41.2515/145.8573&layers=B
Caveat: Poem #2425 “Misplaced optimism”
ㅁ some bug a mosquito there outside the window zooming around over the snow "where's spring?"
– a cinquain.
#Poetry #Cinquain
Caveat: Tree #1517 “Just a matter of waiting long enough”
This tree waited for more snow to melt.
[daily log: walking, 3km;]
Poem #2424 “A casual visitor”
ㅁ The sun visited a few hours the other day, was noncommital.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #1516 “An arch”
This tree noticed the neighbor’s dock pilings had received an arch on top.
I’m not sure when this happened – it was done somewhat sneakily. One day, no arch. Another day, arch. I guess it was done via boat – that’d be necessary to get access to the pillars. So they left no trace and I guess it happened when I wasn’t around or wasn’t paying attention, and Art, of course, is deaf enough these days that he probably wouldn’t have heard or noticed unless he happened to look out.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Poem #2423 “The job”
ㅁ I thought I'd try out a new career as a disembodied being; the job can involve drifting through the lives of others without much contact just brief moments mostly dull, watching folks
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #1515 “First day of spring”
This tree thought the “first day of spring” was a scam.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Poem #2422 “Seventieth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon knew that she'd face things alone, setting her jaw, with her face made of stone. Fragments of snow still polluted the town, winter still ruled and the trees were still brown.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Tree #1514 “Beside an open field”
This tree was by an open field, and the sea.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Poem #2421 “On the functional limits of water tanks”
ㅁ The water tank had a simple job. That was to hold water for us. But that job entailed good pipes. See? Pipes that didn't leak. Instead, a pipe leaked. It sprayed water. The sea drank. The tank... drained.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #1513 “A misty, melty day”
This tree had a misty, melty day.
After walking the neighbors’ dog this morning, I stayed in and rebuilt my blog and messed with data and made my Chilean-style fish chowder for dinner.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: 33MB Later…
Effective right now, this here blog thingy™is running on a fresh new server (see yesterday’s post about this ongoing process).
It was a rather fraught process – the data has become quite large (10k posts, right?). I had to extend the php script time-out limit on the server for processing incoming data from 30 seconds to 10 minutes (!). The blog extract file, not including any images at all, is 33MB text file! That’s huge for a text file. It crashes my laptop if I open it in a text editor.
Anyway, the new server should perform quite a bit faster. It’s got an up-to-date operating system and I installed a thing called memcached which is some software that helps php websites (like wordpress) perform much better. I’ve also got some new security features, which shouldn’t affect readers but will make my life as administrator a bit easier hopefully.
I worked hard to replicate the formatting and configuration from the previous server, and the appearance in most respects should be identical. If you (oh loyal blog-readers) run into problems or weird differences or broken stuff, please let me know.
Caveat: Poem #2420 “A failure in the imagination”
ㅁ I dreamed: My treehouse broke. It hung, tilting, askew. My friends visited and showed fear. I wept.
– a cinquain.
Caveat: Tree #1512 “Still frozen”
This tree was beside the still-frozen pond at 8.5 mile.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Infrastructural changes
[This is a cross-post from my other blog]
Rather than my standard weekly low-effort brag post, last week I posted some user statistics for OGF.
This week, I’ll again forego the brag-post and simply announce that, effective today, this blog is residing on a new server. The old server is something I have been wanting to shut down for some time – it’s running Ubuntu 18.04 and it’s not co-located with any of my any other servers. So I’m finally getting around to upgrading to this new server, which is located alongside all my other servers (in Fremont, California) and is running Ubuntu 22.04 (the most recent LTS version). This should help me keep up with the Joneses – so to speak.
This is only one of about 10 different blogs hosted on the old blog server (not all mine, but all hosted by me). I still have to do the others. This one was first, as the “guinea pig” – having the simplest format and hopefully easiest to rebuild. The old server also, inconveniently, runs the Arhet render and my personal wiki. So those things will have to be moved, too.
There should only be minor changes apparent to visitors on the site. If you see major issues, let me know via comment, email, OGF site DM, or on the OGFC discord. Thanks.
Incidentally, this blog celebrated it’s 5th birthday yesterday. So that’s a good time to upgrade.
Caveat: Poem #2419 “Text-based media consumption”
ㅁ Begin. Read the words shown. React with your own thoughts. Decide if it's something worthwhile. Then stop.
– a cinquain.
Caveat: Tree #1511 “Wearing green”
This tree wore green.
I’m very tired today. Either I’m coming down with something, or I’m just burned out after a long (-er than normal) week. There was Arthur’s doctor’s appointment, yesterday. But we also had (another) water system crisis at home last night. Our water cistern (3000 gallons) had become surprisingly empty. It turns out there was a massive leak down at the dock – there’s a water pipe that runs out to the spigot on the dock, and it had burst. So basically our water was running out directly into the sea, under the dock where no one could notice. I was up late finding the leak and then finding the spigot that turned off the water line to the dock (it was literally buried in several inches of dirt in a hole beside the boat shed). Then I was setting up and refilling the cistern – a 7 hour process, in total, using water from the new well and a garden hose.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; dogwalking, 3.5km]