Category Archives: Technology

2026, animals, crops, Family, Farming Update, holidays, Nature, Seasons, Technology, Weather, work

BY THE NUMBERS

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This weeks Farming Update from BEN

On Thursday I collected the mileage and hours from vehicles and tractors then put it all in my ‘Yearly Mileage’ spreadsheet. Everything was about average. We used the lawn mower 31 hours, put 43 hours on the big tractor, and 127 hours on the other tractor. Drove the 4-wheeler 22 miles, and put 306 miles on the gator using it 48 hours.

Egg count for 2025 was 419 dozen. 5028 eggs. Plus a few dozen that froze or got broken.

On Tuesday daughter and I took a road trip to Potsdam and Meyer’s Seed, then John Deere in Plainview. And got sundaes at DQ and then back to Rochester for a stop at Barnes and Noble. She thanked me for the adventure. 

At Meyer’s the oat seed for 2026 is ordered and paid for, and corn and soybean seed has been ordered and financed, at 0% interest with a 4% savings. (6% savings would have given me prime -2%). $11,700. A bag of seed corn now is over $300. I ordered 25 bags. That’s a separate loan from the $43,000 for fertilizer and spraying. I got TWO free seed corn hats!

You know how you’re supposed to save receipts for seven years? I brought up a box from 2002 and sorted through that. Oh my goodness. We’d been married 12 years. Kelly was making $17 / hour. We had 2 kids in daycare, and $36 in our savings account. I’d get a milk check twice a month. It totaled maybe $2200. I owed the vet $1000, the breeder $500, the feed co-op $500, plus there was always other bills and expenses. I got anxious just looking back through this stuff. Once I saved the important stuff, I took the unneeded stuff out in the snow and burned it. 

It was a small fire; not much stuff. And I just used my gloved hand to ‘swish’ it around to get all the papers to burn. Evidently the cheap nylon mechanics glove I was wearing have a lower melting point than the flame of even a small fire. I didn’t get hurt or anything, it just melted the sides of the fingers of the glove. Daughter came over to see what I was doing. I pointed out that she shouldn’t use her hand to stir up a fire. She looked at me like I was a complete idiot. And she basically said, “Well duh!”. Oh good. A win on the parenting front! She knows enough not to stick her hand in a fire. 

The wedding we attended on New Years Eve was really very nice! The bride was stunning, the groom looked sharp in his black tuxedo. They were both relaxed (or at least looked that way) and the ceremony was low-key and they wrote and read their own vows and had fun. We had a full three course meal, and there was a live band. I got a lot of compliments on the fact I was wearing sleeves. I did have to dig to the back of my closet for this shirt, and one cuff was a slightly different color than the other. Solved that problem by rolling them up a bit. 

For Christmas Kelly gave me this hat:

I picked up oil filters and grease tubes at John Deere. I changed the engine oil and filter in the 630. I was looking in the operators manual for the tractor and realized I’ve never checked the oil level for the transmission. On modern tractors there’s the engine oil dipstick, and then a dipstick, or sometimes a site tube, showing transmission and hydraulic oil level. On the 630, there’s a dipstick for the engine oil, and one for the hydraulics and I remember always checking that as a kid. I don’t know what fascinated me about that dipstick, but I checked it often. And then there’s a check “LEVEL” plug for the power take off. And on the side, according to the book, another check “LEVEL” plug for the transmission.

HUH!

Never seen that before.

I had to scrap some dirt off to find this.

You take the plug out and add oil until it starts to run out the plug, then it’s full. I don’t remember Dad checking that. I’m sure he did, I just didn’t know about it. Now the tractor is good to go come spring.

And the 1940’s music station is back on my car radio.

Life is good.

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH YOUR RECIPTS?

HOW ARE YOU AT RECORD KEEPING?

2025, Automotive, books, holidays, Technology

Park at Your Peril

40 Comments

When you have fifteen kinds of cookies on the front porch during the holidays, you’re always open to ways to spread the wealth.  I usually make cookie platters for my local library, my vet and my hardware store guys.  It’s fun and between assembling the platters and delivering, it takes less than an hour, as all the recipients are very close by.

This past year, I really tested the Inter-Library Loan department of the library system so I decided that I should provide some holiday cheer for them.  I found out that ILL works out of the downtown library (not much of a surprise) and do a straightforward 9-5 schedule. 

