cards and terns

[gurdonark]

I debated whether to drive to Meridian State Park today to try to spot the Golden-Cheeked Warbler, who is a bit of a Holy Grail bird in these parts. I thought about going to the bird walk at Hagerman National Wildlife Reserve, or the bird walk at the Heard Natural Science Museum, or the bird walk at Lake Ray Roberts State Park.
But I decided to just walk in my neighborhood on the Watters Creek Trail, assuming the impending rain does not defeat my plan.

Last night my wife was out for dinner with a friend, so I drove to Brockdale Park.
I saw Franklin's Gulls and Forster's Terns fishing. I saw a Painted Bunting singing, and five Orchard Orioles foraging. I had a good time. I dined on grilled chicken at KFC.

Today I made a card for my wife for our anniversary dinner tonight, which I will pick up later this morning from Walgreens. Last night I got my printer on-line with my laptop, a simple but always satisfying accomplishment. I thought this morning that I should use Inkscape to draw more, perhaps some of the times I play Seawall Solitaire instead.

We watched the movie "The Sorceror's Apprentice" last night. It was a pretty good movie for a popcorn film.

I hope to pay some bills and get practical things done, to do a little shopping, and to step some 10,000+ steps.

Comments

[ensenchiridion.livejournal.com]

I like the idea that drawing (producing) can replace Solitaire. I need to find more avenues for output (and pursue those actively) instead of spending mindless hours merely consuming the Internet.

I like that the Golden-Cheeked Warbler has a great name but I enjoy, even more, thinking of it as a cheeky wobbler.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Once I was at the car dealership waiting for my wife's car to be serviced. This dealer had free internet,but it was blocked from reaching any social media sites and from Youtube. One site of interest that could be reached was wikipedia. Soon I realized that it was great fun to just sit and look up things I always wanted to know. This was like being 8 years old again and looking up things in the World Book Encyclopedia.

I travel for work to places out-of-town roughly 2 or 3 days a month. Though I do enjoy a game of chess or of Seawall Solitaire sometimes, I often instead use the free and open source art program Inkscape to make simple pictures or, a bit more thought involved, using FMS Logo to write computer programs which makes pictures. On a recent trip, I looked up and asked myself why I did not do this even more often--the creative surge from this is great, and it's very relaxing. When I listen to music or create things, it helps me be creative and productive in all sorts of ways.

I am not one of those people who bewails cell phones and tablet computers. I like having a pocket computer, Star-Trek-like, handy.But I notice that the clickbait media I reach from my phone is much less satisfying than what I can do and reach on a laptop or desktop. I suspect sometimes that the planned obsolescence of laptops and desktops that seems to be in play now is not a consumer preference thing but a corporate decision to market mobile devices as they serve ads to folks who get lost, mindlessly, in a Kardashian-laced click-to-read world. I always try to carry a laptop--usually a cheap refurbished one for green reasons, when I travel.

There is a musical device that is a better solitaire alternative. It's the semi-generative software Noiser. One places one or more sound samples in the sounds folder. Then one turns on Noiser. It applies random algorithms to the sound sample, often rendering it unrecognizable and yet intensely lovely. It works a bit like a crockpot, too, as the sound gets better if it "cooks" for hours.
Given our shared interest in music, I thought you might enjoy playing with it. It's available for Windows or MaC--I run the Windows version via a Linux program called WINE that lets some Windows programs run on Linux. It even allows recording of the result as you go, depositing a nice .wav file upon completion. The IXI site has other cool freeware software, but Noiser is amazing.

It's free and open source and available here:

http://www.ixi-software.net/content/software.html


Now that I think about it, maybe I'll try a FauxKnow song in it, or 3,and see what I get.

Speaking of which, congratulations on getting out there and going all Catweazle with things. I've never tried to do Catweazle-like things with my work, though maybe someday it would be fun. I like your verve to keep moving the fun forward.

The Golden-Cheeked Warbler is cheeky indeed, and I hope to see it wobble someday.

[toluene.livejournal.com]

Printers are the spawn of evil, so any kind of success with making a printer do what you want is worth taking a moment to celebrate and feel smug.

I used to draw more, though on paper. Never could get the hang of using computers to produce graphics, despite the number of tutorials I watched. I've always envied people who could make passable, recognizable graphics with the computer.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I should be grateful that printers work so much more easily with Linux now than once upon a time. When I use Fedora or an Ubuntu-based distro, then it's almost magic much of the time. But the current laptop is running Q4OS, based on Debian Stable, which is a a bit less
quick to have the latest thing to work with everything else.
So I am blessed indeed, even if I had to check a box from a list of printers, none of which was the printer in issue, and hope it worked (and was rewarded). If only my aircard worked as well.

I am not good at drawing at all! I love to use either graphics software, paints, or colored ink pencils to draw. Not being very adept gives me a little liberation, though--if I can make the thing resemble what I am aiming at such that the reader can divine what I am drawing, then I have met my low ambitions for my drawings.