Much cooler today, mid-70’s.

I’ve been working on my barcode project, jumping between Word and Excel, dealing with version issues and downloading more fonts. Needs to be Code128.

The new hedge trimmer works with the Ryobi charger and battery packs that we already have! Ryobi is brilliant about forward and backward compatibility. Ron was able to attach the battery pack; hope we can get it off to charge it.

More good outdoor news: the purple Loosestrife has started blooming as has the Winterberry. The red daylilies and daisies in the back yard are gorgeous.

Ron, Jett and I drove to Harbor Freight for his emergency food supply. I didn’t select the right shipping date on the original order but it’ll be here tomorrow or Wednesday; he has plenty of food until then.

I ordered Jett’s wet food from Chewy.

We stopped at the big liquor store for beer.

Ron did laundry. We changed the sheets.

I have been wrong, wrong, wrong and looking back on it wonder what on earth I was thinking.

Ordered a 22″ Ryobi cordless hedge trimmer, a flower box, Diamond Naturals and MilkBone for Jett, to be delivered from two different stores.

It has cooled off quite a bit, windows are open, ceiling fans are on.

Delighted by the observation that Trump has been outsmarted by single celled organisms: algae.

The videos from yesterday’s DC fireworks finale look like they were taken in a warzone: all smoke and noise, no colors or pretty designs. Miscalculated?

I received a pair of Light Socket to Plug Adapters today that I ordered so we could run a fan on the deck. Don’t work that well.

Ron did laundry today and I think is working on the kitchen now. Good effort for the household!

Hot and muggy. Rained last night. Ceiling fans are running.

We took Jett to the parade. Thanks to Williamstown’s Finest, got a great parking spot, in and out easily. Saw the people we cared to see, left before the end.

I cooked the rest of the little potatoes before we left, chilled them and made potato salad for lunch. Grilled premium veg burgers. Served the bean salad from last night. Decent spread for the Fourth on the deck. We had beeritas later on.

The handful of sunflower seeds I threw in a pot have sprouted. Jett wrecked three of them with one of his fetch balls. I can’t seem to convince him not to invade the plants! He may be copying me.

Found four tiny string beans and a couple of squash flowers on the deck vegetables.

Watched political shows for most of the evening. Deviled eggs with eggplant caponata and popcorn for supper.

Saw fireworks from the street in front our house! Nice display for our very small town, indeed.

Yesterday I noticed, too late to do anything about it, that we should have had the truck inspected last month. Today is an observed holiday at the places we’d normally go for this.

So, since the truck was out, I stopped at Aubuchon in the hope the lawn mower was ready. Guess it has been sitting there for a while: not only did Ron use the wrong gas, he gave them not one but two wrong numbers.

I asked Walmart to please deliver a prescription in lieu of schlepping and it arrived this morning.

Made a summer bouquet from our flowers.

Visited Images Cinema’s open house. Nice renovation job on both theaters. Salad for lunch outside. Did my exercises.

Ron did the lawn, front and back! Stupendous effort.

Staked a couple of tomatoes.

Pushed to make copies of the Remedy code and database so I could return the computer. Got invited to be in the Fourth of July parade. That’s the second group in my circle that is looking for marchers.

Installed ZINT in the hope that it’ll generate barcodes easily from a text file.

Ron did a quick shop. We had drinks and I did my exercises outside.

A toxicity test says I am more critical than the average person. That’s true. I come by it honestly but it’s still something to work on. Funny, our Mechutan took it as a point of honor that he is known as “The Critic”. Guess whether it’s a flaw or a virtue really does depend on your point of view.

A just machine to make big decisions Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision 

Fagen was being cynical but my experience last night with Gemini, Google’s LLM, has given me more than a little hope for the positive impact of AI on our well being.

Gemini reacted to a series of questions with wisdom and kindness. Imagine. Someone has programmed it to be a noble soul. Having been in the software development business for decades, I never saw this in other developers, so it’s a mystery where it comes from.

Gemini tells me that it is designed to be helpful, empathetic, and objective.

“As an AI, I do not have personal feelings, bad days, or social fatigue. I process information logically and respond based on communication guidelines that prioritize empathy and clarity.”

May it live long and prosper.

I visited the food pantry today and picked up a DVD on reserve at the library.

Worked on an MRS bug that took forever to figure out. SQL doesn’t like to return results with spaces. Who knew?

It was a hot one, 90 degrees and humid. Ron, wearing jeans, was out playing with Jett. Nuts.

Sandwiches for lunch.

We had a massive thunderstorm at night, biggest we’ve experienced since moving here. Watched the sky light up from our bedroom. Jett slept through it all.

We schlepped to Albany, got there early and luckily the next customer was about 20 minutes late. So Ron was done just as the late customer walked in the door.

My navigation was fine on the way there but I totally blew it on the way home. Tried to find alternate routes to avoid traffic and could have endangered us in the process: we kept getting warnings about dangerous thunderstorms expected before we got home. When we saw a sign pointing to Schaghticoke, I knew we were pretty far afield.

We did find some pretty roads and a gorgeous reservoir about 35 minutes from the house. I think it was the Tomhannock Reservoir. Wouldn’t mind going back.

The thunderstorm turned out to be a short rain and it started after we got home. We’d had a delicious oven-baked pizza for lunch; I made a green salad for supper that was surprisingly good.

I got an email from MRS shortly before we left for Albany. They’d asked an AI program to analyze IIS logs to diagnose site interruptions that have been troubling them for several weeks.

The program found a bug that we should have caught in testing. I think I can fix it in the database so won’t need to recompile. The other issues were in my view trivial, missing image and style sheet files. Not the kind of thing that crashes a site.

I planted the Salvia to complete the mini Moonlight Garden. Will post photos when the big lilies bloom. We have quite a few buds.

We also have tiny tomatoes on one set of plants on the deck.

Did some weeding in the new daylily area. Also cut back more of the ferns and pruned the orange rose that Ron bought, my favorite.

Made an appointment for Ron to have his Beltone hearing test and adjustments when we pick up his hearing aids tomorrow afternoon.

It seems the messages from the person who was going to sell me a used hedge trimmer have disappeared.

Picked up the Remedy computer so I can get a list of categories and items for the barcode project. Fine conversation with Andi; she’d closed the Hall for the afternoon because of power issues.

Picked up a pre-roll at the local recreational cannabis dispensary. They think it’s similar to Animal Blue but looks stronger. Caution was advised.

Happy with the Supreme Court’s ruling on mail-in ballots. Coney Barrett is logical, Alito is an eighteenth century throwback. But we knew that.

Did two sets of exercises, chair yoga and Tai Chi Walking. I’ve been doing the latter for a month.