I spent several weeks waffling about how to get the cookies downtown as I detest driving downtown and I detest paying a fortune for parking even more.  As of Monday afternoon, my plan was to take the bus.  A long trip two ways but only $2 out of my pocket and the bus stops literally at the front entrance door of the library.  I even went to the bank to get a few one dollar bills.

As Monday afternoon wore on, I wavered more and more about this plan.  I checked online and found that the library parking is only $4 for the first hour.  I even called the library; the librarian confirmed that this was true and that you could park near the elevators and come right up to the atrium.  She also said that if you were in and out in 15 minutes, there was no charge.

Of course, yesterday when the GPS got me to the library, that particular lot was full.  I went around a two block area about five times – no on-street parking open and all but one ramp had their “FULL” lights lit up.  Grrrr.  I considered just going home and dismantling the platter but I figured, I’d come this far….    At this point, I was pretty stressed.  There were two machines at the entrance of the only open ramp near the library and it took me a bit to figure out how to get a ticket.  Found a parking spot near an elevator but when I pushed the door open to the outside world, there was a small sign saying you needed the QR code from your parking ticket to get back in.  Luckily I hadn’t let that door shut, so I went back to my car to grab the ticket.

Delivery went really well but when I exited the parking ramp (about 20 minutes later), they charged me $17.  OUTRAGEOUS.  At this point, I just wanted to get home but my GSP wouldn’t open until I was actually out of the ramp.  More stress.  The fortunate part was that once I got going in the right direction downtown, I did know how to get home.  Even being directionally-challenged.

It’s all I can do to no look up “parking-induced anxiety” on the internet.  Not sure if it would make me feel better to know I’m in good company or if it would make me feel any more weird. And we’ll have to wait to see if ILL ever gets holiday cookies from me again.  Please don’t hold your breath.

Any directionally-challenged issues or parking anxiety for you this month?

2025, Business, crops, Farming Update, Government, History, Music, Science, Technology, Theatre, Uncategorized, Weather

INTEREST-ING

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This week’s farming update from Ben

Brrrr. We are hardy Minnesotan’s but it’s still cold out. Hope you can stay inside and warm for the weekend. 

Honestly, how did people do it 100  years ago? Or 500? Or 1000?? 

We have so much to be thankful for. 

I got my corn check from the co-op last week and put it in the bank. And this week I paid off the loan I borrowed from a month ago to pay the bills. And the co-op emailed about setting up the loan and credit for 2026 crops. Easy come, easy go. Repeat. I spent some time this week comparing interest rates. It’s kinda hard to find out what the actual Prime rate is. Course it varies by bank and how much money you have. And it was kind of interesting how that works. One of the companies the co-op uses does Prime minus 0.5% until August, then Prime + 0.5% until Feb of 2027. Another company has different rates on some of the products and zero interest on some, but then Prime +2% on fertilizer. In the end, it doesn’t amount to that much money. It would be a different story if I was spending $450,000 at 7.5% interest. (That’s $33,750 @ 7.5% if you’re curious. Now we’re talking real money!) And the government is going to bail me out with the poor prices on soybeans. So they say. I don’t know what that’s going to amount too yet. It won’t be $33,000 I can tell you that. I’ll bet I can take off a couple zero’s there and be more like it. I always say the difference between me and the big farms is a couple zeros on the expenses and the income. 

I’ll fill out the forms this weekend and figure out next years crops. Samantha, the agronomist I work with at the co-op sent out a rough worksheet of next year expenses for my planning purposes, and I’ll get things ordered and prices locked in by mid January for the best rate. 

Yesterday on the blog we were talking about things from the past. I had a guy at the farm the other day who had a front wheel drive car and was almost stuck on the bare, but snow covered driveway. He clearly didn’t know how to drive on snow. His wheels were spinning and he blamed the posi-traction. I can still hear my dad’s voice “DON’T SPIN YOUR WHEELS!” Our mantra in winter back in the day of rear-wheel drive cars. “Sit heavy! Don’t spin your wheels.” And my family jokes that Dad would say, “NO TALKING! BE QUIET BACK THERE!” I don’t remember that, but I’m sure it was so Dad could hear the wheels not spinning. Shift to low, back up to the garage so you can get a run at it, and don’t spin your wheels. And the guy got out. Our driveway is long and starts right off with an uphill “U”. (So right, “get a run at it” but you’re making a corner at the same time. You learn a lot about friction doing that.) Then you’ve got a flat 75 yards to gain some speed before the next uphill corner to the left. Most people, if they get around the U, can make the next corner. Although there was some days I had to back up 50 yards and get a run at the second corner again. But a front wheel drive car? Dude. Learn to drive. I remember years ago, the guy who would come in to breed the cows. He had a little tiny car. Rear wheel drive. He couldn’t get out. And he turned around and went backwards really fast around both corners. I was very impressed. But he made it. 

