07.15.2006

(off-site links open in new windows)

Don says:

Have you ever heard of Patricia Santangelo?   Until a few days ago, I'd never heard of her (click on her name to read about her) but I strongly sympathize with her.

A interesting story but I can't find any new info on it

I'm a packrat; I've been one all my life but I've discovered a place that was made for packrats.   It's called ebay (yeah, I know, you've heard of it right? *grin*).   I learned how to buy things on ebay as a part of learning Linux because I needed a hard drive, and some extra ram and a sound card and a video card, and some other stuff (yada, yada).   So I haven't just been learning Linux, I've also been learning about hardware, and about ebay.

Since some of the stuff I bought on ebay was the wrong stuff, I decided to start thinning it out by selling it on ebay.   So far, that idea hasn't been particularly profitable but at least I haven't lost anything and it's making unused, unneeded stuff go away.   Is that a great deal or what?   Anyway, I've been rummaging around in the shed to find more stuff I can make go away on ebay and that's really fun, but it involves a lot of cleaning.

Still, the stuff is going away and I didn't have to throw anything away (cuz it's not bad stuff you see, so that would be unthinkable) so it's a really good deal insofar as I'm concerned.   As far as making a profit goes, I'm not sure that would be a good idea anyway because if I had more money, I'd just want to buy more stuff right?


I spent several days making a nice packing crate for my IBM, Aptiva (loaded with Debian Linux 3.1 stable) because I found a new home for it.   I gave it to my friend Mark L. Donaldson so that he can start learning Linux.   He's currently using Windows 98 and really can't afford to upgrade to Windows 2K or XP, let alone Vista.   Mark and I are pretty much in the same boat when it comes to Vista but I don't have to bail so much because I'm already using Win2K.   Like me, he's interested in learning Linux (having no real alternative) but, unlike me, he doesn't have the means to go out and scrounge some old computers to learn on.

The Aptiva is a venerable old 266 MHz Pentium but she's in pretty good shape and runs very nicely on Debian.   I'm hoping he'll enjoy using the old girl as much as I did.   To save him the cost of another monitor, mouse, and keyboard, I enclosed a KVM switch.   The shipping cost was something of a shock but in retrospect, it was less than I used to spend on a two week supply of cigarettes.   Little things like that make me very happy that I quit smoking a couple of years ago.


Soon I'll start looking for a new home for another of my Linux computers but this one's going to somebody local who can come and pick it up because I don't intend to pay any more freight or buy any gasoline either, if I can help it.   [my inner tightwad has spoken]

Lisa says:

One of the great pleasures of living in Texas is the show that the sky puts on nearly every day.


Before the storm in Bluffton, TX.

Another pleasure is growing a few things we can eat.  Here's a picture of what we've been calling "walking garlic" but is actually called "walking onion" or Egyptian onion. It's really too strong to be used as an onion and we've been using it as a garlic.  The plant puts up a flower stalk but it has tiny bulbs on that grow, get heavy and fall over. The baby bulbs root and grow to be bulbs that start the whole cycle again.  It's difficult to keep up with our demand for garlic but at some point these little guys should manage it, we plant them all over the yard.

A nice surprise has been the tomatoes we planted. The label said they were 'Celebrity' but it turns out they were mislabeled and we now have lots and lots of grape tomatoes, not a bad thing in our book.  We've grown a little weary of eating them out-of-hand so Don made a lovely sauce to feed his vegetarian sister when she visits. How 'bout that, organic vegetarian homegrown sauce?

 
Walking Onion                         Grape Tomatoes