A day in the village

We went up to the village the other day. It was still cloudy with a bit of light rain, and cool enough to go for a short walk. It's quite beautiful there. Always has been.

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First rainbow at the new house

As usual, photos taken by me don't do it justice, but here's the first rainbow at the new house. Lots of rain today. Flooding there will be. But we won't leave the house until the roads are mostly clear. There are some very good things about being retired.

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I hope Cactus Jon is proud of me.

We were moving stuff out of the old house when I spotted the snake on the garage door step. At some point, I realized that the snake wanted to move, but it could not. The lower part of its body was stuck to some adhesive left behind from tape used to fasten down a now-removed extension cord. In order to figure all this out, I had to get closer to the snake. The snake did not approve of my closeness. It took a striking pose and stuck its forked tongue out at me. That's what snakes do when threatened. Fair enough.

How to get the snake free? I mean, I couldn't just leave it stuck there to die. I grabbed a kind of shovel with a meter-plus handle. The goal was to scrape the adhesive from the concrete without damaging the snake. I believe I was quite successful. The shovel stayed under the adhesive.

Upon removing the adhesive, I got the snake on the shovel blade. I took it over to an empty house's overgrown yard, where I thought the snake would slither right off into the grass. But slither off it could not because the adhesive was still snuck to the snake and now to the shovel blade as well. But with just a bit of shaking and some helpful thrashing by the snake, free at last it was, and it quite eagerly disappeared into the tall grass. I admit that there may have been a small amount of adhesive still stuck to the snake, but I expect it to wear off quickly, kind of like the way glue and paint and such wears off your fingers after a while.

Poisonous, deadly snake? Possibly. Or it could have been completely harmless to humans. At any rate, it eats critters, which are myriad and diverse here. I am not about to upset the natural balance. Go in peace, snake. I don't regret reading D.H. Lawrence's "Snake" poem. And there's always the possibility of being reincarnated as a snake. Something to consider. I'm just saying. But most of all, there's that good old nature boy, Cactus Jon. I hope you're proud of me.

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You don't just move in. You have to ทัมบุญ / tambun the new house.

So we moved out of one house into another house. But you can't just move in. Oh, no. First, you must ทัมบุญ / tambun the new house. And so we all did on Sunday 20220724-1019. Some photos below:

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From relatively sudden Covid retirement to actual retirement

You know how after a relatively sudden Covid retirement some of us kept our LinkedIn profiles showing availability for various work? It felt realistic at the time. I mean, I thought maybe I really would do some technical writing, some SharePoint, or some translation.

Well... Somebody contacted me about some SharePoint work, and I thought: "FTS. Deadlines. Confusion. Stress. Struggling to overcome technical obstacles. No thanks." And I removed it from my LinkedIn profile.

Then somebody contacted me about translation work. I looked into the pay and learned that it pays by the word, pretty much peanuts really. So I thought: "FTS. Deadlines. Strife. Trying to translate other people's poorly written first drafts. For chump change. No thanks." And I removed it from my LinkedIn profile.

I'm still listed as available for technical writing/editing jobs. We'll see what happens if someone contacts me for that. As things stand, it appears that I may, in fact, be well and truly retired.

Orange wing-tipped butterfly

Another butterfly sighting at the plant nursery. This time, an orange wing-tipped butterfly.

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AIS fiber installation

Not sure if any of my SureWest peeps stop by here, but they were all a great bunch of people. For them and for you, a few photos from my AIS fiber installation.

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AIS fiber truck with bamboo ladders on top

For the record, the three AIS field service technicians did an excellent job. Post-installation, there was nothing I had to fix. So far, so good with AIS fiber Internet service. Wi-Fi coverage is good throughout the house and most of the yard.

Purple/blue -dotted butterfly

Sighted my first purple/blue-dotted butterfly. 

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I'm not declaring war, but this does change our relationship.

จิ้งจก / jingjok pooped on my laptop. Not very considerate, but I guess that's what I get for leaving the Qosmio in their favorite pooping spot. Two types of จิ้งจก / jingjok repellent have been tried, with negative results.

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The mantis returns

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