Last weekend Padawan called me about 10:00 at night to see if I would help pull a friend of his out of a ditch. So I went. Because we’ve said Padawan is our second son, so, that’s what you do for your kids. The friend had a new sporty little car. Still had the temporary plates. Skidded on the snow and slid into a ditch. Another kid who needs to learn how to drive. He was only a little stuck. Pulled him out with the truck.

Haven’t had much time to work in the shop this past week. Concerts at the college, homework, (had the last ‘in person’ class. I have a couple tests to take yet and some online lectures to watch. Last day of classes is next Friday) And I’ve been moving snow. 

Our mailbox is out on the highway. It’s on a swinging post so the snow launching off the snowplow doesn’t damage it, the box just swings out of the way. Meaning it WHIPS the mail out into the ditch…More than once we’ve found the mail under that pine tree behind the mailboxes. Sometimes we may not find it until spring. Hopefully it wasn’t the check we’ve been waiting for. There are three mailboxes as there used to be three homes down our road. The third, unused mailbox our neighbor named “S. Lamb”. The sacrificial lamb. Our neighbors are very witty.

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The choir sounds really nice this year. It’s a new conductor and he’s doing a great job with the students. At rehearsal I heard him ask the kids, “Are you ready for the concerts Friday and Saturday?” And they responded, “Thursday and Friday!” 

“Good. What time is the concert?” 

“7:00”

“Good. What time are you going to be here?”

“6:00” 

“Good. Saturday and Sunday concerts, It will be fun!” 

“THURSDAY AND FRIDAY!” 

“Good.” 

Clearly, he’s worked with teenagers before.  

In my happy place.

HOW YOU GONNA STAY WARM THIS WEEKEND?

HOW DO YOU THINK YOU WOOD HAVE STAYED WARM 500 YEARS AGO?

2025, education, Family, Fantasy, Media, Mysteries, Science, Stories, Technology, The Future, Theatre, Uncategorized, Weather, work

Artificial What?

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(Header photo by Word Press’ Artificial Intelligence, version 3 !)

My summer Padawan is always telling me “I asked Chat GPT about…”

I just can’t get over that. He’s asking a computer for relationship advice. I guess it’s faster than asking Ann Landers… And then he tells me he likes it because it’s giving him the answers he wants to hear. Well of course it is! I am just so astounded that he’s taking relationship advice from this thing…and because he’s asking it ‘why doesn’t she love me’ questions, of course it gives him reasons she’ll come back. I told him to ask it ‘Why won’t this girl leave me alone’ and see what it says? I get the typical teenage “Yeah, but!” answers from him. 

Man, am I glad I’m not 19 anymore! Mostly.  

So I asked Chat GPT to write a blog and I gave it some pretty general guidelines; farming, theater, and teenage love. 

It did pretty good! I had to laugh, it wasn’t at all like I write, because why would it be, but it was a very nice short story of “…slipping into a classroom still smelling faintly of hay and diesel that makes you feel both out of place and perfectly rooted at the same time.” 

Then boy meets girl, they go to a show, and, “ We slipped into seats near the front, shoulders brushing, her laughter lighting up the dim room like a sparkler. I couldn’t tell you much about the plot of the play—something about family, love, mistakes—but I remember how she leaned in during the quiet moments and how the stage lights reflected in her eyes.” 

Oh my gosh. I’m gonna start asking this for sweet nothings to whisper in Kelly’s ears! 

So I refined the request a few more times. I asked for more humor and less metaphors. I hate metaphors like a hole in my head. 

It gave me this: 

Being nineteen and in a relationship during winter in Southeast Minnesota is a test that should earn college credit. The farm turns into a frozen obstacle course, the wind rearranges your face, and every chore takes twice as long because everything metal turns into a hand-freezing punishment device. Romance does not thrive in these conditions.

My girlfriend says we need to “communicate more,” which is hard to do when the chickens start yelling at dawn and demand full attention. She thinks the chickens respond better to her voice, which is true only because she gives them treats and I hand them feed like a government-issued ration. She insists this is evidence of my lack of warmth. I insist it is evidence that chickens are extortionists.

