Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   lawn mowing, 2013
Thursday, May 16 2013
Temperatures finally returned to the low 80s today, and I finally did a somewhat-joyless warm weather activity I tend to procrastinate: the mowing of the lawn for the first time this season. Usually I would have done it at least once by now, but this has been so cool that the grass hasn't grown as aggressively as normal. But it has grown, and was 12 to 18 inches high in some places. This made the job that much harder, even using an electric weed whacker (for which grass length shouldn't be an issue, though it always is). All that grass mowing over the course of three separate stints gave me a chance to catch up on my podcasts, which I haven't had many opportunities to listen to of late.
As always, mowing the yard with a weed whacker exposed me to Poison Ivy along its wooded northwest edge. It's best not to have to make whacker string adjustments after mowing this area, so I usually schedule it for last or near-last. Still, little bits and pieces of shredded Poison Ivy fill the air when I am whacking them, so I always have to give myself a thorough soapy scrubdown after I'm finished mowing. I hadn't worn shoes at all while working, and though my feet were all stained chlorophyl green, at least I didn't mess up any shoes. And I always have to scrub my feet anyway. I think in the past I've worn shoes because of fear of foot injury or (when using electrical equipment) a path for electrocution. But neither seem likely; the string isn't capable of much damage and the weed whacker is double-insulated.
Despite my precautions, by the end of the day my arms were covered with itchy welts. But these had been caused by biting insects, none of which I had seen or heard.

When I wasn't mowing grass, I would be at my computer either wasting time or addressing issues as they came up with one of the educational games I've been developing. The professor down in Westchester was live testing the games and reporting issues, and I was fixing them as quickly as they were being discovered. It was much easier to do this using my home computer instead of a laptop (whose restricted screen size and various missing applications or chunks of data all conspire to defeat me). As a web developer, I actually think I do my best work in such an interactive or semi-interactive setting and today marked the first time I'd really felt fully competent on this project. It certainly helped that the professor was delighted at how responsive I was being and that my fixes were solid.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?130516

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