|
|
|
getting Charlotte into a vehicle without a struggle
Tuesday, December 5 2023
I took a recreational 120 mg dose of pseudoephedrine to help me blast through the understanding of a PHP library related to text analysis. But the library wasn't particularly useful for my needs, and then I found myself bogged down in the kind of hell that PHP's composer is supposed to fix. I'm at the point now when dealing with all modern software libraries where I have to get answers from ChatGPT to get anything to work, though often that doesn't work either. It really makes me wonder how any software development happens at all.
Since Gretchen started her contracting job with an artificial intelligence company training an AI to write better poetry, she's been spending a lot more time in front of her computer on the first floor. But as the weather has gotten cooler, that's been a less pleasant place for her to work. We've mostly had the boiler off, so the only source of heat on the first floor is the woodstove. But it's about as far away as something can be on the floor, and I haven't been very good at keeping it stoked. So I've floated the idea of installing a ductless split on that floor. I'd thought about buying one that is pre-charged, because otherwise I have to have all this equipment to fill it with coolant once it is installed. After discussing this with Gretchen, she said I should price out having one installed. So today I had a guy named Dave from a local HVAC installer come out and see the situation so he could write me an estimate. Later tonight, his estimate for a 24,000 BTU unit came back as seven to eight thousand dollars. Mind you, I can buy such a system online for about two thousand dollars, and it would cost me less than $500 in the tools and supplies that I don't have to install it. So it's looking like that's what I will end up having to do.
This afternoon I was alone at the house with the dogs and the cats and decided I needed some cream cheese for some bagels I'd bought at the Ghettoford Hannaford back on Sunday. I'd yet to take Charlotte for a casual ride in a car to Kingston and back, thought I thought I'd try doing that on this errand. I opened the Forester's doors and Neville slowly clambered inside (as he always does). But then Charlotte, who'd seen him do this, gave me a look that seemed to say, "Oh no, I'm not going in there!" and then she moved some distance further away from the Forester than where she'd been standing. I figured it was a lost cause, so I went into the house to child-proof the place against all the acting-out I figured Charlotte would do in our absence. This involved hiding the shoes, barricading entrance to the laboratory, and hiding the remotes in the teevee room. I also put peanut butter in a cow bone for her to find soon after coming into the house. But when I went back outside, I found that Charlotte was now in the Forester with Neville. So she ended up riding with me into town and back. It's good to know that she will eventually climb into a vehicle on her own if Neville is already in it and she's left alone to figure things out.
This evening Gretchen and I continued watching a mini-series we'd begun some weeks or months ago called Escape at Dannemora. It's got a lot of good stuff we can both relate to, including an Upstate New York prison, smuggling things into and out of that prison, the Adirondacks, a homely woman convincing attractive prisoners to have sex with her.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?231205 feedback
previous | next |