The grain farm does not help our relationship. Every time we plan a date, something breaks. This week it was the old tractor. The tractor has the personality of a stubborn old man who refuses to stand up without complaining first. I spent three hours crawling under it, dropping tools, and discovering new ways to swear. She sat nearby on a bale of straw, scrolling through her phone, occasionally offering advice that made sense only if the tractor responded to positive energy.

The real villain of December is Christmas music. The month starts, and suddenly every speaker in existence blasts nonstop jingles. She says it “puts her in the spirit.” It puts me in a state of irritation that could power the whole farm. The worst part is that she sings along. She sings loudly. She sings off-key. She claims my dislike of holiday music is a sign of emotional instability. I claim her playlist is a threat to public safety. This topic has caused more arguments than the chickens, the tractor, and the weather combined.

But we’re nineteen, so we keep trying. Some evenings we sit in the shop, surrounded by tools, feathers drifting around, both of us exhausted. She talks about her day. I talk about which piece of machinery betrayed me. Sometimes she laughs at my tractor stories. Sometimes I almost tolerate her humming.

Our relationship may not be smooth, but we are still standing, even in January temperatures, even with demanding chickens, even with that cursed playlist. And honestly, surviving December together might be proof we’re tougher than we thought.

Not bad. But I want to know why there are feathers in the shop?? Are the chickens living in the shop or did I drag that many feathers in there on my clothing?? Sometimes walking around the college and I’ll find a dry chunk of “dirt” in the hallway with a chicken feather sticking out of it. Yeah, that’s probably mine. But how did the computer know that?

THINK ABOUT AUTOMATION IN YOUR LIFE. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE NEVER EXPECTED? 

ASK AI (OR ANN LANDERS), TO WRITE SOMETHING. 

2025, Business, crops, Farming Update, History, Nature, Science, Technology, The Future, Theatre, Weather

Straight Screens in Curved Holes

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This week’s farming update from Ben

Guess it’s winter on the farm. I even wore a T-shirt under my sleeveless shirt one day.  

I don’t think the chickens have come out of the pen all week. They peer out the door, but none of them has much interest in actually going outside. I picked up one chicken that was still living out in the pole barn and carried her back with the rest. And the garage chicken has moved down with the rest. For body heat I presume. Found 4 of the 7 chicks. It’s unfortunate it worked out the way it did for them. I’d have liked them to get a little bigger, or the weather to stay a little warmer, or momma to take a little more care of them a little longer. Any of those options would have served them better.

I got the starter put back on my 630 tractor and it started right up. I can’t get over how quiet it is now. Evidently having a hole and crack in the exhaust manifold is like a hole in your muffler. It’s surprisingly loud. And repairing it was very educational and gave me a great feeling of accomplishment. My dad would be so pleased. That thing has been cracked and loud for as long as I can remember. For a tractor from 1959, it’s getting some much needed attention.

I’m still working on some cosmetic repairs. I have new screens for the front grill and I picked up a cheap spot welder to repair part of the hood. Welding class from 12th grade comes through again!

Dad must have run into something to dent it and break off all the welds on one side. And now I need to figure out how to fit this straight piece of corrugated screen into the slots and curves on the corners.

img_5124
I know it bends, it is just a matter of fitting it all together.

I worked on it for a while one night and decided this was something to ponder and come back too. The dogs all run into the shop and get a drink, and I played ball with Luna while Bailey gets in my face. Humphrey likes having a warm place to lie down and he’s happy. But the others get bored after a bit and Bailey pee’s on the floor and out they go. Kelly lets them back into the house. Out in the shop is my happy place. Have I mentioned that? As I closed the toolbox and turned off the lights, I thought to myself, this has been 35 years in the making. We took over the farm when we got married, 35 and a half years ago. And I’ve been collecting or buying tools and gaining experience since then. If I had it sooner, I wouldn’t appreciate this so  much. Or I’d want something bigger.

=====================

At the college I’m getting ready for Holiday Concerts next week. My friend Paul is designing again, so it’s fun to have him back in the shop.

