Slimed

My neighbor had an excess of aloe this year, so he dug some up and offered it to me. I have them planted around the tree in the front yard, and the largest is in the herbs-n-more garden at the back, since it's a herb... sort of. Initially, they went very brown, but now they seem to be perking up, and some of the brown stems have even turned green again. I cut one of the brownish ones tonight, and there it was -- slime in the aloe machine! It was actually very good on the mosquito bites I incurred while propping up the netting on the impatiens and coleus. But the smell! I had no idea aloe had a smell. Something like a kitchen in a cheap Mexican restaurant. Maybe I cut it too low down the plant.
In other garden news, the peppers haven't died yet, some of the onions are hanging in there, and the coleus show signs of adaptation. All this is better than I expected. Maybe there's a glimmer of hope after all. Then again, summer is on the way. Arrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!
Got the truck last Saturday. Kathryn put it on her facebook status and it became big news. Lots of comments like "mid-life crisis", "it could be worse." As if I would think a truck could make me cool! That battle was lost a long time ago :) I just like the idea of grabbing an air mattress and heading for the state parks.

Garden Update

Hmm... well the peppers aren't looking so hot. Then again, they're not hot peppers :)
But check out these little guys. These are from the zucchini seeds I planted as an afterthought. Cute and fast-growing. And edible. The ideal plant?

One thing that's impressed me this year is how well seeds work. Of all the seeds I've planted, across flowers and vegetables, a very high percentage have germinated. Kudos to the guys who work on this. And to God, I suppose, for the original idea.

What? Me? A trucker?

I never, ever thought I would own a truck. I just figured I'm not a truck person. But as of Tuesday if everything works out I'll be the owner of a big 1995 F-150. Even test-driving it was a bit scary -- the sense of so much heft and engine power under my foot barreling down Hwy 6 at 50 MPH. But I need something more robust than my poor abused Camry to carry my loads of dirt and landscape timbers, and this truck seems to be in great shape and reasonably priced. Oh, and the camper top rocks! I want to try camping with it soon before it gets too hot. I'll need some "manly" curtains to go with this truck's macho exterior. Black velvet, maybe?

Dirt Day 2

Got dirt? This was quite a load in the back of the little Camry. You could see the rear end squatting on the way home from Lowe's :)
Kathryn helped, and we weeded and planted most of the coleus and impatiens from inside. Hopefully some of them will grow. The peppers that were left over from Dirt Day one are now huge thanks to Kim's magic bulbs. The ones outside don't seem to be growing, so hopefully they're busy making roots.

World's longest error?

Been playing around with hashtables (excuse me, "unordered maps") from the forthcoming version of C++. The use of templates here is truly impressive, as are the error messages that result if you do something wrong. On the right is an error I got while compiling. It's not something I contrived -- it's a real compile error. And no, you're not looking at multiple error messages -- that's a single error message. It's so long, the terminal runs out of space to display it. It's saying that you can't ask whether an iterator to a unordered map of has the same value as an interator to an unordered map of . This is perfectly reasonable. Trying to figure that out from the error message, though, is quite a challenge!

Pictureless Mini-Update

Got to do this quick since I'm violating my curfew. Let's see.
Garden: Nothing has died yet. I'm amazed. After planting in perfectly pleasant weather, we had a cold snap, then heat, and still the little green peppers and onions are hanging in there. They don't seem to be growing much, but that might just be transplant shock.
School: nothing more really done on thesis work. Spring Break = working on homework set (not as hard as last time, but hard enough), and getting ready for test next Monday.
Other: started a diet (no particulars, just eating less calories). Started working out. Feel a little better. The Fog Index seems lower. Trying to sleep better (hence the curfew). Thinking about getting a truck or SUV for carting stuff and hitting the beach :)

Planting Unpickled Pepper

So here they are. What used to be big fish in small pots are now plankton in a raised bed -- a doubly-mixed yet internally consistent metaphor. The peppers are in the ground! So are the onions, though not so you'd notice. I was a bit worried about leaving them today, thinking they might get fried, but they looked fine when I got home. My goal was that the temperatures they're in now are about the same as the temperatures they had inside, though they will get more sunlight. We'll see if anything comes of it. The hardest part was getting all the concrete blocks (kind of) straight. I've Americanized the teeth. I'm mostly waiting until Fall to plant Kim's kind donation of beans and lettuce, but I did stick a few zucchini seeds in since these supposedly mature quickly enough that they will be ready before the hottest part of summer.