I added a few more LED lights over the stage. Just some plain LED wash lights. They don’t move or wiggle, they just change colors. Over the stage are pipes called ‘battens’ and they’re all counter weighted so they’re balanced as they come up and down. Called “flying in or out”. Our stage has 19 battens. Three are for lighting (called ‘Electrics 1,2 and 3′ front to back). Several are curtains, and some are open to hang scenery. The counterweight is achieved using metal bricks that weigh about 15.5 pounds. We add or subtract them to balance whatever is hanging. When I added the lights to the 1st Electric, I had to add 8 more bricks. This is the main lighting batten. I counted 58 bricks. 899 pounds. This batten is rated for 1000 lbs.

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These are the counter weight bricks. The yellow brick is empty base weight.
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The First Electric and it’s 23 various lights.

*********************************************

I read an article in a farm magazine recently about the next generation of autonomous farm equipment. The technology is out of testing and is available for sale.

A little background: As with all technology, this has been coming for a few years. First it was the GPS mapping. Then row sensors so machinery could follow the rows by themselves. Then the machinery started to incorporate the equipment and technology to put all this together and the tractor could follow a line through the field. Then it was automated so that the tractor could raise and lower an implement, slow down at the ends, and all the driver had to do was make the corner, find the next line and hit ‘Go’. From there, multiple implements or tractors could talk to each other. The tractor could pull up next to the combine, and the combine would take control of the tractor and unload at a constant speed. So simply removing the driver really wasn’t that big of a leap, it was kind of the next logical step. That said, I’m not sure I’m ready for a driverless car yet.

 This information is from an article in Successful Farming Magazine from November of 2025, called ‘How Farmers Are Using Autonomous Equipment to Do More with Less’. It cites labor shortages, changing weather conditions meaning smaller productivity windows, or maybe just not having enough time in the day to get it all done. Some of the jobs open to autonomy are planting, spreading fertilizer, tillage, or pulling grain carts.

Wanna know what it costs?

There are two big companies: John Deere and AGCO. John Deere doesn’t list prices.

AGCO: 

Capabilities: grain cart duties and tillage; planned for 2026 

Compatibility: AGCO and PTx’s OutRun system is compatible with 2014 or newer John Deere 8R tractors. Compatibility with Fendt tractors is to begin in 2026.

OutRun for tillage has a $54,000 one-time hardware cost and a $9,000 annual recurring payment; OutRun for grain cart has a $55,000 one-time hardware cost and a $15,000 annual recurring payment. 

If using the same tractor and base OutRun Intelligence kit for both grain cart and tillage, it has a $65,900 one-time hardware cost and a $15,000 annual recurring payment.

Carbon Robotics: 

Capabilities: tillage, mulching, mowing, and LaserWeeder

Compatibility: Carbon ATK is compatible with John Deere 6R, 8R, 8RT, and 8RX model tractors. Installation takes under a day, with no permanent modifications. Carbon ATK is a $60,000 one-time add-on kit that Carbon comes out and installs.

John Deere: 

No price listed

Sabanto: 

Capabilities: mowing and seeding

Compatibility: The Sabanto autonomous kit is compatible with 2015–2024 Kubota M5 Series tractors; 2015–2024 John Deere 5E, 5M, and 6E Series tractors; and Fendt 700 Vario tractors. The kit costs $70,000, and is available on cab and open-station models. 

https://www.agriculture.com/how-farmers-are-using-autonomous-equipment-to-do-more-with-less-11838003

[Whistle]

First off, I don’t even have a tractor new enough to put this on. Second, [Looking at my bank account]… Nope, there is nothing to say here.

It is kinda cool! I can see the advantage for some farmers. Kelly suggested I could have the tractor doing fieldwork while I was at the college. Yep. Suppose Bailey would still get in the tractor without me? From the video’s of the systems I’ve seen, the operator is monitoring it from his phone or tablet. Inside the tractor you set the field and boundaries. Then once you’re out of the tractor, depending on which system  you’re using, either you start it remotely and the tractor honks and the lights flash and it uses all the exterior cameras to make sure you’re not around, and off it goes.

If it “sees” something not right, it will stop and alert the operator, who can view the cameras and decide the best course of action.

Crazy stuff.

JOKE DAY! SHARE A JOKE:

Q: WE WERE SO POOR—

A: THAT FOR BREAKFAST WE HAD ORDINARY K.

2025, Family, home, Media, Music, Technology, Uncategorized

Surround Sound

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The former owner of our home runs a satellite communication company that provides TV and entertainment systems to health care/senior living facilities and hotels nationwide. His office is right on Main Street. He and his wife insisted that the three televisions in the home had to stay when we bought the house. They are hard-wired into a myriad of cables that run through the walls and from upstairs to downstairs and out of doors. They also left us several DVD players and stereo receivers.

There are six speakers upstairs in the ceilings of the kitchen, dining room, and living room, along with three speakers in the garage, and two attached to the house in the backyard. The ceilings in the basement bedrooms and family room also have speakers, and another huge room in the basement has several speakers in the ceiling and walls.

The header photo shows the main controls for this sound system. It resides in a cupboard in the kitchen. One can choose what part of the house you want to have sound from the radio, TV, DVD. CD, computer, or any other media player you can figure out how to hook up to the main system. The former owner graciously came over last week to show me how to operate the system. I gave him a package of lefse. It is complicated. I am a successful trial and error button pusher, so I think I will figure it out. eventually.

When did you get your first sound system? What did it consist of? What music do you think we should play on the outdoor speakers?

2021, 2025, Baboon Blog Redux, Fantasy, Mysteries, Technology, Uncategorized

Steve Slew a Dragon

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Thanksgiving will always be a day during which I stop at least once to think about Steve, who we lost in 2021.  Steve was the first baboon that I met in person; I’ve read all his books; I remember his horror when he realized he had fed me something with chicken stock.  I still miss him on the trail.  Here is another of his posts, one of my favorites from April of 2021.

A friend and I used to discuss troublesome issues in our lives. We called them our “dragons.” Dragons are problems can only be dispatched with exceptional effort and resolve.

Few problems qualify as dragons, which is good. Most of us handle routine problems with routine efficiency.  Alas, some problems are a lot nastier or complicated than others.  Some of us have anxieties that prevent us from addressing certain issues forthrightly. Sometimes problems become entangled with side issues. Throw some procrastination into the mix, and what could have been a baby problem might grow up and begin belching enough fire to qualify as a dragon.

Examples? You don’t gain street cred as a dragon killer for beating a head cold, but beating cancer will earn you respect with anyone. Overcoming any addiction would surely count. The friend referenced in my opening paragraph slew a dangerous dragon when she escaped a marriage that was destroying her soul. From what I’ve read, the nastiest dragon Barack Obama faced down in his two terms as president might have been nicotine.

My most recent dragon should have been no big deal. Last September my computer emitted an electronic scream, seized and died. I had expected that. Computers typically remain healthy and functional for five to ten years. My fifteen-year-old computer was clearly living on borrowed time. I had prepared by backing my data files, although I could not back my applications.

I bought a replacement computer loaded with Microsoft’s Office, a choice forced on me because that is the only way I could get Word, the word processing app I’ve used for thirty-four years. Office costs $70. That is probably reasonable, although it irked me to pay for a suite of ten programs just to get the one program I use. But Microsoft enjoys something like a total monopoly on basic Windows business software.

Microsoft inserts a feature in the Office software that causes it to shut down unless users can prove that they have paid for it. To validate my purchase, I peeled back a piece of tape that covered the confirmation code. The tape ripped the cardboard beneath it, destroying the middle six numbers of a code of about twenty numbers. As it was designed to do, my software soon froze rock solid. I could not create new documents nor could I edit the many files already on my hard drive. Every time I turned on my computer, a niggling message from Microsoft reminded me I had not validated the purchase. As if I could forget!

Worse, there was no way I could contact Microsoft. The company recently eliminated its customer service office. Microsoft now directs customers with problems to some internet data banks that supposedly answer all questions. Of course, the data banks say nothing about what to do when the company’s own security tape destroys a validation number. I learned there are many businesses claiming they can help customers struggling with Microsoft apps. Those businesses didn’t want to talk to me until I shared my contact information or subscribed to their services. Then I’d learn again that my particular problem could not be resolved by anyone outside Microsoft. And nobody inside Microsoft would speak to me.

Over a span of seven months I spent many wretched hours dialing numbers and writing email pleas for help. The shop that sold the computer to me clucked sympathetically but told me to take my complaints to Microsoft. Members of a group called “the Microsoft community” kept telling me it would be easy to fix this issue, but none of them could provide a phone number that worked. While I could have purchased the software again for another $70, the rank injustice of that was more than I could bear.

I finally learned about a set of business applications called LibreOffice, the top-rated free alternative to Office. It is open source software, free to everyone. But people who put their faith in free software often get burned, for “free” often just means that the true price is hidden. I worried that this software would not allow me to edit all the documents I’ve created over thirty-four years of writing with Word. And—silly, silly me—I kept hoping I could find one friendly person in Microsoft who would thaw my frozen software. So I dithered for weeks.

Last week I took a deep breath and downloaded LibreOffice. It loaded like a dream. LibreOffice’s word processor, “Writer,” is friendly and intuitive. Ironically, I like it quite a bit better than Word. With it I can edit all my old Word documents, and I used the new software to write this post.

That particular dragon is dead, kaput and forever out of my life. Other dragons await my attention, malodorous tendrils of smoke curling up out their nostrils. I did not triumph over Microsoft, as that smug firm never even knew it had a conflict with me. Still, I celebrate the way this all ended. When we slay a dragon, the most significant accomplishment might be that we, however briefly, have triumphed over our personal limitations.

Any dragons in your past that you wouldn’t mind mentioning?

2025, crops, education, Family, Farming Update, Kids, Nature, Technology, Uncategorized, Weather

Concrete Herring! or What Color is Your Herring?

32 Comments

This weeks farming update from Ben

My schedule has been a little crazy lately. Next week will be better.  🙂

I hear there are places in the country where the weather on the evening news doesn’t take ten minutes. I don’t need the full ten minutes, I just want to know the 12-48 hour forecast, and the 7 or 10 day forecast, Which I know is just a guideline. Especially this time of year, when the forecast has some pretty drastic changes coming.

No, the corn still isn’t out and I don’t want to talk about it. The grain elevators are closed on the weekends now, because 99.8% of the harvest is complete. So I don’t expect anything this weekend unless they finish everything at their place and they just come in and fill up the trucks on Sunday. 

I wrote a long story about the thermostat in my shop and I threw all that away and tried to make this a shorter story. A red herring was involved and suffice it to say human error played a part. Because of course it did.  

I use a wifi thermostat so I can monitor it from the house. It worked last year. This year, it worked while I’m out there, but it didn’t work when I came to the house. 

One day it died completely so I bought a new one.  Installing that and I blew a fuse up in the heater itself. Another trip to town for an ‘E’ fuse. An E fuse? Never heard of an E fuse. Oh, it’s a ‘3’ not an ‘E’. Thank goodness I figured that out on my own and didn’t say that to the guy at the auto parts store. Then of course there was a new app and all of that rigamarole. And that night in the house and it wouldn’t connect again. 

The day we poured the concrete, including the slab outside the front door, I used a side door, and a different light switch. Turns out, the outlet I have the heater plugged in to is tied into the 3 way switch for the lights. And I hooked that up myself, this wasn’t the electricians fault. Other than they didn’t know I wanted an outlet for the heater, which is why I did it myself. But how come it worked last year?? Because the heater was plugged into a wall outlet and because the electricians weren’t here until March, and I didn’t get the heater outlet installed until April.  So now, when I come into the shop and turn the lights on, the thermostat works. When I leave and turn off the lights, the thermostat turns off. Well, don’t I feel like a dunce. How could I tell the thermostat was off once I left the shop?? I thought the problem was the wifi. Nope, that was the red herring. The problem was the thermostat wasn’t even ON.

I have it plugged into a regular outlet again and I can tell you, by the app, it’s 46 degree’s out there at 56% humidity. 

We did get the concrete done on Tuesday. Yay! Check that off the list! A big job, and I had the easy job in the tractor hauling the cement from the truck outside, to the pad inside. 

(Two reasons; the truck wouldn’t fit inside the shed, and I didn’t want him backing onto the existing concrete slab). When they poured the inside slab a couple years ago, they used a little “buggy” to haul the concrete. This was the same thing, only different.) The truck driver was great! Randy. 65 yrs old, been driving a concrete truck for 38 years. We joked before he got there, would he know we were amateurs? I told him right up front, feel to offer advice. He just picked up the bull float and got right in there helping. 

Took about 2 hours to get it all dumped and leveled. I was a little bit short of product and left a bit of a gap on one end of the walkway pad. I expect to finish that with 10 bags of concrete mix I picked up.  

About 6:00 PM I was able to start smoothing off the concrete with the hand trowels. (I Learned the difference between magnesium floats and steel floats. You use magnesium when you’re first leveling, and steel to do the final finish.) 

It was about 8PM when I was trying to finish the big slab and smooth around the drain. The concrete was getting too firm by that point and it was a little too late to be working it. All in all, it’s not bad for the first time for a bunch of newbies. It will look better when it gets some dirt on it to cover the imperfections.

I spread out tarps and covered the outside ones with straw. 

A few days later I pulled off the tarp and moved the dumpster over there. This right here was the original point of all this. 

I wonder how much snow will blow in here?
My brother using the bull float on the first piece.
Working on the big slab inside the shed.

Our son helped, my brother helped, Padawan’s girlfriend helped, (Padawan was at work) and Kelly helped. They all admitted this was harder work than they imagined.  And we all learned a lot. Next summer’s plan is to do another slab inside. My brother isn’t sure he’ll help again next summer. Son says he will find more younger helpers.

I’m just glad it’s done. I had a beer that night. I’ve been waiting to finish the concrete to have that beer. 

We thought for sure we’d have a dog footprints in it somewhere. Or Luna was gonna drop a ball into it. We locked them in the shop at one point.

Inside slab done. Won’t drive on it for a week yet, and will get it backfilled shortly.
You haven’t seen the chickens lately. Here’s the chickens eating some left overs.

I have a new appreciation for the people doing concrete work and making it look easy.

HAVE YOU STOPPED MISLEADING PEOPLE?

2025, Business, Media, Movies, Technology

I Robot

28 Comments

A wave of nostalgia hit me yesterday when I went to get a gift card for YA’s stocking.  When I was a kid, my folks would drop me off in front of the movie theater, I’d meet up with my friends, plunk down my buck, get the popcorn, find a seat, see the movie.  No checking a website for availability, no buying the tickets ahead of time, no assigned seats. 

When I walked into the Southdale AMC, it looked very similar to the photo in the header.  Just a bank of screens but no bodies whatsoever.  For years I’ve left movie arrangements to YA, so I had to idea that people had become quite so irrelevant to the process.  These days you can still buy a ticket from one of the automated kiosks but apparently most people buy the tickets online, choose their assigned seat and just go straight to the “ticket taker”.

If there was a way to get a gift card at a kiosk, I couldn’t figure it out, so I asked the ticket taker.  Apparently you do still need a person to get a gift card; he took care of it for me.  I thought about it as I went back to the car; nobody lets customers sell themselves giftcards at the self-checkout.  I suppose that there are just a few too many ways that the sale can go catty-whompus.  This was proved correct about 15 minutes later at Trader Joes.  I’m not sure what happened but even the cashier couldn’t make the cards scan properly.  The supervisor who got called over couldn’t figure it out either.  Eventually they did total out my groceries and then do a whole new transaction for the gift cards. 

I’m pretty sure that eventually they’ll figure out a way to automate giftcards and then there probably won’t even be a ticket taker when you go to the movies.  They’ll most likely AI the popcorn and pretzels one of these days!

What’s something that’s been automated these days that surprised you?

2025, home, Mysteries, Technology

Tech Levity

15 Comments

First the technology, then the laughter.

Thanks to YA, we actually have three Echoes in the house.  I’ve never been quite sure why they are called Echo instead of just Alexa, since you have to say “Alexa” to wake them up.  But that’s a mystery for another day.  One of these devices is in my bedroom and her primary occupation is to tell me the current temperature.  Every now and then, when I am too lazy to grab my phone, she gets the occasional “what time is ***** open today?”  She does try to get me to up my game by asking me periodically if I want her to perform some other task, to which my answer is always “no thanks”.

Now to the laughter.

The last couple of days I’ve been watching My Life is Murder on DVDs that I got from the library.  It’s a murder mystery series starring Lucy Lawless of Xena Warrior Princess fame.  It’s filmed in Australia and New Zealand.  It’s not a cozy but it’s not as dark as a lot of the other mystery series out there.  I’m really enjoying it.

The main character’s name is Alexa Crowe, a retired police detective who consults on hard-to-solve cases.  At least once each episode (I’ve seen about 12 of them so far), someone will use this character’s name and my Echo/Alexa promptly responds “I’m sorry I don’t think I can help you with this”.  The first time it happened I wasn’t quite sure I had heard correctly so I backed up the DVD to hear it again.  Yep – my Alexa was answering the tv.

In the last episode of the second season, someone asked “Alexa, how are you doing?”.  My Alexa immediately responded “I’m doing OK today, thank you.”  I about fell off the bed, I laughed so hard.  It felt good to laugh that hard.  But then I realized that my tv and my Echo/Alexa may be in a relationship that I don’t know about!

Anything you can laugh at this week?